The God Contention

Would you accept that, had you been born in Saudi Arabia, you would more than likely be defending the Quran and Allah with the same vehemence that you now defend Christ?

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CHRISTIAN View

Absolutely not: if I were born in Saudi Arabia, reality would be incoherent.

The only things that can happen are the things God has willed to cause to happen. If these things did not happen, it would only be because God willed not to cause them to happen. God only causes that which He prefers to cause, so for Him to have caused other than what He has caused, He would have to prefer other than what He prefers.

However, He is who He is, and He cannot deny Himself (Exodus 3:14; 2 Timothy 2:13).

If He preferred the negation of what He prefers, He would not be who He is. He would be a different God -- a contradictory one.

Were I born in Saudi Arabia, God would not be God, rather He would be NOT-God. NOT-God is not capable of creating a coherent reality, as NOT-God is incapable of being absolutely perfect, since God is definitively absolutely perfect. Remove any of His characteristics, turn Him into NOT-God, and whatever is left is lacking.

NOT-God would be clearly incapable of universally making correct decisions, as evidenced by his choice to have me born in Saudi Arabia, when in the perfect and correct plan I would have been born in Virginia. As one incapable of universally making correct decisions, He would be incapable of defining actual correctness. With correctness undefined, everything that depends upon correctness would likewise be undefined. Knowledge itself would be impossible, and reality would therefore be incoherent.

No one would be defending anything if I were born in Saudi Arabia, for no assertion would have a "correct" meaning and without assertions there would be nothing to defend. The one true God would not be; and the one true God (exactly as He is) is necessary for anything to be coherent.

But perhaps the intended question was something more along the lines of "are most Christians the children of Christians, and most Muslims the children of Muslims?"

If this is the intended meaning behind the question, I admit I have never thoroughly investigated whether or not this is the case, but it seems like a reasonable assumption and I have no particular reason to doubt it. But I sense from the way the question was phrased that this is somehow supposed to act as an argument against Christianity, and I fail to see how it gains any ground toward that end.

God is in control of everything, including which nations people are born into (Acts 17:26). However, lest someone think that being born into a Muslim family is a justifiable excuse to deny the one true God, the God of the Bible, the Bible itself rejects this reasoning. As Romans 1:20 explains, "since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

While it may be easier to commit murder when you are surrounded by murderers, and easier to reject the one true God when surrounded by others who do likewise, neither behavior is excused.

Comments

Tony writes:
Tim,

I am not entirely surprised that you have given little thought to the question of whether Muslims believe what they believe because they just happen to have been born, raised and indoctrinated into the Muslim faith. However, this is quite undoubtedly the case, as it is with Christians, Mormons, Jews, Hindus etc. While it is undoubtedly true that not every single person born to Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Mormon or Hindu parents goes on to share that belief, it is nonetheless highly likely. My point is that your faith in Christ is simply an accident of birth and has absolutely no bearing on the truth or otherwise of your claims. Indeed, had you been born in Saudi Arabia, you would be proclaiming the truth of the message of Mohammed and supporting this by quoting from the irrevocable and perfect Quran.
Timothy McCabe writes:
If we presuppose that birth is an accident, my claims would be nonsense (as would every other claim). But birth being an accident is not the Christian position -- it is planned by the sovereign God. Thus, if Christians are Christians because of their parents, then Christians are Christians because of God's perfect plan. This is in complete accord with scripture.

Again, I fail to see your point. Your argument only makes sense if we presuppose a non-Christian perspective before we come to it, making the argument circular. There's nothing logically wrong with circular arguments, of course, but your entire worldview fails to be fully circular -- it is a broken circle, making it incoherent:

http://www.godcontention.org/index.php?qid=431
Tony writes:
My point is very simple, yet you continue to deliberately misunderstand and misconstrue it, which is disappointing and could lead me to conclude (were I to be uncharitable) that you were bearing false witness. However…

You are a Christian because you were born in a Christian country to (presumably) Christian parents. That is why you believe in Christ. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether what you claim about Christ is true or not.

Had you been born in a predominantly Muslim country, it is almost 100% certain that you would believe exactly the same things about Allah and Mohammed and would be just as confident that these claims were true, and that you were born a Muslim because of Allah’s perfect plan, once again in accordance with the Quran. There is as much evidence to support this assertion (which is to say, none) as there is for the assertion that you are a Christian because Christ wanted it to be so.
Timothy McCabe writes:
Tony,

I myself am a Christian because I know Christ; I have met Him and He has spoken to me and I to Him; He has responded to me in moments of crisis with audible wisdom other than what I was expecting, leading me to conclude that it was not a figment of my own imagination; He has changed me from the inside out.

Muslims today do not claim this about either Mohammed or Allah.

God bless.
Tony writes:
Next time you speak to Christ, ask him for proof of Goldbach’s Conjecture and post it on this site. Then I night be inclined to take what you say a little more seriously. I strongly suspect you won’t, and I predict that you’ll make the excuse that you can’t test god, but the truth is (and It pains me to say it) you are clearly deluded.

If I was hearing voices in my head I'd be straight off to the doctor. I don't mean that in any nasty or spiteful way, I really don't.

Oh and by the way, Muslims don't claim to hear the voice of god for exactly that reason - how can they be sure it's not a hallucination or the devil playing tricks? They can't, so they don't.
Timothy McCabe writes:
LOL -- obviously, I'm not God's sovereign (by definition). I'll be happy to ask Him for you, but what He does is up to Him.
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