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Jesus was one of the five great prophets of Allah - the other four great prophets were Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad -

What a strange pair of questions. To answer the first sort of negates the need to answer the second, doesn't it? Now, if you want to ask those who don't believe what mainstream Christians believe what it would take to convert, that's different, isn't it?

I assume Holden is Muslim, so his answer would be predictable - either that, or he's bating Christians. No matter.

Yeshua is NOT just another prophet - although he is the greatest of prophets. He is God incarnate, the promised and only Messiah, the one Savior of mankind. And as Yeshua said to Peter when He declared that He was "the Messiah, the son of the living God:" "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." So also with Saul (Paul) on the road to Dmascus.

So forget about "figuring it out" intellectually; or "convincing" anyone to convert. It's a supernatural revelation, based upon a Divine/human encounter in which the soul is made alive (regenerated) by the Holy Spirit, faith occurs and one is willing to die for His heavenly Beloved, His redeemer and Friend; and is then motivated to love others with Yeshua's love and be His faithful witness to the end.

That's who Jesus is: the God-man, the son of David, the Bright and Morning Star, the Bridegroom, the Risen Lord who is ascended on high and seated at the right hand of the Father, where He reigns till all his enemies are made his footstool - God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God in Whom "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

The Gospel can be preached, and apologetic arguments can be made till the cows come home, but no one can truly believe and acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior until the Spirit makes Him known, inwardly, supernaturally through the new birth. All the rest is a "chasing after the wind."

Nevertheless, God hears the voice of the humble and penitent. "For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." The alternative is spiritual death now and the endless burning agony of regret and separation when the soul leaves the body - commonly called hell.

Today is the day of salvation.

Actually, Jesus is the Latino guy who the plant manager recently hired to clean toilets -

Jesus is the son of God, the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. Not merely a prophet, but the prophet of all prophets. What wonderful things He has done for me. "You ask me know I know He lives--He lives within my heart!"

Jesus is the one who came to me when i was at the most critical crossraod in my life. i was a young twenty something young married man with a son on the way. i was working for firestone as a tire changer, making $2.00 per hour. i was living with my inlaws. i was a hippie. i was a drug and alchohol user. i seemed to find spiritual fulfillment in a drug induced high. i thought i had the world by the tail (arrogant youthful pride). looking back i can see where i was leaning towards some dark practices. i had already been to jail for possession of marijuana. had more traffic citations than i could possibly remember. it's funny how we think we know what we need to become happy and useful and i was no different, i thought i knew what i needed. but what i had (and was completely unaware of) was a Godly brother who must have spent many hours on his knees praying for my salvation and asking God to break my chanis of bondage and darkness. one day while sitting in my hippie room (converted bedroom) with black plastic over all the window, dayglow stars on the ceiling, blaring santana music and color organ flashing - i received a phone call from my brother asking me to attend a youth group at his church - he had been after me many times to do this but i always found a way to get out of it. this time i figured if i told him i would go, that he would finally leave me alone and i could move on in my life - the group was meeting the next evening a church. the next day as i was preparing to go to this much dreaded youth group, i received a phone call from a guys who i had not heard from in two years - he had just rolled into town and gotten my phone number from a mutual friend. he said he had the most killer weed he'd ever smoked and had some booze to go with it, he wanted to come right over and start partying. any other time i would have just blown off my commitment to my brother and partied down with my friends but for some reason i felt compelled to go to that youth meeting and told my friend we could hook up the next day instead (i never heard from this guy again for the rest of my life). i did go to the youth group and found just what i expected, a bunch of young people sitting around talking about Jesus, playing guitars and singing - i thought surely this must be what hell is like. i couldn't wait for this nightmare to end. then the youth pastor (named andy) drew the get together to a close and he asked this question " is there anyone here tonite who would like to give the heart to Jesus Christ? ". as i'm sitting on the couch looking around to see if anyone is foolish enough to raise their hand - i realized that my hand was raised - oh boy ! i yanked my hand down as fast as humanly possible and was hoping no one saw me - too late, andy and several others were coming towards me........andy asked me if i wanted to receive Christ as my Lord and Savior, i felt very strange but not embarrassed as i expected i would be - i told andy i would like to accept Christ into my life - those people prayed and lead me in a prayer - meeting was over and i'm on my way home. as i'm driving i 'm wondering what i have just done and for what reason i did it? i thought oh well i accepted Christ and now can get on with my life as usual. the short of this is that my life did not go as usual after that night. the now indwelling Holy Spirit began leading me in differents directions and not long afterwards, my wife could not believe this transformation in my life and she also accepted Christ as her Savior. that has been many yeras ago and i have been through many mountain tops and many valleys but the one thing that has remained constant through it all is Jesus Christ, he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. we think we know what we need and what path we'll take to get it but thank God He had a different plan for my life. i am no better than any who blog here but i am redeemed,consecrated and holy through the shed blood of our risen Savior Jesus Christ - that is who Jesus is to me.

