Solving the Problem of false doctrine

JAL said:

Morality/Ethics are not unique to Abraham but are the same for us all. Your question was, "Who else lived Abraham's life?" Answer: "All of us". As Paul put it:

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to mankind" (1 Cor 10:13).

Circumstances may vary but the essence of temptation remains the same. For example, male Christians tend to lust after women.

If Abraham had lived a life different than ours, how would he be useful as a model for us to emulate? It would have been pointless for the NT writers to adduce him as an example of righteous daily living.

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You did not provide the full quote which read "Who else lived Abraham's life? Who else was asked to sacrifice Isaac?"

Who else was asked to sacrifice Isaac? Answer- only Abraham. Abraham is a unique human being as is every human being.

Vanellus said:

You did not provide the full quote which read "Who else lived Abraham's life? Who else was asked to sacrifice Isaac?"

Who else was asked to sacrifice Isaac? Answer- only Abraham. Abraham is a unique human being as is every human being.

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I answered it, I said, "Circumstances may vary but the essence of temptation remains the same." The feelings that he wrestled with (such as fear of losing a loved one), and the temptation to disobey God - these things are common to all mankind. You're focusing on a strawman, namely Abraham's specific circumstances. Not relevant.

It was I who first called Abraham "unique" in this thread and it is I, and not you, who is in the best position to know what I meant by that.

The fact that you chose to impose your own meaning on my use of that word is irrelevant.

Vanellus said:

It was I who first called Abraham "unique" in this thread and it is I, and not you, who is in the best position to know what I meant by that.

The fact that you chose to impose your own meaning on my use of that word is irrelevant.

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Another problem. If you're claiming that God reserves His authoritative voice for people in Abraham's unique circumstance, you are dreadfully insulting Him. Why so? You're implying that He is too selfish and cold-hearted to leverage that Voice to shepherd this world (contrary to John 10:27). Take for example the soldier, and his commanders, who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, killing 200,000 people, Was this act really necessary to end the war? Only God knows for sure. At that time, then, they needed to hear the Voice. (Sola Scriptura won't cut the mustard). If God isn't committed to providing the Voice, it means He simply doesn't care about those 200,00 people.

And that's just a drop in the bucket compared to the 100 billion souls at stake since the world began. If God isn't interested in leveraging the Voice in evangelism, it means He simply doesn't care about us.

Oh that's right. NT evangelism is prophetic utterance. Seems He does care about us after all.

BobRyan said:

....sola scriptura examples in scripture as we find them in Acts 17:11...

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I want to discuss the Bereans.

Since no one here has handled post 151, I'll add another piece of the puzzle. Catholics summarize the alleged contradiction briefly and succinctly, "If the Bible is your only authority, on what authority do you accept the Bible?"

Here is the standard response among evangelical theologians at least since John Calvin: on the authority of an authoritative voice (John 10:27) called "The Inward Witness of the Holy Spirit". This response is perfectly correct. Evangelicals fail to admit the obvious implications of this Voice.
...(1) Sola Scriptura is a lie because Scripture isn't the only authority. This Voice is another authority.
...(2) In fact, this Voice is a higher authority than the Bible because it dictates my willingness to accept a particular letter or book as inspired.

Jack Deere is a well known charismatic scholar. Citing the Westminster Confession in support, he confirms, “We are ultimately persuaded of [Scripture's] authority by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit”(Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, p. 116).

And that's the first reason we cannot presume to classify the Bereans as Sola Scriptura. Arguably, they accepted the Bible on the basis of an authoritative Voice.

Secondly, let me wax metaphysical here. In true evangelism, the prophet releases the divine Word from his mouth, as an authoritative Voice. This means that the apostles/prophets wielded a type of oral authority. (As Catholics have always maintained). The Bereans probably accepted the gospel on the basis of this oral authority, not on the basis of Sola Scriptura.

Why then did they study the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said is true? I don't think they were questioning the basic gospel message. Prophets are often inspired for short public messages. Paul probably delivered a lot of additional instruction originating in inspiration but not necessarily delivered from his mouth as the outpoured Word and thus not as a voice authoritative to his audience. Naturally, the Bereans questioned the details of such messages. As they should.

Anyway the point is moot because, as I said earlier, we have no reason to assume that the Bereans relied on scholarly analysis without recourse to the Light of the Holy Spirit (Direct Revelation).

BobRyan said:

Is it your claim that like Adam, Eve and Abraham - we have no written text of scripture - authored by the Holy Spirit and are to ignore it if we have it???

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Christian loyalty to the Voice (John 10:27) also translates into loyalty to Scripture. Generally speaking, then, we cannot ignore Scripture with any sense of integrity. I'm often asked, would the Voice ever contradict Scripture? My knee-jerk reaction is usually, "Of course not."

