Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?
7) That although we see completely different perspectives and evolving theologies in the Bible, including many things that are barbaric and superstitious to the core, it was authored by one divine mind.
16 comments:
The first and most famous of the "different perspectives being the fundamental differences contained within Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
I'm starting to warm to this series of yours, John. I hope that you at some stage put it together in an article or gigantic combined post.
I will Andre. I'm also going to write a chapter for a new book that will expand on them all.
I think the foremost issue with the different perspectives and evolving theologies, is the difference in God's character between the OT, and God of the NT!
God seems to go from an anthropomorphic being, with human like qualities, as well as being extremly wrathfull and cruel........... to being a transcendental being beyond comprehension, who is wanting to save our souls, and commanding us to believe, love, forgive, and be merciful!
"it was authored by one divine mind."
Define "mind" in this context.
The scriptures are written by prophets and apostles who were human. Therefore, the canon is a collection of human writings that bear testimony to Christ and "contain" the Perfect logic/reason of God. These men wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but that doesn't mean that God dictated the words or directly authored the book the way in which we say God gave the Decalogue. (mechanical inspiration).
Yes the bible contains things that are barbaric. Life is barbaric - and it is to teach us the results and consequences of death and how it is permanent.(death is a consequence of sin).
The historical church did NOT believe verbal inspiration - so this "authored by one divine mind" is clearly an incorrect understanding of the authority and testimony of scripture. Often evangelicals claim that the Holy Spirit authored the entire bible..(this comes not only from Sola Scriptura and verbal inspiration, but it also comes from a lack of understanding regarding the way in which God has worked through imperfect prophets/apostles who make simple mistakes in the details).
Name one theologian who doesn't have a slightly different perspective than another theologian.
Any two people who think exactly alike...one of them isn't thinking.
The perspective of God's interaction with Israel as a nation is going to be different from God's Spiritual Kingdom during the church age. Dispensationalism easily explains this (even though it can go too far - and often does with evangelicals).
Still, the evangelical Christian denominations produce the most mature believers because they fill their minds with the prophets and the apostles and overlook the imperfections.
One word.
Wise.
Breckmin said,
"God has worked through imperfect prophets/apostles who make simple mistakes in the details).
"
Oh no Breckim, the bible is the unadulterated word of god through divine inspiration, written by the direct hand of god!
"Yes the bible contains things that are barbaric."
How can that be?
God is love remember? nothing that proceeds out of his mouth can be barbaric!
God and jesus are perfect and without sin, how can anything they are associated with, be barbaric?
I wonder if this Breckmin guy and DM are one and the same person?
Hey John,
I reviewed "The Christian Delusion" on amazon and on my blog:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2010/05/review-christian-delusion.html
Congratulations on a job well done.
I suppose if God is wacky then the Bible's contradictions would make sense. Then the eye being reversed could have been designed by a crackpot engineer God. Maybe he was not out to fool us, but is simply a fool. Then truly his followers would seem to be made in his image...
I'm at a loss for how to even argue with people who believe in the unity of the text. The assertion is that this is a miraculously consistent, harmonious single story from one cover to the other, which is a view that is completely at odds with even a cursory review of the text.
Point this out and you'll hear that you just need to work a bit at reconciling the apparent inconsistencies, and that you might even need to already be in the fold in order to have received the gift of "spiritual discernment" to be able to make any sense of the convoluted reconciliations that are necessary. In other words, let yourself become sufficiently brainwashed and any outrageous contradiction can make sense to you.
Why can't an omnipotent, omniscience supernatural author of the entire text ever manage to produce a work that is a miraculously consistent, harmonious single story from one cover to the other, WITHOUT the reader needing to be brainwashed in order to recognize this supposed consistence? And why can't an advocate of this view not see that there is something wrong with a claim of divinely inspired consistency that needs a "spiritual guidance" in order to discern that consistency? Would one of the Christian lurkers please enlighten me on this?
