Is Jesus the Circular Messiah?

I think Archer is referring to those who claim a personal experience of God, ex-Bible, and who subsequently come to believe the Bible to be Gods word - as a consequence of that experience.Me, for instance.

Hardly.I do believe (like you do) that what is called the external reality around me actually exists and is external. That external reality happens to include God in my case and not in yours.There is no reasoning about it as Archer points out above - for either of us. Thus there can be no circular reasoning involved. Subsequent beliefs - such as 'Jesus my saviour' are built on that starting assumption regarding the external reality - just like the world being round is build on the same starting assumption made by you.- Sure I heard about him (although I'd be embarrassed to repeat the extent of it here). So?- But you've heard and you're not a Christian. Which demonstrates that there isn't a whole lot contained in the point you would like to make about "my having heard of Christ" above. Unless you want your bread buttered on both sides that is.- It would be better described as a personal experience of God. How did I know? Well, God was able to make it so that I know. God is capable of that (per definition). Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Logically, the God I experienced can be Jesus. Culture need not have anything to do with it. Your reasoning reaches a tad too far. Not so. The point about assuming the external reality to be real was made to demonstrate that that which you know to be real (as oppose to believe to be real) is not based on reasoning. It's based on an assumption made about the reality as you perceive it. From post-salvation reading of the Bible of course (what I knew prior to that - from being "steeped in Christian culture" and all, wouldn't actually fit on the back of a postage stamp.)Before you run off supposing circles though. I don't hold that you have to believe-that-Jesus-is-your-saviour in order to be saved. I was saved first. Then I came to believe that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. And I came to know that I was saved.You don't need to know you have been saved in order to be saved. Saved is Gods action. Knowing about it also - but probably subsequent to the event. The sequence would go something like this.1st: There was the experience of life before (lets call it) God turned up2nd: Then there was the experience of (lets call it)God turning up (even though I didn't know it was God turning up at first)3rd: Then there was the reading of the Bible and finding that the Bible described the experiences I had before and after God turned. Via parable, allegorically, via others experiences etc. But precisely for all that.Thus, I have this old collection of books (lets call it the theory) and I have experience (lets call them my observations). As with any theory, unless something comes along which better explains the observations then the current theory stands. Braham couldn't better explain the observations.Note that I reason my way to my current position. And it isn't circular reasoning. Leaving aside no-true-Christian issues, there are sufficient people who have heard and who don't believe to render your attempt to join-the-cultural-dots tentative at best. In the case where it occurs. The dots you need to join are the ones that say it did occur in my case. And does occur in all such cases. Until then the circular charge is but tentitive. Again you issue the charge to easily. God can exist. God can make himself known to a person. If he does and he did then there would be no reasoning about it from the persons perspective - the person would just know and could simply state what they know without having to say they reasoned it out.That said, I could have answered a little better. Hopefully the reasoning a little above will have given you a little to chew on before issuing the next circular charge.

A person is knocked unconscious in a car accident, is freed from the wreckage and given the breath of life by a passerby. They have been saved - despite it being only later that they come to realise that is what occurred. So was it with me: saved by Christ without my knowing it at the time. Any description that follows is from the perspective of my knowing now what was happening then. I didn't and couldn't have known then what was in fact happening.At the point of my salvation I didn't believe in Jesus Christ as my saviour - for why should I? I didn't even believe in Gods existance - for why should I? What I did believe though, what I was fully convinced of, was something that God was attempting to bring me to conviction about. That I didn't know then that it was God who working to convince is neither here nor there. All that mattered was that:a) God was the one who was acting to convince me
b) I was convinced of what he was telling meI was convinced I was a lost cause. No good. Rotten at core (irrespective of what lay on the surface or what I might thin of myself once I buried the conviction again). Not a lost cause wrt to any celestial moral system - just lost according to what I knew my own conscience to inform me of. Turns out my own conscience was one of the tools used by God to convince me.I didn't believe in Gods existance. Any gods existance. But I was convinced that unless God existed then there would be no hope for me to escape the truth about me. God, knowing precisely when I would reach this point (and that I would reach this point) was there to guide me to cry out to him. It wasn't so much in the getting his name right. It was in the content of the cry. "I need you"Or "I surrender" if you prefer the mans rebellion picture instead of the prodigal son one. Last census in Ireland produced a figure of approx 90% of Irish people who identified as Christian. The vast majority of them are not Christians. Brian conflates cultural Christiandom with Christianity. Granted, there is the problem of teasing out what is a Christian. But it's his problem as much as it's mine.I'm not of the opinion that a person need even have heard of Christ or the gospel in order to be saved. Everybody has a conscience and everyone can be convinced by that conscience - where ever and whenever they lived. Perhaps in the States that argument would hold water. But not in secularised Ireland. Brians notion of Ireland as a land of Saints and Scholars, dripping Christianity at every pore is about as authentic as a land of leaping leprauchauns. He uses it as a debate ploy so as to take a stab at Christianity. Not because it reflects reality.If anything, Ireland was rabid Roman Catholic - meaning a Bible was about the furthest book from anyones mind.As to why I headed for the Bible? Despite the secularism and despite the Religionism, there are Christians in Ireland - as there are in probably most countries in the world. Christians spread the good news to those around them and when the light goes on for a person, the Christian is there to pick up the born again pieces.There's much to know - and no time for the wasting. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I'll take that as sufficient a retraction from your previously absolutest position. Exactly. You doing any different to me? Christians pointed me in the direction of it. I'd do the same for someone who I saw was born again. Your conflating the mother birthing a child with the nurse smacking it's arse. If saving someone is merely a piece in the mechanism whose role is to bring those who want to be with God to God. And damnation is merely a piece in the mechanism that ensures that those who don't want to be with God won't be ... then you don't have to wonder why anymore.He picked me because I (unbeknownst to myself, consciously, before the fact) wanted him.I see only good in a God who lets beings decide upon their own eternal destination. My knowing or not knowing doesn't alter Jesus being my saviour. Had I been saved but knocked down crossing the road 2 seconds afterwards then Jesus would still be my saviour. After I was saved? I'm pretty certain of the opposite. But assuming you were right, at least I'd be a saved muslim. God is no respector of persons (in the sense: what's in a name) The means whereby I am saved and my knowledge of the means whereby ... are two different things. That someone gives an unconscious man the kiss of life is an altogether different affair to the mans knowing of the who/what/when/where/how of his survival. Conflation Brian - and far too much today for a EvC-er of your calibre. I don't suppose the Old Testament characters knew of Jesus conquering death. Certainly Abrahm was declared righteous on account of something completely other than belief in Jesus's death and resurrection. Yet Paul utilises his case as the model of salvation in Romans. That's not quite what I said. I said that the theory (Bible) explains the observations (my experience). That's not to say that there aren't other theories out there (religious and non) that would attempt to explain my observations. How did I know that I needed to be saved from something? Experience told me so. The Bible hung a title on it and elaborated on it. Surely the naming of the source of the bad smell and the mechanics of why it smells as bad as it does is other than the experience of the smell? If you experience a bad smell and find a solution after many years surely you could begin to suspect you are on the right track? There must be some explanation for the world being the way it is. Original sin best explains the universality of man being as man is. In my opinion. To be honest, neither was I. I was saved before I ever got to worrying about being looked after - forever or otherwise. I was just dog tired of being me. Drink, drugs and crime are just some of the ways to have a shitty life. Successaholic, materialaholic, thrillacholic, sexaholic are somewhat less frowned upon by society but just as shitty. They fill the ranks of Christianity in my experience - as bottom of the barrel as the drug/drink addict.The issue before God is those who are poor in spirit - however arrived at. God is only ever found at the bottom of a barrel. I'm not sure that anyone has ever figured out how to figure out that probability. Yours is a figure of speech then - meant to underline your (atheistic?) philosophy only. I'm not sure I understand. I answered a question and a new one pops up - apparently unrelated to the issue I was addressing. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

