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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Tension of Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Faith writes:
I don’t disagree with that but what weapon is that army to use. When the whole Biblical narrative is taken into account it is clear that the Israelites were to be an army, but armed not with the sword but with God’s love. My understanding is that the Israelites represent God's own army against evil,As we learn from Jesus in His Roman controlled world, the enemy wasn’t the Romans, just like it wasn’t the Canaanites for the Israelites. The enemy as you say was, (and still is), evil itself. You can’t kill evil by slaughtering people. That only allows evil to spread even further and particularly into the hearts of those that are perpetrating the slaughter; in this case the Israelites. It is clear in Jesus’ message that the only way that evil is ultimately defeated is by changing hearts. It is about having hearts that choose to love selfishly changed to hearts that love unselfishly, or if you like hearts that live by the Golden Rule. Faith writes:
The trouble is you are taking ancient Hebrew apocalyptic writing literally. It would be like taking the expression raining cats and dogs literally. The renewed creation is best marked by the image of the wolf lying downing with the lamb as written about in Isaiah. 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 thenI’m afraid that I don’t agree that the demonic hordes are ruling the world. That certainly would make God impotent. The world continues to exist because God’s love still permeates creation. Sure, the victory is far from complete but ultimately when all creation is renewed it will be, but it certainly is not going to be accomplished by making ourselves complicit in the evil. Faith writes:
Then why wouldn’t He do it and save the anguish and the hearts of the Israelites instead of commanding them to slaughter their neighbours including men, women children and infants. I realize that there is no satisfactory answer to that question.
He could always do all of it Himself, He doesn't need anyone.Faith writes:
But Jesus was far from being just a saviour. He was so much more, but even with that it isn’t just about personal salvation. We are saved because we are called to vocation. We have been given the job of spreading God’s love to the world. I suggest that you read John 14. It is very difficult to explain God’s love and forgiveness as embodied in Jesus if we also claim that he orders genocide and public stoning.
He could also send all of us to Hell but He chose to send a Savior.Faith writes:
I am a Christian. It is central to my life. The Bible is of immense importance to me. It has unbelievable value. Yes, God inspired those that wrote the Scriptures to record their stories just as he has inspired people from the beginning to do all sorts of things. That does not mean that they always understood God perfectly. They were fallible human beings like you and I. There is no value to a Bible that is not inerrant. "All scripture is God-breathed" is enough evidence for me.Now we have this wonderful narrative we call the Bible. God continued to work through the hearts of the Israelites. We can see the progressive revelation of the nature of God. It starts with the Israelites believing that Yahweh was hopefully more powerful than the other tribe’s gods so that they would be able to conquer their neighbours and rule as the strongest tribe. Gradually when we get to the later prophets such as Isaiah, and it is less about war and more about establishing peace. Then we come to Jesus and the story is fulfilled, saying that not only is it about peace, but that peace isn’t won by the sword but by infecting the world with God’s love but what we do and say. The enemy is no longer other people but evil itself. Faith writes:
But even you pick and choose Faith. We all do. For example here is the first line of the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. Jesus doesn’t say that this is a metaphor. He simply says this happened, but both of us understand this to be a metaphor or parable. If I had to listen to preachers picking and choosing the way you do I would never be a Christian at all.I don’t see myself as picking and choosing. I have a coherent method of understanding the Scriptures. It isn’t perfect, and in fact is probably far from it and much remains ambiguous. I start with the absolute faith that the NT writers got it right, (not necessarily all the details), with their accounts of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. That is the issue on which if I was convinced that I got wrong, I would no longer call myself a Christian. I might think it is a good idea to follow Jesus’ teachings but I could just as easily follow the teachings of the original Buddha, or even Mahatma Gandhi, as they taught essential the same moral constructs. Faith writes:
So what I would ask you, that if the first century Jesus followers had it right with their claim that Jesus had come back in a resurrected body after being crucified, wouldn’t that be enough for you as a starting point? This is a Biblical account written by many authors and confirmed by the fact that they were written at a time when hundreds would have been able to refute the stories if they were made up. You give equal credibility to a story written by single authors, in some cases hundreds of years after the event. Does it then really matter if some of the OT writers, either intentionally or not, misrepresented God in what they wrote? 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.This is why I claim that you are making a false idol of the Bible and making it all about that, which in my view denigrates the message of Jesus. It is my contention that the inerrantist view dishonours what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus on the cross prayed to the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Phat Member Posts: 18310 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
I'm just pointing out what Charisma Magazine says. I could be willfully ignorant of the reality of human psychology, yet I have studied psychology myself and dont conflate it with what has been taught spiritually by Christian commentators.
