Is faith a reliable method for determining truth?

[bluegreenearth]

For example:

Hebrews 11:3

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

There are numerous verses following the one above that equally proclaim, "By faith," something is understood or known to be true. Therefore, in this context, "faith" is being encouraged for use as an epistemology. How does "faith" function to reliably distinguish true claims from false claims or does it fail in that regard? What would demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Christian community that "faith" is not a reliable tool for discovering what is true or false?

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 186 by Realworldjack]

But to your question, although Paul does not bring up the resurrection in this letter,...

That's enough to conclude that the letter is not evidence for the resurrection. Thank you.

I never once said that it was, so I am not seeing your point? However, as pointed out, there is a lot we can learn from reading this letter, and one of the things we already know before reading this letter is the fact that Paul was proclaiming the resurrection to others, and it is certainly a fact that Paul speaks to Philemon, as if he is a believer, and even points out the fact that he, (Paul) was responsible for the fact that Philemon was a believer, and so this letter is certainly evidence, that Paul was going around preaching the resurrection, and was imprisoned at the time of this writing, for preaching exactly that.

So again, you do not have much of a point here.

It doesn't matter what Paul believed or preached or who he convinced. His letter is simply not evidence of the resurrection. So, you have still provided none nor justified any belief in the resurrection as fact.

My friend, I have never suggested the resurrection was a fact, or that it can be demonstrated to be a fact. Rather, I have said there would be reasons to believe the reports, and I have supplied those reasons here on this thread, and elsewhere, and you can read them anytime you wish.

[marco]

So, what would be the facts, and evidence which would support such things as it being a, stroke, seizure, or fit?

How would if be a "huge and totally unjustified step", when this is exactly what is reported, by two authors?

Admittedly it is a tough choice.

(a) A light came from heaven which everybody knows is in the sky and a voice asked a question. Startled Saul asks who is speaking and Jesus says: "It's me, Jesus of Nazareth! Go to the following address in Damasscus and do what the nice man tells you."


(b) Paul is blinded and falls down. He imagines a god is speaking.

Explanation:

(a) Dead Jesus prearranged that somebody in Damascus would meet Saul and call him Paul, since they sound the same. Important detail.

(b) Sick of being persecuted, a few Christians with a light and a loud speaker, frighten Paul. The rest is human arrangement.

We MUST believe (a) because Paul tells us this is true and we must not accept explanations that are just hypothetical, for we don't know of any plans but we do know that God was around at the time. Because we don't know if Paul had a seizure or if he was duped it is impossible to accept this explanation. God is a better and more exciting explanation.

Ergo - rational persuasion leads to dead Jesus shouting from the sky. It would make a fine opera with an angel chorus. I think it was Caravaggio who captured the scene imaginatively. At least some good art came of the nonsense.

It is also possible it was that ubiquitous angel Gabriel who shone the light and pretended to be the dead Christ but we cannot accept this since nobody thought to claim it.

[Danmark]

RWJ wrote:

How would if be a "huge and totally unjustified step", when this is exactly what is reported, by two authors? It seems at this point we at the very least, have testimonial evidence to support the idea Paul was confronted by God, with only speculation that it must, and had to be a stroke, seizure, or fit.

"Two authors?" Who are they? Luke does not pretend to give a first hand account. And he couldn't since he was not with Paul on the road to Damascus.

Even Paul does not write directly of the event. Acts mentions it 3 times, but not as a first hand report. "Paul told Agrippa...." "Paul told others...." Paul was blinded by a light no one else saw and fell down and ate nothing and drank nothing for 3 days. What is there to explain?

Obviously he had some kind of medical event, whether it was an epileptic fit, sun stroke, or a neurological event of another sort does not matter. Everything about the story suggests a natural event. That Paul reports a supernatural event is hardly convincing. Reports of dreams and visions and hallucinations are not extraordinary.* Believing they are real is the only strange part. It is hardly unlikely that Paul, obsessed with Christianity, would have a delusion fixed on his obsession.

Leaping to a supernatural conclusion because 'The Bible Tells me So' is the LEAST likely explanation.

_________________________
*http://encounters-with-jesus.org/
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/arti ... eam-jesus/
https://ehrmanblog.org/modern-visions-of-jesus/
Joseph Smith's claim of seeing Jesus is well known

To those I can add my own, reported on this forum.