If conversion cannot occur intellectually, I do not believe anyone can rationally say they know Jesus is divine. They can feel it is so, certainly, and have the sense of being persuaded, with emotional conviction. But my own and the philosophical gold-standard for true knowledge is higher than that. Hence, what I would be able to surmise about who Jesus was can only be based on unbiased third-person accounts, of which we have none wholly contemporary or reliable. It seems probable he was an actual personage, and at least some of the parables and teachings ascribed to him may well be historically correctly attributed. But I have no basis for being 100% certain the man who appears in biblical texts and is held in such regard ever existed as he is commonly described. The odds seem against it.

Exactly. You can prove or disprove that He was/is the Son of God. And therein lies faith....But to me, I know He is real because of the relationship I have and how He leads me in everyday life.

to the above--You can NOT prove or disprove

fN,
"The odds seem against it".....................
ever notice how the 'house' always has odds on their side. you are betting against the 'house' and willfully blind to the fact that the odds are stacked against you. we have both placed our bets and if i'm right you loose - if you're right we both cease to exist, no loser no winner.
btw it is not the believers job to try to convince anyone, rather to deliver the gospel message of Gods saving grace, the Holy Spirit does the real work.

There are no odds against me in a dispassionate discussion, Buz. Note I never made it a personal attack. I am not attempting, either, to engage Pascal's Wager. But, to me, he does seem to betoken a lack of courage.

Freddy, (long time no see) I did not mean to imply that the Faith is not rational or possessed of content; only that the tipping point of trnasforming faith occurs when the message conveyed mixes with the inner work of the Spirit, who is sor tof like a catayst, if yoou will, Who causes the message to react wiht the human heart/will - resulting in the new birth. All these elements are necessary and critical. Bojective content alone is unable to generate the necessary spiritual chemistry.

"If conversion cannot occur intellectually, I do not believe anyone can rationally say they know Jesus is divine." Freddy

You have a certain point, Freddy. The "knowledge" or conceptual awareness of Yeshua's divinity is indeed a dogmatic, cognitive proposition. But initial regeneration/ transformation is the result of an actual, time-space, living encounter with the Divine, as the Gospel is conveyed - which may be done in a myraid of different ways, but always with the essential Gospel content involved. As per the Ethiopian Eunoch on the highway / the Philippian jailer, the Greeks on Mars Hill, John's disciples,
et al. All heard the Gospel in different ways; but always the same Good News, though conveyed in various ways.

It is AFTER this supernatural inner trasformation has occurred that the Christian disciple is to be taught sound doctrine and to relate all truth, facts and knowledge to God and His Word.

Theological, philosophical and academic discussion of the Gospel and religion can be quite engaging at time, whether responded to positively or not. The content of the Gospel, however, is not just well constructed intellectual argumentation; it is the means by which the Spirit creates the transfomative divine-human encountre. This is the difference I/we are trying to convey.

"They can feel it is so, certainly, and have the sense of being persuaded, with emotional conviction. But my own and the philosophical gold-standard for true knowledge is higher than that."

Perhaps there is a "knowledge" that is higher and more sure that mere intellectual perception. Atheists and humanists seem to equate the new birth with some kind of content-less religious upwelling of primitive Freudian emotion, devoid of any sort of logic and reason.

As I pointed out above, this is not the case. A Malcom Mugridge or C.S. Lewis(sp?) may enter the Kingdom through a more intellectual process. A derelict on Skid Row may come through a raw encounter with divine love, mercy and grace. But ALL must come in humility and child-LIKE faith, and ALL must be spiritually reborn - not convinced by alienated dogma, debate or diatribe.

This is precisely what Paul is getting at in I Cor. 21 ff.

"For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks FOOLISHNESS, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

The dialogue I am respectfully having with you is the same dialogue Paul had with the Greeks at Mars Hill (Acts 17). They wanted intellectual propositions, and he gave them some; but not the debate and mental titilation they so dearly cherished. Rather it was the presentation of the Truth concerning Jesus, and the requisite response of Faith (humble surrender to God in light of one's truly desperate situation). APul was not interested in winning an argument, but in seeing them come the joyous relationship wiht God he had.

