Calling someone a fool

[Drakona]

LOL, oh dear. On the one hand, it's wonderful to see one of my oldest Descent heroes return. On the other... lol, what a mess! If it took me a long post to answer Will's four or five questions, it would take a book to do justice to the issues you bring up! I'll do what I can, and if I miss something you find important, bring it up again. There are some seriously complex and deep issues, and it takes time, thought, and mental discipline to understand them rightly.

You bring up the Inquisition and the Crusades, conversion and belief and sword point. I have my own historical thoughts on them, but they're probably beyond the scope of this thread. Let me say this, though. There are very dark spots in Christianity's past. I don't deny that. To me, these are like the dark spots in America's past. America has been involved in slavery, opression, wanton destruction, and who knows what else. But somehow these don't impact the fact that I love America. I don't love America for its own sake, or because it's the country I live in, but for what it's supposed to be, the ideals we love and pursue and the society we and those before us strove to build. I don't see the dark spots as characteristic of America, but rather as deviations from its intended character. Mistakes, horrible as they may be, that were contrary to its nature and which have since mended. A true patriot loves the good, acknowledges the bad in its full depth, and strives for and takes joy in the mending.

In the same way, I love the Church, despite the dark spots in its history. I see those as deviations from its true character. I in fact will go farther than you in criticizing the Church--not only do I think the Church was wrong in the middle ages, I think the church has NEVER been what it was intended to be. From an early church marked by heresy and immaturity, through a medieval church marked by arrogance, worldliness and barbarity, to a modern church filled with secularism, division, and lack of moral and spiritual discipline, I see the historical church as having failed wholesale in what it was meant to be. You see a church that was once unforgivably barbaric--there was torture, destruction, intellectual intolerence, and devious political power and control. I see all that, as well as a church that painfully failed and continues to fail on many, many other levels. To me, the crusades are not even the biggest failures, only the most visible to outsiders. And yet I love the Church in full acknowledgement of all that. I love it for the places where it has succeeded and the ways in which it has mended, but even more I love what it was meant to be, and strive to make it that way.

Separate the institution from the ideal. America has failed, and continues to fail in many ways--yet what it was striving for, and what it continues to strive for is noble and something I love. The Church, too, has historically failed in some terrible ways. Yet the Church as God intended it is what I love, and what I strive to build. It's also what I see myself as a part of--I don't see myself as Baptist, Evangelical, or even as a member of the Christian community, so much as I see myself as a member of the universal Church.

If I may head off topic for a moment, the concept of what the church is, is worth expanding on. Understand that the church is not, and was never intended to be, the group of people that meet together on Sunday morning. It is rather the community of believers in Jesus Christ. A church is not the building, it is not the non-profit organization, it isn't in the singing or the preaching. The church is the people--the community, living with one another, serving God, and growing together. The Church is universal--there is only one church, and that is why I keep referring to it as "the church." I have attended informal prayer meetings online that I consider much, much closer to real church than any "real church" I have ever attended.

Maybe a good way to explain this would be with a Descent analogy. It's the same way that IDL was a manifestation of the Descent community. You could even argue that it was the definitive manifestation--it defined how we see Descent today, what we view as a superior pilot and it fundamentally impacted the grounds on which we universally compete. But as an institution, it was not the community itself. Nor is the DBB, nor any other institution--rather, the community is the reality behind those institutions. If IDL, or the DBB, or Kali, or some other place screwed up and sold out Descent, it would be a blight on community history to be sure, and certainly on those members of the community inside the institutions, but it would not be as though the community *itself* had sold out. There would always still be people out there who love Descent and hold true to the competetive ideals central to the community, and no institutional mistake can shake that. There is a good deal of overlap between the institution and the community, and if one is guilty, the other is as well, to a degree--I am not writing this to excuse the "real Church." I just think it worth noting that they are different. Talking to me about the crusades is like some young Descenter talking to me about some shameful political incident on IDL. I mean, while I wasn't there, it is a blight on the history of the community I'm a part of, to be sure, and I don't shrink from the full reality of that. But at the same time, the community is something I see as a lot larger and slightly different than that.

Now, let me shift gears and talk about your other criticism: that God is self-oriented.

The ultimate answer, I know, is "for his pleasure," ... The longer answer is, he made us such that we would mess up and so that he would save us.

Self-oriented and self-oriented.

You claim self-orientation is what makes us flawed. The same behavior evidenced by God gets labeled differently?

Well, yeah. Let me back up a bit. The original question was, "Why did God make man?" (Actually, it was "Why did God make man the way he is?" but let me consider the larger question). And I said that I knew the ultimate answer was, "For his pleasure," but that the how and why of that are complicated and difficult. This you criticize as self-oriented, and indeed it is. But I think you will not find it so offensive if you understand better what I mean.

When I say God made man for His pleasure, I don't mean that in the naive way. I don't mean he made man to enjoy the way you enjoy an ice cream cone--an immediate and simple pleasure. That would imply that God smiles and fills with delight when he looks down on man in all his flawed and barbaric glory. I don't mean that. Rather, I mean he made man to enjoy the way you enjoy playing Descent: with sweat, tears, blood, groaning, and ultimate delight.

There are different levels of motivation for us, different levels on which we can do things for our pleasure. When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I want to stay in bed, and I could do that for the pleasure of sleeping another hour. Or I can get up and go to work at a job I love--and this is again for my pleasure. The odd thing here is that whether I decide to get up or sleep, I ultimately do it for my pleasure--it's just that the first case is for immediate pleasure, and the second involves some immediate pain for ultimate pleasure.

(Let me pause here and note that when I say God made man for his pleasure, I mean it in the deep and ultimate sense--that God ultimately does *everything* for his pleasure, and so do I and so do you. To me it is an equivalent phrase to "it is in his nature" or "he wanted to." But it isn't as void of meaning as this would seem to imply--I'm not saying that "God did it because that's what God would do." Well, actually, that is what I'm saying, but it isn't meaningless, as you'll see below.)

God's reasoning in making man is like the second--getting up in the morning for ultimate pleasure instead of sleeping for immediate pleasure--and that is what is contained in my statement that the how and why is difficult. I know man is ultimately made for God's pleasure, but the intermediate reasons are many and complicated, and in the mean time we cause God a lot of pain. Perhaps the best picture is that God created us for his pleasure the way you might have children for your pleasure--you want a child to love (you want him to love you back, too, but this is not the entire point--you want to love him as well). You know it's going to cause you a lot of pain and grief, it's going to be a lot of work, and there are going to be times you wish you hadn't done it. Nonetheless, it is ultimately a joy--and that's why you did it in the first place.

Seeking pleasure isn't always wrong. It isn't even always "second best." There are occasions on which it's noble--consider the artist who labors over his work, pours passion and time into it--all for the glory of the finished piece. He's driven to do it ultimately for the pleasure of creating and beholding the finished piece, and yet somehow it's noble! Indeed, art that is done for any other reason than the joy and passion of the artist, we somehow consider second rate. This is not an idle analogy--the Bible says man is God's artwork, and uses an artistic analogy, saying man is made in God's image.

If the picture you paint of God's reason for creating man were correct, you would be right in saying that he is wrong to be self-centered. If it were the case that God created man solely so that man could worship God for God's pleasure, with no consideration of man whatsoever, that would be selfish. If God were like the American Idol producers, and let man go through so much pain for nothing but his own profit, that would be selfish. If God created man and said, "Love me or else!" as you say, that would be horrific. But that is not what I meant, and God is not that way.

The ways in which man brings God pleasure are many and varied. God delights in man because of who he created him to be--specifically because man is God's artwork, and God loves him for what he sees. God delights in showing love to man, in blessing man, in doing good to man, simply because God delights in doing good! God delights in teaching man and causing him to grow, and he delights when man picks himself up from his ruin and does right. God delights too when man turns to him and loves him back. I do not know if there are other pieces of God's relationship with man or not--God is complicated, and I do not claim to understand all of why he does what he does, only what he has written and what I have learned. But I do know that this last reason is not the sole reason God enjoys man--indeed, I am not even sure it is the major reason, although it might be. Ultimately, many of the reasons that God delights in man *are* others-oriented, and grounded in a deep love of good and care for man.

This is also what is contained in my statement that God made man flawed on purpose, for his pleasure. I do not know this for a fact (it's not from the Bible), but I think God wanted to save us. Like you might want a child to love, I think God wanted a people to save. I think his accomplisment of salvation through Christ's death is something he extremely delights in having done, and I think it's something he wanted to do when he created man. I don't know for sure that that is true (it is a consequence of some of the theological and philosophical stances I take, but I could be wrong). While I don't know it for sure, from what I know of God, I suspect it.

The shorter catechism goes, "What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." (In that quotation, "end" doesn't mean "final state" but rather "purpose"--it's antiquated language.) God made man for God's pleasure in man, for the glory that man as a creation would bring God--and he also made man for the pleasure man would take in God--ultimately, that idea pleased God, too. Is that selfish? I suppose it is, in that God did it for his own pleasure--but even if that is the ultimate motivation, it certainly isn't all the intermediate motivations; one of the things God takes pleasure in is that man takes pleasure in God. (Man was created in part to enjoy--to enjoy sex, to enjoy the world, to enjoy life to the fullest, and to enjoy doing good. Indeed, Jesus summed up the purpose of his mission this way--"I came that you might have life and have it abundantly!" (John 10:10) I have heard it argued that the Christian ought to live a life of "holy hedonism.")

If you think everything that is selfish is wrong, then you'll think God is in the wrong for doing all of that, since the ultimate reason was that he delighted in it. Knowing you, Sirian, I wouldn't be surprised if you *did* say that with a full understanding of the philosophical consequences and implications. But if that's the case, I'll disagree with you. When the above is considered, I think God's creation of man is gloriously *right*--and something more. It's deeply awesome artistry.

------------

I want to note in parting that your complaint that offering heaven as a reward for love is selfish misses the point of my last post. Heaven isn't a reward for requested love, it's an abode in which to enjoy mutual love. You criticise conversion as "conversion at the end of a threat of eternal suffering, damnation, isolation, pain, or whatever else." But coming to God is not about avoiding hell, it is about being with God. Coming to God to avoid hell is like getting married to avoid lonliness and financial instability. If there isn't love there, it's supremely messed up, and the same is true of Christian salvation.

Consider what Lothar said: the chief characteristic of hell is not the fire, as pop culture would have it, but the separation from God. The cheif characteristic of heaven is not the streets of gold, but the presence of God. I said in my last post that if God's presence doesn't delight you, you probably wouldn't even like heaven.

Let me make an even stronger statement--and this is philosophy, not theology, but it is what I believe. Your experience on earth is a preview of eternity. If you know God, you live in a little piece of heaven. If you don't know him, you live in a little piece of hell. Eternity will just be more of what you already have of the presence of absence of God. If when you think of God, you feel fulfillment and delight because you know him, you've got a foretaste of heaven; if you feel lonliness and frustration because you don't know him, that's a foretaste of hell. Those who go to hell only go because they don't want to be with God, and they only suffer the absence of the God the reject. Coming to God if you don't really want to, just to avoid hell is not only wrong motivation, it's also a silly idea. Though I'll think you foolish to not want to be with God in the first place, if you'd rather be without him, why bother avoiding hell? The absence of God is all that hell is.

(I want to note again that my thoughts on the nature of hell are my own belief, and they are a decisive deviation from Christian culture. Though I think them based on Biblical princple, the Bible isn't that specific. True, the Bible does describe hell as a "lake of fire", but I think it's metaphoric--fire is an excellent picture of what lonliness feels like. And other descriptions if hell don't emphasize extreme heat, but rather that it's a place full of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Parables Jesus tells emphasize the "being shut out of the party" aspect much more than the "pain and suffering" aspect--so much so that I think "shut out of the party" is the point.)

I've left a number of points unanswered, not because I don't have thoughts on them, but for the sake of brevity (HAH, in a post this long!). Ask again if they're important, and I'll provide more detail. I hope that all makes sense.

-Drak

(P.S., Flabby remember when you said this place was a bar, not a seminary? I think the seminary side might be showing through... )

[Lothar]

Welcome back, Sirian. It's been far, far too long... I've missed your contributions.

You claim self-orientation is what makes us flawed [actually this was De Rigueur's claim. -Lothar]. The same behavior evidenced by God gets labeled differently?.... I for one would expect Him to be entirely absent of self-centeredness.

In order to really deal with this, you have to delve into the very relevant question of *why* De Rigueur identified self-orientation as a "flaw" in us. Is self-orientation wrong simply because it's wrong, or is it wrong for specific reasons that apply to both us and God, or is it wrong for reasons that apply to us but not to God? I think it's wrong for reasons that don't apply to God.

