The Protestant theologians’ exegesis of theses scriptures and these key words clearly tells us that “this rock” does not refer to Peter himself, but to Peter’s confession that Christ is the Son of God and therefore Jesus is the rock. This can be validated through: the words of Peter’s own interpretation of what the rock of the Church is; the word “rock” as used in both the Old and New Testament; and by looking at the interpretation of the entire text of Mathew 16:13-19.
The argument from religious experience is an inductive, ‘a posteriori’ argument which claims that because God can be experienced, God must exist. It’s underpinned by testimonies of religious experiences that exist in which the person has claimed to have had experienced God. Consequently, this has led people to conclude that God must exist. In order to understand how this argument works, a comparison is required. For example, I am writing.
Some philosophers such as Aquinas believe that it is possible to talk meaningfully, truthfully and factually about God whereas others like Ayer believe this to be impossible. Philosophers have suggested that there are four ways that religious language might make truth claims about the reality of God and whether it can succeed in doing this – Via Negativa, Analogy, and Myth. The ‘via negativa’ or negative way is an attempt to prevent people from misrepresenting God. It claims that the only way we can talk about God is by saying what God is not. God is so beyond our ability to understand that the only way of seeing the reality of God is to continue saying what God is not, God is more than anything we can say of him.
Evidential Apologetic also called Natural Theology emphasizes reason and rational truth and logic as the reasons why a person faith must exist in Christianity. The epistemological questions that come forth in ordinary religious life tend to focus on the epistemic evaluation of the most basic tenets of the religious worldview in question; the existence of God, the creation of the world and God's relation to it, and the possibility of recognizing divine action in the world and divine revelation. An Evidentialist defense of religion typically relies
They treated claims made about God as cognitive, meaning that the assertions made are meant to be taken as facts or universal truth claims rather than non-cognitive meaning on a personal level for believers. They believed that language was only meaningful if it was analytically or synthetically verified. Analytic statements are a priori (based on logic) and synthetic statements are a posteriori (based on empirical evidence). They created a test called verification principle to see if religious language was meaningful; Statements can only be meaningful if it can be demonstrated. One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses.
Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions.” Jesus Christ had a different belief when it came to the existence of God and the increase of “human good”. Jesus believes that he is the son of God and that he is also God. That view differs from Dewey’s view all together because Dewey believes that that there was not personal God or Christ. “Education” that omits reference to Jesus’ role in this world is not education at all. (John 14:6) Jesus believed that God had communicated truth to all mankind through personal revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ and today Christians believe that God reveals himself through propositional, verbalized revelation of Himself in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
In detail we will discuss the relationship between inspiration and inerrancy. And then, before concluding this paper we will discuss how the answers to these questions provide structure to how we as Christians should live our lives. To a Christian who has accepted God as their personal Lord and Savior the Bible has authority. The same should not be said for someone who hasn’t made that confession. As a Christian we have accepted that the Bible contains the true Word of God written by apostles who received divine inspiration to guide the recorded works.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 KJV). What is a Christian Worldview? Matt Slick describes world view as “a set of presuppositions and beliefs that someone uses to interpret and form opinions about his humanity, purpose in life, duties in the world, responsibilities to family, interpretation of truth, social issues, etc. A Christian should view all these things, and more, guided by the light that is shed upon them by the Bible” (What is and why do). In simple terms, a worldview is the interaction between what we believe about God and how those beliefs affect how we look at and function in the world around us.
There are many reasons for why Christians believe in God. Firstly, some Christians believe that the Bible itself is from God, from himself and it is the revealed word of God. Christians believe that what is in the Bible must be true as it is there in the first place. Some, Christians are literalists who take what is in the Bible word for word, however, some are liberalists and understand what is in the Bible as a metaphor, however, still proves that God exists. Additionally, some Christians believe in the ontological argument by St Anselm, which suggests that God cannot not exist and so that it is logical to believe.
Leibniz once said that ‘the Christian who already believes, Aquinas has proven that God exists’, I agree with this. However, for a person who doesn’t believe in ‘God’ Aquinas Cosmological argument is very hard to accept because, it doesn’t have very much evidence. It is based on assumptions. I then ask, what sort of argument is the Cosmological argument? I believe it to be a Posteriori argument.