Why believe the Bible?

[headheart]

The Bible expresses the same viewpoint - Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (I'm quoting the Bible here, not to use it as any kind of authority, but just to demonstrate that the concept that faith is a form of evidence is not something that I just made up, but an idea that is very old in Western culture, even though it is far less popular today than it once was.)

Of course if you are going to bring an interpretation like this into play, then you need to practice the 20/20 rule of context.

'A Call to Persevere in Faith

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”[e] 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,

“In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.”[f]
38 And,

“But my righteous[g] one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”[h]
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Footnotes:
a. Hebrews 10:7 Psalm 40:6-8 (see Septuagint)
b. Hebrews 10:16 Jer. 31:33
c. Hebrews 10:17 Jer. 31:34
d. Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:35
e. Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:36; Psalm 135:14
f. Hebrews 10:37 Isaiah 26:20; Hab. 2:3
g. Hebrews 10:38 Some early manuscripts But the righteous
h. Hebrews 10:38 Hab. 2:4 (see Septuagint)

Your chosen passage:
11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.”[a] For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she[b] considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[c] 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

Footnotes:
a. Hebrews 11:5 Gen. 5:24
b. Hebrews 11:11 Or By faith Abraham, even though he was too old to have children—and Sarah herself was not able to conceive—was enabled to become a father because he
c. Hebrews 11:18 Gen. 21:12'

Peace,
headheart

[headheart]

No, I have not, Eric.

I think it might be a valuable addition to your library. Why? Well, I notice you have read quite a few of the scholars who he refers to and though it's not that current it's certainly a witherington read.

Peace,
headheart

[ZackMartin]

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

If we just look at translations of that particular verse, some use the term "evidence", others instead use a term like "certain", "assurance", "conviction", etc. Several translations of Heb 11:1 side by side. Is the KJV's translation of ἔλεγχος (elegchos) as "evidence" reasonable? It's not the only possible translation, but I certainly think it is a reasonable one. Other alternate translations - like "conviction", or the "reproof" (by which the KJV translates the same word in 2Tim3:16), are all conceptually connected with evidence - one is convicted by the evidence, evidence constitutes proof, etc. The root of ἔλεγχος is the verb ἐλέγχω (elegchō), which in its uses both in the NT and in other ancient Greek texts suggests a connection to legal proceeds - by which something (most commonly guilt) is proven in a court of law. The Vulgate uses the Latin word "argumentum" - the origin of our English word argument - faith as a form of argument - but "argumentum" has a broader range of meanings in Latin than just argument, including evidence; so the Douai-Rheims (which largely bases itself on the text of the Vulgate) giving "evidence" for "argumentum" is not unreasonable.

I agree the context is important, but I don't think the context negates my point. Though not all translations use the word "evidence", it is arguably a valid translation, and some other words used such as "conviction" don't contradict the idea expressed by "evidence". ("Certainty" and "assurance", I believe, are less precise translations, since they lack the legal connotations that the word ἔλεγχος itself has, while "evidence" and "conviction" and "proof" would all retain those legal connotations.)

[shunyadragon]

Okay, Frank, I can respect that you jettisoned a lot of excuses in light of your Baha'i beliefs, but you haven't answered my primary question: why the need for religious faith at all?

The reason I am a Baha'i is not framed in context of 'need,' nor would I endorse Zak's reason of moral obligation. My moral obligation simply comes from Baha'i principles and spiritual laws. The reason I am a Baha'i is because I believe the Baha'i Faith is what it claims to be. It is most definitely not a choice of personal comfort nor preference. If i was to chose that road I would be a Unitarian Universalist. I am essentially and agnostic, because in reality I do not know, I believe. I also have a strong non-temple Buddhist orientation to my belief.

