I do not even think these empirical claims have to

Comment on Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science by Sean Pitman.

I do not even think these empirical claims have to be literally true for Christianity as a religion based on following Christ to be true.

Finally we’re getting somewhere – and I can now understand why you were so unwilling to answer my question as to the basis for your belief in certain empirical claims of the Bible. You really don’t believe that these empirical claims you “believe in” are literally true – or at least they don’t have to be literally true.

You claim to believe some of the empirical claims of the Bible but these beliefs of yours are more about ethical truths than empirical truths – right? Not even the existence of Jesus has to be literally true? As long as the story is generally accepted and is promoted by the community of faith, that, in itself, is good enough for you. It really doesn’t matter if Jesus was or was not literally God incarnate, was actually born of a virgin, really did rise from the dead, or if there really is a literal resurrection of the righteous or a placed called Heaven – or even if Jesus literally existed at all. None of this really matters to your faith or to your view of Christianity. It could all be nothing more than an elaborate “cunningly devised” moral fable like Moby-Dick as far as you’re concerned. Yours really isn’t anything more than a subjectively derived faith in the ethics of Christianity and nothing more.

You could actually be an atheist for all the empirical claims of Christianity really matter to you. After all, there are many atheists who do in fact subscribe to all of the ethical standards of Christianity – even to the point that they should be considered for sainthood considering all the good deeds that they’ve done and love that they’ve shown. And, for you, that’s all that really matters. Your position really isn’t an argument against atheism at all. In fact, it tends to draw those away from the rationality of the empirical claims of Christianity toward an atheistic or, at the very least, a theistic position.

Of course, as far as the basis for salvation is concerned, I would agree with you (which is not a fundamentalistic position). I believe that salvation is not going to be based on true knowledge or honest errors in thinking regarding empirical realities. Salvation is going to be based on motive – on the motive of love for one’s fellow man. That’s it.

However, the Christian Gospel of hope is based on more than the presentation of true ethics and some nice moral fable with which to present these ethical truths. The Gospel message is based on the literal truth of the empirical claims of the Bible. If you undermine the credibility of these empirical claims, you undermine the rational basis for the Christian hope in a literal future after death. A belief in the ethics of Christianity isn’t enough to give one a solid hope or faith in the reality of the resurrection of the righteous and Heaven to come and a world made new as it was originally intended to be – a world without evil and suffering. A solid hope or faith in such empirical realities requires solid empirical evidence that goes well beyond a good moral fable.

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Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science

God given gifts are not what we receive from Adam after his sin. The work of the Holy Spirit comes by way of the atonement and if there was no atonement, there would be no “God given gifts.”

The promise of atonement was in existence from the foundation of our world and “from eternity past”. That is why Jesus could tell Adam and Eve that He would immediately step in and provide the necessary “enmity” between us and evil that would enable them and all of their offspring to resist evil and cling to God. Jesus’ sacrifice on the crossed reached into the future as well as the past and took in the entire human race…

No parent would agree with this statement. Children have no feelings of guilt until and unless they are taught right and wrong. And this process begins immeadiately at birth as mother’s begin the process of instruction.

I am the father of two small boys (5 and 3) and I can tell you by my own experience that you’re wrong. Very young children do inherently know right from wrong on a very basic level without having to be taught about what to think or believe and do experience guilt without having to be taught about it. Beyond this, you are ignoring the scientific studies in this regard. It’s been established experimentally as I’ve already pointed out to you. You also ignore what Paul said in Romans about the heathen having the law written on their hearts so that it is “natural” to them even without having ever read or ever hearing the written law. According to Paul they instinctively know right from wrong…

Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
Again, the basic ability to recognize love and exhibit love does not “have to be taught” by parents. A child will also naturally feel guilty for doing harm to another – without the need to be taught about feeling guilty for doing wrong. On the other hand, if you were correct, those who did not have good parents, or had no parents at all, would have an perfect excuse before God for why they didn’t choose to act lovingly toward their neighbors. They would feel no guilt or remorse for anything wrong that they did. After all, according to your argument, no one is born with a conscience – or an inherent knowledge of any kind of moral right or wrong to any degree. You claim that the conscience does not exist at all before one is taught, by one’s parents. You claim that there is no way to know right from wrong unless one is taught by some outside source of information. However, in reality, no one has such an excuse because all are in fact born with an internally-derived conscience regardless of the goodness or training, or lack thereof, of one’s parents.

It is a studied fact that a very young child naturally knows what is right regarding the Royal Law of Love on at least a very basic level… and is naturally attracted to it. This knowledge is hardwired – by God. That is why, yet again, Paul described this ability among the heathen as “natural” – not something that they had to learn from their parents, but understood by having the Law written on their hearts by God (Romans 2:13-15). This Biblical claim is actually backed up by modern research that shows that very young babies do in fact have an innate sense of right and wrong (Link).

And, Ellen White also speaks of children having a God-given conscience that must be considered in their training. They are not like animals that are born without a conscience:

The training of children must be conducted on a different principle from that which governs the training of irrational animals. The brute has only to be accustomed to submit to its master; but the child must be taught to control himself. The will must be trained to obey the dictates of reason and conscience. – Ellen White, January 10, 1882

So, here we have a child being born with inherent God-given gifts of both reason and conscience. Such gifts are created as internally-derived gifts by God. Call it “hocus pocus” of you want, but God is in fact a Divine creator who is well able to create such gifts with no less ability than He is able to create the universe or the complexities of the living human body. Therefore, it is not the parents who create the original ability for “enmity” against evil within their children. Parents do not get the credit for this basic ability to judge right from wrong. After all, it is God who said that He is the one who would create this enmity against sin within the human race (Genesis 3:15). He did not leave this up to us to create within our children. It is God and only God who creates the conscience in each one of us. Our responsibility toward our children is to train them on how to apply, maintain, grow, and guard their God-given gifts of reason and conscience. We nurture the plant that God has made, so to speak, but we did not create the original seed from which the plant was made able to grow.

Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
You’re confusing different concepts. I’ve already pointed out that it is a miraculous act on the part of God that we are able to recognize the beauty of holiness and be truly free moral agents – despite being born with fallen sinful natures. Your problem is that you believe that this information, the knowledge of the goodness of love, is taught and must be learned over time. This just isn’t true. It is given by God as internally-derived information that is indeed “written on the hearts” of all mankind – from birth.

It is only because of this that Paul argues that the heathen “naturally know” right from wrong (Romans 2:13-15). Paul specifically claims here that God has made this knowledge part of everyone’s inherent nature – an internally derived truth that is completely natural or internally derived and need not be learned over time. And, this “natural” gift of God isn’t “hocus pocus” any more than any other miraculous act of God. Your argument that the heathen are taught various truths that have been handed down over time (such as the truth of marriage for example) doesn’t hold water. For example, there are many non-Biblical forms of marriage observed by various heathen cultures. What the heathen do naturally recognize, however, is the goodness of the Golden Rule to do unto others as you would have them do unto you… the Royal Law of selfless love for one’s fellow man.

Consider, in summary, that it would be impossible to even recognize “objective truth” without a pre-existing internal moral compass by which to determine truth from error. How do you know “the truth” when you see it? How do you know how to judge right from wrong? You only know because you’re given a conscience from birth that guides you toward the moral truth when you see it. It is this compass, this enmity against Satan, that has been supernaturally implanted by God, from birth, in every single human being.