"Why can't an omnipotent, omniscience supernatural author of the entire text ever manage to produce a work that is a miraculously consistent,"
God works through people. Other than Jesus, people are never very consistent. God used/allow/infinitely determined (determined here does NOT mean the exact same thing as "caused")prophets and apostles and inspired them with His Holy Spirit to write specific truth. They did a pretty good job considering the small amount of identifiable error. What you have to understand, however, is equivocation/points of view/and communication of concepts and how they are illustrated.
There are really no legitimate major contradictions in the bible when you understand what is really being said (or interpreted). All minor error that is identifiable has to do with "details" rather than theology itself. This is because human prophets and apostles wrote and communicated something that was Perfect in an imperfect medium (languages which were developed by humans who were learning).
"harmonious single story from one cover to the other,"
I don't know what you are referring to when you imply that it is not harmonious. Clearly God worked differently before He became a Man and sacrificed Himself. Clearly He was requiring a type of Holiness from a whole nation (Israel) rather than just from one individual Christian (regarding obedience or attempted obedience only..not the elimination of all hypocrisy/sin).
"WITHOUT the reader needing to be brainwashed"
Perhaps God needs to wash our brains before we can "see" His truth..question everything.
"...in order to recognize this supposed consistence?"
The consistency is easy to defend IF and only IF you start with proper assumptions (both regarding hermeneutics and exegesis that looks at all texts systematically).
"And why can't an advocate of this view not see that there is something wrong with a claim of divinely inspired consistency that needs a "spiritual guidance""
"something wrong" here is committing petitio principii. By
what standard of right and wrong will you appeal to if this is the way in which God has set it up?...to require HUMILITY and the "need for spiritual guidance?"
Clearly we DO need God's Holy Spirit to open our spiritual eyes and ears up to the Truth of His Word. (contained in the medium of imperfect scripture).
"in order to discern that consistency?"
From outside observation this looks very circular...that is because it is being over-simplified. The conclusion that there is a Creator and that we should pray to Him is NOT because of the "bible's" existence. In fact, there was no bible available to the common people until the end of the 16th Century and beginning of the 17th Century.
The bible exists because of Christianity...Christianity does NOT exist because of the bible (however God uses the bible to bring people to Christ because of Its message and because His Spirit works through it - very important).
"Would one of the Christian lurkers please enlighten me on this?"
Believing that you need to be enlightened by the Infinite and Holy Creator is the first step to beginning to understand. We actually can't enlighten you..only God's Holy Spirit can convict you of the absolute truth of His Word.
This is important...because salvation is spiritual. Knowing God's truth is based on spiritual regeneration. Humility, prayer, seeking God,etc.. these sort of things are what lead to enlightenment. I pray you will pray to be enlightened..not by me..but by the One Who is Spiritual Light.
Breck
How did Chris beg the question? Your pretentious use of philosophy terms incorrectly is one of the reasons why you seem silly and stupid.
"How did Chris beg the question?"
He didn't. I made a mistake. I admit I made a mistake and I was wrong. By breaking up the sentence and multi-tasking with emails and youtube (and children) I thought he was saying that God was doing something wrong (at some point)by allowing the bible to be written in such a way that it needed divine guidance to be enlighted by it.
This should be a lesson to me to start proof reading, perhaps. (or get more sleep)
FTR, begging the question by asking a question which begs how you know that the premise of the question is even true is indeed petitio principii. I didn't use this incorrectly (with my whole response..)
what I did do, however, is misread "his" question/point
I've stumbled upon this conversation and would like to know the specific points between the old and new testament writings which are believed to be fragmented and incoherent?
Breckmin
Where was the Holy Spirit in counseling you while seeking to instruct Chris on begging the question?
But a bigger problem with the Bible is the movement from the worship requirements as outlined in the Torah to the completely different requirements given in the New Testament.
And don't give me any crap about 'grace'. That's another imaginary concept, dependent upon all the other imaginary things in the Bible.
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