Am I a Christian?

[Alien]

Mossy and Sparko -

Thanks, that probably finishes it as far as the discussion of my beliefs goes! And Sparko, Arrrr, me hearties, splice the mainbrace!

I'm still open to talking about open discussion in church if anyone wants to continue that.

[Vigilante]

However, some things matter and are not negotiable, such as the virgin birth, the concept of the Trinity, the character of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and whether or not Jesus was who He said He was, i.e., the ONLY way to the Father. And other issues of core doctrine.

That's a long list! And there's more? I honestly cannot say that I affirm all of them. I don't exactly deny them either, but I have grave doubts about some.

If I might explore this for a minute. I don't think Mossy is saying you must believe this in order to be saved or to obtain forgiveness. But rather that these things give the complete picture to be doctrinally and logically correct.
In other words to deny these things would logically destroy the faith, even if you don't understand it that way. For example, the virgin birth. If this is not true, one could say the entire Christian faith is in vain and we should all be doing something else in with our time! Not because the entire faith rests on or has its foundation in the virgin birth, but it is just an important part in the chain.
A virgin conceiving is the prophesy, so if it didn't happen that way, Jesus is not the messiah. It was said he would come through the seed of the woman, which is odd because normally the fathers would be mentioned first, or only. It didn't say he would come through the seed of a man. We read that through Adam, all are born with a sinful nature (yes some disagree but that's another thread), and so if Jesus was born of a man and women, he would not have been pure, and thus could not have been accepted as a "pure" sacrifice and could not atone for us. The list goes on. To deny the virgin birth, therefore, even without knowing it, would logically crumble the faith in light of other scripture and the full story.

Denying other seemingly inconsequential Biblical truths can have similar affect. These truths are not the foundation, and yet they are still critical. Paul had made a similar statement when he basically said "well gee if Christ isn't risen, we're pitiful blokes indeed."
If Christ isn't God, he couldn't raise himself from the dead, he couldn't forgive sins against God on our behalf, etc...

I suppose this would be a good place for a plug on systematic theology. Having a complete, systematic understanding of the entirety of the Bible and how it all fits together in one grand, coherent story. You can't simply pick and choose bits to believe and bits to not believe. Everywhere you decide to disbelieve, other pieces fall apart or make no sense. Jesus said all the Old Testament speaks about him, it is a complete story. That is why it's important to believe such things as true, not because they are required for salvation, but required for proper understanding.
ALL of us will enter eternity misunderstanding many things here and there, it isn't perfect doctrine that saves us. But we DO have to realize that by denying this that and the other, if one thinks logically, the faith really does fall apart, even if one doesn't know it. It would be like admiring the color purple but denying that red exists. Denying that red exists doesn't stop you from admiring purple flowers, nor does it make purple flowers disappear, but if you really knew the relationship of red and purple, you'd understand that if red really didn't exist, you wouldn't be admiring purple in the first place. It isn't your belief about red that lets you admire purple, it's just a matter of understanding and logic.
It's similar with the Christian faith, there is really not much that can prevent you from having a relationship with Jesus/God, even when our understanding of many things would logically shatter any point to it.

Perhaps this is what Mossy meant, not that you must believe these to BE Christian, but rather believing these gives the greatest understanding of it. That if you thought about it, denying these things makes your beliefs pointless. Just like denying red would make purple pointless, if that makes sense. And yet it is your relationship with purple that matters, not your understanding of base colors, believing red doesn't exist won't change anything, it just makes your relationship with purple a bit logically invalid.

Something to think about.


Peace

[Tercel]

Sparko, Mossrose, Vigilante, and Alien

Alien, Jesus said he was the only way. Don't you believe him?

The trouble, Sparko, generally with saying "The Bible says X, therefore you have to believe it" is that there are all sorts of difficult questions that can be asked about any given passage in the bible.

Questions like... What do the Greek words really mean, what nuances and shades of meaning can they have? How does the cultural context of the time affect the meaning of the words? How does the context of the passage affect the interpretation of the passage? How can we reconcile this passage with other things said elsewhere in the bible? What are different ways of interpreting these words that people have taken over the centuries, and how plausible are the various ways of interpreting them?

If you want to try and get to grips with what the writers of the bible were really meaning then you really need to dive deep into complex exegetical details. To simply say "I read some words in my (modern English translation) of the bible and in my head I understand those words to mean X, therefore X is true because it's what the bible says" is not valid. As a general rule, every passage in the bible has some sort of associated issues of interpretation and you should not simply take English phrases at will out of the bible and set them up as doctrinal truth. An absolutely essential rule is to never rely on one verse or only a small handful of verses when formulating doctrine since you might be misunderstanding the verse. Only if something is stated clearly and repeatedly throughout the bible should it be held up as definite doctrine.

Jesus can't be mistaken, the bible writers can't be mistaken, but your bible translator sure can be and you the reader sure can be, so just because Jesus spoke the truth it doesn't mean that your understanding of his words is the truth.

Christianity grew by leaps and bounds under persecution, Tony. Especially early Christianity. Despite being burned at the stake, tortured, hunted like animals, and made sport of in other ways. It grew so fast that in 400 years it became the National Religion of the country that did the persecution!!

Yet, interestingly, the Christians that were persecuted and martyred during those years believed many of the things that you are saying that Christians ought not to believe.

For example Justin published two books defending Christianity around 150AD, and in both of them he stated that people who had not accepted Christ could still be saved if they did good works. He argues in them that anyone who does good is in fact a "Christian", and that many of the ancient Greek philosophers had therefore been "Christians" some 300 years before Jesus. He was martyred for his faith and his name has gone down in history as Justin Martyr.

