Do you affirm the fundamentals?

[Paidiske]

The classic example is the creation narrative in Genesis. I understand it as a way of teaching us truth about who God is (creator), who we are (creation), the relationship between us, and so forth. I don't understand it as telling us we need to reject the best cosmology, biology and so forth of our day.

 

[Radagast]

1. That the Bible is inspired and without error.

The 1919 formulation of that was:

We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally inspired of God, and inerrant in the original writings, and that they are the supreme and final authority in faith and life.

One should bear in mind that many of the original Fundamentalists were not 1440-hour Creationists.

 

[Dave-W]

The five points in the OP are the points which were put forward in a multi-volume work, The Fundamentals, which are as close as one gets to a foundational document for fundamentalism as a Christian movement.

Ok, I am not familiar with that work. But I am familiar with works based on the Hebrews 6 passage; the most extensive being Derek Prince's Foundation Series, also originally a multi volume work.

 

[Radagast]

The classic example is the creation narrative in Genesis. I understand it as a way of teaching us truth about who God is (creator), who we are (creation), the relationship between us, and so forth.

To quote from Volume 1 of The Fundamentals, "If the intention of the first chapter of Genesis was really to give us the 'date' of the creation of the earth and heavens, the objection would be unanswerable. But things, as in the case of astronomy, are now better understood, and few are disquieted in reading their Bibles because it is made Certain that the world is immensely older than the 6,000 years which the older chronology gave it. Geology is felt only to have expanded our ideas of the vastness and marvel of the Creator’s operations through the aeons of time during which the world, with its teeming populations of fishes, birds, reptiles, mammals, was preparing for man’s abode — when the mountains were being upheaved, the valleys being scooped out, and veins of precious metals being inlaid into the crust of the earth."

 

[Paidiske]

Which is fine, as far as it goes. But even a quick glance in the Creation & Evolution subforum here will tell you that's not how many people take the idea of inerrant Scripture.

 

[chevyontheriver]

He says “all scripture.” Seeing as God saw fit to preserve that line in the Bible, we can logically infer it refers to the entire Bible, not just the Old Testament.

It is an inference in the 'sensus plenor (fuller sense), but Paul was pretty obviously referring in the literal sense to the Old Testament only.

 

[BobRyan]

Is the Bible "without error" in that a purely literalistic, wooden, surface-level reading of the texts are intended and these are without error? Because the answer to that is a no; that's simply a bad way to read the Bible.

Is it "Wooden" to accept what the Bible says when it refutes your doctrine and "best" to accept what the Bible says when it does not?

 

[BobRyan]

He says “all scripture.” Seeing as God saw fit to preserve that line in the Bible, we can logically infer it refers to the entire Bible, not just the Old Testament.

Amen!!

Even Peter affirms that Paul's writings were being accepted as part of scripture by NT readers.

 

[BobRyan]

I don't see Scripture as lying or imperfect on its own terms. I just object to allegories being read as a science textbook, for example.

Do you consider the virgin birth to be an unscientific allegory that should not be taken as it reads because no scientist can do it? (Nor is it ever observed to occur in nature?)

Or do you use the term "allegory" to describe any event recorded in sacred history that an atheist would not accept as it reads?

 

[BobRyan]

Point #1 needs this addition for me to agree with all 5 points: 'That the Bible is inspired (breathed out by God) and without error in the original manuscripts'.

I do not accept that any translation is breathed out by God, whether that be the Latin Vulgate, Wycliffe's Bible, the 1611 KJV, Douay-Rheims, NAB, JB, NRSV, NIV or NLT.

Oz

So then rejecting Westcott and Hort for a minute - if we assume that the Textus Receptus - specificially Stephanus' TR version or the specific Erasmus versions used by Calvin and Tyndale ... represented the "intent" that God wanted (and thus were the basis for all non-Catholic Bibles up until Westcott-Hort in 1881) , (though typographical errors certainly not part of God's intent) - does this satisfy the criteria you use?

 

[Radagast]

Which is fine, as far as it goes. But even a quick glance in the Creation & Evolution subforum here will tell you that's not how many people take the idea of inerrant Scripture.

Which is why I wish the OP had been less concise in his 5 points, and clearer about the sense in which they were to he understood.

