Fallacious Faith

[dizzle]

Tektonics.org: Apologetic Ministries (http://www.tektonics.org) http://theologyweb.com/forum/images/articles/tekton_165x94.gif (http://www.tektonics.org)

Fallacious Faith

Correcting an All-too-Common Misconception

James Patrick Holding

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It's time for a little quiz, folks. :teeth: Let's offer four samples for focus:

1. A "faith healer" named Benny Pophagin offers to heal Joe of his lumbago. Benny lays hands on Joe and prays, but the lumbago remains. Benny waves Joe away, saying, "This is your problem. You don't have enough faith."

2. A Christian faces several objections to his beliefs that he cannot answer. He says, "I don't care what people say, I still have faith."

3. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard "contends that the scriptures included in the Bible verify that the Christian belief system is based on a leap of faith, not on tangible proof." This is because Christianity involves paradoxes offensive to reason.

4. The famous skeptic Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Can anyone guess what is wrong with this picture? The answer is that all four of these examples offer an incorrect definition or understanding of what Biblical faith is all about. Twain's own definition does correctly (with some negative, polemical spin) embody the way "faith" is understood by far too many today -- but it does not match the Biblical definition of that word, and as the first two examples suggest, "faith" is a badly misunderstood concept in the church at large. Out third and newest example, brought out in a recent discussion forum by a Buddhist with a rather limited understanding of and concern for Christianity, shows how at least one philosopher, though due some credit, because of his lack of understanding came to a false conclusion about what faith was. We will look at this in more detail below (and we assume here that the representation of Kierkegaard 's position is correct).

Our prime resources for this essay are two works we have come to find extremely useful of late: Malina and Neyrey's Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality (http://www.tektonics.org/porpaulrvw.html) [87, 167] and deSilva's Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity (http://www.tektonics.org/desilvrvw01.html) [95ff]. These books offer us a glimpse into the ancient world of the early Christians and an understanding that their "faith" was understood as anything but a matter of believing against the grain as our examples suggest.


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The Greek word behind "faith" in the NT is pistis. As a noun, pistis is a word that was used as a technical rhetorical term for forensic proof. Examples of this usage are found in the works of Aristotle and Quintiallian, and in the NT in Acts 17:31:

Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

If you are used to thinking of "faith" in terms of our first two examples, this will assuredly come as a surprise. The raising of Christ is spoken of here as a proof that God will judge the world. However, if we think about the missionary preaching of the book of Acts, this makes perfect sense and teaches us a certain lesson. Here is more food for thought: Is there anyplace in the NT where we can find someone giving their "personal testimony"? The answer is yes -- but it is in Phil. 3, where Paul gives his personal testimony about his former life, when writing to fellow Christians. He does not use it in a missionary setting to unbelievers.

Indeed, one will find nowhere in the NT an example of missionaries, or anyone, giving their personal testimony. This is for good reason. The ancients conceived of personality as static; the way you were born is the way you stayed. Personal change was not a focus, because it was thought impossible. This is why the church remained suspicious of Paul even after his conversion, and until Barnabas (who probably knew Paul previously) testified on his behalf.

But note well: The following is not the sort of thing one will find in the NT:

Acts 2:48-52 And Peter arose and said, Men and brethren, I testify to you that whereas I formerly smoked mustard leaves, drank wine, cursed daily, and smelled moreover of fish, when the Lord Jesus Christ entered my heart I became clean. Now I no longer smoke, I no longer drink, my language is no longer filthy, and I bathe daily. Praise the Lord!

On the contrary! Here is what we do find in the missionary preaching of the NT:

Acts 2:22-36 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved...Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear... Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Peter's primary appeal here was threefold: He appealed to the evidence of the wonders and signs performed by Jesus; he appealed to the empty tomb, and he appealed to fulfillment of OT prophecy. In short, his appeals were evidentiary. One of course might wish to dispute the validity of the evidence, but in context this is beside the point. The point is that Peter grounded belief in Christianity on evidence -- or, as the definition of pistis in Acts 17:31 would put it, proofs.

Now before you re-read various passages on "faith" in this light, bear in mind two things. First, this does not necessarily mean abandoning personal testimony as a form of witness. Changed lives may be, and often are, appealed to as proofs of the Christian faith, and in our individualistic society which has lost a sense of history (to the point where many people cannot even name our Vice-President), such appeals may actually be better in some contexts than an apologetic for the empty tomb.

Second, note that in very few cases is this form of pistis, as meaning a proof, in view. The meaning does give us a clue as to the nature of other meanings. It is often used as a noun to refer to the Christian "faith" as a set of convictions. In far many more cases the meaning intended is in the sense of faithfulness, or loyalty as owed to one in whom one is embedded for service (in this case, the body of Christ). This now leads to an expansion of the pistis concept as derived from deSilva. As deSilva shows, the relationship between the believer and God is framed in terms of an ancient client-patron relationship. As God's "clients" to whom he has shown unmerited favor (grace), our response should be, as Malina and Neyrey frame it, a "constant awareness" of prescribed duties toward those in whom we are indebted (God) and the group in which we are embedded (God's kin group, the body of Christ). This "constant awareness" is the expression of our faithfulness of loyalty -- in other words, this is our pistis, or faith. "Faith" is not a feeling, but our pledge to trust, and be reliable servants to, our patron (God), who has provided us with tangible gifts (Christ) and proof thereby of His own reliability.

With this in mind, we now turn to a study of specific examples of "faith" in the NT, and how they are misunderstood -- and we will close with a revisit to our three examples above.


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With a form of pistis used over 240 times in the NT, it will not be possible to examine every instance of it. But it is enough to highlight some of the more obvious examples.

Matthew 8:5-10 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed... When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

We see the definition of "faith" in terms of loyalty to, or trust in, a deserving patron, exhibited quite clearly here. The centurion knew of Jesus' miraculous abilities (v. 8). His faith was not "blind" but based on the evidence of Jesus' past works. He considered Jesus worthy therefore of his trust and came to him for help.

This is the sort of "faith" also exhibited by other people who come to, or are brought to, Jesus for healing. The man with palsy, the woman with the issue of blood, Jairus, the blind man (Matt. 9), the Syrophoenician woman (Matt. 15) -- all came knowing of Jesus' abilities to heal. Their actions were based on evidence and proof. Of course one may argue that their trust was misplaced and that Jesus was a charlatan, but contextually that is beside the point. Our point is that faith is not "blind trust."

Matthew 17:19-20 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

This passage is one of the leading "make hay" passages for charlatans like our Benny Pophagin. Not healed? You needed more faith! But understand instead "faith" as loyalty and "unbelief" as disobedience. So what is the implication? Matthew 17:21 ("Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.") is missing from the best mss. of Matthew. It's parallel, Mark 9:29, shows textual data indicating that only "prayer" was part of the original (see here (http://www.tektonics.org/godpossible.html)). Wherein then lies the disciples' disobedience and disloyalty? It is in lack of prayer, and a false perception that the gift of exorcism was something inherent in themselves rather than being conveyed through them by God. (Note that the exorcism is preceded by a note that the scribes were questioning the disciples [Mark 9:14-16] -- most likely challenging them to perform an exorcism. We find a parallel lesson in Luke 10:17-20: "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." This is a firm caution against pride and focus on self, and a loss of concentration on the real power behind the ability to exorcize demons.)

A similar lesson may be drawn from Matthew 21, in which Jesus states, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." This needs to be combined with our comments elsewhere: No Jew would recognize such statements as giving believers carte blanche to ask to have mountains turned over (see more here (http://www.tektonics.org/hyperbole.html)). This is simply a way of emphasizing God's commitment, as a patron, to bless and show favor to the believer -- who would be expected not to ask for silly or selfish things in the first place, no more so than any client in the Roman world would be foolish enough to ask his patron to give him a million bucks to blow on video games. A person with pistis does not knowingly ask for that which God would not or does not will, and does not ask for something to happen if it is against God's will. In Jewish thought, God was sovereign. Nothing happened that God did not permit or cause. "Early Jewish teaching did celebrate God's kindness in answering prayer, but rarely promises such universal answers to prayer to all of God's people as the language suggests." [Keener, 245] Only a small number of sages were considered pious enough to ask for and receive whatever they wanted -- and that piety was their key indicates that they weren't going around asking for just anything they wanted (like Hanina ben Dosa, and Honi the Circle-Drawer), but only what they supposed to be in the will of God. "Such a call to believing prayer supposes a heart of piety submitted to God's will..."

Limitations upon what we may receive are clearly set by the context. The Lord's Prayer instructs us to pray for daily needs (Matt. 6:11) -- it does not say, "Give us this day a Rolls Royce." Earthly children ask for bread or fish (7:9-10) which are "basic staples in the Palestinian diet" that were provided to children on a regular basis. We can ask for "good things" (7:11), a term which sometimes referred to prosperity generally, but also "referred to agricultural produce that the righteous would share with others (Test. Iss. 3:7-8)." Neither the Jewish nor the Roman client-patron background would understand the mountain-moving phrase as literal permission to request whatever our selfishness desires -- or to expect something to be given to us contrary to the will and desire of the patron.

Mark 4:39-40 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

By now it should be easy to see that Jesus rebukes the disciples for a lack of trust and loyalty, which by this time he should have justly earned from them, having already shown his miraculous powers and wisdom.

Mark 6:5-6 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

We've seen a lot of skeptics quote this verse lately, saying that it indicates that Jesus was a charlatan who (like our modern "faith healer" Benny) needed people to have "faith" and excused away ability to heal real diseases as a lack of faith. The word "unbelief" here is apistia, meaning a lack of pistis. In light of our better understanding of pistis, the problem is indeed not with Jesus but with the lack of loyalty and trust by those who reject Jesus. Like the ungrateful client in the client-patron relationship, the people rejected Jesus as a patron in spite of his acts of grace, thereby dishonoring him. (Note how this affects the meaning of Mark 6:4: "A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.") To reject a gracious act was the height of dishonor. Jesus could not heal these people not because of a lack of power, but because of ingratitude and a rejection of his gracious patronage! A rejected patron could and would never force his gracious gifts upon a client who didn't want them!

Finally we look at this most-often abused use of pistis by skeptics who prefer the Twain definition:

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

"There, see! The evidence of things not seen. Blind faith. Case closed." Try again! The list that follows offers examples of people who had been given undeniable proof of God's existence and power. Pistis here is a matter of trust in a God who has demonstrated His ability to be a worthy patron, and the examples are those of clients who, knowing this ability, trust in God's record as a patronal provider. Hebrews 11:1 therefore is telling us that faith (trust in our patron, gained by conviction based on evidence) is the substance (the word here means an assurance, as in a setting under, a concrete essence or an abstract assurance) of things hoped for (this word means expected by trust, which is something earned!), and the evidence of that which is not seen, which in context means we expect, based on past performance, continuing favor from our patron, who has already proven Himself worthy of our trust by example, and this trust is our confidence in the fulfillment of future promises. Blind faith? Not in the least! It is faith grounded in reality.


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With these things in mind, let's now look back at our four case examples and see where they go wrong.

1. A "faith healer" named Benny Pophagin offers to heal Joe of his lumbago. Benny lays hands on Joe and prays, but the lumbago remains. Benny waves Joe away, saying, "This is your problem. You don't have enough faith." As Mark 6:5 shows, Benny is full of bologna. Anyone who trusts God already has all the "faith" they need. What Benny misses is the central truth that this trust is not something giving us carte blanche to get everything we want. What we do get remains in the patron's good grace.

2. A Christian faces several objections to his beliefs that he cannot answer. He says, "I don't care what people say, I still have faith." Our Christian probably does have "faith" even by the right definition -- but it needs to be grounded in something firm and not held blindly. We'll do #4 next, then skip back to #3 as it requires a more detailed treatment.

3. The famous skeptic Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Like our friend Benny, Twain dipped a little too heavily into the Oscar Mayer on this one. "Faith" is believing what you know to be true and trustworthy. Once again, one may argue about whether the evidence is indeed trustworthy, but contextually it remains that true faith is far, far from blind.

4. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard "contends that the scriptures included in the Bible verify that the Christian belief system is based on a leap of faith, not on tangible proof." This is because Christianity involves paradoxes offensive to reason. We need to actually have a closer look at what Kierkegaard (if our Buddhist source represented him correctly, which it does seem that he did not -- see here (http://www.tektonics.org/kierkfaith.html) ) incorrectly regarded as paradoxes, due to his lack of education in relevant fields. Our Buddhist forum member put this forward first:

1. The idea that a God could be transformed into a man, more specifically Jesus, is a paradox. "Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to reason. The central paradox is the assertion that the eternal, infinite, transcendent God simultaneously became incarnated as a temporal, finite, human being (Jesus). There are two possible attitudes we can adopt to this assertion, viz. we can have faith, or we can take offense. What we cannot do, according to Kierkegaard, is believe by virtue of reason. If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd."

If this was Kierkegaard's understanding of the Trinity, it was badly misinformed. Via the concept of Wisdom/Logos (http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_AOA.html) this "paradox" disappears; what was incarnated was a temporal, hypostatic extension of the transcendent God, not the transcendent God Himself. There is no call to suspend reason; indeed, the most "reasoning" Greek philosophers came up with essentially the same ideas, as did other great minds in the ANE. #2 takes a little more doing:

2. The idea that Abraham could be commanded to kill his own son by the same God whose commandments include 'thou shalt not kill', is a paradox. "Using the example of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19), Kierkegaard suggested that God called Abraham to violate moral law in slaying his son. For Kierkegaard, Abraham's willingness to "suspend" his ethical convictions epitomized the leap of faith that is demanded of everyone. Kierkegaard believed the incident proved that "the single individual [Abraham] is higher than the universal [moral law]." Building on that conclusion, the Danish philosopher offered this observation: "Abraham represents faith.... He acts by virtue of the absurd, for it is precisely the absurd that he as the single individual is higher than the universal." " cannot understand Abraham," Kierkegaard declared, "even though in a certain demented sense I admire him more than all others."

Kierkegaard was misplaced in two respects. First, he was clueless about the actual meaning of "Thou shalt not kill (http://www.tektonics.org/nokilling.html)" in Hebrew. (See further for our Buddhist opponent's cognitive-dissonance dodge of this point; Glenn Miller also has relevant material here (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/sacra.html) and here (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qkilisak.html).) The "faith" here is Abraham's loyalty to God, and an expectation, based on the evidence of his previous dealings with YHWH, that God will either stop the process or return Isaac to life. In contrast, our opponent had but emotion to offer as a response:

Abraham's choice of action was irrational. Why did he listen to God, and begin to sacrifice his own son? As a father, i can tell you that i would have refused, offered myself instead, and would have even contemplated killing myself before harming my son. In fact, i would have taken a run at God himself if he tried to harm my son.

It is a well known and understood thing that we don't bring harm to our own children, no matter who tries to tell us otherwise. It is our sacred duty to protect our children. It is one of the central moral themes of mankind. To do harm to a child, our own child, is the most heinous crime on earth, and a mortal sin in the eyes of God, under any other circumstances.

So, given all of that, why did Abraham do what he did? There can be only one answer. He took a leap of faith. He put his faith in God above all the things he knew, the difference between right and wrong, the duty of a father to protect his children, and even his belief that the God he knew wouldn't do such a thing.

Readers will wish to note Miller's responses to this line of thinking -- among them: priority to God over man; the primacy of loyalty and personal sacrifice in the mind of the ancients (which we, in individualistic selfishness as displayed above, have lost); the amount of time that passed within which there was assuredly interchange between Abraham and Isaac (which practically guarantees that Isaac's role became one of self-sacrifice -- he was old enough to know and understand what was going on, as well as put up resistance if he wanted to!). In short, our opponent has the entire scenario read in the wrong, which is the natural result of relying on a philosopher (however competent) rather than, or without input from, relevant scholarship. The opponent continues:

So what kind of faith did Abraham demonstrate when he chose to obey God and kill his only son, in spite of the fact that he knew it was morally wrong? There is only one kind of faith that fits the bill; blind faith.

This is false on several counts, for we have noted that there is no moral contradiction: the cited command is of no relevance, and Isaac clearly was a willing participant. Abraham's faith was not blind, but based on evidence: note therefore Abraham's repeated statements of confidence: "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." The true scenario is as Miller notes: The OT passage itself focuses on Abraham's priority loyalty to YHWH--cf. Jesus' words in Matt 10.37: ""Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me". As is standard practice with God, when we 'give up' the good things in our lives to Him, we almost always get them back again with blessings. Miller's comment fits hand in glove with our understanding of the meaning of "faith". Another forum member put it well:

The term "blind faith" is often used as an insult to the intelligence of one who has any kind of faith. I invite you to read the account of Abraham and discover if he had any reason to trust God's word by virtue of His previous actions. Probably the most amusing of those actions was the birth of Isaac to 90 year old Sarah, who laughed the previous year at the idea. This was certainly a sign of God's power to 100 year old Abraham.

Blind faith would by like trusting in your dog to save your soul. You have no reason for this belief, no written records, no writings dated thousands of years back, no lives changed, nothing. Christianity is hardly blind.

Another said:

God had promised him a son in his old age, and God delivered, at a time when it was impossible for old men and their wives to have babies.

In fact, if you follow a biblical anthropology, there is no such thing as a blind leap of faith, because the first man woke up out of the dust of the ground and met his creator on a daily basis in the Garden of Eden. This establishes that God is involved in His creation from the beginning in self-revelatory ways that doesn't require a blind faith at all. So Abe knew about this God, and had on ongoing relationship with him for YEARS before God tested him. Blind faith? No way.

Kierkegaard had his political/social context to which he was reacting. I suspect he would be singing a different tune were he alive today in NA.

In response to these points, our opponent repeated his emotional appeals, and added this sort of thing re the definition of "kill":

Let me get this straight, you are claiming that Kierkegaard's credibility is blown, because he wrongly defined the word 'kill'? Are you for real? That is the most ridiculous crap you have brought forward yet. A five year old child can accurately define 'kill'. It means 'render dead'. Something was once alive, now it's not, and something was responsible. And you're trying to suggest that Kierkegaard somehow got this wrong? I suppose now you are going to point me to a foreign root of the word 'kill' in Arabic or Sumerian or some other exotic language to try to prove your point? Give me a break, it's pathetic.

I replied to this methodology thusly:

Yes, it is indeed pathetic the way cognitive dissonance leads people to stick their heads in the sand and avoid actual answers. Funny, usually it's the True Believers who are accused of that...

Kierk was no expert in Hebrew language or culture, and it would not be hard to discredit a person on a particular point (you burn the excessive strawman of discrediting him as a whole, undoubtedly because of severe cognitive dissonance and high frustration you are experiencing) when they step out of their field of knowledge.

And tried to excuse away the evidence of the late birth of Isaac with a dipsy-doodle:

As for Abraham, his story is dramatic in the fact that he was made to wait until the age of a hundred before having a child. His belief in God was already put to the test by being made to wait so long. The fact that God turns around after waiting so long to give Abraham his promised son, and then demands his son be sacrificed serves to add further drama to the test of faith he underwent.

Not one word of this controverts the point that the late birth nevertheless was one piece of evidence upon which Abraham based his trust. This opponent was engaging distraction tactics by emphasizing "drama" and ignoring the point of the argument. In short, Abraham's faith was not "blind" at all.

In conclusion: If you as a Christian have held one or more of these views of faith, we offer this in humbleness as a corrective. Your faith does not have to be, and was never intended to be, a blind trust -- not in God, and not as something you hold even in opposition.

See a SecWeb Skeptic get corn-fused over this article, and our reply, here (http://www.tektonics.org/whatfaith_CC1.html).

Here are some observations from a reader who has been following this article:

Recently, I've been dealing with some (I dare say heretical) individuals on the issue of salvation. Essentially, they state the loss-of-rewards variant of eternal security. (If you ask them what that reward is, they'll stutter.) Anyway, one of the big issues that came up was the definition of faith. They continue to insist it is the one-time act of mental belief. I showed them the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Then the two verses before it with wonderful antithetical parallelism, and the two verses after it with the exhortation to persevere. (I don't think you made a real distinction between eternal security and perseverance of the saints in your article, and yes, dealing with antinomians has made me sensitive to that. Oh, well.) Anyway, the fact that "pistis" is the same word for faith and faithfulness didn't convince them. So I was just browsing and saw these definitions in Young's Literal Concordance:

To believe:

1. aman, to remain steadfast.
2. peithomai, to be persuaded.
3. pisteuo, to adhere to, trust, rely on.
4. pisteuo eis, to remain steadfast to.
5. pisteuo en, to remain steadfast in.
6. pisteuo epi, to remain steadfast on.

Faith:

1. emun, faithfulness, steadiness.
2. emunah, faithfulness, stability.
3. elpis, hope.
4. pistis, faith, faithfulness, steadfastness.

"To believe" is recognized not simply by the culturally aware, but also the linguistically aware to mean "to remain steadfast." If mental belief were meant, then why not use peithomai? (Interestingly enough, the active voice, peitho, refers back to the assurance/confidence/persuasion idea. Seems they didn't really like the idea of any belief that wasn't proven.) Those sneaky English translations! Oh, wait.

American Heritage Dictionary:

faith: n. 3. loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance.

In any case, most people can't handle the idea of knowledge-based loyalty any more than they can take love as group-centered attachment. 2 Cor. 5:7 says to walk by faith, but by this definition faith is not blindness -- "sight" there refers to being distracted by the visible realities rather than focusing on Christ.

I also noticed the whole James thing makes a lot more sense. "Loyalty without works." Sounds better than, "Belief without works," or, "Trust without works." Faith is faithfulness. The example I always use is a husband who has faith in his wife: that doesn't mean he believes she exists and that they married at some point in time. Then again, some "Christians" don't even think repentance is necessary for salvation. (This week, I've dealt with some that don't even regard unbelief as a sin.)


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Addendum: What is forgiveness? Though it may be enough of a surprise to know that "faith" meant, in the first century, not quite what we have been taught (!), there is another surprise: Neither does the word "forgiveness". Like "faith" this word is often tied up with an idea of emotional attachment and release of guilt. But that's our modern idea -- the ancients had different ideas entirely.

Malina and Rohrbaugh note in Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (303-4) that within the context of the ancient world, the "introspective, guilt-oriented outlook of industrialized societies did not exist...." "Guilt" therefore referred not to personal feelings, but to liability and responsibility for an offense. (One will find nowhere in the Bible someone who says, "I feel guilty!") "Forgiveness" meant, in turn, "being divinely restored to one's position" and being "freed from fear of loss at the hands of God." Forgiveness was restoration to a previous position -- not an emotion.

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Please visit Tekton Apologetics Ministry (www.tekonics.org) for more informative articles such as this as well as an exhaustive amount of material refuting skeptical assertions against Christianity.

For further reading to complete the 1 Corinthians 13 check out:

What is Love? (http://www.tektonics.org/whatlove.html)

and

What is Faith? (http://www.tektonics.org/whathope.html)

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[Robyn Banks]

Holding is right to reject the fallacious view that 'faith' is merely what is used in the absence of evidence.

But the reduction of faith to a rational endeavour is incorrect.

Tillich provides a better explanation of both points. I have a summary here:
http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8719

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

[dizzle]

Today @ 08:45 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=186708#post186708)
Robyn Banks:

Holding is right .....

Uh oh... Robyn just turned into a pillar of salt.

[jpholding]

Tillich was worfully ignorant of such matters as the client-patron relationship and the contextual meaning of pistis. His commentary is thoroughly decontexualized and is worthless to the informed student. While he may accurately describe "faith" as some or many (mis)understand it, he does not accurately describe pistis as it was understood by the contemporaries of Jesus.

[Arminian]

JPH said:


client-patron relationship

I haven't ready JP's article yet. I don't know if I will agree or disagree. However, the very mention of the topic above indicates to me that he's got insight into a profoundly important issue involving social dynamics of the ancients. I've been encouraging others to read books realted to this issue, including GrayP., Red. and Zag.

Thanks for your contribution JP. I look forward to reading the rest of it when I get back from vacation.

[dizzle]

Arminian, if you have not been to his site, www.tektonics.org, I think you will find a ton of stuff that you will love. Check it out.

[Arminian]

:yipee:

[rwade]

Luke 8:38-39 (NASB-U)
But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying, "Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.

[jpholding]

Today @ 04:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=197003#post197003)
rwade:

Luke 8:38-39 (NASB-U)
But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying, "Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.

Nope. He didn't either. He didn't tell how Jesus "changed his life" or made him a better person. He told how had healed him. In other words, he appealed to evidence: his own healing.

[dizzle]

Robyn's and JP's conversation has been split off to here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9622

[tomc]

I would suggest reading Kierkegaard for yourself instead of consulting 2nd hand sources. Kierkegaard is probably the most misunderstood and misquoted of all Christian philosophers. Many of his works were written under pseudonym and do not reflect his personal views.

A good anthology of his work is "A Kierkegaard Anthology" edited by Bretall.

[jpholding]

Actually someone already gave me the note on that.

http://www.tektonics.org/kierkfaith.html

I thought I had a link to this in the article...?

Thanks --

[scottatiwu]

:fight: seriously, this is crap...

first, you can never prove Christianity. Kierkegaard's point in "Concluding Unscientific Postscript" was that any historical "proof" was at BEST an approximation; and no matter how good the odds are, no approximation is stable enough to base your eternal happiness on. Furthermore, the arguments for the existence of God are terrible philosophy. They're useful to a believer, but mean jack squat to a thorough skeptic. But... neither is there any "proof" that is in favor of athiesm. A person has to be convinced of their need for God, which brings me to my second point.

Even if you could objectively prove the validity of Christianity 100%, this wouldn't give someone a reason to believe it. God is not an object, as if He were a created being, God is a subject, and thus you can only come into a relationship with Him subjectively. Now, apologetics might silence your protests, but it doesn't give you a reason to change. One of the students up here said once "we have faith in the promises of God, not in the existence of God." Now, go and read Hebrews 11. [note: we do believe in that existance, but it is God as a subject that we trust] I think every Christian should read Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. BTW, Kierkegaard was a theology student, so he was fairly well informed on things pertaining to religion.

Finally,

"If this was Kierkegaard's understanding of the Trinity, it was badly misinformed. Via the concept of Wisdom/Logos this "paradox" disappears; what was incarnated was a temporal, hypostatic extension of the transcendent God, not the transcendent God Himself. "

This is just straight-up heretical, seriously!

[dizzle]

The tone is our featured articles is significantly more stringently enforced than in our general forum. When an article is featured, the ministry is our guest.

[scottatiwu]

Sorry about that

[dizzle]

No problemo.

[jpholding]

first, you can never prove Christianity.

Wave the white flag, why don't you? I'll pass on the sound bites and just note the actual points:

Kierkegaard was a theology student, so he was fairly well informed on things pertaining to religion.

But not Greco-Roman client patron relationships. Same as Tillich.

This is just straight-up heretical, seriously!

:grin: Uh huh. Translation: "I don't get it." It's straight Nicene Creed, me bucko. If you want to debate it, let's get in the Wrestling Ring. I haven't taken someone to task on this is oh, 2-3 weeks.

[scottatiwu]

You're not nearly as intimidating as you believe yourself to be.

Anyway "Wave the white flag, why don't you? I'll pass on the sound bites and just note the actual points" Thanks for grabbing the opening sentence out of what I thought was a rather nicely written paragraph and attacking it rather than addressing the points I raised.

"But not Greco-Roman client patron relationships. Same as Tillich."

He would have regarded your modernist interpretation as trash anyway.

"Uh huh. Translation: "I don't get it." It's straight Nicene Creed, me bucko"

What I get is that you're interpreting the Creed as if the Church intended to speak equivocally. Translation: "I read the Bible and creeds the same way Bishop Sprague does." Christ was "very God of very God," thus IT WAS THE GOD HIMSELF. Who is foolish enough not to recognize this as a paradox? Well, I suppose your god isn't big enough to work beyond reason.

[jpholding]

Hum,

You're not nearly as intimidating as you believe yourself to be.

That's often the perspective a brick wall will offer. :argh:

Thanks for grabbing the opening sentence out of what I thought was a rather nicely written paragraph and attacking it rather than addressing the points I raised.

What points? There were none. Just a load of sound bites and feelings with no answers to a word I said.

He would have regarded your modernist interpretation as trash anyway.

Which proves, what about a word I wrote?

