Can you be a Christian without believing in the resurrection?

[Terry_Sampson]

@riversea

So this communication Jesus did is finished?

Jesus’ work is finished. So the answer to your question is “Yes”.

@riversea

Or is more need to be added to what Jesus did?

• Yes. The more that is needed to be added to what Jesus did is “Spread the good news in his story and the call.”
  • The “good news is his story”, that is: the story that I have told you above.
  • “The call” is to anybody who does not know what he did on earth. Hear or read the story of what he did and what God our Father did to and through him, and then spread the good news yourself.

[beaglelady]

@mitchellmckain

Sorry to spoil your test, but… this doesn’t sound like a Christian essential to me.

It’s very important to Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and mainline Protestants. I take it that you don’t believe in sacraments.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

To me that is like asking if I believe in church buildings. …well they certainly do exist, I have participated in a couple and I don’t see anything wrong with them. But uh… am I supposed to put some kind of faith in them??? Am I supposed to believe they stop vampires, witches, divorces, or something? If I didn’t get married in a church does that mean you think my marriage (of 35 years) is not accepted by God? Or… does it mean I have to jump into the argument over which sacraments are real?

[beaglelady]

@mitchellmckain

To me that is like asking if I believe in church buildings. …well they certainly do exist, I have participated in a couple and I don’t see anything wrong with them. But uh… am I supposed to put some kind of faith in them??? Am I supposed to believe they stop vampires, witches, divorces, or something? If I didn’t get married in a church does that mean you think my marriage is not accepted by God?

Believe what you want. But sacraments are important to Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc. Even some Evangelicals, such as Presbyterians.

[bharatjj (Let the Truth Out)]

@mitchellmckain

You look for a cessation of life “merging with God.”

Merging with God is eternal because God is eternal.

@mitchellmckain

it still amounts to the same thing – something which is desirable to escape from.

Not quite. I see transmigration as continuation of fulfillment.
Thanks for this conversation.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Christians believe that we retain our individual identities as children of our heavenly Father.

In fact, some kind of personal experience with him is normative for even being a Christian – it is not just subscribing to a creed or collection of doctrines, being a ‘mere professor’. The experience does not have to be external with objective physical facts, although many are and they’re cool, but maybe it should be objectively describable (not that every believer needs to).
 
Here is an example of the latter from someone (a fairly well known Christian author, Phil Yancey) who had been in Christian circles for a long time without being one himself, describing his conversion experience:

A few days later the university team gathers for a prayer meeting, as we do every Wednesday. We follow a consistent pattern: Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, then all three pause politely, waiting for me. I never pray, and after a brief silence we open our eyes and return to our dorm rooms.

With the essay deadline looming, I join the team grudgingly for the requisite meeting. Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, and they wait the usual few seconds. To everyone’s surprise—most of all my own—I begin to pray aloud.

“God…” I say, and the room crackles with tension. A door slams down the hall, interrupting me.

I start again. “God, here we are, supposed to be concerned about those ten thousand students at the university who are going to Hell. Well, you know that I don’t care if they all go to Hell, if there is one. I don’t care if I go to Hell.”

I might as well be invoking witchcraft or offering child sacrifices. Even so, these are my friends, and no one moves. My mouth goes dry. I swallow hard and continue. For some reason I start talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, which one of my classes has just been studying. “We’re supposed to feel the same concern for university students as the Samaritan felt for the bloodied Jew lying in the ditch,” I pray. “I feel no such concern. I feel nothing.”

And then it happens. In the middle of my prayer, as I am admitting my lack of care for our designated targets of compassion, the parable comes to me in a new light. I have been visualizing the scene as I speak: a swarthy Middle Eastern man, dressed in robes and a turban, bending over a dirty, blood-stained form in a ditch. Without warning, those two figures now morph on the internal screen of my mind. The Samaritan takes on the face of Jesus. The Jew, pitiable victim of a highway robbery, also takes on another face—one I recognize with a start as my own.

