Friday, November 14, 2008

'Good' is Godly, because Godly is 'Good'?

Here, Roger Mannrgmann at kc.rr.com quoted online book by Vincent Cheung entitled “Ultimate Questions”.

“Only the Christian conception of God, as revealed by God himself in Scripture, is consistent with a God that possesses all knowledge, and at the same time makes knowledge possible for man. In God dwells "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). Since God has all knowledge, he requires no one greater – there is no one greater – to justify his knowledge. His absolute sovereignty implies that he wills what he knows, that he knows what he wills, and that there can be no error in his knowledge. At the same time, "the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever" in the words of Scripture (Deuteronomy 29:29), and so we have knowledge as well. God has all knowledge – his knowledge consists of what he wills – and our knowledge consists of what he wills to reveal.”“On the other hand, since non-Christian religions and philosophies cannot produce an adequate and defensible – not to say infallible – epistemology, on the basis of non-Christian thought, there can be no knowledge at all. If non-Christian systems of thought cannot provide a foundation for knowledge – if they cannot know anything – then they cannot even begin or produce any content. If they cannot begin or have any content, then they can pose no challenge to Christianity. Without an adequate and defensible – and even infallible – epistemology, it remains that no intelligible proposition can be uttered on the basis of non-Christian worldviews, let alone objections against the Christian faith…”“However, since all non-Christian worldviews (including all non-Christian religions and philosophies) are without any ultimate justification, there is really nothing to prevent them from collapsing into total skepticism, but one cannot remain a skeptic because skepticism self-destructs – it is self-contradictory to affirm that we know that we cannot know. Only Christianity rescues the intellect from complete skepticism; therefore, rather than depending on a non-Christian foundation to construct a case for the biblicalworldview, the Christian adopts the revelational epistemology of biblical infallibility.”

As we can see, from this out-take, non-Christians, apparently, don't have 'a leg to stand on'.

"Right out of the gate" it is circular. Christian GOD because Christian concept of GOD therefore Christian GOD.

Certainly this is 'GOOD' from a Christian perspective and strangely ONLY from a Christian perspective.

7 comments:

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

His absolute sovereignty implies that he wills what he knows, that he knows what he wills, and that there can be no error in his knowledge.

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Is this God they are talking about here or Bush? I get confused sometimes...

Asylum Seeker said...

"Only Christianity rescues the intellect from complete skepticism"

By letting them to an unfounded conclusion and build up from there. Makes sense to me...

Harvey said...

WHere is it written that thinking human beings need to be "rescued" from skepticism? The only reason is that believers (especially Christians) cannot accept the possibility that the only "meaning" in life is to live long enough to reproduce. If one cannot accept this reality as being "all there is" to life, and, in additon, cannot find peace knowing that once a person dies his or her intellect or "soul" ceases to exist, then, and only then, might one need to be "rescued" by Christian or any other religious thought.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

Harvey I suspect they mean to rescue us from our skepticism the way the old USSR rescued dissidents from their obvious mental problems...

mac said...

Ghee whizz p-boy,

I guess I've not been paying attention. I ddid not know you were here :-)

As to god being good; If it says it in the Bible so it must be true...right up there with creation, Noah's boat, Three days dead resurection, Ezekials hallucinations, or my personal favorite, Leviticus' nonsensical rules....all true because the Bible says so and the Bible doesn't lie, it can't it's the Bible....ad nauseum

pboyfloyd said...

Yea, mac..

we can only imagine the beginnings of the Noah story.

Child: Where does the rain go daddy, why don't we end up under millions of gallons of water?

Daddy: Well, it's by the Grace of God my son. There was this one time though...

(later)

... and that's why we see rainbows after it rains! Would you like me to tie a bow on that for you?
(father and son laugh uproariously)
No? Well get out in the field and start cutting that grain or I'll have you stoned to death!

(Just father laughs this time for some reason)

GearHedEd said...

Wow!...

Somebody actually published that steaming pile?