It's interesting that you accuse me of circular reasoning when you don't impose the same kind of reason on other sources of belief or knowledge. For instance, what about rational intuition, memory, and perception? Can we show by rational intuition or memory that perception is actually reliable? Clearly not. Rational intuition may help you to know the truths of math or logic, but it can't tell you whether or not your perception is reliable. Nor can we show by rational intuition and perception that memory is reliable; and you can't show by perception and memory that rational intuition is reliable. When it comes right down to it, you can't even give a decent, noncircular rational argument that reason itself is even reliable. If you try to mount such an argument, you would of course be presupposing that reason is reliable. Ah, circular reasoning.

Am I accusing those sources of knowledge of being unreliable? Of course I'm not. So why insist, then, that it's irrational to accept religious belief or revelation in its written form (the Bible) because I don't have an air-tight argument for the reliability of the faculty or belief-producing process that gave rise to it? Why are the sources of religious knowledge (that I approach with rational intuition, investigation, perception, and memory) inherently any less reliable than your source of knowledge—scientific materialism (as per my post a few posts ago)? Logically, it's not. Ultimately, there isn't anything but arbitrariness in insisting that any alleged source of knowledge (truth) must justify itself at the bar of rational intuition, perception, and memory? You see, my point with you is that you think you're making perfect sense because (and I see the smirk on your face) you've "done the silly religious thing before." But your logic and reasoning can't play itself through the end, because it's always, at the end of the day, inconclusive and self-defeating. That, my friend, is what you keep shutting in some closet in your mind and you refuse to let it out because it's too great a challenge to your currently adopted world view. When I push your position to its edges, it fails. In an epistemological system where the reliability of reason is assumed (presupposed), of course reason is judged reliable. And yet, amazingly enough, you accuse me of circular reasoning.

Unfalsifiable? One of the uniquenesses of the Christian faith is its evidentiary nature. Christianity is a historical faith. It's the only religion actually grounded in history, given to observable phenomena, and relies on its provability (history, archaeology, geography) as a faith system. No other religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam) is like that. As you know, the NT claims that Jesus rose from the dead. Mystical philosophy? No, just walk to the tomb, see if it's empty, talk to people who saw him, figure it out from the evidence. It's all that way. Did the Assyrians retreat from Jerusalem? Did the Babylonians conquer it? Was Hezekiah a king? It's evidentiary.

Philosophical burden of proof? As you say, these are all great conversations. If you're enjoying the interaction (and I am), I'd be glad to plunge deeper at any point.

Hahaha. NT derives it's authority from the OT, huh? I'm not going there with you. You are saying things I used to say, not things I need to learn.

As for neurology, of course all that is true. Again, I'm not trying to prove a negative. I'm pointing out that Mary, Muhammed, Joseph Smith, Ekhart Thole, you, and I have all had the same feeling of divine presence. The same feeling that we have more truth than mere science can offer. Shit, maybe one or all of us is on to something... but there's no way for me to know that. Jumping from there to Yahweh-alone is a pretty big leap, sir.

Your claims, however, (of both personal revelation and the authority and divine revelation of scripture) are circular, unfalsifiable, and heavily laden with the philosophic burden of proof. Each one of those is its own essay, but honestly, it's not worth it. I'm not going to change the mind of someone who talks to god. Believe god, not me. Makes sense.

You're bringing up good points and interesting things to discuss. I hope you hang in there with me.

The authority of the New Testament derives from the mouth of Jesus. Jesus never wrote anything; his transmission of message was purely oral, for an oral culture. He claimed and affirmed the divine source of his words, and the gospel writers claim reliability in the translations and transcription of those words (Jesus spoke in Aramaic; the gospels are written in Greek). The same would be true for Paul. He claims, as do the OT prophets, that the message he preaches is not something he studied or was taught, but that he received by revelation from Jesus (Gal. 1.12). Jesus' teachings were already circulating orally while he was alive, and that continues as the church is founded. Their authority comes from the recognition that they were spoken by the Son of God himself. Jesus, in John 14.26 & 16.13, vested authority in the writings that were to follow. It is on that testimony that the the writings of the gospels are considered to be divine truth, and it was recognized as such from the beginning (Mk. 1.1; Lk. 1.1-4; Gal. 1.12; Jn. 20.30-31; 2 Pet. 1.16; 1 Jn. 1.1-3). And since there were mere years and not hundreds of years between the oral transmission and the written record, there was never any question about these writings and their authors. There are plenty of other places—2 Pet. 1.12-21; 3.1-2—but I don't need to mention them all. As a final point, the NT, in so many places, derives its authority from the OT.

