If you’re out for the rewards, that says you’[re in this for yourself, not for God.
I’m not out for any rewards, and if I end up getting any I’m giving them back – I’m out for Jesus and all the rewards are His in the first place.
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No, it doesn’t. It reveals some of His character in relation to a nation of tribes in the Bronze Age. Mervin is totally correct: only in Christ do we see who God is. Indeed it is only in the Cross that we see who God is, and at the same time see what it means to be human!
Of course not, since He fulfilled it – so it has no hold over us any more.
No, or you are calling the Holy Spirit a liar since He told the church at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 that all of Moses is reduced to just four admonitions.
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Thank you.
That is the attitude I expect from a Christian.
Richard
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I am sorry that you seem to be prou of this attitude and even go to the extent of justifying it.
My point is not whether the rewards are there or not but whter they should constitute a motivation for beleiveing or following God.
Pascal’s wager is a cynical excuse for allowing God to exist, but that is all that it is. If you are going to claim allegience, as in being a “Christian” then you are doing more tha conceding His existence, you are identifyng His standards and attempting to reach them. It is an attitude of mind not a justification.
Yes Scripture includes the benefits of faith, but it is also clear about hypocrissy and deceit.
The Foxes have holes and the birds have nesst but the son of man has nowhere to lay His head.
I could quote you many more citations where the faithfull are shown to suffer for their faith. Whtehr that suffering is justfed by"reward" at the end is not the point. We do what we do, and say what we say because it is right,raqther than to get a pat on the back and luxuriate in the thanks of God.
Richard
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Theology is complicated because God is God and we’re not. One reason to be suspicious of non-Trinitarian theology is that one God in one person or three Gods in three persons simplifies and is easy to understand. But reality is complicated.
Human anger almost always has the component of self-righteousness and defensiveness. Yet we should be angry at abuse, at hypocrisy, at the wrongs in the world. The Bible affirms God’s sovereignty in all that happens, not in a simplistic way like the Far Side with God about to press the “Smite” button on the computer, but working towards the ultimate goal of a renewed creation. Why not just go straight to the renewed version and skip this one? We don’t know. God does restrict how He acts; again, we don’t know the particular reasons. There is judgement and wrath against sin, yet it’s not simplistic. Are the people killed by the landslides and flooding from Hurricane Helene worse than everybody else? Highly unlikely. Does the death toll reflect the fact that the state legislature here in North Carolina cancelled the geological survey’s efforts to identify landslide-prone areas, over fears that it would hurt real estate profits? Yes. The victims generally aren’t the culprits of that particular sin. But our sinfulness affects humanity in general.
In part, this is inherent in sin. If you presume to ignore the law of gravity, you are likely to have negative consequences. But it might cause problems for someone you fall on.
If you presume to ignore the moral law, things are likely not to go well, also. People will be distrustful and angry if you steal from them, even if your particular action is not caught. But that makes it harder for honest people in need.
Both Old and New Testament emphasize that we should be thinking “why was I not judged?” rather than “I must be better than them.” God provides a way of salvation, but there are consequences if we refuse it.
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From yourpost I would guess that the consequences are for others not ourselve?
Perhaps we need to separate slavation from forgiveness. Slavation is ultimately saving from udgement and punishement. Forgiveness is more to do with works. We can sin unintentionally or we can choose to. The first is easy to forgive the second throws up other ethical or moral grounds. Humans have a sense of justice but God has shown, and Jesus taught, that it is the intent rather than the action that matters God. I guess this is where the notion of repentance being paramount comes into our theology. We hold onto the notion that deliberate crimes should be punished not forgiven. I am less than convinced that this still applies to God’s forgiveness. God can forgive the sin but leave open the judgement of intent or value
I think we still would like justice when someone’s sin affects us or those we love. These “consequences” are a true test of our faith in God’s justice and where we can actually “Judge” His forgiveness or not. Leaving it in His hands is probably the greatest trust we can have, and the most difficult.
Richard
That was a point made in the sermon at a Pentecostal church I was guided to to get a clear statement of why Mormonism is a mess.
A great question for speculative metaphysics!
A county government in Oregon tried that. At the required public hearing, most of the Geology faculty of Oregon State University showed up to explain why it was a really stupid idea.
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The consequences of rejecting the opportunity for salvation are most severe for oneself in the long term, but it certainly affects those around as well.
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Perhaps yu would lie to define what you understand as Salvation. Salvation from what?
The wages of Sin?
The persistance of sin?
The consequencse of sin?
The burden of sin?
The guilt of sin?
The judgement of sin?
On this world or the next?
All the above can be argued from Scripture.
And that sin.
Is it your sin?
Adam’s sin?
Humanity’s sin?
Is sin against God?
Is it evil actions?
Is it evil intent?
Is it a curse?
Is it a choice?
And that is just the tip of the iceburg.
Faith is so simple don’t you think (Alert Irony font)
Richard
Edit.
I am not expecting you to answer or choose.
You do seem to have answered the question that titles this thread. The issues addressed by theology are so multifaceted that there are myriad aspects to work through in the effort to build a systematic theology. As in science, accurate characterization in theology often involves a lot of caveats and explanation of detail in order to be precise. Soteriology is a large field of theology and probably is beyond the capacity of a simple discussion thread.
