Arguments That Christianity Is The True Religion?

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='04 September 2009 - 03:40 PM' timestamp='1252096840' post='1960947']
It depends on what you mean by the word "proved." Creation reveals its Creator's activity, but not His being, for that would involve making God a being among beings (cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, [i]Sixth Sermon on the Beatitudes[/i]).
[/quote]

God is certainly incomprehensible (cf. First Ecumenical Vatican Council: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 3001). I do not agree, however, with the distinction that Palamas makes between God's essence and His attributes.

[rkwright]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='04 September 2009 - 02:42 PM' timestamp='1252093356' post='1960928']
The attempts to use reason alone in order to "prove" that God exists or that Christianity is the one true religion -- at least to a certain degree -- are predicated on a form of Pelagian naturalism.

Faith is an unmerited divine gift, and not the end result of rational arguments devised by created human reason.
[/quote]

Well I wasn't going this far. What makes Christianity true and Islam/gods of Egypt false? Its more about proving that this just wasn't all made up.

That was the argument someone was running a few days ago. Basically that the Bible, written years after Jesus, basically invented Jesus and invented a religion in the same sense that Mohammed created Islam.

Someone tried to argue that the "morality was right" to which he responded the morality is right within its own system - but that doesn't make it truthfully right.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='rkwright' date='04 September 2009 - 06:21 PM' timestamp='1252106517' post='1961005']
Well I wasn't going this far. What makes Christianity true and Islam/gods of Egypt false? Its more about proving that this just wasn't all made up.

That was the argument someone was running a few days ago. Basically that the Bible, written years after Jesus, basically invented Jesus and invented a religion in the same sense that Mohammed created Islam.

Someone tried to argue that the "morality was right" to which he responded the morality is right within its own system - but that doesn't make it truthfully right.
[/quote]

The resurrection is an historically undeniable fact.

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='tinytherese' date='03 September 2009 - 05:24 PM' timestamp='1252016669' post='1960516']
I recommend reading...

The Case for Christ

Mere Christianity

Fundamentals of the Faith
[/quote]
All good books.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='04 September 2009 - 02:48 PM' timestamp='1252097329' post='1960955']
God is certainly incomprehensible (cf. First Ecumenical Vatican Council: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 3001). I do not agree, however, with the distinction that Palamas makes between God's essence and His attributes.
[/quote]
The distinction between God's essence and His energies is found in the theological writings of St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Athanasios, the Cappadocian Fathers, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. John Damascene, and all of these Fathers lived centuries before the time of St. Gregory Palamas.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='rkwright' date='04 September 2009 - 05:21 PM' timestamp='1252106517' post='1961005']
Well I wasn't going this far. What makes Christianity true and Islam/gods of Egypt false? Its more about proving that this just wasn't all made up.

That was the argument someone was running a few days ago. Basically that the Bible, written years after Jesus, basically invented Jesus and invented a religion in the same sense that Mohammed created Islam.

Someone tried to argue that the "morality was right" to which he responded the morality is right within its own system - but that doesn't make it truthfully right.
[/quote]
Christianity as a revealed religion has always been exclusionary as it concerns the truth claims made by other religions, but the reasons put forward by the Holy Fathers for this approach are based upon revelation, which finds its fullness only in Christ, and not upon created reason taken alone.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Kitty]

There is no such thing or proof of a thing as "the true religion".

[bonkers]

[quote name='Winchester' date='04 September 2009 - 11:59 AM' timestamp='1252083570' post='1960826']
That's only if all arguments and counterarguments are equally wrong or equally right. It's a position based upon gross generalization.

And "blind" is the grossest of that generalization.
[/quote]

Well then we have the issue of blind faith in your arguments.

[CorMaria]

I don't know if people would take this 'proof' seriously, but it seems to be valid to me. In my amateur research it seems as though Catholicism has by far the most instances of what is so far unexplainable miraculous phenomena, such as the instances of stigmata, Eucharistic miracles, visions, miracles around the Saints and so forth. History, examination of the texts and what seems to be the most holy lives of the Saints (who can find a Padre Pio in any other 'church' or religion?)

[Hassan]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='03 September 2009 - 04:24 PM' timestamp='1252009453' post='1960466']
The Apostles didn't go conquering people and forcing them to be christians, the same cannot be said of Mohamed.
[/quote]

So? That has absolutely nothing to do with his point about the impotence of the argument he was criticizing.

[JimR-OCDS]

Faith is a gift from God. It is the revelation of God Himself to a person, however that may happen.

Being such, no amount of proof can be provided to a soul who has no experience of God.

The most we can do, is give reasons that may help a person turn toward God, in order that they ask for the gift
of faith, but we can never give someone faith out of our own logic or reasoning.

Jim

[Saint Therese]

I think the greatest proof that Christianity is the "true religion" is the lives of individual Crhistians like Mother Teresa, JP2, Teresa of Jesus,etc.

[Selah]

There is no proof that any religion is 100% true. Every religion claims to have signs, wonders, etc.

That's why it's called faith and not fact

[Saint Therese]

Well you don't see too many members of other religions singing songs in praise of God as they're being led to the guillotine.

[Selah]

That's...well, not entirely true. There are some accounts of Hindus who have been persecuted for their faith, smiling in the face of hate and stating, "I do not fear death."