What I get is that you're interpreting the Creed as if the Church intended to speak equivocally. Translation: "I read the Bible and creeds the same way Bishop Sprague does." Christ was "very God of very God," thus IT WAS THE GOD HIMSELF. Who is foolish enough not to recognize this as a paradox? Well, I suppose your god isn't big enough to work beyond reason.

That "beyond reason" stuff was nothing but an excuse for people to continue in a fideistic faith. There is no such thing as "beyond reason". Nor is there any paradox to speak of. What you and Sprague forget in your ignorance is that "God" in the time of the NT and the Nicene Creed was NOT a proper name but an abstract word like "deity".

You just answered your own question of who is foolish enough. :thumb:

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 05:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=240095#post240095)
jpholding:

That's often the perspective a brick wall will offer. :argh:


hahaha


What points? There were none. Just a load of sound bites and feelings with no answers to a word I said.


I'm suggesting an entirely different understanding of how Christianity operates. your "system" doesn't work.


Which proves, what about a word I wrote?

that the client patron bit wouldn't have mattered to him and yet he spoke more effectively about the Christian faith then you ever will.



That "beyond reason" stuff was nothing but an excuse for people to continue in a fideistic faith.

If you believe that the scripture is full of excuses, such as "blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe," or "the mystery of godliness is great," and references to human ways not being the ways of God. you never really demonstrated what was wrong with a blind faith anyway.


There is no such thing as "beyond reason".

then your god is reason. My God, the true God, created reason because He created all things, and so He is "beyond reason," and everything you know about Him are only things which He has chosen to reveal Himself in.


Nor is there any paradox to speak of.

infinite attached to finiteness= paradox. you are outside the history and tradition of the church on this one kid.


What you and Sprague forget

just a quick note, I was placing sprague on your side of the line, you should look him up sometime.

in your ignorance is that "God" in the time of the NT and the Nicene Creed was NOT a proper name but an abstract word like "deity".

you've got it switched around, the approach had always been, up to this point, that God was the god of Israel. That is what we see in scripture. but, even if this were not the case, your distinction amounts to nothing anyway.

[jpholding]

I'm suggesting an entirely different understanding of how Christianity operates. your "system" doesn't work.

Ah. So what makes something true is that it "works". Right. Gotcha. Well, it does work fine for me and several people here...whereas "your system" was a notorious failure for them. Maybe you need to be tested.

that the client patron bit wouldn't have mattered to him and yet he spoke more effectively about the Christian faith then you ever will.

"Then" you ever will? O-kay...so once again, what "works" equates with truth. This is great. You know that "effectiveness" is the reason so many churches are allowing people to teach Eastern meditation, don't you? Tillich knew no truth in this matter so he may as well have been speaking "effectively" about Atlantis.

If you believe that the scripture is full of excuses, such as "blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe," or "the mystery of godliness is great," and references to human ways not being the ways of God. you never really demonstrated what was wrong with a blind faith anyway.

I certainly did: I showed that it did not exist. Thomas was basted because he should have believed given all the evidence he had, an overabundance; whereas others would believe even without the specific evidence of meeting the resurrected Jesus, but still having enough to believe. "Mystery" -- and just what do you think that means? A mystery, Scooby, was not something unknown; it was something revealed by God alone, and known. "Ways of God" doesn't even apply here.

then your god is reason

My God is coexistent with Reason for He is Reason and the ultimate source of it.

infinite attached to finiteness= paradox.

Resolved by that dirty little word "hypostasis" you need to look up in some NT scholarship when the cartoons are over.

just a quick note, I was placing sprague on your side of the line

Then you did so in error.

but, even if this were not the case, your distinction amounts to nothing anyway.

Nothing you have the ability to deal with, in other words. Thank you. Please keep the fires of ignorance burning for us. :thumb:

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 05:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=242978#post242978)
jpholding:
Well, it does work fine for me and several people here...whereas "your system" was a notorious failure for them. Maybe you need to be tested.


though I'm very glad you are thinking much more clearly here (works for me), you're still wrong. I was actually making a reference to it's philisophical stability, of which there isn't any. By the way, I stood on your side of the line once, it didn't work for me, but this sort of arguing gets us no where. oh, and sorry about the typo in the next section, I have a tendency to make those and not catch them.


O-kay...so once again, what "works" equates with truth. This is great. You know that "effectiveness" is the reason so many churches are allowing people to teach Eastern meditation, don't you?

you're right, I should have put that his work has been more important and has presented a clearer interpretation of the Gospel. I guess that puts us on the same side as far as eastern religions go.


I certainly did: I showed that it did not exist.

hahaha... O-K.


Thomas was basted because he should have believed given all the evidence he had, an overabundance;

you're right... because it's obivously more important that we be convinced by the evidence than that we just trust in Christ, I should've known. how ironic.


whereas others would believe even without the specific evidence of meeting the resurrected Jesus, but still having enough to believe.

so obviously all who believed before modern historical cristicism came about, or who were born without proper reasoning capabilities never had "true faith." I understand completely.

"Mystery" -- and just what do you think that means? A mystery, Scooby, was not something unknown; it was something revealed by God alone, and known.

of course, but not neccessarily comprehensible. existence vs. essence

"Ways of God" doesn't even apply here.

actually it does, think of Peter denying that the Son of Man had to suffer, it didn't fit reason, God chose what was foolishness to man to be the means by which He saves the world.


My God is coexistent with Reason for He is Reason and the ultimate source of it.

then once again, your God is reason and thus you practice idolatry. God is the source of reason, but He is not bound by reason. Is God reasonable because of reason, or is reason reason because God said so?


Resolved by that dirty little word "hypostasis" you need to look up in some NT scholarship (ad hominim attack ommited)

this by no means what so ever resolves the issue. I am concerned with the scriptures, not NT scholarship which flows back and forth like a tide.


just a quick note, I was placing sprague on your side of the line

Then you did so in error.

no, the comment was still fairly direct; you two both read the creeds equivocally, even though on a lot of other issues you two would differ greatly. it wasn't a very well developed comment anyway though, where you place him is insignificant.


Nothing you have the ability to deal with, in other words. Thank you.

hahaha... of course, you're right, it is far to complex for me, you are obivously my superior...

[jpholding]

Uh huh,

I was actually making a reference to it's philisophical stability, of which there isn't any.

Oh, "philisophical". You should have tried the philosophical side, no wonder you messed up. :doh: Has it occurred to you that the problem was actually "operator error" on your part? Hmmm?

you're right, I should have put that his work has been more important and has presented a clearer interpretation of the Gospel.

You should have; then I could have told you he failed on that, too.

you're right... because it's obivously more important that we be convinced by the evidence than that we just trust in Christ, I should've known. how ironic.

It's even more ironic that you don't realize that in the client-patron relatioship the NT describes, in which Jesus is broker, there's no essential difference between the two.

so obviously all who believed before modern historical cristicism came about, or who were born without proper reasoning capabilities never had "true faith." I understand completely.

Nah, you're still face down in a bowl of pea soup. The persons born in the first century had also the background knowledge already in their heads. Those later had only the weakest and most insubstantial sort of faith, which is why they needed to rush headlong into mindless fideism to keep from apostasizing, and why we have so many apostates spreading their garbage to begin with.

of course, but not neccessarily comprehensible.

Not necssarily, but there ain't one that is incomprehensible to anyone who does their homework.

actually it does, think of Peter denying that the Son of Man had to suffer, it didn't fit reason,

Actually it just didn't fit current views of the Messiah as a triumphant political figure. It DOES fit reason precisely, because atonement is a reasonable concept.

God chose what was foolishness to man to be the means by which He saves the world.

Wow, more decontextualization. Don't you know that the reference Paul made was specifically to the means of crucifixion, which was regarded as the most disgusting, degrading death in the ancient world?

then once again, your God is reason and thus you practice idolatry. God is the source of reason, but He is not bound by reason.

Oh no? Can God make 2 + 2 equal 5? Can God not be God if He so chooses? Can God speak to Moses and not speak to Moses at the same time? God IS reason and wisdom embodied and even God is limited by logic. Omnipotence does not mean the power to violate logic.

this by no means what so ever resolves the issue. I am concerned with the scriptures, not NT scholarship which flows back and forth like a tide.

That you think it does just shows how little you know about it. Evidently you prefer the sort of flow that goes clockwise down the loo. Tell us, do you also forbid the use of Greek lexicons? Why or why not?

hahaha... of course, you're right, it is far to complex for me, you are obivously my superior...

Glad you have the gumption to admit it. :thumb:

[scottatiwu]

Come on JP, I know you want to actually address what I have to say, just do it and get it over with rather than just attacking me.

Today @ 03:26 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=243736#post243736)
jpholding:


Oh, "philisophical". You should have tried the philosophical side, no wonder you messed up. :doh: Has it occurred to you that the problem was actually "operator error" on your part? Hmmm?

no, I meant what I said and I said what I meant. If you want to place the blame, look at yourself for not catching the keyword "system." But that's not important, what is important is that there is no philosophical stability for your interpretation (ie. an objective interpretation) of the Christian faith. Address this.

You should have; then I could have told you he failed on that, too.

quit talking about it and DO IT!


It's even more ironic that you don't realize that in the client-patron relatioship the NT describes, in which Jesus is broker, there's no essential difference between the two.

note: should I criticize your typo here? You trust Christ subjectively, and because you trust Him subjectively you trust His evidence subjectively because objectively it is always subject to doubt.



Nah, you're still face down in a bowl of pea soup.

way to be mature


The persons born in the first century had also the background knowledge already in their heads.

an empty tomb doesn't mean a ressurected savior, they trusted Christ by faith and believed the tomb was a sign. one that could be disputed certainly, but a sign none the less.


Those later had only the weakest and most insubstantial sort of faith

you hypocrite, these people would have believed even in spite of contrary evidence, I ask you, "Who trusts Christ more?"


Not necssarily, but there ain't one that is incomprehensible to anyone who does their homework.

then there isn't any ground on which to declare it a mystery, I wonder how you can so easily place yourself above Paul.


Actually it just didn't fit current views of the Messiah as a triumphant political figure. It DOES fit reason precisely, because atonement is a reasonable concept.

no, a man dies on a cross, and somehow His blood covers our sin;
every sunday (or once a month or season for some) we consume bread and wine (or grape juice) and yet this bread and wine are His actual body and blood, and in some way we are participating in the divine and at the same time eating with Him when we consume these? THIS IS NOT REASONABLE, BUT IT IS TRUE.


Wow, more decontextualization. Don't you know that the reference Paul made was specifically to the means of crucifixion, which was regarded as the most disgusting, degrading death in the ancient world?

Yes, and the idea that a holy, glorious, and beautiful God would choose to die in that manner is contradictory to reason. THIS IS NOT REASONABLE, BUT IT IS HOW GOD HAS REVEALED HIMSELF.


Oh no? Can God make 2 + 2 equal 5?

yes, He's God

Can God not be God if He so chooses?

this isn't even a question

Can God speak to Moses and not speak to Moses at the same time?

yup

God IS reason and wisdom embodied and even God is limited by logic.

tell me, how is the creator limited by His creation? Reason, wisdom, and logic are all only applicable within the realm of creation.

Omnipotence does not mean the power to violate logic.

so says you, not so sure says I.


That you think it does just shows how little you know about it.

that you think it doesn't shows how little you know of church history.

Evidently you prefer the sort of flow that goes clockwise down the loo.

you make very little sense sometimes

Tell us, do you also forbid the use of Greek lexicons? Why or why not?

no, I sure don't. do I think they're absolutely correct? no, I sure don't.

Glad you have the gumption to admit it. :thumb:
what I do here, I do because God has called me too. what you do here, you do because you are scared. not of me, not of kierkegaard, but of the truth.

[jpholding]

Come on JP, I know you want to actually address what I have to say, just do it and get it over with rather than just attacking me.

I did. You just have certain problems with denial.

no, I meant what I said and I said what I meant. If you want to place the blame, look at yourself for not catching the keyword "system."

I caught it. It looked at me and mumbled, "Irrelevant distraction. Please dial again."

But that's not important, what is important is that there is no philosophical stability for your interpretation (ie. an objective interpretation) of the Christian faith. Address this.

It's false. You have not shown otherwise in any way, shape or form. That's all there is to it. You have been thumped. Please report to the plastic surgery room for repair.

note: should I criticize your typo here?

Only if it is an obvious misspelling.

You trust Christ subjectively

Maybe you do. I don't. I trust Christ objectively. Subjectivity is for fideists who prefer ignorance to education.

way to be mature

Soup looks pretty close, doesn't it?

an empty tomb doesn't mean a ressurected savior

Uh huh....nothing as fine as the art of contradicting yourself within the same sentence. So how about a "resurrected" savior? One less S would help, maybe. Or maybe you mean, it doesn't mean a savior, even if he was resurrected? In one sense that is true -- theroetically he could have been a resurrected space alien -- but that's as much an epistemic problem as that, oh, the world was created 5 minutes ago and all you remember about it before was secretly implanted in your brains by Venusians.

you hypocrite, these people would have believed even in spite of contrary evidence, I ask you, "Who trusts Christ more?"

Who trusts telemarketers more? Yes, blind trust is surely a virtue you can get out of the Bible, especially with all the evidence that was provided. Funny how Peter appealed to the empty tomb, messianic prophecy, and miracles in Acts 2 instead of just yelling, "Trust Christ!" over and over again.

then there isn't any ground on which to declare it a mystery, I wonder how you can so easily place yourself above Paul.

Above Paul? I plce myself above you and your poor reading of Paul. He uses mystery as I do, and all the mysteries he speaks of are things God has revealed which are 100% comprehensible to anyone who hasn't got their head deep in the potato chip bag and is watching The Simpsons.

no, a man dies on a cross, and somehow His blood covers our sin;

Nothing unreasonable there or in anything you list further on. What's your problem? Dense?

yes, He's God -- this isn't even a question -- yup

Wow. He can believe totally stupid things with the greatest of ease. So tell us how God can make 2 +2 actually equal 5. Note that I do not mean, that He could make it so we use the symbol "5" to represent the quantity we call "4"; I mean, how does He actually make the quantity represented by the symbol "2" added with the same equal the quantity equal "5"? No wait, let me guess: We can just trust Him, and it will happen? I'd like to know what amount of power is needed to make 2 and 2 equal 5. When we apply 150 billion megawatts to 2 + 2, how much closer does it get to equalling 5? Maybe it needs 200000000 gazillion megawatts? How much? :rofl:

so says you, not so sure says I.

Then explain how many megawatts, please.

that you think it doesn't shows how little you know of church history.

Tons more than you'll ever forget even if you live to be 800.

no, I sure don't.

Why not? They're not the Bible, so you can't use them. Whether they are 100% correct or not is irrelevant. No informing contexts are allowed because IT'S NOT THE BIBLE.

what I do here, I do because God has called me too.

The little voices in your head? That's Sigmund Freud telling you to
get a degree in psychology before you embarrass yourself. :rofl:

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 08:26 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=244169#post244169)
jpholding:
I did. You just have certain problems with denial.

I'm begining to believe that you are only taking on issues which you think you can handle, like spelling errors, things at your level.
(just teasing, I know you're well studied and all)

It's false. You have not shown otherwise in any way, shape or form. That's all there is to it. You have been thumped. Please report to the plastic surgery room for repair.

friend, you haven't even scratched me. the point is all historical detail and "proof" is at best an approximation. You have to trust the data, you have to have faith. You have faith because of prior experiences, yada yada yada and I'm really just getting back to my first post in which I made the point that a person only comes to Christ because they believe they need Him. All evidence comes after that fact.


note: should I criticize your typo here?

Only if it is an obvious misspelling.


it was, (relatioship)


maybe you do, I don't. I trust Christ objectively. Subjectivity is for fideists who prefer ignorance to education.


you only know the objective through subjective experience, you can't really get around this.


Uh huh....nothing as fine as the art of contradicting yourself within the same sentence.

tell me how I contradicted myself and I'll address it.


In one sense that is true -- theroetically he could have been a resurrected space alien -- but that's as much an epistemic problem as that, oh, the world was created 5 minutes ago and all you remember about it before was secretly implanted in your brains by Venusians.

an empty tomb doesn't prove that He was resurrected at all.


Who trusts telemarketers more?


ok, that was just silly.


Yes, blind trust is surely a virtue you can get out of the Bible, especially with all the evidence that was provided.

yes, but why should I believe the evidence if I have no reason too?


Funny how Peter appealed to the empty tomb, messianic prophecy, and miracles in Acts 2 instead of just yelling, "Trust Christ!" over and over again.


funny how Peter experienced these things that he is referring too and how I'm not a contemporary of Peter's. Funny how Peter trusted Christ right when Christ called him rather than saying "Prove to me that you are worth following." But yet he left his boat, his life-source, without ANY "proof."


Above Paul? I plce myself above you and your poor reading of Paul. He uses mystery as I do, and all the mysteries he speaks of are things God has revealed which are 100% comprehensible to anyone who hasn't got their head deep in the potato chip bag and is watching The Simpsons.


the word, though it denotes something revealed by God (obviously), it does not denote that we are 100% capable of understanding it. I can know that God and man are united in Christ without understanding how.


Nothing unreasonable there or in anything you list further on. What's your problem? Dense?


It's not a problem for you because you're already a Christian!!!! Of course, we throw God in there and it fills up all the holes, but does that make it reasonable?? No, it means we believe it in faith.

yes, He's God -- this isn't even a question -- yup


Wow. He can believe totally stupid things with the greatest of ease. So tell us how God can make 2 +2 actually equal 5.


By speaking it and it would be done and your "wisdom" would be put to shame.


I mean, how does He actually make the quantity represented by the symbol "2" added with the same equal the quantity equal "5"? I'd like to know what amount of power is needed to make 2 and 2 equal 5.


that's nice that you're so interested. but... you're not God and neither am I. oh well...


Then explain how many megawatts, please.


well I suppose He could do it with zillions and zillions, or... none, it's up to Him because He's God. (hahaha, I'm unfalsifiable, I'm unfalsifiable, nananana)


Tons more than you'll ever forget even if you live to be 800.


pride comes before the fall.


Why not? They're not the Bible, so you can't use them. Whether they are 100% correct or not is irrelevant. No informing contexts are allowed because IT'S NOT THE BIBLE.


You say it's irrelevant, but it's really the point. these things are useful, but they are still subject to the critique of scripture.


The little voices in your head? That's Sigmund Freud telling you to
get a degree in psychology before you embarrass yourself. :rofl:

of course, that's the safest spiritual route, make fun of someone elses faith.

[jpholding]

Bleah,

friend, you haven't even scratched me.

Like I said, a brick wall...

the point is all historical detail and "proof" is at best an approximation.

Uh huh. Who told you that? The same person who told you that "faith" was a blind trust and not, as the contextual data shows, a trust based on evidence? So do you hide under bed for fear that your experiences are not real? You certainly don't live like it is "at best an approximation", do you? Any positive proof Lincoln was not a space alien from Weebo?

they need Him. All evidence comes after that fact.

Not by the definition of pistis that is historically correct.

you only know the objective through subjective experience, you can't really get around this.

It's real simple: you apply the word "subjective" arbitrarily, and certainly do not live as though the cashier at the Pic and Save might subjectively see you as a slobbering 10-foot gummi monster.

tell me how I contradicted myself and I'll address it.

Never mind, you clarified that you held the latter position I described.

an empty tomb doesn't prove that He was resurrected at all.

Uh huh. So you're an atheist now, yes? All other theories of why the tomb was empty collapse under the weight of impossibilities. With friends like you, Christ does not need enemies.

ok, that was just silly.

It made the necessary point. You brag of a faith blinder than mine? Before the throne you'll be standing naked with that kind of discipleship.

yes, but why should I believe the evidence if I have no reason too?

"No reason"? Like what?

funny how Peter experienced these things that he is referring too and how I'm not a contemporary of Peter's.

Uh huh. And we tell the truth by a clock? Is that your only excuse?

Funny how Peter trusted Christ right when Christ called him rather than saying "Prove to me that you are worth following."

Uh huh. This is funny. I have an atheist right now who thinks the same thing. So you think Peter first met Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, never saw him before, heard him teach, or saw his miracles? So what about the Gospel of John? And then I'll ask, when it says Jesus went into the synagogue to preach, do you assume he just waltzed in, kicked the scheduled speaker out of the pulpit, and started preaching?

Do you know what "high context" is?

the word, though it denotes something revealed by God (obviously), it does not denote that we are 100% capable of understanding it. I can know that God and man are united in Christ without understanding how.

Which is beside the point of whether it is understandable. It is. Key word: hypostasis. Look it up.

It's not a problem for you because you're already a Christian!!!!

It was not one for me before I was either, and the facts that led to my understanding were the same before and after that. Next?

By speaking it and it would be done and your "wisdom" would be put to shame.

Yep. Blind. So you have no answer. Here's an even tougher one for you: If God is all powerful, why is it impossible for Him to lie?

pride comes before the fall.

And the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. :rofl:

You say it's irrelevant, but it's really the point. these things are useful, but they are still subject to the critique of scripture.

Do tell us how you use scripture to critique a lexicon. This should be fascinating. One example will do.

of course, that's the safest spiritual route, make fun of someone elses faith.

You bet I will, if that "faith" is the emasculated sort that causes damage to others. People like you, Scotty, are as bad as atheists in my book because as you hum your merry tunes and keep walking, spreading destruction in your wake, it's people like me who have to pick up the pieces of shattered lives and near-apostasies that can't handle the cognitive dissonance that your brick head is able to manage. Keep it up and I'll keep up the battle to minimize your effectiveness in converting others to Elmer Fuddism.

[scottatiwu]

note: to all the philosophy fans, I know I'm ripping off some of Kierkegaard's ideas here, but I thought they best suited the discussion.

Today @ 04:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=245239#post245239)
jpholding:

Uh huh. Who told you that?

If there are any number of possibilities, relying on one answer is a guess, a choice, NOT objective.


The same person who told you that "faith" was a blind trust and not, as the contextual data shows, a trust based on evidence?

This isn't what scripture shows, it's what you interpret it too show.


So do you hide under bed for fear that your experiences are not real?

I was scared, when I had an objective faith like yours. I could prove Christianity at the drop of a pin. Then one day, I encountered the doubts of "what-ifs" and "maybe it could have been..." and they were things that I couldn't answer. I looked, I read, and I prayed, no evidence. While in the midst of this I attended a lecture on campus by a Christian apologist who wanted to make a case against post-modernism. I sat, I listened, and I thought "If this is the best case we have, we're screwed." He had no reason to believe in objective truth, other than the fact that we have always believed in objective truth. There's a fallacy for you. The fact is, it's true, you can't know. I about left the faith; me, someone called to the ministry who had demonstrated over and over again why his way had to be right; I had lost. It wasn't because of emotion, I didn't hate God, I wanted to believe, but the answers were never there, and they're not there in your responces either.


You certainly don't live like it is "at best an approximation", do you?


I don't live like it isn't true, there's a difference, and thats the best part about the story. I realized, yeah, I could be trapped inside my head, sure, this whole world could be lying to me. But, I was still alive, because alive was only defined in this context in which I found myself. And I became less interested in objective fact. I became interested in my relation to Christianity. I could either go on and live a meaningless, depressed and shattered life, or I could submit to God, and take the leap of faith. The fact is, I knew subjectively that I needed God. I knew subjectively that I had experienced God. And those subjective experiences were something that objective proof couldn't take away.I choose this because I know subjectively IT IS RIGHT FOR ME, and because it is right for me, then within the context of my subjective experience, it is right for everyone. As Kierkegaard said, it's the "One truth I can live for." And if I die, and I'm wrong, I still exited life with meaning, which is more than anyone else can ask for.


Not by the definition of pistis that is historically correct.

I'm not even going to waste my time with why this is a useless remark.


and certainly do not live as though the cashier at the Pic and Save might subjectively see you as a slobbering 10-foot gummi monster.

you're right, because I choose not to. Meaning can only be found in Christianity.


Uh huh. So you're an atheist now, yes?


nope, to paraphrase Antonio Banderas (sp?) in the movie The Body, I know He is ressurected because I speak with Him every morning.


All other theories of why the tomb was empty collapse under the weight of impossibilities.


Or atleast Christian apologists like to think so.


With friends like you, Christ does not need enemies.


Christ has only ONE enemy, and you'd do well to remember that.


It made the necessary point. You brag of a faith blinder than mine? Before the throne you'll be standing naked with that kind of discipleship.


We all stand naked before the throne, we must. We can only point to and be covered by Christ, and NOTHING else.


"No reason"? Like what?


If I don't care, if it doesn't mean anything too me.If I am to become objective so that I can weigh the evidence correctly, then what is left to my subjective concern about it. If you tell me I should be concerned than I'm not really being objective in the first place.


Uh huh. And we tell the truth by a clock? Is that your only excuse?


no, we tell truth by experience.


So what about the Gospel of John?


You're right, in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist gives a testimony about what he EXPERIENCED when baptizing Jesus, and he believes this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of the one who sent him.


And then I'll ask, when it says Jesus went into the synagogue to preach, do you assume he just waltzed in, kicked the scheduled speaker out of the pulpit, and started preaching?


Could have been. Of course your reading a modern day church service back into second temple judaism.


It is. Key word: hypostasis. Look it up.


Your use of the word does not make what you say true. What you proposed that I took issue with, namely that "It wasn't the transcendent God Himself" is heresy, I'd even go so far as to say its a form of sabellianism (sp?)


It was not one for me before I was either,


either a: you're not that rational of a thinker
or b: you were already working with a supernatural paradigm.


and the facts that led to my understanding were the same before and after that. Next?


and which facts were these again? one of the arguments for the existence of God? I could talk about these for days. or, maybe it was historical evidence, leading me to ask, why trust the evidence?


Yep. Blind.


Yep. Point?


So you have no answer.


I can't limit God, that's my answer.


Here's an even tougher one for you: If God is all powerful, why is it impossible for Him to lie?


Oh, of course, that's much more difficult. Let me ask you a question, would He ever need to in the first place? Whats the actual definition of a lie? Is it ok to lie in order to save someone? I mean really, is this all you have?


And the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. :rofl:


way to duck.


Do tell us how you use scripture to critique a lexicon. This should be fascinating. One example will do.


and once again you are being equivocal. Greek Lexicons and NT. Commentaries are not the same thing. However, if either should say something which is contrary to the teaching of scripture, then scripture comes first.


You bet I will, if that "faith" is the emasculated sort that causes damage to others. People like you, Scotty, are as bad as atheists in my book because as you hum your merry tunes and keep walking, spreading destruction in your wake, it's people like me who have to pick up the pieces of shattered lives and near-apostasies that can't handle the cognitive dissonance that your brick head is able to manage. Keep it up and I'll keep up the battle to minimize your effectiveness in converting others to Elmer Fuddism.

You're right, because it's much better to make faith as easy as possible. These people are living in toothpick houses anyway, better for a Christian who loves them to try to convince them to come outside than for an atheist to demolish them.

[jpholding]

All in all, you're just another brick in the wall --

If there are any number of possibilities, relying on one answer is a guess, a choice, NOT objective.

Uh huh. Panic button epistemology. What you might mean is, "If there are any number of possibilities and we can't eliminate all but one, relying on one answer is a guess." Your inability to narrow things down is not anyone else's problem.


This isn't what scripture shows, it's what you interpret it too show.

Using firm contextual data, while all you do is read the text in English and announce your opinion. Tell us why the meaning of pistis in other contexts is not relevant, please.

I was scared, when I had an objective faith like yours.

Never occurred to you that operator error was the problem, did it?

Then one day, I encountered the doubts of "what-ifs" and "maybe it could have been..."

And you fell for it? What an immature person you must be. :doh:

and they were things that I couldn't answer.

How much you want to bet it's stuff that I or others CAN answer?

this I attended a lecture on campus by a Christian apologist who wanted to make a case against post-modernism. I sat, I listened, and I thought "If this is the best case we have, we're

Who was it, Daffy Duck? And how do you know again the problem wasn't with you? I'd like to counce his lecture off someone I know who is a philosophy major. Where can I get a copy?

screwed." He had no reason to believe in objective truth, other than the fact that we have always believed in objective truth.

I doubt very much it was all that simple.

wanted to believe, but the answers were never there, and they're not there in your responces either.

They are, you just don't like it because you're frightened of objectivity. That much is clear.

