No Gospel without Law, no Mercy without Wrath

Both kinds of baptism are OK.

Um...you mean those who heard Jesus speak had never heard anyone else say the same things. That doesn't mean others with the same teachings didn't exist. Communication of ideas wasn't exactly at its peak in Jesus' time. Yes, I've seen bits of those threads. I'll investigate what was said there, but sources I have read show the KJV to have several inaccuracies. In any case, that's a topic for other threads, so I'll leave it at that. So where exactly is this "consistancy of theological doctrine" that helped convince you the Bible is inerrant? If the Church that was the solitary source of Christian teaching for over a thousand YEARS, which had total and absolute control over the contents of the Bible and the doctrines taught to beleivers, became itself "apostate and heretical," how is that in any way consistant? How does that describe God "preserving the truth?" Who decides what is heretical or true? You? Some group of church leaders?Were any of them around 2000 years ago to see the truth themselves? I wish you could post in the Science forums sometimes, Faith. You basically just said that the sky is pink with purple and yellow polka-dots. Every scrap of geological evidence, along with the laws of physics, prove that a Global Flood never happened by any stretch of the imagination. And you came to this conclusion, how? None of the Church Fathers were around to askJesus what He actually said. What makes you so sure that they actually eliminated "false doctrine," and that the books excluded from the Bible were false? I didn't say they were a big problem. Neither did I say that any of the methods of translation were invalid.I asked how, with so many different versions, some of which produce very different interpretations, you can possibly say that God is directing the contents of the Bible? The Mormons I know would take quite a bit of offense to that statement. As would Jehovah's Witnesses.But how do you know that your denomination is not a "heretical cult?" If God preserves His "true religion," what religion was true when the Catholic Church was "heretical and apostate," but before the Protestant Revolution? Perhaps a sect then called a "heretical cult" was correct? Have you even read the Gospel of Thomas? Most of it is duplicated within the accepted Gospels! It sounds exactly like the Jesus depicted in the other Gospels."The Kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you. Not in houses of brick and stone. Split a peice of wood, and you will find me. Lift a stone, and I am there."Wouldn't an early Catholic Chirch want to try awfully hard to discredit such a book, since it basically says "that's not the way it's supposed to be?"It's also the oldest Gospel we know of - it very well could be a written list of things Jesus said. It certainly predates the doctrines that call it heretical. I trust Him, too. That's why I don't believe in Biblical inerrancy. Only God is inerrant - and men wrote the Biblical books and decided what would be included. We aren't here to convince each other, Faith. I just want to understand why you beleive the way you do. Not my intention, it's just the impression I am left with. I'm open to it - that's part of the reason I want to understand why you believe the way you do, Faith. But "because I said so," or "because this other group of guys a long time ago said so" doesn't cut it for me. Especially when the group of guys a long time ago had a vested interest in which books were included - the formation of the early Church set the stage for the domination of Europe for over a thousand years. I agree. But the Bible is not God. It's a book about God. Ancient people wrote books about various natural phenominon, like lightning and earthquakes, and the flat surface of the Earth. Men can be wrong, even about God. Surely one of us is wrong in our conception of God - if both of us were to write a book about Him, and people found them 3000 years from now, would they assume that our writings were inerrant and guided by the Hand of God? Should they?Should we assume that we know the truth based on a selection of books written thousands of years ago without questioning the wisdom and honesty of the Church Fathers, or other religious leaders since?The Bible says, after all, to beware false prophets and teachings, and the only way to know is to question everything. Well, nice of you to just give up. I can't wrap my head around your reasons, Faith, but that's why I want to talk to you about them. I don't like not understanding. You're an excellent writer - explain your reasons to me, and refute me when I question them. It's the only way I'll be able to understand.Whether I agree with you afterwards is doubtful (but still possible), but at least we'll understand each other better. We may even find some common ground. Isn't that a worthwhile goal?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Not to me. God is a person (Jesus Christ) and a personality. Look at it this way--what if we replaced the word God with the word Brian?(Our EvC theologian) The statement would then become thus:
"Brian exists or Brian does not exist." I have talked with Brian. I have seen his picture, although that in itself is not important. I have discussed theology with him, and even though we do not always agree, I am quite convinced that Brian exists. If the question were presented to a room of people who did not know Brian, they would assert that the statement as it stands--"Brian exists or Brian does not exist."---would be a true summation of the person that we mentioned to them--Brian. I suppose that in this light, Brian is subjective and unknown to them while he is objective and known (somewhat) to me. Does this show why I answered the way that I did?

Interesting. So all six denominations mentioned count as "true churches" ? What then is the doctrinal mark of a "true church" ?

