Monday, August 15, 2022

Another Argument for Christianity

Alexander Pruss has said somewhere that one of the reasons he believes in the Bible is that if it were false, then it would present a picture of God as loving us more than he in fact does.  But God wouldn’t let us overestimate his love for us.  So the Bible’s depiction of God and his actions is true. This argument is using a mix between perfect being theology and the content of Christian teaching.  

Recall what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 1 about the fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus, in which God, eschewing the partial and fragmentary revelations given by prophets and messengers, decides to himself come down in the person of the Son to live among us. Or recall Jesus’s statement in John about how the greatest act of love is a man laying down his life for his friends, something that Jesus promptly does on our behalf.  Christianity is unique in teaching that the perfect God deigned to to live among us and to sacrifice himself for us.  If Christianity were false, then we would be overestimating God’s love for us in believing it.  But given God’s character, he wouldn’t allow us to overestimate his love for us - he's far too good for that.  So Christianity is true.

I've been reflecting on this cute little argument over the past couple of days, and the more I think about it, the more I like it.

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