false 3 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 17:53:20 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 18:38:41 -0800 2008
While MacIntyre has a philosophical mind, and his sophisticated thinking is well-established in academia (e.g. currently professor emeritus in philosophy at Duke), his conclusion includes the idea that Christianity and God's existence cannot and should *not* be proven. He says so in his conclusion following several lines of thought. One is the theological nature of God, who has created individuals with will/freedom. If existence were like geometric proof, then this will would be violated. Another conclusion is that if one were to grant the skeptic's desire for God's existence to be proven building from a starting place of skepticism/unbelief, then the result cannot be the God of Christianity because the God proven would have a foundation of unbelief - an impossibility. Another line of thought is that most philosophical arguments for God's existence argue from things in the world to the existence of God. However, in Christianity, the world is not to be taken as evidence for existence of God. Rather it is to be understood as God's word - signs to be heeded.

I have not encountered elsewhere one final line of concluding thought in the book. This line I found to be personally applicable. The nature of Christianity is such that it compels people of all classes, races, and education or intellegence. True belief, then, cannot be exclusively accessed via intellectual argument, or else authentic Christianity would exclude all those who are not philosophical. "Simple-minded" Christians cannot inherently have a misguided faith. I tend to weigh rational argument more heavily in determining truth (or at least I think I do), but this weighting cannot be truly Christian as it cannot then be reflected in the nature of all those who are called to God. We can (and I still think, should) pursue lines of philosophical thought regarding difficulties in Christian belief, but *the* answer cannot be philosophical or it would not be accessible to all. Christian belief has at its core, (informed) trust at a personal level based upon the credibility of Jesus and the witness to Jesus. This makes me want to spend more time reading the Gospels and the revelatory testimony of Jesus, and considering in a detailed manner who he is, and less time thinking through so-called philisophical difficulties with Christianity!]]>