Another Christian named Origen, was martyred around 230AD, and wrote works in defense of Christianity, and he believed in universal salvation - that everyone in the world and even Satan would eventually be reconciled to God.

Overall, the pre-Nicene Christian writings that survive are almost unanimously inclusivist - they take the view that it is possible for non-Christians to be saved. The only dissenting voice is Irenaeus, a missionary to France, who says he's not sure one way or the other whether God will let some non-Christians into heaven. The Christians of this period believed a lot of other doctrines I know you disagree with, so I am surprised you point to them as an example.

if Jesus was mistaken, then He wasn't who He said He was, and was instead, as Lewis so aptly pointed out, a liar or a lunatic. There can be no compromise on this.

Of course, as many people pointed out to Lewis during his lifetime, the widespread view was that Jesus never made those claims and the gospels falsely reported them, and that Jesus himself was simply a good teacher. Lewis' argument took for granted the fact that Jesus had said the things recorded in the gospels, which most liberal scholars of the time did not accept.

Another viewpoint is that the gospels are accurate in their reports of Jesus' words, but that many people who read the gospels misunderstand his words and see him as saying things that he was not meaning. Misunderstandings of other people's words happens all the time among people who speak the same language and live in the same culture. I’ve had plenty of incidents in my life when I’ve tried to explain things as clearly as possible and people have still misunderstood what I was saying. How much more is it easy to misunderstand the bible which wasn’t written according to modern standards of literalism and clarity? It also has to be kept in mind that when we read the gospels we are seeing the words of Jesus who spoke Aramaic and lived in an Israelite culture reported by gospel writers who wrote Greek and lived in a Hellenistic culture, and are being read by us who speak English and live 2000 years later in an utterly different Western culture. There are all sorts of ways in which it is easy to misunderstand or misinterpret the bible. And, of course, different groups of Christians over the centuries and today have had hundreds of different interpretations about what the bible says - they can't all be right, most of them must be getting things wrong.

Incidentally, are you aware that CS Lewis didn’t think Jesus was the only way to salvation? He suggested an analogy with breathing and oxygen. Everyone needs oxygen to breathe and without it would die. But no one needs to know anything about oxygen or to even have heard of it in order to breathe. Lewis suggested that a similar thing might apply with Jesus – he is the only way to salvation just like oxygen is the only way to breathe, but you don’t need to know about him to be saved just like you don’t need to know about oxygen to breathe.

What did Jesus SAY? Did he say there are many paths to God?

Well, actually, now I think about it, when the Samaritan woman asked him whether he shared the typical Jewish view that the Jewish religion was the only true religion and the Samaritan religion was false (they were quite similar but different… think Catholics compared to Protestants say)... Jesus' answer was that he felt the differences were unimportant and that both worshiped the same God and that what God really looked for were those who worshiped in 'spirit and truth' - a somewhat cryptic-sounding phrase which means, as near as I can translate it, "good character and good deeds".

Hebrews 11:1 famously explains what faith is: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

If you have a look at some commentaries on the Greek text, you will find that this is one of the most difficult-to-translate sentences in the bible. The author may not have meant anything close to what any given English bible translation says. Personally, I think, a paraphrase of "Persevering in faithfulness rightly leads to the expectation of future rewards in repayment" best captures the most likely intended ideas of the Greek. Obviously that isn't remotely close to the idea that "The word 'faith' means believing firmly in things you've got no evidence for" which is how some people interpret the passage. But hopefully, that gives you some idea of just how far apart two interpretations of the same passage can be.

In other words to deny these things would logically destroy the faith, even if you don't understand it that way. For example, the virgin birth. If this is not true, one could say the entire Christian faith is in vain and we should all be doing something else in with our time! Not because the entire faith rests on or has its foundation in the virgin birth, but it is just an important part in the chain.
A virgin conceiving is the prophesy, so if it didn't happen that way, Jesus is not the messiah. It was said he would come through the seed of the woman, which is odd because normally the fathers would be mentioned first, or only. It didn't say he would come through the seed of a man. We read that through Adam, all are born with a sinful nature (yes some disagree but that's another thread), and so if Jesus was born of a man and women, he would not have been pure, and thus could not have been accepted as a "pure" sacrifice and could not atone for us. The list goes on. To deny the virgin birth, therefore, even without knowing it, would logically crumble the faith in light of other scripture and the full story.

However, something I have discovered is that lots of different Christians construct the whole chain differently to each other. There are lots of ways different doctrines can be built into a logically coherent systematic theology. If you deny a doctrine, it can make one person’s chain fall apart, but for other people it doesn’t affect their chains. There is not one single possible systematic theology, but lots and lots that have been held by different denominations, groups and individuals throughout history. Variations in the different ideas can range from minor to massive – in some instances with almost every single doctrine in the chain being completely different.

Having a complete, systematic understanding of the entirety of the Bible and how it all fits together in one grand, coherent story.

I agree, it’s really good to have something you believe that is systematic and complete. However, I suggest you don’t stop there, but rather I encourage you to try and go out an look at different views that other people out there have. Think of systematic theologies, say, as cars. There’s one that you’ve got. But the person’s down the road is a different make and model, and is an automatic rather than manual, and is a different colour and shape, and has a spoiler and flasher tires, but the windows aren’t automatic etc. And with someone from the other side of the world, their steering-wheel’s on the other side and they’ve got 4wd… and someone down the road from them drives a boat rather than a car etc.