[Overcomer]

[Replying to post 196 by bluegreenearth]

In response to one of your older posts in this thread, I offer the following:

The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are attributed to Luke for a variety of valid reasons. To use your format, I present:

FACT: That Luke was the author of the gospel that bears his name is confirmed by Marcion in his canon in the mid-second century. Early church fathers such as Irenaeus and Tertulllian wrote confidently of Luke being the author. The oldest manuscript of Luke, the Bodmer Papyrus XIV and dated A.D. 175-225, ascribes the book to Luke. Any letter written to someone would have a tag attached with the author’s name on it. That tag, not surprisingly, didn’t come down to us, but it would have been there long enough for hundreds of people to know that Luke wrote the letter. Luke was not an eminent member of the early church so there is no reason why his name would be attached to the gospel unless he himself wrote it.

FACT: The objection that no one who had been a companion of Paul would show as little interest in his letters as Luke-Acts does or would be so un-Pauline in his theology is without foundation, for we have no means of knowing how much Paul’s travel companions knew about his correspondence or how deeply they entered into his theology .

FACT: The tradition that Luke, a companion of Paul, was the author of the third gospel and of Acts is early and unchallenege the Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus, the anti-Marcionate prologue, Clement of Alexandrea, Tertullian, Eusebius. Luke’s authorship of these two books went virtually unchallenged until the end of the 18th-century and it wasn’t because we had new evidence to suggest otherwise.

See An Introduction to the New Testament by D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris for more information.

And this:

https://bible.org/seriespage/5-acts-int ... d-argument

And if you are interested in the historical reliability of the Book of Acts there’s this:

https://crossexamined.org/historical-ac ... book-acts/

FACT: Any so-called “incongruities� between Luke’s writing and that of Paul, with regard to the law, for example, can and have been validly and persuasively discussed by numerous scholars. One scholar put it this way: Luke’s Paul is not necessarily different from Paul’s Paul. The differences can be accounted for in style, and context.
(See https://bible.org/article/introduction-gospel-luke)

As for your doubts re: the resurrection of Christ as a spiritual event rather than a bodily one, consider this simple fact: In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul argues for the resurrection of Jesus. The word “resurrection� means “physically rising from the dead.� It helps to read verses in context within a chapter, within a book, within a whole Bible. The bodily resurrection of Christ is mentioned in numerous places including John 20:27 when Jesus invites Thomas to put his finger in Christ’s side to prove he’s real and John 21:1-4 when Jesus eats breakfast with the disciples, something a mere spiritual body couldn’t do.

The resurrection of Christ is a glorified body, meaning that it will never get sick and it will never die. That’s what Paul means when he talks about Christ’s body being imperishable in 2 Corinthians 15 and the fact that the bodies of believers, resurrected at Christ’s second coming, will be like his – glorified, without pain and immortal.
The fact that there were people who doubted the bodily resurrection of Christ doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. It only meant that there were people who doubted it!

If you would like to see the arguments against Paul considering Christ’s resurrection in mere spiritual terms, I offer this detailed and cogent argument by William Lane Craig:

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writing ... -of-jesus/

For a shorter, simpler look at the doctrine, there’s this:

https://www.gotquestions.org/bodily-res ... Jesus.html

Regarding the Jews and burials, I recommend the chapter in Craig Evans’ book entitled Jesus and His World. He provides evidence from archaeology that criminals could and indeed were buried in tombs, possibly ones that were purposely set aside for criminals. He uses the example of a Jewish man named Yehohanan, who had obviously been crucified, and others who bear evidence of execution, found at Giv’at ha-Mivtar to make his case.

Regarding the Greek word for “appear�, it can mean only to see with the mind, it can also mean to see with the eyes. See here:

https://biblehub.com/greek/3708.htm

You did not cite any specific verses. I would have to see the use of the word in context to know how it was being used.

As for your suggestion that everyone was hallucinating, mass hallucinations don’t happen. I have researched this and found no example of 500 people all seeing the same thing. There are examples of people thinking they have seen someone at different places at different times alone, as individuals, but not together as a group. All of your psychological information as it pertains to those who saw Christ is conjecture on your part and not fact at all.

