Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[lilpixieofterror]

But similarly few if any people are truly evil in all and every respect. So you could equally say that humans are good in general because they are not truly evil in all respects. It seems arbitrary which point of view you take.

The actions of humans in general are complex and motivated by multiple things at any given time and take place within social situations where actions have multiple effects... so it's pretty inevitable any action will have pros and cons and exist on a scale of gray. I obviously think we should all strive to do more good and less evil, and should all aim high. But the very ideas of 'truly' good/evil actions/people are almost nonsensical to the extent that actions have unforeseen consequences and multiple motivations and effects.

P.S. I would add on this topic, with regard to my other post, that I don't think the modern interpretation of the bible's use of "sinful" as meaning "sinned even once ever" is accurate. The bible typically uses 'righteous' / 'sinner' in a colloquial way much like we say Santa makes a list of 'naughty' and 'nice'. Santa's 'naughty' list is not a list of the kids who were naughty even once ever, it's a hand-waving characterization of the sum of their behavior as being more bad than good or as generally not good enough overall. The bible typically uses 'sin' / 'sinner' etc the same way. It's not a "sinned even once" thing, it's a hand-waving "overall, more bad than good" type of thing.

Where does the Bible say everyone is pure evil?

[lilpixieofterror]

Certainly in the English translation given, the meaning is pretty clear.

If half the words were translated differently (as I think they should be) the meaning would be quite different (and I think it was/is).

Yes, that is at face value in that English translation the apparent meaning of the text. That was the interpretation I grew up with in an evangelical church environment. It was only after years of biblical study that I came to understand why and how that is a mistranslation/misinterpretion of Paul's meaning.

As I said to LPOT, I think a key concept is that the biblical God simply doesn't have the level of commitment to the philosophical concept of justice that evangelicals like to ascribe to him, and instead is perfectly happy to have an "I'm a loving and merciful God, so I forgive you" attitude when the mood takes him just like any parent has toward their child. So I think one of the errors that evangelicals make to reach their modern penal substitutionary paradigm is to project their own ideas about justice into the text and to too readily translate certain Greek and Hebrew words as "just" or "justice" when those words are better rendered into very different English terms.

And what exactly are those ‘ideals of justice’ I have replaced? Be specific.

[Starlight]

So how/why do you think it should be translated differently?

An easy to ask question... which has a complex answer. If you'd asked me 10 years ago when I was regularly discussing the topic I could probably copy & paste something for you, but I'll try to remember the main points.

I think it should be translated differently primarily because I've read a lot of modern scholarship ("New Perspective on Paul" authors etc) that leads me to think Paul is talking about something a bit different and that it should be translated accordingly. There are a lot of well-known problems with the modern evangelical reading of Romans, and Douglas Campbell's 1000 page tome on the subject thoroughly enumerates about 50 of them (and I usually agree with him on his identification of the problems but not always with his own solutions).

I've also read a fair bit about the history of Christian doctrine, and it is particularly interesting to see how different theological doctrines changed over time, and to isolate when they changed and then to examine whether the change was a good/biblical change or not (almost always not, IMO). e.g. McGrath on 'Justification' throughout history is a good example of this genre. So it becomes possible to map out how the theological paradigm held in the early church was changed by increments at different points due to controversies and the additions of new ideas, and see how it morphed into the medieval catholic theological paradigm and then into the protestant paradigm due to the gradual accumulation of errors and increasing misunderstandings of biblical terms being combined together to give rise to new errors.

