At 12:10 PM 3/14/00 -0500, John Burgeson wrote:
>While I DON'T believe there was a talking snake, if I can be shown
>that such a belief is important to Christianity, I'll revisit the issue.
>But
>I don't see it as important.
It is not important to Christianity per se. it is important to the
epistemology and what data can be counted as support for Chrisianity.
>
>Of course I "see a problem" of believing a man dead three days came to
>life again. But that belief IS important to Christianity. It took me
>probably
>a year or more of studying that claim, and all the issues surrounding it,
>before I could honestly say I believed it. I am convinced now that it was
>not through any reasoning of my own that happened, but rather by
>the work of the HS, a work only possible when I opened myself
>(not just my mind, but my whole being) to whatever God wanted of
>me. This move is darn hard for some of us to do!
>
>The fact is, God DID move in my heart -- in a way that was, and is,
>uniquely
>mine. The willingness to trust had to come before the trust which had to
>come before the belief. In secular matters, we usually
>reverse that order of events. That does not work, IMHO, for
>a relationship with the almighty.
I don't doubt that trust has to come first when coming to Christianity.
When leaving it, belief may be the first thing to go. That is why it is
important to have a scenario that makes Christianity real.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 15 2000 - 19:01:50 EST