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The point is not that people are saved (or favored by God) without experiencing wrath but that salvation only makes sense in relation to condemnation. Without the reality of condemnation there is no need for salvation.

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So you mean anyone's wrath, not necessarily the wrath of God. Unfortunately the salvation presented in the OT is not the same as the NT. The salvation of the OT deals with delivering Israel from her enemies. Even in the book of Luke, the use of salvation was deliverance from enemies. Mark and Matthew don't mention salvation. But what you are presenting from the NT seems to be salvation from the potential wrath of God which only comes after death supposedly. The salvation in the NT is presented as something that takes place after death, not during ones life. That is not what the OT presents and I have not found anywhere in the OT where God makes any promise dealing with people after death.

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Quite frankly the Gospel or good news really has nothing to do with the Jewish laws. The followers of Jesus all followed the Jewish laws even after his death, so not sure what you mean by "no Gospel without law".

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Oh it has everything to do with it. I've said that I'm talking only about the MORAL LAW, not the ritual practices of the Jews, which no longer apply. Only the Jewish followers of Jesus continued to follow all the Jewish laws, which was no longer required but perfectly all right until they tried to force them on the Gentile believers too.

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I don't mean Law in that sense, but the moral law that runs the universe which is intuited to various extents by all human beings, and developed in such concepts as Karma and the Tao for instance.

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Make up your mind. Either we are dealing with the laws given in the OT (I'm not talking about the rituals either. So when I say Jewish laws I am talking about the Jewish legal system that God gave them in the OT.) or you are talking about what people naturally consider to be wrong or right.

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Jesus taught the Samaritans who were not Jews, and healed Gentiles who asked for it, such as a Roman centurion and a Canaanite woman, whose faith He praised above that of the Jews, and it was He who sent Paul to the Gentiles.

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The Samaritan were Jews, they were just from the other side of the track so to speak.The Jews had no problem allowing those who truly believed to join. Remember Ruth in the OT. That didn't make the OT the God of everyone. The OT God was still for a specific group and Jesus only dealt with gentiles who came to him. He didn't go to them.The author of Acts claims that Jesus sent Paul to the Gentiles. IMO, Paul focused on the Gentiles after his gospel was rejected by the Jews. Paul even had difficulty with the actual disciples of Jesus.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

I already said what the basic belief is. That Jesus Christ is God Himself who became a man so that He could die to pay our debt to the Law. And that we are saved by God's grace alone apart from works. All the denominations you listed believe that.

The Church that was apostate was so because they ignored the Bible and taught a variety of nonbiblical superstitions. The Bible has come down to us in thousands of manuscripts of many languages, and with all the manuscripts, errors are easily corrected, and few and minor for the most part anyway. The King James translators worked from a huge collection of manuscripts including Hebrew and Greek. Have to read all the right teachers I guess, hear the right preachers, read the right history. The main doctrines of the church have been there from the beginning. There are thousands of sources. Start with Augustine. The various councils of the early church defined the heresies of the day and the heresies around today are variations on the same ones. Funny how you will believe what geology says about what happened even millions of years ago without a written document to confirm a bit of it but mock my belief in thousands of documents and many of them from the time itself. The whole point was that they do not produce very different interpretations. That doesn't change the fact that they are heresies. Nice people, but they believe a false gospel. The very first lines are absolutely contradictory to anything Jesus said. That's Gnostic hooha. That's not the gospel. The canon was determined by the leaders and members of many churches who had been using the various books for centuries. They determined which were inspired and which false. It's bogus. Many people believe in God, but because we are fallen we have false ideas of God. God gave us His own word to set us straight. There is no way to disabuse a person of such prejudices. If you have any real interest in getting a different perspective on the history of the church there are many places you could look. You don't have to rely on me with my inferior methods of discussion. The Bible was inspired by God Himself. If you've decided it is just a work of men there is no way I can change your mind. I never assumed anything. I read tons of stuff. You've rejected everything I've already said so why should I expect that saying anything more would matter to you? YOu are free to believe as you please. It's probably a character flaw of mine but I'm weary of repeating myself on this forum and just about ready for a long break.

No, I mean only the wrath of God. We understand the OT through the NT. We are all under condemnation because of our violations of God's moral law, which is basically the Ten Commandments (elaborated by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount), and salvation means we are saved from that condemnation. I'm trying to talk to people who reject the whole idea of God's condemning anyone although they consider themselves Christians. Unless you understand you are condemned you don't understand that you need salvation, which is why Christ came. Only one small violation of the Law puts you under the Law's condemnation. The Ten Commandments are the universal moral law. Yes that is true. But He did send Paul to them. Yes, that is a popular idea, but that's not what the NT says. It says Jesus sent him. Yes, and they were in the wrong as the NT shows.

