Most of the Christians I polled ended up describing faith as a feeling or experience. Though we don't find this language in the Bible, we do find it in the writings of Joseph Smith.
You ask me how I know he lives? Because of the compelling evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb, credible eye witness testimony of those who saw Jesus after he had been raised from the dead, and the authoritative word of the one who spoke the universe into existence.
Shane, your commentary has me thinking again about how our fallen natures have made our Christian faith uniquely unintuitive. Whereas all other religions are intuitively works-based with our earthly subjective feelings and desires informing our thoughts and actions, Christian faith is from the very beginning objective by way of the work of the Holy Spirit who opens our minds, eyes, ears, and hearts to our triune God and his truth.
The cornerstone of our faith is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Without the objective act of God coming from outside of ourselves and historically entering human time and space through his son, Jesus Christ, there is no basis for Christianity.
Out of this font of objective faith flow our responses which include not only God-glorifying fruits of the Spirit, but also our subjective feelings. The Bible is uniquely structured in this same way. The indicative (what God has done) always precedes the imperative (what God calls us to do). As your colleague Michael Horton likes to say, 'It's not "Do this and live". It's "Live and do this."' In our fallen state, this is totally unintuitive. This is why Satan relentlessly appeals to our earthly feelings.
This is great, Shane - thanks. One small quibble - and perhaps it's splitting hairs a bit - but Smith claimed to have received those as "revelations" from God, not actual appearances of God. Mormons retain the word "visions" for actual divine appearances.
You ask me how I know he lives? Because of the compelling evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb, credible eye witness testimony of those who saw Jesus after he had been raised from the dead, and the authoritative word of the one who spoke the universe into existence.
Shane, your commentary has me thinking again about how our fallen natures have made our Christian faith uniquely unintuitive. Whereas all other religions are intuitively works-based with our earthly subjective feelings and desires informing our thoughts and actions, Christian faith is from the very beginning objective by way of the work of the Holy Spirit who opens our minds, eyes, ears, and hearts to our triune God and his truth.
The cornerstone of our faith is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Without the objective act of God coming from outside of ourselves and historically entering human time and space through his son, Jesus Christ, there is no basis for Christianity.
Out of this font of objective faith flow our responses which include not only God-glorifying fruits of the Spirit, but also our subjective feelings. The Bible is uniquely structured in this same way. The indicative (what God has done) always precedes the imperative (what God calls us to do). As your colleague Michael Horton likes to say, 'It's not "Do this and live". It's "Live and do this."' In our fallen state, this is totally unintuitive. This is why Satan relentlessly appeals to our earthly feelings.
This is great, Shane - thanks. One small quibble - and perhaps it's splitting hairs a bit - but Smith claimed to have received those as "revelations" from God, not actual appearances of God. Mormons retain the word "visions" for actual divine appearances.