Hi Vulcan,
Incidentally, I think I'll be taking Nilsen's advice and trying to get some flight time in, so my apologies to anyone I don't get a chance to respond to.
Originally posted by Vulcan
Seagoon why your god?
Why not one of the original gods from say ancient egyptian times (that predates christianity), or mayan gods and so on?
If you prove that it is possible for a god to exist why does it have to be christian defined god (and not gods)?
Ah, there's the rub with evidentialist apologetics (arguments for the existence of God that appeal to general revelation - i.e. nature, science, logic) even if you can prove that there is a God, the most you have generally proved is the existence of Aristotle's "First Mover." Hence when Antony Flew, the great atheist philosopher and debater, was finally convinced by years of arguments that there was a God, all he became was a deist and not a Christian.
But to answer your question, I could say that a careful examination of the evidence would eliminate many of the ancient or eastern "gods" from the running (for instance some religions have an impersonal god ultiamtely incapable of creating, others posit a god who used pre-existing material to shape the universe, others are obviously anthropomorphisms - "man writ large" and simply could not fit the bill for the awesome creator and sustainer of the universe, others are obviously written about as mythical from the very beginning, rather than being historical, the Upanishads are an example of this) but none of those are the reason I would argue for that the God who created the universe is the Triune God of the Bible.
I will freely admit that it wasn't via evidence in natural revelation that I was persuaded that
"Yahweh, He is God!" (to quote the Israelites on Mt. Carmel after the "great debate" of 1 Kings 18) , it was actually being convinced that the witness of the New Testament to the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ was true. It wasn't evidence alone, obviously, evidence of itself will never convince anyone to
believe anything much less the testimony of scripture. As B.B. Warfield put it in
On Faith in its Psychological Aspects:
Something more, then, is needed to produce belief, faith, besides the evidence which constitutes its ground. The evidence may be objectively sufficient, adequate, overwhelming. The subjective effect of belief, faith is not produced unless this evidence is also adapted to the mind, and to the present state of that mind, which is to be convinced. The mind, itself, therefore — and the varying states of the mind —have their parts to play in the production of belief, faith; and the effect which is so designated is not the mechanical result of the adduction of the evidence.
That something more was a supernatural work that the naturalist denies is possible because his worldview forbids it, but if God does exist, then nothing logically precludes this, in fact revelation requires this supernatural change of heart in order for true faith to occur.
Anyway, so there it is, I believe that the Creator was the God of the Bible because I believe the testimony of Jesus and the eyewitness evidence presented by his Apostles. All of my subsequent examination of the manuscript and historical evidence since has confirmed that belief (and please believe me I try to read as widely as possible on both sides of the issue), so my trust in the authority of that word has only been strengthened and increased. In fact I've found that if we were merely talking secular history, then the manuscript and internal evidence to the historicity of the events in the NT would be found to be overwhelming by any reasonably objective historian, the fact that supernatural events and monumental truth claims are made however impells men to seek reasons not to believe the testimony (that I also know from personal experience).
Anyway, my tiny braincell is overheating, I'll try to write more in a little while. In the meantime, I'm going to go let the N00bs totally pwn the rusty old man online.
