Then you have no solid foundation. Experiences can be deceiving and depending on them qualifies as leaning to your own understanding. It makes you your own god!
Exactly. If I depended on my experience, I would believe that Christianity is a hateful movement based on an undependable deity. But to borrow a concept from a certain Lutheran philosopher (harking back to Luther, actually), I have been overwhelmed by the Gospel.
Faith transcends experience because it is trust in a Person.
Which is why religion/faith is about truth – or more correctly, about the One Who is Truth.
That is the exact illustration that came to my mind!
Good point there. What strikes me at the moment is that we don’t just check one time and then assume that any other time that we want to cross the street the conditions will be the same as on that first time – not sure how that fits, though.
Science is relevant to enjoying a swimming hole! Testing the water temperature with a foot and observing the currents before plunging in are scientific inquiry.
Maybe you should be more complete in your statements so he doesn’t overgeneralize?
Quite so.
Yet the whole foundation of science requires the assumption that there is basic truth that “exist outside of human experience” – which is why so many say that science requires faith, which in turn is behind the argument that religions with faithful, dependable deity were necessary for the emergence of science.
Certainly not worth the effort of devoting research funding to!
My first chemistry professor said of course they are real things because they are what we defined them as. Whether the atoms that comprise what we measure are real is another matter.
It occurs to me that the Orthodox apophatic approach to theology honors this nicely.
This brought to mind again the idea of looking before crossing a street. I may have learned by experience that at 2:45 a.m. the amount of traffic on a given street is nil, but if I have any sense I will even so look before crossing that street! My knowledge of the unlikelihood of getting hit by a car may be quite valid, but it isn’t valid enough to assume safety.
Thus, BTW, the usefulness of mathematical analysis and in turn of repeatability in science.
One of the grad school professors who led chapel services fairly frequently always began with that as a prayer before beginning his homily. He once linked it to Peter’s plaint, “Lord, to whom else should we go?” in a homily he called “Faith or Desperation?”
You just love making assertions without citation. As if everyone should know which pat of Scripture you are distorting.
That is pure belief. there is no justification for it.
You have shown no faith to match mine, so how would you know!
Over simplification. As if I depend on experience alone.
However, if you cannot trust your own experiences or understandings you have no faith at all.
Another wild assertion with no foundation.
Can? or must!
Oh wow. You really have been hurt somewhere.
God has never once let me down. That is my experience. How can that be anything but honest and true?
Or are you so afraid of your own thoughts!
You have a seccond hand faith. I have a personal one.
It s a shame that you have never shown an understanding of the personal aspects of both God and faith. How on earth do you have a relationship with God?
Faith is more than that. It is multifaceted but you see only a fraction of it.
Sure there is: Christ rose from the dead, and He is the perfect representation of the invisible Father.
I’ve avoided this, but . . . In my eyes you have no faith, only opinions. Faith in Christian terms is confidence in Christ and by His example confidence and trust in the scriptures. Your foundation as evidence by your posts is your own judgment and subjective opinions, which is no foundation at all! The Christian foundation is the Resurrection, an actual event in history which showed the Truth about God for all, a Truth which is exclusive because it is personal, i.e. it is comprised by a Person. All the evidence I see from your posts is that you are like the demons who believe, except that they actually know whereas all you have is opinion with no foundation under it.
To the contrary, it is if I trust my experiences and understandings that I have faith! As Martin Luther so potently put it, "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel . . . . " I put no trust in myself, that is to say – to stick with Paul – in my flesh; my faith is in Christ Jesus Who lives in me because it is not I who live but Christ.
Abundant foundation: you feel fit to pass judgment on the Old Testament, on Paul, even on Jesus, measuring scripture – after demoting it to nothing but common human literature – by your own understanding. That sets you up as the highest authority, which by definition means you make yourself your own god.
Enjoy your delusion.
There are none so blind . . . .
No – faith has multiple aspects, but they all come from trust in Jesus Christ our Lord. Anything that comes from anywhere else is dross.
I did not recognise the quote you didn’t make… As far as I know you are just making it up.
That does not invalidate any other “Scripture” or even validate the Bible.
You need glasses.
No. That is intellectual learning. it is not faith. You have faith in Scripture, not God or even Christ. You fail to rationalise what you read or make it practical. To you, Biblical Criticism is purely linguistic and technical.
Try again. Comprehension of English seems to be a weakness of yours. Perhaps I should speak in Hebrew or NT Greek (if I knew either)
Is that you cannot understand plain English. or see real faith.
You have no idea what personal faith is or what it means. You have never made the faith your own.
ouch.
I know that.
And I am very sorry for you.
Your faith is in Scripture and you believe what you are told to.
My faith is my own, and between me and God, and beyond your comprehension.
Except that is only for useful stuff like plotting a course to Mars or new technology. Nobody really cares about those things unless they have something practical to do. Nothing in math and science for the big questions; if it isn’t empirical they have nothing to add.