See, this is a great example of problems in communication. It is not a question. The statement does not depend on whether or not Brian exists. It is not asking if Brian exists. If you are saying that the statement is NOT logically correct then you are saying that GOD can both exist and not-exist.Is that what you meaan? Do you mean GOD can both exist and not-exist?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Then why are Mormon's heretics? Don't they believe in that Jesus came and died for our sins?

I'm still not seeing this "theological consistancy" you spoke of. The Bible itself remained mostly unchanged (with the exception of retranslations), but the doctrines it spawned vere quite varied, and were not in any way consistant with Protestantism.Are you referring to the consistancy of what the Bible says, rather than the consistancy of theological doctrine and teachings? If so, the same could be said about literally any book. I'm aware of that. I was asking why we should trust their decisions without question. We've found more documents than they did, we have older versions of documents, and we have greater resources than they did. Why should we blindly accept their decisions as to what constitutes heresy? I don't like being told what I should believe - I'd rather find the truth myself, using others as possible guides. If you don't question, and follow blindly, you are more likely to be misled. You're right, I believe geological evidence despite the fact that nobody was around to see the formation of the geological record.My point was more that we aren't dealing with something that leaves evidence, like geological events. We are talking about what a man said and did, purely on the basis of what a few people wrote of Him 50 years or more after the fact. Then, 500 more years later, the Church Fathers determined what was "true doctrine" and what was heresy based on those writings. That's a very subjective decision, Faith. It's not based on something as concrete as an observable faultline, or simple physics calculations. It's based on the opinions and biases of a group of men determining what the rest of us should believe. We have seen the results of even religious power corrupting - the history of the Catholic Church is a testament to that. I would rather trust God and my own mind along with all of the texts than trust a bunch of men who had the potential to set themselves up as Popes and Cardinals. Often they do, but you refer to them as heresy. Oh, I certainly agree - but shoudln't God have struck down the false teachings if He is directly controlling Biblical teachings? How does the Book of Mormon or the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible survive and thrive if God is controlling the purity of the Bible?

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Luke 17:20-21
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

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Emphasis mine.I dunno, Luke seems to say some of the same things as Thomas. And Thomas, as I recall, is older than the Pauline texts. Says who? I've read it - it sounds a lot like the Jesus depicted in the other Gospels. It has some more cryptic quotes, as well, but those that are straightforeward are usually repeated in the accepted Gospels, like my example.Here's more:

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13. His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

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"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

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Jesus said, "The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine sheep and looked for that one until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep, 'I care for you more than the ninety-nine.'"

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These are nearly identical to verses in the accepted Gospel. Why is Thomas "bogus?" This assumes that God is, in fact, taking a direct hand in preserving the Bible, and that it is inerrant. Why assume? Why not test, to be sure?I put my faith in God and the answers He gives me. I don't think it's wise to trust the decisions made by men thousands of years ago writing, translating, and assembling the Bible as we know it. Very true, Faith, but the fact is, you are an excellent writer (when you aren't angry, anyway ). You typically get your point across much more effectively than most clergy I've spoken to, and you are willing to delve a little farther than "because that's what we believe, end of story." Your "inferior methods of discussion" are actually superior to all of the fundamentalists I have met in person.Plus, you tend to be pretty vocal about your beliefs here, so I figured you wouldn't mind me asking.As to my predjudices, I am simply trying to understand God better. The best way for me to do that is to examine other people's beliefs about Him. It would take some serious convincing, but I am willing to rewrite my entire belief system if I can be shown to be wrong. It's both, Faith. God inspired it - it's about Him, after all. But men wrote it. It's a pretty big leap to go from saying the Bible is inspired by God to saying that God directly controlls what goes in to it. Men, being fallable, can easily misunderstand or misrepresent events and God Himself. It certainly does matter to me, Faith. This is a debate forum, after all. We are here to talk about these sorts of things. Discussions like this are important to me becuase they force me to re-evaluate my own belief structure and hear other points of view. I like defending my beliefs like this, and debating with someone who believes differently.I'm glad we both agree that we each have the right to believe as we wish - that creates a far more civilized discussion, and is part of the reason you are so much of a better debate opponent than fundamentalists I have met. But can't we still debate each other about the issue, and both gain a better understanding of the opposing view? Understanding is always worthwhile.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

So, your God is basically running a cosmic protection racket.

Explain. This sounds a lot like saying "they were wrong and Paul was right, because Paul said so in his letters."

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

They believe that God was once a human being and is in physical form and not Spirit. Jesus is literally his physical son. It's a whole other gospel.

Luke wrote the Book of Acts, where Paul's journeys are documented, not Paul, and Peter also affirmed Paul's authority: 2Pe 3:15 And account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;