Hello fellow readers, Thank you for this web forum, I hope that I may be helped by being here (I don't mean to be selfish). I have joined because I have had an enduring interest, not to write commitment, in Christianity. However, as soon as I advance toward accepting the faith; I conceive a counter response. Should I advance towards an agnosticism, I conceive a counter response. The Apostles' Creed reads, in part: "I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Sprit and born of the Virgin Mary..." I cannot accept the above claim of "Virgin Birth". How is it possible to accept such a proposition?
First off, welcome! I hope to hear much more from you. And now to your question. With God, all things are possible Andrew. Not to be flippant, but the answer to your question is that it was a miracle and to try to ascribe a mundane, scientific, or logical explanation for the virgin birth whould do both you and the miracle a disservice. Some things in Christianity are easy to believe, others are hard. Faith means accepting some things, not because they make sense, but because God revealed them, who can neither lie nor be lied to. I say this as someone who lost my faith as a young man and spent nearly 7 years trying to figure out what I believed. By sheer coincidence, I picked up a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and it brought me back to the faith. There are a great many mysteries in our faith, and I don't think anyone here would say they fully understand them all. When faith comes, and it will come, the bible promises that anyone who sincerely seeks will find and to anyone who knocks the door will be opened, you won't need all the answers to every question, because you will come to trust in the person who has all the answers, who indeed is the answer. I will pray for you, for the Lord to reveal his truth to you and give you peace on this issue. I will also recommend that you pray for God's wisdom in this area and read the what the bible has to say about it. The first chapter of Matthew records it this way: Luke records this: Reading these passages, it becomes clear that you aren't the only one with questions about this. Mary, too, had a hard time reconciling it. But she accepted it in faith. I will point you to a very enjoyable book that discusses these questions and many other issues regarding Christ: The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. A really great book. I hope I've helped a bit. God bless you in your journey to faith.
Welcome! Lowly Layman posted a good response. I would address it from a different perspective: what prohibits you from accepting such a proposition? If you approach Christianity from an agnostic perspective let me give you an argument from science: first there was nothing, then there was the world. This argument is ever more increasing in intensity and validity, the more scientists look at it. See for example a groundbreaking article by Professor Vilenkin in the Jan. 2012 edition of the New Scientist, "Why scientists can't avoid a creation event", described here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...-have-says-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning/ Prof. Vilenkin goes through all possible theories, such as an infinitely expanding-collapsing universe, and debunks them as impossible. So there was no conjunction of prior natural events, no Joseph + Mary if you will; just one day, the universe appeared, in singularity form and then expanding to its present state. What is different about that than about a Member of the Trinity appearing in a natural form the same way?
Thank you for your post Lowly Layman. I do comprehend what you have written, and I have a sense of what it means for me. Thank you Stalwart for your post. Commitment to the facts of pro-creation as known to Biology. I understand that I may not have given due regard to the Divine. I must think these things through now.
Andrew, There is a simple answer to your question: if God exists, and is the personal power behind the creation of eternity, infinity, time, and space, He can do anything. If you cannot believe that, you cannot believe anything.
Thank you Consular: I understand you. Yet there is a limitless stream of possibilities: not all of them are actualized. I am concerned with whether, in fact, the Virgin Birth happened. I understand the claim that this event was a miracle and is only open to acceptance through Faith. Therein lies my difficulty.
I understand the difficulty with faith, having a dear Brother in law (and good friend) who is a mechanical engineer. Unless he can describe it, measure it, or manipulate it, it doesn't exist. Scripture says that "without faith, it is impossible to please God", but yet He left us with mounds of evidence and prophecy to legitimize His claim. The Virgin Birth was foretold several thousand years prior in Isaiah's prophecy, and while some claim it to be a monumental hoax, they lack a complete understanding of Jewish culture. Mary had led such a pure and chaste life, that when she stated she had never been with a man, she was never questioned. If she had been suspected of this violation of culture, she would have been put to death. I'm guessing that if the virgin birth is a stumbling block for you, then so also is the resurrection. I would strongly recommend reading Josh McDowell's book, "Evidence That Demands A Verdict". He came from an identical position to yours. May God bless your search! Jeff+
Sir, I never said that this is something that is only acceptable by faith. Belief in the existence of God is a thing of logic, rationality, and conscience; on the other side, trusting in God is of faith. We cannot trust or have faith in that which we do not believe exists. The simple fact of His existence must be established before we can believe in Him (and it is amply established). Miracles are nothing to God but a simple operation of His power, which is capable of infinity. If your difficulty is in accepting things by faith, then your difficulty is in accepting the God of the Bible. Not believing the Virgin Birth because of an inability to have faith is the same as not believing any other thing. It is nothing special to God, in respect of His Power - for the same almighty creating Force that can make the Cosmos out of Nothing should not find it very difficult to create a zygote inside an human female's unfertilized egg. It's actually quite silly to think that God can create Infinity itself from ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS, and not to think He can form a single fetus out of nothingness. That's how I see it. Your concern about the historicity is, again, solvable mostly by a logical process of thought. You must look not to the claims about the virgin birth of Jesus (of which there are only two in the entire New Testament), but rather to the New Testament as a whole: do its writers come across as generally trustworthy? If not, there's no reason to believe the virgin birth occurred; but if so, there's no reason to think that they made it up. The fact that the men who wrote the Bible recorded their own faults, ignorance, pettiness, arrogance, pride, vanity, and misunderstanding of Jesus, is quite the proof that they were at least sincere in what they wrote. Since it's entirely clear and evident that Matthew & Luke (the two Virgin Birth sources) were written before A.D. 70, there's no way the tradition could've been invented by superstitious Christians many centuries after the events occurred. Barely a generation had even passed before the accounts were penned! We believe Alexander the Great existed and conquered the known world, seemingly against impossible odds, even though our earliest sources for his existence are from 200 years after he supposedly lived - so, if we believe Alexander after 200 years of silence, why not believe the virgin-born Christ after a mere 30 or 40 years?