I don't live like it isn't true, there's a difference, and thats the best part about the story. I realized, yeah, I could be trapped inside my head, sure, this whole world could be lying to me. But, I was still alive, because alive was only defined in this context in which I found myself

In other words, you ignored your own inconsistency. Why am I not surprised?

And those subjective experiences were something that objective proof couldn't take away.I choose this because I know subjectively IT IS RIGHT FOR ME

Uh huh. Good thing you didn't decide for cocaine instead!

I'm not even going to waste my time with why this is a useless remark.

"I have no answer," in other words.

nope, to paraphrase Antonio Banderas (sp?) in the movie The Body, I know He is ressurected because I speak with Him every morning.

So do the Mormons. So are you converting and going down to your local stake this Sunday?

Or atleast Christian apologists like to think so.

And I am sure it is a waste of time to ask you to prove otherwise in debate, right?

Christ has only ONE enemy, and you'd do well to remember that.

And you are on his side through and through.

no, we tell truth by experience.

Uh huh. Have some LSD then. Or maybe some LDS.

You're right, in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist gives a

Uh, no, what does PETER do there, please?

Could have been. Of course your reading a modern day church service back into second temple judaism.

Merely to show the absurdity of your claim. So in other words, you claim the utter impossibility that Jesus just barged in and started preaching and no one protested, no setup was needed. Is that it?

Your use of the word does not make what you say true. What

No, the scholarship behind it does. You wouldn't know Sabellianism from San Francisco. This is Nicean 100%. If you think not, let's debate it one on one in a formal debate. It will be worthwhile to take the time to make you look foolish so you won't ruin the lives of others with this nonsense.

either a: you're not that rational of a thinker

100% so. Explain why not.

and which facts were these again? one of the arguments for the existence of God? I could talk about these for days.

And say virtually nothing in the process. Which facts? Pick one of the mysteries.

I can't limit God, that's my answer.

So why did Hebrews do so in saying God could not lie? That He would need to or not is not an answer. Don't try to get out of your predicament by asking irrelevant questions. It is clearly put: It is impossible for God to lie. This is a limit on His power, by your absurd reckoning. Resolve it.

way to duck.

So says Donald!

and once again you are being equivocal. Greek Lexicons and NT. Commentaries are not the same thing.

Doesn't matter. Neither is the BIBLE, so out the door they go. Burn 'em.

However, if either should say something which is contrary to the teaching of scripture, then scripture comes first.

That's it, keep flying in a circle, Donald. Now how do you know what the "teaching of Scripture" is? Do you just read it in English? And what if a lexicon says something that destroys your understanding of the text in English? Well?

You're right, because it's much better to make faith as easy as possible.

Which is exactly what I have done for countless persons while you've been shuffling around in a daze wondering if you really had your socks on, objectively speaking. :argh:

"Bizarro teach Bible exegesis for Scottatiwu Bible College."

[scottatiwu]

Yesterday @ 11:02 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=245776#post245776)
jpholding:

What you might mean is, "If there are any number of possibilities and we can't eliminate all but one, relying on one answer is a guess." Your inability to narrow things down is not anyone else's problem.


The thing is JP, you still don't get that it's a choice, wether you "narrowed it down" or not, so it's not 100%, and so it's not worth basing your faith on.


Using firm contextual data,


How firm is firm? How does it relate to the tradition of the Church (besides the Creed obviously)?


while all you do is read the text in English

Actually, I try to do my devotions and studies in Greek as often as possible unless I'm just doing a quick reference.


and announce your opinion.


Well, it's not really "my" opinion, quite a few people hold it. But of course this means that you're going to go back to that silly "client-patron" bit, I guess that just solves all your problems doesn't it?


Tell us why the meaning of pistis in other contexts is not relevant, please.


Your use of it is irrelevant JP. You're reading objective fact into the Biblical charecters subjective experience. Your reading modern scientific language into a non-scientific setting.


Never occurred to you that operator error was the problem, did it?


I knew I couldn't expect a decent remark from you.


And you fell for it? What an immature person you must be. :doh:


I FOUGHT IT FOR TWO LONG CURSED YEARS! NEVER MAKE LIGHT OF MY STRUGGLE!


How much you want to bet it's stuff that I or others CAN answer?


JP, I was one of you once remember? We're all the same. You couldn't have answered these questions any better than I could have and still remained intellectually honest.


And how do you know again the problem wasn't with you?


Maybe it was, but then again, in the end I was still the one I needed to be concerned with.


I'd like to counce his lecture off someone I know who is a philosophy major.


I am a philosophy major.


Where can I get a copy?


I'll see if I can get an address for you.


I doubt very much it was all that simple.


Oh, I promise you it was, I listened very intently because I wanted him to be right. But, as it turned out, he said we just had to believe that what we see and feel is real because we can't prove it. And remember, this was his critique of postmodernism.


They are, you just don't like it because you're frightened of objectivity. That much is clear.


Don't you get it?? I wanted objective proof.But God had another path for me.


In other words, you ignored your own inconsistency. Why am I not surprised?


No, I accepted my inability to know.


Uh huh. Good thing you didn't decide for cocaine instead!


There are reasons why I choose Christianity, but the reasons aren't objective proofs. But you're right, I'm glad I didn't go that way too.


So do the Mormons.


Is objective proof and making fun of Joseph Smith the only way you'll engage with them? Of course, we wouldn't want to talk about Christ and theology when debating them would we?


And I am sure it is a waste of time to ask you to prove otherwise in debate, right?


No, I just won't do it from a Christian perspective, because the argument is still always based on faith.


And you are on his side through and through.


Are you proposing that the things in my life which I believe to be Christ at work were really the works of the devil? Be careful not to heap condemnation upon yourself.


Uh huh. Have some LSD then.


And theirs is not a fulfilling lifestyle, but that's something we can discuss on a different thread. A person can live in this context. Christianity is still the right option in this context.


Uh, no, what does PETER do there, please?


What Andrew told him to; sorry, thought you were going to make a valid point.


You wouldn't know Sabellianism from San Francisco.


Ecce Homo! And you don't know me.


This is Nicean 100%.


Adapted for modalists maybe, but I'm pretty sure it's not in my catechism.


If you think not, let's debate it one on one in a formal debate.


I'm not foolish enough to think you've gathered a faithful following for no reason. I haven't studied rhetoric enough to formally debate you. Maybe sometime in the future. Standing up for the truth is enough for now.


It will be worthwhile to take the time to make you look foolish so you won't ruin the lives of others with this nonsense.


I would never endanger someones faith, I only want them to truly trust in God. I would never leave them hanging with no answers. There are answers on this side JP.


100% so. Explain why not.


Because if you were an honest atheist beforehand, then you are working with a naturalistic paradigm. These things conflict with a naturalistic paradigm. God is not merely "catching the dropped ball," He's suspending it in mid-air and making it glow.


Pick one of the mysteries.


JP, obviously scientific things aren't going to be an issue for me, and any explanation you give me for a "mystery of the faith" would be based on faith and a presumption of God. So, I can't be the one to ask the question because I can't think of one that I can't explain myself. Give me an objective piece of evidence that led to your conversion, this way you can go with any one of the sciences, and we'll discuss it.


So why did Hebrews do so in saying God could not lie?


Because God saying it makes it true. It's like saying "Why can't God do evil?" Because Good and Evil are what God say they are, and if He says something different, then they change. It's not even a good question.


This is a limit on His power, by your absurd reckoning. Resolve it.


It's not a limit, it's semantecs, and a silly question.


So says Donald!


once again, way to duck.


Doesn't matter. Neither is the BIBLE, so out the door they go. Burn 'em.


You're the only one saying this.


That's it, keep flying in a circle, Donald. Now how do you know what the "teaching of Scripture" is? Do you just read it in English? And what if a lexicon says something that destroys your understanding of the text in English? Well?


Heaven forbid we trust the Spirit of God on this one right JP?


Which is exactly what I have done for countless persons while you've been shuffling around in a daze wondering if you really had your socks on, objectively speaking.


You pressume to know the meaning and influence of my life, hmm? God has validated my choices, I'm not worried about your persecutions, I count it all gain. :-)


"Bizarro teach Bible exegesis for Scottatiwu Bible College."


Actually my Prof. was Dr. Steven Lennox, that was a fun class. Though he is a modernist, he has a much more interesting way to fill the hermenutic gap.

[jpholding]

Uh huh...

thing is JP, you still don't get that it's a choice,

And you continue to dodge the evidential aspect that governs the choice. Given your retreat into subjectivism, I can understand why. It was too fearful. You call ME scared?

How firm is firm? How does it relate to the tradition of the Church (besides the Creed obviously)?

It's backed up by numerous studies and evidence. If you think otherwise, why not challenge it on real grounds?

Well, it's not really "my" opinion, quite a few people hold it. But of course this means that you're going to go back to that silly "client-patron" bit, I guess that just solves all your problems doesn't it?

Every one of them, while you and your friends still ask if you really have your socks on. I would expect calling it "silly" is the best you can do, rather than actually dealing, for example, with the usages of pistis in other literature. No, somehow, the NT writers managed to find a use of pistis that conformed with your 21st century definition and used it in a way no one else in that time did, right? :shocked:

Your use of it is irrelevant JP. You're reading objective fact into the Biblical charecters subjective experience. Your reading modern scientific language into a non-scientific setting.

Uh huh. Not that you can answer a word of it with actual documented use of pistis in a "subjective" fashion from any piece of lit. Your dodge of it is merely a way to keep your balloon in the air. And if its subjective, why are you to be believed when you say so?

I FOUGHT IT FOR TWO LONG CURSED YEARS! NEVER MAKE LIGHT OF MY STRUGGLE!

Two years? Is that all? I've been hitting the books for seven to ten. Maybe we have a little problem with self-centeredness, Scotty?

JP, I was one of you once remember?

You were as close to being one of "me" as a kindergartner was close to being a Ph D.

You couldn't have answered these questions any better than I could have and still remained intellectually honest.

Ah, now Scotty wants to play character assassin. :smile: Try me.

Maybe it was, but then again, in the end I was still the one I needed to be concerned with.

Uh huh....self-centeredness...in the ancient world you'd have been a class A failure.

I am a philosophy major.

That makes it even better. :thumb:

Don't you get it?? I wanted objective proof.But God had another path for me.

How do you know it wasn't Satan? (tongue in cheek, since I think Satan is now bound, as a preterist)

No, I accepted my inability to know.

Waved the white flag, as I first said.

Is objective proof and making fun of Joseph Smith the only way you'll engage with them?

Not if they make intelligent arguments, which some do. In the meantime how about answering my question? Why aren't you at a stake meeting this Sunday?

Of course, we wouldn't want to talk about Christ and theology when debating them would we?

I already have. I even wrote a book on it.

No, I just won't do it from a Christian perspective, because the argument is still always based on faith.

The skewered pistis you anachronistically read in, of course.

Are you proposing that the things in my life which I believe to be Christ at work were really the works of the devil? Be careful not to heap condemnation upon yourself.

Be careful not to beg the question and use threats as a form of argument. Actually Satan would probably be ashamed to be involved in such an amateurish ruse. It's more likely your own imagination aand intellect that's the problem.

And theirs is not a fulfilling lifestyle,

It is fulfilling to several I have spoken to. So now what?

What Andrew told him to; sorry, thought you were going to make a valid point.

You lost or dodged the point. I'll spell it out: This shows that Peter met Jesus long before the "follow me" incident.

Ecce Homo! And you don't know me.

I know your arguments and that's enough for as far as I've gone.

Adapted for modalists maybe, but I'm pretty sure it's not in my catechism.

"Pretty sure," uh huh. Modalism does not agree with hypostases because they see each Trinity member as existing only one at a time. I see all three existent as once; the Word and the Spirit as hypostases of the Father.

I'm not foolish enough to think you've gathered a faithful following for no reason.

Wow, is that you, Farrell?

I haven't studied rhetoric enough to formally debate you. Maybe sometime in the future. Standing up for the truth is enough for now.

But defending it, isnt. Right.

I would never endanger someones faith, I only want them to truly trust in God. I would never leave them hanging with no answers. There are answers on this side JP

Oh of course. Your "answer" to every question is, "Don't worry, just have faith and trust God." Does a heck of a lot of good when someone wants answers to the question, "How do we know Mithraism wasn't a source for Christianity?" Your answers are about as useful as a hearing aid at a pantomime show. You ARE a danger whether you admit it or not.

Because if you were an honest atheist beforehand,

I wasn't an atheist. I was a nominal theist.

JP, obviously scientific things aren't going to be an issue for me, and any explanation you give me for a "mystery of the faith" would be based on faith and a presumption of God.

You mean, you can't stop begging the question. Righto.

Give me an objective piece of evidence that led to your conversion

The core one: the resurrection of Christ.

Because God saying it makes it true.

Uh, right. So if God says, "I am no longer God" that makes it true? Good dodgeball.

It's like saying "Why can't God do evil?" Because Good and Evil are what God say they are, and if He says something different, then they change.

Ah. The atheists would eat you up. So let's get this straight: If God said cursing Him was good, it becomes good. If God said making idols to Molech and sacrificing infants to Molech was good, it becomes good. Yes, that sounds like the universe of subjective chaos you let yourself into.

It's not a limit, it's semantecs, and a silly question.

One you'd like to avoid, clearly. But you have made your bed.

You're the only one saying this.

Of course, because you cannot stay consistent and don't see a problem in being inconsistent.

Heaven forbid we trust the Spirit of God on this one right JP?

The Mormons agree on that too! So does TD Jakes the modalist. So let's all go to the local stake and become modalists, because these guys "trust the Spirit of God"! Meanwhile how about an answer to my question?

You pressume to know the meaning and influence of my life, hmm? God has validated my choices, I'm not worried about your persecutions, I count it all gain. :-)

Hmm. Sounds like someone in a cult....the Bizarro Bible Cult!

[Queen]

I have a question that is one of the important reasons why I am an atheist.

I wonder why Christianity is the only true faith? And that God is the only real God? Who says that the others are wrong (Buhhists, Hindus, Muslims, and so on). Every little culture has it's own faith.....Is there only one true religion?

My answer: I think religion is a way to have explanations for natural disasters, natural occurances and how we evolved, why we get sick or even get better again and so on. All the questions humans struggle with. Many religions are very old (Christianity is one of the younger religions). I believe people found peace with the religious explanations. I find peace with the scientific explanations. For me that is the truth.

Lots of love and sunshine,
Queen

[jason_r]

Today @ 09:36 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=246371#post246371)
Queen:

I believe people found peace with the religious explanations.
Lots of love and sunshine,

Queen

hi queen! :smile:

i can't speak for other religions, but i don't think "early church converts" converted because they found peace and an easy way of life through christianity. actually, the NT speaks quite a bit about suffering for Christ. 10 out of the 11 original disciples were martyred for what they believed to be true (Jesus being the son of God who was crucified/executed and came back to life). only john grew to be old, but he was exiled to an island work camp. actually, the early church in general was persecuted quite a bit (not just the original disciples). They did, however, find comfort in Christ ("For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." (2 Cor 1:15)) as well as the fact that they focused not so much on this world, but what's to come after this world (though this suffering could be avoided by abandoning christianity, but i don't believe they considered this an option since they believed Jesus to be the true messiah).

as far why christians see Christ as the only way. actually, that's a topic that's probably too involved for me to try to explain. one thing to take into consideration, though is the atonement for sins. everyone does good things and everyone does bad things. the good things people do, though don't excuse them of the bad things. someone else in another thread gave the example of someone (such as hitler) murdering a million people, but then saving two million people. his saving two million people doesn't excuse him of murdering a million people. or a firefighter who saves three people from a burning building, but then the following weekend gets drunk and beats up an innocent bystander. his saving three people doesn't excuse him of beating someone up and he should still be held responsible for his actions. in the same way, the good things we do don't excuse us from the bad things we do (however small they may be). so we have two options...either pay the price ourselves or let Jesus pay the price for us. i know that doesn't answer your question, but just something to think about.

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 02:14 PM http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=246342#post246342 (<post> located here
jpholding:

And you continue to dodge the evidential aspect that governs the choice. Given your retreat into subjectivism, I can understand why. It was too fearful. You call ME scared?


I'm not dodging any evidence, I welcome the evidence, but it isn't enough to base my faith on, only God is worth my faith.


It's backed up by numerous studies and evidence. If you think otherwise, why not challenge it on real grounds?


The union of God and Man in Christ is affirmed as Church dogma, _your missuse of the word which refers to this union on the other hand...


Every one of them,


provincialism


while you and your friends still ask if you really have your socks on.


come on, that's too easy, I know I have socks on because I see I have socks on, it's wether my feet really exist outside of my mind, that's the question ;-)


I would expect calling it "silly" is the best you can do,


call a spade a spade


_No, somehow, the NT writers managed to find a use of pistis that conformed with your 21st century definition and used it in a way no one else in that time did, right?


Funny how my "21st century" definition is one that has been in frequent use throughout the history of the church, but your "correct" use really didn't come about until the rise of the historical-critical method of interpretation.


Uh huh. Not that you can answer a word of it with actual documented use of pistis in a "subjective" fashion from any piece of lit.


Oh, that's right. I want to throw the commentaries, studies, and lexicons out the door to be burned; all you want to do is throw out the Bible. Blessed, not "decent enough to scrape by," are those who have not seen and yet believe.


And if its subjective, why are you to be believed when you say so?


Because this is MY subjective experience. I am not saying "this is right for me, that is right for you," but only "this is right for me." And because of my faith in God, I believe Him when He says "I am the way,"


Two years? Is that all? I've been hitting the books for seven to ten.


You are no where near dealing with the same issues, this was a private matter.


Maybe we have a little problem with self-centeredness, Scotty?


only enough to match your pride.


You were as close to being one of "me" as a kindergartner was close to being a Ph D.


You have not even begun to suffer that which I suffered in this area.


Ah, now Scotty wants to play character assassin.


I'm sorry, I just figured that was the name of the game when talking with you.


Uh huh....self-centeredness...in the ancient world you'd have been a class A failure.


self-centeredness in terms of intellect doesn't mean selfishness, I would've been in trouble for my belief in Christ.


How do you know it wasn't Satan?


Satan, or my own devil may have been the author of confusion, but God is the only author of my salvation.


Waved the white flag, as I first said.


more like shifted the battlefield.


In the meantime how about answering my question? Why aren't you at a stake meeting this Sunday?


because I know subjectively that they are not true objectively.


I already have. I even wrote a book on it.


You took that long of a break from attacking orthodoxy?


Be careful not to beg the question


I wasn't, I wanted clarification on a blatant statement.


and use threats as a form of argument.


It wasn't a threat, but a warning of kindness. Should I leave a soul in danger?


Actually Satan would probably be ashamed to be involved in such an amateurish ruse.


Is this really supposed to be an insult?? Satan would be ashamed of you... wow, you're breakin my heart. On the other hand, I know that Christ still cares for me.


It's more likely your own imagination aand intellect that's the problem.


You know, I just thought, if I wasn't a Christian already, people like you sure wouldn't attract me to the whole buisness.


It is fulfilling to several I have spoken to. So now what?


I suppose if slavery to yourself is fulfilling, though I can't see it being so. And eventually it gets old. On the other hand, Christ promises that if we drink His water, we will never thirst again. He has come to give live and give it more abundantly. I think I'd prefer that.


You lost or dodged the point. I'll spell it out: This shows that Peter met Jesus long before the "follow me" incident.


You're right, or they could be the same incident written differently, which sounds much more likely to me, considering the fact that in John, Simon's name is changed when He first meets Christ. Oh well.


I know your arguments and that's enough for as far as I've gone.


You've gone much farther, you've made way too many personal attacks.


I see all three existent as once; the Word and the Spirit as hypostases of the Father.


Ok, ok. Maybe I'm just not following you well enough, if hypostasis refers to the unity in the Trinity, then why say that it wasn't the transcendent God Himself? The three persons of the trinity do not differ in substance or attributes, but in offices. Transendence is an attribute, not an office.


But defending it, isnt. Right.


standing up for it and defending it are one and the same, debating it formally is another issue. It's like saying "I'm not ready to fence, but I can box alright." that is what I am doing here.


Oh of course. Your "answer" to every question is, "Don't worry, just have faith and trust God."


You obviously have no concept of what I meant. I'm talking about answering the question "Should I follow Christ?" "How should I live?"


Does a heck of a lot of good when someone wants answers to the question, "How do we know Mithraism wasn't a source for Christianity?"


Though this is really a different issue, I have no problem with believing that Paul used language that would have been familiar to those involved in Mithraism. He certainly would have been exposed to it throughout his lifetime, and would have intended to present the Gospel to the soldiers just as much as to any other gentile. The language used does not change the truth of Christianity, it still says the same thing either way. Maybe we can't prove that it wasn't a source, but no one can prove that it was either. My question is, what does Christianity have to say? Christ says, as I mentioned earlier, "I AM the way,"


Your answers are about as useful as a hearing aid at a pantomime show.


Odd that you would be so sure, even before you heard them.


You ARE a danger whether you admit it or not.


You are one human voice against the Spirit's, I know which one I'd rather hear give approval.


I wasn't an atheist. I was a nominal theist.


So, in other words, you were already half-way there. Makes sense, I shouldn't have expected you to be able to relate to a staunch atheist.


You mean, you can't stop begging the question.


And you need to check your own website and refresh yourself on the logical fallacies so that the least you could do is classify them right.


The core one: the resurrection of Christ.


If you want to debate why you can't be convinced of this without faith, then perhaps in a few months I would be willing to debate you on this issue. I agree, there is a lot of evidence for this, but you can't believe it in a Christian fashion without faith. It is faith seeking understanding, not the other way around.


Uh, right. So if God says, "I am no longer God" that makes it true? Good dodgeball.


Way to try to rephrase the same question I already answered. I have made the point that the Creator is not limited by His creation. If there is any limit on God, this is it, the absence of limit.


Ah. The atheists would eat you up.


For proposing a valid ethical theory? I doubt it. If I was an atheist, I'd be a prima facie deontologist, I suppose though that I'd put more of an emphasis on commitments than other deontologists. If they want to oppose me on that issue, they're welcome to it.


So let's get this straight: If God said cursing Him was good, it becomes good.


If He had so chosen to design creation in that way, sure, but it would be obviously much different then how we experience it.


If God said making idols to Molech and sacrificing infants to Molech was good, it becomes good.


If He had designed creation in that way, then sure. As I said, it would be much different than we experience. The fact is though that God did not design creation in this way, so these last two questions were rather fruitless.


Yes, that sounds like the universe of subjective chaos you let yourself into.


You're right, because in no way did I imply that God left some sort of guide to help understand His will. (sarcasm)


One you'd like to avoid, clearly. But you have made your bed.


I have not creeped away in fear yet. Are you still so sure that you are all that intimidating?


Of course, because you cannot stay consistent and don't see a problem in being inconsistent.


You know nothing of my philosophy of life beyond what I have attacked you with and the few brief glimpses I have given you in these last two posts. You have no where near enough information to judge my consistency.


The Mormons agree on that too! So does TD Jakes the modalist. So let's all go to the local stake and become modalists, because these guys "trust the Spirit of God"! Meanwhile how about an answer to my question?


Lets not because these groups do not stand up to scripture.


Hmm. Sounds like someone in a cult....the Bizarro Bible Cult!

Come on, if you're going to insult me, atleast be witty. You've done that before, but this one failed miserably.

[jpholding]

Yeah, right! :lmbo:

I'm not dodging any evidence, I welcome the evidence, but it isn't enough to base my faith on, only God is worth my faith.

And how do you know God is there? No, wait: subjective experience? Um, how do you know your subjective experience is OBJECTIVELY real?

union of God and Man in Christ is affirmed as Church dogma, _your missuse of the word which refers to this union on the other hand...

Huh huh huh. The word the best scholars use.

e on, that's too easy, I know I have socks on because I see I have socks on, it's wether my feet really exist outside of my mind, that's the question ;-)

Then answer it, Guy Smiley. :teeeh:

Funny how my "21st century" definition is one that has been in frequent use throughout the history of the church, but your "correct" use really didn't come about until the rise of the historical-critical method of interpretation.

Yes, funny how it arose by getting to understand how the people of that day and age used the word, huh? My, but you use "historical-critical method" as though it were a naughty word. "Frequen use" you say? I'll grant that it appears so in the Reformation era, about 1500 years too late and in the writings of clumsy, ethnocentric Europeans with absolutely zero knowledge of first-century life or sociology. But you'll find it in the second and third centuries right on the shelf next to second-century books on how to make menudo.

Oh, that's right. I want to throw the commentaries, studies, and lexicons out the door to be burned; all you want to do is throw out the Bible.

Nope. I want to throw out mangled interpretions of the Bible and keep all of the above. And glad you finally admit to being an obscurantist.

Blessed, not "decent enough to scrape by," are those who have not seen and yet believe.

:rofl: Silly Scotty. I wrote an article just for you and an atheist here on how you poor sops abuse John 20:29. You'll want to hide behind your couch, as this involves critical analysis, you know, that slobbering demon with the fangs? Here's the core:

Thomas had more than sufficient evidence -- the testimony of at least 11 men who he had gotten to know intimately over at least the past three years, plus personal experience of the miraculous powers of Jesus, and even an empty tomb. He had no reason at all to distrust his comrades, and having seen Jesus' miraculous powers, especially the raising of Lazarus, no reason to doubt the resurrection.

In this light, keep in mind that the vast majority of potential converts in the future would not have as much direct evidence as Thomas did. They would still have sufficient evidence, but if Thomas were allowed to "set an example," then others will complain -- as do so many Skeptics today! -- that if Thomas could only believe on this basis, why can't Jesus appear to everyone personally? Thomas' implicit attitude devolves Jesus to the level of a wish-fulfilling genie who appears on command.

A final consideration is the use of the word "blessed," or makarios. This is the same word used in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are...." As Malina and Rohrbaugh note in their social science commentary on Matthew [47; see also John commenary, 281] the best translation for this in context is actually, "How honorable are..." so that the implication is not that those who do not see have some sort of special advantage, but in fact have more honor than one like Thomas who demanded excessive proof. Jesus offers this "affirmation of honor" in other words to persons who are satisfied with what evidence they have, which is sufficient for loyalty (faith). The counter to this is that it is shameful to show a lack of trust in one's patron who has already proven himself. (And also, Scotty, Thomas was treating the other Apostles shamefully by refusing to trust them, in spite of the above!)

So then, Scotty boy, what's your next misinterpretation?

Because this is MY subjective experience. I am not saying "this is right for me, that is right for you," but only "this is right for me." And because of my faith in God, I believe Him when He says "I am the way,"

Awesome. I can see it now: Billy Graham evangelizes by saying, "I'm not saying Jesus is right for you. I repented of my sins because it was right for me." Now where was that model for evangelism, was it Acts 29?

You are no where near dealing with the same issues, this was a private matter.

All the more reason to suspect it was just a flash in the pan, little fellow. Scuttling behind "privacy" and charges of "pride" are the refuge of scoundrels who know they have no answers.

You have not even begun to suffer that which I suffered in this area.

True. I bypassed the suffering by keeping my head straight and doing my homework.

Satan, or my own devil may have been the author of confusion, but God is the only author of my salvation.

That doesn't answer my question of how you know it isn't Satan who gave you the wrong idea about your salvation.

more like shifted the battlefield.

Ran from the real one, screaming. Righto. :thumb:

because I know subjectively that they are not true objectively.

The Mormons beg to differ, Stanley. There are books full of Mormon apologetics showing that their faith is objectively true. I'd ask how you'd deal with it, but you can't even answer my question on Mithraism directly, so why bother? :argh:

It wasn't a threat, but a warning of kindness. Should I leave a soul in danger?

You should keep your hands off of souls lest you lead them into perdition. True -- Christ does care for the man who escapes naked from the flames of his works being burned to a crisp. Grace is amazing, but regrets last forever.

You know, I just thought, if I wasn't a Christian already, people like you sure wouldn't attract me to the whole buisness.

Gee, well, that's the problem with subjectivity, isn't it? Illogical conclusions. You should go tell Jesus to stop insulting the Pharisees because he's not attracting anyone to the Kingdom. :rofl:

Christ promises that if we drink His water, we will never thirst again. He has come to give live and give it more abundantly. I think I'd prefer that.

I'm pointing 'em to a much clearer and much more accessible Christ-well than you'll ever dream of, little fellow. You may drink but you're using a spaghetti strainer as a cup.

You're right, or they could be the same incident written differently, which sounds much more likely to me, considering the fact that in John, Simon's name is changed when He first meets Christ.