When I think about it, however, there is one complication here. What if God is testing you, like he tested Abraham? Arbitrarily murdering your own son contradicts God's will as expressed in Scripture. Nonetheless the Voice could very well command you to do it, for the sake of testing you, and would presumably revoke the command at the last moment.

Here again, then, Sola Scriptura is dead wrong. Christ's Voice is authoritative, even were it to contradict Scripture. For some, this will be a very hard pill to swallow. It is a bit easier to swallow if you fully understand how an authoritative voice operates. But I'm still reluctant to share those pearls because, as yet, no one here has owned up to the fact that Sola Scriptura is self-contradictory (post 151).

JAL said:

None of you proposed a solution? Here I'll provide another clue, another piece of the puzzle. I will simply explain why Sola Scriptura is a logical contradiction. Like all my observations, this is extremely simple stuff.

SS regards the Bible as the only final authority for both doctrine and practice. Therefore a proposed mandate is merely a suggestion, it doesn't actually count as a real imperative until we have located an authoritative basis for it in Scripture. Now here's the problem. If all imperatives must be founded upon Scripture alone, from where did you and I obtain the imperative to accept the Bible as inspired? Surely we cannot rationally claim, “I accept the Bible as inspired because it claims to be.” Nor is it rational to accept the Bible on a blind leap of faith. If blind faith were commendable, the Christian would be perfectly warranted in suddenly converting to Islam on blind faith.

On what basis/ authority, then, does a typical Christian accept the Bible? Reason? History? Blind faith? The Roman Catholic says, "On the authority of the church!" Regardless of the Christian's particular choice of basis/authority, this selected basis/authority now functions as a higher authority than the Bible because it dictated his decision to accept or reject the Bible. For example suppose I accepted the Bible on the basis of Reason, but tomorrow my reasoning leads me to conclude that Islam is a more rational choice. In that case I will abandon the Bible in favor of the Koran, thereby confirming that Reason is, for me, a higher authority than the Bible, since it governs my willingness to accept or reject the book. Thus the Bible can never be legitimately construed as our highest authority because some higher authority clearly dictates our decision to accept or reject this book.

The next clue, then, is to simply ask yourself: on what basis/authority do I accept the Bible? This might help you understand how an authoritative voice operated in all the prophets such as Abraham, and still in all the angels today.

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Hello trying to answer the question above..regarding on what authority a Christian should accept the Bible..the answer is always "Faith"...

BobRyan said:

Me and all my non-cessationist friends - as well as about 22 million of my denominational friends affirm that fact that sola scriptura is not "sans" the Holy Spirit

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Your endlessly repeated strawman. That's not the objection stated at post 151. Why don't you address the real objection.

BobRyan said:

Abraham had no written text to compare with - so he would be in the unique position of having no such contradiction as you suggest.

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As I have repeatedly noted, that strawman just pushes the problem one step further back. Meaning, even if there were Scripture in Abraham's day, by what authority would he have accepted such a bible, other than an authoritative voice? Sola Scriptura is the lie/contradiction that Scripture is the only authority. Deal with it. But seems you won't. You only want to deal with strawmen.

BobRyan said:

Isaiah 8:20 "to the Law and to the prophets if they speak not according to THIS Word they have no light" -- the sola scriptura testing directive was given to us in the OT.

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You cite some obscure passage that none of us is even sure what it means - and then pretend it strongly evidences the (self-contradictory) Sola Scriptura position? Could anything be more absurd?

BobRyan said:

1 John 4 says not to "believe every spirit" but to 'test the spirits"

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So glad you brought that up. Did you ever happen to notice that John never mentioned scholarly exegesis as the test? So what did John have in mind as the test? In John's gospel, he earlier wrote about the authoritative Voice guiding us into all truth (John 16:12-15). This same John documented the authoritative Voice operating in his own disciples:

20But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things... 27But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

This authoritative Voice is our Teacher. By virtue of that Voice, his disciples had already learned a large number of doctrines and truths. What John is clearly saying, then, is that the test is to check whether the spirit in question is contradicting the teachings already learned from the authoritative Voice.

In a nutshell, the authoritative Voice is the test. Has nothing to do with Sola Scriptura.

BobRyan said:

That is an example of your own ad hoc definition for sola scriptura failing. IT is not how all the non-cessasionists view it and it is not how me and 22 million of my friends view it. Nor do I know of any Calvinists that accept your idea above - which includes Jack Deere.

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Telling me I'm wrong but not being specific as to how? This is your latest cheap debating tactic? Lovely.

BobRyan said:

1. Catholics do err when they suggest that the NT saints had to wait a few centuries for a Catholic council to tell them what the Bible is.

2. The NT text was being read prior to 100 A.D., when there was nothing but an obviously "Messianic Jewish" NT church with NT apostles - all of whom were Jews and organized out of Jerusalem - appealing to the Jerusalem council. This is irrefutable.

