A Rational argument for Jesus

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Flambeau

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Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

I’ve been discussing philosophy with some atheist/agnostic associates of mine and I’ve been trying to make a rational case for both the existence of God and that Jesus Christ is in fact God.

I believe I’ve made a rational case for God based off of a combination of Aquinas “Prime Mover/Uncaused Cause” method and the first two laws of Thermodynamics.

As regards Jesus being Christ himself, I’ve run into a bit of trouble with several of the other avenues (lewis trilemma, historicity of the NT etc) but have had the most luck relating my own supernatural experience while in mass, with the grudgingly accepted evidence that I am not, in fact crazy.

Would love to hear any other ideas. Unfortunately, my associates will not accept “faith” or “belief” as any sort of explanation, so I’m trying to reach them in a way they’ll understand in hopes of planting the seed.
 
A book I read did a good job of it.

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. He’s a protestant, but I found his defense to be persuasive.
 
AKDee said:
A book I read did a good job of it.

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. He’s a protestant, but I found his defense to be persuasive.
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Awesome, I’ll check it out. I’m currently working through the Space Trilogy by C.S Lewis, but it shouldn’t take too long.

Thanks again.
 
Flambeau said:
I believe I’ve made a rational case for God based off of a combination of Aquinas “Prime Mover/Uncaused Cause” method and the first two laws of Thermodynamics.
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A case for which God? Allah, Vishnu, the Jewish YHWH, the Christian God, the Deist God or one of the many others proposed. Arguments from thermodynamics and a Prime Mover are not specific to the Christian God, but could equally apply to many other gods.

For example, what part of your argument requires that the Prime Mover be a trinity, like the Christian God, rather than a single God, like YHWH or Allah?

rossum
 
You must understand that you can make a good circumstantial case for Jesus, but ultimately it is in belief that we accept His existence, a gift of Faith which is super-natural. We understand to believe, and we believe in order to understand what we believe. In other worlds, reason can take us to the doorstep, but it is the gift of Faith that carries us over the threshold. We can offer arguments as to God’s existence from right reason, but it is faith that identifies Him as Jesus. God is not many but one, He is not divides, others are false gods.
 
Flambeau said:
. . . the first two laws of Thermodynamics . . . will not accept “faith” or “belief” as any sort of explanation . . .
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I would think that faith is required to believe that there exists:
  • an ordered universe
  • a rational mind that can understand it
  • that the observations that brought us such laws are universally valid (ie - will be replicated in all places and at all times)
 
rossum said:
A case for which God? Allah, Vishnu, the Jewish YHWH, the Christian God, the Deist God or one of the many others proposed. Arguments from thermodynamics and a Prime Mover are not specific to the Christian God, but could equally apply to many other gods.

For example, what part of your argument requires that the Prime Mover be a trinity, like the Christian God, rather than a single God, like YHWH or Allah?

rossum
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You bring up an excellent point, I’m only able to prove a rational case for an intelligent entity that created the universe. However if you prove that Jesus Christ is God (as I’m trying to make at least a plausible case for) you can kind of back into the Old Testament story of Creation as being correct.
 
Russel DiSilvestro, a professor of philosophy at Sacramento State University, has several debates on youtube where he argues for Jesus and the Resurrection. I don’t agree that the arguments justify the conclusion, but I think he did a wonderful job doing what he could with the material. And it’s all perfectly rational.
 
Flambeau said:
As regards Jesus being Christ himself, I. . . . have had the most luck relating my own supernatural experience while in mass.
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I think they may be using the strategy of leading you down the garden path, getting you to rely on subjective experience. Then, after you’ve put all of your effort into that, they pull the plug because subjective personal experience doesn’t hold water.

I would concentrate on sound reasoning and historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. It is a common tactic of atheists to conflate the existence of Jesus with His divinity since His divinity can’t be proven so if they’ve got them tied together, they only have to show the you can prove the existence of God. Jesus’ existence and His being God are two separate issues and must be argued separately. Work on the historical fact of Jesus’ existence for which there is strong evidence.
 