Self-orientation is wrong for us because we, ourselves, are not worthy of being the focus of such attention. It's wrong because it's essentially an elevation of the worth of "self" over the worth of "other", when "self" is actually worth no more than those we interact with. It's wrong because it's an overvaluing of "self". It's wrong because a focus on "self", combined with a lack of understanding, leads to behavior that is for one's own pleasure at the expense of others. But none of these objections hold with respect to God -- He is worthy of being the focus of such attention; He is worth more than the "other" He interacts with; He cannot be overvalued; He does not lack understanding that would lead to behavior at the expense of others. So yes, the same behavior (self-orientation) by God *should* be labeled differently than it is when we engage in it, because the reasons for self-orientation being wrong for us don't apply to God.

But isn't self-orientation bad *anyway*, as your American Idol example demonstrates? Not really -- you get to your conclusion by being sloppy with the term "self-oriented". You begin by identifying a behavior as self-oriented, and then you equate self-orientedness with self-centeredness, and in particular, with the dark side of self-centeredness, which you demonstrate as bad. You treat it as though any action that is self-oriented is necessarily inconsiderate or unfair to others, but that's not a warranted conclusion. In response to the idea that God made man "for His pleasure" you respond that you don't think "He would indulge His own pleasure at the expense of others". And I agree with you -- I would expect God to be free from that sort of self-centeredness. But then, none of us is arguing He would indulge His own pleasure "at the expense of others", only that He indulged His own pleasure in creating people the way He did. (Drakona has written much about self-oriented behavior, which I won't repeat here.)

For centuries, the church authorities [forced conversions]... A pledge of love and loyalty born of fear of the consequences of not making that pledge isn't much of a treasure... And yet how is that different from conversion at the end of a threat of eternal suffering, damnation, isolation, pain, or whatever else?

It is no different. But how is conversion at the end of various threats (sword, hell, etc.) relevant to this thread?

You're assuming that Christianity says God is somehow interested in people "converting" -- that is, in people holding the right theological beliefs, calling themselves by the right name, etc. You're assuming that Christianity has a concept of God who is interested in scaring people into following Him. But I said just a few posts ago that "He does not desire people to follow Him out of selfish motives [referring to avoiding hell, etc], but out of love." I've made it clear time and time again that God isn't interested in making people follow the right set of rules because they've been threatened -- He is interested in being in relationship with people who want to be in relationship with Him. As De Rigueur noted, everyone gets what they want -- those who want Him get Him, and those who don't want Him get separation from Him. As I noted, this is what heaven and hell are -- with God, or not with God. And as Drakona noted, "if God's presence doesn't delight you, you probably wouldn't even like heaven."

Truth is all around us. You don't have to go anywhere specific to find it. Just open your eyes and engage your mind.

I find contradiction in the notion that God's purposes are too complex for us to begin to comprehend, yet all He bothers to say to us can be contained entirely within this or that book

Be aware that not all sources of truth are equal, and not all are easily interpreted. Be careful to test all of the sources of truth you encounter. To reverse the point a little bit... truth is all around us, including in various religious books. Open your eyes and engage your mind when you read them, as well. This is what scholarship is.

If you read what Drakona and I regularly write, you'll see that we often reference the fact that God does not limit Himself to communication only through one book. In this very thread, we've spoken over and over again about having a relationship with God -- and the very nature of relationship requires that He say things which are not contained entirely within this or that book, since relationship implies direct communication. The life of Jesus was communication outside of any book, though much of it was recorded. The prophets got their messages directly from God, outside of any book, though many of these messages were later compiled into a book. Jesus tells us that "the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" and this teaching is outside of any book. God says many things to us directly, and through others who know Him, as well as through the writings of His messengers in the past (which include, but are not limited to, Biblical texts.) So yes, I find contradiction in the notion that everything God bothers to say to us can be contained within a single book -- and the book I'm referencing agrees.

[Flabby Chick]

(P.S., Flabby remember when you said this place was a bar, not a seminary? I think the seminary side might be showing through... )

LOL i was thinking that too. I don't mind these theological duels, in fact i find them fascinating. They'll be a tad more entertaining now that sirian is back, also a bit of a hero of mine when i was a nubee DBB lurker.

It's posts like the one before yours that pisses me off.

FC

[Drakona]

*nod* Yeah, I was wondering about that. Spammy. I clicked through to the site and was like 0_o

[Lothar]

Yeah, my finger hovered dangerously close to the red button on that one... but it looks pretty harmless.

[Duper]

Let me make an even stronger statement--and this is philosophy, not theology, but it is what I believe. Your experience on earth is a preview of eternity. If you know God, you live in a little piece of heaven. If you don't know him, you live in a little piece of hell. Eternity will just be more of what you already have of the presence of absence of God. If when you think of God, you feel fulfillment and delight because you know him, you've got a foretaste of heaven; if you feel lonliness and frustration because you don't know him, that's a foretaste of hell. Those who go to hell only go because they don't want to be with God, and they only suffer the absence of the God the reject. Coming to God if you don't really want to, just to avoid hell is not only wrong motivation, it's also a silly idea. Though I'll think you foolish to not want to be with God in the first place, if you'd rather be without him, why bother avoiding hell? The absence of God is all that hell is.

(I want to note again that my thoughts on the nature of hell are my own belief, and they are a decisive deviation from Christian culture. Though I think them based on Biblical princple, the Bible isn't that specific. True, the Bible does describe hell as a "lake of fire", but I think it's metaphoric--fire is an excellent picture of what lonliness feels like. And other descriptions if hell don't emphasize extreme heat, but rather that it's a place full of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Parables Jesus tells emphasize the "being shut out of the party" aspect much more than the "pain and suffering" aspect--so much so that I think "shut out of the party" is the point.)

I concure. I'm actually amazed to find someone that views Heaven this way. You are correct that this deviates from the "norm" in current church idology. I never could understand why people got so excited about streets made of gold. In hell, I also believe that there is more than loneleness although being made aware of what you will not be able to have for THE REST OF EXISTANCE ...(that's a very long time). That would be very bad. You are right, I believe, when you said that the "Lake of Fire". is a metephore. Much of what is stated in scripture is a metephore.

Of what I have glimpsed, Paul was quite correct; This is a shadow of things to come. Hollow. In heaven, light is a living thing. It's hard to describe. ...So I guess that darkness in that relm is absolute.

Also, it seems to me that implying or rather refering to God as being self-centered assumes that God is not wholely good. That He, himself, is flawed as we are; which came about by a choice made by Man. Before that, Man was perfect also.

[snoopy]

The questions Sirian brough up about seeking self gain being bad were some I asked when I really started thinking about romantic relationships when they start getting serious. I don't think a marriage will be good if both parties just seek their own pleasure. At the same time, a marriage is far too much work/frustration to simply do for another person, without any consideration for ones self. Therefore, marriage is an example of a mutually selfish relationship, that in order to be good must be defined by a desire to please the other person. It seems to be oxymornic, yet it isn't. If both members dedicate themselves to pleasing the other person, both will derive pleasure from the relationship, thus leaving both to feel satisfied and contented with the relationship and both feeling a further desire to please the other person in gratitude. If you were to ask them why they got married, both would reveal (ultimately) selfish reasons- namely because they felt things that they like for the other person, and wanted to continue experiencing such feelings, therefore they married them. This isn't a perfect example (we all know how many marriages are not like this), but I think ideally that hows a marriage would work. There you are with an example of how selfishness can not only lead to other's gain, but moreover how selfishness can actually manifest itself as selflessness.

[Diedel]

I believe that the meaning of "being self oriented" has been distorted here. I believe that it is not self orientation to desire something. I believe that it has something to do with what is desired, and what is done to achieve it.

Sure, God desires to be loved by men, but he gave his own life for it. He gave himself completely, and he always will in every relationship he has. How can that be called "self oriented"?

To me, Sirian's argumentation is somehow like somebody saying "If God is omnipotent, why can't he do evil then, or why can't he make himself non-existant?" It is simply a wrong approach to the issue, one that doesn't really make sense.

I'd like to say something more about loving God. No human being can love God out of him/her self. Actually no human being can do anything that would please God at all. The only thing a human can do is to realize that there is a God, that he/she has completely failed to meet his standards, and that he/she can only accept his grace and forgiveness for this, in turn offering God to trust and follow him.

If he/she does this, the one thing will happen that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions in the world: God will do everything for you. He will renew your spirit (the instance of yourself that can communicate with God), and put the love towards him and his standards of living inside of you (this is what the bible means when speaking of giving us a heart of flesh, and writing his law into our heart).

All that is required by a human being here is to accept God's offer, like signing a contract. It is very simple, and for many people apparently it seems to be too simple.

[Sirian]

Drak, your reply deserves an equally rich reply, and I appreciate you taking time to reply in depth, but I will limit myself to one point for now.

But coming to God is not about avoiding hell, it is about being with God.

You don't get to declare this. Rather, it is a matter of free will. Not even God will step on this point, as He has declared this to be our choice to make.

A choice and the motivations behind it are not the same. Since the book in no way specifies certain motivations as invalid, but welcomes all who make the choice, that leaves all of the motivations on the table as valid.

The fate of the violent, who do the conversions by force, who threaten, who murder, who torture, their fate is a separate question than the fate of their "victims". Clearly, a greater ideal would be to save everybody and for everybody to be converted merely by osmosis. But that doesn't happen, does it? So do those who would not choose out of self-motivation get discarded? Or should we pick up our swords, sacrifice our own souls if need be, and go save them?

You can bet your bottom dollar that many who convert DO make the choice out of fear. They grow old, they get hurt, they're in a foxhole literally or figuratively, staring the possibility of death in the face. They face their mortality and the uncertainty of what lies beyond life, and they get scared. "Scared as Hell", to coin a phrase. Scared of Hell, of the unknown, in many cases frightened by the dire warnings given to them by so-called pious men.

There is something inherently flawed with a mechanism that values the choice ahead of the motivations behind it.

Why are the Crusades a dark time? You say this as if it were self-evident and indisputable. They may indeed have been a dark time, but why? If the choice is really as simple as choosing, without regard to why, or under what circumstances, for what motivations, involving which beliefs and considerations and pressures... then WHY are the Crusades bad? Why is the inquisition bad? If a soul is so precious, why aren't those who convert others AND SAVE THEIR SOULS hailed as heroes without regard to the method of the saving?

Perhaps the choice is not so simple after all.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

All that is required by a human being here is to accept God's offer, like signing a contract. It is very simple, and for many people apparently it seems to be too simple.

If God had no interest in informing the choice, He would have issued one sentence demanding (or asking for) your alliegiance. Since He didn't do that, apparently He sees value in informed choices and has no intent of freeing you of the responsibility to make your choices informed ones.

There are hundreds of thousands of words written for the sole purpose of teaching you, to enlighten you, to persuade you, to inform you, to uplift you. WHY? Why do those words exist? Assuming that God Himself designed that book to the last letter (not necessarily a point that I stipulate, but in this case for the sake of argument), nary a word in it would be out of place.

Perhaps you have listened a bit too closely to a desperate preacher who himself lacks comprehensive understanding, or who himself lacks faith in his parishioners to be able to learn the whole truth, or lacks faith in the book. There are some preachers who seem to believe that God was a bit too long-winded, and that it may be useful to "summarize" His word, or to focus on and emphasize certain passages, taken out of context, at the expense of examining the book as a whole.

Instead of fixating on a few lines, consider the book as a whole. If God Himself needed a couple hundred thousand words to communicate His message, perhaps it is not as simple as you assert.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

Here are a few thoughts I'm going to toss out. These are questions, musings, wonderings, "what if" remarks, and other threads of thought. THESE ARE NOT DELCARATIONS, and if you respond to them as such you will be ignored. OK, here goes.


Many are called but few are chosen. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Could it mean that the Bible involves a grand logical puzzle, meant to make us think, and only those who think it all the way through will be the chosen ones? After all, what if God is testing our intelligence or our UNWILLINGNESS to be duped, rather than what the book claims? (How would you know?) Are you sure the book was meant to be taken entirely at face value? (Doesn't the fact that so much of it is written in parables and symbology rather than via straight-up commands and declaration say something about how much thought you're supposed to be putting into understanding its true message?) What if the few who are chosen are not among the blind-faith lazy thinkers, but those who actually take the time to solve the whole puzzle?

* When you love someone, you want them close to you. You want them as close to you as possible. You want them to be all they can be and more. You want THEM to shine. ... One then wonders, where's the love? If God "loves" us, why would He make us into lowly scum who can do nothing at all right EXCEPT to choose to abase ourselves in his presence? Why would He want us to declare ourselves as $#!+ unworthy to inhabit the soles of his shoes? Why would He delight in seeing us beg His mercy, that the sole purpose and use of our free will should be to freely surrender it back to Him and let Him makes all our choices for us?

