Paradox?

Chesterton said:

You don't know that this never happens. "Christian" is just a word. One could be a capitalist at heart without ever having heard the word "capitalism".

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leftrightleftrightleft said:

This is inspired by another thread:

Christian: "men are not wise enough for me to put my faith in them over God."

Non-Christian: "Given that you've learned about god from men, in the first place.... I think you're stuck in a paradox."

Do people agree? If you had never heard about God, Jesus, Christian theology, the crucifixion, salvation, heaven etc from some person, could you still be a Christian?

You likely heard about these things from parents, pastors, friends etc. And they heard it from parents, pastors, friends etc. And so on. The Bible was also written by people who then passed on these written works to others and at some point or another someone claimed they were inspired. So is the whole paradox solved via the "faith card" where you say you have faith that the Bible is not of men but of God? But men still had to first tell you it was inspired, right? Its not like I can just pick up Catcher In The Rye and say, "Hey, this is inspired!" Someone likely TOLD you the Bible was inspired at some point, I doubt you came to that doctrinal conclusion on your own, or did you?

No one magically comes to be a Christian and know Jesus Christ and follow the god of the Bible if they are isolated from Christians. Why doesn't this ever happen?

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ToHoldNothing said:

Just to interject, your comparison of economic beliefs to religious beliefs hardly seems fair, since economics is more natural to humanity in some sense than religion, except in the most nominal sense of theism in some original sense, along with animism, perhaps. Just because someone believes in the existence of a free market for optimal profit, etc, doesn't suggest that capitalism isn't something people can find out on their own.

Being a Christian has more specifics to it than just believing in some general free market economy. Unless you think God judges by ethical behavior in which case it seems to contradict the notion of God's grace converting the hearts of people.

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elman said:

I don't see God's grace as forcing anything on us. I see the grace as accepting us with our faults as His child. Jesus seems to indicate the last judgment will be based on ethical behavior--Matt 25:31 and following--feeding the hungry-visiting the sick etc.

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ToHoldNothing said:

I don't think I ever implied that God's grace forced anything on us, though it could be interpreted that way. God could be said to reconcile us to itself over time instead of a radical paradigm shift.

If God already accepts us as we are with our faults, it only seems to justify universal reconciliation, since God has all the time in eternity and all the power and knowledge of the greatest conceivable being ever, so one could argue like Origen did, from what I remember, that even Diabolos will be reconciled to God.

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elman said:

I don't believe in universal reconciliation. I believe we must love others to have hope of God's grace, but at best we cannot love perfectly enough to earn eternal life. It still continues to be a unearned gift, but the wicked do not receive the gift. How wicked is wicked enough to lose the gift?--I don't have a clue.

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leftrightleftrightleft said:

So what gives one person greater authority to teach than another? Why is it "wrong" for someone to listen to a person talking about Islam and become a Muslim yet it is "right" for someone to listen to a person talking about Christianity and become a Christian?

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leftrightleftrightleft said:

I believe there are many people striving to be Christ-like, knowingly or unknowingly; Christian or non-Christian. I do not believe that the label "Christian" means you are more actively striving for the Christ-like ideal. It seems there is little correlation between the label "Christian" and the likelihood that they are more or less "Christ-like". It begs the question as to why it is important to apply the label.

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The word “Christian” is not meant to be a “label”, but is a descriptive term meaning “Christ like”. The word “Christian” has lost its meaning.

[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']Calling Christ like people that have never heard of Christ: “Christians”, is just applying the true meaning. [/FONT]

Do you expect all "Christ-like" people to accept the Gospel despite already living a fulfilling, morally-upright life? They are already striving for an ideal of their own, why do they need to be told about the figure of Christ if they are already intuitively striving for the ideal without that piece of doctrine?

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“a fulfilling, morally upright life” and “striving for an ideal of their own” is not what is needed and may work against them (they can have big egos and trust their own ability). The person that comes to realize they are big time transgressors (have hurt others), cannot do it on their own, are seeking the help of a benevolent Creator, and trusting in a merciful Creator are in a much better position. Their hearts are humble (like Christ and God), they know they are no better than the lowliest person on earth, they feel indebted to the rest of mankind, they empathize with the hurting and they can never pay back the slightest to others and their creator (these are Christ like).