Overall, there are about half a dozen majorly different complete and logical systematic theologies that different Christians throughout the world and in history have held and then many many minor variations within them. It can be helpful to get to grips with those so you can compare and contrast. The key is to grasp these other paradigms as a whole – don’t try and measure their tyres to see if they would fit on your car – you generally can’t take snippets of other people’s ideas and move them into your own systematic theology because they don’t fit and would just make your theology illogical, rather if you’re going to change cars you change the whole car simultaneously and (to switch metaphors) “jump ship” onto an entirely new boat. Your comments to Alien on penal substitution and moral exemplar made it clear to me that you are only understanding one particular systematic theology at the moment and trying to judge other ideas by how well they fit with that particular one. Since Alien’s views are fundamentally very different you’re struggling to make much headway in understanding how on earth anyone could believe what he does since his ideas taken individually don’t fit with your current ideas.

Alien,
In my observation, a lot of people who say “to be a Christian you must believe X, Y and Z” are generalising from their own experience. They are not usually, I’ve found, meaning that “if you don’t believe those things then you are not a Christian and that’s final” but rather meaning “well, in my experience, the people I’ve talked to who have called themselves Christians seemed to believe X, Y and Z, therefore I assume that this is what Christians everywhere believe.” In other words, the situation that there are people somewhere out there who are Christians who actually don’t believe “X, Y and Z” hasn’t actually occurred to them – they’re making a statement about their experience. Such people, usually when you say to them “I’m a Christian and I don’t believe X” are intrigued, confused, fascinated and say things like “Huh? Are you sure? Is that possible? How does that work? But I thought Christians had to believe that? I don’t understand how you square that with the bible?”. I’ve found you’re got to handle such situations with care because you’re outside their experience and they’re totally confused about how to classify you and your beliefs and how to get to grips with what you think. I find that most people’s definition of “Christian” is directly proportional to their knowledge and experience of different Christian viewpoints. I find most statements of faith are written by Christians whose understanding of different Christian viewpoints is pretty mediocre and they don’t understand what it is they are including and excluding by them.

One problem I’ve had more than once in my life is where I join a Christian group that purports to be an open and interdenominational Christian group that is tolerant of different beliefs etc, and I put a lot of time and effort into the group, and then years later down the tract someone pulls a dusty old statement of faith out of a drawer that they had hidden somewhere and says “um, actually, you have to agree to this, and you don’t”. It’s a bit like those agreements that come inside boxes saying “don't open the box unless you agree to this”… you feel a bit cheated that someone’s tricked you and changed the rules on you. So I firmly believe that if groups do impose restrictions on their members at all these need to be disclosed up-front. This especially includes situations where churches are tolerant of people attending the congregation who have any beliefs but who will require members of some inner-circle to sign a statement of beliefs – people like me can put a lot of work into a group, only to find out that when we reach the innermost circle we are excluded due to some statement of beliefs that wasn’t previously disclosed. Moreover, we find our extensive time and efforts were in support of a group whose official theology we don't actually agree with at all.

Of course, just as people disagree on different points of theology, so people disagree vastly over what is “essential” beliefs. Even two people who hold exactly the same theology can disagree quite radically on which of those beliefs are “essential” and disagree over where to draw the line to exclude people. So writing any statement of faith, and especially one designed to carefully exclude the wrong people can be incredibly difficult in a group setting.

[Vigilante]

Well, actually, now I think about it, when the Samaritan woman asked him whether he shared the typical Jewish view that the Jewish religion was the only true religion and the Samaritan religion was false (they were quite similar but different… think Catholics compared to Protestants say)... Jesus' answer was that he felt the differences were unimportant and that both worshiped the same God and that what God really looked for were those who worshiped in 'spirit and truth' - a somewhat cryptic-sounding phrase which means, as near as I can translate it, "good character and good deeds".

Worshiping in spirit and in truth is not just "be a good person and do good deeds". But this isn't the thread for discussing the details of that encounter.

A friend of mine was really heavy into the occult before becoming Christian. He enjoyed summoning spirits and studying prophesies, fortune telling, astrology, etc... He eventually got himself into a Bible class that was studying prophesy and end times in Revelation. Since he was into prophesy and those things, he came, and ended up getting the gospel at some point, eventually becoming Christian.
Now, that said, it would NOT be true, to say astrology and the occult is a "road to God". Astrology and fortune telling is not a path to good, it just so happened that through the experience, God found him. God pulled him OFF that path. What I mean to say is, while many people come to faith after any number of previous experiences, that doesn't mean those experiences are paths to God, they are not. They should be thankful God lead them away from those paths which lead to destruction.

The author may not have meant anything close to what any given English bible translation says.

I don't really live by what "may or may not have" been X or Y, I deal with what I've got. And I haven't seen ANY translation say it quite like you did. Translations may not be perfect, but they are pretty darn close.

Personally, I think, a paraphrase of "Persevering in faithfulness rightly leads to the expectation of future rewards in repayment" best captures the most likely intended ideas of the Greek.

I don't go by "most likely intended". People can make the Bible say anything they want to with a few "most likely intended"s.

However, something I have discovered is that lots of different Christians construct the whole chain differently to each other. There are lots of ways different doctrines can be built into a logically coherent systematic theology. If you deny a doctrine, it can make one person’s chain fall apart, but for other people it doesn’t affect their chains. There is not one single possible systematic theology, but lots and lots that have been held by different denominations, groups and individuals throughout history. Variations in the different ideas can range from minor to massive – in some instances with almost every single doctrine in the chain being completely different.

It's generally your assumptions early on that cause the most trouble. When you change foundational truths, everything else will end up different quite naturally.

