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But his nephew immediately jumped at the opportunity that Goines had inadvertently opened up: “I have a book that would change your perspective. It’s written for a scholar like you. Would you read it?”
Goines didn’t consider himself a scholar. He had more or less proved he wasn’t one by dropping out of a doctoral program after a single semester years earlier. But he was curious, so he said, “Sure, send me the book.”
When the book arrived a couple of weeks later, Goines was dismayed by its weight. What was this, an encyclopedia volume? Its title was The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Evidence I & II Fully Updated in One Volume to Answer the Questions Challenging Christians in the 21st Century – 814 pages, 40 chapters organized in four parts. Amazon touted it as “destined to equip believers with a ready defense for the next decade and beyond.” For only $48.90 new.
Its author was Christian “evangelical apologist” Josh McDowell, who Goines surmised didn’t consider Goines a prospective reader. McDowell’s objective seemed to be to arm Christians who might be attacked. Goines felt under attack himself, to have had this tome recommended to him.
Goines wondered idly whether anyone had studied McDowell’s compilation looking for openings by which to attack Christians. Goines couldn’t imagine going to the trouble. How could a non-believer stand to get into all of this? Goines himself had long ago spent time inside Christianity, and a lot of time trying to figure out what he was doing there, and why he should remain. But he never could figure it out. It was empty for him.
[Tomorrow Goines continues to ponder the book his nephew sent him.]
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I understand your conflict on the subject of faith. I too wrestled with it coming out of the childlike faith of childhood; concepts like "the faith of our Fathers" just don't cut it. We do it 'cause our daddy did it and our grandaddy did it, right back to Jesus and the Apostles, so we ought to keep right on doing it? Yet simple metaphysics tells us you can't get something from nothing, so either this universe has always existed, or someone or something created it. The Big Bang just begs the question. Something the size of a hydrogen atom containing all the matter in the universe exploded. OK. Where did it come from? One well meaning atheist told me that we now knoe matter can come into this universe from another, and could have created this one. OK. Where did THAT one come from? I always come back to the very unsatisfying conclusion that there very likely is a Creator, but if so our ability to comprehend it is so limited it is like a microbe wondering who made the Petri dish. If this Creator has in fact "revealed" itself to us through prophets, angels, signs and miracles, still we must see the truth through a glass VERY darkly. Another problem with "revelations" is that someone can always come along claiming a new one, like Mohammed or Brigham Young. Muslims are very careful to say the Prophet's Qu'ran is the "LAST" revelation, to forestall any more such upstarts as the Mormons! I guess what I am is one of those "deists" so many of our Founders were-I believe there is a Creator, but that anyone who claims to know its nature or its requirements of believers is either a mountebank or a fool.
ReplyDeleteRoger, I think you and Goines (and I) are in close accord, except that Goines (and I) seem to be more agnostic than you, both of us refraining from believing anything about Creation or Never Created But Always Existed (or Whatever). Goines (and I) seem to be at peace with that.
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