I hope you realize that it takes faith for you to believe what you outlined in your lengthy post. In fact, much of what you write is based on conjecture, not real scholarship, and includes arguments from silence as you wonder why Paul didn’t say such and such. Who cares what he didn’t say? We can only work with what he did say and he said that Christ rose bodily. And when you wonder why nobody visited Christ’s tomb – why would they? Those who knew him knew he wasn’t there because he had been resurrected and was alive. That argument actually works against you. And as for your suggesting nobody knew where the tomb was, Joseph of Arimathea did as it was his tomb and so did all the women who went to the tomb to add perfumes to the body.

See here:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Joseph-of-Arimathea.html

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blog ... mpty-tomb/

Lastly, you haven’t provided any sources for your information. I always like to see where people are getting their information.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 233 by Overcomer]

"FACT:" The author of Luke and Acts is unknown and remains controversial no matter how many sources you pile up. You want specific sources?

Authentic letters of Paul do not refer to Luke as a physician
The epistle of Philemon, almost universally accepted as an authentic letter of Paul, merely includes the name "Luke" among other "co-workers" of Paul who are sending greetings to the letter's recipients (Philemon, verse 24). The identification of Luke as a physician comes from Colossians 4:14, but Colossians is believed by many New Testament scholars to be pseudonymous (i.e. written under a false name), although just as many believe it an authentic writing of Paul, likely by means of an amanuensis.[14] 2 Timothy 4:11 also mentions a "Luke" and refers to him being "with me" but most modern scholars do not accept 2 Timothy as an authentic letter of Paul either.[15]

Critical view - the "we" passages as fragments of earlier source
See also: Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles
In the "we" passages, the narrative is written in the first person plural but the author never refers to himself as "I" or "me". Some[who?] regard the "we" passages as fragments of a second document, part of some earlier account, which was later incorporated into Acts by the later author of Luke-Acts.[citation needed] Many modern scholars have expressed doubt that the author of Luke-Acts was the physician Luke, and critical opinion on the subject was assessed to be roughly evenly divided near the end of the 20th century.[16] Instead, they believe Luke-Acts was written by an anonymous Christian author who may not have been an eyewitness to any of the events recorded within the text. The author of Acts "wanted his readers to understand that he was for a time a traveling companion of Paul, even though he was not."[17]
....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorshi ... %80%93Acts

Among other issues, in letters we know are from Paul, why does he not refer to Luke as a physician.
The traditional view is just that, traditional, just as it was once traditional to see the world as flat.

[benchwarmer]

Since speciation has been observed,

My friend, do you see that comma? This means the sentence has not ended.

My friend, doubling down are we? I'm sure readers can see what's happening here.

At any rate, as I have said, this has nothing to do with the topic, but when we arrive to the last sentence of this same article we read,

It is logical and reasonable to conclude that in the absence of something to prevent it, a succession of speciation events would eventually lead to a divergence where descendant organisms would be classified in different genera, families, orders, etc.

So what does this mean? Well, it means this has not been demonstrated, because if it had, the article would not have to say, "It is logical and reasonable to conclude", rather than, "this is a known fact", which is exactly my point.

It means exactly what it says it means. MULTIPLE, successive speciation events. You said no one has observed A speciation event. They have. You were wrong. Now you are moving the goal posts in what appears to be a pointless attempt to save face. I'm not sure why. We all make mistakes, just own up to it be done with it.

So then what is the point? These folks believe there is reason to believe an event has occurred which not only has not been observed, but can never be observed, because the process would take far to long, which they are admitting themselves.

Again, they are now talking about a succession of speciation events. This is not what you originally said. Thus you are moving the goal posts.

Therefore, this is not a debate on evolution, and I am not willing to allow this to happen, but is rather a demonstration that there very well may be very good reasons to believe an event has occurred, which has not, and maybe even cannot ever be demonstrated to be a fact.

True, this is not a debate on evolution. However, you claimed something has not been observed which has and used that to make a point. You were wrong, thus your point is moot.

So then, you either agree there may be good reasons to believe certain things based on the facts, and evidence we have, which have not, and maybe even cannot be proven? Or, you are under the impression there would be no reasons to believe that which have not been, and may never be proven?

You keep making this false dichotomy. It's either good reasons or no reasons with you. How about bad reasons?