The same incident....written differently. Uh huh...

1) Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.

2) And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

Yeah, darn it, how could I miss these being the same stories? You're brilliant! :lmbo:

You've gone much farther, you've made way too many personal attacks.

Just calling a spade a spade. :thumb:

Ok, ok. Maybe I'm just not following you well enough, if hypostasis refers to the unity in the Trinity, then why say that it wasn't the transcendent God Himself?

Who said what, where? When the NCreed says that all three are "God" it is making an ontological statement about their nature, not identifying them with a person named God. That's a cardinal mistake of anachronism: "God" was not a proper name at this time, but an abstract noung like "Deity". The hypostases of Word and Spirit are attributes of the Father and therefore fully share, ontologically, in His divine nature. Thus:

The three persons of the trinity do not differ in substance or attributes, but in offices. Transendence is an attribute, not an office.

The first is what I have said from Day 1. The second I have never said.

tanding up for it and defending it are one and the same, debating it formally is another issue. It's like saying "I'm not ready to fence, but I can box alright." that is what I am doing here.

Given that the first sport is very sophisticated and performed by the upper echeleons, and the latter is for blood-soaked barbarians, that makes sense.

You obviously have no concept of what I meant. I'm talking about answering the question "Should I follow Christ?" "How should I live?"

And you give no answer that satisfies and that could not be used by a Jehovah's Witness as well.

Though this is really a different issue, I have no problem with believing that Paul used language that would have been familiar to those involved in Mithraism.

I didn't say anything about language, Scotty Boy. I'm talking about the charge that Mithra was raised from the dead, and that Paul, et al stole the concept from Mithraism, and that Jesus was not really raised; his resurrection was just a figment based on Mithra. Try again with an answer.

My question is, what does Christianity have to say? Christ says, as I mentioned earlier, "I AM the way,"

To which it is simple to say, "So what? Anyone can say they are the way. Mithra/Dionysius/Attis, etc said that, too." Your answer?

Odd that you would be so sure, even before you heard them.

Your record speaks for itself.

You are one human voice against the Spirit's, I know which one I'd rather hear give approval.

So far you've said nothing that tells me that your "Spirit" is any more than your last chili dog, or any better than a Mormon's version.

So, in other words, you were already half-way there. Makes sense, I shouldn't have expected you to be able to relate to a staunch atheist.

Good -- now how about answering the original inquiry?

And you need to check your own website and refresh yourself on the logical fallacies so that the least you could do is classify them right.

Got 'em down 100%. Now what's your excuse?

It is faith seeking understanding, not the other way around.

Very well -- don't chicken out on me, now.

Way to try to rephrase the same question I already answered.

You didn't answer anything, you dodged and fudged and now you're giving in:

If there is any limit on God, this is it, the absence of limit.

Lovely. Scotty self-contradicts in one sentence for the second or third time this week.

If they want to oppose me on that issue, they're welcome to it.

Of course they are. Being a brick wall, you'll never be hurt; but meanwhile you leave a train of embarrassed and confused believers in your wake. What do you care? You're in the arms of Jesus sticking your tongue out at everyone else who is your inferior.

If He had so chosen to design creation in that way, sure, but it would be obviously much different then how we experience it.

Oh, this is RICH. This is "valid ethical theory," huh? So there is then nothing innately wrong in cursing God, other than that God says so. Wonderful. Now then:

Let's say someone from our world, where it is wrong to curse God and sacrifice infants to Molech, manages to cross dimensions and travel to a world where, as you suppose, God has "designed creation" so that these things are in fact good. Would it then be good for this person from our world to start cursing God and sacrificing infants to Molech in the other world?

The fact is though that God did not design creation in this way, so these last two questions were rather fruitless.

The fact is, you can't extricate yourself from this web of self-contradiction and chaos.

You're right, because in no way did I imply that God left some sort of guide to help understand His will.

No, you rather implied that what guidance God left was meaningless and in no sense objective, just dependent on what God felt like saying this time around. Maybe next time a universe pops in, He'll make it so that pedophilia is a form of worship and praise to holiness. Think so?

I have not creeped away in fear yet. Are you still so sure that you are all that intimidating?

As noted, I don't expect a brick wall to go anywhere or be afraid of anything.

You know nothing of my philosophy of life beyond what I have attacked you with and the few brief glimpses I have given you in these last two posts. You have no where near enough information to judge my consistency.

It's more than enough for me as a judge of character.

Lets not because these groups do not stand up to scripture.

As before, they beg to differ. The Mormons say that they are better in line with Scripture than we are. So what's your answer now, little fellow?

"Join the Bizarro Bible Cult!"

That's what I thought. :ahem:

[scottatiwu]

Yesterday @ 01:41 AM post located here (http://ls101.serverindo.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=249054#post249054)
jpholding:

And how do you know God is there? No, wait: subjective experience?


And your point here was what again??


Um, how do you know your subjective experience is OBJECTIVELY real?


It's your paradigm that places objective truth above subjective truth in the first place. You don't have any grounds for making this distinction


Huh huh huh. The word the best scholars use.


way to ignore the point


Then answer it, Guy Smiley.


well obviously I can't know, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. But, the possibility of them being only in my mind does not keep me from living within this framework *which may very well be only in my mind


Yes, funny how it arose by getting to understand how the people of that day and age used the word, huh?


oh no, don't avoid the point. it arose because of a primarily 19th and 20th century need for "historical data." to establish one opinion over another, one simply needed "historical evidence" and thus this evidence became what we placed our faith in. Like I said earlier (quoting from a classmate) "We do not have faith in the existence of God, but in the promises of God."


My, but you use &quot;historical-critical method&quot; as though it were a naughty word.


Actually, I rather like the historical-critical method, I just recognize that it is incomplete, and any implication made from it to modern day is at best a leap.


&quot;Frequen use&quot; you say? I'll grant that it appears so in the Reformation era, about 1500 years too late and in the writings of clumsy, ethnocentric Europeans with absolutely zero knowledge of first-century life or sociology.


denomination bashing now are we? that's rather mean. well, we can talk more about that on another thread sometime.


ok, let me break this next one down for you

Thomas had more than sufficient evidence -- the testimony of at least 11 men who he had gotten to know intimately over at least the past three years,


personally, thus subjective evidence item #1


plus personal experience of the miraculous powers of Jesus,


wow, you pretty much said it yourself there. item #2


and even an empty tomb.


which he saw with his own eyes. item #3


He had no reason at all to distrust his comrades, and having seen Jesus' miraculous powers, especially the raising of Lazarus, no reason to doubt the resurrection.


But, doubt obviously still overtook him, because objectively, he just couldn't be sure, he lacked faith in what he had seen. others wouldn't see these things, and would still believe because all they would experience of God would be the power of His forgiveness.



They would still have sufficient evidence,


what evidence that lasted more than a few generations?


A final consideration is the use of the word &quot;blessed,&quot; or makarios. This is the same word used in the Beatitudes, &quot;Blessed are....&quot; As Malina and Rohrbaugh note in their social science commentary on Matthew [47; see also John commenary, 281] the best translation for this in context is actually, &quot;How honorable are...&quot; so that the implication is not that those who do not see have some sort of special advantage, but in fact have more honor than one like Thomas who demanded excessive proof.


This last line, though interesting, doesn't really have any bearing on what we are discussing. I'm not claiming any sort of "higher faith" or special advantage as you put it. It's interesting that if you were to read that interpretation into the Beatitudes, it doesn't make much of a distinction. Christ is saying "Blessed are the . . . for they will/because . . ." and is implying that their blessedness or "honor" is what follows the 'because'. So, even the honor they recieve is still a blessing.


Awesome. I can see it now: Billy Graham evangelizes by saying, &quot;I'm not saying Jesus is right for you. I repented of my sins because it was right for me


maybe you should go re-read the comment you responded to here before I address this issue. this obviously wasn't what I was saying.


All the more reason to suspect it was just a flash in the pan, little fellow.


You're half true. It was the fact that I knew others had delt with these issues and survived in their faith that I continued on. On the other hand, the fact that from your perspective it was just a "flash in the pan" doesn't help the fact that for me it was a crisis.


Scuttling behind &quot;privacy&quot; and charges of &quot;pride&quot; are the refuge of scoundrels who know they have no answers.


I am still here, facing you. I am not hiding, I am keeping in mind my personal relationship with my Lord.


True. I bypassed the suffering by keeping my head straight and doing my homework.


I did my homework, I kept my head straight, and it availed nothing. The answers you provide do not solve the problems, they do not even address the issues. I wanted to remain honest to, rather than overlook or belittle, the issues.


That doesn't answer my question of how you know it isn't Satan who gave you the wrong idea about your salvation.


Because the God whom I believed in before the issue came up never failed me, that was the whole point.


Ran from the real one, screaming.


What standard do you have by which to judge one right and the other wrong? You have none. Perhaps I'm not the one lacking courage.


The Mormons beg to differ, Stanley.


Then I vow from this point in time forward to spend more time engaging with them than with you.


There are books full of Mormon apologetics showing that their faith is objectively true.


Fine waste of time for them I suppose. As I said, they don't stand up to the weight of scripture.


I'd ask how you'd deal with it, but you can't even answer my question on Mithraism directly, so why bother?


I suppose I'd rather give them an answer which is useful rather than one which could come or go in an instant. Does the wave of NT scholarship rise and fall? It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle . . .


You should keep your hands off of souls lest you lead them into perdition.


Heed your own advice.


Gee, well, that's the problem with subjectivity, isn't it?


Well, that's the problem with being a living, breathing human being, isn't it.


Illogical conclusions.


Well, illogical they may well be, but they are to be accounted for with Christian love.


You should go tell Jesus to stop insulting the Pharisees because he's not attracting anyone to the Kingdom.


Christ was direct and to the point, not a prideful ass.



I'm pointing 'em to a much clearer and much more accessible Christ-well than you'll ever dream of, little fellow.


Wholesale discipleship, sounds good to me.


You may drink but you're using a spaghetti strainer as a cup.


It's a more quenching draught than your theology ever provided for me.



The same incident....written differently. Uh huh...

1) Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.

2) And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

Yeah, darn it, how could I miss these being the same stories? You're brilliant!


And yet for all your historical scholarship you are still working with a literary paradigm, how unimpressive.


Just calling a spade a spade.


Just throwing tomatos. What you do can't even be considered satire, because satire addresses the issue.


That's a cardinal mistake of anachronism: &quot;God&quot; was not a proper name at this time, but an abstract noung like &quot;Deity&quot;.


Once again you are not considering the Hebrew mindset which Christianity grew out of.


The hypostases of Word and Spirit are attributes of the Father and therefore fully share, ontologically, in His divine nature.


attributes? three distinct persons. Maybe you're too intrenched in western theology.


Given that the first sport is very sophisticated and performed by the upper echeleons, and the latter is for blood-soaked barbarians, that makes sense.


Don't know very much about boxing eh? Oh well, I suppose you got the point. (no pun intended)



And you give no answer that satisfies and that could not be used by a Jehovah's Witness as well.


Though you probably wrote a book on the watchtower too or something of that nature, you seem to have a poor understanding of the issues they would be concerned with.


I didn't say anything about language, Scotty Boy.


You have to be blind not to see the implication here. I'm proposing that any so-called "influence" could just as well have been Paul's way of addressing his audience.


To which it is simple to say, &quot;So what? Anyone can say they are the way. Mithra/Dionysius/Attis, etc said that, too.&quot; Your answer?


Your making a generalized answer into a subject of theological debate. 'sound bites' are not the meat of such a discussion. the meat is the law, which cuts to the heart of any man, and forgiveness.



Your record speaks for itself.


As does your ability to misjudge others.



So far you've said nothing that tells me that your &quot;Spirit&quot; is any more than your last chili dog, or any better than a Mormon's version.


That or you haven't been listening. Or, maybe once again it's a fact that you don't know me.


Good -- now how about answering the original inquiry?


What? Oh thats right, there was none. Way to focus on the being a smart ass without following the line of discussion.


Got 'em down 100%. Now what's your excuse?


Nice third grade insult. anyway, i haven't bothered with classifying your errors nearly as much.


Lovely. Scotty self-contradicts in one sentence for the second or third time this week.


I have yet to contradict myself.



Of course they are. Being a brick wall, you'll never be hurt; but meanwhile you leave a train of embarrassed and confused believers in your wake. What do you care? You're in the arms of Jesus sticking your tongue out at everyone else who is your inferior.


I HAVE NEVER, EVER BEEN EGOTISTICAL ABOUT MY FAITH! I DO NOT TRASH ON OTHERS AS YOU DO, HYPOCRITE!



Oh, this is RICH. This is &quot;valid ethical theory,&quot; huh? So there is then nothing innately wrong in cursing God, other than that God says so. Wonderful.


Its your choice not to believe so, I'd love to see you validate that choice.


Let's say someone from our world, where it is wrong to curse God and sacrifice infants to Molech, manages to cross dimensions and travel to a world where, as you suppose, God has &quot;designed creation&quot; so that these things are in fact good. Would it then be good for this person from our world to start cursing God and sacrificing infants to Molech in the other world?


How many hours do you spend contemplating how many angels could stand on the head of a pin?


The fact is, you can't extricate yourself from this web of self-contradiction and chaos.


Your just babling here, work on this sort of stuff.



No, you rather implied that what guidance God left was meaningless and in no sense objective


you are mixing two unrelated terms.


, just dependent on what God felt like saying this time around.


I never implied that there was any sort of cycle.


Maybe next time a universe pops in, He'll make it so that pedophilia is a form of worship and praise to holiness. Think so?


ah, an appeal to emotion, nice. (first classification of a fallacy for me I think)


It's more than enough for me as a judge of character.


Sure.



As before, they beg to differ.


As before, then I prefer to go spend my time with them than with you in discussion. Until you start making worthwhile posts, this will be it for me for now.


The Mormons say that they are better in line with Scripture than we are. So what's your answer now, little fellow?


Those answers were between me and them. I stood firmly. They did not.

[jpholding]

Bizarro flies again!

And your point here was what again??

Your constant refuge in subjectivity when confronted with objective evidence.

It's your paradigm that places objective truth above subjective truth in the first place.

Ah, of course, silly me. In subjective thought you can also place subjectivity over objectivity on a subjective basis. Kind of like you can just keep from being called "dirty" by insisting that mud is clean. Duh! :doh:

way to ignore the point

Way to ignore scholarship. I can see you now sitting at your terminal dressed like Jed Clampett.

. But, the possibility of them being only in my mind does not keep me from living within this framework *which may very well be only in my mind

In other words, you live like it IS objectively real, and don't care that you're being inconsistent. Awesome. It's a wonderful life.

oh no, don't avoid the point. it arose because of a primarily 19th and 20th century need for "historical data." to establish one opinion over another, one simply needed "historical evidence" and thus this evidence became what we placed our faith in.

Wow. In other words, we can't trust the facts because people were finding them only in an effort to trump each other. Hey, that's an easy way to dismiss all the critics; why didn't I think of that:? :shocked:

Like I said earlier (quoting from a classmate) "We do not have faith in the existence of God, but in the promises of God."

And how do you know those promises were accurately recorded? How do you know God is not really a sky-demon pretending to be nice so that he can eat us 2000 years from now?

Actually, I rather like the historical-critical method, I just recognize that it is incomplete, and any implication made from it to modern day is at best a leap.

What you mean here is, "I pretend that there are gaps, even if I don't have evidence for them, so that I can keep my preferred view alive." Boy this subjective school requires a lot of paranoia read out of the silence!

denomination bashing now are we? that's rather mean. well, we can talk more about that on another thread sometime

"I can't answer the challenge of finding cites from prior ages." Gotcha.

personally, thus subjective evidence item #1

Nothing "subjective" there at all, Scotty. He took in the data of their trustworthiness and reputations.

wow, you pretty much said it yourself there. item #2

Uh, yeah -- miracles are objective evidence. Hello?

hich he saw with his own eyes. item #3

Totally objective. So what? Now are you going to tell us that maybe he wasn't really seeing an empty tomb? You don't like this, of course.

But, doubt obviously still overtook him, because objectively, he just couldn't be sure,

Ridiculous comment. Objectively, he COULD be sure; it's clear he rejected objective evidence, and did so on entirely SUBJECTIVE grounds, and an irrational decision that more was needed to believe. It clearly was irrational and emotional because he insulted the honor of his comrades.

and would still believe because all they would experience of God would be the power of His forgiveness.

"Experience of God" -- an entirely modern idea, and THAT is subjective. Find it in the Bible as a missionary point. Heck, find it at all.

what evidence that lasted more than a few generations?

My, but we're miseducated, aren't we? The evidence of the Christian movement itself in social context is more than sufficient.

This last line, though interesting, doesn't really have any bearing on what we are discussing.

The lines before are more important' good of you to ignore them.

I'm not claiming any sort of "higher faith" or special advantage as you put it.

Then why are you here debating? To waste time?

It's interesting that if you were to read that interpretation into the Beatitudes, it doesn't make much of a distinction. Christ is saying "Blessed are the . . . for they will/because . . ." and is implying that their blessedness or "honor" is what follows the 'because'. So, even the honor they recieve is still a blessing.

There is a HUGE distinction, because "honor" while a blessing carries specific connotations that "blessing" by itself does not. Now how about dealing with the actual point?

maybe you should go re-read the comment you responded to here before I address this issue. this obviously wasn't what I was saying.

Oh, it certainly was -- you just want to backpedal now because you realize you've been caught with your pajama flap open.

the other hand, the fact that from your perspective it was just a "flash in the pan" doesn't help the fact that for me it was a crisis.

To Martha Stewart a broken pot handle is a crisis. Take it as a signal of lacking in maturity on your part.

I am still here, facing you. I am not hiding

Not in this aspect, but in the refuge to claims of "privacy," and "pride".

I did my homework, I kept my head straight, and it availed nothing. The answers you provide do not solve the problems, they do not even address the issues.

You obviously didn't do homework, for the wuality of your answers is poor and I have had to educate you on basic issues like the hypostasis concept. As for the rest, denial is also your final refuge.

Because the God whom I believed in before the issue came up never failed me, that was the whole point.

How do you know that it was not mere coincidence, or that Satan was not helping you in order to lead you into his trap?

What standard do you have by which to judge one right and the other wrong?

Truth. Get familiar with it beyond the gas in your stomach.

Then I vow from this point in time forward to spend more time engaging with them than with you.

Roger, Dodger. No answer to the Mormons there!

Fine waste of time for them I suppose. As I said, they don't stand up to the weight of scripture.

Roger, Dodger II. Maybe I should take their part and see how well you stand up to it.

I suppose I'd rather give them an answer which is useful rather than one which could come or go in an instant. Does the wave of NT scholarship rise and fall?

Not in the least. Only people who don't read well think so.

Heed your own advice.

The only advice worthwhile here is Proverbs 26:4-5.

Well, that's the problem with being a living, breathing human being, isn't it.

Not at all. Nothing about living and breathing requires us to surrender our cerebral cortex.

Well, illogical they may well be, but they are to be accounted for with Christian love.

Uh huh. Love makes the illogical valid. Beautiful. :rofl:

Christ was direct and to the point, not a prideful ass.

The Pharisees you think didn't see him as a prideful ass?

Wholesale discipleship, sounds good to me.

It is.

It's a more quenching draught than your theology ever provided for me.

Your mistake was that you dumped the water on your head, not being able to find your own mouth.

And yet for all your historical scholarship you are still working with a literary paradigm, how unimpressive.

Wow. Way not to answer. And gee, a literary paradigm for literature...you're right, makes no sense at all.

Just throwing tomatos. What you do can't even be considered satire, because satire addresses the issue.

And willful ignorance misses when the issue is addressed.

Once again you are not considering the Hebrew mindset which Christianity grew out of.

I consider it 100%. The name of the Hebrew deity was "YHWH", not "God". Nice non-correction.

attributes? three distinct persons. Maybe you're too intrenched in western theology.

Attributes who were also distinct persons. Maybe you just can't handle it without a coloring book.

Don't know very much about boxing eh?

I sure do. Pass the Doritos.

Though you probably wrote a book on the watchtower too or something of that nature, you seem to have a poor understanding of the issues they would be concerned with.

Another great non-answer from Bizarro! Now how about addressing that they would use the same arguments that you do to validate their faith?

You have to be blind not to see the implication here. I'm proposing that any so-called "influence" could just as well have been Paul's way of addressing his audience.

And I was not addressing that, either. I asked you about theft of the resurrection concept itself, falsely applied to Jesus. To this you said:





Nothing.

Your making a generalized answer into a subject of theological debate.

You're dodging and avoiding the question, as usual. The mystery religions offered salvation as well. So, answer the question.

As does your ability to misjudge others.

As does your attempt to weasel out of a pinpoint evaluation.

That or you haven't been listening.

Or that you haven't been answering, having no answer.

anyway, i haven't bothered with classifying your errors nearly as much.

In other words, as usual, Scotty declines the challenge after putting his beer belly on the mat and having it punctured.

I have yet to contradict myself.

Only four times, now.

I HAVE NEVER, EVER BEEN EGOTISTICAL ABOUT MY FAITH!

You would never notice it. It is ever the curse of the sick to imagine their disease in others.

Its your choice not to believe so, I'd love to see you validate that choice.

I'd love to see you validate the claim that there are no pink unicorns anywhere in the universe. The view you prmote is conveniently unfalsifiable, being that it takes refuge in hypothesizing paranoia when the evidence is against it.

How many hours do you spend contemplating how many angels could stand on the head of a pin?

How many hours will you refuse to answer my questions?

I never implied that there was any sort of cycle.

You didn't think you did, but that is the inevitable implication of your disasterous viewpoint.

ah, an appeal to emotion, nice.

Ah, another question dodged, nice. :thumb:


As before, then I prefer to go spend my time with them than with you in discussion.

Go for it. I'll even tell you where to find a nice Mormon discussion forum: Zion's Lighthouse.

Those answers were between me and them

In other words, you have none. :thumb:

On your way, Bizarro.

[scottatiwu]

Like you, I'll pass on the soundbites and school you quickly.
Today @ 04:58 PM post located here (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=250077#post250077)
jpholding:

In other words, you live like it IS objectively real, and don't care that you're being inconsistent.


Once again, all you know of objective truth you know through subjective experience.


In other words, we can't trust the facts because people were finding them only in an effort to trump each other.


No, facts are fine. But our faith in God should not be dependant upon our trust in the facts. Our trust in the facts should be dependant on our faith in God.


And how do you know those promises were accurately recorded? How do you know God is not really a sky-demon pretending to be nice so that he can eat us 2000 years from now?


I'll quote him again, "We do not have faith in the existence of God, but in the promises of God." Ergo our faith is in God Himself, ergo we believe He would not lead us astray.


Uh, yeah -- miracles are objective evidence. Hello?


Uh, no, they're nothing like objective evidence. They lack scientific explanation, which is why they are miracles.


Totally objective. So what? Now are you going to tell us that maybe he wasn't really seeing an empty tomb? You don't like this, of course.
[quote]

Actually I have no problem with your implication. Kant says we can't know any object in and of itself.

[quote]
Find it in the Bible as a missionary point. Heck, find it at all.


The woman accused of adultery, the paralytic who was healed after he was forgiven. But really, it's circular to be discussing the lives of those who lived after the writting of the Bible and then turn around to say "Find that in the Bible."


The evidence of the Christian movement itself in social context is more than sufficient.


Common apologetical misunderstanding. This is no more evidence for Christianity than the existence of Zoroastrianism is evidence that it has held true to the instruction of it's founder. There are some wonderful implications, but its not proof.


I have had to educate you on basic issues like the hypostasis concept.


I was aware of the terminology before our engagement, what was new was your skewing of it.


How do you know that it was not mere coincidence, or that Satan was not helping you in order to lead you into his trap?


Do you not yet know me so well as to know my answer. Faith in God.


Truth. Get familiar with it beyond the gas in your stomach.


What is truth?


Wholesale discipleship, sounds good to me.

It is.


It is also unknown to Christ.


And gee, a literary paradigm for literature...you're right, makes no sense at all.


The culture which surrounded the Bible was not a literary one but an oral one. The Gospels should be judged on those grounds.


The name of the Hebrew deity was &quot;YHWH&quot;, not &quot;God&quot;.


The Hebrew conception of God was henotheistic. He was a personal being involved in their affairs.


I asked you about theft of the resurrection concept itself, falsely applied to Jesus. To this you said:
Nothing.


The answer that is to be assumed? This can no more be proven than we can disprove it. That is why it is a question not worth our time.


The view you prmote is conveniently unfalsifiable,


As is yours. "We should trust what we see because it's what we see..."


You didn't think you did, but that is the inevitable implication of your disasterous viewpoint.


An ethical theory only has ethical implications.

Then why are you here debating? To waste time?

To serve others who may be reading.

[jpholding]

Like you, I'll pass on the soundbites

Stuff you can't answer, got it.

Once again, all you know of objective truth you know through subjective experience.

Once again, your purposely blur the distinction between objective and subjective and arbitrarily categorize objective observation as subjective to preserve your view, knowing full well you do not live that way in daily life.

No, facts are fine. But our faith in God should not be dependant upon our trust in the facts. Our trust in the facts should be dependant on our faith in God.

Unfortunately for you, the meaning of pistis in context refutes that, and you have no answer to that point other than the misapprehensions of decontexualized dead white male Europeans. :teeth:

I'll quote him again, "We do not have faith in the existence of God, but in the promises of God." /i]

Quote it until the devil sells popsicles -- it's still decontexualized.

Uh, no, they're nothing like objective evidence. They lack scientific explanation, which is why they are miracles.

Typical mistake. A miracle of God is no more that God doing what we do, with His power. We violate the law of gravity when we pick things up. A healing miracle is nothing we technically could not do by manipulating matter on a molecular level, and in principle no different. "Scientific explanation" is no more needed than it would be for picking up a box.

The woman accused of adultery, the paralytic who was healed [i]after he was forgiven

Neither example followed up by a kerygamtic presentation. Good choices! :rofl: The latter is classic pistis as defined -- he showed loyalty by going to Jesus even to the point of having his friends dig out a hole in the roof. The woman? "Experienced" nothing that is recorded; judicial forgiveness is not a psychological experience, and the whole thing was a setup to begin with; the admins would have gotten Rome on their heads if they had proceeded with the stoning. You'll do well to stop reading your anachronistic experiences into the text.

But really, it's circular to be discussing the lives of those who lived after the writting of the Bible and then turn around to say "Find that in the Bible."

The word is "anachronistic," not "circular".

Common apologetical misunderstanding. This is no more evidence for Christianity than the existence of Zoroastrianism

PFFT! PFFT! :rofl: Tell me another one! As lacking in education as you are, I doubt if you could name one difference in the social world of Christianity and Zoro. Tell me then, little man, how would the agonistic dialectic affect Zoroastrianism, vs Christianity? If you don't annswer, I will assume you are ignorant.

I was aware of the terminology before our engagement, what was new was your skewing of it.

Nothing new in scholarship that has been in place for many years, little fellow.

Do you not yet know me so well as to know my answer. Faith in God.

"Blind faith" -- righto.

What is truth?

That which said to be so, which is so; that which is said to be not so, which is not so. Clear enough, Pontius?

It is also unknown to Christ.

As if you'd know anything about the ancient concept of discipleship to begin with!

The culture which surrounded the Bible was not a literary one but an oral one. The Gospels should be judged on those grounds.

Then explain how orality helps you here. It doesn't. The divergences are too great to represent and oral variation upon the same story.

The Hebrew conception of God was henotheistic. He was a personal being involved in their affairs.

No kidding. How does that affect a word I said about "God" not being a proper name?

That is why it is a question not worth our time.

What a substantive answer for those with troubled faith. The damage people like you cause is incalculable.

As is yours. "We should trust what we see because it's what we see..."

As noted, you live no differently in reality. Therefore, poor parallel.

To serve others who may be reading.

Yes indeed. They serve poison in the cafeteria at the Bizarro Bible School...

[scottatiwu]

most of this post again was useless. how can I answer you if you don't give me an actual question to answer?
Today @ 02:17 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=251016#post251016)
jpholding:

you do not live that way in daily life.


Even if I did not, the way I live does not affect the truth. It remains true either way that all objective knowledge is gained from a subjective experience. I am not being inconsistent in my living, I am interacting with the only truth I can know.