Your observation and comment about neurophysiology is interesting. I guess my response to it is this: just because you can watch my happiness on a MRI, or explain it to me neurophysiologically, doesn't explain anything about my happiness and its emotive reality. Even though it obviously traces through various biological and neurological predictabilities, in essence that has nothing to do with my happiness, doesn't explain it away ("oh, it's not real happiness, it's just electrophysiology circuitry"), and doesn't begin to describe what happiness is. Of course, visions, revelations, and even worship are going to be chartable on brain-reading computers, but I'm not convinced that explains it away, describes that it was nothing but circuitry, or really has anything to do with the reality of spiritual encounters. I would expect spiritual encounters, intersecting our physical bodies, to register on physical evaluative scales. So Mary sees and angel and she's afraid. If you had her hooked up to an MRI, you'd see all the "fear" parts of her brain light up. But what does that say about the (assumed) reality of her vision? Nothing, really, just as lighting up the "happiness" part of my brain doesn't say anything about my delight that my wife just walked in the door and I'm madly in love.

I'd love to keep talking. There's an awful lot more here to be said, and asked.

Just to clear up the Bible's claims of its own authority: Paul, once, in The New Testament claims that the version of the Old Testament he had is good for instruction because it is "inspired." At no point is there an even arguably non-human decision to canonize the New Testament, though. Beside that... Gah. I'll stop. Let's not. Sorry.

A new Christian friend I've recently met online has recently persuaded me that my recent vilification of faith itself is misguided. Faith is a two-edged sword. It can help or hurt. You and others help, mostly, and The Lord's Army and Anders Brievick and Ken Ham (etc etc) hurt.

You and I are in the same boat, though... we both observe a world full of people who claim to have revelations about metaphysical truths. I've had some revelations myself—as a Christian, later as a Buddhist.... the revelations stopped, though, as soon as I learned neurophysiology. Then I finally had an explanation of how I could have deep spiritual insights no matter whose nonsense I followed. I miss the revelations and spiritual experiences, but I don't think they were divine communication. I think they were honest, sincere, maybe even helpful proof of psychology and neurology. We need a way to separate wheat from chaff. I don't know where the wheat is yet, but chaff is afraid of being tested by standards of empirical evidence.

My departure from Christianity took place over about 8 years. Before I even considered fully giving up my faith, though, I'd spent most of those years developing a pedagogical and theological approach to scripture that answered all of these questions satisfactorily, as you do for people. I had internally consistent answers that were (nearly) culturally and scientifically feasible. I think there is a way to be a reasonable, well-informed, scientific Christian. Narrow is that way, though, and few are those who find it.

This method of theology I mention also answers my next question I have for pastors and teachers, but we don't need to go there.

Well, let me put it this way: I think all epistemological conclusions are tentative. In reality, it's tough to KNOW that we KNOW what we know. The philosophers are right when they call into doubt how we can really know what we claim we know, and that there are so much different ideas about knowledge. I get that. But when we all go home at night, in real life we know that we know things, whether they're philosophically flawless or not. While it almost sounds oxymoronic, we can have certainty that we don't have to have certainty to have justifiable knowledge. We all make certain assumptions, leaps, and adopt beliefs. We all do.

Having said that, what I was trying to say to you is that atheistic naturalism, when you drive it down to its logical depths, is self-defeating, and yet people often lionize the scientific method and despise personal spiritual experience since it lacks scientific verification. And yet my epistemological position is at least consistent with my presuppositions and the evidence at hand. My point is this: the scientific approach I take towards Scripture (culture comparison, linguistic analysis, contextual corroboration, historical correspondence, and literary research) is a scientific method to bear out the true meaning, much as any biologist studying various plant species. I'm not the "meditate till my eyes roll back in my head and get a liver shiver" kind of guy. The Bible, by its own claim, is the revelation of God, and by its study vivified by my powers of reason and enlightened by the presence of the Spirit give me reliable and justifiable knowledge.

But frankly, we haven't even yet gotten to your questions about the Bible and God, and why you've turned away, obviously for some logical and most sensible reason in your mind. Can we discuss some of those?