Anyway, with regard to Rom 3:21-26, some of the key changes IMO are that "righteousness of God" should be translated as something along the lines of "God's moral code" or "godly morality" or "conduct God considers righteous", and "faith in Christ" should be "Christ-like faithfulness" (Paul uses the same phrase in 4:16 with reference to Abraham which everyone agrees needs to be translated as something like "to those who share the faithfulness exemplified by Abraham", so in 3:21&26 the same terminology must mean to those who share the faithfulness exemplified by Christ). Paul's saying that God revealed through the example of Christ what he considers moral behavior to look like (and Paul assumes/implies those who imitate that behavior will be rewarded). The "no distinction... all have sinned" is referring to nations not individuals - carrying on Paul's previous theme of contrasting Jews and Gentiles and saying the Jewish nation isn't meeting God's moral standards simply by virtue of being Jewish because at times in biblical history the Jewish nation did fall into sin and God punished them thus showing that Jews can sin, so what matters is whether any given individual (be they Jew or gentile) follows God's moral standard not what race they belong to. Paul finishes by saying that previously God hand-waved away sins because he's forgiving, but now God is setting forth more clearly for humanity what he considers acceptable moral human conduct to be by giving us the example/teachings of Christ (which implies that God might be annoyed if subsequent humans reject the teaching / example he's setting forth).

Paul's theology in a nutshell is that in the afterlife God is going to punish people he deems bad and reward people he deems good and Jesus' life and teachings give us an indication of what God considers good and bad... therefore it's in everyone's interests to follow Jesus' teachings as much as possible and imitate him as much as possible. To give the analogy from the previous post: Paul thinks that, like Santa, God has a 'naughty' and 'nice' list, and he thinks it would be better for people if they were on God's 'nice' list, and that the clearest guidance humanity has received from God as to what exactly puts a person on the nice list as opposed to the naughty one, was the teachings and example of Jesus. (And I should note that while Paul never speculates about the relative size of God's naughty and nice lists, he seems abundantly clear in his view that humans can do enough to get themselves on the nice list and that it is not an empty list, and nowhere does he assume it requires perfection to get on it)

P.S. So the way I think the 'evangelical version of salvation' needs to be corrected to be biblical would be:
- "The bible talks a lot about how good works can win God's approval, but this is a hypothetical system 'law-based' system because no human can actually be perfect" (to which I would say, no, the bible is being very literal in those instances, not at all hypothetical, and perfection is not required. When the NT says ~30 times that final judgment is based on works, it means it, and it also takes for granted that humans can meet the criteria of acceptance.)
- "Actually humans are fallen, and there is no human being, not one, who has ever gone their entire lives without sinning" (to which I would say, irrelevant, the bible is not actually interested in the issue of whether people have sinned 'even once', it's much more interested in the overall way people act toward each other and whether their behavior overall is more good than bad. That pessimistic and absolutist view of mankind isn't biblical.)
- "So because everyone failed at the first 'law-based' system, and God was merciful, he offered a second second of salvation where faith in Jesus is all that's needed." (to which I would say, no, this totally misunderstands Paul's talk of "faithfulness" ("following Christ" or "faithfulness to/like Christ") that to Paul is part and parcel with doing the good works Christ taught/exemplified, and while he occasionally contrasts it with Jewish customs like circumcision (Law), Paul doesn't try and split up faithfulness to the teachings of Christ and doing the good works that Christ taught because to him they are the same thing said with different words. The creative reinterpretation/translation of Paul's use of "faithfulness" by evangelicals as "belief"/"faith" (and specifically belief in certain theological claims) is just wrong.)

[shunyadragon]

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Gotta love it when non-Christians tell Christians how they're supposed to act.

I hope more do, many someones needs too.

[JimL]

Than apparently you’re not very good at understanding the conditary nature of humanity. Humans are quite capable of being both, only simpletons, such as yourself, think people are one or the other.

Seriously Lilpix, you need reading comprehension lessons or something. If you are going to answer to my posts, at least try to comprehend them first.

[JimL]

Not really. Several passages make it clear God has a nature that is both merciful and just. Do I need to dig up examples?

So when someone sins say, and god shows mercy to the offender, is that because god is of a just nature, and if he shows justice to the offender, is that also because of gods merciful nature. They can't both be definers of gods inherent nature any more than they could both be definers of your inherent nature. And no, you are not both, you can do either, but you are inherently neither. It defies logic, regardless of what the bible says, or what you think the bible is saying.

[JimL]

Where does the Bible say everyone is pure evil?

