A. believer said:
All truth is God's truth; all facts are God's facts. Nothing is unrelated to its source, and the source of all things is the Triune God of Christianity.
This may be true of how they come to be, but it is not true of how we come to know them.
What I'm saying, though, is that only by starting with the correct premises--the truths revealed in Scripture--can one reason logically and consistently to the correct conclusions.
I guess we disagree, quite strongly, then. I do not believe that Christianity can be defended only by begging the question. I believed the truth of the message first, and then discovered that the Bible described it.
I didn't say that reason is rooted in rebellion. I said autonomous reason is rooted in rebellion. Autonomous reason starts with false premises. Keep in mind that Scripture teaches that all unbelievers are in rebellion against God.
I am well aware that this interpretation is quite popular. On the other hand, I engaged in autonomous reason, and found God. If I was "in rebellion", it's sort of odd that the process led me to the right place anyway, no?
But humans weren't created to reason autonomously. Remember that it was the desire for autonomy that led to the fall in the first place. Satan tempted Adam and Eve by suggesting that they could know apart from God.
This is a very creative interpretation, but it is an interpretation that contradicts the nature of God, and I will not be persuaded.
One cannot reason without them, but one cannot reason consistently to ultimate truth even with them without the proper ultimate starting point.
Once again, you seem to be condemning Christianity to rot in the bin with every other philosophy, saying it can only be supported if you start by accepting it. This is a very weak sort of truth indeed.
The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Word, but it also refers to Scripture as the Word.
So, you're saying that the Bible claims itself to be God? This is the only possible conclusion I can draw; the Bible clearly says that the Word is God.
If you think the Bible is God, I don't see how we can communicate. If you think the Bible is not God, then you must maintain a distinction between the Word and any textual representation of God's words.
Certainly Jesus is the ultimate expression of the Word of God--He is the incarnate God is--how better could God reveal Himself to man? But God-breathed Scripture is also referred to as the word of God in Scripture itself. By denying it, you're denying the Scriptural testimony.
I do not interpret those passages the same way you do.
Do you consider yourself to be "denying the Scriptural testimony" when you disagree with, say, the Catholics, on the interpretation of passages involving the nature of communion, or apostolic authority? If not, then why would you accuse me of doing it when I, too, refuse to accept some human's instructions to me about how I should interpret Scripture?
Since you don't have the opportunity to interact with Jesus face to face,
Perhaps our faiths are indeed very different. Physical presence? Not that I've ever noticed. Presence? Undeniably.
but you do have Scripture, and you've chosen to reduce it to a fallible book, you're essentially rejecting the fullest expression of the Word of God available to you.
No, I'm not. I'm rejecting your claims about a book.
The fullest expression of the Word available to me is that, when I pray, and I open myself to Him, I am transformed. This is enough.
Yes, but it also acknowledges that fallen man needs more than creation alone to rightly know God, and even more significantly, it acknowledges that unregenerate man suppresses the knowledge of God that's revealed in nature and the conscience.
If we are to take this at face value, then we have unequivocal testimony that those who come to know God were no longer unregenerate when they did so.
This is your error. Where Scripture testifies about itself, for example,
"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)
And what makes you think that refers to a book, rather than to the Living Word?
You call the living word a "substitute" for God.
No. I call a bunch of paper, ink, and glue, a "substitute" for the living word.
Maybe your Bible is different. Maybe it moves under its own power, or maybe in yours, the Gospel according to John says "and the Word became paper, ink, and glue, and sat on our shelves".
We don't have Jesus here with us, (although, even if we did, apart from the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, we'd reject Him as well).
I am very sorry that you do not believe Jesus is with us. At this point, I really don't see any fruitful basis for communication between us. I believe in a living and present God, whose presence in this world is constantly manifest.
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Does your Bible omit this passage?
The comment about the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit seems a red herring at best. People are regularly moved towards God, so obviously the Holy Spirit is doing a whole lot of regenerating. Since we are in no position to impose limit's on God's decision to regenerate people, this is a meaningless qualification. God will regenerate people whenever He feels like it.
And we're not yet in the presence of God.
Once again, I call your attention to Matthew 18, verse 20.
But God has given us His written Word for our spiritual sustenance. If we reject that Scripture is what it claims to be, then we're rejecting God's provision and calling it insufficient.
It seems to me that demanding that Scripture be the Word, and claiming that it is useless otherwise, is rejecting what God has given us, and calling it insufficient.
I know people who believe the Bible to be a text, written by people, testifying to their relationship with God, whose only virtue is that it is a signpost to get you onto the road with God... And yet, some of these people are so full of the Holy Spirit that it's occasionally surprising that they have to buy wine instead of just running it from the tap.
Sufficient? What is sufficient is air to breathe, and food to eat. This is sufficient to lead us to God, and even the Bible grants that nature itself shows us this. That, and grace, is sufficient. We have no need of talismans or authorities to be saved, save the One from whom all authority comes.
The Bible is really neat, and I'm glad we have it, but it seems to me that you're the one denying the sufficiency of things which are plainly sufficient.
I'm talking about genuine documented errors such as what's referred to above. What you'd refer to as errors in actual Scripture are not of this nature.
They seem similar enough to me.
The fact that Scripture describes things in different categories than the ones that were developed thousands of years later isn't error. It's merely communication that was written to be meaningful to its original audience.
