From: smayo@wang.com (Scott Mayo)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Please Prove it to me!
Date: 30 Jul 92 07:40:29 GMT
Organization: Wang Labs, Lowell MA, USA

studman@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Daniel Tseng) writes:

>Hello out there,
>	Currently I am as you might say a "non-believer", and I've been trying
>to accept the basic premise of Christianity, the belief that Jesus was our
>Savior and gave his life for our sins.  Now that's great and everything, but
>it's very difficult for me to accept something without some sort of proof of
>this...

Fearless moderator, if you get better answers than mine (and I hope you
do) feel free to pitch this one. I hope you yourself post an answer at some
point.
---

I suppose each Christian has his own reasons for believing as he does. I 
don't think anyone can offer a rigorous proof, in the mathematical sense,
in the existance of God, or in Jesus's redemptive sacrifice. In the case
of Jesus, the redemptive act occured about 2,000 years ago, and it isn't
formally possible to prove anything about acts that occured yesterday,
let alone that long ago. If you want proof, you will have to establish
for yourself just *how much* evidence is enough, and then see if God is
willing to give you as much as you need.

I'll go over the evidences that bolster my own beliefs, but a word of
caution first - in the end it comes down to a willingness to believe.
You can - people do - make up your mind to NOT believe. Christians refer
to this as the scales before the eyes, or the hardened heart. If you are
sincere about finding God, you must first make sure that you haven't a
secret wish to see the whole thing "proven false." I, at least, live in
a culture that would be overjoyed to find Christianity false, and there *is*
pressure put on people to take the negative view of Christianity. Sometimes
this negative pressure takes the guise of "tolerance" and "openness" - people
will tell you that Christians are intolerant (and therefore, somehow, wrong)
because they actually dare to believe they are right. Such people are
apparently ignorant of the fact that a person's belief that he is
right about something is not proof that he is wrong! All that said,
examine yourself for bias, and establish what you need to hear or see or
feel to have confidence in God. Then challange God to provide it. If you
are fair, He will be. I've never had any other experience from him.

As in most things, I have "internal" and "external" reasons for believing
things, especially in Jesus. The internal ones are easiest to write about,
but least useful to you, so I will do them first.

I *know* that God exists. I *know* that Jesus died for me. On what I'd honestly
have to call an irrational, experiential level, Jesus and God are completely
real to me. I feel the presence of God in my life, and I *know* it is
not a construction of my own psyche. They are there; they have spoken to 
me (not in words; I don't hear voices), and they have touched (well, 
sometimes sledgehammered) my life. None of which I can prove to you,
though if you knew me twenty years ago and knew me now you might suspect
(I hope!) that something has been going on. I call this an internal proof.
You will, to get any value out of this, have to *assume* that I am not
lying, nor insane. But if you can assume those things, you have something
valuable - a testamony from a living, breathing person that God exists,
loves us, and wants to insinuate Himself into our lives in a direct way.
I understand that this can be easily dismissed as a "mere misunderstanding" I
have, though I'd argue that for my perceptions of God to all be a 
misunderstanding, I'd be fit for a mental ward.

There is also external evidence, that Jesus lived, died, and rose again.

I suggest, for starts, that you dig up a book entitled "Did Jesus Rise From
the Dead?" by Gary Habermas and Antony Flew (Terry Miethe, editor; Harper
and Row, 1987). This book talks about the historical basis of the
Resurrection, which is the essential fact of Christianity that has to be
verified or denied to make any claims about the Christian faith itself.
(If someone tells you the important thing about Christianity is not
the resurrection, but the platitudes and the "good moral feel" of the
religion, you are being sold a load of goods. At the heart of this faith 
is that Resurrection, and if it did not happen, the rest of the faith is
hogwash.) The book is interesting and worthwhile; and it was written by 
someone with a scholarly and critical bent, not a raving fundamentalist (like
myself :-).

You asked "how do we know that the events of 2,000 years ago are not
completely made up?" What you are actually asking is "How do we know
Christianity is not some vast conspiracy or practical joke?" I'm not
much into world-wide conspiracy theories, myself; and if various disciples
and apostles died rather than recant their faith (a number were tortured
and killed for their beliefs) than I am not willing to go with the "practical
joke" theory. Besides, the things described in the New Testament, and
by other writers, ancient and modern, are mirrored in my own life. When 
C S Lewis writes about the presence of Jesus in his life, or Paul Bunyan
writes about the struggles one has as a Christian living in a fallen world,
I find immediate accord with their statements - I've felt those things too.

You can try to argue that the early Christians were *badly mistaken* about
the events around them, or that they were right abut them. But I don't think
a hoax theory or anything like it is going to fly. Other writers, like
Habermas, have done a good job with these arguments. Look them up. I also
recommend CS Lewis's _Mere Christianity_ as a good starting place.

There is more - a lot more. I can say that the "Christian model" of this
world - a place given us by God, but fallen (morally broken) is the
most exact description and explanation I've ever found for how the world
got to be how it is. People *do* act as if they are a strangely broken
mixture of good and evil. History bears it out. People *do* act as if their
lives have meaning, even when no philosophy can prove such meaning without
something like God to root the meanings in. People *do* act as if they
believe in morality (even when they insist that there is no morality), and
no one has yet figured out a way to have spontaneous morality arise in
a chance universe made up of atoms working on blind forces. Again, the
fact that Jesus and most all of Christiandom after him have offered a model
that explains human behaviour isn't proof that Jesus is right, or risen.
But it is an evidence to be considered. The one man who is recorded as
having the clearest view of what man was, is the one man who seems to have
been raised from the dead. He is also the one man whose life and death was
predicted in parts thousands of years before: read Isaiah 56 and Psalm 22,
and then the gospel of Luke. Argue that Luke invented the crucifation scene
if you like, and invented it to match the writings in Psalms 22 - but if he
was not making it up, such answered prophecies make for an impressive
proof.

But in the end, it comes down to this. Until such time as you can think
of yourself as a sinner (gasp, that word!) who has at some points
rejected what is good and right and true, and turned your back on God and
his love; until *that* somewhat unpleasant point is reached, Christianity
won't have a lot to say to you. Jesus came to save people - if you don't
feel that you need saving *from* anything, then Jesus may not ever seem
very real to you. He came to reconcile you to God - until the time that you
feel you need that reconcilation, then Jesus probably won't matter to you.
Even if you get all the historical proofs you could want.

If you have trouble with this, here is my advice. First, read the New
Testament through. Don't treat it as a history if you can't handle that
idea. Treat it as a Moral Lesson, a treatise of how humans should act.
If it makes you feel uncomfortable, as if you've *missed* something in
your life and done things wrong, you are in a position to want to make
things right again - which is where Jesus comes in. Secondly, challange
God to make himself real to you. He probably *won't* do this if you
do it with a sneer; I think he prefers humility in these matters. But
if you are sincere, and ask him daily, he *will*, eventually, confront
you. That is a joyous (if scary) day. I wish and pray it happens to you.
I wish and pray that it happens to everyone (but I know how likely that is.)

Peace,
Scott
--
"There is no other stream," said Aslan.
smayo@wang.com