>>>While I think that this is undoubtedly true, I would like to point out
>that anyone who thinks that intellectual assent is important to receiving
>Christ is likely to have a bit of disappointment.<<
>
Glenn:
>I absolutely agree. You can not come to Christ through intellectual assent
>entirely. But as a famous friend of mine has often said, "The heart can not
>rejoice in what the mind believes is false".
Excellent point, that strikes close to home for me. I became a Christian
at age 29 in 1972, after having completed a Ph.D. degree in a secular
university. The anti-intellectualism of most of the Christians I knew
repelled me. I quite literally felt as though I had joined the enwemy --
that I was a traitor to my intellectual heritage. _But_ I never considered
changing my mind about being a Christian. I had been confronted by Jesus
Christ. I knew it and I wasn't turning back.
But that didn't make my initial experiences any happier. Over time I
learned that there are plenty of intellectual challenges in Christianity --
challenges that have stumped -- as well as stimulated -- better minds than
mine.
>In order to come to Christ
>however we must believe that he TRULY is the Son of God and that the record
>we have, the Bible, somehow correctly characterizes him and correctly
>characterizes how God deals with the universe.
Agreed. The word _somehow_ is important, though.
>
>Dave wrote:
>>>The C/E issue is not important for evangelism (unless it serves to
>undermine ones scientific idols). But it is also not important for faith.<<
>
>If you talk to a number of people who now reside on Talk.Origins, you might
>see this differently. A whole lot of them left the faith because they could
>not find any way to harmonize things.
All I can say is that my experience differs from theirs. After I became a
Christian, the central fact of my life was that Jesus is Lord, and that He
is Who He claims to be. When faced with challenges, I tend to react by
wondering, "What is it that I don't understand?" rather than contemplating
pitching it all. If I can resolve what I don't understand, that's
wonderful. If I can't, I keep trying, but realize all the while that some
puzzles will never be resolved by the best minds.
>Of course one can say that they were
>never believers in the first place, but I am not quite so comfortable with
>that approach.
>
I hate to make those kinds of judgments. There is a possibility that they
were believers and will come back, or that they were "almost" believers and
will at a future time be drawn by the Holy Spirit. It's not my job as a
Christian to place them. My job is to pray for them and to show them what
the Lord has done for me. I know who some of them are, and they're people I
respect and consider friends. That makes it real easy to pray for them.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)