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Author Topic:   Is the Bible the inerrant word of God? Or is it the words of men?
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 241 of 2241 (738558)
10-11-2014 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 234 by jar
10-11-2014 9:32 PM


Re: Truth?
And the concept of the Trinity is and was simply a matter of folk taking verses out of scripture to try to support their position just as those who oppose the concept do.
That's fine. I agree with you. But the dispute over Trinitarianism has and continues to have very little to do with whether particular books are canonical. Historically the debate about the Triune nature of God and even the divinity of Christ precedes formal canonization by centuries.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 242 of 2241 (738560)
10-11-2014 10:56 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by Faith
10-11-2014 3:56 PM


Re: Truth?
Need to answer my own post here: Elizabeth I did persecute Puritans and I should have noted that, so there was reason for James I to object to her policies as against religious tolerance. With respect to Catholics, however, she was quite right to execute them for treason, which as I said had nothing to do with their religious belief.
Also, as jar said, James I did show a very tolerant spirit when he told the people not to take revenge on Catholics for the Gunpowder plot on his life.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 243 of 2241 (738561)
10-11-2014 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by Faith
10-11-2014 10:09 PM


logic
You tried to show that the Trinity is illogical as cause to dismiss it because you think it should be logical.
No I didn't and I don't expect theology to be logical. Will you now admit your error and apologise?
Here's what I did. I pointed out that the diagram Phat posted is logically false. Phat can agree he believes in something that is illogical, as you did, or he could defend it's logic. Maybe he could argue the diagram is itself an imperfect representation. Truly, it being illogical is why I reject it, but I wouldn't expect you to feel that way, Faith - rest assured.

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 Message 240 by Faith, posted 10-11-2014 10:09 PM Faith has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 244 of 2241 (738562)
10-11-2014 11:24 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by Modulous
10-11-2014 11:14 PM


Re: logic
OK you were just pointing out that the diagram is illogical just to point it out that it is illogical and not to imply anything about the validity of the Trinity. OK.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 245 of 2241 (738564)
10-12-2014 8:36 AM
Reply to: Message 204 by Phat
10-11-2014 12:04 PM


Re: Evidence and Belief
Phat writes:
Perhaps the question is what constitutes evidence? Is an internal subjective "born again" experience qualified? How about a vision? a dream?
We gather evidence of the real world through our senses.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 246 of 2241 (738565)
10-12-2014 8:48 AM
Reply to: Message 211 by Faith
10-11-2014 2:12 PM


Re: 3 in one
Faith in Messages 211 and 212 writes:
No way could I accept anything I regard as a myth on faith.
...
The internal evidence given by the many authors of the many testimonies that make up the Bible is staggeringly sufficient for supporting faith in what it says.
On many points the Bible is internally inconsistent and contradictory, and on many points it is externally uncorroborated or contradicted. People who are just as sure you're wrong as you are that you're right use the exact same Bible you do. Religions have apologetics to explain away their inconsistencies and contradictions and to render interpretations consistent with their particular theology. The mere existence of these other interpretations testifies that there is no one, right and true theology.
--Percy

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 Message 211 by Faith, posted 10-11-2014 2:12 PM Faith has replied

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 247 of 2241 (738566)
10-12-2014 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 241 by NoNukes
10-11-2014 10:37 PM


Re: Truth?
Which is what I have been saying. It is not based on the Bible (a specific collection of scriptures).

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 248 of 2241 (738578)
10-12-2014 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 247 by jar
10-12-2014 9:05 AM


Re: Truth?
The Bible existed as more or less a specific collection of scriptures long before it was canonized, and all the scriptures on which the Trinity is based were there.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 249 of 2241 (738579)
10-12-2014 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by Percy
10-12-2014 8:48 AM


Re: 3 in one
The mere existence of these other interpretations testifies that there is no one, right and true theology
Very odd logic there. False religions, cults, the ponderings of single individuals with an axe to grind all interpreting the Bible for themselves, against the long history of the understanding of the best of the best being validated by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma, all that testifies that there is no one right and true theology? The devil pokes a few unstable people in the ribs and says "invent a religion" and that's all it takes to defeat the true religion. Unfortunately that is exactly what has happened, you got that right.