Genesis 6:5, which is why christians believe that god drowned everyone in a flood. Did you know that drowning was one of the worst most agonizing ways to die? Wonder why god didn't just gently put everyone to sleep.

[Mountain Man]

That is absurd. Threads wander. You responded completely out of the context of the discussion at that moment and specifically off in the weeds as regards my specific post.

Nice dodge. Go read the rest of my comments so you can see that my point has NOT wandered, and then see if you can answer without breaking your arm trying desperately to pat yourself on your own back.

[Mountain Man]

”Morals" are an extension of (and supported by) evolutionary theory”. They are naturally built into us, because those morals were beneficial to the breeding and survival of our species as social animals.

I see. So they're just instincts. And what's inherently wrong with ignoring one's instincts?

[lilpixieofterror]

Seriously Lilpix, you need reading comprehension lessons or something. If you are going to answer to my posts, at least try to comprehend them first.

My reading comprehension is just fine. The problem is you don’t understand what you’re talking about. My kid does something wrong and gets caught. I’m descending justice when I issue the punishment, I may also be merciful when I cut the punishment short when it’s clear the lesson was learned. That is showing a nature that is both just and merciful. Do you think people are one or the other Jimmy?

[Mountain Man]

Well, god can't really be both a just god and a merciful god lilpix as his acting in accordance with the one, i.e.with justice, would cancel out his acting in accordance with the other, i.e. with mercy. It's a contradiction.

You seem have this view of God as wholly one thing or another -- that he is 100% just and 100% merciful -- in which case there would be a contradiction, but there's nothing in the Bible to suggest this sort of totality of being. Rather, God is perfectly just, meaning that he dispenses justice without error and without the possibility of error. But he can also choose to grant mercy which he freely offers to all who are willing to accept his terms. As the late Keith Green put it, "The Gospel is simply this: Jesus will forgive all of your sins if you will come to Him humbly, lay down at His feet and say, 'You're the Lord, and I will follow You the rest of my life here on Earth so that I may have the rest of eternity with You and the glory of Your Father.'"

[Cow Poke]

My reading comprehension is just fine. The problem is you don’t understand what you’re talking about. My kid does something wrong and gets caught. I’m descending justice when I issue the punishment, I may also be merciful when I cut the punishment short when it’s clear the lesson was learned. That is showing a nature that is both just and merciful. Do you think people are one or the other Jimmy?

When somebody else does something wrong, we demand justice. When we do something wrong, we plead for mercy. God is capable of both. Then, there's Grace!

[Mountain Man]

Paul's theology in a nutshell is that in the afterlife God is going to punish people he deems bad and reward people he deems good and Jesus' life and teachings give us an indication of what God considers good and bad...

That's not Paul's theology at all, nor is it consistent with the rest of scripture which makes it abundantly clear that righteousness apart from Christ is literally impossible. God unequivocally tells us through the prophet Isaiah that "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away," and Paul writes in Ephesians that it is "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast," and Peter writes in his own letters that "[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." So the idea that Jesus came merely to serve as an example of righteousness doesn't really work in the entire context of the Bible.

In order to get your rather novel rewording of Romans 3:21-26 to work, you would have to re-translate not just that passage but the entire book of Romans, and many other passages in the Bible as well since the doctrine of substitution rests on more than just a single, isolated passage.

[JimL]

My reading comprehension is just fine. The problem is you don’t understand what you’re talking about. My kid does something wrong and gets caught. I’m descending justice when I issue the punishment, I may also be merciful when I cut the punishment short when it’s clear the lesson was learned. That is showing a nature that is both just and merciful. Do you think people are one or the other Jimmy?

No, what I think is that people are neither and can't be defined as such. They can act in a way that is just, or they can act in a way that is merciful, but those terms define their actions, not their inherent nature.

[lilpixieofterror]

No, what I think is that people are neither and can't be defined as such. They can act in a way that is just, or they can act in a way that is merciful, but those terms define their actions, not their inherent nature.

You’re welcome to disagree all you want, but I’m not a post modernist.