I think some folks are missing something here. Perhaps some of you have been a little too reluctant to question what you've been taught.


Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not!" Adults get some crazy ideas. Yet innocent children often ask piercing questions, unless and until their parents beat the urge to question out of them.

Asking questions is good for you. Informed choices are a lot sturdier than blind ones. Don't let the faults and shortcomings of your spiritual elders set the boundary for you, to limit how far you personally can go in furthering your grasp on life's mysteries. Don't let others and their weakness stand between you and a closer, more meaningful one-to-one relationship with all that is or may be divine.


- Sirian

[Drakona]

[What follows is a long post. Readers advised to bring popcorn.]


Oh good, I'm glad you're still here, Sirian. I'll admit, as the days started to go by, I feared you'd left the thread...

Now, I'm going to do you the disservice of starting by criticizing your "questions, musings, and wonderings," and getting to your more direct criticisms and more relevant points later.

Baptist preachers, agressive atheists, and young Christians have some funny ideas about how to do Biblical research. It seems to be accepted practice to pull a verse or a phrase out of the Bible, imbue it with meaning foreign to the text, and then declare that meaning Biblical. This is exactly what you have just done, in your above post, twice. The phrase "Many are called but few are chosen" is taken from the Bible, and then a discussion follows about what it might mean, filled with philosophy and "what if"s but which in no way references the text itself.

To make the siliness of this evident, suppose I did the same in interpreting your post. Suppose I said the following:

"what if God is testing our intelligence"

What does Sirian mean by this? I think what he means is that God's chief goal for us in life is to build intelligence. We should all strive to get a good education, since at the entrance to heaven will be the Standardized Test To End All Standardized Tests. It will cover all subjects in amazing depth, including tests on knowledge, and puzzle solving tests for analytic and spacial thinking skills. The chief virtue of mankind is intelligence, and all of life is preparation for a test of intelligence.

If reading that didn't make your stomach turn, you must either be quite battle-scarred by internet debate, or not much of a scholar. The above is a mistake because Sirian made plain what he meant by the phrase--but his meaning is inferred from the rest of the post. As one example, he didn't mean "God is testing our intelligence" broadly in the sense that an SAT exam does (as imaginary Drakona thought), but rather that God is testing a very specific kind of analytic intelligence in a very specific way, seeing how well we analyze the Bible he has given us and the riddles therein. How do I know Sirian meant that? Because he made the remark in the context of suggesting that "the Bible involves a grand logical puzzle."

Surrounding clues in Sirian's post tell me how to interpret Sirian's post. Certainly not completely--that depends on how well he has explained his ideas--but to ignore those clues and make up my own interpretation of what he has written is simply bad scholarship. And subsequently attributing my ideas to Sirian is *really* bad scholarship.

The same is true with the Bible. In any passage, there are surrounding clues about how to interpret a given phrase, and ignoring those is simply bad scholarhip. But what people do that's *really* frightening is that they then take their mistaken interpretations and tack on a "thus sayeth the Lord [or Bible]"--as though they've really done the homework, and are convinced that's what the text is trying to communicate. This is as scholastically repulsive as if I wrote, "According to Sirian, the entrance exam for heaven is a big SAT test."

Different people do this for different reasons. Baptist preachers do it because they are engaging in prayer and meditation, using one piece of scripture as the inspiration to teach a truth that they get from elsewhere. That's the charitable explanation. The uncharitable one is that they're just lousy scholars (and this may have some merit ). Atheists do it because they think the Bible is nonsense; there's no point to looking for a sound and sensible interpretation of nonsense--might as well try to get a deep meaning out of "Horse cookie crumple corndog." (Though most atheists do admit the Bible to make grammatical sense, the ones I have engaged think that any analysis on the content level is pointless.) They simply don't look for meaning because they don't think it's there. Young Christians do this because they are taught from a young age to memorize Bible verses one at a time, in a vacuum out of context, and never taught to study the Bible as a whole. (This is perhaps --the-- most damaging effect of attending Sunday School). Other Christian critics do this because they think the Bible is like an eastern religious text--filled with koans and riddles that don't so much contain truth as they are a stimulus to thought; as many interesting interpretations as you can come with for a curious phrase are valid.

Regaurdless of why people do it, it remains bad scholarship, and certainly is inexcusible for anyone who claims to be a serious student of the Bible (whether or not they believe it's true).

Here's how to do it right.

Communication through text follows a process. The communicator begins ith a mental idea (often part of a larger framework). This idea is compressed into words, which are then transmitted from the speaker to the listener. The listener chooses an interpretation for the words, and that interpretation forms a mental image or idea for the listener.



(I'll thank you for not commenting on the skillz involved in my 5 minute MS Paint illustration... )

The thing to notice here is that this isn't a lossless compression algorithm--communication very rarely is, except in very constrained and technical circumstances. The speaker's idea of what he means by dog is a little different than the listener's idea--that's just the way it goes. Information loss can happen at any level of the chain, and it does in everyday circumstances.

Information loss can occur during compression--sometimes an idea is not completely expressed. In my first post in this thread, I loudly explained the Christian idea of sin, and went on and on about how guilty man was before God. If this was all the information you got from me, you would assume that Christians are gloomy people who think man is hopeless, but in fact, the Christian idea of man's relation to God has historically been called "good news"! I deliberately only expressed half of the idea (it's sin and grace--man's guilt and God's forgiveness). There was information loss in the compression phrase; you could not possibly have recontstructed the entire idea from that post because the information simply was not there. It was lost when the post was originally written.

Information loss can occur during transmission. People simply hear wrong, or sometimes data is garbled by noise. Sometimes this is obvious, e.g., the word "Desvent" has obviously had a letter garbled from what the writer intended. Sometimes this is comical--mishearing song lyrics is the point of humor on the site Kiss This Guy (from a misheard Hendrix song...). Sometimes the effect is subtle, and it talkes the speaker and listener a while to find the typo that triggered the misunderstanding.

Information loss can also occur during interpretation, and this is most common. It is the job of the interpreter to extract all of the information out of the text that they reasonably can, and some people are just lazy interpreters. We have all run into people who respond to our arguments, and we simply roll our eyes and say, "Read the post again." Information was lost, simply because the reader wasn't paying attention.

This understanding of communication applies to the Bible. (Not perfectly--for most of us, with the possible exception of De Rigueur and Flabby Chick, there is a translation step after transmission and before interpretation. The Bible wasn't written in English, and as with --any-- translation from one language to another, there is some information loss.)

Applied to the Bible, by far the strongest link in this chain is transmission. In the vast majority of cases (and I'm talking literally well over 99% of the time), we simply know what the original author wrote--the historical evidence is --that-- strong. (There are those who would disagree with me on this. The short and arrogant answer is, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about; trust me. For a longer and humbler answer, bring it up again.) There are places where the actual wording of the Bible isn't certain, but they are few and rarely consequential--for practical purposes, the transmission really can be treated as perfect.

The compression link is not as strong as some might suppose it to be. (No rotton tomatoes for heresy, please. Thank you.) Yes, God inspired the Bible, but that doesn't mean it's perfect in every respect that you might dream up, and compression is one way in which it isn't perfect. Certain truths are things God intended the Bible to teach, and it expresses them clearly, repeatedly, in different ways and words, so the concept is clear. But other truths are only expressed partially, misleadingly, or imperfectly. I remember having a conversation with an atheist about the Bible's teaching on alcohol, and having the most difficult time making him understand that all God believed on the subject *may* *not* be contained in scripture. (It very well may, but that's beside the point). The Bible is not constructed as a treatise on the morals of getting drunk; there is no guarantee that what we can piece together from incidental mentionings fairly represents all of God's view!

On most subjects, though, the interpretation link is by far the weakest one. There is simply a lot of information compressed into scripture, and finding a fair synthesis on a given subject takes a lot of work. And most people can't be bothered to do it. Even if we can be bothered to do it, it takes experience, intelligence, analytic ability, and there's still no guarantee we'll get it right. In my experience, for the vast majority of doctrinal disputes, a responsible, humble, careful reading of the scriptures either entirely dissolves the debate, or else makes it clear that the Bible doesn't speak on the subject--or at least that it doesn't speak as loudly as some people think it does. Such research is not fast and easy, but it is quite sound--just most people either don't know how or don't want to bother doing it.

It helps, too, to understand what a Christian means by the authority of scripture, in light of what I said about communication. There are many Christians in the world who think the *words* of scripture are inspired--some go so far as to endorse a particular translation (often King James Version) as inspired and infallible. I think this is a mistake--words by themselves have no meaning, so it's senseless to say words are infallible. The meaning resides in the original intent of the author.

In my view, a piece of scripture begins as an idea in God's mind. God transmits that idea (I don't know how) to a human author; I am not certain, but there may be information loss here--safer to assume there can be. The human author compresses the idea into text; there is certainly information loss here. The text is transmitted through history; there's practically no information loss here. The text is translated into the English Bible I have by my bed. There is certainly information loss here. That text is interpreted by me into an idea. There is a HUGE AMOUNT of information loss here, though less depending on how well I do my homework.

When all is said and done, the Bible is in principle, the infallible word of God. In practice, any meaning you ascribe to it comes from human interpretation. This isn't to say it is possible for the Bible to be wrong--I believe the Bible *as* *God* *meant* *it* cannot be wrong, but I also believe this knowledge is sometimes inaccessible to us. At the end of the day, knowledge that comes from the Bible is much like knowledge that comes from science: it can be flimsy, strong, or nearly certain, but it can *never* be philosophically certain. We're finite and can never know anything with absolute certainty. Those who use the Bible as a cheap solution to that are weak scholars.

Returning from that rabbit trail, all of that is good to keep in mind when doing Biblical interpretation. Understanding the strength with which the Bible speaks to a subject is in part a question of evaluating the strength of the modes of transmission (really compression and interpretation--I will assume transmission to be perfect, and I will not address translation--they are both worth keeping in mind, but they are not as large a concern as the other two, and so I will limit myself to what I consider more important).

Compression: This means evaluating how completely an idea is expressed. Here are some key questions to ask:

- Is the verse I'm looking at only giving half of the picture? Are there verses elsewhere in the Bible that complement it and give balancing information? Do I philosophically, morally, or scientifically know there *should* be balancing information, even if it isn't in the Bible? Sometimes this is made easy and balancing information is right around the corner, such as in the oft-quoted Romans 3:23, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," which continues in verse 24, "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The guilt is balanced by grace--one idea without the other would give a wrong impression.

- Is the idea I'm looking at what the passage seems to be teaching, or is it the point of the passage? Ideas that are addressed incidentally are more likely to be given partial treatments than ideas that are the main point. E.g., The compression error in this post is much lower for "what Drakona thinks about Bible interpretation" than "What Drakona thinks about postmodernism." True, there are clues as to the latter, but as it's not what I'm writing about, there's no guarantee I've fully expressed my view. You simply may not be able to piece it together. On the other hand, as I *am* trying to give a fair understanding of my view on Biblical interpretation, it's probably safer to infer that you understand from this post what I think.

- Is the idea I'm looking at expressed in detail? Ideas that are expressed in greater detail have less information loss than those expressed in less detail. If I say, "All have sinned," it's not immediately obvious what I mean by "all." Do I mean to include really good people? Jesus? God? Animals? Rocks? If I say, "All conscious human beings other than Jesus and possibly small children have sinned" it's much clearer. It could be clearer still depending on what I mean by "human beings" and "sinned" and "children." More detail means the compression step has lost less information, and so the interpretation is more certain. This rule for me is succinctly expressed, "Don't go building mountains of theology off of the scant evidence of a single word."

- Is the idea expressed in several different places and ways? An idea that's expressed in different ways is like a three-dimensional object which has had a picture taken of it from different angles. You may have been able to reconstruct it from one, but two makes it that much more certain. Since the Bible repeatedly says, "those who believe in Jesus will be saved," it's probably safe to assume it means it--this is better than if it only said it once, in one place, where it might be sarcasm or provisional or a strange metaphor or something. Better still, though, there are other passages that express in different words what must be done to be saved, and there are stories of people who are saved, and exhortations about what specific people ought to do to be saved. These taken together mean we can get a reasonable interpretation of what "believe in Jesus" is intended to mean, instead of just making up our own meaning for the words. We're seeing the truth from several different angles, so less information is lost in the compression.


Interpretation:

There are several principles here, but let me harp on context, since interpretation is often about inferring things from context.

- Does your interpretation of a verse make sense in the immediate textual context? If you read in the Bible the phrase "there is no God" (it's actually in there), before you assume that the Bible asserts there is no God, check to make sure what the full quotation is. (It's, "The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God'") This can be checked simply by reading a few verses surrounding the one in question, to make sure you've got the whole thought (verses don't always divide on sentences).