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And the result is both subjective and personal.
The only problem arises when someone, anyone, claims to hold
The Truth
Richard
Hypophora is where you raise a question and then answer it.
Hypophora is a rhetorical device that asks a question and answers it in the same paragraph.
after 310 posts I think you might have the wrong word
Richard
- Richard’s Question: “Why does theology have to be so complicated?”
- Richard’s Answer: Because so many lack simple faith, like mine.
Or
Richard’s answer: because so many consider scripture to be authoritative.
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It’s a good question. I had a nice conversation with my pastor recently–I think God is not gnostic. That is, we don’t have to understand a given creed to be reconciled. I think that each of us that has any insight into responsibility, can ask for forgiveness.
For example, a person who has little insight into anything requiring mental faculties, would not be required to know the creed.
I really like Lewis’ example of Emeth, the Calormene who dedicated everything to the wrong god. Aslan (God) knew his heart.
Is there a role for theology? Well, yes, likely in the same way as science. We don’t have to be scientists to be complete as people–but it’s very interesting and helpful.
We likely can rely on God to figure this out in the long run. I’m glad it is not up to me.
Thanks.
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I always got a kick out of how Lewis and others used Greek and Hebrew words for character names – “emeth” is “truth”.
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- I came across Jack D. Kilcrease’s Is Sola Scriptura Obsolete? An Examination and Critique of Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible.
- Reviewing Christian Smith’s list of ten assumptions of Biblicism, I was hard pressed to find any of them that seemed acceptable as stated.
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I have already quoted bible texts explaining this. Please refer back to the previous posts that contain the relevant the texts I’ve quoted…unless you do that, you are just making stuff up that isn’t what i referenced.
Thanks for the link to the paper Terry.
I must make an early criticism, we cannot trust sources who make rudimentary errors that are easily proven false from history.
This source appears to me to make a fundamental error in its first page as the way i read the following statement in the paper its clearly historically false.
Increasingly, Christians have become disenchanted with the radical pluralism and relativism of Western culture. In light of this, many who join Rome, in particular, do so because they believe that scriptural principles of the Reformation gave rise to interpretative pluralism. This, in turn, has supposedly brought about the corrupt relativism of Euro-American society.
The person responsible for initiating the reformation (Martin Luther) is clearly documented as having done so because of the corruption within the Catholic Church…so in reality, the reverse of what the paper you have cited claims is true
Personally, i think far too many Americans believe that the word sola Scriptura actually means something important to their faith. Im sure even this forum would suggest that is an over weighted claim because the reality is, we all read the same flaming bible (i use this term generically). So the difference isn’t sola Scriptura…its the use of and interpretation of language.
having said that, I’m sure the paper is still well worth reading and i shall read on.
Ok so on to the 10 points…
1. Divine Writing: The Bible, down to the details of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written inerrantly in human language.
Gods own finger wrote the 10 commandments…so there’s that!
2. Total Representation: The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.
this seems overly wordy and I’m suspicious of that…but fundamentally yes that is what the bible teaches
3. Complete Coverage: The divine will about all of the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the Bible.
a no brainer…the bible is the only place where we have eyewitness record of the founders words about the religion!
4. Democratic Perspicuity: Any reasonably intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly understand the plain meaning of the text.
Anyone claiming otherwise is a fool…the bible was translated into many languages because it was Gods intent that it should be understood by people. Example, the day of Pentecost Acts 2 (each man heard in his own language).
This is further backed up by the Bereans Jews - Acts 17:11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
5. Commonsense Hermeneutics: The best way to understand biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical contexts.
This is a gross oversimplification of the reality of sound bible study. It completely ignores ensuring consistency in belief across the whole of the inspired writings of the bible. We must cross reference our research with other bible writers to ensure consistency…otherwise we have clearly made an error (the bible does not conflict with itself)…God is not so stupid that he cannot inspire/ensure that his writers to get their theology straight!
6. Sola Scriptura: The significance of any given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions, historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up directly out of the Bible from scratch.
I don’t actually understand the point of this statement or what it even means…its just rambling nonsense to me…the point has already been addressed in points above!
7. Internal Harmony: All related passages of the Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single, unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about and wrong beliefs and behaviors.
yes i agree with this.
8. Universal Applicability: What the biblical authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.
Yes i agree with this. God is timeless…why should we need that to be updated? God isn’t evolving, he is eternal and almighty. What he wants today is the same as what it was at the beginning of time and it very obviously became the main aim after the fall of Adam and Eve…to restore His creation back unto Himself!
9. Inductive Method: All matters of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths that it teaches.
Yes agree with this…that’s the only place where we can cross reference and check that we actually have Christian beliefs…otherwise one could be learning Islam, Bahai, Buddhism, Hinduism etc.
10. Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of subjects— including science, economics, health, politics, and romance.
this point is nothing more than a ramble. Whoever wrote this is playing games…the point has already been addressed earlier in the list.
Terry i think i might be in agreement with you as to be honest, i am deeply suspicious at the extent of some of the points above. In some he adds in stuff that simply isn’t what the bible claims.