I'd love to explain and defend myself, but I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You, however, are trying to convince me that God talks to you, but not to Joseph Smith, me, Muhammed, Kumare, Tom Cruise, or Charles Manson's invisible pet turtle. I don't think materialism has all the answers or that I have anything at all figured out—you, however, are trying to convince people that you do.

My question was not about The Bible, semantics, or philosophy—it was about you. You believe God talks to you and we don't have any way to figure out whether or not that's true.

We could talk until we die about unfalsifiable claims, but speaking of logical fallacies... that is an enormous waste of both of our time.

While I appreciate your thoughts, I fear there are some severe double standards and self-contradictions in your position. First of all, I too determine truth by observation, evaluation, and questioning all the available evidence. Your question, as you recall, was determining the distinction between literal and parable, which is different than the epistemological question of how I know what I know and why I consider that to be reliable. It's inconsistent (no disrespect intended) for you to weigh scientific method in the determination of truth against a specific question of how can I tell what is parable and what is not. I don't advocate fideism, which is sounds as if you are assuming. My epistemic position is more equivalent to reformed epistemology. It's not about faith vs. reason, but about rationality (evidence, scientific method) informed by experience. Evidence is crucial to reliable knowledge, but all knowledge is not evidentiary. If Christianity is true, God is capable of giving us a personal spiritual experience of him. Atheists can’t say that—they can’t have a personal experience of atheism; they are totally dependent on material evidence. I'm attracted to the sensitivity principle in which knowledge is informed by both evidence and belief.

My main objection, however, is the inherent and necessary conflict between naturalism and truth. Natural materialists make truth statements (There is no god, there is no spiritual world, there is no life after death—religious statements to be sure), but on what basis? Our cognitive faculties of memory, perception, intuition, sympathy, etc., work together in complex ways to produce what we call belief (there is no god, I think it's hot in here) and knowledge (2+2=4). On what grounds can I consider these (or any observations) to be true? My memory or intuitions, for example, (but even my observational skills) are reliable only if they produce mostly true beliefs. A theist such as myself naturally believes that our cognitive faculties are reliable because God made us this way. But as an atheist, there is no such person, and no such source of truth. Your cognitive faculties have been cobbled together by natural selection. Can you then sensibly (reasonably) consider your thoughts to be reliable? First, If naturalism and evolution are both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable—the probability is low. And if the probability that your cognitions are reliable is low, then any belief you hold is suspect. Therefore, there is reason to doubt your belief in materialism. You cannot rationally accept a position when reason is suspect.

Nietzsche said, “Only if we assume a God who is morally our like can “truth” and the search for truth be at all something meaningful and promising of success. This God left aside, the question is permitted whether being deceived is not one of the conditions of life.”

Thomas Nagel said: “If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results.”

Barry Stroud: “There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true.”

Patricia Churchland: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. … Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

Plantinga writes: From an materialist atheist standpoint, what evolution guarantees is at most that we behave in certain ways so as to promote survival, viz., reproductive success. The principal function or purpose, then, of our cognitive faculties is not that of producing true or near true beliefs, but instead that of contributing to survival by getting the body parts in the right place. What evolution underwrites is only (at most) that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances in which our ancestors found themselves; hence it doesn’t guarantee true or mostly true beliefs. Our beliefs might be mostly true, but there is no particular reason to think they would be: natural selection is not interested in truth, but in appropriate behavior. What Churchland therefore suggests is that naturalistic evolution—that is, the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism with the view that we and our cognitive faculties have arisen by way of the mechanisms and processes proposed by contemporary evolutionary theory—gives us reason to doubt two things: (a) that a purpose of our cognitive systems is that of serving us with true beliefs, and (b) that they do, in fact, furnish us with mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself said, "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

As it turns out, the scientific method is only a reasonable epistemic source given theism, and is self-contradictory given atheism.

I still welcome further conversation.

Ah ha! Revelation. Thanks. That is an answer to my question.

My system for determining truth is the scientific method. Critical evaluation and questioning of all the best available evidence.

We both agree that our status as fallible limited humans with embarrassingly poor cognitive and sensory systems means surety of anything is a joke - so in order to regain the sanity I lost when I lost my faith (long story. lots of counseling. yes, I admit faith keeps people sane.) I decided to have some faith in what is - based on that method - a best bet.

Again, sorry for my confrontational tone. I have always respected your teaching, piano playing, and in this conversation I appreciate your openness, patience, and humility.

p.s. to be clear: I'm not certain of any of my conclusion, but yes, I'm very damn certain of the method. If evidence continually supports something - I can't keep denying it. If evidence continually denies something - I can't keep supporting it. If evidence is inconclusive - I have no idea, so I go try to learn more.