Unfortunately for you, the meaning of pistis in context refutes that,


I'll make this point only once more. This is the meaning that you read into the text. However, even what you say when defining pistis can be interpreted through my lens.


Typical mistake. A miracle of God is no more that God doing what we do, with His power. We violate the law of gravity when we pick things up.


One that I already prevented you from refuting in an earlier post. "God is not merely catching a dropped ball..." We do not violate the law of gravity when we pick things up, have you never taken a science class?? Dead men can not be raised.



he showed loyalty by going to Jesus even to the point of having his friends dig out a hole in the roof.


Faith, faith which cannot be proven, but is believed.


Common apologetical misunderstanding. This is no more evidence for Christianity than the existence of Zoroastrianism

Way to cut me off and mid-sentence and try to make my argument something other than it was. Something you were capable of handling maybe... The point was that the existence of Christianity does not imply the correspondence of Christianity at any given point in time to it original conception than does the existence of Zoroastrianism, which obviously strayed from it's original idea. If this were the case with Christianity, then why were so many heresies allowed to exist for long periods of time, particularly arianism? However, if you meant to distract me and say something to the survival of Christianity in light of persecution then I would say this; though this is a great testimony to our historical fathers, you cannot with the same hand hold up Christianity based on this "evidence" and strike down Islam, which almost perished due to persecution more than once.


That which said to be so, which is so; that which is said to be not so, which is not so. Clear enough, Pontius?


And how do we know it to be so?


As if you'd know anything about the ancient concept of discipleship to begin with!


The world is defined in relation to what Christ did, not the other way around. Though Christ's yoke may be easy, the cost which He calls us to count is great. There is no easy way to trust in Him.


Then explain how orality helps you here. It doesn't. The divergences are too great to represent and oral variation upon the same story.


Both include the introduction of Peter to Christ, and the changing of Peter's name which occurs much later in the other gospels occurs early here. Oral tradition did not by neccesity have to be focused on chronological accuracy. The point was to preserve the teachings and the events of the life of Christ. This is why so many stories occur at different times in the Gospels. The Gospels were most likely the encompassing of a particular oral tradition at one church (area) or another.



No kidding. How does that affect a word I said about &quot;God&quot; not being a proper name?


Thus they would have been thinking 'person' not 'abstract concept.'


As noted, you live no differently in reality. Therefore, poor parallel.


So you're on my side now unless you honestly address that problem.

[jpholding]

Bizarro Flies Again --

most of this post again was useless. how can I answer you if you don't give me an actual question to answer?

Dodgeball: The Official Sport of the Bizarro Bible School! :rofl:

Even if I did not, the way I live does not affect the truth.

It certainly does. You are a hypocrite and lie to yourself and others by not living consistently with what you profess to believe; your actual method of living proves you do not believe what you say is true, is true.

I am not being inconsistent in my living, I am interacting with the only truth I can know.

Not very thoughtful, are we? If you REALLY lived as you believed you'd never leave your house for fear of being eaten by trolls.

I'll make this point only once more. This is the meaning that you read into the text. However, even what you say when defining pistis can be interpreted through my lens.

Explain how. You deny the evidential aspect, so that's out for you. And if "reading into the text" means use of contexual defining data, I want to be a read-inner for sure. This is what scholars of the ancient world "read into" the text based on uses of the word in the same period. You may as well publish your own dictionary full of arbitrary definitions.

We do not violate the law of gravity when we pick things up, have you never taken a science class?? Dead men can not be raised.

Yes, in fact, we do violate it. We work against it. Dead man can't be raised only because we lack the molecular technology and the ability to recapture spirit.

Faith, faith which cannot be proven, but is believed.

Pistis, pistis, which is based on proof to obtain belief.

Way to cut me off and mid-sentence and try to make my argument something other than it was.

It was no different than what you said; you missed MY point. Zoro is not a religion grounded in a historical event; there is no equal to, "If Christ is not risen, your faith is in vain."

The point was that the existence of Christianity does not imply the correspondence of Christianity at any given point in time to it original conception than does the existence of Zoroastrianism, which obviously strayed from it's original idea.

Pure gibberish as offered. So what are you saying, Scotty, that the Mormons may be right, or the JWs, and what we believe now just may be a false version of Christianity? How do you live with your own paranoia? Do you hide under the futon all day?

If this were the case with Christianity, then why were so many heresies allowed to exist for long periods of time, particularly arianism?

Uh, because stupid people wanted to believe it? Because there were laws against just killing people?

cannot with the same hand hold up Christianity based on this "evidence" and strike down Islam, which almost perished due to persecution more than once.

Wanna make a darned bet? I DID strike down Islam on the same factors I used to demonstrate the historic survival of Christianity. Islam had no issues with honor-shame, and reversed persecution by picking up the sword almost at once. No parallel to Christianity. Take some history lessons.

And how do we know it to be so?

Because it is so. If it isn't, why are you not cowering under the futon?

The world is defined in relation to what Christ did, not the other way around. Though Christ's yoke may be easy, the cost which He calls us to count is great. There is no easy way to trust in Him

No kidding. How does this relate to the original point?

Both include the introduction of Peter to Christ,

Mark's version does not have anyone "introduce" Peter to Christ and whether it IS the intro is the very point at issue.

and the changing of Peter's name which occurs much later in the other gospels occurs early here.

The synoptics do not speak of Peter's name change in the context of this pericope. They either call him Simon or Peter. Try again. You miss on both counts badly.


Thus they would have been thinking 'person' not 'abstract concept.'

No kidding. But they would NOT have been thinking that that person's name was "God". When will you stop dodging the issue, Roger?

So you're on my side now unless you honestly address that problem.

Been there. Done it. The problem is with you, living the lie that you do on a daily basis.

[scottatiwu]

Yet another post filled mainly with insult and very little meat.

Today @ 08:47 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=251359#post251359)
jpholding:

You are a hypocrite and lie to yourself and others by not living consistently with what you profess to believe; your actual method of living proves you do not believe what you say is true, is true.


You are trying to force your perception of how someone in my position ought to live onto me and calling me a hypocrite for not fulfilling your accusations. How a person lives rarely proves anything, but either way I'm not being inconsistent, there's no need to hide, what good would that do? This sort of philosophy opens itself up to very existential, and often very pragmatic solutions.


Explain how.


What you call objective evidence, I would call subjective experience. It is not the evidence but what it works in us that brings us to faith. It forces us to recognize our sinfulness and our need. And, much to your pleasure, our inability to do anything ourselves.


if &quot;reading into the text&quot; means use of contexual defining data, I want to be a read-inner for sure.


It doesn't. What it means is that you are taking the perspective of modern apologetics and forcing it on a text from a culture which didn't think in the same way you do.


Yes, in fact, we do violate it.


No, we don't. Gravity is still at work on the object, working just the same as before. Two opposing forces does not mean that one is in violation of the other.


Dead man can't be raised only because we lack the molecular technology and the ability to recapture spirit.


So metaphysics is a valid science now?


So what are you saying, Scotty, that the Mormons may be right, or the JWs, and what we believe now just may be a false version of Christianity?


No, I'm saying that it's mere existence doesn't prove it's validity, that's silly.


Islam had no issues with honor-shame, and reversed persecution by picking up the sword almost at once. No parallel to Christianity. Take some history lessons.


Heed your own advice. Islam was nearly wiped out on a number of occasions very early on. They point to divine providence as well.



Because it is so.


How do you know?



No kidding. How does this relate to the original point?


It doesn't, it relates to your accusation that I don't know anything about discipleship.


The synoptics do not speak of Peter's name change in the context of this pericope.

Actually, both passages (John and Matthew) are in conection with the confession of Christ as the messiah.


But they would NOT have been thinking that that person's name was &quot;God&quot;.

Our use of the word God to refer to the person God has no bearing here what so ever. They were refering to the person of God, wether they were using His direct name or not.

Been there. Done it.

And where did you address this issue at?

[Blake Reas]

You guys are both believers right? Start acting like it, sheesh.

[scottatiwu]

You're right man, I have been acting like a jerk. I'm sorry about that. Sorry JP.

[jpholding]

Yet another post filled mainly with insult and very little meat.

I have doubts that you know any difference between meat and strained beets.

You are trying to force your perception of how someone in my position ought to live onto me and calling me a hypocrite for not fulfilling your accusations

And you are plainly dodging the point that you do not live consistently with what you believe.

How a person lives rarely proves anything, but either way I'm not being inconsistent, there's no need to hide, what good would that do?

None. But if you lived consistently with this worldview you espouse, you would give in to madness and be found under the futon cowering in fear.

This sort of philosophy opens itself up to very existential, and often very pragmatic solutions.

In short, it "solves" the problem by ignoring it: That is its "pragmatism." Now answer these if you dare:

When God sees or hears something, is it a subjective experience?

Was the Risen Jesus objectively in the room with Thomas?

What you call objective evidence, I would call subjective experience.

"Calling" it that is no argument to speak of. Tell us WHY it should be called that. If your whole view is subjective, then why should I believe you when you say so, since you are trapped in a maze of subjectivism? As noted, you have a prominent fondness for self-contradiction -- and for pretending it doesn't matter.

It is not the evidence but what it works in us that brings us to faith. It forces us to recognize our sinfulness and our need. And, much to your pleasure, our inability to do anything ourselves.

"Much to my pleasure"? That made sense! :ahem: In the meantime, explain how the evidence "works in us" like this. It's hard to see a logical chain between "the tomb is empty" and "this means I'm a sinner".

Anything? Including go to the bathroom?

It doesn't. What it means is that you are taking the perspective of modern apologetics and forcing it on a text from a culture which didn't think in the same way you do.

Good grief! I present the meaning contextualized from ancient usages, while you push a meaning found only in the Reformers, patently refusing my challenge to find it earlier, and answering not one point from the scholars cited, and you have the nerve to say that *I* am taking a "modern" perspective from a culture that thought differently?!?

GOOD GRIEF! :doh: Spare me, Bizarro!

No, we don't. Gravity is still at work on the object, working just the same as before. Two opposing forces does not mean that one is in violation of the other.

\Vi`o*la"tion\, n. [L. violatio: cf. F. violation.] The act of violating, treating with violence, or injuring; the state of being violated. Specifically: (a) Infringement; transgression; nonobservance; as, the violation of law or positive command, of covenants, promises, etc.

That it is "at work" is irrelevant. Our actions infringe on that of gravitational pull. Now how about getting out of the dodgeball suit and answering the main question:

Why are miracles of God, not God doing what we could as well do with the right resources?

So metaphysics is a valid science now?

Ask the physicians who publish material about NDEs in professional medical journals. Perhaps you know something they don't. :wink:

No, I'm saying that it's mere existence doesn't prove it's validity, that's silly.

It would be if that was all I was saying. No, Biz -- behind this lies a survey of 17 prominent social factors that would have killed Christianity if it lacked undeniable evidence of the Risen Jesus. As for this little surd:

Heed your own advice. Islam was nearly wiped out on a number of occasions very early on. They point to divine providence as well.

I took this advice further than you can conceive. Islam had NO such run-in with its social world; the sword kept it from being wiped out, which makes claims of "divine providence" little more than pious imaginations or presumptions of the same sort Jimmy Swaggart makes when he thinks "providence" had some sucker donate 10 mil to his ministry after he turned on the water works.

How do you know?

The evidence points to it, and no evidence away from it. And if you say that it can't be trusted, then go hide under the futon now while you have a chance.

It doesn't, it relates to your accusation that I don't know anything about discipleship.

Then go back to the point that started it: I provide a more clear draught than you ever do from your nightmare of subjectivism. Show us where Christ taught his disciples not to be objective.

Actually, both passages (John and Matthew) are in conection with the confession of Christ as the messiah.

"In connection with" -- how vague. Matthew reports no such confession in his version. Try again.

Our use of the word God to refer to the person God has no bearing here what so ever. They were refering to the person of God, wether they were using His direct name or not.

Once again, the dodgeball outfit fits well and the begged question slides home. Your claim that they referred to the "person of God" begs the question that "God" is one person and therefore is equal in concept to a proper name. Now let's see whether you can get this straight for once:

Is "God" one person, or three?

If "God" is three persons, then is it not indeed misleading, or open to misunderstanding, to simply use God as a proper name, as though of one person?

If "God" is three persons, why is it wrong to say that two persons (Son, Spirit) are hypostases of one (Father), ontologically equal to the one (Father)?

If the Nicean Creed does not say this, then what does it say?

This should be fun.

And where did you address this issue at?

Every place I showed that no problem existed except in your creative imagination.

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 06:42 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=252372#post252372)
jpholding:

And you are plainly dodging the point that you do not live consistently with what you believe.


I'm living consistently by subjectively trusting what I see.




None. But if you lived consistently with this worldview you espouse, you would give in to madness and be found under the futon cowering in fear.


Not if I made a conscious choice not too.


When God sees or hears something, is it a subjective experience?


You're putting the creator on the same level as the creation, man is incapable of talking about Him in this way. Could there even be a difference between the two for God?


Was the Risen Jesus objectively in the room with Thomas?


I believe that he was, but Thomas could only know this by subjective means (sight, touch, etc).


Tell us WHY it should be called that.


Because it is experienced subjectively and we have no proof that our subjective sense aren't being fooled.


If your whole view is subjective, then why should I believe you when you say so, since you are trapped in a maze of subjectivism?


Because I experience objective reality through subjective senses, and you are a part of that subjective reality. I'm not saying "this is right for me, that is right for you," because that's egoism, I'm only saying "this is right for me, within the framework of my experience." And because I believe Christianity, I believe it's claims, namely that this is right for everyone. But I came to that point subjectively.



&quot;Much to my pleasure&quot;? That made sense!


Sorry, could have done that joke better, I was pointing to the whole "why don't you hide under the futon because you can't know" thing.


In the meantime, explain how the evidence &quot;works in us&quot; like this. It's hard to see a logical chain between &quot;the tomb is empty&quot; and &quot;this means I'm a sinner&quot;.


Your right, I'm sorry, I should've caught that before I posted it. Here's something that might work a little better. Evidence shuts the mouths of those who believe they can disprove Christianity, and is also worthwile after conversion, and is important because of what it works in us, namely confirms our faith, our faith being based on our recognition of our sinfulness through the law and our reception of forgiveness. How's that for a run-on? ;-)


I present the meaning contextualized from ancient usages,


While I understand your intent, you're still bringing the experiences of your upbringing to your understanding of the context. Where you would associate evidence with science and validity, I don't see that as being a major area of preaching for them. It seems that there focus was on the Gospel, namely that God has come and is coming, repent now and believe. The evidence does not establish something as a fact, but opens up the door for one possibility of interpretation.


while you push a meaning found only in the Reformers, patently refusing my challenge to find it earlier,


Sorry, I didn't mean to refuse, it was a valid critique and so I've been spending some of my spare time to try to look into it before I answer you.


and answering not one point from the scholars cited,


What scholars did you reference to which I did not comment on?


Our actions infringe on that of gravitational pull.


There's no significant difference in the gravitational pull on the object. I'm just messing around here ;-)


Why are miracles of God, not God doing what we could as well do with the right resources?


Clarify for me first, is it the result or the method that makes it a miracle (concerning Christ's miracles). How about creation ex nihilo, could man achieve that with the right resources?



Ask the physicians who publish material about NDEs in professional medical journals. Perhaps you know something they don't.


Metaphysics, meaning conjecture about what lies behind an object, is not science because it can not be proven. We can hypothozise that there might be something, but we are unable to know distinctly what it is.


behind this lies a survey of 17 prominent social factors that would have killed Christianity if it lacked undeniable evidence of the Risen Jesus.


you assume would have killed it but which there could possibly be an infinite number of answers for. your's may be the most likely, but that does not make it the only valid one.



Islam had NO such run-in with its social world; the sword kept it from being wiped out,


I'll post a comment on this in a day or two.



The evidence points to it


How do you encounter the evidence?


Show us where Christ taught his disciples not to be objective.


here you are asking for a specific statement using terms that were not common to this era. Christ taught about subjective trust.


Matthew reports no such confession in his version. Try again.


Matthew 16:16-

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."



Is &quot;God&quot; one person, or three?


Both


If &quot;God&quot; is three persons, then is it not indeed misleading, or open to misunderstanding, to simply use God as a proper name, as though of one person?


No. He is both. In the west the oneness is emphasized, in the east the three persons are emphasized. The Lord your God is one; to say from a Christian perspective that this passage is in reference only to God the Father is to ignore that Christ was active in creation.


If &quot;God&quot; is three persons, why is it wrong to say that two persons (Son, Spirit) are hypostases of one (Father), ontologically equal to the one (Father)?


They are in hypostatic union, and the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son and the Father, but all are of the same substance and have the same attributes.


If the Nicean Creed does not say this, then what does it say?


That they are of the same substance, and have the same attributes, thus Christ would have been the transcendent God Himself which you denied.

[jpholding]

Um hm,

I'm living consistently by subjectively trusting what I see.

Are you? I've seen you in other threads here, Scotty. You're as much into evidential arguments as anyone else. Furthermore:

sub·jec·tive ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sb-jktv)
adj. Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision. Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience....

Existing only in the mind; illusory.

So are you going to tell us right now that even when you sit down, you consider it possible that the chair exists only in your mind, but trust that it isn't? If you do, on what grounds do you do so? "Subjectively trusting" is an oxymoron:

trust ( P ) Pronunciation Key (trst)
n. Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.

Not of "your mind." This is reliance on the external world.

Not if I made a conscious choice not too.

Obviously. A conscious choice to IGNORE the problems inherent in the view. Inconsistency.

You're putting the creator on the same level as the creation, man is incapable of talking about Him in this way. Could there even be a difference between the two for God?

Just answer the question, Scotty: Does or does not God have objective experience? Yes or no? This is dodgeball again. When you answer the question, THEN we will deal with whether there can or could be a difference here.

I believe that he was, but Thomas could only know this by subjective means (sight, touch, etc).

First: Unfortunately, the dictionary does not define "subjective" as you do:

ob·jec·tive ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-jktv)
adj.
Of or having to do with a material object.
Having actual existence or reality.
Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

Your claim that sight and touch are "subjective" -- existing only in the mind -- isn't backed up by this. At best you are arbitarily declaring that the senses actually ARE subjective, but in order to say this, you need an OBJECTIVE view that is able to determine that the senses are reduced to subjectivism -- and once again your view shoots itself in the foot. Now:

If the Risen Jesus WAS objectively in the room, and all Thomas had was subjective (illusory) consciousness of this, then how do you explain the amazing coincidence of correspondence betwen what objectively happened and what was subjectively (in the mind only) perceived?

Because it is experienced subjectively and we have no proof that our subjective sense aren't being fooled.

Once again, the definition of "subjective" here is not even correct.

Because I experience objective reality through subjective senses, and you are a part of that subjective reality.

And what is your justification, again, for claiming that your senses have "subjectivized" anything, and how can you claim this, not having had an objective outsider's view to say so?

I believe it's claims, namely that this is right for everyone. But I came to that point subjectively.

Again, this form of evangelism is conscicuously missing from the NT. Questions:

Do you think Peter, Paul, James, and even Thomas believed in and/or endorsed the view that you do?

Would Thomas himself have regarded his experience with the Risen Jesus as objective or subjective?

If your answer is "no" and "objective" to these two questions, why should anyone want to adopt your subjective viewpoints, when it was not believed in by those who first preached the kerygma?

Evidence shuts the mouths of those who believe they can disprove Christianity, and is also worthwile after conversion, and is important because of what it works in us, namely confirms our faith, our faith being based on our recognition of our sinfulness through the law and our reception of forgiveness. How's that for a run-on? ;-)

It made more sense than anything you have said so far. Yes -- the main purpose of apologetics has always been to shut mouths and strengthen faith; at least, IN the Western world of individualism. Not so for the ancients. I'll stop at that, both to celebrate that you DID say something that made sense, and because to go further afield would take us into TULIP territory, which is another issue.

While I understand your intent, you're still bringing the experiences of your upbringing to your understanding of the context.

I wasn't "brought up" with the definition of pistis found in Greco-Roman works, Scotty. All of this was entirely new to me when I read it out of the sources. It made a better fit with the contexual data than the old "just shut up and believe" model.

Where you would associate evidence with science and validity, I don't see that as being a major area of preaching for them.

What did Peter appeal to in Acts 2, Scotty? What did Paul appeal to in Acts? Repent and believe was there -- tacked on to the end, of what?

The evidence does not establish something as a fact, but opens up the door for one possibility of interpretation.

I have to wonder what other "interpretation" you think was available for the ancient Mediterranean peoples in Judaism. All other "interpretations" are sorely decontextualized. The opponents of Christianity did not propose alternate "interpretations" until the Gnostics took Jesus out of Judaism and made him into a Greek mystic -- decontexualization. Thus the evidence only opens other doors if you selectively ignore evidence behind other doors with it.


What scholars did you reference to which I did not comment on?

Back in the article, deSilva and Malina and Neyrey.

There's no significant difference in the gravitational pull on the object.

Nevertheless, we work against it. But:

Clarify for me first, is it the result or the method that makes it a miracle (concerning Christ's miracles). How about creation ex nihilo, could man achieve that with the right resources?

The point I have tried to make is that it is more method. Ex nihilo is perhaps the one exception, though even there I wonder whether God drew from His infinite energy and converted it to matter (E = mc2). That would still be "ex nihilo" in a sense.

Metaphysics, meaning conjecture about what lies behind an object, is not science because it can not be proven.

As I said, talk to the physicians.

you assume would have killed it but which there could possibly be an infinite number of answers for.

Then come up with at least two for each of the 17 if you can:

http://www.tektonics.org/nowayjose.html

with the one for Islam at the bottom, too.

How do you encounter the evidence?

Obviously through sense, which leads us back to the above.

here you are asking for a specific statement using terms that were not common to this era. Christ taught about subjective trust

I don't need terms, but the only way I see that if if you beg the question and assume that his appeal to see and touch assumed the subjective paradigm -- which, I challenge you to show specifically taught, and to explain why or how Paul, et al thought this way.

Matthew 16:16-

That's not at the time I'm referencing by the Sea of Galilee.

Both

A logical impossibility, which I know is not bothersome to you, but it is also not creedal. The oneness emphasized in the west is not of personhood but of ontological nature -- the Godhead. The Shema did not exclude hypostases; Proverbs 8 tells as much.

They are in hypostatic union, and the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son and the Father, but all are of the same substance and have the same attributes.

That is 100% in line with what I have been saying.

thus Christ would have been the transcendent God Himself which you denied.

I have not done so; I have said that "God" is not a personal name, but rather a conceptual description like "deity"; in that respect, I have said Christ is God (deity). The difference:

John is Fred.

vs

John is human.

A few more lines and maybe we'll get some juice out of you yet! :cheers:

[scottatiwu]

this is starting to become more enjoyable, thank you.

Yesterday @ 11:41 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=252677#post252677)
jpholding:


Are you? I've seen you in other threads here, Scotty. You're as much into evidential arguments as anyone else.


But I argue from evidence after having made the conscious decision, which everything pivots around for me.


sub·jec·tive ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sb-jktv)
adj. Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision. Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience....


I know I have been using the word subjective out of context, but I couldn't think of a better word to refer to a sollipsistic (sorry my spelling is terrible there) standpoint. I also mean subjective to refer to the person directly first.
I would posit that if we truly let honest inquiry take it's full course, we end up only being able to have confidence in a form of sollipsism (sp again), or subjectivism. This form of subjectivism would not deny the possibility of objective truth existing, but denies our ability to know if it does for certain. We may see things we believe to be objective experiences, but because we experience them through our senses, we cannot be sure that we see what truly is.


So are you going to tell us right now that even when you sit down, you consider it possible that the chair exists only in your mind, but trust that it isn't?


Let me clarify what I mean. It is possible that the chair may only be in my mind, but I qualify that only with the possibility that all of existence might only be in my mind (ie "brain in a vat" syndrome). Thus, even the act of sitting down would be only "in my mind" if this were the case, and so I don't have to worry about the interaction between the two. I will always see cause and effect, but that doesn't mean that cause and effect is what exists, it may mean, as Hume says, that it is only what I observe.


trust ( P ) Pronunciation Key (trst)
n. Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.


Here we get into doubting both the ability to know external truth, which leads to an infinite number of possibilities, and doubting the validity of histories conection with the "reality" that I observe. The second form of doubt arises from the inability to have absolute knowledge of history. Like I stated earlier, all historical assumptions are subject to a sort of "best guess" syndrome. Though we may narrow the options down, even to one single option, contradictory evidence could always turn up. Should I rest my faith in something I can't be sure of? That is not to say that evidence isn't useful before faith, but it shouldn't be the dictator of faith.


Obviously. A conscious choice to IGNORE the problems inherent in the view. Inconsistency.


I'm not ignoring the evidence per se, but basing the choice on something other than the evidence. The question thus becomes no longer "What is real?" but "What do I do?" As Christians we say over and over again "to not choose is to make a choice," and I assume we mean it... so I must make a choice. I can either choose to accept Christ's teachings and submit my life to them, or I can choose not too. There are steps that lead up to this choice, but we can discuss those later if you like.



Just answer the question, Scotty


That was my answer JP, that question cannot be answered. We have no knowledge of how God experiences the world, and I don't think it's worthwhile to try to make conjecture about it.


ob·jec·tive ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-jktv)
adj.
Of or having to do with a material object.
Having actual existence or reality.
Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.


Once again, I was playing loose with the terms, sorry. Objectivity from the standpoint I am proposing carries two connotations. 1. In relation to physical existence, something which is verifiable. (You can see the obvious delima here from a sollipsistic standpoint) and 2. When someone is speaking objectively, they are speaking in much the same way as some have tried to speak about aesthetics, namely in a rationally disinterested manner. Meaning, they have no personal attachment one way or the other to the outcome of their examination of an 'object'.


Your claim that sight and touch are &quot;subjective&quot; -- existing only in the mind -- isn't backed up by this.


What sight and touch correspond to, their object of sensation you might call it, could very well exist in actuality, but sight and touch themselves are, or rather could possibly be (if I am to stay consistent), the stimulations of nerve cells that our brain processes.


At best you are arbitarily declaring that the senses actually ARE subjective, but in order to say this, you need an OBJECTIVE view that is able to determine that the senses are reduced to subjectivism


Logically I don't think it is neccesary to validate this, but rather I think it would be the other way around. Any material evidence is still filtered through those senses which I am claiming are subjective in the first place. Though I know this sounds circular, consider my reasoning. We would need and additional source outside our senses to validate their accurate responce to objects which actually exist. This is something we are incapable of as of yet.


If the Risen Jesus WAS objectively in the room, and all Thomas had was subjective (illusory) consciousness of this, then how do you explain the amazing coincidence of correspondence betwen what objectively happened and what was subjectively (in the mind only) perceived?


Here you might be picking and choosing the definitions from the dictionary that you would prefer to use. The objective presence of Christ is something which cannot be validated on anything other than the personal (ie "subjective" but not neccesarily illusory) testimony of Thomas, and the others who were there. However, all of this (what I read about it) is still filtered through my own personal senses.


[i] thus Christ would have been the transcendent God Himself which you denied.

I have not done so;


You did in your original post. If you remember, that specifically was what I dubbed heretical.

As a couple last notes, I'll respond to the large chunk I cut out later on. Also, I would posit that according to the ECF's, particulary those following the Nic. Creed, the oneness emphasis is on the unity of personhood as well. Next week I could probably post a few quotes, but right now I'm in the middle of mid. term week. Also, just as a heads up; since most reformation theology came out of the Augustinian tradition, thats most likely where I will reference to for things such as faith being above reason. The faith seeking understating paradigm is really what that concept grew out of. You can go ahead and reply to this now if you'd like though.

[jpholding]

Well now,

But I argue from evidence after having made the conscious decision, which everything pivots around for me.

Is this not contrary to the spirit of use of evidence? If I read this right, you have decided in advance what the truth is based on. And thus you are vulnerable to the charge that the theory is held supreme to the facts -- which is exactly what Mormons, atheists, and others do regularly. Which leads again to the same question: Can you really tell us why to prefer your view over theirs?

I also mean subjective to refer to the person directly first.

Can you find me a single word that expresses this? Is this it?

sol·ip·sism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (slp-szm, slp-)
n. Philosophy 1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.

This form of subjectivism would not deny the possibility of objective truth existing, but denies our ability to know if it does for certain.

Very well, then, in this light going through the questions I asked.