The problem with all other “religions” is they are “works” oriented to some degree (if not for the most part) and are very discouraging (you can never really know if you have done “enough” and you always have lots more to do). Your actions are always to get something more as compared to just doing good stuff, solely because of what has already been done for you.

Other religions, make the distinction between those that will be rewarded and those that are not rewarded and/or the degree of the reward on the efforts (knowledge and/or works) of the individual and/or sometimes the group you are in.

The “good news” (Gospel) for people that feel the burden of their transgressions is that: “God is not trying to get them to do “something”, but is trying to get them to accept a gift from Him.” Since it is extremely hard to get humans to take huge gifts (charity) from Givers that made a huge sacrifice to give an undeserving, unconditional gift (this makes it pure charity), God has allowed humans to become humbled.

I fail to see the logic from a Christian standpoint. The basic premise of Christianity is that the Christian God loves us all so much and wants to spend eternity with us. He gave us free will and we all fail in a big way. But instead of making it culture-, doctrine- and place-independent, the Christian God has given us the "truth" via a highly doctrinized, convoluted way that is highly dependent on culture and place. If his desire is to spend eternity with us, then his methodology for meeting that desire is not very efficient!

In fact, virtually nothing about the current form of proselytizing makes much sense. Few are convinced. Most are skeptical. You find high rates of conversion in places where there is a need for forgiveness, a high degree of guilt and a desire for more purpose (prisons, hospitals, AIDs patients). You don't find high rates of conversion in affluent neighborhoods, especially affluent neighborhoods in non-Christian countries. Most Christians don't even try to convince people of the truth of the Christian Gospel because "religion" has become a buzzword that should be kept in the closet.

If your form of proselytizing is to have Christ be "seen through you" (aka be Christ-like), then you aren't proselytizing at all because you yourself claimed that non-Christians can be Christ-like. So if you are trying to do that practice-what-you-preach thing whereby you lead by example and people come to Christ because they are intrigued by your Christ-like actions, then you have a major problem because you've admitted that a non-Christian could be showing the exact same example to other people by striving to be Christ-like!

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There is a difference between “striving to be Christ-like” verses allowing Christ to live through you. Striving to do anything wonderful on your own will be a failure in the long run. Allowing Christ to live through you is extremely easy (if you have the indwelling Holy Spirit), but even Christians make it hard by quenching the Spirit and returning to self will (self seeking, selfish and self control). You can take no “glory” in just allowing something to happen, even if it is done through you, but people like the glory, so little is truly accomplished.

God does Love us, but God is not going to force His Love on us (like some shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun). We have to freely accept God’s Love as Charity (the only way it could be given), but unfortunately people do not like accepting charity and will do almost anything to avoid taking charity.

The “free will” is to allow us to truly “accept” God’s charity (the easiest way to do that is to accept God’s charity in the form of accepting God’s forgiveness of our sins which is charity (mercy/grace/Love)). If we did not have free will than the “love” we had would be “robotic”.

You are right; to see that most that “accept” true Christianity are the needy. BUT, God has allowed us to all be needy at least at some points in our lives, so we can all be accepting of Christianity. It takes humility to accept even God’s charity and being needed helps with our humility.

Most “Christians” are “Christian” in name only and do not act “Christ like”.

Being “Christ Like” is humbly sacrificially serving others (Christ went from the throne of God to humbly being tortured, humiliated and murdered on a cross for those that put him there (us)). He was selflessly helping others, so the whole motivation was Godly type Love.

What is the “motive” for these non Christian (religiously speaking) to being “Christ like” (humbly Loving others)? Would it help them to realize they have been given eternal life and do not have to do anything, but can do what they have been doing if they feel the gratitude (Love) that has been given)?

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bling said:

The word “Christian” is not meant to be a “label”, but is a descriptive term meaning “Christ like”. The word “Christian” has lost its meaning.

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