How well do you know your God?

Written by Terry Dashner


How well do you know your God?

Terry Dashner……………………Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

First impressions are important. Men and women alike place much emphasis on making a good first impression to a potential employer, a possible relationship, a business contact, and etc.

Considerrepparttar difference between knowing a person on first impression and knowing a person through years of experience. Some people build their success on their ability to make a good first impression—the smile,repparttar 137953 face,repparttar 137954 curly hair,repparttar 137955 interesting mannerisms. Yet when they are known through many experiences, their inherent superficiality or mediocrity may become known. Onrepparttar 137956 contrary, a person whose first impression is very unassuming may show throughrepparttar 137957 years that he is a very remarkable human being.

Now let me carry this further. How well do you know your God? God does not prove Himself to exist onrepparttar 137958 basis of a first impression or onrepparttar 137959 basis of an apparently airtight logical argument. Through many experiences, Israel would really come to knowrepparttar 137960 Lord. Through many divine revelations, many divine providences, many divine miracles, many theophanies Israel would arrive at an immovable conviction ofrepparttar 137961 reality of God asrepparttar 137962 living Lord.

As a matter of fact,repparttar 137963 Bible declares God to be a living God. What does this mean? Listen again torepparttar 137964 words of Professor Ramm, “The real issue inrepparttar 137965 Old Testament was which of allrepparttar 137966 competing gods wasrepparttar 137967 living Lord, The word living was used to indicate that God does make a difference. A god who is not living can make no difference; but a living God does make a difference. For this reason,repparttar 137968 logically ordered proof for God’s existence doesn’t exist inrepparttar 137969 Old Testament.

“The prophets set up certain differentia which would enable a person in doubt or confusion to determine which amongrepparttar 137970 gods wasrepparttar 137971 living God. The God who complied with such differentia wasrepparttar 137972 living God, andrepparttar 137973 god or gods who couldn’t were not gods at all. Thereforerepparttar 137974 emphasis is onrepparttar 137975 living God, forrepparttar 137976 living God can make a difference; a dead god cannot.”

Arguments for and against...

Written by Terry Dashner


Arguments for and against…

Terry Dashner……………..Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

I’m going to lay it onrepparttar line for you. I’m going to tell you what they say regardingrepparttar 137768 existence of God. And then I’ll conclude my remarks by telling you what I say aboutrepparttar 137769 arguments. So here I go.

I begin withrepparttar 137770 ancient Greeks.

Aristotle gave usrepparttar 137771 most systematic expression ofrepparttar 137772 reasons for believing in God. His philosophy, in turn, influencedrepparttar 137773 doctrine ofrepparttar 137774 Roman Catholic Church and its greatest theologian—St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, you might remember, gave us five proofs of God’s existence: Motion—things grow and develop by a hidden hand in nature (God); Causation—one thing causes another until you reachrepparttar 137775 first cause of all things which is God; Possibility and necessity—things exist in a network of relationships. Everything is dependent on something, except God. Gradation of being—the universe is a pyramid of beings at different levels of perfection. From worms to man to angels to God there is a continuum of creatures. And number five is Governance ofrepparttar 137776 world—design inrepparttar 137777 universe speaks of a rational, caring, and orderly God.

Thomas’ A Posteriori Proofs (proving God’s existence by external things) stood solid throughoutrepparttar 137778 Middle Ages and intorepparttar 137779 Reformation, butrepparttar 137780 19th century turned things upside down. Philosophers like Hume and Kant tore intorepparttar 137781 argument of design with a vengeance. Kant affirmed thatrepparttar 137782 most it could prove was thatrepparttar 137783 universe had an architect. To convertrepparttar 137784 architect into God, a theologian would have to addrepparttar 137785 ontological argument. Later on scientists began attacking it. Scientists claimed thatrepparttar 137786 design inrepparttar 137787 universe is appearance but not reality and make their appeal to Darwin or evolution. They concede thatrepparttar 137788 hands and eyes of man are engineering marvels but emphatically claim that they arerepparttar 137789 products of millions of years of evolution.

But Darwinism isn’t every scientist’s rave. Evolution is refuted byrepparttar 137790 biologists who say that there isn’t enough time for evolution to take place by purely natural or chance factors withinrepparttar 137791 two billion years that life is supposed to have existed onrepparttar 137792 earth. It takes greater faith thenrepparttar 137793 theologian’s to believe that a bucket of dirt can evolve into a horse in a matter of ages. Then againrepparttar 137794 evolutions counter: The giraffe must grow a long neck to reachrepparttar 137795 leaves he feeds on;repparttar 137796 deer must develop long slender legs for running faster than his predator. These intra related connections speak of survival and adaptation ofrepparttar 137797 fittest. But onrepparttar 137798 other hand, in cosmic teleology no such connections exist. Evolution fails again. There is no necessary connection betweenrepparttar 137799 distance ofrepparttar 137800 earth fromrepparttar 137801 sun andrepparttar 137802 amount of nitrogen onrepparttar 137803 surface ofrepparttar 137804 earth. Again, to resort to probability or chance variation to produce these conditions calls for a greater miracle and a greater act of faith than believing in God (Bernard L. Ramm, A Christian Appeal to Reason, World Books Publishers 1972).

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