- Does the interpretation make sense in the immediate literary context? Is it fairly part of the "stream of thought" in the text? This is easy to check by paraphrasing what you think the verse means, sticking that in where the original was, and seeing how well the text flows. For example, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." What does "glory of God" mean here? Two suggestions: it means the flames and halos that surround God in paintings and visions, or, it means the brilliant righteousness and moral clarity of God. Try reading it the two ways: "All have sinned and fallen short of the flames and halos that surround God in paintings and visions." Versus, "All have sinned and fallen short of the brilliant righteousness and moral clarity of God." One makes no sense, while the other flows quite logically. Which one the author probably intended is a no-brainer.

- Does the interpretation make sense in the broder literary context? Consider the genre of the writing you're reading. Is it a short proverb? Then your interpretation ought to be some generally true bit of wisdom. Is it part of a technical dissertation? Then an extended metaphor is probably out of place. Is it part of a parable? Then appropriate metaphors are probably the right ones. Is it part of a narrative? Then your interpretation ought to make sense in light of what's going on in the story.

- Does the interpretation make sense in the cultural context? These things were written in cultures thousands of years ago, and thousands of miles away (with the exception of FC, for a good bit of the old testament ). Direct references to ideas in our culture (especially post-enlightenment ideas!) are unlikely. If you find a second century Mediterranean text directly engaging a eighteenth century German philosopher, chances are good you'd better take a second look at that text. It's possible it's a direct answer--there are general truths that are expressed and questioned in many ages. But more likely than not, current culture is making you try to shoehorn an ancient text into saying something it isn't trying to say. Make sure your interpretation makes sense in the culture into which it was spoken.

- Does the interpretation make sense in the theological context? If it directly contradicts a major teaching from the rest of the Bible--especially bits of the Bible that the author would have known about and not wanted to contradict!--chances are good you're reading it wrong.


As balancing information ( ) don't take the last point to be me saying, "If the Bible looks like there's a contradiction in it, you're just reading it wrong." That would be lazy. Rather, think of developing a contradiction like making a good C clamp. You want two opposing teachings to squish the Biblical Inerrantists between them. This depends on both teachings being things the Bible strongly teaches. If one or the other has tenuous support or is based on bad interpretation, you don't have a case. You won't squish anybody any stronger than either arm of the clamp. If you were trying to demonstrate the scientific method false and prove a scientific contradiction, you would take two opposing theories and do a *lot* of experiments and research to support both of them; the more research, the stronger the squish--incidental facts and lazy research don't really bother anybody, even if they can't explain them. Same thing here. If the contradiction took you two minutes to come up with, it's going to take a Christian two minutes to deal with. I know of a lot of clamps that only have one arm (and a very few where one arm is made out of toothpicks), but I've never been really squished; if this last point said an interpretation was wrong and all the others argued in its favor, that would be a very, very solid contradiction indeed.

With all of that said, let me look at your idea, Sirian.

First, let me give the relevant context for the quote. It's stated as the moral to a story Jesus is telling. Here's the story.

Jesus spoke to [the religious leaders of the time] again in parables, saying:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are invited, but few are chosen.

Other translations have that last part as, "many are called, but few are chosen."

So pause here. Jesus doesn't say immediately what he means by the phrase, but as the moral to a story, we have a lot of detail about what he might have meant. Certainly there has been some compression information loss, but not so much that we can make up any meaning we choose. As an extension of the parable, many people were called to the king's dinner. Not all of them came, and not all of those who did come were allowed to stay. So probably a reasonable interpretation of the phrase is, "Many people are invited to come to join God in heaven, but few actually respond and are approved by God to attend."

This idea flows well in the immediate context of the parable--so much so that I feel a little pedantic staying it, it should be *obvious*. It also works well as a theological point Jesus might want to make in the context of a debate with the religious leaders of the time--the idea of choice as central to following God was foreign to them, and the idea that those formerly called by God could be abandoned if they ignored the calling was something they needed to hear!

So both the compression and interpretation sides have good arguments for this point--it's probably what he meant. Theologically speaking, it gets even better: the idea that a relationship with God is available to anyone, but few take it, is quite central to Christianity. Not only is this point affirmed in scripture and in theology, it's one of the soundest things we know. (Likewise, the parable flows well--heaven as a wedding feast, God as king, prophets as mistreated servants, and especially God's favor given to those "good and bad" who simply come with due faith!)

By way of contrast, Sirian's idea that the phrase means "the Bible involves a grand logical puzzle, meant to make us think, and only those who think it all the way through will be the chosen ones" has several problems. First, it's hard to attach that meaning to the end of the parable--indeed, the entire point of the parable seems to be actually coming when you've received an invitation. Second, there's no hint of intelligence playing a role at all--only calling and response. Third, as the Jews are (and even were at the time) famous for their exhaustive and intense study and observation of their scriptures, this would hardly make sense as something Jesus needed to teach them. Fourth, the parable involves so much nonsense fluff that is beside the point (if the point is simply intelligence) that it doesn't make sense for the parable to be about that. Indeed, even the language of calling and choosing is fluff that doesn't make much sense. Finally, this suggestion is made nowhere else in scripture. The closest I know of is the exhortation in Proverbs to seek after wisdom and dig for it like hidden treasure; wisdom takes work no doubt, and indeed one only has to read the Bible to see that there are riddles there that take work. But are we chosen for heaven because we are rational skeptecs of the Bible? If so, the Bible gives no hint of it. On every page, it seems to declare what makes man acceptable to God--and skeptecism is not mentioned even once. (Indeed, I can think of a time when the Christian message is called "foolish" by Christians and the scholars of the world are laughed at for the skeptecism they think is wisdom.)

This meaning is almost certainly not what Jesus intended. You may believe it to be a true statement for your own, philosophical reasons, but don't suppose for a minute that Jesus said it. It is being said with your authority, not with his.

To engage your second supporting scripture, let me simply cite it in its full context:

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Whether Sirian's interpretation, "innocent children often ask piercing questions" is what Jesus intended, I leave as an exercise for the reader.


=============================

In conclusion, it has often happened to me that opponents of Christianity in debates with me have suggested that they know more about what the Bible says on a topic than I do. Yet a moment's discussion reveals that in forming their interpretation, they didn't even bother to read the chapter that surrounds the verse in question--let alone have they read the whole book or even the whole Bible. Are they familiar with principles of Biblical interpretation, with various linguistic and cultural caveats, with theological and exegetical work that has been done on the passage before them? Hardly ever are they aware that such things --exist--. Yet it is not uncommon for such people to suppose that their scholarship surpasses the generations of scholars, monks, theologans, and dedicated layman who have studied the scriptures over two millenia (among whom I consider myself an educated layperson and a dabbling hobbyist!)

That's the novice's mistake. The young scholar doesn't know how much knowledge there is out there, or how wrong he can be. Much like when I was a young Descenter, I thought myself great--perhaps even the greatest pilot ever--when all my opponents lived within a few blocks of me. I found humility quickly when I got Kali! I am not trying to be abrasive, but if this is your first exposure to theology, your first encounter with an educated Christian, try to show a little respect. I've only spent my entire life studying this; I'm only betting my life on it. Chances are good I've given it more than five minutes' thought.

(That was a long post on an incidental topic. I will address more relevant ones tomorrow. Consider this a giant off topic post on a pet peeve of mine. I'll do meaty stuff tomorrow...)

-Drakona

[Guest]

Deleted

[Flabby Chick]

Drakona; I am glad I do not read a Bible written by you. If I were born and started reading it at that time I would die in my seventies after non stop reading and never finish it.

True, but you'd probably bloody understand it!!!





....sorry i'm tetchy, England lost yesterday.

[Sirian]

By way of contrast, Sirian's idea that the phrase means "the Bible involves a grand logical puzzle"

Whoa. Major information loss in progress.

I appreciate your explanation about how a cycle of communication works. None of that is news to me, mind you, but when two parties both understand the process, there's often an opportunity to track down and improve upon areas of information loss.

Since I see that any mention of scripture is opening a gaping hole that sucks everything out of it, and that those are the only parts of my remarks to which you are replying, let's try this again.


Could the Bible involve a grand logical puzzle, meant to make us think? If so, only those who think it all the way through would get the message. After all, what if our intelligence or our UNWILLINGNESS to be duped is being tested? (How would you know?)


But no, that phrasing will also fail. The next reply will continue to give me your view of the Bible, in an attempt to "correct" my "misinterpretations", instead of answering the question I'm asking.

The idea that any meaningful spiritual discussion must necessarily revolve around the Bible is a belief I do not hold, as you know. It is the barrier that stands between myself and any Christian, as Christians generally hold NO care for what my meaning or intent may be, but only for what is found in their book, and whether or not I have understood the book "correctly".

That is an entirely self-centered way to do business, inward looking, and perhaps in some ways limiting, but that is what follows from a belief that specific sources contain all that you may need to know. (Why bother to continue to look? Why be open to anything else, since we've got all the answers right here?)

Fair enough. But then to ask my question without incorporating any part of the Bible also bounces off, as Christians will then automatically revert to passing the question through the Bible anyway, because they interpret everything through the Bible, using the Bible as a filter and litmus test to shield themselves against any ideas not wholly compatible or contained within Biblical concepts.

As a defense mechanism, this works quite well. As a communication outlet, it generally precludes any exchange of information.


- Sirian

[Will Robinson]

True, but you'd probably bloody understand it!!

Absolutely...I'd definitely buy a copy of that book!

[snoopy]

We have all run into people who respond to our arguments, and we simply roll our eyes and say, "Read the post again."

/me Hangs his head in shame.

Hfltr8tr: we arn't here to figure out if X person is a "Christian" or not, we are here to discuss different beliefs that different people have. If your goal is to prosoletize, know that all of the regular members of the board have heard it before, and have a good idea of who thinks what. I would suggest developing relationships, rather than just handing out tracts to strangers. [Lothar, feel free to edit that if inappropriate, I'm trying to clue him in nicely]

Could the Bible involve a grand logical puzzle, meant to make us think? If so, only those who think it all the way through would get the message. After all, what if our intelligence or our UNWILLINGNESS to be duped is being tested? (How would you know?)

I guess what it burns down to is lazyness and stubbornness. The Bible, by itself is just a book. We all go into everything with a certain set of expectations, and assumptions. Whats more, your beliefs are based on something that is said in the Bible. If you want us to stop using the Bible, you need to do so too. You keep on returning to God being good, and implying that mankind's state is contradictory to this. You're picking and choosing what you want to use from the Bible, you're assuming the Bible is right when it says that God exists, but isn't when it says God is good. What if God doesn't exist, and we are where we are 100% because of what we have done, with absolutely no outside intervention? Everyone, always has to start with an assumption that something is true. A Christian's assumption is that what the Bible says is true. So, if all of my assuptions are to be thrown away, it is only fair that every other assumption be thrown away also- otherwise there is an inborn implication that my assuptions are incorrect while others are not, without justification. My point: two can play the game of discounting this or that "just because." You say my crutch is the Bible, I return the favor by saying that your crutch is logic, or disbelief, or some other thing. In the end, if nothing can be trusted, then nothing can be determined. I have had personal experiences that lead me to believe that God exists, that God is good, and that the Bible is true and good for instruction in daily life. You can tell me otherwise, but I won't believe you. Feel free to call me close-minded- two can play that game, too.

Back to you question:
Instead of just theorizing what the Bible means, (your questions are theories) why don't you go and search, in the Bible, and figure out? If you don't like Drak's answer to what the sentence you quoted means, propose a better one, and back it up. My point: you want to raise questions and leave them unanswered. I dismiss your questions, because I am convinced that I have a viable answer to them. I propose to you: don't simply ask questions, and dismiss our answers for this reason or that, propose your own answers!

[Diedel]

All that is required by a human being here is to accept God's offer, like signing a contract. It is very simple, and for many people apparently it seems to be too simple.

If God had no interest in informing the choice, He would have issued one sentence demanding (or asking for) your alliegiance. Since He didn't do that, apparently He sees value in informed choices and has no intent of freeing you of the responsibility to make your choices informed ones.

Where did I say you did not have to be informed? Or are you gonna say God does not inform people about it?

Maybe you refer to those who have never been able to hear the Gospel?

The bible has two answers to that:

#1 God reveals himself even in creation (who earnestly looks and ponders at creation will inevitably come to the conclusion that there must be a God - there's btw. scientific proof for that assumption, only it's ignored by the majority of people who are saturated with the evolution hypothesis turned into a theory by those who deny God).
#2 Everybody will be judged according to his reaction to the revelation of God he had.
#3 God actually demands everybody's allegiance, but he still leaves everybody the choice.