Overall, there are about half a dozen majorly different complete and logical systematic theologies that different Christians throughout the world and in history have held and then many many minor variations within them. It can be helpful to get to grips with those so you can compare and contrast. The key is to grasp these other paradigms as a whole – don’t try and measure their tyres to see if they would fit on your car – you generally can’t take snippets of other people’s ideas and move them into your own systematic theology because they don’t fit and would just make your theology illogical, rather if you’re going to change cars you change the whole car simultaneously and (to switch metaphors) “jump ship” onto an entirely new boat.

Yes that's nice, I was just pointing out that having a complete understanding of these makes your belief logical. Again, it would be illogical to enjoy purple and deny red exists.

Your comments to Alien on penal substitution and moral exemplar made it clear to me that you are only understanding one particular systematic theology at the moment and trying to judge other ideas by how well they fit with that particular one.

No I'm just going with what the Bible says. Some things are quite foundational, Paul made that point about the resurrection, if it didn't happen, we are to be most pitied. One doesn't call themselves a Christian and deny the resurrection, that is no Christian at all. The point is not that we use denominational differences or the fact that there are more than one popular systematic theology to allow anybody to label themselves Christian at the expense of all doctrine and Biblical truths, as if such differences means we should just all give up and let the Bible mean anything anybody wants.

Since Alien’s views are fundamentally very different you’re struggling to make much headway in understanding how on earth anyone could believe what he does since his ideas taken individually don’t fit with your current ideas.

I'm not struggling with anything, I'm making the point that certain miracles or stories need to be true in order for other narrative to make sense.
If Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, then he wasn't the prophesied messiah, nor is he God incarnate. If he's not the messiah nor God, he can't do anything for me. If he's not of pure blood, he isn't perfect, therefore I should not have faith in him to do anything for me and should look elsewhere for my redemption. It's that simple.
A handful of "some people disagree"s and "could have intended"s and "might mean"s don't really change that for me. It's what the text says.

In my observation, a lot of people who say “to be a Christian you must believe X, Y and Z” are generalising from their own experience.

The Bible makes it clear what must be done, or believed, to be a Christian, no need to generalize from random statements of a pool of believers.

In other words, the situation that there are people somewhere out there who are Christians who actually don’t believe “X, Y and Z” hasn’t actually occurred to them

Yes, it has occurred to me that people out there deny foundational truths and continue, falsely, to call themselves Christians. Mormons, for example, want to call themselves Christians when they are not.
The idea here, is not that we should allow people to call themselves Christians at any cost to doctrinal soundness or Biblical truth.

Of course, just as people disagree on different points of theology, so people disagree vastly over what is “essential” beliefs. Even two people who hold exactly the same theology can disagree quite radically on which of those beliefs are “essential” and disagree over where to draw the line to exclude people. So writing any statement of faith, and especially one designed to carefully exclude the wrong people can be incredibly difficult in a group setting.

Yes, we must be careful lest we offend somebody or dare to be too exclusive. By all means we should water down scripture as much as possible to include the most people. We should make sure everybody can think and do what they want and don't get their toes stepped on with doctrine. We wouldn't want anybody to feel like they need a change in thinking or behavior.
Whatever theology is the absolute most comfortable for the absolute greatest number of people must be the true Bible. /sarcasm


Peace

[Alien]

Hi Tercel, welcome to the thread. I was starting to feel a little lonely here with no one to agree with me!

Alien,
In my observation, a lot of people who say “to be a Christian you must believe X, Y and Z” are generalising from their own experience. They are not usually, I’ve found, meaning that “if you don’t believe those things then you are not a Christian and that’s final” but rather meaning “well, in my experience, the people I’ve talked to who have called themselves Christians seemed to believe X, Y and Z, therefore I assume that this is what Christians everywhere believe.” In other words, the situation that there are people somewhere out there who are Christians who actually don’t believe “X, Y and Z” hasn’t actually occurred to them – they’re making a statement about their experience. Such people, usually when you say to them “I’m a Christian and I don’t believe X” are intrigued, confused, fascinated and say things like “Huh? Are you sure? Is that possible? How does that work? But I thought Christians had to believe that? I don’t understand how you square that with the bible?”. I’ve found you’re got to handle such situations with care because you’re outside their experience and they’re totally confused about how to classify you and your beliefs and how to get to grips with what you think. I find that most people’s definition of “Christian” is directly proportional to their knowledge and experience of different Christian viewpoints. I find most statements of faith are written by Christians whose understanding of different Christian viewpoints is pretty mediocre and they don’t understand what it is they are including and excluding by them.

I agree as far as many Christians go, typically those who have never really questioned their own beliefs, or have never been exposed to different views or interpretations. There is another group, however, who have examined their own beliefs and are totally confident in them, and who will simply label any variation as WRONG WRONG WRONG. I tend not to continue a discussion with such people, because, although I respect their views and admire the effort that has gone into attaining them (they can normally talk rings round me as far as Bible knowledge is concerned), there is little point in having a discussion with someone who has no doubt whatsoever about their own position and dismiss everything I have to say out of hand. I just listen, say a polite "thank you, that's interesting" and move on.

One problem I’ve had more than once in my life is where I join a Christian group that purports to be an open and interdenominational Christian group that is tolerant of different beliefs etc, and I put a lot of time and effort into the group, and then years later down the tract someone pulls a dusty old statement of faith out of a drawer that they had hidden somewhere and says “um, actually, you have to agree to this, and you don’t”. It’s a bit like those agreements that come inside boxes saying “don't open the box unless you agree to this”… you feel a bit cheated that someone’s tricked you and changed the rules on you.

Thankfully, I have never experienced anything like this.

