tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post6328708140074621712..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: Rev. James FosterBrad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-28866989916306274402014-01-13T14:09:03.665-07:002014-01-13T14:09:03.665-07:00Yes I do notice the similarity in argument.Yes I do notice the similarity in argument.Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-76042707142781251232014-01-12T13:59:16.302-07:002014-01-12T13:59:16.302-07:00I can't do justice to everything Foster's ...<i>I can't do justice to everything Foster's book says, but I understand the bottom line of its defense of Christianity as follows: Yes, Christianity essentially republishes the law of nature as discovered by reason, but the New Testament does this almost perfectly so. So much so that it operates as a "shortcut" for most ordinary men who don't possess the philosophical acumen of the wisest of philosophers who can figure these things out without the need for special revelation.</i><br /><br />Obviously these ideas were floating around for 100 years. Locke's "Reasonableness of Christianity takes a similar tack, although even the best of philosophers didn't nail it all down.<br /><br /><i>"And it is at least a surer and shorter way, to the apprehensions of the vulgar, and mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with visible authority from him, should, as a king and law-maker, tell them their duties; and require their obedience; than leave it to the long and sometimes intricate deductions of reason, to be made out to them. Such trains of reasoning the greatest part of mankind have neither leisure to weigh; nor, for want of education and use, skill to judge of. We see how unsuccessful in this the attempts of philosophers were before our Saviour’s time. How short their several systems came of the perfection of a true and complete morality, is very visible.<br /><br />...<br /><br />"...whatever else was the cause, it is plain, in fact, that human reason unassisted failed men in its great and proper business of morality. It never from unquestionable principles, by clear deductions, made out an entire body of the “law of nature.” And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers, and compare them with those contained in the New Testament, will find them to come short of the morality delivered by our Saviour, and taught by his apostles; a college made up, for the most part, of ignorant, but inspired fishermen."</i>Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com