Sirian,

for you personally it's very simple.

You have been informed that there is a God, that you are separated from him because of what He is (holy, righteous, etc.) and what you are (sinful), that the consequence (not threat) of staying separated from God will be eternal suffering, and that by trusting what Jesus Christ did on Calvary and that he was risen from the dead, and turning your life over to Jesus Christ this separation will be removed and you will be granted eternal life - actually the life of God himself.


Now it's entirely up to you to accept this and live accordingly or not.

That "many are called, but few are chosen" has nothing to do with God evilishly posing an "intelligence test" not everybody is capable of passing. It has entirely to do with everybody's personal response to being called. If you follow God's call, you will inevitably be chosen to receive eternal life and everything that comes with it for you personally (which is very individual). Actually the Bible says that God's desire is that everybody would be saved - but not everybody will let themselves be saved by God. God desires you to believe and trust his goodness and the validity of the promises regarding salvation and blessing your life he has made.

Actually, you have for some reason the misconception that God is an evil troll trying to patronize, dominate and abuse people, and in that even constructing some justification for him doing so. He is not. God can do what he wants anyway, simply because he has the power to do so. He doesn't need to care about us. If I was you, I'd start asking myself why a person like God does bother caring about us. Personally I know that God in all his omnipotence and his rightfully demanding our allegiance (and desiring our love) is most deeply and affectionately loving us. He just cannot be compromised. He is also holy, and his holyness demands judgement for sin. That's not an arbitrary decision of God, it is his very being. The miracle is how God solved the conflict between his love and his holyness: He sacrificed, he punished himself. God's "legislation" allows for somebody bearing the punishment for a crime in place of the actual felon.

Finally, eternal condemnation is not a threat God makes. It's a simple consequence of a certain way of life. Think of it like you're already suffering from a terminal disease that will inevitably kill you. Death will simply be the consequence of that disease, not a threat it makes to you. Sin is just that, and Jesus is the cure.

[Guest]

Deleted

[Duper]

Dang-it Drakona!!!!

Would PLEASE leave something for the rest of us to post on?? Huh??!!

True, but you'd probably bloody understand it!!!

Not being truculent here, or arrogant; there is a scripture that reads:

1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(Whole Chapter: 1 Corinthians 2 In context: 1 Corinthians 2:13-15)

(thanks Lothar, that site comes in handy )

There isn't really much to add that wouldn't be redundant to this. So I will be. lol Scripture is something of "higher thought", but I don't mean intellectually. It requires God to understand God. With God's Spirit giving us insite, printed text becomes alive. Much of scripture at a glance (or by a sceptical glare) will seem like a seathing mass of contridiction. What really is at work here is paradox. I'll leave it there as I don't quite have Drakona's fortitude when it comes to expressing myself.

[Drakona]

I am glad I do not read a Bible written by you. If I were born and started reading it at that time I would die in my seventies after non stop reading and never finish it.

LOL--Sirian comes back and I get the long post joke.

Plainly, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, The Son of God who came to save sinners?

Heh, I know a litmus test for "true Christian" when I hear one! Don't you know it's offensive to try to label people without sensetivity to the nuances of their beliefs?

If you don't know already know where I stand, though, I think I'm going to leave you in the dark for a while. I have already been plain, though the fact that I give old ideas unconventional expression makes them hard to recognize for those who don't understand them. So if you're not sure whether your ideas match mine, you need to wrestle with the ideas some more. I didn't say much about Jesus' role in it, but my first few posts contain a practical explanation of what I think "saved by grace, through faith" means. Does it match what you think it means? Then there you go.



Now, Sirian...

It's funny that you rebuke me for only writing about Biblical interpretation. Did I not say in my post a couple times that what I was writing was something of a rabbit trail, and that I'd respond to your more direct criticisms today? Have some patience, I can only write so fast! Since I found your Biblical interpretation so grossly lacking, I thought it worthwhile to talk about that in detail. Though you suggest that what I said was nothing new to you, I can't help but notice that you aren't defending your interpretations, but have instead begun to insist that I ignore your Bible quotes (even the Bible itself!) as irrelevant and focus on your philosophical ideas. I can't help but laugh at that--hey, you brought the Bible quotes up in the first place, and now you insist they're irrelevant? Well, all right, rather than tease you about it any further, I'll engage your idea.

Before going too much further, though, I wanted to clarify something. In a thread like this, it can become confrontational, so it's easy to view it as a debate--two sides with an idea they're trying to argue from evidence. For my part, though, I haven't been treating it that way. I have only been expressing my ideas, and I have not mentioned evidence at all, except to support my ideas to fellow Christians. In my view, this is a dialogue--all thesis and no evidence; all understanding and no argument. It has not been my intent to give evidence that my ideas are true to anyone who doesn't already believe them--only to explain Christianity and to convince my fellow Christians that what I'm saying is really what we believe. All of that is to say, when I cite the Bible to support an idea, understand that I'm not saying you should believe the idea because it's in the Bible. Rather, I'm saying that the idea is proper Christian belief because it's in the Bible. Since you are not a Christian, the only relevance this has to you is understanding Christianity. It is not an argument to you that the idea is true.

The above is in response to your criticism that spiritual discussion seems to be revolving around the Bible. Well, duh! I'm a Christian, my answers are going to come from the Bible! I think your criticism misunderstands the context in which I intend the support. I don't expect you to take the Bible seriously; all I expect from you is to understand that I take the Bible seriously. Likewise, you are free to interpret the Bible as isolated quotes that you assign meaning to if you like--my post about interpretation is a Christian idea, and though I gave some support for it from general communications, and though I do criticize your methods, the fact that it comes off as an attack is a testimony to how powerful and self-evident of an idea it is; it was not constructed primarily to criticize, but to teach.

Anyway, I mention the above because your comments about the Bible being a puzzle are easy to respond to in the context of a debate--as an attack on Christian ideas (though in my view, not a very good one). Perhaps that is what some of the questions people have asked are, but it's important to understand that I'm not responding that way (at least, when I have my wits about me--it's easy to fall into thinking confrontationally), except to defend Christian ideas as internally consistent. That is, I have no intention of telling you why you should believe certain things; I don't even really intend to tell you why I believe certain things, though I will give indications about that. Primarily, I'm just expressing what I believe. That's plenty complicated enough!

With that said, here's how I understand your idea. What you initially said was,

Many are called but few are chosen. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Could it mean that the Bible involves a grand logical puzzle, meant to make us think, and only those who think it all the way through will be the chosen ones? After all, what if God is testing our intelligence or our UNWILLINGNESS to be duped, rather than what the book claims? (How would you know?) Are you sure the book was meant to be taken entirely at face value? (Doesn't the fact that so much of it is written in parables and symbology rather than via straight-up commands and declaration say something about how much thought you're supposed to be putting into understanding its true message?) What if the few who are chosen are not among the blind-faith lazy thinkers, but those who actually take the time to solve the whole puzzle?

Now, you said that with the provision that it was just a casual idea, not a serious assertion. Nonetheless, I uncharitably scoffed at your interpretation of the phrase "Many are called but few are chosen," and you compressed it, eliminated references to the verse, and asked for a response.

So... from the start, to make sure I've understood rightly your idea, let me say it back to you. You suggest that the Bible is not so much a literal message as a logical puzzle containing a hidden message. What God is looking for isn't faith, as the Bible claims, but rather skeptecism. The people he approves of aren't the ones who trust what the Bible says, but rather the ones who don't trust it--who look at it not as a literal message, but as a figurative puzzle, and dig for the hidden message. As support for this idea, you cite the fact that the Bible contains a lot of parables and symbolic teaching--so therefore a lot of thought ought to be put into interpreting it, and finding its true message.

Let me state the ways in which I agree with that idea. I do agree that there are a lot of hidden messages in the Bible, and that it takes hard thought and study to bring them out. My guidelines for interpretation above are an outline of how I do that study. It is hard work, and there are a lot of ideas that are beneath the surface. Indeed, some of the most famous and cherished Christian doctrines are expressed nowhere explicitly in the Bible, but are rather "dug out"--exactly like solving a logic puzzle. So I do think work ought to be put into understanding the messages in the Bible. A lot of it, in fact. Indeed, I once read a comment from a pastor which laughed at people who thought they could read the Bible once and understand it--an idea that is simply funny to people who spend their lives studying it and plumbing its depths. I agree. It's a profound book. Nobody will get it in a single reading. Shoot, people who have spent their entire lives studying it profess that there is a lot of meaning there that they are missing!

In fact, it may interest you to know that a popular early Christian doctrine (and it still is somewhat popular today) was to look at historical passages about Israel in the old testament as figurative expressions of new testament ideas. While nobody suggests that the literal meaning is false, a second, figurative, meaning is superimposed on the original passage. For example, Israel is compared to the Christian, beginning in slavery (Israel in Egypt, the Christian in sin), called out of it by God, going through water (baptism for the Christian, the Red Sea for Israel), and so forth. In fact, people still refer to death sometimes as crossing the Jordan river and entering the promised land. Anyway, it may interest you to know that there are experiments in Christian studies with taking the Bible as a whole figuratively, so your suggestion is not entirely new.

Typically, though, in response to, "Are you sure the book was meant to be taken entirely at face value?" I would say that the literalness or metaphoricness (heh) of a particular section depends on the genre of the section. That's how common sense interpretation works. Not everything is literal--parables obviously aren't. But then on the other hand, some things are obviously intended to be literal--history, for example. And some sections, it's hard to tell. For example, the first chapter of Genesis is one piece of the Bible where devoted Christians honestly disagree with each other about how literal it was intended to be.

But I think this is not what you are driving at. You're suggesting, not to study the Bible, interpreting it the way any text is normally interpreted. If I want to see what "Many are called but few are chosen" means, I shouldn't look at the surrounding text and parable, using logic and common sense to extract the intent from the context. Rather I should look... where?

I should look... inside myself? At other religions? Make things up that seem sensible to me? (A polite way to say, pull things out of my butt?) You don't elaborate on this point.

Let me say that this strikes me as a pretty irrational way to study any text--I certainly can't fathom how you think this is more rational than the method I suggested. Text only has meaning in the sense it was intended; to throw evident intentions out the window and start making ones up strikes me as... well, kinda looney. Why even work with the text, in that case? Why not start with something random--say, a phone book--and look for mystical meaning in the words? If God really wanted us to do that, he would be rewarding irrationality, not rationality. That would be weird.

Indeed, you're a writer, of all of us, you should be able to relate to textual interpretation the best! My idea of interpreting the Bible is very much like how you go about interpreting great literature. Sure, there are metaphoric messages, double meanings, and deep themes. Lots of them, in fact. You find them by rational interpretation, though, not by abandoning rational interpretation. Your suggestion (or at least your demonstration of it) strikes me more like the way people search for subliminal messages in any text. The messages aren't really there, they're forced onto the text by ignoring normal rules of interpretation. Yet this latter method is what you propose as the more rational way to approach the text?

But there's a larger philosophical question here. I heard it in my philosophy 101 class, during the discussion of Pascal's Wager. (The wager argument, for those who aren't familiar with it goes, "I don't know if there is a God, but I better believe in him to avoid hell just in case he exists.") In criticizing the argument, the professor said, "What if there exists a Scientist God, who rewards not those who blindly believe in him, but those who always honestly follow the evidence available to them--and therefore don't believe in him?"

I think this is very much in the same spirit as your suggestion. What if God isn't the sort who rewards belief in the Bible, but rather who rewards disbelief? You suggest that the Bible is a logic puzzle--perhaps there are clues that God wants us to treat it this way. In theory, though, he doesn't even have to be that kind to us. What if God is the sort who would give us the Bible, with no clues, intentionally just to mislead us? What if he wants to reward rational skeptics? Reality would look just the way it does now; there's no way you could tell this God apart from the Christian one.

This is philosophical skepticism. It's a question in the same vein as, "How do you know you're not in the Matrix? If you were, reality would look... just like this!" How my epistemological ideas cope with skepticism is a huge topic for another day, but I will give the hand-waving answer. You could follow philosophical "what if"s all day long. What if God really rewards rational thought? What if God really rewards charitible giving? What if God really rewards hospitality? What if God really rewards martyrdom? What if God's true message can only be found in drug-induced visions?