So I firmly believe that if groups do impose restrictions on their members at all these need to be disclosed up-front. This especially includes situations where churches are tolerant of people attending the congregation who have any beliefs but who will require members of some inner-circle to sign a statement of beliefs – people like me can put a lot of work into a group, only to find out that when we reach the innermost circle we are excluded due to some statement of beliefs that wasn’t previously disclosed. Moreover, we find our extensive time and efforts were in support of a group whose official theology we don't actually agree with at all.

I certainly agree about full disclosure up front. (In everything, not just religion!)

Of course, just as people disagree on different points of theology, so people disagree vastly over what is “essential” beliefs. Even two people who hold exactly the same theology can disagree quite radically on which of those beliefs are “essential” and disagree over where to draw the line to exclude people. So writing any statement of faith, and especially one designed to carefully exclude the wrong people can be incredibly difficult in a group setting.

I suspect that many "exclusionary" churches contain a small group that holds strong opinions and writes the rules and a larger group that may disagree here and there but keeps quiet for the sake of peace and unity. As a non-mind reader, I could be wrong of course.

As for the rest, I'll let you and Vigilante go at it. My own theology is largely intuitive and fares badly in discussions like this.

[Tercel]

Worshiping in spirit and in truth is not just "be a good person and do good deeds".

What careful studies of the Greek words involved and attempts to understand what they meant in the cultural context of the time have you done that lead you to say this? A conviction that you are right is no substitute for evidence.

What I mean to say is, while many people come to faith after any number of previous experiences, that doesn't mean those experiences are paths to God, they are not.

I agree.

I don't really live by what "may or may not have" been X or Y, I deal with what I've got.

Well I suggest a little more acceptance that your interpretations aren't infallible would be helpful.

And I haven't seen ANY translation say it quite like you did.

Incidentally, one of the versions of "The Message" does - "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God." Although I'm generally no great fan of The Message, though I do agree that paraphrases are usually necessary to most accurately capture ideas being expressed in the original languages.

Translations may not be perfect, but they are pretty darn close.

I have to disagree with you here. For run of the mill passages where absolute accuracy is not important, the vast majority of translations out there perfectly acceptable. But in difficult and complex theological passage where it really counts, no translation I know of is better than poor. The more complex and difficult the passage, the more bible translators fear getting it wrong and as a result opt for copying previous translations. Hence using a variety of translations does not at all reflect the diversity of reasonable renderings of the original languages, and due to the habit of copying other translations most are massively influenced by the really badly translated King James version. There's no translation out there that I would truly feel comfortable letting someone rely on who was trying to learn doctrine from the bible in English, although the NRSV, The Source New Testament, and the NET Bible tend to be the best.

My studies of doctrinal development in Christian history has shown me that poor translations of the bible play a massive role in influencing doctrine. Mistakes in Latin translations for a millennia caused a large number of problems. Today it's mistakes in English translations that cause issues. People over the centuries who have simply picked up translations and come to conclusions about "what the bible says" have come to so many utterly different and contradictory conclusions and defended them in the belief that their views were biblical. For example, fifteen centuries ago orthodox Christianity held beliefs that were nothing like yours and they were utterly convinced their views were biblical.

I don't go by "most likely intended". People can make the Bible say anything they want to with a few "most likely intended"s.

Um, surely the most likely intended meaning of the author is what we ought to be looking for in any situation?

It's generally your assumptions early on that cause the most trouble.

Like if you assume translations are accurate and that for all intents and purposes the bible was written in English with a modern western worldview with a target audience of modern western English readers...? And the assumption that you don't need any special training or learning or research to do biblical studies, you just read doctrine straight out of your bible? Yes, I suppose those assumptions would cause great trouble.

No I'm just going with what the Bible says.

You mean, what you think the bible says. Cos many different Christians today and in history went with what they thought the bible said and came to about a thousand different viewpoints.

Some things are quite foundational, Paul made that point about the resurrection, if it didn't happen, we are to be most pitied.

I happen to agree with your interpretation of this passage, but you shouldn't be using single passages like this to support important doctrines. As a general rule, have at least ten passages that agree with an idea before thinking it's "biblical" - doing so minimizes the chances that you are misinterpreting the passages due to translation errors, cultural bias, or general misunderstanding. In the case of the resurrection there are far more than ten passages about its importance, so I'm happy to agree with you that it was important to the early Christians.

One doesn't call themselves a Christian and deny the resurrection, that is no Christian at all.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree. The resurrection was clearly important to the group of early Christians that wrote the bible. But I can't see a good reason why that should be the only kind of Christianity there's allowed to be - if someone was committed to following Jesus' teachings but didn't believe in the resurrection I would be okay with labelling them Christian.

The point is not that we use denominational differences or the fact that there are more than one popular systematic theology to allow anybody to label themselves Christian at the expense of all doctrine and Biblical truths,

So how do you deal with the fact that lots of people and groups today and at various times in history have considered themselves to be orthodox, bible-believing, Christians and yet believed a large number of radically different things to each other? I agree that logically, at most one group can of them can really be true and accurate. Are the various groups trying to follow the bible not allowed to label themselves Christian unless they agree with your personal interpretation of the bible?

as if such differences means we should just all give up and let the Bible mean anything anybody wants.

News flash, the reformation happened 500 years ago and since then everyone has being trying to read their bibles and it has been meaning anything anybody wants to them and we have hundreds of denominations that disagree over what the bible means.

I'm making the point that certain miracles or stories need to be true in order for other narrative to make sense.

That sentence ought to end "...to make sense in the way in which I am inclined to want to make sense of them in." I've found there are always other ways in which different people from different cultures and viewpoints understand things that are not always obvious to others.

If Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, then he wasn't the prophesied messiah

Not every prophesy of a messiah had him being born of a virgin, so he could easily be a prophesied messiah without being born of a virgin. In fact, there are no prophesies of him being born of a virgin - the prophesy you're thinking of says "young girl of marriageable age" not "virgin". Also, it's been reasonably well-agreed on by scholars that the Jews had no general expectation around the time of Jesus of a single prophesied Messiah figure - they weren't expecting "The Messiah", but were simply hoping God would sent an anointed (= "messiah") leader to free them from political oppression by pagan nations like he had done so many times in the OT with various "messiah"s.

If Jesus wasn't born of a virgin... nor is he God incarnate.

I am unsure what the connection is in your mind between being virgin-born and God incarnate. I am unaware of any logic or texts that demand that an incarnation of God must be virgin-born.

If he's not the messiah nor God, he can't do anything for me.

Um, that seems obviously false. Obviously plenty of people influence your life and do things for you that aren't God or messiahs. Obviously if Jesus was an angel, or prophet of God, or an ordinary person then he could still influence your life and do things for you in some way, shape or form. I take it you mean that he can't do the thing you want to him to do / think he ought to do for you. I would argue your expectations are arbitrary - the question of how Jesus saves people is one of the most debated questions in Christian history and a topic on which bible believing Christians have had about 6 major and very different views with each group firmly believing their views were biblical (Moral Exemplar, Recapitulation, Christus Victor, Ransom from Satan, Satisfaction, Penal Substitution etc).

If he's not of pure blood, he isn't perfect, therefore I should not have faith in him to do anything for me and should look elsewhere for my redemption.

Again, I'm sure you expect people in everyday life who aren't perfect to be able to do various things for you. It seems that because you've decided what it is in particular you want from Jesus, and have decided how it is in particular he needs to achieve it, that you've come up with some criteria he needs to meet. Doubtless you think your views on this are biblical.

So let me tell you a story about the orthodox Christians that lived around the fifth century AD who believed their views were biblical. They believed that the problem facing humanity was separation from God, and that the biblical solution for this was for God to become man. The incarnate Jesus, by being both God and human simultaneously linked human nature and God's nature together in his body. They believed that by doing this he brought salvation – by living a human life he joined humanity and God metaphysically together again. They decided this was the primary biblical account of salvation, and so they came up with a logical list of criteria Jesus needed to meet to achieve it. Their criteria were about the precise relationship of Jesus' humanity to his divinity and just how the two had to fit together. And at big official church councils they declared their list of criteria to be Christian doctrine and said that anyone who didn't believe it wasn't really a Christian - you can read one of their lists here. A couple of centuries later they decided that list wasn't enough a made it a lot longer and condemned those who thought that the incarnate Jesus had only one will (something I imagine most Christians today would say).

I'm sure your view of how Christ saved humanity is very different to theirs, after all, in my list of six major viewpoints above they held the ‘Recapitulation’ one and you hold the ‘Penal Substitution’ one. As a result you have a list that looks different to theirs too. Both of you are convinced your views are biblical. That was what originally got me really interested in studying the bible and different ways of interpreting it - I saw two different groups who were both entirely convinced that they were right and that their views were biblical, and I wondered "so who is really right, and how would it be possible to know for sure?" (The answers, incidentally, are that the ‘Moral Exemplar’ view is really the right one and that it’s only possible to know for sure through years of study)

It's what the text says.

Yes, we must be careful lest we offend somebody or dare to be too exclusive.

Oh, believe me I have no problem with offending people or even with excluding people in appropriate circumstances. And I particularly like accuracy and getting things right and don't mind telling people they're wrong when they are. What I object to is that people who haven't done any study trying to tell others what to believe or trying to exclude others based on perceived wrong beliefs of others.

Whatever theology is the absolute most comfortable for the absolute greatest number of people must be the true Bible.

I don't hold the point of view you are sarcastically critiquing. The bible says what it says, and I think lots of people are badly wrong in their beliefs about what it says.

[Tercel]

I agree as far as many Christians go, typically those who have never really questioned their own beliefs, or have never been exposed to different views or interpretations. There is another group, however, who have examined their own beliefs and are totally confident in them, and who will simply label any variation as WRONG WRONG WRONG. I tend not to continue a discussion with such people, because, although I respect their views and admire the effort that has gone into attaining them (they can normally talk rings round me as far as Bible knowledge is concerned), there is little point in having a discussion with someone who has no doubt whatsoever about their own position and dismiss everything I have to say out of hand. I just listen, say a polite "thank you, that's interesting" and move on.

That's all too true. Sometimes I foolishly try to argue... as many of my posts on TWeb show.

I suspect that many "exclusionary" churches contain a small group that holds strong opinions and writes the rules and a larger group that may disagree here and there but keeps quiet for the sake of peace and unity.

Yes, that's generally how such things work. The uncaring masses and people without strong opinions who are tolerant in turn tolerate the people who do have strong opinions, and so the people with strong opinions write the rules. Standing up to people with strong opinions can indeed cause unity issues, and make you feel isolated.... I know that feeling well. And if those people are in power then it will probably get you kicked out of the group.

Over time though, I've become convinced that it's important to stand up to opinionated people who are wrong and challenge them and not let them simply have it their way. There are times when their actions and words can hurt people and they need to be stopped. Also, it's often the case that they have a strong opinion because they only see one view as being plausible. If you stand up to them and say "no, I think this, and it's different" then though they initially assume you must be wrong, but as long as they don't think you're raving mad then over time they alter their mindset and recognize that intelligent reasonable people can come to two different points of view on the issue. So, I find it important to wherever possible, slip in a firm "I don't think that, I think this" in passing and simply state it rather than debate it, just so people are exposed to different viewpoints. People never consider points of view they've never heard of, and getting them thinking about other points of view is half the battle won. Fanaticism seems to only grow when people experience one and only one point of view constantly.