Let me clarify what I mean. It is possible that the chair may only be in my mind, but I qualify that only with the possibility that all of existence might only be in my mind (ie "brain in a vat" syndrome).

Do you really think God would create such an existence for us?

Do you think this type of thinking would have been received by Paul, Peter, and James?

Here we get into doubting both the ability to know external truth, which leads to an infinite number of possibilities, and doubting the validity of histories conection with the "reality" that I observe. The second form of doubt arises from the inability to have absolute knowledge of history

In response to the first, I ask the same questions as before. For the second it is a given that we just don't have thorough knowledge, but I do not see that historians have thrown up their hands in despair of this, or reached conclusions that i.e., Julius Caesar may have been a Venusian. That sort of thing only gets published well outside the range of peer review! Moreover:

Like I stated earlier, all historical assumptions are subject to a sort of "best guess" syndrome. Though we may narrow the options down, even to one single option, contradictory evidence could always turn up.

If this is so then the conclusion must be that historians should just become janitors, since they will never have definitive knowledge. Again, too, how will you respond to Mormons for example who use the same reasoning against observations that nothing in North American archaeology supports the Book of Mormon? Heck! I just had one say exactly this about the fact that extant documents from the patristic era do not support their interpretation of 1 Cor. 15:29. It sounds like you have yet to find anything you can be "sure of" that can't be said to be "sure" for someone with an opposing viewpoint.

That was my answer JP, that question cannot be answered. We have no knowledge of how God experiences the world, and I don't think it's worthwhile to try to make conjecture about it.

I still call this a dodgeball. Rather than play sports, I'll put it this way:

1) If God can see objectively, then why can't we? If you say "omniscience" then it is epistemically a given that range of knowledge permits objective observation by us to a given extent.

2) If God only sees subjectively, then how does He know there is not a greater God than He is that He doesn't know about? Could what He sees "correspond to" what "could very well exist in actuality," but could it also be "the stimulations of his 'nerve cells' (the divine equivalent thereof) that His 'brain' processes"?

Logically I don't think it is neccesary to validate this,

I think you are dodging to say so. :smile: But consistently, since logic itself may just be the result of brain processes....

We would need and additional source outside our senses to validate their accurate responce to objects which actually exist. This is something we are incapable of as of yet.

It is indeed circular. And I do not see that you got out of the circle at all.

Here you might be picking and choosing the definitions from the dictionary that you would prefer to use.

It was all the dictionary had that was relevant. But you didn't answer my question about the correspondence, which still applies. I gather from what you said above that it is possible that Thomas' view correponded to objective reality; so wouldn't this mean we'd have to beg the question to say that it didn't? Don't we need a real reason to suggest why it didn't? John Allegro suggested mushrooms...

You did in your original post. If you remember, that specifically was what I dubbed heretical.

Only in the sense of "God" defined as a person, not as a property.

We'll see what you come up with otherwise....

[scottatiwu]

Do you think Peter, Paul, James, and even Thomas believed in and/or endorsed the view that you do?


I don't think they would have been thinking in these sorts of terms. This way of thinking has developed in reaction to modern philosophy and theology, and the NT was obviously formed in a pre-modern area. Postmodern theology, as best I understand it, is in some ways an attempt to regain what we lost by discarding the premodern mindset while not forgetting the modern mindset which we have progressed through.


why should anyone want to adopt your subjective viewpoints, when it was not believed in by those who first preached the kerygma?


Because they preached the message within a certain context, but because of the shift in context between then and now, certain aspects of that shift should be accounted for in order to allow the Gospel to have it's full effect. Ultimately they were primarily concerned with conviction under the law, forgiveness through Christ, and the hope of the ressurection.


I wasn't &quot;brought up&quot; with the definition of pistis found in Greco-Roman works, Scotty. All of this was entirely new to me when I read it out of the sources. It made a better fit with the contexual data than the old &quot;just shut up and believe&quot; model.


You're right, but the lens through which you interpret the contextual meaning of pistis is something you have grown up in. When it comes down to it, you still carry with you the modern mindset, something which developed primarily in the 17th and 18th centuries and has dominated western thinking even up until this century. Your experiences are your lens. And, just as a small note, I don't endorse a "shut up and believe" model, but the reasons for risking faith are much more personal.



What did Peter appeal to in Acts 2, Scotty? What did Paul appeal to in Acts? Repent and believe was there -- tacked on to the end, of what?


The gospel message, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. These things he was a witness to, personally.


though even there I wonder whether God drew from His infinite energy and converted it to matter (E = mc2). That would still be &quot;ex nihilo&quot; in a sense.


Eww... I'd be careful with that. We can quantify energy, so in a sense it's "tangible" and thus a part of creation. I'm not trying to jump on you, but that has a certain taint of "new age" religion to it.


but the only way I see that if if you beg the question and assume that his appeal to see and touch assumed the subjective paradigm -- which, I challenge you to show specifically taught, and to explain why or how Paul, et al thought this way.


It doesn't need to be taught in order to be true. Touch and sight are specifically personal functions. I'm not saying that everyone doesn't feel and see the same thing, but that we have no verifiable way of knowing wether they do or not.


Matthew 16:16-
That's not at the time I'm referencing by the Sea of Galilee.


I'm saying that it's possible that what is seperated in Matthew as two distinct incidents may, to suit a different purpose John had in mind, be combined in John's gospel.



The Shema did not exclude hypostases; Proverbs 8 tells as much.


Very true, it would infact include Christ and the Spirit if we are to be consistent in our theology, but hear the words of the shema. "Hear oh Israel, the Lordyour God is one." If we believe it is refering to the whole of God, what do we say to the fact that it has referenced to Him personally as one being or person.

[scottatiwu]

Yesterday @ 03:49 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=253309#post253309)
jpholding:

Is this not contrary to the spirit of use of evidence?


Yes and no. My faith is based on something other than historical evidence; however, I engage in evidential debates because I think it is entertaining for one, and for two being solipsistic doesn't mean that I immediately cease to think critically, I'm just aknowledging my inability to have a complete grasp of the data. And furthermore, if I invest my faith in God who's word is in the scripture, thus making the scripture the "rule for life," then I should do my best to understand how God wills for me to apply that rule.



Which leads again to the same question: Can you really tell us why to prefer your view over theirs?


Because they do not offer what Christ offers. I'll get more into detail on this this weekend hopefully, when papers and tests are out of the way.


sol·ip·sism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (slp-szm, slp-)
n. Philosophy 1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.


That's the one I was mispelling.



Do you really think God would create such an existence for us?


I doubt it, but understand that this is the view point which does not presuppose God. It's Cartesian taken to an extreme. Where Descartes said "God wouldn't fool me, though a demon might be," I'm not presupposing God first. I devote my life to God within the context of the this viewpoint.


Do you think this type of thinking would have been received by Paul, Peter, and James?


I don't think this would have been a concern for them.




In response to the first, I ask the same questions as before. For the second it is a given that we just don't have thorough knowledge, but I do not see that historians have thrown up their hands in despair of this,


Certainly not in relationship to their scholarly field, but they aren't exactly concerned with the same questions either. They're staking their reputations, where as we are concerned with staking your eternal soul.



It sounds like you have yet to find anything you can be &quot;sure of&quot; that can't be said to be &quot;sure&quot; for someone with an opposing viewpoint.


You are right in one sense, people can take my position and use it to justify other religious choices, and infact many do in our pluralistic society. But, as we have the charge to go and make disciples, it is up to us to display to them that they are not being honest with themselves and that their conclusions are incomplete.


1) If God can see objectively, then why can't we?


I'm not saying we don't, I'm saying we can't know whether we do or not. I'm still trying to avoid getting to close to making some statement about how God actually sees, because seeing seems to be such an inadequate expression to use when talking about God.


2) If God only sees subjectively, then how does He know there is not a greater God than He is that He doesn't know about? Could what He sees &quot;correspond to&quot; what &quot;could very well exist in actuality,&quot; but could it also be &quot;the stimulations of his 'nerve cells' (the divine equivalent thereof) that His 'brain' processes&quot;?


A very interesting question, however, you're still dealing with a created paradigm and trying to apply it to the creator. Bigger/smaller, brain, stimulations. We have no way of knowing if these are accurate ways of describing God.


It is indeed circular. And I do not see that you got out of the circle at all.


It is circular, but the problem itself is circular. How do you validate something which could possibly be faulty using that very thing which you're calling into question without using any other sort of attainable information? Basically I'm saying that you can't pull your two eyes out and have a look at them.



It was all the dictionary had that was relevant. But you didn't answer my question about the correspondence, which still applies. I gather from what you said above that it is possible that Thomas' view correponded to objective reality; so wouldn't this mean we'd have to beg the question to say that it didn't?


I'm not saying it didn't, I'm saying it might not have, and we can't prove that either way.

Until next time,
God bless.

[jpholding]

Hmmm...

I don't think they would have been thinking in these sorts of terms. This way of thinking has developed in reaction to modern philosophy and theology, and the NT was obviously formed in a pre-modern area.

Then what does this say about it, in light of your claim that I read modern views into pistis?

Because they preached the message within a certain context, but because of the shift in context between then and now, certain aspects of that shift should be accounted for in order to allow the Gospel to have it's full effect.

Read what you said here carefully. You're saying that things "really" were as we see them now, but God let that slide so that more people in essence would be "fooled" into salvation. Is God into this sort of trickery?

Even more poignant...this plays havoc with judgment. If we can't be objectively sure of what we sense, this leaves the door open for people who reject the Gospel and can't help it, because their senses incorrectly filtered a message. You have to either hypothesize that God unjustly lets this happen, or else the Spirit ensures that we get an objective, clear view to make a decision (which I could live with as a thesis, but that also takes away your argument about Thomas, et al.).

You're right, but the lens through which you interpret the contextual meaning of pistis is something you have grown up in.

I didn't grow up in it. And the scholars who agree still hang like an albatross on your position unless you can deal with them. I honestly don't think you can. deSilva, et al are specialists in the anthropoology of the NT era. I wonder if you'd like to claim that their "experience" is their "lens" as opposed to their decades of research. I should warn you that Malina and Neyrey at least have no interest in apologetics.

The gospel message, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. These things he was a witness to, personally.

As well as the miracles and his fulfillment of OT prophecies -- things claimed to be open to objective reception.

Eww... I'd be careful with that. We can quantify energy, so in a sense it's "tangible" and thus a part of creation. I'm not trying to jump on you, but that has a certain taint of "new age" religion to it.

Which one? The New Age religions I know would never accept such a premise which separates God from the creation.

t doesn't need to be taught in order to be true. Touch and sight are specifically personal functions.

That it is not taught nevertheless leads to problems. The appeals to the Risen Jesus, miracles, and prophecy all relied uponj a presumption that these were truths that anyone could objectively access and verify for themselves. If they believed as you did, such appeals would have been pointless.

I'm saying that it's possible that what is seperated in Matthew as two distinct incidents may, to suit a different purpose John had in mind, be combined in John's gospel.

The distance between Matt. 16 and Matt. 3-4 is rather great for that. They're also set in entirely different geographic settings. This is too great of a stretch to accept.

Very true, it would infact include Christ and the Spirit if we are to be consistent in our theology, but hear the words of the shema. "Hear oh Israel, the Lordyour God is one." If we believe it is refering to the whole of God, what do we say to the fact that it has referenced to Him personally as one being or
person.

The Trinity is usually described as three persons in one being, Scotty. Being and person are not taken as synonyms. The Shema says "one" but it does not say "one person"; that is a mistake Unitarians make. :doh: I am at a terminal where I cannot check a dictionary easily but if you check I think you'll find the words are not supposed to be synonyms (though they may be improperly so used in popular discourse).

I'm just aknowledging my inability to have a complete grasp of the data.

Then it is not solipsism you're dealing in but rather inability to cover the full range of objective observations. Which in turn means there is no reason objectivity cannot be the rule abd be sufficient. I wanted an answer to my question about how to answer Mormons on i.e., archaeology. Do you have one?

Because they do not offer what Christ offers.

They certainly claim to do so. Therefore...?

I doubt it, but understand that this is the view point which does not presuppose God. It's Cartesian taken to an extreme. Where Descartes said "God wouldn't fool me, though a demon might be," I'm not presupposing God first. I devote my life to God within the context of the this viewpoint.

Then let's put it this way. Suppose God does not really exist, or is unconscious like the Hindus say, and the demons do and want to fool you. How do you know that's not the case?

Certainly not in relationship to their scholarly field, but they aren't exactly concerned with the same questions either. They're staking their reputations, where as we are concerned with staking your eternal soul.

That's merely ad hominem, albeit a gentle one. I think you need to do better than that and actually answer the question.

But, as we have the charge to go and make disciples, it is up to us to display to them that they are not being honest with themselves and that their conclusions are incomplete.

In other words, we have to appeal to what they should be objectively considering. If not, then how can they help themselves out of their solipsism, which as you say, they may not even be aware they are trapped in? Your position ultimately backs itself against a wall.

close to making some statement about how God actually sees, because seeing seems to be such an inadequate expression to use when talking about God.

Why? The Bible refers to God looking and seeing using the same words for humans doing it.

A very interesting question, however, you're still dealing with a created paradigm and trying to apply it to the creator.

And you are assuming that the gulf is so vast merely based on the juxtaposition. Be careful here. Atheists use the same reasoning to claim that propositional revelation is an absurdity.

It is circular, but the problem itself is circular.

Thus, is assuming that a problem exists in the first place.

Sayonara for now.

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 03:34 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=254772#post254772)
jpholding:

[quote]

Read what you said here carefully. You're saying that things &quot;really&quot; were as we see them now,


Here I'm referring to the mindset which people used to interpret reality, I'm not making a statement about that mindset's validity.


but God let that slide so that more people in essence would be &quot;fooled&quot; into salvation.


I don't quite get what you mean here. I'm supposing that God intends to meet people where they are at.


this leaves the door open for people who reject the Gospel and can't help it, because their senses incorrectly filtered a message.
You have to either hypothesize that God unjustly lets this happen, or else the Spirit ensures that we get an objective, clear view to make a decision (which I could live with as a thesis, but that also takes away your argument about Thomas, et al.).


If we suppose that God created a thousand individual realities, would God not desire to reach each one within the context of that reality? I still don't believe an 'objective, clear' understanding is necessary for faith.



I didn't grow up in it.


You didn't grow up in the modern scientific era?


And the scholars who agree still hang like an albatross on your position unless you can deal with them.


Maybe, but on the one hand I'm dealing with seperate issues before I come to face them that are significant in relation to applying them. On the other hand, if I can demonstrate that the ECF's are on my side as far as the idea of faith being above reason is concerned, then I would I assume that mine would be the heavier argument.


I wonder if you'd like to claim that their &quot;experience&quot; is their &quot;lens&quot; as opposed to their decades of research.


It is, that is true of every human being.




As well as the miracles and his fulfillment of OT prophecies -- things claimed to be open to objective reception.


Things based on personal testimony and vague interpretations. That's not to mean that Christ didn't fulfill the prophecies, but I don't know if anyone can convincingly argue that the fulfillment was particularly obvious in the majority of these prophecies.



Which one? The New Age religions I know would never accept such a premise which separates God from the creation.


That's the point I was making, that you weren't thoroughly seperating the two.



That it is not taught nevertheless leads to problems. The appeals to the Risen Jesus, miracles, and prophecy all relied uponj a presumption that these were truths that anyone could objectively access and verify for themselves. If they believed as you did, such appeals would have been pointless.


I'm not convinced of the connection. Of course, appeals were made to the events which occured, but always on the basis of personal testimony. "This which we have seen and heard and now preach to you,"



The distance between Matt. 16 and Matt. 3-4 is rather great for that.


Do you mean within the literary length of the book itself? Is this a sufficent standard when the chronological order appears to vary from gospel to gospel?


They're also set in entirely different geographic settings. This is too great of a stretch to accept.


But how does that affect the intent of the passage?


The Trinity is usually described as three persons in one being, Scotty. Being and person are not taken as synonyms. The Shema says &quot;one&quot; but it does not say &quot;one person&quot;; that is a mistake Unitarians make.


But it refers to this one being personally, and we've already clarified the fact that this was how the Hebrews thought of God.


Then it is not solipsism you're dealing in but rather inability to cover the full range of objective observations.


Not here, you're right, but in the first form of doubt I mentioned, the ability to know the external, is solipsism.


Which in turn means there is no reason objectivity cannot be the rule abd be sufficient.


Not for matters of science and history because both accept this problem, but for matters of eternal life, objective examination can't cover all the bases that it would need to.


I wanted an answer to my question about how to answer Mormons on i.e., archaeology. Do you have one?


No, I'm not a historian, but I also don't need an answer from archaeology, because I assume ahead of time that the answer can not be proven fully one way or the other. I'm not concerned in engaging them in a discussion of history, but a discussion of theology. They desire to attach themselves to the apostolic church, but I know that they are incapable of doing so.



They certainly claim to do so. Therefore...?


That's a level I can engage them on, but is beyond the scope of this thread.



Then let's put it this way. Suppose God does not really exist, or is unconscious like the Hindus say, and the demons do and want to fool you. How do you know that's not the case?


Objectively, I don't, but by faith I do. Furthermore, the real question is, would I still continue to live this way, even if that appeared to be the most likely answer?



That's merely ad hominem, albeit a gentle one. I think you need to do better than that and actually answer the question.


I'm sorry, I did not intend for it to be so, but it is the difference between two fields of study. They are concerned with the realm of history, where as the issues I raise belong to the realm of human choice. And, like I said, I'll post something on the ECF's sometime tommorow hopefully.



In other words, we have to appeal to what they should be objectively considering.


Not objectively, but subjectively.


If not, then how can they help themselves out of their solipsism, which as you say, they may not even be aware they are trapped in? Your position ultimately backs itself against a wall.


By asking the question, ok, you can know nothing, what do you do now? That is where the real debate, and ultimately the use of the law and the work of the Holy Spirit intervene.



Why? The Bible refers to God looking and seeing using the same words for humans doing it.


But is the Bible speaking literaly or metaphorically here?



And you are assuming that the gulf is so vast merely based on the juxtaposition.


I'm assuming that because the gulf exists, then we are unable to get a definative idea of what is on the other side if we are not there.


Thus, is assuming that a problem exists in the first place.

Sayonara for now.

The problem is the question. How can I know that I can trust my senses for certain?

[jpholding]

Hmmm. Deeper and deeper into the morass, it seems...

I don't quite get what you mean here. I'm supposing that God intends to meet people where they are at. If we suppose that God created a thousand individual realities, would God not desire to reach each one within the context of that reality?

And in the process, bring forth what would of necessity be contradictory views of Himself, or unreal ones? Thus meaning He has to lie about what is objectively true? Note that this is not the same as Paul's being all things to all men. That involves not changes in reality, but accomodations to behavior -- eating waht your host eats, dressing as your host dresses, observing your host's rules. It does not involve pretending you are Frank Sinatra if your host wants to meet Frank Sinatra.

Moreover I still see no answer to the point that 500+ people saw a Risen Jesus as the same reality, which seems a remarkable coincidence if they each had an individual reality.

I still don't believe an 'objective, clear' understanding is necessary for faith.

It isn't. But it is necessary to maintaining a belief system that is consistent and defensible. Some people survive cognitive dissonance well, Scotty. You are one; Clark Pinnock is another. But you and Clark are a danger -- yes, I affirm this -- to those who cannot.

You didn't grow up in the modern scientific era?

I didn'y grow up having its precepts put into me.

On the other hand, if I can demonstrate that the ECF's are on my side as far as the idea of faith being above reason is concerned, then I would I assume that mine would be the heavier argument.

I will want to check context carefully here; remember the issue is more whether faith (pistis) is grounded to begin in evidence. They may say it is "above reason" in the sense that an outside observer would consider their loyalty to YHWH "unreasonable" in light of i.e., persecution (and with an assumption that their Christian religion is false).

It is, that is true of every human being.

You merely say so; this does not make it so at all...and we have been down that road.

Things based on personal testimony and vague interpretations.

The former, which you merely declare subjective. The latter, not vague at all, and very obvious (just not as "swpectaculr" as popular lit claims), by the exegetical principles of the day...surely you do not stand with Paine on this issue.

That's the point I was making, that you weren't thoroughly seperating the two.

I would see the energy as completely separated from God in terms of ontology.

I'm not convinced of the connection. Of course, appeals were made to the events which occured, but always on the basis of personal testimony. "This which we have seen and heard and now preach to you,"

And which they always took to be objective. Doesn't their very act of appeal in this fashion suggest that they had no conception of "individual realities" that would place their testimony in doubt?

Do you mean within the literary length of the book itself?

Not just length but context. I don't see that the order ever varies that greatly.

But how does that affect the intent of the passage?

No such intent as found in Matt 16 is present in the earlier passage.

But it refers to this one being personally, and we've already clarified the fact that this was how the Hebrews thought of God.

Once again you simply mix the two terms as though synonymous. You need to check the dictionary on this. Using the two words as synonyms is a recent innovation.

Not for matters of science and history because both accept this problem, but for matters of eternal life, objective examination can't cover all the bases that it would need to.

I don't see why not, and this merely begs the question of the problem existing, yet again. This thesis is suspiciously unfalsifiable.

I'm not concerned in engaging them in a discussion of history, but a discussion of theology. They desire to attach themselves to the apostolic church, but I know that they are incapable of doing so.

And this is turn merely contrives an explanation. It also ranges into TULIP, so as before...but in turn, it still is not an actual answer to my question. What your "concerns" are does not comprise an answer.

Objectively, I don't, but by faith I do. Furthermore, the real question is, would I still continue to live this way, even if that appeared to be the most likely answer?

In short, would you continue to prefer to live under a false illusion? Yes, this is epistemic disaster in the making.

I'm sorry, I did not intend for it to be so, but it is the difference between two fields of study. They are concerned with the realm of history, where as the issues I raise belong to the realm of human choice.

Once again, assuming (not proving) the chasm between the two...

By asking the question, ok, you can know nothing, what do you do now? That is where the real debate, and ultimately the use of the law and the work of the Holy Spirit intervene.

If you can know nothing, then you can also not know the law or the work of the Holy Spirit. The position remains against the wall in a room that is 1 foot by 1 foot with no doors.

But is the Bible speaking literaly or metaphorically here?

What would "I see/hear" be a metaphor FOR?

The problem is the question. How can I know that I can trust my senses for certain?

And in close -- the problem is merely assumed. Since the position is on a circlular track with no exit, it goes no further and cannot be falsified.

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 04:39 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=256137#post256137)
jpholding:

And in the process, bring forth what would of necessity be contradictory views of Himself, or unreal ones?


The law of non-contradiction wouldn't apply if you are dealing with seperate realities. What we know of God here is what He has chosen to reveal of Himself, but we know from Church tradition that God is "incomprehensible."


Moreover I still see no answer to the point that 500+ people saw a Risen Jesus as the same reality, which seems a remarkable coincidence if they each had an individual reality.


Like Doc in Back to the Future said, "Your not thinking fourth-demensionally," Though I believe as you do, that He did appear, if you take this sort of solipsistic philisophical thinking to it's end, then "...those Indians won't even be there." Or, in other words, those 500 people could have been simply a product of that reality, and furthemore we're recieving this statement from the mouth of one man who is claiming the existence of 500 others. Though the early church could have, we cannot go interview these 500 people. Thus, the argument doesn't carry the same weight now that it did then.



It isn't. But it is necessary to maintaining a belief system that is consistent and defensible.


Is it neccesary or is it just helpful? If we did not come to faith based on these evidences, why are they neccesary to maintain it? Wouldn't the daily exercise of faith be enough, resulting in certain events which could be used in a personal testimony? People saw the risen Jesus, yes, but how is there experience an less subject to the delima which you propose mine is subject to, namely, what if it was a devil of some sort?


I didn'y grow up having its precepts put into me.


How did you avoid this?



I will want to check context carefully here; remember the issue is more whether faith (pistis) is grounded to begin in evidence. They may say it is &quot;above reason&quot; in the sense that an outside observer would consider their loyalty to YHWH &quot;unreasonable&quot; in light of i.e., persecution (and with an assumption that their Christian religion is false).


I see your point, but don't worry, that's not the direction I'm going.



You merely say so; this does not make it so at all...and we have been down that road.


Unless you hold an entirely rationalistic model of learning over and against an empirical model, then this is the conclusion that I think must be drawn.



The former, which you merely declare subjective. The latter, not vague at all, and very obvious (just not as &quot;swpectaculr&quot; as popular lit claims), by the exegetical principles of the day...


Obviously it was a common practice in that day. Like I stated on another thread, you don't have to look any farther than the Essenes to see this, but that does not make the practice a step by step systematic interpretation process. Interpretations were still vague, wether it was common for them to be so or not.

surely you do not stand with Paine on this issue.

That's the point I was making, that you weren't thoroughly seperating the two.

I would see the energy as completely separated from God in terms of ontology.



And which they always took to be objective.


You assume so anyway, but this is never explicity stated.


Doesn't their very act of appeal in this fashion suggest that they had no conception of &quot;individual realities&quot; that would place their testimony in doubt?


I'm still not stating that they would have had too. My statement about individual realities was presented more to make a point than to demonstrate what I actually believe occurs.


This thesis is suspiciously unfalsifiable.


You know, I never quite understood why unfalsifiablity was a logical fallacy. Sure it can't be argued against, but does that make it untrue?



Once again, assuming (not proving) the chasm between the two...


They're two seperate issues.



If you can know nothing, then you can also not know the law or the work of the Holy Spirit.


You can interact with your experience of it. Here the Spirit intervenes.



What would &quot;I see/hear&quot; be a metaphor FOR?


His "experience" of reality. A better word would have been anthropomorphically perhaps.



And in close -- the problem is merely assumed. Since the position is on a circlular track with no exit, it goes no further and cannot be falsified.

Which is exactly why it has to be accounted for and not discarded.

[scottatiwu]

As it turns out, this will only be a short post until I have time to devote to further study. Rather than developing a paper, I'll put out a few quotes which I believe to fit the context of our discussion which are in favor of the idea that faith is above reason and make a few brief comments.

Augustine-

Obviously, the vast majority of Reformation theology centered on the works Augustine and his interpretations of scripture. Luther was an Augustinian monk, and Calvin's formulations of predestination (not high-calvinism, which was really a later development) were an extension of Augustines' conclusions. In Augustines treatise on Faith and the Creeds, he states this in his opening chapter:

"Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand."

Though this statement is not made in direct relation to connection between faith and reason, it is made in relation to the fact that the core tenets of Christianity are incomprehensible unless one already believes them. Thus they can not be proved prior to the existence of faith. Augustine develops his conception of the relation between reason and faith based on his understanding of the fall and total depravity. Because of the fall, the image of God in man is obliterated, and reason is a part of that image. Not that man no longer has the capacity to reason, but that his reason is marred. Because of this, man's reason is unable to reach knowledge of God, so knowledge of God can only come from revelation. Revelation thus being higher than reason, does not seek it's justification in reason, and of course, all revelation is most fully expressed in Christ. It is by Christ that we know the Father, this being why Christ is The Word.

Anselm-

Anselm was most famous for his version of the ontological argument, but, contrary to what many might believe, this argument was not intended as a basis for faith, but an assistant to faith. In comes down to the fact that in the early church, faith was not brought about through reason but through the "inner testimony of the Holy Spirit." After faith had been accepted, reality could be percieved as being in reasonable congruence with Christianity, but this only assisted the believer in seeing God in their life, not in providing a substitute basis for faith apart from the inner testimony. So, in his Proslogion, the book in which he outlines the ontological argument, Anselm states:

"I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this I also believe- that unless I believed, I should not understand."

Tertullian-

Oftenly mistaken as a complete irrationalist and fidest, Tertullian actually may have been appealing to Aristotle's maxim that some stories are so unlikely that they must be held as true.(www.tertullian.org/articles/sider_credo.htm) This is where Kierkegaard most likely wanted to take us when he stated that Abraham believed on the strength of the absurd. Tertullian did however oppose the invasion of philisopical explanations of Christian core beliefes.

"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"
from "De Praescrptone Haereticorum"

"The Son of God was crucified: I am not ashamed--because it is shameful.
The Son of God died: it is immediately credible--because it is silly.
He was buried, and rose again: it is certain--because it is impossible. "
(often quoted as- "I believe because it is absurd.")
from "De Carne Christi"

Aquinas- (obviously not an early church father, but yet he is pre-reformation and I thought this particular statement was worth noting considering his extensive work invovling metaphysics and arguments for the existence of God.)