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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 250 of 2241 (738585)
10-12-2014 4:09 PM
Reply to: Message 248 by Faith
10-12-2014 2:39 PM


Re: Truth?
Actually no Faith. That is simply bullshit. If that were the case there would be some uniformity between the different Canons.
Before any Canons there was simply a jumble of different, individual scriptural scrolls.
Yes, the concept of the Trinity existed before the Bible as I pointed put and yes, the concept of the Trinity was supported by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls just as those opposing the Trinitarian concept supported their position by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls.
That has absolutely nothing to do with whether the concept of the Trinity is reasonable or logical. It's not.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 248 by Faith, posted 10-12-2014 2:39 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 251 of 2241 (738586)
10-12-2014 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by Faith
10-12-2014 2:46 PM


Re: 3 in one
Yes, that's right. You have described Christianity to a "T". So what's your point? That somehow your own cult is different from the rest?
... the long history of the understanding of the best of the best being validated by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma, ...
When did that ever happen? The history of all Protestant churches (bar perhaps a few possible exceptions, none of which I'm aware of) is that they split off from another church for any number of reasons, including disagreement over some doctrinal point. In every one of those cases, that doctrinal point immediately became dogma in the new church, by-passing any process of validation by "hundreds of churches". Even in the first few centuries of Christian history, congregations formed and split and generated a plethora of different forms of Christian doctrine, each with its own copy of "Scripture" that supported its own doctrine. And out of that mess one religion was formed by committee, one which was held together by force until centuries later when it then proceeded to splinter anew, creating new dogma upon each split, foregoing any "validation by hundreds of churches". Only the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches had any opportunity to conduct that long process of "validation by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma", but even there the dogma was established from the start.
I really do not know what you could be referring to with that statement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 249 by Faith, posted 10-12-2014 2:46 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 252 of 2241 (738587)
10-12-2014 6:34 PM
Reply to: Message 241 by NoNukes
10-11-2014 10:37 PM


Re: Truth?
NoNukes writes:
Historically the debate about the Triune nature of God and even the divinity of Christ precedes formal canonization by centuries.
if that's correct, it's only correct because you've stuck the word "formal" in there.
i'm actually not sure when the new testament was canonized in its present form, formally. informally, the canon developed fairly gradually over second and third centuries. the source texts, of course, being (slightly) older than the canon.
and there is no triune god in the source texts. that development came from combination of multiple sources, and developed more or less alongside the canon.
But the dispute over Trinitarianism has and continues to have very little to do with whether particular books are canonical.
i don't know that this is necessarily true, though the formalized canon seems to be mostly codification of what was accepted, less formally, by different churches.
certainly, different opinions of god's nature were present in other early christian sects, so it's not like these are two totally unrelated topics. many of the documents we don't have the canon aren't present because they were used by other churches, with different ideas about god. though many of the selections for the current canon seem in spite of accepted dogma, so there's that.

אָרַח

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 253 of 2241 (738589)
10-12-2014 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by jar
10-12-2014 4:09 PM


Re: Truth?
jar writes:
Before any Canons there was simply a jumble of different, individual scriptural scrolls.
before canons there were nikons.
no, uh, the canons were basically libraries. it wasn't exactly individual, and there would be some commonality among early churches. and before the NT canon, of course, was the OT canon, of which most early christian churches probably had at the very least the torah, and most of the neviim. and this seems, to me, to be what the epistles mean by "scripture".
Yes, the concept of the Trinity existed before the Bible as I pointed put and yes, the concept of the Trinity was supported by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls just as those opposing the Trinitarian concept supported their position by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls.
so, no. i don't think that's correct.
there were concepts that were like the trinity before any of the NT was even written. and it's arguable that some of these concepts became or influenced the trinity, through portions of the text that were later cherry-picked. or even that the idea of jesus as "the word" came from a concept of a heavenly mouth-piece for yahweh.
but the process of biblical authorship is hilariously sloppy. for instance, the clearest picture we have NT composition is that basically two initial sects (paul and peter) wrote about a highly mythical jesus, and the gospels were written later as a kind of "euhemerization". mark was written first, then matthew, then luke, each correcting the previous one on matters of common sense, theology, etc. if the concept of trinity was a thing, one of those three authors would have put it in their version. indeed, these texts are correcting the theology away from a divine jesus; their fundamental intention is to take jesus out of the heavenly realm, and portray him has having an earthly life, at least before john backs that up a little. but even john, the latest and most god-like version of jesus, clearly has a hierarchy, as he quotes jesus as saying "the father is greater than i", which is markedly un-trinitarian.
instead, the modern conception of the trinity seems to be a way to rectify these early divine conceptions of jesus with monotheism, and disassociate them from the heresy of the various gnostic sects, etc.