[Sparko]

tercel, I dont want to drag this thread way off topic so I didnt bother to answer you post to me, but I did want to make one comment. You talked about how we can't know what a passage really says and that just is not true, especially in this case.

biblical greek is very well known and understood. We know what is being said. In some cases, there might be question about what the writer's intended meanings are, but that is usually dealing with vague comments. Jesus spoke very clearly in John 3 about who was and wasn't condemned and for what reason. You might argue what he means by "condemn" if you wish, but you can't claim that he did not say that those who do not believe in him are condemned.

Not only can we easily read the Greek, we also have 2000 years of writings and sermons by the church that backs up our interpretation on the matter of salvation without Jesus. And you can't argue that the early church fathers didn't understand Greek, since they wrote in it.

[Tercel]

tercel, I dont want to drag this thread way off topic so I didnt bother to answer you post to me, but I did want to make one comment. You talked about how we can't know what a passage really says and that just is not true, especially in this case.

Well, I wasn't really trying to say "no one can ever know", but was simply emphasizing the difficulties and the level of interpretive knowledge required to really get to grips with passages.

biblical greek is very well known and understood.

Well not really. A hundred and fifty years ago, the Western world knew so little about koine Greek that it was widely speculated to be a special "heavenly dialect" of Greek that came into existence solely for the purpose of the bible. It is now known (due to the discovery of many other ancient koine Greek documents) that it was the common Greek spoken during that time. However, the amount of surviving koine greek literature is still not huge and a recent massive set of manuscript discoveries in the 1970s is still having repercussions to our understanding of koine Greek and only one bible translation so far has incorporated so of those effects ("The Source New Testament"). There are still many words in the bible whose meanings are incredibly poorly understood - some of which have quite important roles: eg

• 'hilasterion' - which seems to mean "peace gift" or similar, but has long been the subject of debate and long thought to mean "propitiation", "expiation" or "mercy seat"
• 'arsenokoitos' - which seems to mean something like "rape", but has traditionally been translated "homosexual"
• 'pistis' - which IMO means 'faithfulness', but has often been translated 'faith' or 'belief'
• the 'dikaiosune' word group - which IMO means 'moral virtue', but has often been translated 'justice', 'righteousness', 'justify'

The first two of these examples are badly understood because there are so few occurances of them in surviving ancient literature that there really just isn't enough evidence for anyone to say for sure what they mean. The second two have suffered from influential theological traditions about what they mean being allowed to win out over decent word studies. A lot of the other key theological terms (sins, grace, mercy etc) have suffered the same fate of being theologized and as a result had their meanings assumed rather than evidenced.

Jesus spoke very clearly in John 3 about who was and wasn't condemned and for what reason. You might argue what he means by "condemn" if you wish, but you can't claim that he did not say that those who do not believe in him are condemned.

He didn't say that those who did not believe in him are condemned.
Firstly, it's the view of most commentators that it's not Jesus speaking there, it's the narrator of John. Secondly, the meaning of pistis + person is "follow" / "be faithful to" / "obey" not "believe in", so the phrase speaks about those who do not obey Jesus' commands being condemned - 3:18 is a parallel to John 3:36 "whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God's wrath." The letter 1 John makes it clear that the essential part of obeying Jesus is to follow the commandment of loving one another, so the one disobeying Jesus would be the one not loving others. That has quite different implications to the idea that all people who do not believe in Jesus is condemned.

Not only can we easily read the Greek, we also have 2000 years of writings and sermons by the church that backs up our interpretation on the matter of salvation without Jesus. And you can't argue that the early church fathers didn't understand Greek, since they wrote in it.

Didn't you read what I wrote earlier: I study the writings of the Greek fathers and they don't agree with you on this!. The Greek fathers didn't hold the save view of salvation as you do. They variously believed in Moral Exemplar, Christus Victor, Ransom from Satan, and Recapitulation accounts of the atonement, and all believed in salvation by works. The vast majority of the Greek Fathers were inclusivists and held that people who did not believe in Jesus could still be saved. That's what they got out of reading the bible in their native language: a Christianity that looks nothing like yours.

We have 2000 years of writings and sermons that show Christian doctrine changing radically over the course of time! I've read about twenty different histories of doctrine compiled by different scholars, and no one debates that Christian doctrine changed radically throughout history. Go back six hundred years and the concept of salvation by faith alone was virtually unheard of, go back another six hundred and the concept of Christ's atoning death didn't exist, go back another six hundred and the concept of Original Sin didn't exist. The Christianity of the early Greek Fathers (100-400AD) gets called "Moralism" by scholars of the history of doctrine because they depict Christianity as a moralistic religion which teaches that living morally is important, that final judgment will be based on whether a person had lived morally, that all humans had free will to live morally or not, and that Jesus' primary purpose was as a moral teacher to teach humans morality and himself give an example of moral living. That's the doctrine that universally around the world got out of the bible when they read it in it's original language, and it's my personal opinion from studying the New Testament carefully myself that these early Greek Christians were interpreting the NT correctly - they certainly quoted from it a lot and were themselves convinced they were interpreting it correctly.

[Sparko]

tercel:

Of course it is Jesus speaking there in John 3, and he DOES say that those who don't believe in him are condemned. Pretty dang clearly.

"whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

you can read the literal side by side translation here:

http://www.studylight.org/isb/side.c...&it=kjv&ol=grk

[Tercel]

Of course it is Jesus speaking there in John 3, and he DOES say that those who don't believe in him are condemned.

If making random assertions at first doesn't succeed, then try and try again...

