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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Tension of Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
There is a proverb that advises not answering fools.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Phat, I started the policy of refusing to answer or even read posts from people who attack me personally and won't apologize. That policy is still in force and now your obnoxious personal attack on me means I'm ignoring you tool
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
My understanding is that the Israelites represent God's own army against evil, and that when Jesus returns all those who belong to Him will become part of that army against the demonic hordes that have ruled the world until then. He could always do all of it Himself, He doesn't need anyone. He could also send all of us to Hell but He chose to send a Savior.
There is no value to a Bible that is not inerrant. "All scripture is God-breathed" is enough evidence for me. And God has the power to do it. If I had to listen to preachers picking and choosing the way you do I would never be a Christian at all. You accuse me of worshiping the Bible which is totally false, but what you do by picking and choosing is put your own fallen mind in the place of God. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You have to decide which kind of fool you're dealing with in order to know whether to answer or not.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Your personal attack is worse than ever. If there's any witchcraft going on here it's on your side for condemning me out of your own false doctrines. You could apologize, that would be the right thing to do. But then so could Percy but like you he thinks he's in the right. You are both in violation of the rule against commenting on the person and he supposedly made the rule. The way I get talked about here is something truly evil.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I understand the term "questioning" to be used in the sense of doubting that the Bible is telling the truth. Not understanding it or having problems with some of its concepts are perfectly normal attitudes everybody goes through.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Sure it's possible.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word, we may not understand a lot of it, or may be very uncomfortable with some of the things it says, and yet not doubt that it is the truth. We recognize that the problem is in us rather than in the Bible, a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Faith writes: Starting from the premise that the Bible is God's word,... But you can't substantiate your premise that the Bible is God's word. You can't even substantiate your premise that God exists. I gave you the premise held by "Bible believers," and how we draw from that premise the conclusions we do. It is a sufficient answer to the point I was answering. Substantiating it to unbelievers is not possible; if it were you'd be a believer. Just acknowledge the logic as given.
...and yet not doubt that it is the truth. If by this you mean inerrancy, the Bible contains its own evidence that it is not inerrant by its internal and external errors and contradictions. I was answering the usual claim that the Bible is like any other book and therefore subject to all the usual questionings we apply to any other book, by pointing out that Bible-believers regard it as God's word and therefore not subject to those questionings like any other book, and that it is quite possible not to understand parts of it or even to have natural objections to parts of it, without doubting its truthfulness as we might any other book as a result. That is all I was saying and it is true. Now you want me to prove my premise, which changes the subject. First you should acknowledge the logic of what I said: we don't have to doubt the truth of the Bible just because we don't understand some of it, or even because some of it contradicts our usual assumptions, because we regard it as God's word. Inerrant, sure, and we know you don't see it that way, and you think you have airtight reasons for your opinion, but we don't share your opinion, we regard it as God's word, and taking that as our premise we can regard it as inerrant truth despite having problems understanding it or accepting some of what it says. And as I said, that is because we subordinate our understanding to the Bible's and not the other way around as unbelievers do. It's perfectly logical just as stated. You are changing the subject.
We recognize that the problem is in us rather than in the Bible, a very different perspective than the attitude here that our own judgments are true and the Bible is at fault. If you have a fallen mind, No, I have a regenerated mind, or what is sometimes called a "sanctified" mind, which is given to believers by God and permits us through the Holy Spirit to ascertain divine truths. "Faith is the evidence of things unseen." Believers are also subject to following the old fallen mind if we are not careful to relyl on God's guidance, but on the basics we can see that we are different than we used to be because we now believe and understand things we couldn't believe or understand before we believed the basics, basic things such as that Jesus died for our sins and that the Bible is God's word. It is something I just KNEW when I became a believer. This is not something that can be proved to anyone and I wasn't trying to prove it, I merely stated the fact that we believe the Bible is God's word which means that we do not treat it the way we would treat any other book, the way you and other unbelievers do, and the way we used to before we became believers. Again, it was a simple logical point.
how can you know whether any judgment you make is true, including the judgment that the Bible is inerrant? See above. The simple fact is that we make this judgment and the consequences of that judgment are that we accept it as true whether we like it or understand it. It's a simple logical point. F Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : improve clarity Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Thanks for the backup, but even if evidence for inerrancy were a legitimate topic for this forum, which as you point out it isn't, that doesn't change the fact that my point was quite logical: given the premise the conclusions follow, and questioning inerrancy is a change of subject.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Since the word "almah" is translated by all traditional Christians to mean "virgin" it must refer to the Messiah, and the New Testament affirms that. If it referred to the time of Ahaz it would refer to an adulterous (unmarried) woman, which would not be possible in the context of a prophecy since a "young woman" which usually means an unmarried woman, could not have conceived a child that would be recognized as legitimate. That in fact is the clue to readers of the OT that it IS a messianic prophecy and does not refer to the present time. Although there may be messianic prophecies that that have a double reference, both to the present time and to the Messiah to come later, in this case because it is about a virgin that is not probable.
