reformed

[hedrick]

Hegal liked to ignore the miraculous, thats not theistic.

Note that miracles have an important role in Tillich’s Theology.

 

[Loren T.]

I think my biggest two problems with Calvinism is their tendency to make scriptures fit into their theology that, taken in context, clearly don't. And the other is that, taken to it's logical conclusion, it is a doctrine that leads me, at least, to shrug and say: "If that is reality, nothing I do matters." That in itself should be a red flag, I think. A doctrine that results in apathy has to be flawed.

 

[mark kennedy]

Ever since Hume, that's been the tendency in western thought, though not without some reservations, perhaps. And in fairness, it's easy to understand why. People that are prone to believing miracles are also prone to doing some foolish things, like forgoing medical treatment in favor of prayer, or believing that God will prevent global warming, because "the Bible says so".

So if you belief in miracles your pronento act foolish huh? Yea thats what I'm talking about. Except for one thing, the Scriptures are based on miraculous events. Now on the secular world atheistic materialism prevails by a pretty fair margin, I wouldnt have a problem if the kept their naturalistic assumptions out of theology.

 

[FireDragon76]

So if you belief in miracles your pronento act foolish huh? Yea thats what I'm talking about. Except for one thing, the Scriptures are based on miraculous events. Now on the secular world atheistic materialism prevails by a pretty fair margin, I wouldnt have a problem if the kept their naturalistic assumptions out of theology.

Hey, I'm not arguing miracles don't happen (that would be philosophically and intellectually naive), but when Christian fundamentalism hypes up miracles as the main reason to believe, the main thing in Christianity, yeah, you can kind of expect some kickback from critics who are uneasy with the intrusion of the magical or enchanted into the world. Because the magical or the enchanted is very much a mixed bag, historically.

Having said that, I'm much more postmodern and comfortable with miraculous stories, but I hold them in a way that acknowledges the tensions between faith and a healthy skepticism, aware of the dangers that a Theology of Glory presents when approaching miraculous claims (one reason I am not a fan of many expressions of Pentecostalism or Charismatic religion).

 

[mark kennedy]

Hey, I'm not arguing miracles don't happen (that would be philosophically and intellectually naive), but when Christian fundamentalism hypes up miracles as the main reason to believe, the main thing in Christianity, yeah, you can kind of expect some kickback from critics who are uneasy with the intrusion of the magical or enchanted into the world. Because the magical or the enchanted is very much a mixed bag, historically.

Having said that, I'm much more postmodern and comfortable with miraculous stories, but I hold them in a way that acknowledges the tensions between faith and a healthy skepticism, aware of the dangers that a Theology of Glory presents (one reason I am not a fan of many expressions of Pentecostalism or Charismatic religion).

There's no good reason not to view the enormity and promonance of miracles in Scripture with some suspicion. Bear in mind though the role of miracles in major epochs of redemptive history cannot be overstated. The Sabbath commemorates creatio, Passove the Exodus and Easter that falls on the same day the resurrection.

Sure there are people that handle snakes and refuse to immunize children, they are usually found on the fringes. To be a Christian rquires confidence in God's ability to perform one crucial miracle that changes your life forever, being born again of the Spirit. Then follows the manifestation of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, a profession of faith, and a witness concerning the work of God in your life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead can give you the power to walk in newness of life.

The vast majority of Christians arent acting looney because they believe in the miracles of redemptive history. Uniformly they share a message that Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification.

 

[mark kennedy]

Note that miracles have an important role in Tillich’s Theology.

Such as?

 

[FireDragon76]

There's no good reason not to view the enormity and promonance of miracles in Scripture with some suspicion. Bear in mind though the role of miracles in major epochs of redemptive history cannot be overstated. The Sabbath commemorates creatio, Passove the Exodus and Easter that falls on the same day the resurrection.

Sure there are people that handle snakes and refuse to immunize children, they are usually found on the fringes. To be a Christian rquires confidence in God's ability to perform one crucial miracle that changes your life forever, being born again of the Spirit. Then follows the manifestation of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, a profession of faith, and a witness concerning the work of God in your life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead can give you the power to walk in newness of life.

The vast majority of Christians arent acting looney because they believe in the miracles of redemptive history. Uniformly they share a message that Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification.

That's because they are influenced by modernism, just selectively so. But back in the day people would slaughter each other over these issues. They lived in a far more enchanted world where having the wrong doctrine could bring the wrath of God on your kingdom, in the form of plagues, war, and disease, and where the flight of birds or every little detail of nature was seen as some kind of divine communication. Sickness was seen as punishment from God, and the Church encouraged the sick to just accept their fate as God's punishment for sin - in some cases actual medicine was demonized as witchcraft, or reserved for the elite, who lived in far less fear of being ostracized or demonized.

 

[mark kennedy]

That's because they are influenced by modernism, just selectively so. But back in the day people would slaughter each other over these issues. They lived in a far more enchanted world where having the wrong doctrine could bring the wrath of God on your kingdom, in the form of plagues, war, and disease, and where the flight of birds or every little detail of nature was seen as some kind of divine communication. Sickness was seen as punishment from God, and the Church encouraged the sick to just accept their fate as God's punishment for sin - in some cases actual medicine was demonized as witchcraft, or reserved for the elite, who lived in far less fear of being ostracized or demonized.