In slow motion, I watch Jesus reach down with a moistened rag to clean my wounds and stanch the flow of blood. As he bends toward me, I see myself, the wounded victim of a crime, open my eyes and spit on him, full in the face. Just that. The image unnerves me—the apostate who doesn’t believe in visions or in biblical parables. I am rendered speechless. Abruptly, I stop praying, rise, and leave the room.

All that evening I brood over what took place. It wasn’t exactly a vision—more like a vivid daydream or an epiphany. Regardless, I can’t put the scene out of mind. In a single stroke my cockiness has been shattered. I have always found security in my outsider status, which at a Bible college means an outsider to belief. Now I have caught a new and humbling glimpse of myself. In my arrogance and mocking condescension, maybe I’m the neediest one of all.

A feeling of shame overwhelms me. Shame that my façade of self-control has been unmasked. And also shame that I might end up as one more cookie-cutter Christian on this campus.

…Something happened. This time God didn’t slam the door in my face. I was asking God to somehow, even though I didn’t want him to, give me the love of the Good Samaritan. Who loved irrationally, with no reason. Who loved a repulsive, filthy tramp. Then it hit me. I was the tramp and God was trying to help me. Every time he leaned over I spit in his face. What’s more, I wanted to remain a tramp. An intelligent, sophisticated tramp by choice.

…a gift of grace neither sought nor desired.
 

Phil Yancey, Where the Light Fell, p.244ff

[beaglelady]

Since you are happy to answer questions here’s another:

You are opposed to the creeds, So please go through the Nicene Creed line by line and explain what you find objectionable. Please take one statement at a time.

[Terry_Sampson]

• I object.
  • “God” is either “Eternal” or He is “Not Eternal”;
  • “God” is either “Omnipresent” or He is "Not Omnipresent.
  • Consequently, we have four possibilities:

• Likewise: A human is either “Eternal” or “Not Eternal” and either “Omnipresent” or “Not Omnipresent”.
• We can now consider 16 possibilities as shown in the table below:

[Terry_Sampson]

• My Comments on the “16 Possibilities”:
  • 1st Question, Bharat: "If one human is eternal and/or omnipresent, are all humans eternal and/or omnipresent or only some?
  • 2nd Question: "If only some are eternal and/or omnipresent, which are and which are not?
  • 3rd Question: “If only some are”, is it possible for those who are neither eternal and omnipresent "to make God?
  • 4th Question: Elsewhere you wrote,

@bharatjj

I like “Infinite God.” The minor distinction is that you see God as external to oneself. I see myself an integral part of God and merged into Him.

• If God is eternal and omnipresent and one or more humans are eternal and omnipresent, that which is eternal and omnipresent is indistinguishable from itself. What is there to be merged if not merged already? Seems to me that only that which is not yet eternal and/or not yet omnipresent is not yet merged into God. In other words, God changes as more humans become eternal and/or omnipresent. In other words. it seems: you promote the Mormon doctrine that the Mormons now back away from: “What man is, God once was; what God is is what man will become.” What if someone wants to become God, but does not want to merge with the existing God?

[beaglelady]

We know you find Judaism, Christianity, and Islam defective and in need of significant change. But what changes do you envision for Hinduism?

[beaglelady]

@Terry_Sampson

• My Comments on the “8 Possibilities”
  • 1st comment is that I need to correct my number of possibilities: There are 16 possibilities, not 8. I;ll correct my table and re-post it later.

Alice in Wonderland always tried to believe in 6 impossible things before breakfast.

[Terry_Sampson]

Welcome to Alice’s Sandbox. Grab a shovel and dig in.

[beaglelady]

@Terry_Sampson

Welcome to Alice’s Sandbox . Grab a shovel and dig in.

Not until you tell me if any cats visit this box

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Terry_Sampson

3rd Question: “If only some are”, is it possible for those who are neither eternal and omnipresent "to make God ?

I’m not sympathetic with Mr Bharatjj’s mission to sell you on redefining what it is you think you are as a Christian (even though I am a fan of radical ecumenism). However I do think you are on thin ice in what I take to be the claim behind what I’ve quoted. In so far as there can be a role for something like God in the emergence of the cosmos I do think what that is must have been of a nature that is constant and never evolving. That would seem to be an axiom of Christianity but apart from what you all choose assume at the outset, I see no reason why what people know as God could not have evolved alongside humans. If God is the ground of being then that could be true whether God as men know Him is God2.1 or 2.2 or 2.N.