And the point made that the reason could be other than that they simply heard about Jesus already? That it was in fact Jesus - the having heard about him beforehand being neither here nor there? What about the case where:1. The person has an experience/experiences2. The Bible describes those experiences and elaborates upon them in a way that resonates better than any other description one has encountered regarding those observations. Furthermore, the Bible also describes other experiences in predictive fashion which the person subsequently observes.3. The person comes to believe other things that the Bible says which have yet to demonstrate themselves to be so.Which would be a reasoned thing to do. Without that reasoning being circular

This about it; it wouldn't come under the cultural self-feeding process you described.

I can't comment on how many people have mystical experiences about (your words) real supernatural entities. The large numbers who claim to have experienced such a thing can be divided (potentially) into those;- who have had a mystical experience with a real supernatural entity.- who have had a mystical experience with a imaginary supernatural entityThere is no need for me to escape the fact that the totality of numbers covered by the two options above is large nor is there a need for me to escape the fact that there is a very strong correlation between culture and interpretation-of-experience.I am simply pointing out that given the above possibility, any attempt to connect interpretation-to-culture as if it must govern all cases, fails. For example, perhaps few people actually have an experience with a real supernatural entity. And perhaps those few Muslims who become Christians belong to the relative few having that real experience and the rest (muslims who don't become Christians) are culturally influnced. And perhaps only a few of the many Christians in Ireland actually have had an experience with a real supernatural entity - the rest of the 'Chrisitans' in Ireland being culturally influenced (which certainly appears to be the case)Sift all the worlds nations out and a few Christians settle out to the bottom of all populations; whether Christianity was cultural or not in their locality. Perhaps.The point isn't to argue the Christian case, but to illustrate a problem the Cultural-Christian-Only argument faces

True - with the external reality 'we' would agree 'we' share being part of my own mystical experience. I do accept I could very well be the proverbial brain-in-jar. GrantedSuffice to say, Brians circle fails to square. Impossible for us mayhaps. But if God - let's say God of the Bible, then not impossible for him to sort out for us. It would be hard to imagine an argument that would render the creator of the universe unable to manifest himself to a person in a way that is any less satisfactory that anything else that manifests itself to us.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

As (or more) convincing that God himself manifesting himself? Only if God choose to limit himself so as to permit the demon to trump him in the manifestation stakes.But if God choose to trump the demon then a person would know it is God manifesting because God would conform them into a state of absolute knowledge - something the demon clearly cannot do.Being in a state of absolute knowledge renders the usual argument about testing perceptions void. That is to say, the usual reason given for testing our perceptions (against an arbitrary standard it must be said) lies in the fact that we decide our perceptions can fool us (when measured against an abitrary standard). It's us testing us against a standard decided upon by us. Now that's circular!No such testing is required if God manifests himself because there is no reliance our our ability to percieve - rather the reliance would be on Gods ability to conform us to knowledge of him.

Starvation beckons..