Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd

Author:Dr. Gregory A. Boyd
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Correspondence, skepticism, father and son, Letters
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CORRESPONDENCE 17

How can you believe that a man was God?

July 16, 1990

Dear Greg,

How is training for the 100k championships going? How are Shelley and the kids doing these days? Bring me up to date on everyone in your next letter.

I appreciate the love and care you expressed in your last letter. I’m sorry I don’t share your optimism about the prospects for my conversion, but who knows? I must admit, however, that your arguments on the resurrection of Christ were surprisingly strong. This obviously is no “blind leap of faith” you’ve been making. If nothing else, our discussions are beginning to answer the question I’ve had for so long about how you could go through all the schooling you’ve gone through, at some of the best graduate schools in the country, and continue believing this Christianity stuff. Even if I can’t agree with you, I must admit you stand on some pretty solid ground. It gives me a headache thinking about it because I think the event itself is so improbable. But there the evidence is!

I don’t feel like trying to nitpick at your evidence for the resurrection. I want to respond with a different approach. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I conceded that Jesus did resuscitate or something. The grave was empty. That would be a strange event, for sure, but I’m wondering whether it alone proves that this man is everything the Christians want to make Him. I mean, I’ve heard of other people coming back to life. Does this prove that they’re God?

Look, unexplainable things happen a lot in this world. Look at all those strange “UFO” markings over in England. Maybe what happened in the first century was that an unexplainable event occurred, and in the face of this the disciples kind of flipped out and thought Jesus must be God. In fact, maybe it was only Paul who flipped out to this extent (he always struck me as a bit off his rocker anyway). I’ve heard that he was the one who first believed that Jesus was divine. The Gospels rather portray Jesus in more earthly terms, as a great man who could work wonders (something I’m willing to grant).

What I’m trying to do, Greg, is reconcile the force of your evidence with a worldview that makes more sense to me. Concluding that Jesus was God just doesn’t. How can you believe that a man, a literal human being, was God? All the arguments in the world for the resurrection stop short of making this acceptable. That just seems to be something out of pagan superstition. It’s an utter contradiction! I know Christians hold to a Trinity, that part of God was down here while part of God was up there, or something like that. But simply hold that Jesus was a faith healer, who somehow resuscitated, and whose followers (one in particular) then went overboard making claims about Him explains everything without requiring a belief in such impossible notions.

Let me know what you think of this.

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