[Sparko]

If making random assertions at first doesn't succeed, then try and try again...

gee why not? you do it so well.

[Vigilante]

Tercel, you realize you're coming across as some kind of elitist intellectual? A person so "smart" they come to realize the grand truth that there is no truth. Or at least, no truth we can trust in. Any time somebody declares X is true, there is always somebody like you ready to point out discrepancies where the "experts" might disagree, therefore nobody should hold that X is true.
Before this conversation can continue, I just have to ask, is every question answered in terms of "what the intellectual elite currently think"?

Based on the fact that my comment "it's what the test says" garners only smilies in response, speaks worlds about your attitude. "What a dult, he actually thinks the text means what it says!"
I also find it odd you turn to paraphrases on the "really hard" passages to get clarification, which I've never heard of, most people I know avoid paraphrases in critical interpretation.

Besides, I leave plenty of wiggle room to change the way I view many passages, but we cannot argue about the foundational truths. We can't sit here and argue about whether Jesus rose again because the author "could have meant" something other than what it says. Anything could mean anything with a clever enough rationalization. But that doesn't get us anywhere.

Peace

[Tercel]

I just have to ask, is every question answered in terms of "what the intellectual elite currently think"?

Of course. If the subject was quantum physics and you were asking questions then the answers should be in terms of what the current best theories of the expert physicists are. If the subject was the writings and thinking of Plato then the answers should be in terms of what the current best theories of the expert classicists are. The idea that somehow the bible is exempt from all normal rules of knowledge and expertise and any old person can just magically know what its really saying is pretty silly. If you feel I'm being 'exclusive and intellectualist' by that ignorant people don't have as much knowledge as people who have put years of effort into attaining it, then I think that says more about you than me.

If you were to declare you knew how quantum physics works the first thing people are going to ask is what expertise you have, what scholarly works you've read, what research you've done and what experiments you've conducted. The same applies to understanding the bible - if you claim to have the right answers and say that people who disagree with you are wrong - then you have to actually have done some research in order to be credible. Because, having done a lot of research myself, I've seen lots of different ways in which people who just "read my bible" can make all sorts of mistakes. I don't take such views seriously because people who just "read my bible" throughout history have come to dozens of majorly different views about what the bible says.

"What a dult, he actually thinks the text means what it says!"

Of course the text means what it says. What it doesn't necessarily mean is what you, a modern English reader, might happen to get it into your head that your modern English translation says. It means what it says, but it doesn't necessarily mean what you say it says.

I also find it odd you turn to paraphrases on the "really hard" passages to get clarification, which I've never heard of, most people I know avoid paraphrases in critical interpretation.

I don't get my interpretation from paraphrases - I expressed my interpretations with paraphrases. I get my interpretations from years of study of the bible, of ancient culture, of Greek, of biblical scholarship, of the history of different ways people have interpreted the passage. Having put in years of effort and knowing well just how hard usually is to fully determine the real meaning of the original author in any given passage, I am amused when people come along and say "I don't know anything about any of that, it all sounds too complicated and intellectual... I just know what it means. Oh, I read the text in some English translation sometime and decided I knew what it was meaning and it was obvious and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and probably not a Christian either."

Besides, I leave plenty of wiggle room to change the way I view many passages, but we cannot argue about the foundational truths.

What people count as a foundational truth varies from Christian to Christian. Bible-believing Christians at different times in history have held some very different things as foundational truths. Which group of them was right about what the bible was really saying?

We can't sit here and argue about whether Jesus rose again because the author "could have meant" something other than what it says. Anything could mean anything with a clever enough rationalization. But that doesn't get us anywhere.

Well actually, it does get us somewhere. Science has progressed a long way by the process of taking different theories and then proceeding to test them and by looking for ways of comparing theories against the evidence to see which one was actually superior. The process of thinking about the various different things the author "could have meant" is thus the first step in a process of determining the most accurate theory about what the author really meant.

Imagine there are three people reading the same biblical text. Angela reads it and she thinks "Oh, it's obviously meaning A". Bob reads it and says to himself "Oh, it's obviously meaning B." Both of them assume the true meaning is whatever one they happened to think of when they read it. After all, it was just them and the bible, so what could possibly go wrong, right? Charlie talks to Angela and she tells him her view, and later talks to Bob who tells him his view. Charlie is puzzled by this difference and goes away and reads the text and ponders the two interpretations and considers which one is more likely. After a while Charlie comes to a conclusion that a particular one of the two views is more likely what the text means. Answer me this: Who is most likely to be right out of Angela, Bob and Charlie?

To take another example: Five hundred years or so ago, Martin Luther read his bible and saw the phrase "righteousness of God" and understood that to indicate a wrathful God who judged the world by giving to sinners the punishment they deserved. He found this emotionally distressing. Later he thought of another interpretation of the phrase and decided it was actually talking about how God was merciful and forgiving. He was very happy with this new theological view. Today there have been about a dozen views proposed by various scholars as to what the phrase "righteousness of God" is referring to. Who is most likely to be right about what the phrase means - Luther when he had only thought of one possible interpretation, or Luther when he had thought of a second possible interpretation and decided it was better, or a scholar who has spent years looking at the evidence for twelve possible interpretations and comparing and contrasting them against the text to see determine which one is the most likely view? It turns out even for people who have studied the matter, determining Paul's intended meaning of the phrase is not easy and most scholars are quite unsure.

[Amazing Rando]

Tercel, you realize you're coming across as some kind of elitist intellectual?

That certainly is a danger for anyone whose education leads them to a great deal of exciting knowledge they're just bursting to share with the world. The sin of pride is pretty darn seditious. It's something I have to guard myself very carefully against, even more so after having gone to seminary.