I have followed your posts for some time and your reasons for believing as you do. they appear to be a strong negative emotional response to an intense journey through many 'Christian alternatives,' looking for the shoes that fit, with a strong either there is a Christian God or no God. I consider the atheist/agnostic alternatives more reasonable from the perspective of the universal, which individual ancient world views fail to do completely, but the strong negative and antagonistic view is still a horse with blinders similar to clinging to ancient world views. I consider the physicalist and/or naturalist a very reasonable view as far as it goes. I do not believe it goes any further to conclude the non-existence of a 'source called God(s) as demonstrated from a more reasonable world view like the Baha'i Faith.


I have in the past given listed my assumptions about what leads me, at present to my choice of faith. They are as follows . . .

Assumptions that form the foundation of what one believes or does not believe. A great deal of debate takes place on beliefs and differences without understanding the underlying assumptions of why people believe. Some of my basic beliefs are included.

The first assumption is the most important, 'consider the universal' in all things as Aristotle proposed in Physica. This amounts to no a priori assumptions on anything including one's own belief system. This assumption relates to my Buddhist leanings, and the view that we can see more clearly if we wipe the slate clean as humanly possible, and consider all the evidence and possibilities.

The second assumption is truth as well as human knowledge is relative and cannot be assumed to be absolute in any way. This assumption is based on the evidence of the nature of human knowledge, and the claims of ‘Truth’ over the millennia.

The third assumption is that the physical existence we perceive through our senses is real, and our reason and logic, though fallible, is sufficiently reliable to trust in our relative knowledge of the objective knowledge of this physical existence. Math is a reliable construct of human logic as a tool to understand our physical existence. This assumption is based on the evidence of reliability of our senses, human reasoning and logic in understanding the nature of our physical existence over the millennia.

The fourth assumption is our understanding of the subjective world beyond the objective physical nature of our existence is limited by our fallible nature, and human understanding of the subjective. Philosophy and logic are useful in exploring the subjective. and understanding our human nature, but remain human constructs of the subjective world of the mind only. This assumption is based on the diversity, and often conflicting and inconsistent subjective beliefs and logical arguments over the millennia.

The fifth assumption is science is the present knowledge we have of our physical existence which evolves with time, and is reliable. It has priority over the understanding of our physical existence over any religious belief including my own. Actually, the Baha'i Faith recognizes this necessary of considering science on the level of Revelation in its own right, and reveals Creation as it is created, and gives it precedence over the interpretation of the Baha'i writings concerning the nature of our physical existence. This relies on the first, second and third assumptions.

The sixth assumption is that IF God exists, God is universal and unknowable in the absolute sense. Doctrines and beliefs of individual religions cannot define the absolute nature of the Divine. this is related to the first, second, third and fourth assumptions.
I believe this 'Source' some call God(s) exists. I believe in Revelation as the continuous evolving, and changing human knowledge of God that never ends, and it does not result in the transmission of absolute knowledge and doctrine of the nature of God. Revelation comes through the Messiah, and through the human mind through communion with God. Religious beliefs reflect the culture and times of the Revelation believed. Creation and Revelation are continuous processes and intimately related. Religious beliefs are the human view of the Divine, not Divine knowledge of absolutes.

[Kane]

I can't answer for Frank, but I can answer for myself.

For me, Faith is basically believing things because I feel a moral obligation to believe them. For example, "Good always triumphs in the end" I believe by faith - I feel a moral obligation to believe that, and so I believe it.

Zack, let's just work with the first part of your quote, for now, because it is the part that, to me, seems the most revealing about your position. Were I to distill what you wrote into a simple sentence, it would read as such: your faith is a feeling of moral responsibility.

If you consider that to be an accurate precis of your position, then may I ask how it is that you arrived at the conclusion that faith is a feeling? And then, what were the steps between that feeling to the conclusion that the feeling indicates a moral obligation?

[ZackMartin]

Zack, let's just work with the first part of your quote, for now, because it is the part that, to me, seems the most revealing about your position. Were I to distill what you wrote into a simple sentence, it would read as such: your faith is a feeling of moral responsibility.

