Convergence: Philosophy Confirms Christianity-by Timothy McGrew

(Timothy McGrew is one of the four contributors of the book, Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy, (Zondervan, 2016)

In my contributions to this volume, I argue for two central claims: that we can (and ought to) observe the same standards of evidence in questions about Christianity that we would (and ought to) observe in any other historical inquiry; and that if we do, we will find in the end that the public evidence for Christianity points to something fully compatible with our best philosophical reasoning.

The other contributors disagree. Oppy thinks that the public evidence points instead toward naturalism; Moser dismisses appeals the public evidence, which in his view does not yield any significant reason to believe in a God worthy of worship, in favor of a personal existential encounter; and Oliphint denies that anyone except a Christian can evaluate the evidence rightly.

Each of them is, I think, responding to something right. To Oppy I would grant that some pieces of public evidence, considered in isolation or viewed in soft focus, point toward naturalism. But our responsibility is not to jump to a conclusion on the basis of a casual glance at part of the available evidence; it is to arrive at the best conclusions we can based on a careful consideration of all of the evidence available. And that evidence is very rich, much richer than most skeptics or even most Christians commonly believe. (For complete article, here.)

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