Background:
In my last post "On Believing 1", I stated out why believing in God is a rational, good choice.  However, I am still not content with my testimony coz I think it's too complicated.  What I mean by complicated is that I truly believe that everyone can believe in God (it's no doubt v. true)- both the uneducated and the highly educated.  And seeing that the process, many Christians believing in God, is actually a v. simple, straightforward, & almost natural response, I'm compelled to re-think about the common philosophical approach on believing.  Are many philosophers taking the wrong or extra long path in proving Christianity?  I will try to solve it here.  God bless.

To begin w/, let me explain 2 terms
1. General Revelation- God's creation, e.g. nature, humans, animals, universe, soul, etc, traces that there might be a God.  Here, God doesn't reveal himself to humans directly, just through his created works.
2. Specific Revelation- God reveals himself directly and explicitly to humans.

In our proof for the Bible God, there are 2 approaches, through 1) general revelation 2) specific revelation. Here's a brief description:
1. Everyone has gone through this stage either consciously or unconsciously, fast or slow.  For the majority, they notice that there seems to be a considerably better chance of existence than non-existence & quickly move on to stage 2 and test it further there.  For many philosophers & many highly educated (highly critical), they're inclined to debate exactly how high the chance is and many of them will stay long in Stage 1 and even not move on to Stage 2.
2. I refer this case to reading & examining the Bible (God¡¦s claim about himself & his creations).

My argument: the reason why many philosophers have a incredibly hard time proving God's existence or believing in God is they only argue in stage 1!

Here, I will describe the great limitations of Stage 1 arguing.

Analogy 1: Sickness

When you are sick, you have 2 choices:
1. By intuition & reasoning, you come up with solutions by yourself why you get sick (stage1).

2. You go ask the doctor (stage 2).
It is obvious; it's incredibly hard, ineffective & unreliable to prove God's existence merely by pure reasoning in Stage 1 due to a lack of information of God. However, if we move on to Stage 2, 1) first understand (get information) what God says about himself & his creation (he did say A LOT), 2) then analyze his claims, we can argue a lot more easily, effectively, & reliably.

Analogy 2: Roller Coaster
The best way to know whether you will feel high or not, riding a roller coaster is to actually ride it!  It's incredibly hard and extremely ineffective to only use pure reasoning (coz lack of information).  The easier & more reliable way is, to first experience it (get information) and test it.

In Stage 2 arguing, we are a lot surer.  Because, in the Bible, God says a lot, yes a lot about 1) who God is, 2) who human is, 3) what the world is, etc.  Given these many, many claims, God¡¦s existence can easily be proved or disproved.

Now, the question: why does a farmer (uneducated) can believe in God equally well as a philosopher (highly educated)?

My argument: believing in God requires life experience plus only basic reasoning.

In the Bible, God talks about life.  So how can we analyze his claim is true?  Use pure reasoning or philosophical thinking?  No!  Read it, understand it, live it, experience it & test it.  Everyone can do it & test it, why?  Because, everyone has a PhD. Life, so many years of living experiences.

You may say ¡§well, what the Bible says are really (or completely) true, but anyway it¡¦s written by a incredibly wise human being in ancient times¡K¡¨.  I¡¦d reply, ¡§I¡¦d call ¡§him¡¨ a superhuman.  No humans can ever have such a broad knowledge & write anything like this.  Why not call ¡§him¡¨ God¡¨.

Therefore, it¡¦s obvious a farmer might take a direct, straightforward path in proving God while a philosopher can take many extra, unnecessary (or even wrong) paths & end up in vain.  Also, it¡¦s no surprise for a farmer to have a stronger faith than a highly rational philosopher.

Next time if your friend asks you reasons for your faith, do explain to him gently and remember to urge him/her to be patient, humble, open-minded, and to understand before making conclusions (judging).  Lead him to read the Bible.

Give thanks to God from everlasting to everlasting, amen.

p.s.

There is no absoluteness in believing?  No, same as you believe your parents are really your parents (you didn't open your eyes wide open and watch she giving birth to you), you believe in the same way in God.