We must be careful not to be too pluralist https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Acts%204%3A12
It doesnât sound much odder of an idea than that the natural world caused itself into existence, somehow. In any case, there are a couple problems with this reasoning. Why does it matter to God if it takes one day or one billion years? God is not âin timeâ and does not âexperienceâ time like we do. A being like God would have no relative difference to themselves whether something took a split second or a trillion years from our own perspective. Secondly, the idea that God needs to do things âquicklyâ or something like that (relative to us) is predicated on the idea that God must be âefficientâ or something. But you only need to be efficient if youâre lacking time. God has all of time. He can, therefore, bring things about whichever way He likes, however long they take, so long as they are the best way in the end. Finally, Jesus came to Earth around 2,000 years ago. Only 2% of all humans to ever exist lived before Jesus. Framed this way, time seems kind of irrelevant.
What Iâm wondering is this: In this Christian-Naturalist culture, you all still accept the divinity of Jesus and the reality of Heaven and/or the Resurrection.
Interestingly, this is how Christian intellectuals and scientists viewed the world in the 16th-17th centuries.
What are the most convincing proofs for you?
I think that the reality of Christianity, imbued in the resurrection, is the only really good reason for explaining how Christianity, as a religion, ever came about in the first place. Namely, I donât think there would be a Christianity if there was no resurrection.
I hope you change your mind about that. It seems that in order to do full justice to the stranger you must allow that their ways which are strange to you might still be worthy. The trick, it seems to me, is to find a way to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt without lessening your commitment to worshiping God in the ways which youâve found. Not even those who claim to have met God can say with certainty that God could not or would not appear to another some other way. It isnât a matter of God being false in some forms and true in just one. Narrow consistency appeals to us and makes our understanding easier. But we know that what God is is beyond our understanding so why not refrain from insisting on such things. Iâve been told that was the mistake the Pharisees made.
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Careful or youâll erase every problem I have with Christianity.
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Nope. God is free to limit His power as He chooses also. He is NOT even confined to that.
Next you will be arguing that God is a prisoner of His own will and desires, which I consider to be an incoherent argument.
There is a logical difference between what appears to be limitless and the abstract concept of limitless because human imagination has increased in every personâs lifetime. Try to imagine what it was like when Homer finished one of his stories and told it as poetry in front of an audience around 700 BC, since that has fired the imagination of every generation since.
YES! And that has a part in the reasons I have for choosing Christianity.
And I could add to the reasons I gave, the fact that Judeo-Christianity with its scriptures compiled by so many authors over a long time is no creation of the imagination of one person â as many other religions seem to be.
Of course not. I consider the whole idea of a war between God and Satan to be ludicrous and not a part of Christianity. That is Zoroastrianism.
Exactly. 11 character limit achieved
The adversary is good at creating counterfeits with enough truth to deceive the unwary.
11?
How is this anything more than an empty claim without substance since you give no explanation.
In mathematics infinity is often described as a limit. But doesnât put a cap on it â doesnât make it limited. Are you playing word games. To be sure there are higher orders of infinity â and we have only grasped a few of them.
I certainly donât accept your claim. This does not limit the character of God â quite the opposite. It does not say that God cannot be like you in all your limitations, but only that He can be like every single one of us. His limitlessness is all about inclusion not exclusion â transcendence AND immanence.
OK. Population at the time of Christ was OOM one hundred million, (100,000,000,000) in the previous OOM 100,000 years there will have been 10 x that, so a billion. And that represents 2% of all humans, to now I presume, who therefore number 50 billion. The NCBI reckons 100 billion. Should be trillion by the next ice age maximum. They reckon 300 million alive back then. 10:1 dead to living so 3 billion to then. 3%. Iâll buy that for a dollar.
[the above referenced to Acts 4:12 where âthere is no other name given by which we must be saved.â]
Being too pluralist almost never seems to be much of a problem. Almost like worrying about getting too much exercise. We seem to be much more caught up in building all our little walls, fortresses, and policing the perimeters. Most of scriptures are an exercise in people learning to break those habits rather than encouraging them. But that said ⌠yes ⌠it is good to know who you are, individually and collectively.
From John 10:16:
I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
That Christ is our one and only salvation doesnât mean that Christ is limited as to whom he can reach.
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To be completely honest ⌠I have no idea what you just said.
This was all I meant to say but couldnât post it. The reason given was that every post must consist of at least 11 characters. I wasnât trying to be cryptic, just ironic.