The fact that Scripture refers to six-legged creatures as having four legs, and talks about flying things which walk on four legs, suggests to me that it is plainly factually wrong on at least one point. Same goes for the "smallest" of all seeds, the mustard seed, which isn't the smallest seed by far.
As you say; it is written to be meaningful to its original audience.
I didn't say that your positions are uncritical. I said that you've uncritically accepted a Roman Catholic view of church history. Obviously you reject Roman Catholicism for other reasons.
I don't think that's true either, though. I don't necessarily accept all of their claims about church history.
What, specifically, about this claim has not been sufficiently demonstrated as true in the article I linked you to?
The whole thing, really. It's not demonstrably proven, it's asserted and marginally supported.
Not every compilation of Scripture that included the apocrypha between its covers held the apocrypha as God-breathed Scripture, so your reference to the King James is meaningless.
Not at all; that would give us a distinction between "books in the Bible" and "scripture".
Once you ask the right question, then examine the arguments of both Roman Catholics and evangelicals as to what OT Israel held as their canon, and the answer is apparent.
Well, the answer I came to is "Israel did not have firm agreement on this question at that time".
In fact, ultimately the only answer the Roman Catholic Church has to offer is that we must accept the canon on the basis of its authority alone.
Indeed. I think they're entirely right; I have found no evidence to support the idea that there is any other organization that has any records at all to testify to what is or isn't "really" Scripture.
Scripture doesn't just "suggest" this, we're commanded to do so. But what, pray tell, do you test everything against?
Everything else.
What's your ultimate standard? The standard we're given is the revelation of God.
Indeed.
If you reject the idea of an infallible source of revelation, then you have nothing against which to test truth claims but your own autonomous judgment.
You're right.
I am where I am for the same reason that so many people in this forum reject the convenience of having a teaching authority to infallibly guide you in understanding Scripture; I am not yet convinced.
It's a little scary, but as long as God sticks with me, I am not alone.
Why do you ask for extra-Biblical evidence?
Because I refuse to engage in question-begging.
There's a great deal of internal evidence for the divine nature of Scripture, but who or what is above God who can authoritatively testify on His behalf?
I'm not asking for testimony for God, but testimony that this book you keep waving around has anything to do with Him.
Again, the ultimate premises from which we reason cannot be logically proven.
Right. So, we have faith. You have faith that the Bible is infallible in a specific way. I don't. I still have faith in other things, just not that one.
You seem to understand that, but you don't seem to understand that if God has spoken, that must be the ultimate reference point that cannot and need not be proven.
I don't understand it because it's wrong. If three things, or a dozen things, have spoken, and each claims to be God, then I must indeed test them to find out which one is true. You claim you know what God says, but so do the Mormons, and the Muslims, and the Jews.
You say that you recognize God's voice in Scripture, and yet you deem it right to demand proof for the infallibility of Scripture.
Indeed. I do this because, when I read Scripture, God shows me how proud He is of His people... but He seems to lead me to be impressed by the insights of people into His nature, which would make no sense if He actually wrote the book. The only time I recognize His voice directly is in this one Jew who shows up a lot in the New Testament. You might have heard of him. He's the Word of God.
There is no non-circular source for the ultimate reference point. You should believe that the Bible is infallible if you believe God.
Get in line with the people who want me to believe that the Koran is infallible, because I should believe that if I believe God.
If you can't show me a reason to accept your claim that a given text is actually authored by God, then I won't accept it.
I can't convince you that it's God speaking. The Scriptures, themselves, claim to be "God-breathed" which has a much stronger connotation than the kind of "inspiration" one would be talking about in the context of an "inspired" sermon or something.
So some people say, but I have not found the argument convincing. Furthermore, many texts claim to be written by God, or dictated by God, or whatever.
It was an assertion with Biblical backing. Jason showed you how this is an appropriate way to speak of Scripture according to Scripture, itself. To reject it is to reject Scripture.
No. It's to reject
human interpretation.
You may say that you're only rejecting Jason's interpretation of Scripture, but I didn't see a single person on that thread offer anything to rebut Jason's interpretation.
So? Something can be false and unrebutted. I read the thread long enough to understand that this was just another bit of human theology tacked onto God, and stopped worrying about it.
Indeed, but you certainly must also see that it teaches that man fell into sin and rebellion, and that unregenerate man is at enmity with God.
The way I understand this is doubtless very different from the way you understand this.
The worldview revealed in Scripture is proven not by evidences, but by the impossibility of the contrary. Since only the Christian worldview can make reality intelligible, while all opposing worldviews render reality unintelligible, this is the proof for the reliability of Scripture. But the persuasion is of the Holy Spirit.
This is the worst argument ever; presuppositionalism is, so far as I can tell, contrary to both faith and reason. It's also just plain dodgy. Even if we grant the theoretical assumption that knowledge can only come from an infallible revelation, you've offered no reason for it to be the one you like. Furthermore, I don't see any reason I should accept that perfectly reliable knowledge is possible to me; indeed, it seems very unlikely.
The religion I hold to can be supported without question-begging. Perhaps I do not believe every true thing I could; perhaps I am mistaken about some things I do believe. Hoowever, I am being as honest as I can, and seeking truth as best I can, and I would rather have uncertainty than smugness. God answers my prayers in the way He sees fit, and I am content with this.
