Why I am a Christian: An application of philosophical thinking (Now playing Old Necklace or Ba Tor Ba Heem, in Cantonese, by Sammi Cheng. If you want to listen to the Chinese version, there is a realaudio file here)
Introduction
Most people, after reading my testimony, commented about the radical nature of my decision to be a Christian. If you put it in a nicer manner, I accepted him out of rational reasons. If not, you will say that I am 'kiasi' (afraid to die) by accepting him.
I often thank God privately, as well as telling my closer friends, that I am glad I accepted him when I was young. Personally, if I am still not a Christian at this age, I think my tendency to think logically would hinder my acceptance of God. Now that I am saved, I admit that my logical nature often prevents me from being an 'ideal' Christian, that is spelt out by the mainstream Christians. After mixing with the Christians from FCBC as well as from other churches, I get this impression that the ideal Christian seems to be one who is like a child to God: teachable and unquestioning.
From my reading of the Bible, that viewpoint seems correct, given what Jesus said about the goats being separated from the sheep on Judgment Day, with God telling the goats that, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew 25:41). If you look at the difference between a sheep and a goat, a sheep is very submissive to the master while a goat tends to stray away. Of course, the above context should really mean Christians and non-Christians but it seems to reinforce what an ideal Christian should be.
Well, I personally believes that God has a plan for me. I know that, at this age of 26, if I am still not a Christian, I do not think I will accept Christ out of the usual 'feeling touched by God' scenario, that is often the case among Christians. As Shania Twain would sing, "That don't impress me much." If I am not a Christian by now, I would very much appreciate meeting a Christian who can argue with me logically on why there is a strong case for Christianity.
Now that I become a Christian, I can offer some basis for Christianity to those logical people out there. The model that I am basing on is the familiar Campus Crusade 'train' diagram, where there is an engine that represents facts, a fuel room that represents faith, and a passenger room that represents feelings. The idea is that the train would run even if there isn't a passenger car, thus I believe there can be a case for Christianity even though feelings are absent. The challenge is this: can a case be made for Christianity that abstracts from any emotional feelings? That is the case I am putting forth.
Christianity is an inductive argument
From my courses in Philosophy in my first year as an undergraduate in NUS, I formulated this argument for Christianity: Christianity is an inductive argument, not a deductive argument. Now, let us define the terms used here. A deductive argument is one where the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. To give an example of a deductive argument, consider the following:
Premise 1: If Socrates is a man, then he is a philosopher
Premise 2: Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Socrates is a philosopher
The basic idea behind a valid deductive argument is that, if you accept the first 2 premises as true, you must accept the conclusion. Any attentive first year philosophy undergraduate will be able to see that my above argument is in the form :
If P then Q
P
Therefore Q
Any argument with this kind of structure is always valid. There is a Latin name for this structure that I cannot seem to remember, but I think it is modus ponus. Any correction by the reader is appreciated.
Note that a valid argument need not be a sound argument. For a deductive argument to be sound, you need it to be valid, with the additional condition that the premises are indeed true. We can see that the above argument is not sound although it is valid, because premise 1 is false: Being a man does not necessarily means you are a philosopher. For more information about the structure of logic and deductive arguments, readers may refer to Element of Sentence Logic by Wayne Patterson, which is the textbook I used for my course.
An inductive argument, on the other hand, is an argument where the conclusion is not necessarily implied by the premises. I think all scientific arguments are of this form. From premises that describe an event happening with regularity, the scientist conclude that such an event will continue on in the future. The main difference is that, even though I may accept your premises as true, I need not accept the conclusion. An example would be from Newton's law of gravity
Premise 1: When I drop this pencil in the past, it always falls to the floor.
Conclusion: When I drop this pencil now, it will always falls to the floor.
Most of us would see nothing wrong with the above argument. Indeed, we may even see it as the conclusion necessarily following from the premises, just like the first argument. However, it was David Hume who blasted a hole into this thinking with the question that started the problem of induction, "How do we know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?" I shall not go into details of that argument now, anyone interested may contact me, but let me state the final conclusion: It is a matter of faith when we believe that the conclusion for the second argument follows from the premises. The truth is that we do not know that the pencil would fall to the floor if we drop it now.
Back to the topic on Christianity being an inductive argument, let me state a simple version of the argument for Christianity:
P1: Jesus claimed that he is God
P2: He died on the cross
P3: The body was gone on the third day
P4: People claimed that they saw him alive
Conclusion: Therefore Jesus must be God
Now, by examining this argument, we realize that, even though we may accept all the above premises as true, they still do not necessarily prove that Jesus is God. That is where the faith element come in, "Without faith it is impossible to please God," the author of Hebrew would say.
By rephrasing the argument in this way, I have one answer to those people who feels that they must find out more about Christianity, that they must be really sure it is the truth, before accepting Christ. The truth is that there is no way anyone can be sure about Christianity, just like there is no way for us to be really sure that the pencil would indeed fall to the ground if I release it now. Ultimately, it is an inductive argument. You can never run away from the faith element in Christianity.
Conclusion
There are some of you who might wonder, "Is that all? I thought Kelvin is going to give a deductive argument for Christianity. What is so impressive about this?" Trust me, I did try many times to reformulate the argument as a deductive one and I realize that it is impossible. You can believe that Jesus is resurrected from the dead while still not believing that he is God (Luke 16:31). What Christian apologetics are doing is to provide arguments that proved the premises to be true, for example, providing very good arguments that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, not that the disciples stole the body or the Roman guards fell asleep. However, we can never prove that Jesus is God from those arguments, just like you cannot prove that the Sun will rise tomorrow no matter how eloquent you try to.
Why I became a Christian, ultimately, is because I realize that there must be some kind of after-life. The world cannot just end for me when I die. It takes a lot more courage to stick dogmatically to the belief that there is no God, that everything was formed by chance, then to believe that there is some kind of God out there. The many incidents that happen in Jesus' life do show with an extreme high degree of probability that he is indeed God. You must be a lot braver rejecting those evidence than if you were to accept it. I often tell people this, even if in the end it is really one big joke, that God is a figure of our own imagination, at the very least, I would have peace of mind on earth. In the end, all of us would die and vanish with no chance for regretting anyway. But what if it is true? From the evidence I have reviewed, such as the testimonies of Christians, you really have to be very sure about your own dogmatism to reject Christianity.
Now, why did I choose Christianity then? To be fair, I was exposed to Christianity by my mother who brought me to Telok Ayer Methodist Church, and by my primary school, Anglo Chinese Primary School. Thus, it seems natural that I turned to Christianity first. As I looked at other religions for example, sometime when I was in secondary school, I realized that there is a big difference between Christianity and other religions. Christianity is the only belief that is personal, that means you relate to a God as a Father, as a comforter, as a friend. Other religions do not have this view about God. After conversing with God, after I witnessed my life being turned around, I became sure that this God must exists. I guess this is what Christians meant when they say faith is 'believing before seeing', rather than 'seeing before believing'
Thus, I hope I managed to show that, although nobody could accept Christ out of pure logic, there is really a lot of evidence out there that shows that Jesus is God with a high degree of probability. You can carry on rejecting the gospel but I really hope, for your sake, that you are right. Do not let what happen to the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 happen to you:
19There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores
21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died
and was buried.
23In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
24So he called to him, `Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water
and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
25"But Abraham replied, `Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus
received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from
here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
27"He answered, `Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house,
28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
29"Abraham replied, `They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
30"`No, father Abraham,' he said, `but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
31"He said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if
someone rises from the dead.'"