On his blog post, Family ties, Nate says, as a matter of introduction
Regular readers of this blog may know that one of the first lines of evidence that caused me to begin questioning my Christian faith had to do with the Book of Daniel.
Nate’s blog is an interesting read for those who may not have an idea who Nebuchadnezzar was. It is not the interest of this blog. Our interest is a comment by rank apologist unkleE.
He sets the argument thus
1. If the christian God exists, he would communicate perfectly.
2. Such perfection would certainly include the Bible, which is claimed to be his “Word”.
3. The Bible clearly contains errors, including historical inaccuracies and failed prophecies.
4. Therefore the christian God doesn’t exist.
I don’t know if Nate agrees with the conclusion 4. One would easily argue, as apologists have argued when dealing with the problem of evil, that god has its reasons for mishandling matters and this includes communication. While this argument does seem to solve the problem, it creates room for other questions.
For example if we accept uncleE’s claim god doesn’t have to communicate clearly, we should ask
- why should anyone be threatened with eternal damnation for acting on their interpretation of the good book
- who is to tell the true interpretation?
And if as uncleE insists that scholars, who he seems to name only two, wouldn’t agree with Nate’s conclusions, we must ask why then can belief in the bible stories be restricted to scholars? There is no conflict that is about to arise because two scholars disagree ion how to interpret one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Lives have been lost on doctrinal matters and interpretation of what the bible commands. I think it is only fair to ask that these matter be addressed conclusively.
The author of Supernatural Religion wrote
Christianity professes to be a Divine revelation of truths which the human intellect could not otherwise have discovered. It is not a form of religion developed by the wisdom of man and appealing to his reason, but a system miraculously communicated to the human race, the central doctrines of which are either superhuman or untenable. If the truths said to be revealed were either of an ordinary character or naturally attainable, they would at once discredit the claim to a Divine origin. No one could maintain that a system discoverable by reason would be supernaturally communicated. The whole argument for Christianity turns upon the necessity of such a revelation, and the consequent probability that it would be made.
And I think this is enough in answering the claims uncleE raises on inspiration or divine revelation.
I take issue with this comment
finally you dispose of a real problem for your argument with the statement “It’s a shame that God didn’t preserve his word in a language that would eliminate this kind of confusion, but there you go.” which is unworthy of your usual high standards of accuracy and fairness, and dodges rather than explains the difficulty.
by uncleE because Nate, in my view, doesn’t dodge the question but is expressing a valid opinion. Inquiring minds want to know why god has not been keen to say the correct message, especially in a field with so many contenders and which translation is divinely approved.
I am hoping unclE will be kind enough to tell us what the thoughtful Christians believe and how we should name them. Maybe from his exposition we should also help him and the rest of their group correct all the other misguided lot. I could do this free, you know.
Random thoughts 