The Benefit of the Doubt
From God Didn’t Create Robots: Commonsense Christian Apologetics
As a near-to-last point in this opening introduction…if we have a conflict or an issue with some colleague at work…and we discuss this with a friend who thinks well of us…that friend will give us the supportive benefit of the doubt upon hearing the details.
But a person who is a friend, yet who may not think as highly of us, may automatically take the side of the other person in the dispute…upon hearing the details…and begin to question our handling of the situation…in a knee-jerk, critical fashion…not giving us the benefit of the doubt…thereby exposing their true lower opinion of us.
The biblical narrative stories of faith are filled with people giving God the benefit of the doubt in their adventures of faith.
Every positive person of faith in the Bible has a personal relationship with God that has the universal element of giving God the benefit of the doubt…even amidst difficult and challenging events, and the negatively trending direction of outward appearances.
Biblical characters that immediately come to mind in this regard are Abraham going to Canaan (Heb. 11:8), Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison desperately holding on to the promise of his two earlier dreams received years before in Canaan (Gen. 37:7, 9), and Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:11, 4:20).
Jeremiah has a continual, ongoing dialogue with God about the stubborn unbelief of the Jerusalem leaders. Elijah complains bitterly to God about the overwhelming pushback and resistance he is encountering in his calling as a prophet in apostate Israel under the rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Other notable people who gave God the benefit of the doubt through difficult challenges are Joshua, Samuel, Job, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all of the minor prophets…to name only a few in the Old Testament.
The Psalms in the Old Testament are filled with people having a personal relationship and dialogue with God…giving God the benefit of the doubt to come through for them in the middle of challenging difficulties.
David’s famous 23rd Psalm is all about giving God the benefit of the doubt.
People of faith in the New Testament actually spent face-time in person with Jesus the Son of God (Jn. 1:14)…and gave Him the benefit of the doubt amidst pushback and resistance to His message and ministry…pushback of deadly intensity (Jn. 11:8, 16).
This idea of the people of faith giving God the benefit of the doubt during the course of their journeys of faith…giving to God the value and worth that putting trust and faith in another person entails…has enormous commonsense, apologetic value as an argument for the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
This has apologetic value by virtue of its existence as evidence of genuine relationships…very subtle yet solid evidence that holds water because the benefit of the doubt is there…integrally and inseparably embedded within the events and circumstances of the storyline scripts. This evidence would not exist at all in the storylines…if it was not in fact a true indication of the real connection of personal relationships between people and the living God.
This subtle element is baked into every biblical adventure of faith…and cannot be homogenized out without damaging the storylines.
This component of giving God the benefit of the doubt is a powerful clue that these relationships…these stories of faith…are real.
A moral concept as subtle yet as powerful as this could not be the product of collusion on the part of the 40 different authors spanning 1,500 years in the writing of the Bible…universally giving God the benefit of the doubt from Genesis through Revelation…from beginning to end…without the slightest hint of progressive evolution or creative development in the portrayal of biblical faith…as would be expected with a humanistic origin.
The life-stories of Abraham through Paul in the Bible…all depicting biblical faith having this common ingredient of giving God the benefit of the doubt…as religious fiction invented by human writers inspired out of the narrow realm of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking alone…as an explanation for their origin…is again nonsensical.
Like the massive infusion of creative information that entered into the natural world to form the complex living creatures during the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago…inexplicable as a materialistic or naturalistic event…the correct answer to the question of the origin of the biblical narrative stories of faith is that they are a divine creation of God.
The complex and functionally coherent information that enters into the human experience…suddenly and instantly in the form of a God-composed adventure of faith…starting with Abraham…is the action of an independent agent God…providing commonsense apologetic evidence for both His existence…and for the truth of the Bible.
No one can write a fictional novel or short story without revealing something of themselves in the storyline.
In the biblical narrative stories of faith…God not only reveals His divine authorship through His supernatural participation in the storylines in a way that is outside of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…by introducing the way of the cross…but also exposes something of Himself in revealing His intention to introduce Himself to the people of faith in each biblical storyline…and in the process reveal something of Himself to us today…through the context of life-scripts designed to create the incredible opportunity to exercise the benefit of the doubt in the living God.
Mechanical robots cannot fathom the concept of respect. Neither can robots plumb the depths of giving someone the supportive benefit of the doubt of placing faith, trust, and dignity in another person…extending the gift of value, worth, and validation to that person.
Our non-robotic, analytical capacity for moral reasoning and free-will choice…wrapped within our physical living bodies having all of the marvelous abilities and talents we possess…may be the single-most, top-tier apologetic evidence for the existence of God…easily accessible to commonsense contemplation.