If you consider that to be an accurate precis of your position, then may I ask how it is that you arrived at the conclusion that faith is a feeling? And then, what were the steps between that feeling to the conclusion that the feeling indicates a moral obligation?

Are you asking what role does feeling have in moral responsibility?

I think it has a major role. If I feel something is wrong, that is no certain proof that it is wrong, but it is decent evidence of wrongness. It is my conscience talking to me. It could be mistaken, but I'm going to follow it until someone convinces me it is wrong, or helps me to change it.

Take something like murder. Everyone agrees it is wrong - but how do we know it is wrong? People try to derive its wrongness from more abstract moral principles, but while there is near universal agreement on its wrongness, there is far less agreement on which set of principles is right. So this is almost a reverse argument - normally arguments take us from the more certain (premises) to the less certain (conclusions), and find a way to get us from the first to the second. Here, arguments try to reach a more certain conclusion on the basis of less certain premises - which is the opposite of how arguments are supposed to work. So, while I don't rule out moral arguments and moral principles as potentially being valid, I'm ever so slightly sceptical of them in practice, and prefer to focus on what I would call "moral intuition" or "moral sense" - feelings, essentially.

I guess, some people will object to the "if it feels bad it is immoral" approach. They will likely point, for example, to conservative arguments like "homosexuality makes me feel icky, therefore it must be wrong, therefore we should pass laws against it". And I'm no conservative on this issue - I think homosexuality is just as morally valid as heterosexuality. However, in my own view, the problem here is an undeveloped conscience. A person who thinks like that quite likely has limited contact on a person-to-person basis with gay people. If they found out their best friend was gay, or their brother or sister, or their son and daughter, they'd likely end up feeling less "icky" about homosexuality. And I think that happens in practice - many people who are positive about gay rights used to be opposed to them, until they found out someone near to them was gay. Even those people who stick to conservative views, I still think their conservative views tend to be moderated and mellowed by actual close personal contact with gay people.

What this says to me, is that if I feel my conscience tells me something is wrong, then I should be open to the possibility that my conscience may be undeveloped due to inexperience, that more life experience, especially meeting new people and trying to see things from other points of view, might make my conscience more accurate. So, before I use any of the data of my conscience, I should evaluate it against these possibilities insofar as I can envisage them. I should also do what I can to grow my life experience, since doing so is likely to make my conscience more accurate.

Another point: "ickiness" is not the same thing as wrongness. Some people think homosexuality is wrong, because they conjure up graphic sexual images in their minds, and those images make them feel icky. But they are forgetting that there are plenty of non-homosexual graphic sexual images that will do the same thing. Maybe should they try to imagine the circumstances of their own conception? If thinking about their own conception makes them feel icky, does it follow that their own conception was morally wrong? Hardly. Which I think goes to show that "ickiness" is not the same as the moral sense that something is wrong. There's a lot of disturbing material out there on the Internet, and I've seen some of it over the years (there is a certain species of Internet troll who enjoys tricking people into looking at disgusting pictures - e.g. graphic images of venereal disease); but while some of it left me with a strange feeling in my stomach, that is a rather different feeling than moral outrage. I remember going to Old Melbourne Goal, and seeing a display about Colin Campbell Ross, a very likely innocent man who was hanged there in 1922 - the feeling I felt then was moral outrage. Thinking about it now makes me feel moral outrage.

[lilpixieofterror]

Which experts? The ones you consider to be experts? Or the ones others consider to be experts? The ones who self-proclaim expertise? Just what is your criteria for what constitutes an expert? Surely it can't simply be lettering, because you and I both know that letters are a dime-a-dozen, and many so-called experts are just as much barking idiots as unlettered braggarts. So what, to you, makes one person an expert and another person not an expert?

My my my, I would think this would be pretty easy to figure out, so let me try it for an area I am an expert in, car mechanics and see how that can apply.

