Ravi Q & A at Columbia University

Questions are noted with an asterisk and responses by Ravi follow. 

Ravi Q&A at Columbia U

*Did man make up God?

When people propose man made up God, Satan, supernatural, etc it's important to ask "Who is 'us'"? Do we "all" share the same worldview?

If evil is an illusion, so is good. We aren't united in agreement on what is good or evil. 

*How can man remain faithful in the face of God's constant silence?

Reflects our heart. Hidden gold - in the last moment, we often find what we need. 

Don't take 10 steps back, take 1 step back and reflect. 

Sick of home 

Homesick

Home

To the Christian, joy is central, sorrow is peripheral; to the unbelieving person, sorrow is central while joy is peripheral. 

Difference? The fundamental questions (the central questions) are answered- peripherals remain a mystery. 

*Perfect creator, imperfect creator

Whatever the cause of our universe & the created, we have to live with the effect. 

Options:

1) Have no creation at all

2) Create people that can only choose good

3) create world where there was no such as good or evil

4) This world

"Better" implies a standard or an ultimate. This may be the best of all possible means to the best of all possible worlds - ultimate ethic: love

Born inherently good or evil? 

Suffering is result of desire? 

Choices. Desires are real, our desires are insatiable but Christ can change or regenerate those desires natural to a fallen world. 

Don't stop hungering. 

What separates us from God isn't goodness or badness, it's deadness. God didn't come to make bad people good, rather he came to make dead people alive. Atheists can be "good" but they cannot be "alive". 

Morality (being "good") won't change our status in relation to our spiritual condition, thus separation from God, which is deadness. 

*Unknown Knowledge

Is your worldview meeting the test of truth?

Origin Meaning Morality Destiny

Logical consistency 

Empirical adequacy 

Experiential relevance - coherent. 

Special disciplines can answer one question about life, but adequate to answer all ultimate questions. 

*Does God care?

Passivity of God

When we use language, we use it in 3 ways:

1) Univocally - meaning same thing in multiple uses 

2) Equivocally - roger federer is a good tennis player, Ravi is a good tennis player. Not the same

3) Analogocal - God loves you, I love you. Same word, different meaning. If I love you and you refuse to love me, I hurt bc I have lost something. When you refuse to love God, you lose something but God cares.  

*State of the Church

masters of engineering feelings without much thought

Absence of evidence or suppression of evidence?

*Universal Aplogetics

Approach within context of situation. 

*Is truth found or revealed? A disjunction not necessary bc it's both. 

Truth is one, parts are many?

Law of non-contradiction cannot be denied without affirming it. Relativism cannot be true bc it either excludes or includes itself.