I know you use the Cosmological argument often and I'm a big fan of it. But one can argue that God doesn't have to be the necessary cause that argument is hinting at. But the only way to solve the problem in that argument is through something that didn't begin to exist. So it's eternal and timeless and it pushed the Big Bang or the beginning of the universe. It sounds like a complex thing and it's hard to believe in an eternal timeless simple atom doing this. ... But anyway, to an new topic. I wanted to bring up something I'm not too content about and that is Christians staying in their bubbles where they only hang out with Christians, go to Christian book stores, listne to Christian music and if they ever befriend a nonchristian, it is only to convert them. This really irritates me. What are your thoughts on this? Regarding the cosmological argument, you've stumbled onto the reason why a Person of some sort must be behind he universe's origin. As I've argued in my work, you only have two options available to you - event causation and agent causation. Now the only way an event cause can yield a finite, temporal event is if a change occurs in the cause itself. But then this entails that the cause itself must be caused by something else - and so the problem resurfaces! But a personal agent can be inactive from eternity and suddenly will to create something. It is a better inference to prefer that the universe was caused by some agent rather than an inexplicable mechanism that suddenly changed in order to create 13.7 billion years ago. On the attitude of Christians to only bond with their own kind, there is a balance here. On the one hand, it is shallow for some believers to only associate with other believers and never to engage in any sort of meaningful dialogue with proponents of contrary views. This has proven to be detrimental to Christianity and fosters only the superficial thinking that permeates the evangelical scene. On this you're correct. However, there is a reason why some believers go overboard here. Every Christian comes from a secular background (a state of non-belief). These particular Christians feel that abstinence from those who represent that walk is the best way to avoid returning to those pitfalls that once ensnared their own spiritual lives. This doesn't necessarily make it right (and certainly ought not to be the rule for everyone), but by equating this to a sort of "alcoholism" that the former participant no longer wants to be immersed in company that may once again foster that sort of behavior, the Christian in that case is just guarding her own spirit. Moreover, I haven't really met anyone who befriends nonbelievers with the only intent of converting them. Typically the attitude is, "Well, I'll go ahead and cautiously befriend them and perhaps they will be open to the Gospel," so that they then take on the mission of evangelism for their new-found friend. But to retroject onto that person that their alliance with the new friend must have been solely to convert them strikes me as a hollow observation. Are there people who reside only within their comfort zones? Surely. Are their motives bad? That's inconclusive. As George Washington once said, "Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company." If the Christian's intent was to take Washington's advice here, we should hardly discourage that. But if someone is merely trying to avoid their responsibility to engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue, then that shallow believer fails to hear the voice of God: 3:15 but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: `being' ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear:
and 1:13 And I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you (and was hindered hitherto), that I might have some fruit in you also, even as in the rest of the Gentiles. 1:14 I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 1:15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in Rome. 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. |
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