A good mechanic that is an expert is:
- One that has the education to go with his experience. I happen to have 4 years of high school auto shop, 8 years of working in a mechanical job, a certification, and an associate’s degree to go with it.
- How does their work show? You look at my car and despite the fact I've had several parts of it apart and you can't tell says my work is pretty good. Plus the fact nothing I have fixed brakes right away says something else too.
- What do others say about their work? There is nobody that I work with or work for that doesn't say I don't know what I am doing.

Apply these to almost any field and you'll find the same stuff. What is their education on the field in question? What are their certifications? What do their peers say about them? How good is their work? Karen Armstrong is not too bad of a writer (I've seen much worse), but she doesn't have the education, she doesn't have the certifications, she doesn't have the experience (face it; growing up in a religious home does not make a person an expert in Christianity. I didn't and I could blow many people out of the water that did.), and she has this tendency to take the works of non experts (like the Jesus Seminar) to mean more than it really does. So can you give me a reason why I should take her words with more than a grain of salt?

I don't deny that Armstrong relies on the work of some of the members of the Jesus Seminar. But the difference between you and I, is that I don't simply dismiss the Jesus Seminar as having nothing valid to say; consequently, I don't dismiss Armstrong's use of the Jesus Seminar, carte blanche. But more than that, the scope of regress here is massive: the Jesus Seminar is not acting in isolation; they consult "experts," too. And so on, and so forth. Also, to add, Armstrong does not rely solely on the Jesus Seminar for her information, but I'm going to go ahead and assume you know that if you've undertaken to look at her (rather extensive) bibliographies.

I know because I have read much of her stuff and read reviews about it too Chris. She does have a large bibliography, so what? If I just throw up a list of random books, does that mean I well researched what I said or my conclusions or did I just throw them up to look like an expert or look like I read both sides of the story? Are these sources experts in the said fields? Did she use scholars like Ben Witherington as well as ones like Bart Ehrman? Did she incorporate both of them into her works? I checked out a few of her books when I was overseas and board out of my mind. She isn't a bad writer and can at least present her stuff in an interesting matter, but she isn't an expert and her words shouldn't be taken with more than a grain of salt. There are far more in depth writers out there if anybody is interested in more of the details. Next, the Jesus seminar is mostly made up of non experts that have a tendency to simply dismiss anything that disagrees with them or to make their case look more powerful and stronger than it really is. I have read their works and I have read the works of those opposed to them and found they are full of grand assumptions that are unwarranted, leaps that should never be made, or general over stating their primary case to start with. So I am very wary of any author that uses them as a large chuck of their source work or as their primary source work.

As for me, I range in my readings and references everywhere from the Early Church Fathers to the original Reformation documents (The Book of Concord) to ancient and modern first-hand philosophical texts to psychology, sociology, Christian theology (e.g., John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, John Piper, Diarmaid MacCulloch, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, etc. & et al.), to Enlightenment literature and modern atheistic writings, and most recently neuroscience and anthropology. I don't consider myself an 'expert,' by any means (most especially by the dubious qualifications of lettering), but I do consider myself an apt pupil, and someone riddled with biases. And in that last admittance, I'm just like everyone else (including you).

True, but I'm not the one backing up a non expert that makes her case from other non-experts either. There are better, more respected, and more in depth people to read then Karen Armstrong. She isn't too bad of an introduction to those that are interested in some of the more liberal scholarship out there, but she isn't the only game in town or the best at that game either.

So what separates the experts from the non-experts?

The things I mentioned above are a good start. If I wouldn't trust just anybody to fix my car or my house, why should I trust just anybody to give me information about religion if the stakes are so high there?

[lilpixieofterror]

Frank,

Why the need for faith at all? I mean, I understand that because you have faith you therefore need your faith. But what is faith supplementing for you? A sense of belonging? The possible anxiety of coming to an epistemological stopping-point? A reassurance that death ain't that bad? What purpose is religious faith serving that you couldn't serve without it?