There are any number of Gods that might exist that I could not know about. My honest take on that, in a nutshell, is that I don't care. If reality is like that--if God really has set out to fool me--then I get fooled. Oh well, not much I can do about it. I would rather believe what there is positive evidence for, even if such evidence isn't perfect. I would rather take the Bible at face value--partly because it makes a whole lot of sense at face value, and partly because there's no good, positive reason to do otherwise. In my view, that's better than nervously chasing philosophical "what if"s and trying to guard against everything. That is to say, you can spend your time chasing off-the-wall suggestions about what God might really be up to; without substantial supporting evidence, they matter to me about as much as kooky conspiracy theories. Sure, reality might be that way and I wouldn't know. Until such a time as there is evidence that it *is* that way, though, it really doesn't bother me. And in the mean time, it strikes me as sensible to take God at his word.

I view all this as side discussion, though. You had a more serious point from earlier that I'm much more interested in, about forced choice. I was going to respond to that tonight, but it's getting late. I'll do it tomorrow, and I mean it this time. In the mean time, I hope I've done your idea justice and that my response is what you were looking for.

-Drak

[Top Gun]

Drakona, you are a true intellectual. Your posts make for fascinating reading. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Drakona]

I apologize for my tardiness here. I really intended to respond, but life got busy and the thread got old... I'd usually leave a thread unreplied to after so long, and I'm not pretending that I think this thread is still active, but I was asked by someone to give the response to this thread that I'd promised, so here it is.

===========

The idea of Sirian's I promised I'd respond to is some three or four posts up--he had a major criticism of my ideas, and then gave some random ruminations. I attacked the ruminations, and then discussion went down a side path, and though it was really never my intention to dodge the question, I got sidetracked and then got busy. Anyway, here's the original post I wanted to interact with.

But coming to God is not about avoiding hell, it is about being with God.

You don't get to declare this. Rather, it is a matter of free will. Not even God will step on this point, as He has declared this to be our choice to make.

A choice and the motivations behind it are not the same. Since the book in no way specifies certain motivations as invalid, but welcomes all who make the choice, that leaves all of the motivations on the table as valid.

The fate of the violent, who do the conversions by force, who threaten, who murder, who torture, their fate is a separate question than the fate of their "victims". Clearly, a greater ideal would be to save everybody and for everybody to be converted merely by osmosis. But that doesn't happen, does it? So do those who would not choose out of self-motivation get discarded? Or should we pick up our swords, sacrifice our own souls if need be, and go save them?

You can bet your bottom dollar that many who convert DO make the choice out of fear. They grow old, they get hurt, they're in a foxhole literally or figuratively, staring the possibility of death in the face. They face their mortality and the uncertainty of what lies beyond life, and they get scared. "Scared as Hell", to coin a phrase. Scared of Hell, of the unknown, in many cases frightened by the dire warnings given to them by so-called pious men.

There is something inherently flawed with a mechanism that values the choice ahead of the motivations behind it.

Why are the Crusades a dark time? You say this as if it were self-evident and indisputable. They may indeed have been a dark time, but why? If the choice is really as simple as choosing, without regard to why, or under what circumstances, for what motivations, involving which beliefs and considerations and pressures... then WHY are the Crusades bad? Why is the inquisition bad? If a soul is so precious, why aren't those who convert others AND SAVE THEIR SOULS hailed as heroes without regard to the method of the saving?

Perhaps the choice is not so simple after all. B)

As I understand things here, Sirian's contention is that from the Christian perspective, what matters is the choice, not the motivation, and that's a problem. If choosing to become a Christian is really what saves people, shouldn't I *applaud* those who would point a gun at somebody and force them to convert (e.g., during the crusades)? Indeed, the threat of hell itself seems like coercion. Instead of applauding the idea, though, I seem to be condemning it. What gives?

Now, I'll make it clear that the choice does matter more than the motivation, but the actual nature of the choice rules out almost every possible motivation. That is, speaking as a Christian, I think I can explain why the motivation matters simply by explaining what the choice consists of. I would say that you cannot come to God to avoid hell and stay for very long--much like you cannot get married to avoid loneliness and hope to build a very good marriage.

I have heard a great apologist comment that many people want "just a little" of God. They want just enough of him to feel comfortable about dying, and no more. One can be this sort of Christian by simply deciding to be, but this is not Christianity as far as I'm concerned. In my book, that's like thinking you're a Descenter because you post on the DBB. You've got the image, and maybe some of the benefits, but not the reality.

There are some things in the world that you can be by just declaring them. If I wanted to be a Republican, all I would have to do is declare it. I simply say I am, and I am. Of course, I have to actually take the Republican side, but this is incidental. On the other hand, if I want to become somebody's wife, it takes a lot more than a declaration. I may *say* I'm someone's wife all I like, but I am not actually unless I have really married him.

From a secular point of view, being a Christian is like being a Republican. It's something you just declare. Though there's behavior that goes along with it, the main way to tell if someone's a Christian is simply to ask them. From the Christian point of view, though, being a Christian is like being married. It's a complicated commitment, and certainly not something you can simply decide you are.

Being a Christian is like marriage in another way, too (actually, in a lot of ways). Marriage is a complicated and multi-faceted thing. Your spouse is someone you love, someone you have sex with, someone you live with, part of your family, someone you care for, someone you share financial burden with, and so forth. It would be a mistake to say my husband is only my lover, or that he is only my friend, or that he is only my financial support. He is all of those things and more, all at the same time, and that is what it means to be a husband! God's relationship with man is like that, too. He is our judge, and he is our creator, and he is our redeemer, and he is our friend, and he is our father, and he is our king, and a whole lot more, all at once. This is not a contradiction, or even really a paradox--it's simply a complex relationship; it's what it means to be a God for a people. Unsurprisingly, then, what it means to be a Christian affects several different spheres God's relationship with man, and it is not something you can pin down with a single analogy. Think of it like getting married--that has financial, relational, and sexual effects on an already complex relationship, and it certainly isn't something you can completely describe with a single picture.

Let me describe God's relationship with man in three key aspects, and how becoming a Christian enters in. I think that will clear up the misunderstanding that lies beneath the question of why forced conversion is a bad thing, and why only certain motivations make sense for becoming a Christian.

=======================
First aspect: God is creator, man is creation.


The Bible speaks of man as being God's artwork, and in Genesis notes that man is made in God's image. What this exactly means is the subject of some debate. While it probably doesn't mean that God has two legs, two arms, and ten fingers, at the very least it means that man is like God in some ways, and was supposed to reflect some of God's attributes. Some people suggest that man is like God in his capacity to reason, to create artwork, to think morally, and so forth, and I think that's pretty reasonable. Whatever the case, it is clear that man is God's artwork--something he delights in having created. God enjoys man, simply because of what man *is*--exactly the way an artist enjoys artwork simply because of what he has made it to be.

When man sinned, that artwork was corrupted. Man became an ugly caricature of God, rather than a beautiful portrait. Man's nature has been distorted from what it was intended to be. We were supposed to be selfless and beautiful, but we've become selfish and ugly. We were made to be a responsible ruler over God's creation; we have become a ruthless tyrant. Man was made to love his fellow man and God; he has learned to love money, to love himself, and to love pleasure. This is the Christian idea that man has fallen from what he was. We were angelic; we've become demonic. (Some have said that the corruption spreads to all different parts of man--our reason, our emotions, etc. I am not sure about that, but it is clear that our moral natures were corrupted, so I will focus on that.)

The evil that was once alien to us has now found its way into our very nature. We were made to be naturally loving, and to a degree we retain that, but we are also naturally hateful. We were naturally selfless, and have become naturally selfish. While we can train ourselves to do better, it remains the fact that our natural impulses are evil, and we have to work to overcome them if we want to be good. This is a distortion of our nature. Man was made to be naturally good; he has become naturally evil.

In the Christian view, this sinful nature isn't something that can be overcome by working at it. Sure, you can make progress and overcome it in certain spheres, but never all at once. I may be a habitual liar, and dislike that; if I work hard enough, I can change that habit. No sooner have I done so, though, than I treat my husband manipulatively. I may lick that, and find myself bitter and angry, easily treating people like a jerk. It's like trying to squeeze soap; my sinful nature always leaks out somewhere. Worse, there are problems I can't overcome--things that I do that I hate myself for doing, but I can't change. I may ask people for help, or try to be disciplined, or whatever, and I still find that I can't change, because deep down inside me, I don't want to. I have an evil side, and I don't want to let go of it. That is the sin nature. That is perhaps the biggest problem--no matter how disciplined you are, your evil impulses remain with you because they are a part of you; if you want to be good, you have to continually fight them. Moral perfection--or even really morality above a certain social threshold--is an exhausting idea.

This duality in the Christian understanding of man matches up with the world really well, in my opinion. Man is fundamentally good--he was made to be. And yet man is fundamentally evil, too--his nature has been distorted. We strive for peace and justice, and yet murder and oppression follow us around like a plague. We know we should be better than we are. If you want to phrase it purposefully, we feel we were meant to be better than we are. That is what Christianity says--you were intended to be better than you are.

Given man's helpless and distorted state, a lesser God might have done away with his fallen creation and started over. God certainly would have been well within his rights to do so. But God instead decided to save man.

We can't overcome our sinful nature, but God can overcome it for us. All we have to do is agree to let it go. That's not a one-time thing, it's a lifestyle. God is biblically referred to as a furnace fire that smelts away the impurities in a piece of metal. He restores us to how we were originally meant to be--or rather, he and the person work together on it. You have to be willing to let go of that side of yourself, and to consistently do so, and God removes it from you. It doesn't happen quickly, and it's powerfully internal.

The process is very difficult to describe, though I can assure you it is very real. The Bible uses strange terms to refer to it, speaking of "walking by the flesh" and "walking by the spirit." I can try to be a bit less cryptic, but really it's like describing light to a blind man; unless you've been there, you're not going to know what I'm talking about. But it's like... I used to be a really arrogant person. I used to school people at math, logic, whatever, and make them feel really inferior. When you met me for the first time, the first words out of my mouth would be that I'd skipped three grades in school and by the way I was a teenager entering grad school in math. I hope it's not too arrogant (heh) to say that I'm not that way any more. Now, if I had decided that I didn't want to treat people that way, I would watch myself and try not to mention my accomplishments very much. Indeed, for years after I decided it was a problem, that's what I did. If I was very disciplined, I could manage not to be too annoying, though I was frequently be tempted. That is all the farther it went, though, and arrogance would slip through whenever I had an off day, or whenever I could excuse it. That is trying to be moral "by the flesh"--i.e., without God. With God, the same process of disciplining myself and watching my words happens, but something else happens, too. God changes me internally--I stop being an arrogant person, inside. It ceases to be a temptation because it is no longer a part of my nature. Morality in that one area becomes effortless. More importantly, my nature has been changed--I'm no longer covering up internal arrogance with an image of humility. I simply become humble. You change on the outside, but with your permission, God changes you on the inside.

Anyway, becoming a Christian involves letting go of your sinful nature. Sometimes there are areas you think need to change about yourself; sometimes God points out areas that need to change that you hadn't thought of. Regaurdless, you let go of your sinful nature, and God re-forms you how you were intended to be. This process is called "regeneration." It is God restoring you--sanding away corruption, and restoring the artwork to its original form.

This is such a difficult and private thing, it is impossible to do for any other reason than that you want it done. It simply cannot be done at gunpoint. It isn't a one-time deal, it's a lifestyle. It isn't external, it's internal. Whatever external moral changes you make to yourself, what matters to God is your internal nature--your character. Regeneration isn't incidental to Christianity--i.e., it isn't what "good Christians" do, it's what every Christian does. It's what it means to be a Christian--to undergo regeneration, to be restored as God's creation. If someone claims to be a Christian, but is not undergoing regeneration, then they are a Christian in name only. There is a spiritual reality to the claim.

Nobody completes this process on earth, and indeed different people move along it at different speeds. Some Christians never really get off the ground. But the promise is that one day the process will be complete--that in heaven we will be restored to an unfallen state, that every evil distortion of our nature will be gone. That's called glorification.

To sum up, man was made in God's image, and has fallen and become corrupt. God offers to restore man to his original state, but it will take work and can only be undergone voluntarily. To decide to let him do it is what it means to become a Christian.

That's one aspect.


===============================
Second aspect: God is the Judge, man is the defendant.


God makes the law for his creation, and rules over it as a king. Man originally bowed to God's leadership and conformed to his law--and so was judicially innocent. When he sinned, he rebelled against God, and became guilty. God is the judge who will decide our guilt for that rebellion.

This is true on two levels. First, man as a race has rebelled against God, and so as a race is guilty. (Somewhat like the United States as a *country* has gone to war with Iraq, and so as a *country* bears the responsibility for rebuilding, even though you or I were not personally involved in or responsible for that.) More importantly here, though, each individual person has rebelled against God. Whether you know it or not, God has a rule that you should love the people around you, and he has a right to judge you for every time you break it. We often don't know the rules and break them accidentally, but we also knowingly break them--that happens whenever you do something you know is wrong. When I wrote about the terror of a supreme moral being in my first post, this is what I was referring to. We behave "good enough" to not be disruptive socially, but God expects us to be simply good. His standards are high, not because he is a jerk, but because he is so much more moral than we are. Before God, man is hopelessly guilty and so stands condemned.

