What if you consider arguments on Christianity and you are left with major doubt?

[rako]

Hello! The apostles, gospels, and New Testament asks us to believe that Jesus bodily resurrected. It is a foundation of Christianity, and anyway I want it to be true because I sense the awful hardships in the world. The world needs salvation.

I believe in God, love Jesus, connect with Him as a figure emotionally, and don't consider the alleged transfigured resurrection impossible. My problem is that I know that just because I want something to be true or a person "feels inside" that it is, doesn't make it real. So it leaves me with "intellectual" or mental uncertainty.

For me normally to mentally think that something is real, I think of the reasons in favor and against it. So I made two lists, pro and con, giving the substantial reasons and the counterarguments made to each side's reasons.

For example, a good reason to believe that the resurrection was real is that all the gospels record the tomb being empty on Sunday, and Matthew records the tomb being guarded. However, theoretically the apostles or a sympathizer could have removed the body on Friday before the guards were posted, or they could have overwhelmed the guards on Saturday night as Peter had already stabbed one on Thursday, or they could have taken the body after the guards left on Sunday night and then retroactively invented a claim that the body was missing on Sunday. Or Matthew could have just made up the story about the guards, who are not mentioned in the other gospels, and the apostles could have taken the body at night when no one was around.

Of course, there are more arguments for the resurrection, like the apostles must have been too scared to take the body because the pharisees were hunting them. And then there are counterarguments to those arguments, like: They still could have paid an anonymous sympathizer to take the body. Or: if they were all so scared, how could John openly attended Jesus' trial and crucifixion, and how could Peter and John openly go to the tomb on Sunday?

An argument against the resurrection would propose that the early Christians were like modern Charismatics, whose supernatural claims mainstream Christians are often skeptical about. Both the early Christians and modern Charismatics have a tendency to claim that the Second Coming would happen in their natural lifespans (eg. within 120 years), to have visions, to experience frequent miraculous "gifts" (eg. weekly or monthly), and to "speak in unknown tongues". This represents a different mindset and mentality than mainstream Christians have today, one much more open to experiencing mental visions and to perceiving them to be physical.

The counterargument in favor of the resurrection is that these depictions of the early Christians as Charismatic are exaggerated, that the apostles were not categorical that the world would end in their natural lifespans, and that the apostles' miracles, "tongues", and visions were all real.

In truth though, whether the apostles' miracles, visions, and tongues were real is the kind of thing that is in question here. We don't have a time machine to check firsthand what they were like. All we know is that the same kinds of miracles and experiences are being claimed, and that modern mainstream Christians are very skeptical about the Charismatics' tongues, visions, mentality etc.

I listed these two categories of reasons here:

Strongest, most direct evidence for the Resurrection?
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4590472#post4590472

Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrection?
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4590456#post4590456

 

[rako]

So the next question becomes what do you do when you reach this impasse?

It is something that I pray about often and I go to Church. I feel a need for Jesus, but that doesn't make the accounts physically real. It's something that I have thought about intensely for a long time, whereas I wish I could have resolution and move on.

 

[patrick jane]

Christianitanity ?

 

[rako]

Christianitanity ?

I fixed the mispelling, thanks.

 

[patrick jane]

So the next question becomes what do you do when you reach this impasse?

It is something that I pray about often and I go to Church. I feel a need for Jesus, but that doesn't make the accounts physically real. It's something that I have thought about intensely for a long time, whereas I wish I could have resolution and move on.

All of your questions can be answered by reading Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians etc. - IOW, all of Paul's epistles. Read them over and over again. You will see and hear about Death Burial and Resurrection and you will believe it completely.

I remember how I thought and felt when I was far from Christ and my faith was weak, then I picked up the Bible to read for myself, instead of listening to other people. Big difference, you see, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God -


Romans 10:17 KJV -

 

[patrick jane]

I'm a Blues fan !!

 

[jamie]

So the next question becomes what do you do when you reach this impasse?

You could ask God to give you faith (Mark 9:24).

 

[rako]

Hello, Patrick!

Thanks for writing.

All of your questions can be answered by reading Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians etc. - IOW, all of Paul's epistles. Read them over and over again. You will see and hear about Death Burial and Resurrection and you will believe it completely.

I hear them read every time I go to church, which is frequent. I have also read them numerous times and am familiar with them.

At first glance, it's simply- you can read it and accept it at face value. But at this time in my life I am middle aged and I know that sometimes what society, books, and various religions, political ideologies, and leaders say are not real.

So Paul can write inspiring things, like how he persevered for the faith or how we become like new people by putting on Christ, and these things appeal strongly to me. But at the purely mental level I know that just because something appeals to me doesn't make it real. I just try to discern reality by looking at the reasons for and against something, and when I do this, it leaves me with uncertainty or doubt.