Flambeau said:
Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

I’ve been discussing philosophy with some atheist/agnostic associates of mine and I’ve been trying to make a rational case for both the existence of God and that Jesus Christ is in fact God.

I believe I’ve made a rational case for God based off of a combination of Aquinas “Prime Mover/Uncaused Cause” method and the first two laws of Thermodynamics.

As regards Jesus being Christ himself, I’ve run into a bit of trouble with several of the other avenues (lewis trilemma, historicity of the NT etc) but have had the most luck relating my own supernatural experience while in mass, with the grudgingly accepted evidence that I am not, in fact crazy.

Would love to hear any other ideas. Unfortunately, my associates will not accept “faith” or “belief” as any sort of explanation, so I’m trying to reach them in a way they’ll understand in hopes of planting the seed.
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What do the first two laws of Thermodynamics have to do with proving theirs a God?
 
thinkandmull said:
What do the first two laws of Thermodynamics have to do with proving theirs a God?
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They don’t necessarily prove that there is a Christian God, but they prove that something “supernatural” had to create the universe. Here was my rationale:

The first law of thermodynamics States that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, just transferred. Energy currently exists in the universe, meaning that either the universe is infinite with the same amount of energy, or it had to be created by a supremely powerful entity.

If the universe is infinite it has no beginning or end. The universe is an isolated system since being all encompassing it does not have any surroundings with which to exchange heat, work or matter. All isolated systems tend towards maximum entropy and disorder. If something is winding down it must have been initially wound up and since there is no natural means for an isolated system to increase the net usable energy, it must have been created supernaturally.

As regards the personal testimony, the people I was speaking to know me pretty well, and I had them convinced that there were two rational choices to the experience I had in Church, either Christ communicated with me and set my life on a much holier and healthier path, OR I’m crazy and not manifesting any of the other signs of mental illness.

Really enjoying this conversation guys, thanks.
 
Well if you believe there can be infinite time, then I don’t see why there couldn’t have been infinite potential energy in the world, the active part activating another part and going dormant, and this going on having gone on forever. If you say there must be decay, well it will be said that this universe came from the infinite of energy, infinitely getting less and less.
 
Flambeau said:
The first law of thermodynamics States that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, just transferred. Energy currently exists in the universe, meaning that either the universe is infinite with the same amount of energy, or it had to be created by a supremely powerful entity.
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There is a third option:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

– Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

A zero energy universe does not require any initial (name removed by moderator)ut of energy, obviously.

Another point is your assumption of a “supremely powerful entity”. That may not be correct. The entity obviously has to be powerful enough to create one universe; it does not have to be powerful enough to create two universes. There could , in theory, be two neighbouring universes created by such a twice as powerful entity, different from the entity that created our universe.

rossum
 
Hawking’s description would imply that there would have to be a force outside of matter and gravity to make it go from 0 to something.
 
thinkandmull said:
Hawking’s description would imply that there would have to be a force outside of matter and gravity to make it go from 0 to something.
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If the energy of the universe really is zero, then Heisenberg uncertainty is enough. The smaller the energy variation, the longer it can exist. If the variation is exactly zero, then it can exist for infinite time. If the variation is very slightly larger than zero, then that will put a limit on the lifetime of the universe before it ends.

Think of the universe as a virtual particle, emerging from quantum foam, hanging around for a time, and then merging back into the foam.

$0.02

rossum
 
The answer lies in history.

Look at all the cultures that have existed throughout human history.

Look at how all those cultures had their own religion.

Look at how once the culture vanishes, the religion vanishes. (For instance not a lot of Aztec Sun God Followers around any more)

Ask what makes our culture (the West) and our religion so special than the others.
 
thinkandmull said:
You mean philosophically or “scientifically”?
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The entropy and enthalpy are well established physical realities, like gravity.
If someone were to attempt to use Philosophy to argue against gravity, they would be acting in opposition to the True purpose of Philosophy which is the love of Wisdom because they would be perusing the opposite of Wisdom. In fact, that is what Philosophy means, love of Wisdom.
 
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