As far as reasons go to believe something, there are:

1) 'Good' reasons. i.e. reasons which one believes are supported to their satisfaction.
2) 'Bad' reasons. i.e. reasons which one believes are reasons, but poorly supported.
3) No reasons.

I submit that what you are calling 'good reasons' are in my book 'bad reasons'. This is of course subjective. You appear to find anonymous, second hand hearsay 'good' and thus supportive of your good reasons. I do not. I at no point have claimed you have NO reasons. I have made this point already, clearly it was forgotten.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 16 by bluegreenearth]

So I see a great deal of talking around and avoiding the issue, I read no one addressing it directly.

Is faith a reliable method of determining the truth?
Try applying it.
Can one use faith in research?
Can one pray and receive validated/valid stable truth?

Does science use it as a means of research?
No.

Straight, to the point, definitive.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 196 by bluegreenearth]



Well thank goodness! You finally seem to have come to the understanding that you will have to deal with the facts, and evidence we have. You see, you started out weeks ago, attempting to use the "unfalsifiable claim" argument, which turned out to be a failed argument, and then you moved on in an attempt to talk about epistemology, which is a failed argument, and the only way we will be able to make any sort of progress here is to actually deal with the real facts we have, and it seems you may have come to understand this.

However, I am not at this time going to attempt to deal with each and every fact you have listed. Rather, it seems it would be better to tackle them one at the time, and when, and if we come to some sort of resolution with the first one, we can then move on to the next, and although this may take a great deal of time, I am more than willing to do this, because I have the rest of my life to go through it with you, as we both may have time.

Next, before we actually dive in, I want it to be known, that I have never insisted there would be no reasons to doubt. In fact, I have actually claimed to understand the doubt. My problem comes in when, there are those who seem to want to insist that there would be no good reasons for belief, when they cannot demonstrate this to be the case. So then, let us get started, by looking at your first fact.

Fact = The earliest manuscripts of the two letters written for Theophilus are anonymous.

This is indeed a fact. However, all this means is, the author did not identify himself. Of course, there are times when an author may write anonymously intentionally, because they would rather not have their identity known for some reason. As an example, I have seen letters to the editor, in our local newspaper which was authored in this way, and I can imagine the author did not want their identity known, because of some sort of retaliation.

With that being the case, there would be other authors, who may not identify themselves, who would not be doing so, because they did not want their identity known. As an example, I may write a letter to my wife, and I may not identify myself, but it would not be because I would not want my identity known, but rather, I understand that my identity to the person I am writing to, would be obvious, which would mean, I have no reason to identify myself.

But the question here is, why would it be cause to consider the information to be unlikely, simply because the author did not identify themselves? I mean, this is what you are saying, right? You are saying, the author did not identify himself, and this is a reason to consider the information he gives, to be unlikely?

How would this be the case? As an example, the letters to the editor I referred to, how would the fact that they wrote anonymously, be a cause to consider the information to be unlikely, and how would the author identifying themselves give the information any sort of validity?

Next, since the author of the two letters to Theophilus, is addressed only to Theophilus, then he may have been confident that Theophilus would have known very well who the author was, and for this reason, it may have never even crossed his mind, to identify himself, because he knew it would be obvious to his audience.


I will also point out, that if an author is actually writing anonymously, (meaning he did not want his identity known) you would think that this author would be extremely careful not to give out any information which may cause his identity to be revealed, and this author is not careful about this at all, when he uses the words, "we", and "us" which are certainly clues as to who the author may have been.

If we deal with the facts as we have them, we have an author who after decades of travel with Paul, certainly seems compelled to sit down to write, not one, but two long and detailed letters to one individual.

With this being the case, this author would have had only this individual in mind as he wrote, and would have been unconcerned, because he would have had no idea as to whether anyone else would ever read these letters, which means this author owes nothing to anyone else other than the audience he is addressing.

The point is, it is not like this author would have had in mind, "oh yeah, I really need to sign these letters that I am writing to Theophilus, lest there may be those, 2000 years later who may read it"?

Either way, I am attempting to understand, how this fact, would be a cause for concluding, the information in these letters, is unlikely?

[Willum]

[Replying to Realworldjack]

So if I may translate what you have said:
“Uncertainty about Matters of faith, are good reasons to believe in them.�

No. I do not think so.

[otseng]

Well thank goodness! You finally seem to have come to the understanding that you will have to deal with the facts, and evidence we have.

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