I dont know where you get your information but Protestants in the 17th century had to fight the 30 Years War and the Civil War in England or face slaughter. Its no wonder democracy grew up along side the Reformation and had there been no Protestant Reformation there would have been no Scientific Revolution. Whats more if Christians are so all fired opposed to medcine then why would they build so many hospitols?

Your stereotyping, about half the US has some kind of Christian profession of faith. We atill believe in miracles without going on witch hunts, crisades or starting inquisitions. Early on I looked into witch hunts and such and the vast majority of the time they were over property and power. Thats why we have a 'wall of seperation', thats actually a biblical analogy based on the wall around the family gardens of ancient Israel.

You want to talk history or philosophy Im up to it, but spare me the hyperbole, I'm better acquainted with the details then that.

 

[hedrick]

Such as?

I'm basing this on Vol 1 of his Systematic theology.

Revelation is how we experience and know about God. He describes it as occurring through "ecstasy" and "miracle." "Esctasy" is the subjective side, miracle the objective side. Miracle is not just a violation of physical law, but an event that points beyond the physical to God.

 

[hedrick]

Incidentally, I'm still not a follower of Tillich. My argument is only that he sees a real God, beyond the physical. I don't think it makes sense to call him atheist.

 

[mark kennedy]

I'm basing this on Vol 1 of his Systematic theology.

Revelation is how we experience and know about God. He describes it as occurring through "ecstasy" and "miracle." "Esctasy" is the subjective side, miracle the objective side. Miracle is not just a violation of physical law, but an event that points beyond the physical to God.

God to Paul Tilich was an abstraction, the God if the Bible seldom interested him, he rarely quotes Scripture. Riddled with ambiquity Yillich does what all liberals must do, its a semantical slight of hand known as a dialectical synthesis. Tillixh is one among many. They either catagorically reject miracles, ignore them completely, or redefine them in naturaliatic terms. Dialectical Atheism is exactly what it is otherwise why would the question of God's existence be meaningless?

 

[FireDragon76]

God to Paul Tilich was an abstraction, the God if the Bible seldom interested him, he rarely quotes Scripture. Riddled with ambiquity Yillich does what all liberals must do, its a semantical slight of hand known as a dialectical synthesis. Tillixh is one among many. They either catagorically reject miracles, ignore them completely, or redefine them in naturaliatic terms. Dialectical Atheism is exactly what it is otherwise why would the question of God's existence be meaningless?

Lutheran theology itself has dialectics at the core of its theology, it always has. And we have been accused before of being ambiguous.

 

[mark kennedy]

Lutheran theology itself has dialectics at the core of its theology, it always has. And we have been accused before of being ambiguous.

A dialectic is a tool of rationality, it's not inheritantly dubious or disingenuous. The semantics of Liberal theology and the likes of Hegal and Tilich are deliberatly ambiquise for stealth. Most Protestant and Catholic seminaries succumed to liberal theology decades ago. I was ready to convert to Catholicism over it, then Francis replaced Benedict and I figured that not the answer.

They are simply putting a secular philosophy into theological terminology, Catholics did that with Aristole for a thousand years. This is different because they import their materialistic worldview and naturalistic assumptions under the guise of modernism, darwinism and more recently, emerging theology.

I'm an avid apologetics buff, I have equal enthusiam for the evidential and presuppositionsl approaches. Strange that you would so grossly mischaracterized a belief in miracles, when Lutherians were Nicean Christians last time I checked.

 

[hedrick]

I'm not a fan of Tillich precisely because it seems a bit abstract to me. I find Barth way too wordy. You don't need that much text to be clear. Tillich and Barth are certainly not in the same school of thought but both seem too vague for me. The sort of theology that's common in the PCUSA today isn't much like that. But I think you misunderstand Tillich.

 

[Mark Quayle]

sadly i cant take seriously Calvinism anymore because of silly little things, like when they say 'world' kosmos in the original language doesnt mean world.
its laughable sadly.
its the silly little things.

Have you got a reference to this "...when they say 'world' kosmos...". Who is this "they" you refer to? What is the context of the use of 'kosmos' as they use it?

I'm Reformed, I don't say I'm Calvinist, because of what many people think it is. But I'm only reformed because they agree with me, and have a better way of saying many things than I would come up with.

 

[StillGods]

Have you got a reference to this "...when they say 'world' kosmos...". Who is this "they" you refer to? What is the context of the use of 'kosmos' as they use it?

I'm Reformed, I don't say I'm Calvinist, because of what many people think it is. But I'm only reformed because they agree with me, and have a better way of saying many things than I would come up with.

example from here where they dont believe kosmos = the whole world:

what is the gospel?

sorry i dont know how to link it properly

 

[Mark Quayle]

Since you ask, I find Reformed Theology to be incomplete. And I'd like to think I know whereof I speak on this because I was raised in a pretty reformed environment. Questions lingered that never really had satisfactory answers.

