Question for Christian theologians

Re: Re: Tipping points & judgment day

Well, like I didn't know all THAT already!

Thanks for articulating the doctrine of "saved by faith, and faith alone" though so clearly for our Lutheran brethren....

 

Re: Tipping points & judgment day

Carl,

Honest inquiry might get you some discussion on these topics and questions from me, but certianly not sardonic, impish criticism and attempts to make fools of those of us who have sincere convictions.

Respect us as we respect you, Carl.

 

Re: Re: Re: Tipping points & judgment day

These are all fair and excellent questions, Bill.

Perhaps you don't know what "sin" is. I actually didn't when I was first approached with the idea. Remember, if you've read my posts, you know I had no religious experience or background from which to draw when I came to know the One I call Jeshua as my Messiah.

Sin is that which separates us from G-d, when we fall short of His absolute standards--which are absolute perfection--, when we are in any disobedience to His will for us. If you've ever done anything wrong, for which you have good cause to feel uncomfortable--and surely you are not unique among all men in this matter?--then you've sinned. Sin can be acts of omission--those things that we should've done but failed to do. Sin can be subtle, such as a secret hatred--and if you'd like to know if you have one of these, ask yourself if you've ever in your life wished ill will upon another. Not just a friend, but your most despised enemy--again, I doubt you are unique among men in this matter. No one on the outside may ever know it of this secret hatred, but it's still there staining your character. Jeshua said that if you hate another--even your bitterest enemy, the one whom all would agree you have reason to hate--then you are a murderer! Strong words, but if true, think of the implications: under the right circumstances, with perhaps a less advantageous upbringing, with less fear of the ramifications, with less inborn mental control, you would be very much capable of murdering that enemy in cold vengence.

My point is--and it's not really mine, it's from the Bible--that if you've ever slipped up in a thing, you slipped up in it all, because you've demonstrated that yes, you too are capable of breaking G-d's will for you, of failing to meet the standards, if the circumstances are right. And I think you'll acknowledge that the circumstances seem right to that that which we know full well we shouldn't all the time. I see it all around me, on the nightly news, among my children, among colleagues and fellow church-goers, in a long line where someone selfishly cuts ahead, on this forum where most of us, at times, shade the truth in our favor to gain a point in a debate. We'd agree it's all wrong, I'm asking you to make the small step to acknowledging that if there is a G-d who made us and sets standards, that surely this behavior does not meet them--that it's all sin.

That might be true if He'd made them imperfect. But I do not believe He made them that way. He made them absolutely perfect, but with the capacity to do that which they so desire. G-d did not make automatons who love Him and obey Him simply because they have no other choice, because they can do nothing but love Him. Put it another way, your wife or your lover--I assume you have one or the other, hopefully not both, except they be collapsed into one delightful woman--loves you because there are certainly qualities within the man Bill Dayson that seem noble and desirable to her: she likes the set of your jaw, the laugh lines around your eyes, your quick wit, your kindness, the way you take her in your arms and she feels nothing can ever hurt her. And you derive great pleasure from this--or you should. Because she loves you by her own free will. She could love another, but among the other three billion men with whom you in theory compete, she chose you. There's a great deal of fulfillment in that for both parties.

And so it is with G-d and us. Love is not love unless it's freely given.

As G-d made us perfect but with the choice of whether we'd like to stay within His protection and love or reject it by rebelling against Him, we have the capacity to sin, which at bottom, is any sort of rebellion against G-d. You may or may not know that I believe that sin entered the world when humankind determined that they did not want to remain lovers of G-d and rebelled against Him. At that point--by the free choice of humans, not by G-d's imperfect construction of our character--death and disease and destruction and wars and selfishness and hate entered the world. You could, in theory, break out of this pattern. I do not believe it's inevitable that you follow it. But you have. And so have I. Not because G-d made us with some fatal flaw, but because sin entered the world a long time ago, when humankind acquired the knowledge of what was right and what was wrong and by free will chose the latter over the former. And because, more importantly, we individually choose to follow in that rebellion against the One who made us and loves us.

 

That's twice in a few days I've gotten nailed for poor spelling. Thanks, fellas! I really mean that, no irony here. Every time you ding me I learn another word! I've still got a lot to learn.

 

Re: Re: Re: Tipping points & judgment day

Sorry, but you acted as if you didn't know it. Were you just yanking Jimmy's chain? Why would one broach the subject of a "tipping point" of sins if they had a clear understanding of salvation by grace through faith rather than works? You sounded for all the world as if you'd never acquainted yourself with those words of Paul.

 

Faith alone? Okay. But doesn't the book of James caution us that "Faith without Works is dead" ? How do you, little fauss, reconcile this with your view that good works are not necessary for justification?

 

Yeah, Carl, us impish sardonic Lutherans could use some help.

 

From the Rev. Dr. Harold M. Parker, Jr.'s HIST 501: The Reformation Era, 1500-1650 (Western State College, Spring 1985):

Catholic position: Salvation is by faith plus works.
Lutheran position: Salvation is by faith alone.
Presbyterian position: Salvation is by faith alone, but good works are the fruit and the evidence of a saved life.