Just as we cant use physics to explain belief, we really cant honestly say that any personality quirks are demonically (or angelically) inspired.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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Faith writes: Your personal attack is worse than ever. Phat issued another personal attack? On you? Why, this is terrible! Let me go off and reread his Message 220 very carefully. Okay, I'm back, I've read Phat's post. Here I quote everything that are his words, not quotes or link names:
Phat in Message 220 writes: Here is an interesting article from Charisma News. Hmmm. Doesn't seem like much of a personal attack. In fact, it doesn't mention your name and doesn't look in the least like a personal attack. Here's the article he references: Is Giving Someone the ‘Silent Treatment’ Really Like Witchcraft?. Phat quotes a passage from the article that argues that the silent treatment is a form of witchcraft because it is a form of intimidation and manipulation. That *does* sound a lot like you. How does accurately describing your behavior constitute an attack?
If there's any witchcraft going on here it's on your side for condemning me out of your own false doctrines. I don't think you or Phat have anything to worry about. There's no such thing as witchcraft. As for false doctrines, well, you're the expert, you've got a ton of those.
You could apologize, that would be the right thing to do. I think I speak for us all when I say that we're all very sorry that you can't behave like a decent human being.
But then so could Percy but like you he thinks he's in the right. Well, now we're back to the core of the matter, aren't we. It isn't that Phat attacked you. It isn't that I attacked you. It's that we had the temerity to disagree with you and ignore your manipulations. We had the audacity to think that we are right and you are wrong. And of course in that twisted world inside your head it's okay for you to think that you are right, but it's not okay for anyone else to think they're right. It's Faith-world where everything Faith says is right simply because she says so, and because, as she has told us many times, she "knows what she knows." And ultimately that's why you continually descend into these little temper tantrums. You know your views don't stand up to scrutiny, you know you can't defend them, so you shift into topic-avoidance mode, usually by picking fights with other participants by making unsubstantiated criticisms and claiming non-existent offenses. In no time at all discussion of the topic is obliterated and your misbegotten ideas evade examination for another day.
You are both in violation of the rule against commenting on the person and he supposedly made the rule. You yourself introduced yourself as a topic. You claimed infallibility. Then you called people fools.
The way I get talked about here is something truly evil. Well, if you don't like your conduct being called to your attention then you could try just discussing the topics and leave all the excuses and name calling aside. Or you could treat us to the ultimate silent treatment and just walk away. After all, you walk away from thread after thread when your arguments fail and are shown ridiculous, ignorant and absurd, why not just walk away from the entire website? Of course there's no chance of you considering this possibility, because you're not reading my posts. Right? --Percy
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
PaulK writes: The question isn't how God chooses but why God would choose some and not others at all. It is hard for us to get beyond thinking of the whole thing about judgement in terms of a judge in a courtroom. CS Lewis saw it a little differently. Essentially he sees us making our own choice as to whether we want to live in a world where the guiding principle is based solely on unselfish love, or do we want to carry on living in a world that is based on looking out for number one. Here is a quote from his book "The Great Divorce".
quote: He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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GDR writes: I’m afraid that I don’t agree that the demonic hordes are ruling the world. That certainly would make God impotent. The world continues to exist because God’s love still permeates creation. Sure, the victory is far from complete but ultimately when all creation is renewed it will be, but it certainly is not going to be accomplished by making ourselves complicit in the evil. I'm not able to accept the narrative of an ongoing holy battle between good and evil in which good ultimately triumphs, but I definitely buy into what you said earlier about Jesus' message that "evil is ultimately defeated by changing hearts," and also your last comment that evil cannot be defeated by committing evil ourselves.