A lesser God might have simply carried out the punishment and been done with it. God would have been completely within his rights to do so. But instead, he decided to save man.

God as judge is required to uphold justice--once man has been declared guilty and deserving of death, God is obliged to put him to death. So God declared the punishment and then took it himself--that is, he paid our debt. God became a man--Jesus--and lived a perfect and moral life. When he was put to death, it was for our guilt. We deserved death; Jesus volunteered to die to pay that debt. When that happened, God considered the debt to justice paid, and so declared us innocent. Not that we hadn't done wrong, but that the punishment for that wrong had been served, and we were restored to innocence, judicially speaking.

The idea of one person serving the sentence for another's crime is called atonement. To be honest, how and why this works in God's judicial system is a question thelogans have puzzled over for a long time. There are theories, and I don't understand things all very well myself. But that it does work is something the Bible is clear on. Jesus took the punishment that was coming to us, and on that basis God declared our debt paid.

In becoming a Christian, you accept that Jesus has done this for you, and moreover you accept God's declaration of your innocence. You then become justified--that is, judicially innocent before God. You bear no further guilt.

Perhaps the most crucial point here is that this innocence is freely given. You don't work for it, and though you strive to become more moral as God restores you to his image, your innocence is not based on that. It is God's free gift to you--a declaration he made freely, under no compulsion, simply because he loves you and wants to save you. Crucially, you are not innocent before God because you are a good enough person. You are innocent before God because he declares that you are. No matter how much you screw up, he considers you innocent. It is nothing you did--all you have to do is agree to take the gift. He did it all.

Free forgiveness is grace. The Christian lives a life under grace. All of us sin--indeed, the more one grows as a Christian, the more he becomes acutely aware that he is permeated by sin, that he constantly and helplessly sins. Yet God continues to regaurd the Christian as innocent, the punishment for those sins already paid. The Bible says that he forgets our sins completely. That is life under grace.

To be a Christian is to be justified before God, as his gift to you. While you don't take any active role in this--it's entirely God's gift to you--the least you can do is live a life of humility and mercy, in light of the large debt that God has forgiven. To live under grace has a profound impact on how you perceive your own moral actions, and how you treat others when they are immoral. The spiritual reality of accepting God's gift of justification has a profound internal impact.

That's another aspect of Christianity--justification before God.


================================
Third aspect: God is lover, man is beloved

The third aspect of being a Christian is that God is your friend and family--he is described as being a friend closer than a brother. This is the heartbeat of Christianity--man loves God and God loves man. It is a powerful and deep love--Rich Mullins describes it as a "reckless raging fury." God longs to have a relationship with man, just like you might long to have a relationship with someone you're in love with. The romantic imagery here is not accidental--the Bible describes the church as the bride of Jesus, and repeatedly uses the image of a marriage to illustrate man's relationship with God. Not that there's anything erotic about it, but that romantic love is so powerful--the love between God and man is *that* powerful.

When man was created, he was in intimate relationship with God. He was able to talk freely with God, love him, and be loved in return. When man sinned and rebelled against God, they were alienated. God was offended, and man was uninterested (or unable) to come back. As long as the offense remained between them, they were separated. It works exactly the way it does between friends--an unsettled offense kills the relationship.

Man hungers for God. To be cut off from God is to wander frustratedly with a hunger for relationship that can't be satisfied. But sin is offensive and God cannot tolerate it, so as long as man remained sinful, he could not come to God. And furthermore, fallen man can barely remember how love between man and God is supposed to work--he is literally incapable of carrying on the relationship. But as God sands away man's sinful nature, intimacy becomes possible again. With Jesus' death removing sin judicially, forgiveness became possible.

God then made an offer to every man. If you will apologize for all you've done that offended God, and honestly try to change, God will forgive you, and you can once again be together. In this way, God's relationship with man works exactly like a friendship or a marriage. Offense has been given, and you have to apologize, forgive, and try to do better--and then you can go on being friends. Until then, the relationship is broken and nonfunctional--you may speak to each other, but you aren't really together.

The Christian does this constantly; he constantly sins, constantly apologizes and promises to mend his ways, and God constantly forgives. God is patient and faithful, and is willing to forgive however many times we wrong him. But the point of all of it is not judicial--the judicial stuff has already been taken care of. Rather, the point is relational: you have to be forgiven and change your ways, so that the relationship can mend. Becoming a Christian is apologizing and being forgiven, but that isn't the point. It's the means, not the end--something that has to happen so that you can become intimate with God.

Being a Christian is being intimate with God. It is spending time with him, knowing him deeply, and living a life of constant prayer. This is what I mean when I say that the heartbeat of Christianity is a love affair between man and God. If you've ever heard somebody say, "Christianity is a relationship, not a religion," that's what they're referring to.

There is no reason to go spend time with God other than that you want to. Like a romance, it just doesn't work for any other reason--shoot, it doesn't make *sense* for any other reason. It certainly isn't something you can enter into involuntarily! Nor is it something you do once. It's a lifestyle. It isn't external, it's internal. Nobody can tell it's going on--it's between you and God.

In summary, God made man to love and be loved by, but that relationship was broken when man alienated God. God has offered forgiveness. To be a Christian is to apologize and accept that forgiveness, and nurture a relationship with God. To be a Christian is to know God--the Christian who does not know God is a Christian in name only.


==================================

I've presented three aspects of being a Christian. There are others I haven't touched on, but this will have to suffice. It's worth recalling, though, that though I've presented God's relationship with man in three different aspects, it's not as compartmentalized as all that. Like in a marriage, it gets all mixed up and one spills over into the other. God is delighted to sacrifice for us and declare us innocent, because he loves us and we love him--that is relationship. Trying to do better and not offend him is impossible without his help because he is the one who can change our nature. Apologizing to God and letting go of our sin nature is the same act. The relationship is possible because we no longer give offense to God, and are no longer controlled by our sinful nature. Our sinful nature can be removed only because we submit to God and live in proper relationship with him. God's relational forgiveness isn't entirely independant from his gift of judicial justification--God is our judge, after all. And on, and on it goes.

For the Christian, God is behind everything. God created us. When we fell, God was there to care for us. God judged us. God created a plan to save us. God took our punishment and offered us justification when we were still busy offending him. God calls us to him. God offers us forgiveness if we will change our ways. When we find we can't do even that, he is the one who changes us. Man is not the initiator, God is. Man is a boat floating on an ocean of God.

There is more, too, that I don't have time to talk about. To be a Christian means to be a member of the Church. It means a mental assent to certain beliefs. It means a total trust in God. It means a total submission to Jesus--accepting his leadership, treating him as your king. It means a repentence from sin, an intimate relationship with God, and a trust in God's promises. It means giving up control of your life on earth, in exchange for a life in heaven. It means having God at work in you to restore you to his image, cleaning you up and refining you. It means having accepted God's forgiveness for you, and living a life of trust in that--both in moving toward intimacy with him, and striving to morally do better.

All of these things go together, and are an integral part of what it means to be a Christian. There is a mental reality, a spiritual reality, a communal reality to it, and these are not incidental. They are integral. You cannot simply decide you are a Christian--if you and God have not done what is necessary, you aren't one, even if you want to be. You cannot be coerced into becoming a Christian; the reality of the process is so internal, so private, that nobody but you can do it--indeed, until you are quite a ways along, nobody but you can even tell if it has happened.

It's not as though these ideas are arbitrary, either. It's not as though heaven is made simply as a reward for a good life. Heaven is a city in which we dwell with God--it is the home in which we live with God. One of the points of heaven--if not THE point--is that we will be with God. If you aren't interested in a relationship with him, why would you come? Why would he let you in? Heaven is a place in which we are restored to our uncorrupted nature, and God delights in us as his creation. We were originally made for heaven. It simply does not make sense to go there unless you have undergone regeneration. Heaven will be the community of the church; God will be the Lord of heaven. Would you even want to be there if you did not consider yourself a part of the church, if you did not voluntarily accept God as your king?

There's no point to forcefully making a whole crowd of people who claim to be Christians but aren't. All that does is distort Christianity so that the rest of the world can't see what it is. There's no point to trying to get as many people to go to heaven as possible, whether they want to or not. Whether people want to be with God or not is not incidental, it is essential--you can't become a Christian for any other reason. While God desires that everyone would come to him, it is far better for only some to come and be real about than for everyone to try and fake it.

Going to heaven isn't about a reward for a good life. God's purpose isn't to be an umpire for humanity. Think bigger than that--there's something glorious he's trying to create. Trying to spare as many people the pain of hell as possible is noble, but God's doing something bigger: he's creating a great new world. You can't force somebody to take part in that. Being a Christian is between you and God.

It may be that the choice matters more than the motivation to God, but ultimately it is a choice that can only be made from the right motivation. The process is what counts, but the process is too private and deep to be something you can do to please your family, to quiet your fears about death, or even to save your life. You may start to seek God for any of those reasons, but if you ultimately become a Christian, it will be because you want to know God and to be changed by God. It cannot be for any lesser reason.

-Drak

[snoopy]

Edit: nevermind

[BUBBALOU]

One.. You guys type too much and nothing is said, yes, no, maybe so, or yuor teh suck will suffice....

When you Quote... DON'T QUOTE THE QUOTE, ON THE QUOTE FROM THE QUOTE. THEN PROCEED TO INPUT A LONG WINDED AND FULL OF SHIZNIT STATEMENT, JUST TO GET QUOTED 10 FOLD AGAIN....AND THAT IS THAT... TOOLZ!

ENJOY

BTW Don't quote me on this...

[MehYam]

Good grief, god rules with a big firey sword, and he'll eventually smite all those who dare vote for Bush. That's all you need to know. Thread over

Do not speak or type His true name, Mr. Firesword, lest thy are smote down to the depths of... oh crap!

[Lothar]

I didn't think we'd get any serious responses...

[Ford Prefect]

I really have to appologize. I just can't sit for 20 minutes or more and read a philosophical essay. Drakona, Sirian and Lothar you are all wonderful writers and very organized and logical in your presentations but I always end up skimming most of your posts. The fault lies with me.
That brings me to a question that my lack of ability to stick to reading a long post has some bearing on.
If you answered this in a previous post please just direct me to that post and I will wade though it I promise.
My question regards those of diminished mental and emotional ability. Many people simply lack the inteligence or emotional stability to understand the choices that different religeons offer them. They might be told by parents that a particular religeous view point is the only valid one and due to reduced intelectual capacity be unable examine that view point and form their own. They may simply lack the emotional ability to form a "relationship with god" as some christians like to call it or may suffer from a mental impairment such as schitzophrenia and see the world in a deluded way that prevents them from accepting a particular religeon.
What if a Christian schitzophrenic accepts drug therapy and through that therapy becomes "rational" and that rationality leads them to Buddhism instead of Christianity because the effect of the drugs shape his/her personality in that way.
How do stupid and crazy people fit in the scheme of a Christian viewpoint?

[Duper]

How do stupid and crazy people fit in the scheme of a Christian viewpoint?

This is really the wrong question. I understand the context, but the way it's put is .. er. "incorrect."

Understand that what we think is irrelavent. "Christain viewpoint" is a misnomer. Really the "right" question is: How does God fit mentally/emotionally challanged into the plan of salvation.

God, I'm sure, has a way of dealing with folks in that situation. I've always taken the stance that it's not my place to try to figure it out because it just doesn't matter what I think about the situation. I am responsible for me. It is not up to me to assume one way or the other where a person "is going to go".

That's my 2 bits.

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks Duper that is much better turn of phrase.

How does God fit crazy and stupid people into the plan of salvation?

I just ask for insight into how others see their god's attitudes.

I guess "It's a mystery" is as good an answer as any.

[Lothar]

I can't spend too long responding -- as soon as I'm done writing, I'm packing up the computer and starting my road trip. If this is kind of sloppy and incomplete, please accept my apologies. I'll answer more thoroughly when I get back after the Chicago LAN.

------------------------

So, you first asked the question "How do stupid and crazy people fit in the scheme of a Christian viewpoint?" which Duper suggested you modify to "How does God fit crazy and stupid people into the plan of salvation?". I think it's important to understand *why* the second phrasing makes more sense.