And finally... though most would hail him as the champion of reason in this debate, Aquinas actually addresses the subject in his writings on Ephesians. Though Aquinas believed that certain issues of general revelation could be understood through the use of human reason, he claifies the issue by stating that objective reason is insufficient for faith. He states that faith involves the will and reason does not persuade the will. Thus here he states:

"...the contents of faith are above reason."

Following the example of those who came before him, Aquinas presents his arguments for the existence of God as things which can assist in defending the faith against attack, but are not of themselves able to establish faith, and ultimately are for the benefit of the Christian.

A few last notes:
Though the testimony of these few saints and fathers are relevant to our issue, I don't consider the arguments for the existence of God by and large very useful for apologetics. They are useful in helping a Christian to coherently understand some of the implications of faith, but otherwise can be inconclusive and even circular at times.
Also, this will be my last post on here for a while. I've taken more time than I would have liked away from my studies and time with my fiance' on here. So, if you'd like JP, we could continue the discussion by email where it isn't so imperative that we answer each other quickly. Let me know if you'd like too. My email address is: scott-smith@wildcat.indwes.edu.
:cheers:

[dizzle]

FYI - it is not imperative that anyone answer each other quickly here Scott. I take sometimes huge amounts of times to respond to things, I just state that upfront .

[scottatiwu]

I know, I just feel as if I have to answer otherwise it'll look like I'm stuck.

[jpholding]

Hmmm,

What we know of God here is what He has chosen to reveal of Himself, but we know from Church tradition that God is "incomprehensible."

It seems to be that this "tradition" was just an excuse for those who found an issue personally incomprehensible, but wanted to continue believing. I see nothing in Jewish thought that regards God as "incomprehensible" if by that it is meant, there are things about God we cannot understand.

Or, in other words, those 500 people could have been simply a product of that reality,

That seems remarkably convenient for the solipsistic thesis! All 500 just happen to conform to the same reality?

and furthemore we're recieving this statement from the mouth of one man who is claiming the existence of 500 others

And why is this a problem?

Though the early church could have, we cannot go interview these 500 people. Thus, the argument doesn't carry the same weight now that it did then.

I cannot agree. It is only the presupposition of change (which is unevidenced) that claims this. The effect of Christian growth in its environment is such that the 500 witnesses are necessary to explain the movement's survival.

Is it neccesary or is it just helpful? If we did not come to faith based on these evidences, why are they neccesary to maintain it?

For many it may not be -- but for the same person, what they have as "faith" is weak, watered-down, and does not engage them in the richness of life and understanding that those in the first century gloried in. It is not necessary for us to exercise to live, but you'll be a lot happier, healthier, and more efficient.

People saw the risen Jesus, yes, but how is there experience an less subject to the delima which you propose mine is subject to, namely, what if it was a devil of some sort?

Because the ministry of Jesus was a much longer process with much more data, requiring an unwieldy thesis of an elaborate, counter-productive effort by Satan. Whereas, all you have is a single-dimensional aspect of subjective experience.

How did you avoid this?

People at my house had better things to do, I suppose.

ssenes to see this, but that does not make the practice a step by step systematic interpretation process. Interpretations were still vague,

I fail to see how. The system looks very systematic to me. There were rules in place. I see no vagueness to speak of.

You know, I never quite understood why unfalsifiablity was a logical fallacy. Sure it can't be argued against, but does that make it untrue?

It is not so much that it is a fallacy, I am saying, as much as that it is worthless. It is like the New Ager who claims that the NT texts were tampered with, and when asked for evidence of this, claims that as part of the tampering process, all evidence of the change was also destroyed. A theory that requires constant explanations, that modifies the theory to fit the data, is one that is too convenient. Why should we accept a completely untestable hypothesis that does this? Would you accept the New Ager's reasoning?

You can interact with your experience of it. Here the Spirit intervenes.

That still does not explain how you know you are interacting with the "Real Thing" to begin with.

His "experience" of reality.

But what IS that experience and why should we think it is not the sort of seeing and hearing we know?

Now as to these quotes. I won't accept Anselm and Aquanas here....no offense, but they are much too late to tell us anything about the meaning of pistis in the Greco-Roman world.

Augustine is almost too far, but I'll interact with that anyway. It does not, as you note, mention faith at all, so I also question its relevance.

"Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand."

The interesting thing here is that this is a quote of Is. 7:9, which is itself an appeal to Ahaz to remain loyal to YHWH in the face of oppression, which is followed upon by an offering of a sign (7:14) so that Ahaz WILL act. So Is. 7:9 fits in with what I have shown pistis to mean, a trust or loyalty based on performance-evidence.

Though this statement is not made in direct relation to connection between faith and reason, it is made in relation to the fact that the core tenets of Christianity are incomprehensible unless one already believes them.

The core tenets? The only issue he mentions in relation to this is, "But if all things were made by Him, understand that He was not Himself made."

Because of the fall, the image of God in man is obliterated, and reason is a part of that image.

This is manifestly incorrect. The language of the "image" means we are God's representatives and stewards on earth and has nothing to do with ability to reason. If this is Augustine's foundation then he is wrong from the beginning.


Tertullian-

He's close enough to take seriously here, but he says not a word about pistis. However, I wonder if his statement might not reflect a form of argument of the sort I made in the article I gave you a link to (The Impossible Faith).

Also, this will be my last post on here for a while. I've taken more time than I would have liked away from my studies and time with my fiance' on here. So, if you'd like JP, we could continue the discussion by email where it isn't so imperative that we answer each other quickly

No worries. Reply here anytime. I have plenty of other threads to deal with and I do have the unfair advantage of doing this full time. :smile: But given the time I do have, I'd rather not do it by email; other people can learn as well.

[scottatiwu]

I couldn't resist a quick responce

Today @ 07:02 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=258861#post258861)
jpholding:

That seems remarkably convenient for the solipsistic thesis! All 500 just happen to conform to the same reality?


It is convienent, but it also consistent. All 500 are a part of the reality which you correspond with, thus, you cannot be sure they exist in the same way you do. (In other words, we could all be schizo and not know it. *Obviously this isn't what I really mean, but it gives you an understanding of the direction I'm going.)



And why is this a problem?


Because we have all 500 singled into and through the mouth of one man, thus we only have one testimony in our present age because we cannot go interact with these other people.



I cannot agree. It is only the presupposition of change (which is unevidenced) that claims this.


The change is this, they're dead now and left nothing behind for us to engage with, and even if they had it would lack the impact today that it had then because of this seperation of time and death.


The effect of Christian growth in its environment is such that the 500 witnesses are necessary to explain the movement's survival.


There is no reason to believe than any historic event is exactly one to one cause and effect.


For many it may not be -- but for the same person, what they have as &quot;faith&quot; is weak, watered-down, and does not engage them in the richness of life and understanding that those in the first century gloried in.


My personal faith has grown tremendously sense I began to understand it in this light, when I really asked myself why I believed.


It is not necessary for us to exercise to live, but you'll be a lot happier, healthier, and more efficient.


I don't mean this to be an attack, so forgive it's rough sound, but do you then propose that a simple man who has no comprehension of these things but relies on God and trusts in Him fully, enough to put anyone else to shame, somehow has a less satisfing spiritual life than someone who's taken the half-hour neccesary to read through one of Lee Strobel's books?



Because the ministry of Jesus was a much longer process with much more data, requiring an unwieldy thesis of an elaborate, counter-productive effort by Satan. Whereas, all you have is a single-dimensional aspect of subjective experience.


Not that I would ever suggest that the works of Christ were of the devil, but if both paths call us to trust more fully in God through Christ, how is mine more subject to this possiblity? Does the angel of darkness not appear as an angel of light? All human beings by neccesity work through a single-dimensional aspect on which all other dimensional interaction is dependant.

How did you avoid this?

People at my house had better things to do, I suppose.



I fail to see how. The system looks very systematic to me. There were rules in place. I see no vagueness to speak of.


And yet there were any number of different interpretations provided on a single passage dependant on a specific point in time in which the passage was being read, not on it's original meaning. Not to "poison the well," but if you accept this, how can you enforce a literal interpretation of the meaning of the word pistis?



It is not so much that it is a fallacy, I am saying, as much as that it is worthless. It is like the New Ager who claims that the NT texts were tampered with, and when asked for evidence of this, claims that as part of the tampering process, all evidence of the change was also destroyed.


It is silly if they claim it, and it would be silly if I asserted that our senses by default are fooling us. But that's not what I am saying. I'm suggesting that they could be fooling us, and that by neccesity unless you believe all knowledge is imparted to a human being at conception or birth, then all you know is known in direct relation to these senses. I'm not making any leap, and I'm not attempting to change the argument to adjust to criticism, I'm simply doubting everything and finding that there is no immovable rock within my capacity to reason.


Would you accept the New Ager's reasoning?


How would you refute their attack upon your evidence? I would circumvent the issue by making it a non-issue.



That still does not explain how you know you are interacting with the &quot;Real Thing&quot; to begin with.


You are interacting with what you experience regardless of it's external actuality. For a contemporary spin on the issue, could a person live a valid human life in The Matrix without being unplugged?



But what IS that experience and why should we think it is not the sort of seeing and hearing we know?


I know I've gotten into the bad habit of answering questions with questions, but clarify this for me; what do we know about seeing and hearing?


Now as to these quotes. I won't accept Anselm and Aquanas here....no offense, but they are much too late to tell us anything about the meaning of pistis in the Greco-Roman world.


But if I remember correctly, your challenge was to find evidence of it prior to the reformation. Furthermore, they believed themselves to be carrying on a historic tradition, something which was very important in the pre-reformation, and some post-reformation church(es). But, my reason for quoting them was due primarily to their significance to the field of apologetics. Use of them demonstrates the fact that the arguments for the existence of God were never meant to convince a person prior to conversion (though I admit that Aquinas was a little inconsistent on this issue.)


Augustine is almost too far, but I'll interact with that anyway.


I'm glad you chose to do so, considering his influence on the church. Prior to this period in the church, theology is a lot less distinct in nature (primarily because there wasn't a need for it to be; though heresies were rejected by the church, there wasn't a call for a consistent body of doctrine until Constantine came about.)


It does not, as you note, mention faith at all, so I also question its relevance.


Just for clarification, I did not propose this, but that it did not relate to the connection between faith and reason as we discuss it here, that was not the context of discussion, but there is a close correlation.



The interesting thing here is that this is a quote of Is. 7:9, which is itself an appeal to Ahaz to remain loyal to YHWH in the face of oppression, which is followed upon by an offering of a sign (7:14) so that Ahaz WILL act. So Is. 7:9 fits in with what I have shown pistis to mean, a trust or loyalty based on performance-evidence.


But this is not how Augustine uses the quote. Instead, he is instructing that unless a person believes in the creed on faith, he will not be stable enough to resist heretics.



The core tenets? The only issue he mentions in relation to this is, &quot;But if all things were made by Him, understand that He was not Himself made.&quot;


But Augustine is addressing the use of the creed in general, and the creed speaks to all (I'm uneasy about using that word) of Christology, which is the core of Christianity.



This is manifestly incorrect. The language of the &quot;image&quot; means we are God's representatives and stewards on earth and has nothing to do with ability to reason.


The functional view of the image is the end of all discussion on the matter? This view was hardly in favor, if not hardly even known prior to the emergence of fellows like Norman Snaith and Leonard Verduin. As you are a preterist I understand your appeal to them, but let's be honest, in some of the earliest examples we have, when they talk about the image of God they talk about it Christologically, that it seems our human bodies were shaped after the body which Christ had chosen to take prior to the begining of the world. One could also easily support a view that the image of God is dependant upon relationship to God and man. Though this sort of thinking was championed more by Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, it is affirmed by scriptures as well. Though I believe the functional understanding of the image is part of the issue, it is not the issue as a whole.
If this is Augustine's foundation then he is wrong from the beginning.




He's close enough to take seriously here, but he says not a word about pistis. However, I wonder if his statement might not reflect a form of argument of the sort I made in the article I gave you a link to (The Impossible Faith).


It is very similar to the first argument you propose there, namely that crucifixion was definately NOT how God was supposed to save his people in the NT era mindset, but it is different in that this is the very reason Tertullian believes it, because that's absurd. Not because it's absurd but yet it continues, but it is much like Lewis said (though Lewis would probably like what you have to say more than what I have to say, though I have a great admiration for him) that Christianity is "just the sort of thing you wouldn't guess." For him, this is a testament to it's validty of being from God and not from man.

Well, I went back on my word, next time I promise to take more than a day to respond :wink:

[jpholding]

Huzzah,

It is convienent, but it also consistent

The New Ager with the tampered texts excuse is also consistent. How much virtue does this add to their case?

Because we have all 500 singled into and through the mouth of one man, thus we only have one testimony in our present age because we cannot go interact with these other people.

All you have told me here is what it is. I still don't see a problem. :huh: Why does inability to interact cause any difficulty? Just how divergent in context do you suppose their testimony could possibly be (especially given Paul's contextual use of the creed in terms of defending the rez body to the Corinthians)? Their mere deaths is not a change in the testimony. Separation of time declared a problem is simply arbitary. Your name today is still Scott whether you say it now or 5000 years from now.

There is no reason to believe than any historic event is exactly one to one cause and effect.

Well, if you can interact with the article I linked you to earlier, let's see you show this.

My personal faith has grown tremendously sense I began to understand it in this light, when I really asked myself why I believed.

To put it as I put it to a Mormon, once, however, who claimed that the Bible was written for the "average person," how did he know that what he called "average" was not actually "dumb stupid" and that he had not just moved the goalposts? :smile: Your claim of enriched faith may be akin to Bill Clinton claiming that under his reign salaries in Arkansas went up 200%, while failing to mention that before he got there the average salary was a dollar a year. I remain seriously questioning whether you "did it right" when you took the learned path.

do you then propose that a simple man who has no comprehension of these things but relies on God and trusts in Him fully, enough to put anyone else to shame, somehow has a less satisfing spiritual life than someone who's taken the half-hour neccesary to read through one of Lee Strobel's books?

I not only propose it, I have seen it. Though I would regard Strobel as only the first step.

Does the angel of darkness not appear as an angel of light?

Indeed he does, but the longer he keeps up the appearance, the less successful he will be. Even the best FBI infiltrators can't keep up a pretense of being mafioso for more than a short period.

All human beings by neccesity work through a single-dimensional aspect on which all other dimensional interaction is dependant.

They do? I don't. :teeth:

And yet there were any number of different interpretations provided on a single passage dependant on a specific point in time in which the passage was being read, not on it's original meaning

This does not show that the system was not systematic at all.

. Not to "poison the well," but if you accept this, how can you enforce a literal interpretation of the meaning of the word pistis?

Find me an example of i.e., qal volmer using it. :teeth:

It is silly if they claim it, and it would be silly if I asserted that our senses by default are fooling us. But that's not what I am saying. I'm suggesting that they could be fooling us,

Six of one, half dozen of the other? The New Ager who said "could" instead, I would regard as trying to sway people with mere possibility, knowing he lacks evidence, and using every "could" to prop up a defeated argument. I'm afraid all these denials ring hollow.

How would you refute their attack upon your evidence? I would circumvent the issue by making it a non-issue.

Unfortunately that doesn't help people who need answers. The refutation is simple: The whole scheme is a begged question relying on non-evidence, and is non-falsifiable. The burden of proof cannot even begin to be met.

You are interacting with what you experience regardless of it's external actuality. For a contemporary spin on the issue, could a person live a valid human life in The Matrix without being unplugged?

You've restated what I asked, but still not answered the question.

but clarify this for me; what do we know about seeing and hearing?

That it is perceived through receptors. If you try the route that eyes and ears are receptors, bear in mind that there is no reason to say that the particular organic design associated with creatures on Earth is the only receptive instrument possible.

But if I remember correctly, your challenge was to find evidence of it prior to the reformation.

I believe I just mentioned the Reformation as where I know we will find the definition askew. I was expecting you to start with the second century and move forward, rather than hop about the calendar. :smile:

Furthermore, they believed themselves to be carrying on a historic tradition

Where do they say this in specific reference to the meaning of pistis?

But this is not how Augustine uses the quote.

And thus, he uses it in error. As a matter of course I have noted in the past that Augustine was also probably responsible for some other errors -- the conception of original sin; the use of personal testimony as a valid form of evangelism. You have seemingly found me another original error to nail him on.

But Augustine is addressing the use of the creed in general, and the creed speaks to all (I'm uneasy about using that word) of Christology, which is the core of Christianity.

Er, what quote in the context supports that?

The functional view of the image is the end of all discussion on the matter? This view was hardly in favor, if not hardly even known prior to the emergence of fellows like Norman Snaith and Leonard Verduin.

When it was in favor is not an answer. And actually I have never heard of either of those people. They sound like guys who would be swilling brews at Ruby Tuesday.

, in some of the earliest examples we have, when they talk about the image of God they talk about it Christologically, that it seems our human bodies were shaped after the body which Christ had chosen to take prior to the begining of the world

Examples, you say? How about going back to the use of the word in the ANE?

admiration for him) that Christianity is "just the sort of thing you wouldn't guess." For him, this is a testament to it's validty of being from God and not from man.

I'm sorry, that seemed to ramble a bit. Can you reword? :argh:

[scottatiwu]

I'm kind of upset, I wrote a nice, consise responce last night, and then my computer crashed. I'll try again though.

Yesterday @ 07:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=260846#post260846)
jpholding:

All you have told me here is what it is. I still don't see a problem.


The problem is that because of this, we do not have the testimony of the 500, but a testimony about the testimony of the 500, which means we only have Paul's testimony and beyond that we have no evidence.


Why does inability to interact cause any difficulty? Just how divergent in context do you suppose their testimony could possibly be (especially given Paul's contextual use of the creed in terms of defending the rez body to the Corinthians)?


It's not that it would be so altered, but that we simply don't have it and don't know if anyone ever took him up on his offer to go question these people for themselves. Time does not seperate us from the testimony itself (if we had it) but seperates us from the source of the testimony on which the testimony depends.



Well, if you can interact with the article I linked you to earlier, let's see you show this.


Unfortunately, it will be a long time before I have enough free time to take on a project of that size (that is, responding to all 17), however I would like to perhaps pick 1 or 2 and discuss them on here later in the next few weeks. Give me a couple days and I'll look over them.



Your claim of enriched faith may be akin to Bill Clinton claiming that under his reign salaries in Arkansas went up 200%, while failing to mention that before he got there the average salary was a dollar a year. I remain seriously questioning whether you &quot;did it right&quot; when you took the learned path.


You're welcome to doubt it JP, your relationship with God does not need to be a mirror image of mine (I am far to sinful to be anyone's model). For me though, blind faith is right and it does exist.



I not only propose it, I have seen it.


I might question how much time you've spent with those of simple faith. If you take this to it's logical conclusion, then the scholarly are capable of a greater faith than the common man, and to me it seems as if our Lord would oppose that sort of faith.



Indeed he does, but the longer he keeps up the appearance, the less successful he will be. Even the best FBI infiltrators can't keep up a pretense of being mafioso for more than a short period.


I really don't mean to be rude, but does this really address what I asked? How do you determine that he will be less succesful because he can't keep it up for long?



They do? I don't. :teeth:


What other method do you have for accesing information beyond using your senses?



This does not show that the system was not systematic at all.


But it demonstrates that interpretation depended upon the time period it was interpreted in, not on it's original historical context.


The whole scheme is a begged question relying on non-evidence, and is non-falsifiable. The burden of proof cannot even begin to be met.


But isn't burden of proof dependant upon those making a positive argument, not those calling it into question?



You've restated what I asked, but still not answered the question.


A valid life is not dependent upon your perceptions direct relation to external existence; rather, a valid (or good) life is defined by choices, commitments, and experiences, and these can be made within a virtual situation.



That it is perceived through receptors. If you try the route that eyes and ears are receptors, bear in mind that there is no reason to say that the particular organic design associated with creatures on Earth is the only receptive instrument possible.


Of course there is always that possibility, but their mere existence does not testify to their validity.



Where do they say this in specific reference to the meaning of pistis?


The end all and be all of christian faith is not the word pistis. Theology is not simply the study of historical grammar.



And thus, he uses it in error.


By what standard? We've already established that the historical approach wasn't the only acceptable one.


As a matter of course I have noted in the past that Augustine was also probably responsible for some other errors -- the conception of original sin;


Certainly he coined the term and used a semantically different approach to the topic, but we could debate about wether or not he was justified in doing so. I don't think he went as far a-field from the previous 3 centuries as you might propose. If you mean the conception of original sin in itself was an error, well you'll probably have a tough time convincing any non-campbellite theologian of that. Remember, Pelegius was labelled a heretic and even the semi-pelegians believe in some form of original sin.


the use of personal testimony as a valid form of evangelism.


I think here you might be discounting something simply because you don't believe it rather than actually engaging with it.



Er, what quote in the context supports that?


Which statement, that he was addressing the creeds, or that the creeds cover Christology?



When it was in favor is not an answer.


Why then are my statements subject to the authority of tradition if yours are not.


And actually I have never heard of either of those people. They sound like guys who would be swilling brews at Ruby Tuesday.


You might consider looking them up, I'm not a fan, but they have made some impact on theology.


How about going back to the use of the word in the ANE?


Which is more important, what the church has said about it, or what it's surrounding culture has said about it?



I'm sorry, that seemed to ramble a bit. Can you reword? :argh:

He believed because it was impossible, not because it was impossible and yet has survived. To quote Kierkegaard, "He believed on the strength of the absurd." For the reference to Lewis, he said that it was something that no one would have made up because it is so absurd, but yet somehow it seems to make sense.

[jpholding]

I'm kind of upset, I wrote a nice, consise responce last night, and then my computer crashed.

God is trying to tell you something. :teeth:

The problem is that because of this, we do not have the testimony of the 500, but a testimony about the testimony of the 500, which means we only have Paul's testimony and beyond that we have no evidence.

I repeat:

What is the problem with this? What in transmission invalidates their testimony, especially in a creedal context?

You're not stating a problem in any of this, you are simply stating a condition as though a problem were obvious. I certainly hope you're not thinking of the "hearsay" excuse invented by rationalists.

It's not that it would be so altered, but that we simply don't have it and don't know if anyone ever took him up on his offer to go question these people for themselves.

We don't know, do we? The social world of the NT was such that questioning of such persons was guaranteed, Scotty. This was a world where:

* everyone stuck their nose into everyone's business
* strangers (like the evangelists) were closely questioned
* heavy "honor claims" (like "this man Jesus was resurrected") were challenged, and because of envy, refuted if possible

I would actually presume that the Corinthians had already done this long ago, and that Paul's offer is more of an honor challenge to them in this context. But the point remains that your "don't know" is completely contrary to everything we DO know about the ancient world. In any event, you still have not explained any problem.

For me though, blind faith is right and it does exist.

Back to the same matter -- "if it's right for me" makes it right? Hmm.

I might question how much time you've spent with those of simple faith.

I have been at this sort of ministry for eight years. I have seen persons of simple faith grow by leaps because of the work the ministry does.

If you take this to it's logical conclusion, then the scholarly are capable of a greater faith than the common man, and to me it seems as if our Lord would oppose that sort of faith.

Why? You won't find any Biblical cite that says so -- the issues we now discuss would have been as a whole taken for granted, so you can't claim absence of discussion over, i.e., "Do miracles actually happen?" or "Was Jesus a Mithra copycat?" proves anything. Nor is any lack of promotion of education meaningful, since education was accessible to only a limited number of people.

And if you dare cite Col. 2:8, I'll drop a crate of wet weasels on your head. :teeth:

I really don't mean to be rude, but does this really address what I asked? How do you determine that he will be less succesful because he can't keep it up for long?

No person can act contrary to their nature for long. The true interest is inevitably manifested.

What other method do you have for accesing information beyond using your senses?

Eh? That's not the question I was answering. I thought you were addressing thinking processes.

But it demonstrates that interpretation depended upon the time period it was interpreted in, not on it's original historical context.

Which still does not show that it was not systematic. Scotty, your talent for dodging the point is becoming legendary. :teeth:

But isn't burden of proof dependant upon those making a positive argument, not those calling it into question?

A little semantic game is all that is. Even the one "calling into question" is thereby asserting a positive of some sort as an alternative, even if they refuse to talk about it. In any event, the burden has yet to be satisfied.

a valid (or good) life is defined by choices, commitments, and experiences, and these can be made within a virtual situation.

Uh huh. A "valid" life. In the meantime this still does not answer my original question: How do you know the Holy Spirit you interact with is not a "virtual holy spirit"?

Of course there is always that possibility, but their mere existence does not testify to their validity.

It does however stump any attempt to make God's seeing, etc into a metaphor.

The end all and be all of christian faith is not the word pistis. Theology is not simply the study of historical grammar.

That's yet another non-answer. (Licks finger...scribes wet mark on wall, to go with the other 768,875....) Linguistics nevertheless determines what that theology is based on, unless you want to go extra-canonical and/or cultic.

By what standard? We've already established that the historical approach wasn't the only acceptable one.

Maybe YOU did. :shifty: But if that's so, I expect you to explain why the historical approach is defeated by another.

but we could debate about wether or not he was justified in doing so. I

He wasn't, if he used Romans 5 as a basis.

well you'll probably have a tough time convincing any non-campbellite theologian of that

I doubt if the Context Group or Henri Blocher is either of these. And if that sort refuses to confront and face the data, well, that'll just be too bad, eh? :teeth: It's not so much original sin existing that Augy got wrong, but what its implications are and how it worked.

I think here you might be discounting something simply because you don't believe it rather than actually engaging with it.

Find me a personal testimony to non-believers in an evangelistic setting, Scotty. I did engage this. I wrote a whole article about it. And in the ancient world, the psychology was such that personal testimonies would have been regarded with suspicion. Ever wonder why no one believed Paul had converted until Barnabas stepped to the plate?

Which statement, that he was addressing the creeds, or that the creeds cover Christology?

I forgot by now. :rant:

Why then are my statements subject to the authority of tradition if yours are not.

How did I say yours were?

Which is more important, what the church has said about it, or what it's surrounding culture has said about it?

Those two overlap at some points, but what the culture said about it in original context is far more important than what the church may have come up with (potentially in error) hundreds of years later. You may as well ask, "Which is more important, what the Supreme Court of today says about the Constitution, or what the Federalist Papers say about it?"

He believed because it was impossible, not because it was impossible and yet has survived.

If that IS all he said, then where else did he say he believed in something because it was impossible? He must have regarded "impossibility" as a reason to believe anything at all, which makes no sense to speak of. Which is why he must mean more than that.

As an aside I checked some websites on solipsism and it is nice to see that critics are making the same points I have, including a professor of philosophy in Ireland whose website I found. Maybe I need to post some of their results, eh?
******
It would be true to say that no great philosopher has been a solipsist. And as a theory, if indeed it can be termed such, it is clearly very far removed from common sense. In view of this, it might reasonably be asked why the problem of solipsism should receive any philosophical attention. There are two answers to this question, both of which merit clear articulation. Firstly, while it may indeed be true that no great philosopher has in fact espoused solipsism, but this can be attributed entirely to the fact that inconsistency has been a more prevalent feature of philosophical reasoning than is commonly acknowledged, in that many philosophers have failed to accept the logical consequences of their own most fundamental commitments and preconceptions. For the foundations of solipsism lie at the heart of the view that the individual gets his own psychological concepts (thinking, willing, perceiving, etc.) from 'his own cases', i.e. by abstraction from 'inner experience'. And this view, or some variant of it, has been held by a great many, if not indeed the majority of, philosophers, since Descartes elevated the egocentric search for apodeictic certainty to the status of the primary goal of critical epistemology. In this sense, then, it is at least contestable that solipsism is implicit in many philosophies of knowledge and mind since Descartes, and that any theory of knowledge which adopts the Cartesian egocentric approach as its basic frame of reference is inherently solipsistic.

