Faith and evidence -- Ben's Message Board

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Thursday, October 17, 10:20:44pm

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Subject: Faith and evidence

Author:
Ben

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Date Posted: 09/ 1/03 9:20pm
In reply to: Wade A. Tisthammer 's message, "Much ado about some stuff" on 09/ 1/03 6:02pm

>Okay, I can understand predictions like that. But how
>about others like, �Babylon will be destroyed and
>never be reinhabited?� (Isaiah 13:19-20) Babylon was
>the commercial and cultural metropolis of the
>time. A modern equivalent would be that New York City
>would be destroyed and never be reinhabited. If it
>came true, I'd say there's a good chance that genuine
>prophecy might have been involved. This prophecy is
>especially daring considering the defenses of the city
>at the time: walls 30 stories high and 11 car-lengths
>thick; even with WWI technology this would have
>stopped an entire army cold. The prophecy would have
>seemed extremely unlikely at the time it was made.
>Without a specific date, the evidential effect of the
>prophecy coming true may be limited even though it is
>a bold one (one source, Peter Stoner in Science
>Speaks: An Evaluation of Certain Christian
>Evidences, has estimated the odds of the above
>prediction coming true to be 1000 to 1), but
>nonetheless that the prediction came true does provide
>at least some degree of rational support.

All this talk makes a question spring to my mind: if you ever really had enough "evidence" to make you certain that the Christian God really exists, where would be the place for faith? Isn't faith esteemed highly in the Bible? How could you have faith if you were logically certain you were right?

Now I, of course, think faith is not a virtue at all, but simply a way of turning off your brain. But I wonder how a Christian would answer this.

Ben

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
What is faith?	Wade A. Tisthammer	09/ 2/03 11:56am