[Gathnet] To anyone who has an answer

[Stuart G Gathman]

-----Original Message-----
From: Elissa Gathman <thriftygirl at gathman.org>
Sent: Aug 6, 2004 11:18 AM
To: gathnet <gathnet at gathman.org>
Subject: [Gathnet] To anyone who has an answer

I was recently in a conversation with my grandmother who is an atheist. 
A question arose that I could not answer. We were talking about the book 
of Romans, and I  was explaining how God spoke/speaks through Paul to 
us. But then she asked how I know that it really is God speaking to us. 
How do we know that it's not Paul alone? Sure we can back up stories 
written in the bible through architectural findings. But the bible isn't 
all stories, how do we back up the parts of the bible that speak simply 
of gods love, and his commandments to us?
   Lissa

Dear Lissa,

I need to answer the question that your other grandmother raised to you.  She was questioning the inspiration of the scriptures by asking if Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or just from his own ideas.

She obviously has not read entire scriptures in depth or she would have discovered that the Bible is an integrated message system consisting of 66 books written over 2000 years by 40+ authors most of whom didn‘t even know each other.  The central message of the scriptures is:  Man has sinned,  God provided as solution to this problem by sending the Messiah (Jesus) to pay for our sins.

This message comes through even if parts of the scripture are removed!!!  You can take out all of Paul’s writings but the message is the same but it doesn’t have all of the color of the original whole.  It is like light.  You can look at an object in full sunlight but even if you look through colored glasses, by taking out part of the light, the object is still observable.

This is a unique characteristic of the Scriptures. No other book has this feature that I know of.   Certainly if you take the writings of Mohammed away from the Koran, you have nothing left!!!!

I think grandmother Seaman’s main problem is that she still hasn’t come to grips with God.  She is taking a horrible risk.  The great French Mathematician, Pascal wrote about the wager we take when we refuse to acknowledge God.  I am including an excerpt from his famous work, Pensees (meaning thoughts) which discusses this “wager” in more detail.  My hope and prayer is that she will soon see beyond the hurts she may have had in the past from church people and realize that they are insignificant when compared to God himself and the love he showed us by his death on the cross.

							Love,
							Der alt Grossvater




                                    PENSEES  (published in 1660)
                                by Blaise Pascal

--- If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since,
having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then
incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who
will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who
have no affinity to Him.
    Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason
for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they
cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world,
that it is a foolishness, stultitiam;* and then you complain that they
do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it
is in lacking proofs that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but
although this excuses those who offer it as such and takes away from
them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not
excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say,
"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can
decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us.
A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance
where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to
reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to
reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

    * I Cor. 1. 21.

    Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice;
for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having
made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses
heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both
in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
    Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked.
Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let
us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the
true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will,
your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to
shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one
rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one
point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the
loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If
you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then,
without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must
wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is
an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two
lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were
three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the
necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced
to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there
is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life
and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of
chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be
right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being
obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game
in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if
there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But
there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a
chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what
you stake is finite. It is all divided; where-ever the infinite is and
there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain,
there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is
forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather
than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of
nothingness.
    For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is
certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the
certainly of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be
gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the
uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty
to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a
finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not
an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the
uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an
infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss.
But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of
the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss.
Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on
the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the
stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from
fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our
proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in
a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the
infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of
any truths, this is one.
    "I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing
the faces of the cards?" Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc. "Yes, but I
have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am
not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe.
What, then, would you have me do?"
    True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason
brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour, then, to
convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the
abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith and do
not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and
ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you,
and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the
way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you
would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if
they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even
this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.
"But this is what I am afraid of." And why? What have you to lose?
    But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will
lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.
    The end of this discourse.- Now, what harm will befall you in
taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous,
a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those
poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I
will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at
each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of
gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last
recognise that you have wagered for something certain and infinite,
for which you have given nothing.
    "Ah! This discourse transports me, charms me," etc.
    If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know that it
is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after it, in prayer to
that Being, infinite and without parts, before whom he lays all he
has, for you also to lay before Him all you have for your own good and
for His glory, that so strength may be given to lowliness.