The second reason why the problem of solipsism merits close examination is that it is based upon three widely entertained philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves of fundamental and wide-ranging importance. These are: (a) That what I know most certainly are the contents of my own mind - my thoughts, experiences, affective states, etc.; (b) That there is no conceptual or logically necessary link between the mental and the physical, between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experiences or mental states and the 'possession' and behavioural dispositions of a body of a particular kind; and (c) That the experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that person. These presuppositions are of unmistakable Cartesian provenance, and are, of course, very widely accepted by philosophers and non-philosophers alike. In tackling the problem of solipsism, then, one finds oneself immediately grappling with fundamental issues in the philosophy of mind - however spurious the problem of solipsism per se may strike one, there can be no questioning the importance of these latter issues. Indeed, one of the merits of the entire enterprise may well be the extent to which it reveals a direct connection between apparently unexceptionable and certainly widely-held common sense beliefs and the acceptance of solipsistic conclusions. If this connection does indeed exist, and we wish to avoid those solipsistic conclusions, we shall have no option but to revise, or at least to critically review, the beliefs from which they derive logical sustenance.

(had to drop a big section to fit in -- find it all at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/solipsis.htm)

What then of solipsism? To what extent does the foregoing undermine it as a coherent philosophical hypothesis, albeit one in which no-one really believes? Well, as indicated above, solipsism rests upon certain presuppositions about the mind and our knowledge of mental events and processes. Two of these, the thesis that I have a privileged form of access to, and knowledge of, my own mind, and the thesis that there is no conceptual or logically necessary link between the mental and the physical, have been dealt with above; if the foregoing is correct, both theses are false. This leaves us with the final presupposition underlying solipsism, that all experiences are necessarily (i.e. logically) private to the individual whose experiences they are. This thesis - which, it is fair to say, is very widely accepted - also derives from the Cartesian account of mind, and generates solipsistic conclusions by suggesting that experience is something which, because of its 'occult' or ephemeral nature, can never literally be shared - no two people, it suggests, can ever be said to have the same experience, which again introduces the problem as to how one person can know the experiences of another, or more radically, how he can know that another person has experiences at all.

Wittgenstein offers a comprehensive critique of this view too - specifically, he attacks the notion that experience is necessarily private. The arguments adumbrated by him against this are complex, if highly compressed and rather oracular - the following is merely an outline of their central thrust. (For more detailed accounts, cf. Kenny, A., Malcolm, N. (b), Vohra, A.).

Wittgenstein distinguishes two senses of the word 'private' as it is normally used: privacy of knowledge and privacy of possession. Something is private to me in the first sense if only I can know it; it is private to me in the second sense if only I can have it. Thus the thesis that experience is necessarily private can mean one of two things, which are not always discriminated from each other with sufficient care: (a) only I can know my experiences, or (b) only I can have my experiences. Wittgenstein argues that the first of these is false, and that the second is true in a sense which does not make experience necessarily private, as follows:

If we take pain as an experiential exemplar, we find that the assertion 'Only I can know my pains' is a conjunction of two separate theses: (i) I (can) know that I am in pain when I am in pain, and (ii) other people cannot know that I am in pain when I am in pain. Thesis (i) is, literally, a piece if nonsense: it cannot be meaningfully asserted of me that I know that I am in pain. Wittgenstein's point here is not that I do not know that I am in pain, when I am in pain, but rather that the word 'know' cannot be significantly employed in this way. (Investigations, I. § 246; II. xi. p. 222). This is because the verbal locution 'I am in pain' is usually (though not invariably) an expression of pain - as part of acquired pain-behaviour it is a linguistic substitute for such natural expressions of pain as groaning. (I. § 244). For this reason it cannot be governed by an epistemic operator: the prepositional function 'I know that x' does not yield a meaningful proposition if the variable is replaced by an expression of pain, linguistic or otherwise. Thus to say that others learn of my pains only from my behaviour is misleading, because it suggests that I learn of them otherwise; whereas in fact I don't learn of them at all - I have them. (I. § 246).

Thesis (ii) - other people cannot know that I am in pain when I am in pain - is quite simply false: if we take the word 'know' is as it is normally used, then it is true to say that other people can and very frequently do know when I am in pain. Indeed, in cases where the pain is extreme, it is often impossible to prevent others from knowing this even when one wishes to do so. Thus, in certain circumstances, it would not be unusual to hear it remarked of someone, for example, that 'a moan of pain escaped him' - indicating that despite his efforts, he could not but manifest his pain to others. It thus transpires that neither thesis (i) nor (ii) is true.

If we turn to (b), we find that 'Only I can have my pains' expresses a truth, but it is a truth which is grammatical rather than ontological - it draws our attention to the grammatical connection between the personal pronoun 'I' and the possessive 'my'. However, it tells us nothing specifically about pains or other experiences, for it remains true if we replace the word 'pains' with many other plural nouns (e.g. 'Only I can have my blushes'). Another person can have the same pain as me: if our pains have the same phenomenal characteristics, and corresponding locations, we will quite correctly be said to have 'the same pain' - this is what the expression 'the same pain' means. Another person, however, cannot have my pains: my pains are the ones which, if they are expressed at all, are expressed by me. But by exactly the same (grammatical) token, another person cannot have my blushes, sneezes, frowns, fears, etc., and none of this can be taken as adding to our stockpile of metaphysical truths. It is true, of course, that I may deliberately and successfully keep an experience to myself, in which case that particular experience might be said to be private to me. But I might well do this by articulating it in a language which those with whom I was conversing did not understand - and there is clearly nothing occult or mysterious about this kind of privacy. (Investigations, II. xi, p. 222). By exactly the same token, it has to be acknowledged that an experience which I do not or cannot keep to myself is not private. In short, some experiences are private, and some are not, and from the fact that some experiences are private in this sense it does not follow that all experiences could be private. As Wittgenstein points out, 'What sometimes happens could always happen' is a fallacy. It does not follow from the fact that some orders are not obeyed that all orders might never be obeyed. For in that case the concept 'order' would become incapable of instantiation, and would lose its significance. (I. § 345).

The Incoherence of Solipsism

With the belief in the essential privacy of experience eliminated as false, the last presupposition underlying solipsism is removed, and it can be seen that, so far from being an irrefutable, if unbelievable, philosophical thesis, solipsism is quite foundationless, in theory or in fact. Indeed, one might even say, solipsism is necessarily foundationless, for to make an appeal to logical rules or empirical evidence the solipsist would implicitly have to affirm the very thing in which he purportedly refuses to believe: the reality of intersubjectively valid criteria, and of a public, extra-mental world. There is a temptation to say that solipsism is a false philosophical theory, but, if the foregoing is correct, this is not quite strong or accurate enough - as a theory, it is in fact incoherent. What makes it incoherent, above all else, is that the solipsist requires a language (i.e. a sign-system) to think or to affirm his solipsistic thoughts at all. Given this, it is scarcely surprising that those philosophers who accept the Cartesian premises which make solipsism apparently plausible, if not indeed, inescapable, have also invariably assumed that language-usage is itself essentially private. The cluster of arguments - generally referred to as 'the private language argument' - which we find in the Investigations against this assumption effectively administers the coup de grâce to both Cartesian dualism and solipsism. (I. § 202; 242-315). Language is an irreducibly public form of life which is encountered in specifically social contexts; each natural language-system contains an indefinitely large number of 'language-games', each governed by rules which, though conventional, are not arbitrary personal fiats; the meaning of a word is its (publicly accessible) use in a language; to question, to argue, to doubt, is, in each case, to utilise language in a particular way, it is to play a particular kind of public language-game. The proposition 'I am the only mind which exists' makes sense only to the extent to which it is expressed in a public language, and the existence of such language itself implies the existence of a social context. Such a context exists for the hypothetical last survivor of a nuclear holocaust, but not for the solipsist. A non-linguistic solipsism is unthinkable, and a thinkable solipsism is necessarily linguistic. Solipsism therefore presupposes the very thing which it seeks to deny: the very fact that solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world which they purport to call into question.

Author Information:
Stephen Thornton, Ph.D.
Email: stephen.thornton@mic.ul.ie
Philosophy Department,
Mary Immaculate College,
University of Limerick,
Ireland

[scottatiwu]

I enjoyed the snipit of article you posted, when I have time next week I'll check out the full one.

Today @ 05:48 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=265410#post265410)
jpholding:


Why? You won't find any Biblical cite that says so


So God is more accessable to the well educated? This certainly comes from a modern bias.




No person can act contrary to their nature for long. The true interest is inevitably manifested.


This still isn't giving me anything solid to work with.



Even the one &quot;calling into question&quot; is thereby asserting a positive of some sort as an alternative, even if they refuse to talk about it.


I don't know, JP. I'm not sure that doubt carries always carries a positive assertion along with it, though it might. :wink:


How do you know the Holy Spirit you interact with is not a &quot;virtual holy spirit&quot;?


Even if it were, I cannot know for certain, and so it would not change my decision.



It does however stump any attempt to make God's seeing, etc into a metaphor.


In no way whatsoever does it remove the fact that the creator is seperated from the creation by neccesity.



Linguistics nevertheless determines what that theology is based on, unless you want to go extra-canonical and/or cultic.


Or, the words could carry their own basis in the authority of the Holy Spirit.



He wasn't, if he used Romans 5 as a basis.


You have not and cannot validate this.



It's not so much original sin existing that Augy got wrong, but what its implications are and how it worked.


These implications are attested to by scripture and are affirmed throughout the tradition of the church.



Find me a personal testimony to non-believers in an evangelistic setting, Scotty. [. . .] And in the ancient world, the psychology was such that personal testimonies would have been regarded with suspicion.


Are specific methods of evangelism mandated by scripture rather than simply used? Our methods can't shift to fit the context of our situation? Furthermore I don't know if you've succesfully done your job of contextualization; what was the art of public speaking in hellenized society? (Rhetoric). What human faculty did rhetoric appeal too? (Emotion). What was the goal of rhetoric? (To persuade others into action through appealing to the emotion).


but what the culture said about it in original context is far more important than what the church may have come up with (potentially in error) hundreds of years later.


Which recieved the promised Holy Spirit? Which shifts in use often?


He must have regarded &quot;impossibility&quot; as a reason to believe anything at all, which makes no sense to speak of. Which is why he must mean more than that.


No offense JP, but what you are saying amounts to "He didn't appeal to reason, which is unreasonable, thus he could not have reasonably meant what he said about not appealing to reason."



This leaves us with the final presupposition underlying solipsism, that all experiences are necessarily (i.e. logically) private to the individual whose experiences they are.
[quote]

He obviously wasn't writing to refute me, but I'll address his presupposition here just to demonstrate the difference between the view I hold and that which he is evaluating. I would not say that all experiences are necessarily private, but can only be known privately (ie. I can know if you seem to be going through the same experience, but I cannot know if anyone like myself actually is.)

[quote]
This thesis - which, it is fair to say, is very widely accepted - also derives from the Cartesian account of mind, and generates solipsistic conclusions by suggesting that experience is something which, because of its 'occult' or ephemeral nature, can never literally be shared - no two people, it suggests, can ever be said to have the same experience, which again introduces the problem as to how one person can know the experiences of another, or more radically, how he can know that another person has experiences at all.


Here it almost seems as if the Dr. takes a solipsistic position as well (how he can know that another person has experiences at all...). What I would suggest however is that he is not considering the distinction that other philosophers have made, specifically Kant, concerning wether we order reality (categories) or interpret reality. Furthermore, this statement also has it's basis in pre-socratic philosophy (ie. a man can never step into the same river twice).


Wittgenstein distinguishes two senses of the word 'private' as it is normally used: privacy of knowledge and privacy of possession. Something is private to me in the first sense if only I can know it; it is private to me in the second sense if only I can have it. Thus the thesis that experience is necessarily private can mean one of two things, which are not always discriminated from each other with sufficient care: (a) only I can know my experiences, or (b) only I can have my experiences.


I really enjoyed his use of Wittgenstein here. Wittgenstein is doing what he does best as an analytical philosopher (note: I think W. might have something to contribute to our discussion as well about the meaning of the word pistis. One of my favorite quotes from him is "If a lion could speak, would we understand it?" We can talk more about that later.) I would say though that stating "my experiences are private," does not neccesarily mean that they cannot be experienced by others, but that we cannot be sure if they can, or that they would relate to our experiences in the same way, which is an experience in and of itself. Well, that's all for me know. I'll check out the rest of that article sometime soon.

God Bless

[jpholding]

Hm,

So God is more accessable to the well educated? This certainly comes from a modern bias.

That's not an answer to my point, again; it's just "argument by incredulity". But it's rather this way: Those who educate themselves more about God will find Him more accessible, yes, just like you found your fiance' more accessible after you learned more about her. Dig? :thumb:

This still isn't giving me anything solid to work with.

It's plain as day and all I can say.

I don't know, JP. I'm not sure that doubt carries always carries a positive assertion along with it, though it might.

It carries either that or someone who engages "permissive ignorance" in refusing to posit an alternative for scrutiny.

Even if it were, I cannot know for certain, and so it would not change my decision.

An epistemic disaster, in other words. Thank you.

In no way whatsoever does it remove the fact that the creator is seperated from the creation by neccesity.

My point does not require that it does so. This is another change of point away from the issue being discussed.

Or, the words could carry their own basis in the authority of the Holy Spirit.

Hm. Show me where the Holy Spirit is said to serve the purpose of a dictionary, please. Not that it matters, since you have already admitted above you have no way of autenticating whether the Holy Spirit is the one doing the job to begin with. Rather disastrous, and I wonder if you make note of this sort of uncertainty in your evangelism.

You have not and cannot validate this.

I certainly did in my article. Mere denial is not a response, nor is "the church says so", and whether scripture says so is the very point at issue.


Are specific methods of evangelism mandated by scripture rather than simply used?

That's not an answer to my question. What this DOES mean is that we'd better have danged good justifcation for departing from the paradigm. The modern social focus on individualism DOES make personal testimony a useful form of evangelism, but that it is so because it reflects a sickness in our social world means we need to address the sickness at the same time.

I don't know if you've succesfully done your job of contextualization; what was the art of public speaking in hellenized society? (Rhetoric). What human faculty did rhetoric appeal too? (Emotion). What was the goal of rhetoric? (To persuade others into action through appealing to the emotion).


Apples and oranges, Scotty. Rhetoric did not make use of personal testimony. And you need to answer my question.

Which recieved the promised Holy Spirit?

If the Holy Spirit were an all-purpose didactic instrument then why was the NT even written?

No offense JP, but what you are saying amounts to "He didn't appeal to reason, which is unreasonable, thus he could not have reasonably meant what he said about not appealing to reason."

Not at all. If you are right, then he is saying he found "impossibility" a criteria for warranting belief in any given thing, which is absurd, since he obvious did not believe in other impossible things on that basis.

I would not say that all experiences are necessarily private, but can only be known privately (ie. I can know if you seem to be going through the same experience, but I cannot know if anyone like myself actually is.)

That doesn't sound the least bit different.

Here it almost seems as if the Dr. takes a solipsistic position as well (how he can know that another person has experiences at all...).

He may have mentioned that in some parts I had to cut for space. It sounds familiar.

[scottatiwu]

Today @ 04:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=266976#post266976)
jpholding:

Those who educate themselves more about God will find Him more accessible, yes, just like you found your fiance' more accessible after you learned more about her.


Here you're being equivocal again. You're equating spiritual progress in the knowledge of God with institutional instruction about a the culture surrounding a certian point in time at which God intervened in history. They are not the same and the only way you can make this sort of jump is by saying "Well God did pick that culture..." thereby limiting God from working within the context of other cultures unless they first familiarize themselves with the first culture.



It carries either that or someone who engages &quot;permissive ignorance&quot; in refusing to posit an alternative for scrutiny.


To cast doubt is the goal of doubting, not to provide an alternative, that is the goal of construction.



An epistemic disaster, in other words.


It may be, but it is what it is and can't be changed. Likewise you are also unable to prove that the Spirit is helping you work out your salvation.



My point does not require that it does so. This is another change of point away from the issue being discussed.


I'm not changing points. I think you like to declare that whenever you're losing. The point is that by saying other (created) receptors might exist, ie which God could experience or be experienced by in an absolute one to one relation is an attempt to use creation to define the creator, and that is impossible *without a paradox.



Hm. Show me where the Holy Spirit is said to serve the purpose of a dictionary, please.


It's not the historical definition, but the impact of the words which rests in the Spirit. It brings life through the words.



I certainly did in my article.


JP, I don't mean to be rude, but the article avoided historical theology in favor of historical grammar. The article was terrible friend. You didn't prove anything. According to your perspective faith is something man can easily achieve and then go beyond. This simply is not the case.



That's not an answer to my question.


You're right, it's a petition for clarification, it's a yes or no question. Does the Bible require a certain method of evangelizing?


but that it is so because it reflects a sickness in our social world means we need to address the sickness at the same time.


Where does faith mandate this?



Apples and oranges, Scotty. Rhetoric did not make use of personal testimony. And you need to answer my question.


The point is that rhetoric appealed to emotion, it doesn't seem that there is a question left to answer.



If the Holy Spirit were an all-purpose didactic instrument then why was the NT even written?


That's rather like asking, if the Holy Spirit was sent to do what it does, then what does it do what it does?



Not at all. If you are right, then he is saying he found &quot;impossibility&quot; a criteria for warranting belief in any given thing


Not just any given thing, but the things of God.


, which is absurd,


That's the point


since he obvious did not believe in other impossible things on that basis.


Obviously, because they aren't the same issues dealt with here.




That doesn't sound the least bit different.


You might want to try re-reading. Think about it and you'll see the difference. It's between there being an answer and knowing the answer.

Well JP, that's it for me. I suppose we're not talking about the same issues, so we're not getting much of anywhere, so this will be my last on this thread. If you'd like to debate a specific issue in the ring I'm open to it, depending upon the issue obviously. God bless.

[jpholding]

They are not the same and the only way you can make this sort of jump is by saying "Well God did pick that culture..."

Which God obviously did, since he communicated in their language, using their words and values and techniques. There's no "limiting" here except our own.

To cast doubt is the goal of doubting, not to provide an alternative, that is the goal of construction.

If that is so the goal of doubting is criminally dishonest, a mere effort to destroy.

It may be, but it is what it is and can't be changed.

Well, back to my first comment: Just wave the white flag....and provide us with no reason to do so.

Likewise you are also unable to prove that the Spirit is helping you work out your salvation.

I'd beg to differ. A reasonable hypothesis could be formed even now, and more definitive collection of data, if it were feasable to measure all variables, would provide a conclusion.

I'm not changing points. I think you like to declare that whenever you're losing

I think you have learned to do this as a debate technique in the interest of self-preservation. :wink:

The point is that by saying other (created) receptors might exist, ie which God could experience or be experienced by in an absolute one to one relation is an attempt to use creation to define the creator, and that is impossible *without a paradox.

One you merely create by making God ultra-transcendant without justificaiton.

It's not the historical definition, but the impact of the words which rests in the Spirit. It brings life through the words.

Back to the problem of whether that is actually what it is doing....and is the one doing it.

but the article avoided historical theology in favor of historical grammar.

"Historical theology" was shown to have failed on the points of grammar and context. Denial is not an answer.

According to your perspective faith is something man can easily achieve and then go beyond. This simply is not the case.

It isn't? Myself and many more beg to differ. I reply that you are merely universalizing your own failure to do the same.

Does the Bible require a certain method of evangelizing?

It certainly offers a model for it; if you want to justify other methods, you need backup for it.

Where does faith mandate this?

By the historical definition of the word, which requires evidence for loyalty to be enacted.

The point is that rhetoric appealed to emotion, it doesn't seem that there is a question left to answer.

There is: How does this validate the use of personal testimony (NOT emotions) in evangelistic settings? You have also not addressed what I said about ancient personality's role in this.

That's rather like asking, if the Holy Spirit was sent to do what it does, then what does it do what it does?

That's rather like, begging the question of what the Spirit does do.

Not just any given thing, but the things of God.

Where does Tertullian make this specific delimitation?

You might want to try re-reading. Think about it and you'll see the difference.

Sure didn't. :no: I think the claimed difference is contrived.

Well JP, that's it for me. I suppose we're not talking about the same issues, so we're not getting much of anywhere, so this will be my last on this thread.

Okey doke. Better attend to those papers anyway.

[zzx375]

I suggest substituting the word 'trust' in place of the word 'faith'. Trust is based upon information which has become evidence, not upon wishes or whim. Trust must be earned. We don't ever hear about a 'leap of trust' or 'blind trust'.

[lewismic]

I'm sure some of the things I address have been addressed previously but clearly they have not been resolved. I hope this interests someone as it clearly doesn't interest JP any longer. His response to my comments is added at the bottom. This is not meant to be a complete take on the issues but more of a plea for a more fair framing of Kierkegaard's arguments.


We exchanged a few sarcastic e-mails after I found your article on the net. I, rather politely I think, asked you to either read some of Kierkegaard's work (it was clear you had not) or let your readers know up front that you are in fact critiquing what someone told you Kierkegaard wrote and not Kierkegaard's work itself. This may seem petty to you but some of us enjoy a little academic integrity and think it's essential if we are to have a fair and educated debate. You shirked me off on a couple more e-mails so now I have decided to present to you, in a slightly more formal way, my problems with your article with respect to your analysis of Kierkegaard's conception of faith. Please keep in mind that this is all in good fun and the pursuit of an interesting debate.

First, you write: "Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard 'contends that the scriptures included in the Bible verify that the Christian belief system is based on a leap of faith, not on tangible proof.' This is because Christianity involves paradoxes offensive to reason." This is already misleading. Kierkegaard does not in fact turn to the scriptures for his sources. Certainly he takes several stories from scripture (the famous story of Abraham that you mention later) however; when he does this he is not looking to the scripture for any sort of proof. He actually alters the stories quite a bit in some cases. They're used more to explain his position then to provide any sort of proof. View them as useful examples of how Kierkegaard describes faith and not as some sort of Biblical search for the irrationality of Christian faith.

Next, you say: "and we assume here that the representation of Kierkegaard’s position is correct." This is the problem I had with the article in the first place. How dare you attempt to analyze a philosopher's argument by drawing all of your knowledge from secondary sources? This ultimately leads to a very, very rough idea of what is being argued and tends to lead the reader off course by taking the arguments out of context. If you would just say right up front that you have not actually read Kierkegaard's work there would be no problem because any reasonable person would realize that they must assume that your analysis is incomplete. Alternatively, just say you're refuting the Buddhist here and not Kierkegaard.

Moving on. Great we come to the point where you finally admit that you're working with a flawed view of the argument, why you didn't make that clear earlier is beyond me. Let's take a look at this new view of Kierkegaard which I notice is still based on a reading not of his primary text on faith (Fear and Trembling) but on The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard along with other papers about Kierkegaard's take on faith. This wouldn't be a big deal if the author of this new take on Kierkegaard could just figure out where Kierkegaard says these things that are actually quoted in the article. Beyond that everything seems fine. The point seems to be that Kierkegaard cannot and should not be bound to these ideas as his own and that Kierkegaard is not characterizing Christianity as irrational. I would agree. The part that he considers irrational is how one comes to faith. Any hostility toward the words "absurd" or "irrational" should be forgotten in this context because they are not meant as derogatory in any manner. Overall I fail to see the point of this revised summation of Kierkegaard's views on faith. It seems like the entire thing is leading up to the knowledge that the views in Fear and Trembling cannot be presumed to actually be Kierkegaard's since the work is through a pseudonym. While it is certainly true that Kierkegaard often wrote conflicting ideas in his refusal to adopt the systematic method of philosophizing popularized by Hegel, this is irrelevant. We're debating the ideas contained in the works not Kierkegaard himself.

Now, back to your analysis. You're trying to dodge the presence of the absurd in the case of Abraham by saying that Kierkegaard misinterpreted "Thou shalt not kill." This is irrelevant. Kierkegaard means the ethical as the universal in the sense that the ethical is both duty to God and social (Sittlichkeit). I don't think anyone would be able to argue that it is ethical to kill another; this is the point that matters. The ethical is the universal and by killing in any context we are violating the ethical. Next you try to rationalize Abraham's leap of faith not as absurd but as based on "evidence of his previous dealing with YHWH." Once again you miss a key issue here. In the case of Abraham, the priority of duty to God doesn't help to clear up his situation because he is in a spiritual trial. Kierkegaard's idea of faith cannot be considered without also taking into consideration the trial or temptation that brings about the leap of faith. Abraham has conflicting commands from God. God promised Abraham that he would have a child and that child would be the father of modern man. Later, God commands Abraham to sacrifice what he was promised. We must take into consideration the father role that Abraham is to play. The test from God here could be a test of Abraham's willingness to do God's duty at any cost or it could be a test of Abraham's abilities as a father, both would be important in this context. In the former, passing the test would mean that Abraham would be devoted to sacrificing Isaac. In the latter, passing the test would mean refusing to sacrifice Isaac despite the duty to God. The main point for Kierkegaard is that Abraham cannot know what the test actually is; this brings in the idea of dread (anxiety about the uncertainty of the future). Oh and if you're looking for these clues in the story of Abraham that you're familiar with then you might as well give up. I will reiterate: Kierkegaard alters the story in order to better explain what he thinks faith is. This is why any refutation of Kierkegaard's points that is based solely on an analysis of this story is flawed.

In the next section you jumble together your various weaker points so as to possibly boost their power in numbers. However, all are irrelevant to Kierkegaard. I think you're putting far too much importance on the details of the story. Sure, given a certain amount of time Abraham may have told Isaac about God's command. I'm sure you would have treated this differently if you had actually read Kierkegaard's work because he devotes an entire section (Problema III) to discussing the importance of silence (withholding of information by Abraham) in the Knight of Faith.

You go on to sketch out the debate that was had wit the Buddhist at this forum. I won't address this part because nothing new is said and certainly nothing relevant to refuting Kierkegaard. Overall I suppose all I can do is ask that you read Kierkegaard and only then may you be able to present a fair analysis of him. Your misunderstandings aside, it is almost impossible to believe that you could offer up anything remotely scholarly without first going to the primary sources. Fear and Trembling is less than 200 pages easily, just give it a try.

JP's response:

"Why don't you try finding something more useful to do with your life?

I help thousands of people every month and answer hundreds of messages in the same amount of time. I have a stack of books on my coffee table I need to read because people need help with what is in them. You'll excuse me if I don't divert from that to read something obscure that won't serve me any good purpose any time soon, just because you're offended and have nothing better to do.

Now leave me alone. I have work to do."


My response to JP's response:

"If you can't back up your articles then take them down. I have plenty of
things to do too but I'm passionate about a subject and when someone
blatantly mischaracterizes that subject and then pretends like I'm some
little kid then, well, I'm going to respond thoroughly. I would expect
the same from any academic. If you think that Kierkegaard's work is
obscure and won't serve you any good purpose then why even write about
it? You could very easily change your argument to addressing the ideas
that you thought were Kierkegaard's. I'm just ethically uncomfortable
with the work that you have done. I think we owe Kierkegaard a little
more than half-hearted research and excuses that we're too busy to read
his book. He was an influential Christian philosopher.

Everyone's busy; act with passion and don't pretend to refute something
that you don't understand fully."

[Sparko]

Ah. Another one of JP's obsessed "fans"

Welcome to tweb.

[dizzle]

meh

[jpholding]

I told Snooty that if he was so obsessed he could rewrite the thing himself and stop whining in my ear. Some of us have a life.

He probably also missed http://www.tektonics.org/gk/kierkfaith.html I told him someone who read Kierk reviewed the article for me, and he didn't pay attention.

As you can see, mic, everyone here so far is impressed.

[lewismic]

I read and commented on the page you linked. I wonder whether you even took the time to read my response. I suppose you are an extremely busy man. Let's clear something up right away though, I am not here to impress you or your friends. What I wrote was as much for my own pleasure as it was an attempt to set your reasoning straight. The mere fact that you have not, and apparently will not, address my comments makes me wander whether you were interested in the subject at all. I mean if you're willing to scrap the entire thing and allow me to rewrite it for you then I must question how interested you were in the topic in the first place. Don't get me wrong, that would be fine, I lack an academic interest in many subjects as well but I don't post articles about them. Let's try to move away from the view of the internet as just a dumpster for words. Integrity can exist in cyberspace too.

Thanks for the welcome.

Note: I want to make it clear if it is not already that my comments about the page you linked to are indeed explicitly in my originally posted comments. This can only mean that you in fact either carelessly read my response or ignored it all together. Forgive me if I shrugged off your comment that someone who "studied" Kierkegaard reviewed your article. This person's review does not fix the glaring misunderstandings.

[lewismic]

Let me know when anyone reads enough Kierkegaard to actually address my comments. I'm interested to see what anyone thinks.

iamzeus at gmail dot com