Has anyone become a Christian through arguments?

It was an essential link in the chain, part of the means God used.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Confessing to the Evidence

@dga471

God uses means (including us, amazingly), so it kind of depends what you mean by ‘through’. Through the work of the Holy Spirit is an absolute, but temporal means may vary.

Even with that qualification, are there many people who became a Christian by the proximate means of arguments?

The only person I can think of is Edward Feser, who gave up atheism after studying the arguments of Thomas Aquinas (Edward Feser: The road from atheism). I can certainly grant that apologetics can remove obstacles to faith, though that’s different than obtaining positive evidence of Christianity. The ultimate step of faith usually involves a special religious experience. (Even in this case it’s not easy to come up with examples.) And I cannot come up with anybody who became a Christian through scientific theories like the BBT.

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I became a Christian because of an encounter with Jesus though will add that regarding this topic, if anything how apologists (some with degrees in Physics) misunderstand, overstate and sometimes lie about Cosmology has certainly not encouraged my faith journey and been a struggle/battle internally.

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Sometime I’d love to hear your story @pevaquark.

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I just posted this recently at PS, speaking of arguments and evidence for Christianity:

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I’m sure there are people who are convinced to become Christians through arguments, but I think most people become Christians through upbringing from their Christian parents who are instructed to pass on the tradition. That’s how I was raised myself.

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There are more than Feser. Can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head who became a Christian through philosophical arguments quite the way he did, and for obvious reasons general natural theological arguments are at most effective for clearing the way for belief, rather than bringing someone to Christianity specifically. But there are examples of people who became Christians based on examination of the evidence for the resurrection - J. Warner Wallace is one, I think.

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I think i understand what @DaleCutler says here although i think i may not be not fully agreeable to his exact position. We become true Christians-that is those who are fully forgiven sinners who have been regenerated by the work of Jesus on the cross when we acknowledge that God exists who is a good God, perfectly righteous and holy in all of His ways, we admit that we have sinned against Him and have sorrow as a result, we then repent of sin, ask for forgiveness and take on a new existence as one remade, fully forgiven and taking on the righteousness of Jesus because He took the wrath we deserved on that cross. The resulting fruit is one of worship and reverence to God.

What @DaleCutler suggests i think is part of the very first biblical necessity for conversion-acknowledging the existence of God which the facts surrounding the universe having a beginning very much supply a seed that helps humans realize what many have suppressed:that God our Creator exists!

So i just disagree with an evangelism model that essentially comes alongside those entrenched in the mainstream naturalistic camp that by definition keeps God out of the picture while claiming to be one of them alike and telling them at the same time that all they need is Jesus because “jesus” to them could become something other that the true Jesus. He could become a humanistic ticket for my best life now or some other.

In conclusion, there is a very real valueable place for those in the ID camp which i believe makes a very real and valueable scientific argument that points to God as it combines itself with the story God tells in Scripture which we must accept by faith in order to become a child of God.

The ministry philosophy that seems to be of a sort of here at PS seems to be one of pretending to be a naturalist in order to win a naturalist to Christ may have good intentions but with longterm damaging effects to the faith we Christians hold dear about a very real God who created us in His image!

37 posts were split to a new topic: Greg, Creationism, and PS

Or apologetics can weaken faith in atheism, creating the possibility of placing faith in something else.

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I once read that the primary purpose of Christian apologetics isn’t really to convince skeptics, but for Christian to reinforce their beliefs and clear their own doubts. Honestly, I agree.

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I became convinced God exists because of 12th grade biology classes. This led to a curiosity about God and a search for him… I became a Christian because of an encounter with Jesus while reading scripture.

Science cannot make anyone a Christian. One needs the word of God, specifically the Gospel of Christ and the grace of the holy Spirit to be converted.

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That is why I specified ‘in human terms’. It wasn’t intended as a treatise in soteriology. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Even in human terms… Can’t be saved without hearing the Gospel.

Science doesn’t present the Gospel. So Science can’t be the reason someone becomes a Christian. Scientific knowledge, Argument’s about the ressurrected etc might help. But in the end of the day, it takes the Gospel and the work of the spirit to bring about repentance.
Let’s not forget salvation is a supernatural process. The description in “human terms” will also involve an encounter with the Divine.

We agree. I’m sorry I said anything. It wasn’t intended as a treatise in soteriology.

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Also…

In the Table Talk (collections of Luther’s comments on a variety of topics), we read of the following discussion (dated June 4, 1539) regarding these new ideas:

There was mention of a certain new astrologer who wanted to prove that the earth moves and not the sky, the sun, and the moon. This would be as if somebody were riding on a cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the earth and the trees were moving. [Luther remarked] “So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth [Josh. 10:12].”ii
After stating that the church’s understanding of special revelation had been corrected by students of natural revelation, Dr. Sproul illustrated his point with a reference to the introduction of new astronomical ideas in the sixteenth century.

Both Calvin and Luther rejected Copernicus as a heretic in the 16th century. I don’t know anybody in orthodox Christianity today who’s pleading for geocentricity. Do you? Do you know anybody? In that case the church has said, “Look, we misinterpreted the teaching of the Bible with respect to the solar system, and thank you scientists for correcting our misunderstanding.”

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That isn’t true. That was an informal comment, not a position of doctrine nor is it declaring anyone a heretic. It ends up being Lutheran presses that print the books for Copernican theory.

There are a few!

Sort of. The critical issue is the details of how.

Indeed. The one’s I’ve known apply that geocentricity in terms of position in the universe as a whole. That is, they claim that the earth is not the center of the solar system but that it is at the spatial center of the entire cosmos.

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