That doesn’t line up with the theological truth that God is sovereign, and the empirical experiential truth of many (Maggie or George, for instance). It’s also a statement requiring a certain faith.
How does anything I stated undermined anything about God?
How does the tales told by Maggie tie into anything as well?
The reality of the ‘tales’ demonstrates the theological truth of God’s sovereignty, and certainly anything but ‘by chance’.
That’s because Acts, Proverbs and Revelation are all different genres of writing.
Exactly.
That’s my point. Theological truths don’t mean realities or scientific truths.
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Dale all I can say is I have no idea what you’re even trying to argue.
I said if theological truths which includes genres like myths, hyperbolic tales and parables, also just happen to line up with secular real world realities it’s by chance.
How is that wrong? How is that undermining God? It’s not. Whatever you’re reading into it or seeing I can’t debate or respond to because it’s not related to my comments .
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I already explained. How could I make it clearer for you? Her account is effectively like a scientist’s field notebook recording empirical events, not subjective feelings. I don’t know why you would suspect dishonesty – I don’t think that says anything about her. Maybe you should reread it.
How about George Müeller?
Were there any realities in Acts?
The only way I disagree with you is that whatever it is which led to those tales was based on something quite real, but more about our inner reality rather than the nuts and bolts of the outer world. I suspect, as Joseph Campbell found, the stories that arise in every tradition contain aspects of that inner reality. I don’t think any of them work as well as expository detailing of one true inner truth, that is one way the inner and outer realities differ. But probably none is devoid of the truth either. I’ve been impressed with the richness of the Christian mythos and the use I see it put to here.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with that.
For me I felt I was being practical. There are large chunks of the Bible the majority of Christians accept as generally being truth. There is not really any theological contention on was Mary the mother of Christ. There is no scientific contention that I know of surrounding that. So if a question was surrounding a potential area of contention I presume it’s with something more along the lines of christian mythos subject A being literally true despite science and history saying otherwise. Or thst if something within a mythos ended up being true despite science and history saying otherwise it’s probably just by chance.
Like let’s say by some crazy chance we find the fossilized remains of a tribe of 10 foot people under the melting russian icecaps. I would presume it was by chance and not related to the giants within the mythos.
I think it’s inaccurate to say there is no consensus. There is enough consensus on core theological truth for Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox to all be Christians. There are areas where people pick which expert authority they accept. Within the branches that result, theology doesn’t change unless the consensus changes. “Orthodox doctrine” is not some kind of absolute objective standard. It’s something that was hashed out over time in a community. When you have one guy claiming authority to speak for theological truth against the consensus of a given faith tradition, you get cults.
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Sort of similar to the previous response I think that there are some general concepts that the majority of Protestants and Catholics agree on. I also think now days there is a bit of divorcing between being saved versus part of the secular understanding of the umbrella term “ Christian “. As far as the world is concerned a Christian is someone who believes in Christ.
But there is without a doubt a massive divide between many denominations and especially once you span to things like Catholic versus Protestant. One common belief for for example among catholics is that baptism in water is necessary. Part of the reason for infant baptism is to help prevent babies from going to purgatory and suffering somehow until their suffering has satisfied God and they are lifted up to heaven. I have heard some Catholics say unbaptized adults go to hell and some say they go to purgatory until taken to heaven.
Within the Protestant movements there is also several views on salvation. Within the restoration movement there is a Protestant emphasis on baptism. They believe only adult baptism counts and that infants don’t need to be baptized because purgatory does not exist and kids are saved because they are not guilty of sin. This same movement also rejects original sin. They teach that an adult must hear and obey the gospel and get baptized into Christ through being fully immersed in water and then they are saved. They say this is a work of grace and faith because without Christ all you would be doing is getting wet. They reject baptism by sprinkling.
I have met brothers and sisters in Christ who belong to the churches of Christ in Africa who go even further. They believe you must be baptized in “living water” which they call Rogers and ponds. They reject baptisms done in pools.
Then , what I presume to be the majority of belief for salvation within Protestantism is to simply believe in Christ. No necessary “ sinner’s prayer “ , no requirement for baptism, but simply to hear the gospel and place your faith in it. Then you are saved. Within their group there are two subgroups. Those who believe we are saved once snd forever. That you can’t backslide. That once saved you are always saved no matter what you do because we all fall short and we all require grace. If we all fall short and we all require grace then how would we ever draw a line between too much sin or to bad of a sin. But others say no there is a line somewhere and it’s defined by grace, but that Gods grace is given to those who love him and those who love him submit to him. They believe that you can reject Christ after becoming a Christian.
So there is a lot of contention within the movements on who is saved in my opinion. But if we step back most of us agree that a starting point that we all agree on is that Jesus is Lord and through Christ we are saved and that Christians should hear the fruit of the spirit at some point post conversion. Most of us would agree that someone who rejects Christ is not a Christian and that someone who only bears fruit of the flesh and has seemingly never stopped being evil is not reflecting Christ.
But even within the major divides there seems to be some concept of even if I think they are not saved and believe false doctrine I still recognize them as being within the Christian movement.
For me the best approach is to simply preach the gospel as you see being true and doing your best to being open to the possibility that you are wrong if someone presents evidence and remember that no matter how righteously we may work and no matter how faith we have there is no way we can replace the work of Christ with our own.
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