A good example (which isn't really what you asked for, I know) is sola scriptura. I bought into it when I was younger because it didn't seem like the doctrine had any logical alternative. This was based on the assumptions of a teenager who had never researched any of the alternatives to decide if they're logical or not.

But in any case, I several writings by various Church Fathers and (A) it was clear they didn't believe in sola scriptura (B) they believed in Church authority and (C) the concept of Church authority harmonized better with sacred scripture than sola scriptura.

The same held true of other Reformed ideas. Eventually, I came to the realization that the people who had taught me all this Reformed Theology probably had the most noble intentions but that brand of theology just didn't add up for me anymore (to whatever degree it ever did, tbh).

This isn't too say that RT is utterly worthless. I'm not making that argument. I'm saying it's incomplete and I personally don't find it to be very useful.

I never considered Reformed Theology to be a complete system of itself. It doesn't pretend to be. It is mainly the clinging to certain truths in opposition to human-exalting excursions from the truth. It doesn't of itself give the reasons for such things as Sola Scriptura --these things must be reasoned and used as the believer pursues Christ. (BTW, what was done in the NT church while granted it is for a pattern, many things simply cannot translate to modern day. The fact that the Church had authority back then does not apply the same way now because the Scriptures are closed, and Apostolic authority did not continue.)

As for usefulness, I can find no other more useful. The truth is always the most productive of value. One may, for example, get more converts by Wesleyan methods than by Owen's, and I do thank God for Wesley, because God uses everything, but recidivism (shall we call it) of those who were not of us to begin with, comes of trusting with a faith that is humanly produced, by merely human emotion, resolve, based on the integrity of human decision. Saving faith, I believe, is God within us, and therefore a spring of living water that will never run dry.

Another example of usefulness because of truth, can be seen in a statement some Reformed preacher made, to the effect that 'Nobody can say anything about God to improve what God has said about himself.'

 

[Mark Quayle]

example from here where they dont believe kosmos = the whole world:

what is the gospel?

sorry i dont know how to link it properly

I didn't find what you were referring to there, but let me try to explain something. When the Bible says "world", it can mean several different things, just as it does in English, and probably any other language.

The whole world can be, for example, a reference to the fact that if absolutely anyone is to be saved, this is how he will be saved. Or it can be a smaller set of people, like in Spanish, "everybody" ("todo el mundo", which translates to "the whole world") can mean everybody in a certain frame of reference --such as, when I say, "Everybody get in car, so we can go." I may be talking about only my family. The rest of scripture makes it pretty plain that not everybody will inherit eternal life, because not everybody is going to be redeemed and adopted into God's family.

 

[StillGods]

I didn't find what you were referring to there, but let me try to explain something. When the Bible says "world", it can mean several different things, just as it does in English, and probably any other language.

The whole world can be, for example, a reference to the fact that if absolutely anyone is to be saved, this is how he will be saved. Or it can be a smaller set of people, like in Spanish, "everybody" ("todo el mundo", which translates to "the whole world") can mean everybody in a certain frame of reference --such as, when I say, "Everybody get in car, so we can go." I may be talking about only my family. The rest of scripture makes it pretty plain that not everybody will inherit eternal life, because not everybody is going to be redeemed and adopted into God's family.

what do you think the john 3:16 world refers to

 

[Mark Quayle]

what do you think the john 3:16 world refers to

I think it refers to either the whole of the universe, or at least the whole earth, or, more likely, the whole of humanity.

In maybe older English, not so much a modern use of the word, "so", the Greek too is ambiguous, as is Spanish ("de tal manera"), as to whether it means, "thus" ("in the following way"), or as most seem to prefer, and at least one "translation" outright claims it means "so much".

Likewise, the word, "whosoever believeth", while we want it to mean the laws of chance operate here, and any random person will believe him by the integrity of their will and intellect, only means "the ones that believe".

Furthermore, this verse (and context) shows the necessity of belief, but does not grammatically present a logical sequence where belief results in everlasting life. It only shows certain concurrence; those believing will have eternal life.

3:18 shows the same thing: "...is condemned already, because he has not believed..". Once again, we see an apparent sequence, that is either real, or the phrase "because he has not believed" as used there can mean, "since it is a fact that he has not believed". Thus: "since it is a fact that he has not believed [as God knows], he is already condemned." Granted, that construction is unwieldy, and may even be mistaken. It may even be true that the unbelief itself causes the condemnation, but I don't think so, because it says that such a person is condemned already (i.e. not subsequently).

It may well mean, "For God loved the world in this way: That he gave his only begotten son, that those believing in him would not perish, but have eternal life."

Lastly, though, I have to say that even if the interpretation is correctly that "God loved absolutely everybody that ever lived so much, that whoever randomly places their trust in him will have the chance to not die, but to live forever.", it still does not say, "God loved absolutely everybody that ever lived so much, that whoever by chance because of their intellectual and emotional integrity of will might place their trust in him, will never die, but rather will live eternally."