I am a Christian because it is true. Could care less about being overly emotional about it. If it is true, it will stand and if not, it will not.

[lilpixieofterror]

The Bible expresses the same viewpoint - Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (I'm quoting the Bible here, not to use it as any kind of authority, but just to demonstrate that the concept that faith is a form of evidence is not something that I just made up, but an idea that is very old in Western culture, even though it is far less popular today than it once was.)

Psst... there is more to Hebrews 11 then simply verse 1. Did you bother to read further down? Notice the examples given about faith, why does the author of Hebrews say these people are good examples of faith and what did they do?

[Cerebrum123]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Karen Armstrong heavily support Islam, and say that it has "scientific verification" in the Quran. Of course I'm sure that there is more than one Karen Armstrong, and these could be two entirely different people, or I could be wrong entirely.

[shunyadragon]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Karen Armstrong heavily support Islam, and say that it has "scientific verification" in the Quran. Of course I'm sure that there is more than one Karen Armstrong, and these could be two entirely different people, or I could be wrong entirely.

No, Armstrong does not lean toward Islam, she does make comparisons. the more ancient a religion is the more difficulty it has with science. Unfortunately Islam is experienced a resurgence of fundamentalism in terms of the Old Testament, at least the first half, and many Muslims are questioning science and rejecting evolution.

[lilpixieofterror]

in part, because we have nothing that predates it from the Hebrew side. I consider this response to vague to be an effective criticism..

So shuny, how do you know that the God of Israel was part of the Canaanite religion if you do not really have anything telling you that from primary sources, but instead have (at best) 3rd hand sources that tell you this? Should we take this with a grain of salt or accept it as being the truth? I find it interesting how Christian skeptics try to say that the Gospels are second hand sources and they are suspect for being written 30-80 years after the events in question, but have no problem accepting the words of 3rd hand sources from centuries after the event(s) in questions that tell them stuff they like hearing. Goes to show how bad the double standards often are among most Christian skeptics.

[Cerebrum123]

I did a little digging, and Karen Armstrong said this “until the 20th century, Islam was a far more tolerant and peaceful faith than Christianity. The Qur’an strictly forbids any coercion in religion and regards all rightly guided religions as coming from God; and despite the Western belief to the contrary, Muslims did not impose their faith by the sword”.

Yeah, she knows what she's talking about on this one alright.

I do appear to be mistaken on the scientific aspect, that appears to have been someone else that I had her confused with, but she still is shamelessly spouting lies that favor Islam.

[shunyadragon]

I did a little digging, and Karen Armstrong said this “until the 20th century, Islam was a far more tolerant and peaceful faith than Christianity. The Qur’an strictly forbids any coercion in religion and regards all rightly guided religions as coming from God; and despite the Western belief to the contrary, Muslims did not impose their faith by the sword”.

Yeah, she knows what she's talking about on this one alright.

I do appear to be mistaken on the scientific aspect, that appears to have been someone else that I had her confused with, but she still is shamelessly spouting lies that favor Islam.

I do not consider what she describes as lies. It is pretty much on the money as far as a very real historic comparison. I actually agree on this assessment by Armstrong, but things have gone down hill in the 20th century. As i said movements within Islam have become less accepting of science, and an increasing problem in Christianity. The majority of Christians in the US reject evolution, where at the close of the 19th century evolution was a widely accepted science among Christians.

[robertb]

I did a little digging, and Karen Armstrong said this “until the 20th century, Islam was a far more tolerant and peaceful faith than Christianity. The Qur’an strictly forbids any coercion in religion and regards all rightly guided religions as coming from God; and despite the Western belief to the contrary, Muslims did not impose their faith by the sword”.

Yeah, she knows what she's talking about on this one alright.

I do appear to be mistaken on the scientific aspect, that appears to have been someone else that I had her confused with, but she still is shamelessly spouting lies that favor Islam.

See the Ottoman Empire.