Growth

In his Kingdom Triangle, J.P. Moreland suggests the importance of growing intellectually and increasing confidence in God and truth. An more worthy venture hardly comes to mind. His first of three ways toward this end is to,

"Be ruthless in assessing the precise nature and strength of what you actually believe and develop a specific plan of attack for improvement" (p. 133).

His suggestion is to make lists of things that you believe, or don't believe, and the degree to which either is as it is. Furthermore, and what interests me most, write down questions you cannot answer, but would like to. This is something I will be doing here, and I hope that anyone who reads it may offer insight if they have it. Not slogans or cliches, but knowledge and understanding.

Here then, are 10 questions I shall seek to understand better than I do:

1. In what ways does Christianity differ from early Mediterranean religions, and why should it be seen as anything other than a copycat religion stemming from a Judaism stolen from an Egyptian heresy?

2. What makes me think that prayer works, or in what ways do I believe in prayer? Is it just for us? Does God listen or care? How should one pray; how should one not pray?

3. What sort of political ideology is most compatible with the life of Jesus and the prescriptions laid out for us by scripture? Should we care? And if so, what policies ought we care most about and which might we appropriately shun? What, specifically, should we believe about gay rights, abortion, war, democracy, capitalism, animal rights, social justice, poverty, trade, terrorism, the military, foreign policy, Israel, or taxes?

4. Who wrote the Bible, and who canonized it? How do the different versions differ, and which one is most accurate and why?

5. What is the appropriate response of Christians concerning the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the Antichrist and the mark of the beast, and the book of Revelations?

6. What are the prevailing theories that leading Christians hold concerning Evolution and Creation? How do Christians either combat the overwhelming evidence for evolution or how do they reconcile evolution with a belief in the inerrancy of the word of God and any particular notions of the importance of creation? Is theistic evolution tenable or too weak? What are Darwinian responses to the problems raised by specified complexity and the non viability of transitional forms?

7. Are miracles a violation of natural laws?

8. Why is naturalism, or scientific naturalism, not a more reasonable approach to the difficult questions of existence, being, morality, etc? And isn't the appeal to God on difficult issues a mere cop out or default position which is destined for embarrassment given the possibility of finding natural causes for otherwise-imagined God-based answers? Does naturalism escape the dogmatic snares of religion?

9. What is the most appropriate Christian response to Post-Modernism and relativism? What about the Emerging Church?

10. What do I do with the doctrines of predestination? What do I believe about Calvinism? Which points do I accept; which do I deny? What does scripture say about grace and works, and what are the current leading positions on the debate? What does free will mean? Is there a limit to God's sovereignty? Has he given us full reign over our choices? Doesn't he know our answers anyways? Is God waiting on us to decide anything?

There are many others, of course, but these are most troublesome to me, and most pressing. So, it is my intention to read up, and to get bits and pieces of answers and insights wherever I can. If you read this (Jen, Nick, Andy, Ashley, Reuben, whomever), perhaps you have questions of your own, or perhaps you can help me with mine.

Ok? Ready... break.

Furthermore on Knowledge...

"Our religion is a religion of knowledge, not private faith, and we must teach people the ins and outs of knowledge as part of the recovery of our heritage as the sons and daughters of God."
J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, p. 130

Knowledge is a great treasure, but there is one thing higher than knowledge, and that is understanding... To make sense of information - to understand it - one has to put it into fruitful relationship with other information, and grasp the meaning of that relationship; which implies finding patterns, learning lessons, drawing inferences, and as a result seeing the whole. This task - achieving understanding - is par excellence the task of philosophy.
A.C. Grayling, The Mystery of Things, p. 1

This is precisely what it is to have a Christian worldview: To have knowledge of Christianity and its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, of the Bible, and of God, and to apply it to the whole of one's life. This must be the responsibility of anyone who believes Christianity offers not just salvation, but truth about the world and hope for it found nowhere else.

J.P. Moreland On Skepticism and Knowledge

[I]f the skeptic doesn't offer a reason for his skepticism (and just keeps asking "How do you know?" each time the particularist makes a knowledge claim), his skepticism can be ignored because it is not a substantive position or argument. If, however, his skepticism is the result of an argument, then this argument must be reasonable before it can be held as a serious objection against knowledge. However, if we did not know some things, we could not reasonably doubt anything (e.g., the reason for doubting my senses now is my justified belief that they have, or at least may have, misled me in the past). Unbridled skepticism is not a rationally defensible position, and it cannot be rationally asserted and defended without presupposing knowledge.

Kingdom Triangle, p. 125