3. Josephus clearly states that the OT was firmly canonized for over 300 years and is exactly what we have today in what we call the OT and what the Orthodox Jews use as the Hebrew Bible.

4. The NT text we have today - the 27 was fully complete before the end of the first century.

Nobody was asking a Pope in Rome or a catholic council to let them know if they should read the writings of Paul. In 1 Thess 2 Paul states clearly that the NT church accepted his teaching as "the Word of God".

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Strawman after strawman. I merely pointed out that Catholics raise the same objection against Sola Scriptura that I raised at post 151. Instead of addressing the contradiction, you embark on a summary of the canon's history?

Why can't your posts ever be relevant to the debate?

BobRyan said:

Acts 17:11 "they studies the scriptures daily to SEE IF those things spoken by the Apostle Paul - were SO"

NOT "The asked themselves if there was a burning in their bosom to SEE IF the things spoken to them by the Apostle Paul were so"

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Strawman. Deal with post 151. Well nevermind, I'm pretty sure it won't happen. Well will you at least tell me this much: on what authority do you accept Scripture? Burning bosom?

pasifika said:

Hello trying to answer the question above..regarding on what authority a Christian should accept the Bible..the answer is always "Faith"...

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That's not specific enough. Depends what you mean by faith. If you mean blind faith, it's a problem. To understand the problem better, please see post 151.

BobRyan said:

1 John 4 says not to "believe every spirit" but to 'test the spirits"

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So let me get this straight. When a spirit speaks to you, you are supposed test this voice against Scripture? That was God's master plan?

Here's the logical weakness of that plan. The spirit speaking to you might be the Holy Spirit trying to teach you what the Scriptures mean. If you already understand Scripture well enough to test this message - if your exegetical skills are so highly polished - then why do you need the Holy Spirit to teach you this message? You already know it!

From any angle you examine it, Sola Scriptura doesn't make a lot of sense. When the church wholeheartedly embraces a doctrine that doesn't make clear sense, I fail to see how they are behaving much better than a cult.

BobRyan said:

BobRyan said:

1 John 4 says not to "believe every spirit" but to 'test the spirits"



In that case it should line up with scripture. The idea that the Author of Scripture is out of sync with the scripture He authors is not very consistent.

1 John 4:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world.

Is 8:19-20
19 When they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should a people not consult their God? Should they consult the dead in behalf of the living? 20 To the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn.

Acts 17:
11 Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things (spoken to them by the Apostle Paul) were so.

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Verses already addressed.

BobRyan said:

Your response to scripture that cuts across your preference is to debate and argue against it -- AS IF -- we are "proposing that such a scripture should exist" and you are debating that it should not. But that is not what is going on here.

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Intellectual dishonesty.

BobRyan said:

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Jesus gives them a smack-down for not "getting it " by reading scripture --

Luke 24:25 And then He said to them, “You foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to come into His glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.

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Strawman. The remedy for their lack of faith and understanding is to mature in the Voice like the prophets did - like Christ Himself did.

"For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken." (John 12:49).

Notice Jesus did not say, "I speak what I learned at seminary via scholarly analysis and Sola Scriptura."

Scholarship is better than nothing but those guys make a lot of mistakes. We need the Voice of prophecy.

BobRyan said:

What Jesus does not say in that example of sola scriptura is "slow to run to some scholar some place and ask them how to read scripture and to tell you what to think".

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Exactly. Scholarship is not the answer. The Voice is. Direct Revelation is the answer.

"You have hidden these things from the wise and learned [the Bible scholars], and revealed them to little children." (Mat 11:25).

BobRyan said:

And He did not say "you don't know scripture because scripture cannot be known -- so no problem you did it right"

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Paul had studied Scripture from youth but did not really begin to understand it until the voice/vision on the Road To Damascus. Direct Revelation.

BobRyan said:

BobRyan said:
That is an example of your own ad hoc definition for sola scriptura failing. IT is not how all the non-cessasionists view it and it is not how me and 22 million of my friends view it. Nor do I know of any Calvinists that accept your idea above - which includes Jack Deere.


Hint - you keep using a circular argument inserting your own failed defintion/suggestion for sola scriptura as if anyone else here thought it made sense, then showing how your own failed assumption...fails. How in the world is that supposed to be convincing???

The whole point is that you are using a false premise. How is that not obvious????

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You keep saying I am premised on the wrong definition of Sola Scriptura but fail to be specific. (Sigh). Again, here is my definition:

Sola Scriptura deems Scripture to be the only final authority. In this view, neither voices nor reason nor anything else (except scripture) is a final authority.

Where is my definition incorrect? Time and again I have challenged you to cite me some Sola Scriptura proponents who disagree. You haven't named one single person. And even if you found one - a man who believed in another authority - his stance would only support my position that scripture isn't the only final authority !!!!!

Why do you keep dredging up an argument that can only strengthen my position?