 

Another excellent point.

James was the younger brother of Jeshua (Jesus), in fact, after Jeshua's ressurection, He appeared privately to his little brother, who'd always had trouble accepting a big brother as G-d incarnate--as one can well imagine! But his closeness to Jeshua make his words something that we must take a hard look at. Of course, the fact that I believe they were written under the inspiration of G-d has something to do with my feelings on that matter!

And he's absolutely right when he says "Faith without works is dead." Show me a man who claims to have faith but doesn't have the works that very naturally and inevitably proceed from that claimed faith and I'll show you a liar who's deceiving only himself. If a man claims to have the most unimaginably powerful thing that can be living within him--that is the Kingdom of God--and such is not evidenced in his life, then it's fair to ask: "Who's kidding whom?"

But what we must always do in our exegesis is let the Bible interpret itself, to take all of it together, not just one part that we magnify and hang our hats upon irregardless of the rest. "Faith without works is dead" is incoherent unless also read alongside the other Bible verse that tells us "We are saved by faith through grace, not works, so no one has the right to boast." And of course, the latter is also incoherent without reference to the former.

 

Uncle Janko, this was not pointed towards Lutherans or you or anyone except Carl.

 

Hi Ted: The "Lutheran" and "Presbyterian" positions are both best represented by the "Presbyterian" position as you listed them. Justification is God's work alone, but faith will necessarily bear fruit in good works (sanctification). Now whether you or I necessarily perceive those good works in another person is another matter--we might, we might not. Good works might be many or few. But if good works were utterly absent in an absolute sense, then justifying faith would presumably be absent (dead) as well. What God does not do is monergistically work justification and then retreat into a legalistic demand for good works in order to keep one's salvation; good works will be there when saving faith is there, that is, works for one's neighbour's sake guided by the "third use" of the Law, NOT arbitrary human rules cooked up by the long-aforementioned pietistic wackos (Schwaermer).

 

I concur with this. Not that that necessarily gives it any additional authority.

And what does "monergistically" mean?

 

Holy rosary beads, Batman!

I get away from this thread for a little while and when I come back it feels too big to get caught-up with. I have stuff that I want to respond to from back near the upper third or so of the previous page! Yikes! Where to begin.

 

Re: Holy rosary beads, Batman!

I don't know, read whatever, just don't try to pick through my stuff too much, I started rambling a bit. The more passionate I am on a subject--the worse my reasoning and writing!

 

I tried to follow the thread. I even went to the web and read a couple of overviews of denominations within Christianity. I have a slightly better understanding of some things but my main conclusion was that I don't want to understand bad enough to ever spend the time necessary to really understand. I will have to remain living in ignorance on thiese issues.

Once we are ready to vote on the final conclusions, I will bestow upon Bill Dayson the right to file my vote.

 

Let me just make this as laconic as possible:

We all fall short of the standard. We all sin.

The penalty for sin is death. Eternal death.

But G-d paid your penalty when He died for you.

Accept that fact, acknowledge it, ask Him to forgive you, and you'll live forever. Even though you don't, technically, deserve to.

Why? Because He loves you.

Sounds corny, like some half-baked tract passed out by a guy on a street corner with a hairstyle a generation behind the times, but it's true.

 

Thanks for the response little fauss but you need to really convince Bill Dayson not me. I already gave my vote proxy to Mr. Dayson.

 

OK, I'll go to work on Bill. But I didn't think this thing could work by proxy.

Is there a theological principle for that proposition? Help, someone! Uncle Janko? Jimmy Clifton? Anyone with a theological take on the validity of salvation by proxy?

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tipping points & judgment day

Hi Little Fauss. Thanks for replying to my post.

I'm not sure whether 'sin' is a matter of morally bad acts, of acts that defy God's will (whatever their morality), of defects in our cognition or knowledge, of some kind of ritual impurity, of some mysterious congenital religious disease passed down from Adam, or what.

One would think that the mere fact that God is creator and man created would create a tremendous ontological separation in and of itself.

Tha's one of the reasons why the late antique patristic theologians were so interested in the 'begat'/'created' distinction. A son is of the "same flesh" as the father and is the same kind of being. But a pot is a different kind of being than the potter.

The Nicene creed goes to some lengths to emphasize it (opposing the Arians): "And in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten of the Father, as His only Son, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same substance (homo-ousios) with the father..."

In other words, if sin is what separates man from God, then the original fact of our being created would seem to have been the origin of sin.

I'd suggest that it is probably impossible for a created being to be perfect in the first place, because if perfection exists at all, it would seem to be a divine attribute.

And if disobedience is the definition of sin. that suggests that it is man's place to do only what he is told to do. That would make him into a puppet whose strings are pulled from above and create serious problems for the idea of free will.

But if humans were created with will and intelligence, then presumably it was meant that they should exercise those things to their utmost. That creates the possibility that people might disagree with God at some point and reach independent conclusions. And if human capacities are finite and if our information is limited and not always clear, that mortal condition almost guarantees that some of our choices will be imperfect.