Funny thing about faith, when it comes to religion we need complete schematic diagrams, but in stark contrast we have faith that our home is well built (did we examine, measure and test every joint and connection made during construction?), we have faith that the roof won't collapse on top of us, we have faith that a restaurant chair will hold us up, we have faith that our retirement funds will be there for us, we have faith that our mates will be faithful to us (who willingly marries a harlot or gold digger?), and the list goes on and on. I think the truth is that we all have faith, but we have areas of our life we choose not to apply it Jeff
Oh yes, Jeff! This is one of the primary things to say to an agnostic: how do you know the man in the bus driver's seat, wearing the uniform, is actually the bus driver? There's no way to confirm it, except by accepting that it has been so before, and must be so now. It's induction, which, in this case, is faith. Having faith is required every second of every day. It's the incorporeal spirit who is God that makes trouble for our cynical eyes: for we are asked to have faith in that which is not obvious to our bodies. The intention of the bus driver is not set before our eyes, however, yet we believe he will take us to each stop.
Thank you Jeff F, There appears to be disagreement about this in Biblical scholarship. "The Jewish Study Bible", TANAKH Translation, Oxford University Press Inc., ISBN: 978-0-19-529754-6, has as a note to the text of Isaiah 7:14. It reads: "14: Young woman (Heb " `almah") The Septuagint translates as "virgin," leading ancient and medieval Christians to connect this verse with the New Testament figure of Mary. All modern scholars, however, agree the Heb merely denotes a young woman of marriageable age, whether married or unmarried, whether a virgin or not". Thank you Consular, I wrote as I did not because you had said it, but because I thought that this (acceptance through faith of the Virgin Birth), was the common understanding of the matter. Do you not think that knowledge is subsequent to belief? That what comes first in the acquisition of understanding is the idea of an entity, then belief, and then if we are fortunate: knowledge.
That's not an accurate statement. Since we have seven English words to every one Hebrew, the truth is simply that it could be translated virgin as well as maiden or young woman. The NT writers quoting this verse in Greek, indeed chose their word for virgin.. Jeff
I think revelation precedes the use of reason in seeking the wisdom of God. Was it Thomas Aquinus who called his endeavors to prove God's existence philosophically "faith looking for a reason"? He already had faith but tried to give reason to this revealed faith, evidently as an evangelism tool. I don't really think one can reason one's way into faith, although I was able to reason my way out of the faith once. I was thinking about this question and I remembered something that Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about finding faith. Some one asked him how someone who did not have faith but wanted it could find it. If I remember correctly, his answer could be summed up like this: "fake it till you make it". If you want faith, start doing the things that people of faith do and saying what the people of faith say and slowly it will open your mind to start believing the way people of faith believe. He said it was basically the reverse of the process that people who lose their faith go through. He said to start attending church, praying, reading God's Word. Perhaps you could pray the prayer of the Father of the deaf son, who cried out to Our Lord, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). I know from personal experience that this can work. When I returned to the church, I was not yet a believer...but I truly wanted to be. I had gotten some very bad advice from Marcus Borg and Karen Armstrong (I do not recommend reading). I kept going to church and reading the bible and praying for faith and one day, I came across the book by CS Lewis that I mentioned before...and suddenly, it all clicked. I suddenly found that I not only believed in Jesus, but that I also believed Jesus. I believed he had done what he said he would. I trusted him with my soul, my life, with all that I have. All the turmoil and crisis I went through for a year melted away in a moment and I knew with certainty that God truly loved me and that he had provided for me a place in His Kingdom. I fervently believe that God is working a similar salvation in you Brother Andrew.
These details are beyond my competence to debate, however, I imagine that: you do not mean to say that the writer(s) of Isaiah could not have attributed the notion of virginity to this young woman because the Hebrew language lacked the ability to do so?
This debate is a little too academic and intellectual for the sake of simple truth. Honest reality is not often to be found in scholastic hair-splitting and exigencies. The fact is that Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth" - it does not say "in the beginning was God, and God created the Heaven and Earth" - the Bible assumes that we believe in the Eternal, the Infinite, Being of beings, Essence of existence, before we even go past the first sentence. Think.
That quote is wrong. Rabbis have been known to alter the Old Testament in their opposition to Christianity, unfortunately. In the Middle Ages they edited the manuscripts they had to 'fix' the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel, because they so closely matched the resulting outcomes of Christianity and so many Jews were converting to be Christian. If you enter orthodox Jewish synagogues and speak to Rabbis today, they exude a quiet but firm hostility to Christianity. I am sorry but this is a true fact. Here the issue turns on the question of that single word: "almah". We wonder about whether the word could mean a 'virgin', or a merely 'young woman whether married or unmarried', when how could a young woman not be a virgin and married or unmarried, something totally impossible in ancient history. And while we struggle with the fact that no single word fits the translation well, we forget the simple word that fell out of use in the English language, but which fits the translation perfectly. MAIDEN. Maiden is the perfect translation for 'almah', because it both conveys the meaning of a 'young woman', and an expectation of virginity (without outright stating it, unlike 'virgin'). Mary was a maiden, and it is a simple as that. In the world of antiquity, including Greek and Roman, it is not possible for a maiden to have been a young woman and not a virgin.