It is very difficult to explain God’s love and forgiveness as embodied in Jesus if we also claim that he orders genocide and public stoning. Well said.
I am a Christian. It is central to my life. The Bible is of immense importance to me. It has unbelievable value. Yes, God inspired those that wrote the Scriptures to record their stories just as he has inspired people from the beginning to do all sorts of things. That does not mean that they always understood God perfectly. They were fallible human beings like you and I. We may be on parallel paths. I of course do not believe in the Christian God, and I don't believe in holy inspiration, but a good portion of the holy Scriptures do seem to have been written with inspiration, even though the Biblical authors were fallible human beings like us all (except for that one person here who is without fault )
Then we come to Jesus and the story is fulfilled, saying that not only is it about peace, but that peace isn’t won by the sword but by infecting the world with God’s love but what we do and say. The enemy is no longer other people but evil itself. Now we're talking. I don't believe Jesus was a real person, but that doesn't change the message.
So what I would ask you, that if the first century Jesus followers had it right with their claim that Jesus had come back in a resurrected body after being crucified, wouldn’t that be enough for you as a starting point? This is a Biblical account written by many authors and confirmed by the fact that they were written at a time when hundreds would have been able to refute the stories if they were made up. You give equal credibility to a story written by single authors, in some cases hundreds of years after the event. Does it then really matter if some of the OT writers, either intentionally or not, misrepresented God in what they wrote? This is why I claim that you are making a false idol of the Bible and making it all about that, which in my view denigrates the message of Jesus. It is my contention that the inerrantist view dishonours what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus on the cross prayed to the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. I'm failing to make some connection about the last part of this argument. What is it about the inerrantist view that dishonors Jesus' dying on the cross? Sorry I can't add more to the debate. I'm mostly just trying to follow along and giving a couple attaboys along the way. --Percy
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
GDR writes: CS Lewis saw it a little differently. And I see it differently again. So what? He has no more idea about god's thoughts than my cat. (And like, god, my cat doesn't exist). This is typical....
quote: ....t's such bollox, there is virtually no-one like this, life is not binary.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: That would seem to be your problem, since I wasn't thinking about it in that way at all. I certainly haven't made any references to the law, and I've said very little about justice - which is a wider concern than the courts anyway. And you seem to miss the fact that my question is aimed at the compatibility of Calvinism with the Biblical claim that God wishes to save everyone (indeed with those verses of scripture which seem to contradict the Calvinistic idea of Limited Atonement in general). Remember that in Calvin's view of salvation it is all down to God, our attitude doesn't matter one way or another (at most God arranges for us to have the "right" attitude to get the outcome he wants) Simply putting forward your view or Lewis' view of how salvation works doesn't really address my points at all.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Percy writes:
Well we know that there is a battle going on between good and evil. We experience that in our own lives where we know that choose between things that we know we shouldn’t do and to things that we should do. We know that we make moral choices and that we don’t always make the right ones. We are capable of doing things that hurt others and we are capable of doing things to help others and we battle in our hearts and minds in choosing between the two. I'm not able to accept the narrative of an ongoing holy battle between good and evil in which good ultimately triumphs, but I definitely buy into what you said earlier about Jesus' message that "evil is ultimately defeated by changing hearts," and also your last comment that evil cannot be defeated by committing evil ourselves. The Christian hope and belief is that ultimately good fully triumphs as it did on the cross. People did the worst they could to Jesus. I don’t think that many realize what a horrific thing it was. We can get the idea that it was a torturous way of killing people but it was more than that. It was a method of execution that totally shamed the individual, essentially dehumanizing them. After being publicly tortured Jesus was nailed to the cross, stark naked with people taunting Him and likely even throwing things at Him. Ultimately He would succumb to this humiliating agonizing death. It was an act of pure human evil.( It was why Paul had to write that he wasn’t ashamed to preach a crucified messiah.)However God dealt with that by saying that in the end evil doesn’t have the last word. He resurrected Jesus into a new life, that moved freely between God’s heavenly dimension or universe and our earthly one. Good did ultimately triumph in the person of Jesus. The Christian message is that ultimately all creation will be resurrected with the renewal of all things, and heaven and earth become one. It is easy to rattle that all off and yes it is belief or faith, although I contend that there are many good reasons to believe the Gospels claim of a resurrected Jesus. Frankly however, it is probably easier to accept that, than it would be to accept pretty much all of modern physics without things like particle colliders etc. to provide evidential basis for physics. Philosophy and theology don’t have the benefit of particle colliders.