If you'll permit me to take a little liberty with your first question, I'm going to expand it out a bit to uncover an implication that's usually there when people ask that question. "How do stupid and crazy people manage to memorize the list of facts necessary to become a Christian and be saved?" There's an implicit assumption there that believing the right things is the key to salvation. But nowhere in the Bible, or in my posts or Drakona's posts, has this ever been implied. As James says (my paraphrase): "If you believe all of the right facts about God and salvation, that's a good thing. But the demons believe all the same facts about God, and that doesn't save them!" So I think it's pretty clear that believing the right list of facts doesn't make you "saved". This is one of the unfortunate falsehoods people learn from Sunday School. But the truth is found in what Drakona earlier said: "coming to God is not about avoiding hell, it is about being with God."

So, how does God fit crazy/stupid people in? "Coming to God is not about avoiding hell, it is about being with God" -- so how do crazy/stupid people fit in to that? I think it's pretty straightforward to see it from Drakona's last post, where she describes the relationship with God in three ways: creator/creation, judge/defendant, and lover/beloved. I'll have to think about the creator/creation relationship a bit, but you can probably see how crazy/stupid people fit in to the lover/beloved and judge/defendant relationships just from reading her post and giving it a bit of thought. For example, the crazy/stupid would likely be given some extra leniency by a judge... and if someone offered to pay their fine, it wouldn't matter whether they understood it very well or not. So I don't think the crazy/stupid have anything to worry about.

To extend the question from "the stupid and crazy" to "the poor kid in India who never hears": I think it's reasonable that someone might never hear the name "Jesus" or have the slightest clue what the cross is about, yet still be able to relate to God in every one of the ways described above. It's possible to allow God to regenerate you and make you in His image even without knowing how He's doing it; it's possible to have your transgressions paid for by Jesus even without your knowing His name or how He did it; it's possible to fall in love with God and strive to know Him and please Him even without knowing the specifics of Jesus' life and death. It's even possible that someone could reject Christianity (especially the watered down "social club" distortion of Christianity that we're all familiar with) and yet still relate to God in every one of those ways.

So, the short answer is, God deals with people based on what they've been given, and relates to them appropriately. Some people know a ton of facts about God but don't know Him at all and will not be saved, while others know very few facts but interact with Him daily and will be saved. The crazy, the stupid, the poor kid in India who never sees a Bible, etc. are all capable of fitting into this second category. (The long answer is: read Drakona's last post, and think about how the crazy, stupid, etc. fit in to what she's set forth.)

[Drakona]

How does God fit crazy and stupid people into the plan of salvation?

That's kind of a funny turn on a popular question. Usually people ask, "What about those in faraway countries who never know about Jesus?" Or, "What about really small children who die before they were old enough to understand?" The heart of the matter is that it seems unfair to all the people in the world who--through no fault of their own--were born or made in such a way that they couldn't ever know God.

There are people all over the spectrum on this.

There are people that say any religion is valid--as long as you make some sort of effort to be spiritual, God counts it and that's enough. So if your crazy person nonetheless had some desire to know God and prayed--perhaps to a different religion, or whatever--it would be God they were talking to, and though they didn't know quite what to do, God would save them.

Then there are people that say you can always learn about God through nature and the world around you, and though you don't have to know him by name, you do have to have some idea of him that's more or less compatible with who he is.

Then there are people that say you have to know God by name, have to know Jesus by name, and understand who he was historically, in order to know God.

Now, the first one is clearly wrong, as far as the Bible goes. You can't worship in some other religion and have God think you're talking to him. But the Bible isn't terribly clear on where the lines are drawn otherwise, though there are things you can say to make the case one way or the other. I personally lean most of the way toward the last one--I would say that it might be possible to know God apart from hearing the gospel... but it would be quite a long shot. Except in very special circumstances, you probably need to know consciously about Jesus and understand what he did. But I don't pretend that's the only orthodox way to think.

But here are some points that it's important to consider when you're thinking about it:

First, the question is sort of based on the idea that everyone ought to have a "fair shot" at being saved. It's all right to go to hell, so long as you had a fair chance to avoid it. Now, on the one hand, this is entirely backwards; on the other, it's correct.

On the backwards hand, it's important to understand that becoming a Christian is not "doing something for God" and in return he does something for you. It's not like opening a bank account--it's more like joining a family. Consequently, fair has nothing to do with it. It's not something you accomplish that everyone has a free shot at--it's something God freely gives to whoever he wants to give it to; he's not obligated to give everybody a fair chance. It isn't a competition, it's Christmas morning.

In fact, the question of people unable to come to God due to their nature is addressed in the Bible--Paul talks about it. Some people are made in such a way that they'll be perpetually hostile to God--it's their character, their environment, whatever that makes them that way. Other people are easily receptive to him. Paul acknowledges this, and argues that it is God's right to make you however he wants to--if he made you evil and will ultimately be angry with you, or he made you good and will ultimately delight in you--he made you, he can do whatever he wants. So if you want to argue that not being able to know God is unfair, you don't really have a leg to stand on. God says more than once that he has mercy on who he wants to, and nobody can tell him he has to do otherwise.

On the other hand, though, it's worth noting that God knows how much of a chance people had, and judges them accordingly. Jesus commented once on the fact that there were ancient cultures that were destroyed for their depravity, though they didn't have much chance to repent. In contrast, the people around Jesus had *tons* of chances--they were seeing miracles and hearing preacing all the time. He said it would be more bearable for the former on judgement day--that they didn't repent, but they also didn't have much of a chance. I don't know what "less bearable" necessarily means--whether it means simply that they'll be more angry at themselves, or whether God will do something more. But I do know that demonstrates that God is aware of your background when he judges. He knows what your mental or emotional capacities are, he knows how much information you had access to, and so forth.

I am not entirely sure how God is going to judge, but from what I have seen of him in scripture, he's very human about it. He knows that different people had different chances, and he knows what all you did and didn't do and how much of it was your fault. That's both a comforting and terrifying message, though--there are people out there who say, "Well, if I didn't come to God, it isn't my fault--he never offered me any evidence." He didn't? Are you *absolutely* sure?

So that's one point: if you're stupid or crazy... God knows that. He's not stupid.

Here's another point...

Salvation doesn't take much. Though the repeated admonition to "believe in Jesus" sounds like a call to the smart, it isn't really. A better way to say it is "have faith in Jesus"--it means, basically, to trust him. Jesus himself asked people to come to him "like children." It isn't the smart that counts, it's the heart.

Salvation involves understanding that you've done wrong in God's eyes, being sorry for it, and trying to change. It involves praying to God and living life with him, and doing what he says. It involves loving God and being loved by him back. That's really pretty elementry stuff--shoot, dogs have enough emotional maturity for most of that! (Not that I'm saying dogs are elligible for salvation, I'm just illustrating how easy it is.) Though I have frequently said that Christianity is something that is only really fully expressed in adults (it simply takes a lot of emotional maturity to really follow it), children certainly can access the essentials just fine. Though the complexity and depth of the relationship grows, and your understanding necessarily grows as you become more of an adult and as you become smarter... the essentials of knowing God are accessible to even stupid people. Probably even to some crazy people. Certainly to retarded people.

All in all, I don't know what God's going to say to everybody come judgement. I'm glad I'm not him--I'd hate to have to make a standard that applied fairly to a 4th century BC barbarian and a 19th century businessman and a stillborn infant. But I do know he's just, I know he's very human in his judgements, and I know that salvation itself is a gift, a relationship, and something easy to come by. Though I don't know what he'll say to everyone exactly, I'm sure there's room enough in there for a range of just decisions.

Which is to say, I don't really know what he'll do, but I have some ideas and I'm pretty sure it'll turn out all right. And Duper's got the right idea, too--my primary concern is how I relate to God, not how others do.

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for taking the time Lothar and thanks for another well thought out and cogent post Drakona. (BTW I hope you can type 200 wpm Drakona otherwise I hate to be responsible for taking up so much of your day )
I think Duper's re-phrasing of my question was superior as I was wondering about salvation for the impaired and not just the attitude of Christians to the impaired.
That you view it as possible for God to create a person that is hostile to him or who's nature causes him to worship another God is quite interesting to me, as is the comment ( if I understand it correctly) that salvation is not offered to all, only to those God wishes to offer it to. Hmmm... Certainly not what I heard in Sunday school at the Presbyterian church 40 years ago.
"It isn't a competition, it's Chrismas morning" Nice turn of phrase there Drakona.

Thanks again for the information. I don't accept the existence of God but I do appreciate the thought and time spent explaining your faith.

I also would be interested if anyone and particularly Drakona had read the Sci-Fi novelette
"Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang.
Perhaps you don't have time or the inclination to read light fiction but the theme of this well written Nebula award winner (2002) is very much like some of the comments that have been made here about the nature of man's relationship to God.

[Duper]

So, the short answer is, God deals with people based on what they've been given, and relates to them appropriately. Some people know a ton of facts about God but don't know Him at all and will not be saved, while others know very few facts but interact with Him daily and will be saved. The crazy, the stupid, the poor kid in India who never sees a Bible, etc. are all capable of fitting into this second category.

Thanks Lothar, this is what I was thinking, but conditions here at the "house" we such that I was having trouble forming a single thought. Everyone has the opportunity to resond to prompting of the Spirit of God at some point in thier life to the best of thier own ablitiy. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the Lord says the goats ... "Depart from me for I never knew you." There are a lot of folks out there that think that they are christian that won't make the final cut. Examine the critiria in that parable.
I once heard this: "Going to church no more makes you a christian than going into a McDonalds makes you a cheeseburger."

There is an excellent book "Eternity in Thier Hearts" that explores this very question in relation to civilizations that never heard a missionaries words.. Amazon.com has it.
Have fun at Chicago Lan guys, Cya in Medford.

[snoopy]

That you view it as possible for God to create a person that is hostile to him or who's nature causes him to worship another God is quite interesting to me, as is the comment ( if I understand it correctly) that salvation is not offered to all, only to those God wishes to offer it to.

I think what she was saying is that salvation is offered to all, but not all will accept it. Since the reason that some people will not accept it is because God made them that way, it could be implied that God is responsible for their lack of salvation. Either way the result is the same, but theologically I think the statement that salvation is only offered to some is incorrect.

[Duper]

I think what she was saying is that salvation is offered to all, but not all will accept it. Since the reason that some people will not accept it is because God made them that way, it could be implied that God is responsible for their lack of salvation. Either way the result is the same, but theologically I think the statement that salvation is only offered to some is incorrect.

Those who don't accept it don't because of choices they made; either recently or not so recently. There is the argument of predestination, in which case, it is still God's decision. "The potter makes the vessle for his own purposes. How is it that the vessle can question the potter?" Remember that God is Supreme and His intellegence and wisdom is beyond human capacity. I trust that if he made some that were ment "for the fire" then He knows what He's doing.

But personally, I believe that everyone is offered a chance at salvation, no matter how "slight" by our understanding that is.

[Ford Prefect]

Hmm interesting Snoopy. I don't know if predestination is theologicaly correct either in Christianity. By that I mean if God made you a certain way that you would reject Christianity has he removed your free will? Can a person be saved if they don't have free will? I don't mean forced conversion I mean if the concept of salvation requires you to make a choice then why would any people be created in such a way that the choice is not their's?
Eeek!! I just realized that Drakona and Lothar could probably fill a couple of pages with an answer to that and I will have to read it all because I asked the question.

[Duper]

Here's a question:
Do angels have free-will?

think about it and what scripture tells us. Even in the very presence of God, some turned away, and if I understand it, some were forced due to the heiarchy structure, but I'm not sure that will hold water. And not that it's really important.

[snoopy]

I don't know if predestination is theologicaly correct either in Christianity. By that I mean if God made you a certain way that you would reject Christianity has he removed your free will? Can a person be saved if they don't have free will? I don't mean forced conversion I mean if the concept of salvation requires you to make a choice then why would any people be created in such a way that the choice is not their's?

I don't think people are made such that the choice is not theirs, but such that they will not make that choice. Furthermore, I don't think predestination is an absolute thing:

1.) God having a plan for us doesn't necessarily mean we must follow it.
2.) God's plan seems to be alot more about how He handles us, rather than how we handle Him.
3.) Free will involves the ability to choose any option, not necessarily the choosing of given option.
4.) God's knowledge of future events doesn't necessarily imply only He decided what they would be.

How do I see these adding up? God knows what choices we will make, but doesn't make them for us. God made us and interacts with us in order to push us toward one or another thing, yet doesn't prevent us from choosing a given option; He only gives us incentive to go one way or another. God's plan involves what He will do, and how He knows we will react, not forcing one or another choice upon us. People often confuse circumstances with choices- circumstances are often forced upon us, choices really never are- circumstances move us toward one or another choice, but never force our choice.

Duper, I'm sure angles don't have free will- of course then a unit of measurement (or rolled metal) can't exactly do anything, either.

[Duper]

There! fixed, ya happy now?


LOL thanks.