Randal Rauser: Is the Atheist My Neighbor?

True. However at no point does it resemble the Biola apologetic. Now, there still may be a place for philosophical arguments, especially engaging the philosophers, for example. Nonetheless, I wonder if it is better understood as an explanation, not a defense. After all, in the case of our faith, we might not be able to bring all the evidence into public. Much of our confidence rests in private experience too.

How do you bring personal experience into the conversation?

This is striking. I wonder if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems that most Christians have focused on defending minimal theism for a while now. However, Jesus is not reducible to theism, and (for me at least) he is the best apologetic for theism. I’ve come to understand Jesus as logically prior to confident theism, and much greater than theism too.

We’ve been discussing this on another thread: Jesus and Theism - #13 by dga471. I might share a story in a moment, but I’ve seen high interest in a secular contexts in Jesus, rather than “God”, and that He becomes the way to understanding the father. This is so salient a reality in my context that I’m not even comfortable calling myself a “theist” any more, even though I certainly do believe in God.

This leads to two questions:

  1. How do you see the relationship between theism and Jesus?

  2. I fully admit that I am a poor incoherent scientist, with no philosophical training. Is there a clearer way to explain this than I am doing so here?

1 Like