Percy writes:
Above I described what people did to Jesus on the cross. We also have Jesus’ message of love your neighbour and enemy permeating the NT. It also makes the claim that by doing that we are reflecting God’s nature into the world. Jesus was tortures, humiliated and killed for that message. If we also claim that God wants us to commit genocide and public stoning it even goes even beyond simply dishonouring Jesus on the cross. It essentially says that Jesus got it wrong and that we know better. I'm failing to make some connection about the last part of this argument. What is it about the inerrantist view that dishonors Jesus' dying on the cross?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Tangle writes: I think that the point is that ultimately we all choose to yearn for life that is based on unselfish love no matter how bad we are at it, or we succumb to a life that is about is about looking after our own needs and interests above all else ....t's such bollox, there is virtually no-one like this, life is not binary. Edited by GDR, : typoHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
PaulK writes:
Sorry, I should have stayed out of your discussion. Simply putting forward your view or Lewis' view of how salvation works doesn't really address my points at all.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
If you have something to add, add it. But if you just want to disagree with Calvinism, replying to kbertsche or Faith would be more appropriate. Or, you, know, you could agree with me since I don't think I'm actually saying anything you would object to.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
PaulK writes: And you seem to miss the fact that my question is aimed at the compatibility of Calvinism with the Biblical claim that God wishes to save everyone (indeed with those verses of scripture which seem to contradict the Calvinistic idea of Limited Atonement in general). Remember that in Calvin's view of salvation it is all down to God, our attitude doesn't matter one way or another (at most God arranges for us to have the "right" attitude to get the outcome he wants) Without going through the whole discussion, (this thread is a tad long ) let me simply say that I don't feel qualified to go at all deeply into it. I don't find that His theory of predestination to be consistent with Scripture, and particularly the NT. I contend that when the Bible talks about being chosen it is about human vocation, not necessarily salvation. When we accept Christ and His message of love and forgiveness into our hearts we are then chosen to infect the world with that love and message, by word and deed. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Phat Member Posts: 18310 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
PaulK writes: The only sense I can make out of Calvinism as a doctrine and method is that telling people that God does the choosing is like telling your kids that if they don't go to bed the boogie man will get them. Other than that I agree that Calvinism, as marketed, makes no sense. In my belief, God is more than fair and the choice between salvation and damnation rests in that mystery known as communion...between our human minds and Gods mind. The question isn't how God chooses but why God would choose some and not others at all. Original Sin is not a logical belief. I would go so far as to say, however, that Original Tendencies more closely approximates my view. Accepting Christ is a bit like allowing an expert to walk you through the manual. You don't need the expert per se, but if you then misread the manual, it's all YOUR fault for ignoring the expert in the first place.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: Just as we cant use physics to explain belief, we really cant honestly say that any personality quirks are demonically (or angelically) inspired. Until there is evidence of either angels or demons we can honestly say that quirks are not inspired by angels or demons or witchcraft. To do so carries the same worth and relevance as claiming that the cause was unicorns and far less validity than claiming that the cause was bad burritos. There IS evidence for the existence of bad burritos.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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GDR writes: I think that the point is that ultimately we all choose to yearn for life that is based on unselfish love no matter how bad we are at it, or we succumb to a life that is about is about looking after our own needs and interests above all else But this is just gibberish, as they say here, it's not even wrong. It has no contact with real life, it's a comment from within a weird religious bubble. People are just not like this.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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