If perfect beings are capable of making sinful choices, then sin would seem to be consistent with perfection. Otherwise, perfect beings would never choose to sin.

If I were to tell an intended lover: "Love me! Love me baby, or I'll hurt you. I'll hurt you real bad!", then I think that we've probably got some serious problems.

Love can only be freely given if it's uncoerced. The path to love isn't rape.

Treating rejection as something worthy of eternal damnation is a problem for this kind of theory. And treating any disagreement or independent choice as evidence of rejection only compounds the difficulty.

That seems to divorce the idea of sin from ethics and moral choice entirely. If it's true that we should choose good over evil, then apparently it's for some other reason than this sin thing.

Maybe humans should be looking at gradations in sin. In other words, differentiating between different grades of imperfection. But while it's probably salutory to keep in mind that all choices are imperfect, I think that denying that any choices are good probably does violence to everyday morality.

Jesus may equate hateful thoughts with murder, but here on earth we need to differentiate between them. Civil society and the legal system depend on those distinctions.

If I'm guilty, then how is Jesus' dying even relevant? How can personal guilt be transferred like that? How do innocent sacrifices "pay the price" for another person's (or community's) transgressions? It's things like this that suggest that 'sin' is something else, something more magical, than personal guilt.

How does one go about asking a God that he doesn't believe in to reveal himself?

Is it just saying the words? If so...

God, if you are there, please reveal yourself to me.

But I suspect that there's more than words necessary. There's got to be some kind of tiny inner movement.

It might not seem like much to preachers, who all seem to brag about how they were once "atheists" (which they seem to equate with living like a libertine) and who relate in triumph how they "accepted Christ". I think that virtually all of them were raised in Christian homes and believed as small children. Then they drifted away as adolescents and lived a secular life for a while. Eventually they reaffirmed their conservative faith, in an event that they call their 'conversion'.

But I wasn't raised in a Christian home or in a Christian context. I've never been a Christian.

So for me the preachers' easy little inner movement of faith is a harrowing thing, much as it was for Soren Kierkegaard in his 'Fear and Trembling'. It's a leap straight off a cliff into madness.

I fear that many people can will themselves to believe lots of different things. The problem isn't that it's impossible. The danger is that it's too easy. I might will myself to accept Jesus Christ. Or I might decide that I need to kill myself in order to live a sanctified life on comet Hale-Bopp.

Is the Holy Spirit speaking to me? Or is it just the gibbering voices of schizophrenia in my head? Who knows? Who can say? It's a real problem and a sense of subjective certainty doesn't seem to be nearly enough.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tipping points & judgment day

That doesn't really quite describe what's going on; with all due respect, I don't consider that the one's very deserved death via separation from G-d for an eternity can be rightly likened to "rape" or spousal abuse. G-d is trying to warn us of the natural consequences of rejecting His attempts to reconcile us to Himself. Again, as there can be no sin--which exists within us, by our own volition, irregardless of what we like to call it or where we like to throw the blame--in Heaven, there can be no sinner there. That sinner has to have some means of being cleased of that which would cause him to be incinerated in the presence of Perfect Goodness. G-d is merely warning us of the consequences that our actions will bring about. And He backed up these warnings by coming to Earth to die for us.

G-d Himself came to earth to die for your sins against Him, to die to atone for our black hatred of Him, to change our hearts so that we can experience true joy and eternal life. Hardly an abuser or a rapist!

I don't know how transferrence of guilt or atonement for sins by innocent blood works. But of course, just because I can't wrap it up in a neat box that appeals to my human logic and reason doesn't mean it's not true, that it doesn't work. And if it is really so and created by a G-d who could waive a universe 15 billion light years from end-to-end in existence with His hand, I don't think I'd necessarily expect to be able to grasp such a thing with my rather meager brain.

Why do we think that the only things that can be are those that we can understand? Is that not supremely man-centered and the height of arrogance?

I can't begin to comprehend the vastness of the Universe or even our own solar system. I can observe it as dots in the sky or as more in a telescope, but I can't really understand much of it, and neither can anyone else. So it is with G-d: of course we can't grasp the meaning or the logic of all He does, but we can certainly observe His effects on the Universe. You're observing them now as you read this--I'm a completely different person than I was 20 years ago. And the change was pretty much in a moment, though I didn't quite know it or understand it at first.

Good question. Again, I don't know, but all I can speak from is experience: I prayed that prayer, I prayed it sincerely, and while I was praying it I was pretty close to your current position; I was rather agnostic as to G-d's existence or His work through His Son. I think the prayer went something like: "Jesus, if you really do exist...".

Of course, I said prayed it "sincerely"--not just as a blue-lettered joke or rhetorical device. You must take the leap that C.S. Lewis and Isaac Newton and Charles Dickens took. But you must, like these great men before you, acknowledge your inadequacies at understanding much of anything and at saving yourself from your own sin and folly.

And I didn't say it wouldn't be a terrifying leap!