I consider myself a Fundamentalist, in the sense in which this was originally understood. Some Americans today understand it in a very different sense.

 

[BobRyan]

Do not agree with substitution atonement.

Substitutionary atonement is in the Bible

1 Cor 5 "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed"
1 John 2:2 "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world"
Isaiah 53
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.


7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.

 

[BobRyan]

Which is fine, as far as it goes. But even a quick glance in the Creation & Evolution subforum here will tell you that's not how many people take the idea of inerrant Scripture.

Every atheist I know sides with evolutionism against the Bible.

 

[Radagast]

Note the key phrases in the 1919 Fundamentalist manifesto:

We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally inspired of God, and inerrant in the original writings, and that they are the supreme and final authority in faith and life.

 

[Radagast]

In fact, given the way this thread is headed, I'd like to suggest it be closed and replaced by a better-formulated one.

 

[bling]

What do you consider is a more accurate biblical teaching of the atonement? Or, don't you agree with the doctrine of atonement?

Non of the popular atonement "theories" work at all so you have to go back to the bible and let the Spirit guide you, but it takes lots of time and effort so is it worth your time?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Is it "Wooden" to accept what the Bible says when it refutes your doctrine and "best" to accept what the Bible says when it does not?

You tell me.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[chevyontheriver]

chevy,

Good to see you posting here!

What do you think would be a better biblical summary statement of #4?

Oz

One that clarifies that substitutionary atonement is not penal substitution but vicarious satisfaction. I cannot accept that the Father poured out His wrath on His Son. I certainly would accept this view put forth by James Akin at EWTN.com - The Divinity of Christ & Substitutionary Atonement

"An understanding of substitutionary atonement that is compatible with the Catholic faith is known as vicarious satisfaction. According to this view, Christ allowed himself to be killed by men (not by God) and by allowing himself to be killed he offered his life to God as a sacrifice of love. Because of the infinite merit of the sacrifice (due to his divinity), the Father accepted the sacrifice as making satisfaction for the sins of the world. Christ thus made satisfaction for us vicariously but was not "punished by God," who due to his omniscience cannot regard an infinitely holy Son as anything other than infinitely holy."

One, maybe not you, might retort that Jesus Himself said the words "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me." On the surface that looks like penal substitution, but when seen as referencing the whole of Psalm 22 it takes on a much different meaning. And although I cannot find it now, I think it is Hebrews which describes the obedience of Christ as a sweet smelling fragrance acceptable to the Father.

I used to go round and round with Chris in that other now defunct forum because he was really in to penal substitution, that Jesus became literally guilty of our sins, a reprobate Himself, and was punished literally for our sins. Jesus takes my sins away, but He is not hated by the Father in doing so. I am atoned for by Jesus, what I deserve is not given me, but rather something I do not at all merit.

 

[Philip_B]

Every atheist I know sides with evolutionism against the Bible.

so?

 

[Philip_B]

Some Christians are Fundamentalists and some are not. The notion of need a test to prove that you are a Fundamentalist in order to prove that you are a Christian is absurd and silly. And I hear you talking of dividing the sheep from the goats, however in the long run that is a task for others, above our pay grade.

There is a lovely story in Australia about the conversation between a former Conservative Evangelical ArchBishop of Sydney and the Priest from a very Anglo Catholic Parish in Sydney standing in the vestry of another middle road Parish before evensong

ABoS - Oh, I do hope we are not going to have incense, it does so offend the nose.
CCSL - You know they have incense in heaven, it says so in the Bible.
ABoS - I would remind you there are parts of scripture which neither I nor you would take literally​

There are several paradigms used in scripture which point us towards and understanding of the atonement. Substitutionary Atonement is one of them, often but not always associated with Justification which is some sense a legal metaphor for salvation. There is also the redemptive metaphor used where the image is of the slave market and the liberation of the bondservant. There is also a notion of Christ fighting on our behalf to defeat the final enemy sometimes understood as Christus Victor. These and many other metaphors of salvation all point us to our final destination.

God loves us so much he wants to be with us for ever. Sometimes like the children of a dysfunctional family were challenge the rights of others to be here, rather than being more focused on the one who love us. I don't want a single salvific metaphor like some dumbed down news report, and I accept that we will never fathom the full extent of the love of God this side of the grave.