[swf]http://www.youtube.com/v/C9fmKSwuoDE&hl=en,425,355[/swf]
I post this for all the ex-Mormons friends that I have, whom I love, who are struggling now with the idea of Christianity altogether.
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I’ve never read his books, but I just listened to the whole talk and it was great. He mentions a book called “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” that came out recently…the author of that book (Richard Bauckham) is going to be interviewed on the White Horse Inn on April 6th. http://whitehorseinn.org/upcoming_topics.htm
I love listening to apologists like this. I always learn so much.
oh – and in his answer about why he thinks Christianity is true, notice that he said “it all hinges on the resurrection” – which was a historical event that had a great many witnesses. (I’ve got to get that book by Bauckham now) So in essence, he’s saying…”I weighed the evidence”. Not “I prayed for a feeling”.
This was quite interesting. I enjoyed his views on exclusive truth claims and why the 5 ways of dealing with them don’t work. I think I have finally come to an understanding of the Orthodox Christian view of Grace vs. Works and how they see the distinction. I would move that there is a third option completely left out which would be a combination of the two. I’m not certain why they have to be mutually exclusive. You can have a Grace narrative and still be obedient to the laws of God by service and good works.
In addition, I found the discussion about Kant and the Noumenal and Phenomenal. He said something interesting and I will try to not misquote. I can’t remember who he referenced, but he said two things:
1- Pure rationality can only get you to probability
2- Personal commitment can get you to certainty
Now I have clearer understanding of why I have the belief system I do; because of my personal commitment to my savior. I know understand that when I try to rationalize with others in an attempt to commit them to my beliefs, it never comes out right. Yet my inner personal commitment is so much more different. However, unlike lillym, I not only have “weighed the evidence,” I leaned not to “rationality of evidence” only, I allowed God to touch my heart and reassure my belief through the Holy Spirit. So now I have two witnesses to the truth.
1 John 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater:
I love what he said about the Bible being a Historic Narrative and that the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What a great way of explaining it.
I didn’t necessarily agree with him entirely about hell. The one thing he said that I disagree with is that you own yourself if you chose hell. I would say Satan becomes your task master at that point. Everything else I felt was mostly right on target.
Chuck, glad it was helpful. I sort of agree that he weakly he spoke of hell, but yeah, everything else was dynamite. I really appreciate Tim Keller’s demeanor of humility.
I would dive into a discussion of the role of evidence, feelings, and personal commitment, but I think I’ll just save that for another occasion.
On a side note, Mr. Keller taught that the grace narrative brings humility, not pride, so he obviously isn’t precluding a post-conversion life of obedience and service from the grace narrative. From the way you speak of his position, you make it sound like he taught that a person under grace isn’t obedient in any way.
Grace and peace in Christ,
Aaron
Sorry for leaving that impression. That was not my intention at all. I am sure that the Grace Narrative accommodates for obedience through the description he gave, minus the “pride” for the obedience. It just sounded like it did not accommodate for any sort of works as it would put the Grace Narrative in jeopardy of “looking down your nose” at someone.
I also appreciated his approach and demeanor of humility. It was actually quite refreshing.
I would venture to say that Keller rejects that works play any prerequisite role in proving oneself worthy of forgiveness, eternal life, etc., because then one would have a ground/basis for boasting. i.e. “not a result of works, so that no one may boast…” (>>)
That is a great video Aaron. It is tragic when ex-mormons let the lie of mormonism push them into unbelief. Mormonism being false does not equate to Christianity also being false. I know of far too many who walk out of the lie of mormonism and into the equally false lie of atheism. It is not hard to prove mormonism false, but it takes the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit to show the Gospel is true.
(Less than one month to Together for the Gospel!)
Arthur, I truly hope you have more definition to your faith than just believing that Mormonism is a lie.
I would not be happy being in a church that simply preached our church is true because that other church is false.
I believe in my faith, and I am as incapable of proving to you of its truthfulness as much as you are incapable of proving to me that your church is true.
The problem I see with Mormon attempts to prove Mormonism is true, IS that they need to take a postion that Orthodox Christianity is false. It started with Joseph Smith in promoting his religion by basically calling Christianity an abomination. Subsequently we have the development of his restored gospel that really isn’t a restored gospel because its doctrine never existed within the NT Church in the first place. That, as a fact, is not difficult to determine if someone has even a modicum of intellectual honesty. There is no evedince for it except for JS “revealed” knowledge. A good deal of invented history and supposition had to take place in order to make Mormonism fit JS narrative. Now if someone wants to invent a religion and others choose to follow it, that’s free will. But don’t claim that it is the restoration of original truth when there is no evidence to suggest that it’s main tennents never existed in the original.