churchlady;48708794 said:
These statements actually demonstrate some serious misunderstanding about these matters and the distinctions being made between one element and another. Such misunderstandings bes fairly typical, nothing new here, but they ought to be cleared up so that others will not be confused by the errors they breed.
For starters, inclusion of the written Word in one's experience and process should always be regarded as an inherent, intrinsic, and indispensible core component in the gnosis-principle as applied by the Christian. The Holy Spirit will continually speak in the language of Scripture, bringing the mind to the Word and "bathing" it therein as the total foundation for all understanding and comprehension of divine revelation and the individual experience thereof. Again, we have not been talking about gnosticism in the sense of the Hellenic traditions or sects, but about a uniquely Christian application of the principle which essentially means nothing more nor less than a genuine personal encounter with Christ resulting in an authentic personal relationship with God and individual experience of salvation.
So while it can agree with the notion that deception could result where centering in the Scriptures does not occur, the point becomes moot because in an authentic Christian experience of the gnosis, centering in the Scriptures would never be omitted in the first place. Anyone telling you otherwise either deliberately seeks to obfuscate the subject, bes sincerely misinformed themselves, or bes talksy about something entirely separate from what Moriah has been addressing here in this thread this morning.
You state, "Orthodoxy, as far as it lines up with scripture" but to even make such a statement automatically begs the question of who shall be the final arbiter on whether it actually does or not. So who shall determine that, then? Shall it be decided by the very parameters of the orthodoxy itself and the consensus who establishes those? Or shall one's own individual mind comparing the orthodoxy in question with Scripture parse this out and determine whether they actually match?
If we go with the former, we lose any possibility of objectivity because we end up subjecting all judgment of the matter to the very element being tested itself!! Not exactly an unbiased determination of the criteria, that ...
... And if we go with the latter, well then we have left the purview of orthodoxy and returned once more to gnosis, in relying upon our own minds as guided by the Holy Spirit to determine the answer to our question "Does proposed orthodoxy X line up with Scripture?"To summarize, "orthodoxy, as far as it lines up with scripture" simply does not exist. We either subject that determination back to the orthodoxy itself, thus referring absolutely to orthodoxy, or we subject that determination to a place between our own mind and the Holy Spirit, thus referring absolutely back to gnosis. No two ways exist about it, and no hermetically-sealed vacuum chamber of some "cleaner" label or process resides between them both.
Those lives which have gone before us in this journey to which you refer in such glowing terms have themselves been capable of giving their all only because they chose to put their faith in God and Christ alone, not the consensus of human beings. They walked by faith, not by sight, and like the noble Bereans, did not take the word of man for it but took full personal responsibility for searching the Scriptures independently on their own before the throne of God in prayer to determine for themselves precisely what they would regard this holy writ as teaching them. To refer to them as a means of attempting to diminish and disregard their entire method of knowing the Lord personally and standing upon the solid rock of their convictions constitutes a great disservice to their memory, IMO.
Last but not least, invoking the verse "every man did what bes right in their own eyes" as a tiresome catchphrase in this context comes across as a cheap shot with no substance behind it, the kind of throwaway willy-nilly yanking of a verse for one's own personal whims which completely violates the entire premise of demonstrated respect for Scripture upon which you sought to construct your argument. Moriah does not have a closed or narrow mind and will happily take the time to consider any reasonable and intelligent argument offered in opposition to its own views. But it will not accept treating important matters such as these with all the reverence of a session of fisticuffs on a junior high playground. Your very first statement sought to pit inelegant flattery toward one side for presumably demonstrating wisdom "from above" against the implication via omission that the other lacked this when in fact on that latter count, nothing could be further from the truth; Moriah simply could not have even thought of those things without being directly guided by the Holy Spirit. You thus opened with a cheap shot and closed with one as well, making only threadbare and semantically mangled assertions between the two. Where arguments prove weak and assertions groundless, however, cheap shots attempting to aim for pure emotional reaction will hardly fill the void.
And for the record: Moriah ALSO appreciates the intelligence and calm reasoning in SimonTemplar's posts, and the fact that it cannot recall ever seeing him take vapid potshots for the sake of doing so. It also appreciated him providing it with a whetstone this morning. The exercise of brain in the hands of the Holy Spirit required to respond with reason and intelligence to his post, it found most invigorating and refreshing in the end.