Your answer is to read the sacred writings, but like I told you, I have done that numerous times. I read Mark's gospel over a dozen times when I was college age, along with two Protestant commentaries, and that was when the doubts started. It's not an issue of not loving or feeling attached to Jesus or not believing in God, because I do both. It's mental issues with dealing with what appears to be ancient "Charismatics" and their perceptions and accounts of miracles, and knowing that what Charismatics tell you sometimes isn't reality.

I'm not here to make an argument about it, either. If you want, you can please read the reasons I listed and linked to. I am trying to figure out where to go from here and to admit reality.

 

[rako]

You could ask God to give you faith (Mark 9:24).

Hi Jamie!
I have sincerely done that. However, the obstacle to doing it more is that such a request is premised on a foregone conclusion that the faith is correct. In reality, I am at a point of uncertainty and my main desire would be to have the faith in what is reality, rather than just have "the faith" if it's untrue.

Do you see what I mean, Jamie?

If you are not sure whether something is real, is it more important to believe what is real (like reality) or to believe that something like Christianity is real because you want it to be real?

So I do pray for truth and believe in God, and don't expect to "know" the answers to such big things. But based on my review of facts, it looks like it didn't occur, just as it looks like many miracles and visions of modern Charismatics and Tibetan Buddhists don't look real either.

So I am trying to figure out where to go from here. If you want, you can review please the list of issues that I raised in those links.

Peace.

 

[Eric h]

I consider the resurrection, virgin birth and all the healings to be very minor miracles. The big miracle for me is the first sentence in the Bible, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

We are here today, something had no beginning, or something did not come from anything, this is beyond any form of logic and reason.

I shall never understand in my life time, I just have to trust it is God the Creator.

 

[jamie]

Do you see what I mean, Jamie?

Yes, I see what you mean, you mean you don't trust Jesus' teachings. Trust is the basis for faith. If you don't trust someone then you don't have faith in them and without faith it is impossible to please God.

My suggestion is to find the answer to the question of why am I here. Does God have a purpose for human life or as Poe put it, "is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream."

 

[chrysostom]

it looks like you are just promoting your site

 

[patrick jane]

it looks like you are just promoting your site

That's right chrys - very astute

 

[chair]

Live with doubt. That is honest and healthy.

 

[chrysostom]

Live with doubt. That is honest and healthy.

the least you can do
is
ask a question

 

[rako]

it looks like you are just promoting your site

Hello, Chrysostom!

I removed all references to other websites. I really am interested in figuring out what direction to go in once I've considered the reasons for and against, prayed and read a lot about it, and reached a point of mental uncertainty or serious mental doubt. It's not as if I simply reject the Christian teachings out of hand - I think that physically the resurrection is possible. I don't "know" that Jesus didn't resurrect.

 

[chrysostom]

Hello, Chrysostom!

I removed all references to other websites. I really am interested in figuring out what direction to go in once I've considered the reasons for and against, prayed and read a lot about it, and reached a point of mental uncertainty or major doubt.

have you considered common sense?

what makes sense?

let that lead you

 

[rako]

have you considered common sense?

what makes sense?

let that lead you

This is good advice.

Fun fact: John Chrysostom gave what for me is a decent rebuttal to the claim that when Jesus in the Olivet discourse said that He would return in that "generation", Jesus meant that He would return in the 1st-2nd centuries AD.

John Chrysostom's response was that "generation" can mean a whole line or tribe of people, rather than a single cycle of human lifespans. For this, he correctly pointed to the Psalms, which talk about the "generation of Jacob", using the same Greek word in the LXX for generation as is used in the Olivet Discourse:
"This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him," (Ps. 24:6)
The "generation" of those who seek God is not just a single person's (the patriarch Jacob's) natural lifespan 3500 years or so ago. It is a line or spiritual collective that crosses centuries.

So when Jesus says that people in the generation He spoke about would see Him, this word itself does not really limit the Return to the 1st-2nd centuries as some skeptics, and even C.S. Lewis, imagined.

 

[chrysostom]

John Chrysostom's response was that "generation" can mean a whole line or tribe of people, rather than a single cycle of human lifespans.

I think we are all part of that generation

it is the only thing that makes sense

 

[PureX]

So the next question becomes what do you do when you reach this impasse?

It is something that I pray about often and I go to Church. I feel a need for Jesus, but that doesn't make the accounts physically real. It's something that I have thought about intensely for a long time, whereas I wish I could have resolution and move on.

Why does it matter to you that the "resurrection story is real"? Is it because you are afraid to die?

What if the resurrection story were metaphorical? What if it was intended to exemplify the ideal that God's love and forgiveness acting in us and through us, to others, will heal us and save us from ourselves? What if through our acceptance of this ideal, we can be "born anew", become a new kind of human being that no longer fears death or misfortune because we live by a greater ideal? And in that way we can transcend death?

What if your doubts are just the result of your having interpreted the story of Jesus' life and death too literally?