[Terry_Sampson]

@MarkD

However I do think you are on thin ice in what I take to be the claim behind what I’ve quoted. In so far as there can be a role for something like God in the emergence of the cosmos I do think what that is must have been of a nature that is constant and never evolving.

• That’s a mighty long sentence.
• It may, or may not be, helpful to retrace the path that I took to come up with my 3rd Question to Bharat.
  • Bharat wrote to riversea, in another thread now closed: “Panpsychism provides a basis for defining God–which is the common refrain of all religions. All matter has consciousness. The Collective Consciousness of all matter–including you and me–that is God. This idea that “we make God” though our collective consciousness is, in my understanding, consistent with the scriptures but against their popular interpretations.”
    • Note that 'humans making God through our collective consciousness" is something that Bharat thinks scripture “says”, except that, in fact, no Christian scripture that I know of says that. In other words, IMO, he’s making stuff up and spreading nonsense.
    • riversea glommed on to what he said and now wants to know:

@riversea

can you tell me more about how Abraham “made God” through our collective consciousness for all of humanity?

• To be clear, and in response to your observation, the God that I–and, I believe–the majority of orthodox Christians affirm and trust in is indeed constant and not evolving. But Bharat clearly does not believe that is true. Ergo, I agree with you wholeheartedly (fancy that! ): it’s an axiom of Christianity.
• Regarding your willingness to entertain the possibility that God has “has evolved along side humans”, Yahweh don’t evolve regardless what the others do. What use does anyone have for a god who is barely a little more clever than us human beings and evolving? Hardly the kind of god that I want to be the “ground of my being”.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Terry_Sampson

@MarkD

In so far as there can be a role for something like God in the emergence of the cosmos I do think what that is must have been of a nature that is constant and never evolving.

• That’s a mighty long sentence.

It sure is! Don’t try this at home. Not only that but in the process I mis-texted. I had meant to say “ I do NOT think IT IS BEYOND A DOUBT what that is must have been of a nature that is constant and never evolving.”

From outside of Christianity it is an open question. Because it is axiomatic to Christianity it is necessary to the internal coherence of that worldview.

From my POV, since I think there is something real, important and dynamic which grounds God belief, a coherent unified theory of religious practice must preserve the coherence of every such tradition. That is why I do admire Bharatjj’s intent even though I disagree with his approach. One can’t convincingly argue that he is a member of a tradition like Christianity if he doesn’t actually embrace the same defining beliefs. You may be a fine fellow but that is clearly neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being hailed as a fellow Christian.

[Terry_Sampson]

@MarkD

You may be a fine fellow but that is clearly neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being hailed as a fellow Christian.

Which is one reason why the last people on earth Christians should take their definition of a Christian from are non-Christians. As for being a fine fellow, I’m as defective as they come.

@MarkD

One can’t convincingly argue that he is a member of a tradition like Christianity if he doesn’t actually embrace the same defining beliefs.

My mission in life is not to convince humans that I am a Christian. I pack my luggage a lot lighter than many.

@MarkD

That is why I do admire Bharatjj’s intent even though I disagree with his approach.

I neither agree with his intent nor with his approach.

@MarkD

Because it is axiomatic to Christianity it is necessary to the internal coherence of that worldview.

• I disagree. IMO, the assertion that Yahweh is constant and not evolving is essential to trusting Him
  • Mattew 7:24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
• My house may be a shack, but at least I know where to build it.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Some build bigger barns… on sand.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Terry_Sampson

the assertion that Yahweh is constant and not evolving is essential to trusting Him

I’m sure that is true too. It just isn’t part of my truth since I’m not a member of the club.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Some people believe in alternative facts.
 

The Latin anagram answers Pilate’s question:

Quid est veritas? “What is truth?”
Est vir qui adest: “It is the man who is here.”