I am neither ashamed nor afraid to speak honestly and openly. There is no "system," as you are inquiring, any more than what I have already told you, to answer your question succinctly. What separates me from those who are illegitimate (the chaff) is found in 1 Cor. 2.10-16. With the Spirit of God in me, I am in a position to understand his revelation, spiritual truths taught by the Spirit, and to know the mind of God—things that others cannot understand. See also Jn. 16.13-14. Many speak openly that they don't believe the Bible, but they study it for interest, academic pursuit, debate, or religious knowledge. I know many ministers who openly claim that they don't believe in the Bible or Jesus. For me, I am able to sift, examine, and study rightly, because my heart has been enlightened (Eph. 1.18), and I'm not blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4.4).

When you get married, you begin to know your spouse not just as a friend, or even romantically, but deeply. You learn to understand her thought processes, her contextual value system that guides her thoughts and actions, the closets in her life that still shake her, her regrets that continue to instill fear and affect behavior, what makes her happy, and what she ponders in her heart. These are things that someone studying her from afar can never grasp. It is only obtainable by intimacy, relationship, conversation, and time. But you know her, and the more time you spend looking in her eyes and listening to her carefully with your heart and not just your ears, the deeper you will understand this beautiful person you married. So am I with God and His Word.

Jesus makes these same kinds of statements in Jn. 10.26 and Matt. 22.29. All the study in the world won't lead a person to the truth. But the Spirit of God truly at work in a child of God can teach him or her the truth about the Word of God. The only "system" is to have one's heart filled with God's Spirit, who has learned to hear His voice, who seeks the truth that the Spirit reveals, and then studies the Word to understand it aright. You're talking to one of those people (1 Tim. 3.13-16; Titus 2.7-8). Paul said it in 1 Cor. 11.1: "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."

The Spirit of God is the source of truth; my study in the Bible in the Spirit is my access to truth.

I'm also curious (to send the inquiry the other way): You know the Word; you were raised in it. And yet at some point in time you—using your mind, I presume—believed you had an objective, consistent, unbiased method by which to decide it was all a bunch of hocus-pocus, and you walked away. Obviously, no one subscribes to what they know to be wrong, and so you became convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that your test/method/system was reliable and authoritative. May I ask what that system is that is so convincing and founded on bedrock?

" I believe that many people who "interpret" the Bible are wrong—the conclusions are astray and illegitimate."

So, Jim, what consistent objective system separates the other conclusions from yours? I've heard you say 'study'... that is not an answer. The 'wrong' people study long hours as well. We need a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I'm comfortable with the idea that lots of the Bible is figurative. I'm comfortable with the idea that lots of the Bible is somewhat historical. For the purposes of this conversation, I'm willing to completely roll with the understanding that all of it is true and important, somehow, for our instruction. Conversation can be fun, but you're not answering my actual question. Maybe a literal event has a figurative component... but a figurative event does not have a historical referent. There are Samaritans, but that particular Samaritan was a character in a story... he was a figurative man with a completely figurative penis. What about Onan in Genesis 38, though? Following what I perceive to be your system so far, Onan might be both historical and figurative... but if he's historical, unlike the Samaritan, his penis was a literal thing that literally existed in order to spill seed on the ground thus displeasing God enough to strike him dead in a both literal and figurative way. Furthermore, if he was literal, and if we can extract theistic and metaphorical truth from that literal example—God had no problem with the same woman being shared between two brothers and a father... he had no problem with the prostitution... he had a problem with jerking off on the ground. Let's not go into that, though, because NEITHER of us buys that.

I don't care about any of these examples. I, personally, want a system to makes it clear which things do and which things don't have a literal historical corresponding fact attached to them. It sounds like you don't have one. If you're comfortable with that...taking things case by case...letting your human traditions and cultures play into it...do your thing. I won't try to change your mind. If you do have a clear objective delineating system, you have done a good job of hiding it from me for this long.

To convince me you are a truth seeker looking for dialogue, let's admit you don't have such a test/method/system and try to agree on one together with which we can proceed. I know admitting it will be hard. Please, though, no more semantics. Explain to me the objective, consistent, unbiased method you've been using, or admit that you haven't been using one. It's not that I want to be confrontational or put you on the spot...but this runs the risk of being a severe waste of both of our time.