And this is off topic. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
A regenerated mind is how you apprehend the truths about God and Christ, and of course the inerrancy of the Bible. As I also said we can err nevertheless, and that's why God gives us teachers.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Do you have a regenerated mind that gives you God's insight to answer sensible questions about the Bible? All believers have a regenerated mind.
I'd like to tell you some questions I have: Why does the bible 'look' contradictory? Probably mostly because it's ancient, cultures were different then, and we have a bad habit of imposing our own assumptions on it instead of learning about its frame of reference. Another answer is that the fallen mind misreads things.
Why does it 'look' homophobic? Homophobia is a bogus concept invented in the last half century. The Bible says homosexual acts are sin and that was the common understanding in cultures around the world until very recently.
Why does it 'look' misogynist? Because the world was corrupted by the Fall, which put women under subjection to their husbands as part of Eve's punishment for disobeying God, and you can see this played out in all cultures across the world until quite recently, though it still is the case in most places. Christ treated women humanely, which offended his disciples, but His example became the basis for more and more humane treatment of women in Christian countries. Our fallen nature dies hard nevertheless.
Why does it 'seem' to endorse slavery? Because you are imposing your modern view on it. When it was written slavery was universal and the main way for debts to be paid off. The Bible gave laws to protect the slaves from abuse which otherwise was common, and also required the Israelites to free their slaves after a certain time. But when Christ came the general idea of emancipating slaves came with Him, as Paul wrote to one slave owner; but it didn't become culturally acceptable until recent times, and still predominantly in Christian societies. It still exists in more places than you are probably aware of.
Why the genocides and deaths of innocent infants and animals? Animals are innocent but for our sake God put them under the curse brought about by the Fall, our first parents' disobedience of God. Infants, however, aren't innocent, as we all are born in sin because of the Fall. I don't think we are going to fully understand all that until Jesus comes again, but it must be something along the lines of God's understanding that we inherit sin from our parents and all the way back to Adam and Eve, so that to let infants live is to invite them to grow up and repeat the sins for which their parents are being punished. It would have to be a pretty horrible sin for that to be decreed of course. God knows things we don't know, although we could learn it from the Bible, which clearly says we inherit sin.
Why does the god of the Old Testament 'seem' to have the character of an spoiled little child looking for attention? He doesn't. That's an evil idea concocted by corrupted modern man who interprets everything psychologically so that there is not much left of the Moral Law and true Justice. Actually it's such an evil idea it must have been Satan's invention originally.
Why was it necessary to invent hell? It was invented for the fallen angels, Satan's hordes, but human beings who follow the lead of Satan by rebelling against God are going to share it with them. Would you really want to live in a unverse in which horrible sins and crimes were not to be punished?
These are just I few questions I don't really think you can answer, but I wanted to show you some reasons why one may not assume, like you do, that the Bible is the word of a good, all powerful and loving being. Don't you think these are good reasons? Don't you wonder why the things you don't like about the bible are that way? No, because I know God's character and I know that even very severe Justice is a kindness in this fallen world; and you are just being an arrogant modern person who refuses to respect justice and genuine authority. In a word you are culture-bound in a corrupted society that puts man above God. Lots of modern concepts were invented by the devil for the express purpose of discrediting God, which is of course the devil's normal business anyway: it's what he did to Eve after all, and it worked well in your case too. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Seems to me the fallen mind must possess a mere shadow of its original powers of understanding and knowledge. Since the regeneration of the new birth gives us the intuitive knowledge of the basic truths of the Christian revelation, there must originally have been an ability to intuitively grasp all kinds of truths we no longer possess.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1464 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Conclusion follows from premise and that is certainly a very simple logical point. You don't need to believe the premise for the logic to be true.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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