Factual Faith by J. Prinsloo - HTML preview

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Introduction

Have you ever stopped to think whether information that you have just received from a friend,

from someone you‟ve just met, from a family member, or even something you‟ve just heard over

the news, is 100% true and trustworthy? Have you ever been in a situation where two different

individuals gave you the same basic information, but where the content differed slightly between

the two accounts? How did that make you feel? Can you know whether the information has

been altered in any way? Did the people have ulterior motives? Did they intend to leave you

with a specific perspective? How do you go about determining whether the differences in

accounts by individuals on the same topic has to do with their interpretation of the data, or

whether they actually believe what they are saying?

Have you ever witnessed a minor motor vehicle accident and heard both parties agreeing 100%

on what happened? I doubt it. The question to ask is, if it is so easy to mislead or twist the

truth, can you ever be sure of anything? If we find it difficult to identify the truth in concrete

subject matter, what about abstracts like faith? This is a subject devoid of physical sensory

perception and establishing the truth of spiritual subject matter, is probably the most difficult of

all.

Have you ever wondered how you can know that what you believe is really the truth? What

does it mean to believe? According to Eric Schwitzgebel, human belief is said to be the

psychological state in which an individual decides to hold a propositi on or premise as being

true.1

Have you considered whether your beliefs are based on your emotions, or have you decided to

adopt a specific belief blindly following a tradition? What role did the media play in what you

hold as true today? Is it even possible to determine whether or not what you believe is accurate

and true? Are you able to discern who is right and who is wrong with so many contradictory

opinions floating around? Is there any way in which you can tell?

My aim in this book is to demonstrate to you how it is possible to obtain absolute certainty of the

truth, when it comes to spiritual matters. My desire for you as you read, is that you will come to

new insights about this subject and - if you have ever doubted the reality of the spiritual - that

you will realise that it is the one subject in which one can have 100% confidenc e of it being

factual and true.

I approach this subject in the following way:

Firstly, we consider the aspects that influence our thinking. People have different views about

various subjects and our thinking have been influenced by several identifiable aspects . Why is

that and why would people have varying opinions on the same subject?

Secondly, we look at how science is used by people to get behind the crux of a matter. We also

expose some ideas that are accepted by the scientific community and the population in general

as the truth for which there is no substantiating “scientific evidence”. In fact, for some “scientific

truths”, there is evidence to the contrary mounting.

Thirdly, we consider the spiritual and supernatural aspects of life and look at how it is possible,

from a human perspective, to evaluate these subjects scientifically. We investigate the

supernatural qualities of the Bible which in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts

demonstrate qualities of extraordinary design that can only be attributed to supernatural

inspiration by someone existing outside of our dimensionality.

Finally, having access to this hidden knowledge, would you choose to investigate the subject

further or to ignore it? How would you respond to this knowledge – conveying “Absolute Truth”

and God‟s love for you?