As a near-to-last point in this opening introduction…if we have a conflict or an issue with some colleague at work…and we discuss this with a friend who thinks well of us…that friend will give us the supportive benefit of the doubt upon hearing the details.
But a person who is a friend, yet who may not think as highly of us, may automatically take the side of the other person in the dispute…upon hearing the details…and begin to question our handling of the situation…in a knee-jerk, critical fashion…not giving us the benefit of the doubt…thereby exposing their true lower opinion of us.
The biblical narrative stories of faith are filled with people giving God the benefit of the doubt in their adventures of faith.
Every positive person of faith in the Bible has a personal relationship with God that has the universal element of giving God the benefit of the doubt…even amidst difficult and challenging events, and the negatively trending direction of outward appearances.
Biblical characters that immediately come to mind in this regard are Abraham going to Canaan (Heb. 11:8), Joseph in Pharaoh’s prison desperately holding on to the promise of his two earlier dreams received years before in Canaan (Gen. 37:7, 9), and Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:11, 4:20).
Jeremiah has a continual, ongoing dialogue with God about the stubborn unbelief of the Jerusalem leaders. Elijah complains bitterly to God about the overwhelming pushback and resistance he is encountering in his calling as a prophet in apostate Israel under the rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Other notable people who gave God the benefit of the doubt through difficult challenges are Joshua, Samuel, Job, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mordecai, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all of the minor prophets…to name only a few in the Old Testament.
The Psalms in the Old Testament are filled with people having a personal relationship and dialogue with God…giving God the benefit of the doubt to come through for them in the middle of challenging difficulties.
David’s famous 23rd Psalm is all about giving God the benefit of the doubt.
People of faith in the New Testament actually spent face-time in person with Jesus the Son of God (Jn. 1:14)…and gave Him the benefit of the doubt amidst pushback and resistance to His message and ministry…pushback of deadly intensity (Jn. 11:8, 16).
This idea of the people of faith giving God the benefit of the doubt during the course of their journeys of faith…giving to God the value and worth that putting trust and faith in another person entails…has enormous commonsense, apologetic value as an argument for the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
This has apologetic value by virtue of its existence as evidence of genuine relationships…very subtle yet solid evidence that holds water because the benefit of the doubt is there…integrally and inseparably embedded within the events and circumstances of the storyline scripts. This evidence would not exist at all in the storylines…if it was not in fact a true indication of the real connection of personal relationships between people and the living God.
This subtle element is baked into every biblical adventure of faith…and cannot be homogenized out without damaging the storylines.
This component of giving God the benefit of the doubt is a powerful clue that these relationships…these stories of faith…are real.
A moral concept as subtle yet as powerful as this could not be the product of collusion on the part of the 40 different authors spanning 1,500 years in the writing of the Bible…universally giving God the benefit of the doubt from Genesis through Revelation…from beginning to end…without the slightest hint of progressive evolution or creative development in the portrayal of biblical faith…as would be expected with a humanistic origin.
The life-stories of Abraham through Paul in the Bible…all depicting biblical faith having this common ingredient of giving God the benefit of the doubt…as religious fiction invented by human writers inspired out of the narrow realm of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking alone…as an explanation for their origin…is again nonsensical.
Like the massive infusion of creative information that entered into the natural world to form the complex living creatures during the Cambrian Explosion of 530 million years ago…inexplicable as a materialistic or naturalistic event…the correct answer to the question of the origin of the biblical narrative stories of faith is that they are a divine creation of God.
The complex and functionally coherent information that enters into the human experience…suddenly and instantly in the form of a God-composed adventure of faith…starting with Abraham…is the action of an independent agent God…providing commonsense apologetic evidence for both His existence…and for the truth of the Bible.
No one can write a fictional novel or short story without revealing something of themselves in the storyline.
In the biblical narrative stories of faith…God not only reveals His divine authorship through His supernatural participation in the storylines in a way that is outside of worldly conventional normalcy and thinking…by introducing the way of the cross…but also exposes something of Himself in revealing His intention to introduce Himself to the people of faith in each biblical storyline…and in the process reveal something of Himself to us today…through the context of life-scripts designed to create the incredible opportunity to exercise the benefit of the doubt in the living God.
Mechanical robots cannot fathom the concept of respect. Neither can robots plumb the depths of giving someone the supportive benefit of the doubt of placing faith, trust, and dignity in another person…extending the gift of value, worth, and validation to that person.
Our non-robotic, analytical capacity for moral reasoning and free-will choice…wrapped within our physical living bodies having all of the marvelous abilities and talents we possess…may be the single-most, top-tier apologetic evidence for the existence of God…easily accessible to commonsense contemplation.
No comments have been added yet.