אָרַח

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 254 of 2241 (738590)
10-12-2014 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by Faith
10-11-2014 10:09 PM


Re: 3 in one
its orb representing God the Father, its light representing God the Son, its heat representing God the Holy Ghost, all together One God in Three Persons
No analogy is perfect.
right, but modalism/seballianism is a heresy, that the trinity was developed in part as a response to.
quote:
In Christianity, Sabellianism (also known as modalism, modalistic monarchianism, or modal monarchism) is the nontrinitarian or anti-trinitarian belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son, and Holy Spirit are three different modes or aspects of one monadic God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons within the Godhead - that there are no real or substantial differences between the three, such that there is no substantial identity for the Spirit or the Son.
Sabellianism - Wikipedia

אָרַח

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 255 of 2241 (738591)
10-12-2014 7:14 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by jar
10-12-2014 4:09 PM


Re: Truth?
The Bible existed as more or less a specific collection of scriptures long before it was canonized, and all the scriptures on which the Trinity is based were there.
Actually no Faith. That is simply bullshit. If that were the case there would be some uniformity between the different Canons.
Most of the early churches possessed the same collection of New Testament books, plus as arach points out, the Old Testament at least in part but perhaps in whole. What "uniformity" are you talking about? Even different collections of the canon, different from the Protestant now let's say, contain most of the same books, and these differences belong to out-of-the-way churches too; the mainstream of European churches would have had the same collection of books.
The Gospels, the Acts, the Letters of Paul, Peter, John, Jude, James and John. What differences are you talking about? If a church only had one or two of the gospels and a few of the letters of any of the apostles, and the Torah, they had enough for an orthodox understanding of the faith if not the complete doctrine of the Trinity, but there is no reason any of the churches would have been so impoverished for long that I know of.
Before any Canons there was simply a jumble of different, individual scriptural scrolls.
Why a jumble? The gospels were copied and sent to the churches, then the letters of the apostles as well, why would there be a jumble? I don't know if anybody knows the exact history of any of this, we're speculating about what happened, but a jumble makes no sense when we're talking about the inspired words of God being sent to men who would treasure them. All the churches would know ABOUT what books were circulating even if they might have had to wait a while to get a copy of their own of some of them. They didn't have the internet or even telephones or telegraph, but they weren't without communication.
Yes, the concept of the Trinity existed before the Bible as I pointed put ...
You keep insisting on this absolute nonsense. The Trinity could not possibly have existed before the scripture verses from which it is derived. For one thing although there are pagan trinities of gods there is no concept like the Biblical Trinity that could have existed before the Bible. It is unique. The early Church fathers had an immense love for the scriptures and with some exceptions rejected everything pagan, wrote arguments against pagan ideas as against Judaism as well.
... and yes, the concept of the Trinity was supported by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls just as those opposing the Trinitarian concept supported their position by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls.
If the verses are cherry-picked, that huge long list of them, you ought to be able to show us where they are belied by the context or by other verses. The verses that show the Trinity emphasize over and over again that God is One, then also show that each of the Three Persons has all the attributes of God and act independently of one another. What other verses could possibly be mustered against this picture taken as a whole?
That has absolutely nothing to do with whether the concept of the Trinity is reasonable or logical. It's not.
Nor have I claimed it is or make it part of this particular discussion. It is utterly counterintuitive, which is one reason it couldn't have been modeled on any of the pagan trinities.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 250 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 4:09 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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