"I'm sure you've heard that extraordinary claims demand
extraordinary evidence. I await this extraordinary evidence."
Of course, this is a standard challenge. Generations of Christians (but
not all Christians) recognize it as basically unanswerable. This is not
because it is not true, of course, but because proof of Jesus is not a
matter that science can address.
Is there non-scientific proof? Of course. Such is available to anyone who
really wants to study it sincerely. Not for "head knowledge," of course,
but for "commitment knowledge."
I was an agnostic/atheist until age 30 (36 years ago). I would be one
today except that I finally figured out what many people were telling me.
When I finally decided (1) I could not approach the issue
"scientifically," (I was a physicist), and (2) that if God/Jesus were
"real" they were perfectly capable of revealing themselves to me, then I
finally figured out that I had to do something --- that was -- be open to
their revelation. In essence, I said to them "I don't believe in you. BUT
I AM WILLING TO -- YOU JUST HAVE TO HELP."
No, I didn't yell it -- and probably didn't even "pray" it -- just
thought about it. One day I suddenly discovered I was a Christian. I was
surprised. I was not at all sure I approved of being a Christian. But
there I was, none the less.
C. S. Lewis describes something like my experience in his book SURPRISED
BY JOY. As I remember, he describes his conversion as "being dragged in,
kicking and screaming... ." Worth reading.
Why not "scientific evidence?" I don't know. I guess it didn't work when
it was used (the miracles of Jesus convinced some, not others).
Is my knowledge of God, then, subjective only? No. There are three kinds
of knowledge,
objective-public
objective-private
subjective-private
Kitty Ferguson has a fairly good discussion of this in her recent FIRE IN
THE EQUATIONS (chapter 7). The philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote on it
in his 1962 book PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE: TOWARDS A POST-CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
(U of Chicago Press).
Well -- that's how I see it from this corner. Extraordinary claim? Of
course. Extraordinary evidence? That's up to the individual. For the
claim is not one of the natural world, a claim which is "neutral." The
claim requires everything you have, and are, and will be. If that sort of
commitment is one you will not consider, I see no other pathway to
grasping it.
Best...
Burgy
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