Again, some believed and some did not (v. 34). This is the mystery of faith - a mystery best left only to God.

Is the "surrender to God" not only in light of some "desperate situation" (I assume you mean more than merely the daily or occasional dangers we each face when driving and having an accident, or when our mortgage goes screwy, etc.), but also a surrender in general of striving for answers to cosmic mysteries? If one day scientific methods point to a solution to questions concerning the moment before the Big Bang, as some are getting closer to hypothesizing convincingly, and every test of said hypothesis comes back substantiating it as strong theory, will it be required for believers in God to deny all the science involved and ignore all evidence found to support it? In other words, must every human ultimately surrender their powers of reason?

It is generally held to be true that even if you posit a sort of pulsating universe, or the "eternality" of matter; it still begs the question: where did the eternal matter or the pulsating principle come from? The human mind simply cannot fathom a universe of any sort without a limit, or a BEGINNING - a Prime Mover or causeless cause. At least God is of the nature of non-material spirit, or, as Moses put it in The Ten Commandments, "Eternal Mind." Dead matter itself does not have the nature of creator, designer and purpose-giver.

Genesis gives us a non-scientific declaration of truth concerning the origin of all things, as well as their purpose and goal. It is thus theological in nature, but eminently satisfying, as long you don't try to force it into scientific jargon - kind of like a "here's the gist of it folks (Genesis 1);" now let's get down to the business of laying out the human dilemma and God's magnificent plan of redemption."

But, I guess the supramental is, by definition, inscrutable and "beyond" for the logician and test-tube mind. One does not have to "surrender one's power of reason" to traverse the spiritual realm; only to realize that the visible and earthly are not the only realm of orderly being. To shackle one's self to the chains of human reason makes for a rather drab, unidimensional cognition. Not that reason does not have its place in the grand scheme of perception: it just has no wings to fly with. It is neither meant to, or has it the wherewithal to piece the vail of faith. Art pushes into this realm; but the spiritual goes infinitely farther.

The nice thing about the Bible is that it presents an experimental body of truth that is highly reasonable and practical - as well as providing the perceptual wings with which to soar into the realm of spirit, with all its attendant joys and deeply satisfying discoveries; not the least of which is a personal knowledge of, and realtionship with, the Creator.

So the answer is, yes, the believer would out of hand reject any reasoned evidence of a pre-Big Bang description and working theory with supporting
evidence.

Actually, knowing what happened just before the Big Bang is just another step back in infinite conceptual regression, and so wouldn't answer anything! - just what happened before the Big Bang.

ALL within the time-space continuum is merely the working out of God's Personally-directed creative laws and plan. I am of the opinion that whatever happened, happened; whether in the history of the earth, or of the universe. The Scripture only says, categorically and propositionally, that "In the beginning God created . . ." HE is the Prime Mover, the Causeless Cause, the Intelligent Designer. Such is His nature and His function in the realm of infinite Being.

The language of Scripture is divinely ordained, but neither adequately nor exhaustively relates His true and infinte Being, nor the ACTUAL methodology He uses to create and sustain the Universe(s). Science can discover processes and effects, but NEVER ultimate origin.

But Scripture speaksto us in a way that truly conveys His intended meaning. To say that "God created the heavens and the earth" is absolutely clear and plausible to me; although I do not, nor cannot, know His detailed MO. That God allows us, even inspires us to examine and map his universe is simply a part of the wonder of the Imago Dei, and a great privilege and pleasure.

But only special revelation (Scripture and Spirit) can reveal Who created and designed it, and what His nature and plan (purpose) are. Our discovery and description of scenario universe is ever-changing and developing and provides nothing for us regarding purpose, values and meaning. Our understanding and implementation of God's moral and spiritual Law/Word is utterly dependent on His self-revelation and saving grace, but provides us wiht "all that we need ofor life and godliness."

Mapping out the Milky Way is thrilling indeed, but cannot compare to having a baby and watching him/her grow up, or the love a man and woman know in holy matrimony. To live rightly and well is God's pupose in granting us salvation and knowledge of life-principles. To see his "face" is an infinitely greater joy and pleasure than observing a supernova or the birth of a galaxy - as wonderful as they are. That God would create us in His own image and likeness, with a capacity to know and love Him, is the truly staggering miracle of all time and eternity. I know; I do. soli Deo gloria.