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Prudent attention and care are always appropriate, but the trouble with such attempted âself-inoculationâ against conspiratorial or powerful enemies is that it produces a cynicism against much that is good and needed truth. The person who prides themselves in having this sweet-tasting blanket âskepticismâ against all that they have conveniently labeled âthe devilâ has really only granted themselves (and the now-victorious, now-virtually unchallengeable devil inside themselves) a free pass to filter all incoming information through their own ideological filter. Their so-called âskepticismâ against the big, bad experts is really nothing of the sort. Itâs a blind rejection of anything they donât want to hear. Such âskepticismâ is suddenly nowhere to be found when it comes to anything that tickles their ideological ears. It is very hard to be rescued from (much less be the rescuer of somebody) from such a self-sustaining and powerfully titillating set of delusions. None of us are completely free of this. Nor are we all equally deeply immersed in it. Some are much closer to reality than others - a hard thing to prove since none of us observe all this from some totally objective platform. But when we see some much more open to a wider array of evidence and others rushing to close their ears to anything not ideologically aligned with them, it often becomes a fairly easy and warranted observation to know who has removed themselves farther from reality.
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I was thinking more in terms of world religions. Most all have something to offer, and even cults do, or at least the appearance of.
I donât know if I can tackle everything that was said here, but let me say one thing: Jesus wouldnât have called us to âgo and make disciples of all nationsâ if the nations were fine as they were. If Jesus isnât the only way to Heaven, and/or if Christianity is not the only true faith, there is no reason to spread it; if people are fine without it, then making disciples of all nations would actually be harmful in that the other nations would be given a chance to reject Jesus and be thus condemned by God.
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But you are managing to tackle something I didnât say: Your premise of âIf Jesus isnât the only way to be savedâŚâ is not a premise that I advanced. To claim that there are âother ways to God aside from Jesusâ (a claim I have not made) is an entirely different claim than âJesus has used plenty of ways to reach us.â (which is what I am claiming).
None of us are âfine as we are.â
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Well, great! Sorry, I thought you were advancing the idea that all religions lead to God, but Iâm glad to see you werenât. What were you trying to get across then?
When I said âfine as they wereâ, I meant âOkay without the knowledge of the gospel.â In the sense that we have access to the Gospel, we are more âfineâ than places that do not have it. What exactly do you mean by âNone of us are âfine as we areââ? Do you mean that we are not sufficient to approach God without Jesus? Because, on that point, I would agree with you.
Yeah - at root I think everybody needs Christ. Iâm pretty sure that will be common ground for pretty much all of us who self-identify as believers around here.
Your intuition (or âred flagâ warning indicator?) is probably spot on to be suspicious of me, though, since I probably do not insist on the exact same set of âeverything importantâ as you do - and in fact, as I get older, Iâm less and less inclined to think it is my job to be doing the âinsistingâ. I could be wrong in that - or letting things go that I shouldnât. So I donât want to be insistent âthe other wayâ either - to talk you out of things that you hold dear or central to your faith. I just tend to get a little protective toward those who find themselves âoutside the foldâ on doctrinal grounds, but who may (to my way of thinking) not actually be beyond the reach of Christ just because they fail to conform to our particular religious creed (our own little denominational or even wider religious fortresses of our own making as it were). Thatâs why I occasionally push back a bit on things, but hopefully not too hard or dogmatically. Christ is a good teacher for both of us, and He wonât lead you or me wrong when we strive to be obedient to Him.
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
As with many passages in the Bible, taken out of context this can be quite misleading. Are we in fact saved by a name? Is it calling ourselves Christian which is our salvation? Is it by saying the name âJesusâ which earns us a right in paradise or the kingdom of God?
No. That is not the teaching of Jesus or Paul at all.
Put it back in context
Acts 4:1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadâ˛ducees came upon them, 2 annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the morrow, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to about five thousand. 5 On the morrow their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Caâ˛iaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, âBy what power or by what name did you do this?â 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, âRulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple, by what means this man has been healed, 10 be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the head of the corner. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.â
The context is NOT the question of how we are saved, the context is this question from the high priest asking by what power or name are the apostles teaching and doing miracles. Jesus is indeed the only source of their power, authority, and mission to preach the gospel of salvation. So the passage is not claiming that saying the name of Jesus every chance we get is some kind of password into heaven.
For me there is no exclusivity in such passages as Act 4:12 and John 14:6 for one simple reason - Jesus is God. So saying you can get to God without Jesus is like saying you can get to God without God. But there is nothing in the Bible to warrant the claim that Christianity is the only way. In fact, I donât believe there is any way. In Matthew 19, a man asked Jesus how to get to heaven and Jesusâ answer was âwith men this is impossible.â Salvation is not and never could be an accomplishment of human beings. God is not the property of Christianity. Nor does it speak for God as if God cannot speak for Himself. And the idea that God needs Christianity to save human beings is likewise absurd. I Christianity an important part of Godâs work to bring salvation to mankind? Yes! But the only way God can do anything? No!
In what way?