It seems to me that God (if he exists) doesn’t seem to care to get the people on the same page. The chosen communication method (personal revelation and reading Scripture) is very unreliable and lends itself to conflicting interpretations. And that is assuming we agree on which Scripture is Gods word.
So why doesn’t God care about consistency? It must be frustrating to watch people pray to the wrong entity and believing to be heard and even receive answers to prayers from that entity.
I guess that’s just a personal interpretation of how God had reached out to humanity. I think it’s all very clear and points towards Christ. It’s the job of Christians to reach out to the world and teach a Christ and it’s the job of the unbelievers to make a choice.
We believe he He left us Revelation. But given the premise of free will and the openness of the world, He is not pushy about it. Its all part of our journey.
You post is exactly one of the arguments I make against inerrancy as a model for inspiration. I don’t think having correct doctrine is nearly as important as how we treat each other. Much more important is that a person acts according to the golden rule, is repentant and in a proper relationship with God. God just doesn’t seem to care as much about correct doctrine, inerrant autographs or a perfect canon as some of his followers in their quest for certainty. The state of affairs within the Church alone strongly compels me to believe this. Let’s be honest. If God isn’t stopping cancer, why on earth is he going out of his way to correct mistaken beliefs?
While we believe in certain universals, we must concede that all revelation is to a degree time-conditioned – bound by the language and culture of its day. It is difficult not to caricature many circles as “believe like me or you go to hell” as if our intellectual assent is what God wants. Being intelligent, smarter or more accurate than other people in no way, shape or form makes you better or good or more deserving of anything. The world’s biggest a-hole might accept evolution while the nicest is a deluded flat-earther.
Vinnie
But if God cares about the truth, would he not leave some concrete methods of getting to that truth?
I think he left all the proof required. I just think it also requires faith and that’s on purpose. I think it’s supposed to be a religion, snd not science. It’s uncomfortable for unbelievers snd some believers but for a millions and for thousands of years it’s been all that is needed for people to be certain. I also believe that more concrete evidence has occurred just no longer exists such as the laying of hands. It was there to jumpstart everything just like Moses preformed miracles to jumpstart his movement. The movement is up and running now.
Did he leave the same level of proof as we have for the evolution? Or gravity?
I have answered it several times.
Religion is faith. Not science. It will always require some faith, no matter what evidence is presented. There is zero scientific reason to believe in Yahweh the god of Judaism and father of Jesus the founder of Christianity.
“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” as a recent senator once said (quoting Emerson I guess).
[Added edit: I am not saying you have a little mind, Vlad. I shouldn’t presume to be able to judge any such thing, and so I repent of letting those words stand by themselves initially. Sorry about that. What I will suggest, though, is that you, like all of us, are occasionally bedeviled by such hobgoblins - perhaps like this one.]
Life is messy. To want God to “clean it up” by eliminating the possibility of any thought not aligned with party-line (i.e. ‘my own’), is probably to want something that God most definitely does not want: that God should play extreme favoritism with one narrow category of people against all the others who have ever existed through all other geographies and times.
To paraphrase the O.T. theologian Walter Brueggemann: God will not be used by or become useful to you; and will not sign on with your cause. To use God’s name in vain is to pretend that God has.
When certain villages made their displeasure and inhospitality known to the approaching disciples, they became enthusiastic about the prospect of calling down fire from heaven as a response. I gather that those disciples would probably be excited about what we call consistency … that everyone needs to think like we do and welcome us and our message. But apparently Jesus didn’t mince words making it known just what he thought about that. It isn’t that he removed the prospect of very serious future judgment from the picture; (“I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom…”). But it was also made clear that God’s judgments are the truly righteous ones - not ours. Vengeance and hell fire are the enthusiasms of wayward people such as Jonah. Repentant Ninevites are the enthusiasm of God. And indeed, Christ even makes that very comparison - that greater condemnation comes to those who won’t listen to one greater than both Solomon and Jonah. One of the many ways that Christ is the greater is that, unlike Jonah, Christ is motivated by love and will use whatever comparative provocations are handy to move his own stubborn-hearted children toward repentance. There is no doubt in Paul’s mind that the lopped off (for now) native branches can be grafted back into their own tree of origin. But meanwhile, it was fair game to vigorously rub their noses in the fact that those without such genealogical or law-possessing pedigree were busy finding their way into rootedness in the Vine - now true children of God. “Look, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, thieves, and centurions … they’re all entering the kingdom of God ahead of you!”
Quite a fair assessment, and seems to be explicitly affirmed also by Jesus…
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Thus it seems to me that God cares more about the hearts of people than in their mere intellectual assent to certain propositions. And thus i would suggest that, for those whose hearts are open, i.e., those that “have eyes to see and ears to hear”, there is more than enough adequate concrete methods of getting to that truth… while not so much that would force intellectual assent onto those who do not have such a desire to so know.
I would agree with much of what you said, and probably take it a little further than you would go down that road. I think that a book that was written around 2000-4000 years ago cannot be concrete and still be relevant to people today and tomorrow. It by necessity must be a somewhat fluid document in its interpretation, and of course, that is where the whole literalistic vs. metaphoric and symbolic conflict comes into play.
I enjoyed Enn’s How the Bible Actually Works. It is free on Kindle I see if you have prime. From Amazon:
“ The Bible becomes a confusing mess when we expect it to function as a rulebook for faith. But when we allow the Bible to determine our expectations, we see that Wisdom, not answers, is the Bible’s true subject matter,” writes Enns. This distinction, he points out, is important because when we come to the Bible expecting it to be a textbook intended by God to give us unwavering certainty about our faith, we are actually creating problems for ourselves.(end quote)
Perhaps I would not take it as far as Enns, but his viewpoint has merit and meaning in our quest for understanding.
As to getting on the same page, it seems God is concerned with unity in spirit and in love, but not so much worried about the details, as we are all individuals in different circumstances and different times and understandings, and our truths may be focused in a different way.
Well, there’s a flip side to this coin. Here’s an excerpt from a testimony of a fellow Eastern European ex-Christian.
Yuriy Stasyuk: From Christian Faith to Atheism - Slavic Sacramento | Russian News in California
At night, when my wife would go to sleep, I would crawl out of bed and pray, weeping desperately, hoping that there was something more than the ceiling above me. At times, I had to take the pillow with me, because I was weeping so uncontrollably, I had to hold it to my face to muffle the sounds not to wake up my wife. I begged, screamed and pleaded. I whispered until my lips refused to move anymore. All I asked for was one sign from Jesus, that he was real and I was not making him up in my head. Just one small sign by which I could reliably know it was all real. I promised to give away all my wealth, my life, my finances, my hobbies. I bargained, I begged and cried, and yet, all I heard was silence. I really wanted to believe, in fact, I still do today, but after hearing only silence I secretly admitted to myself that I was an agnostic atheist.
Perhaps Calvinists are right? God selects a few reprobates and reveals himself to them only, condemning the rest to the eternal suffering, that in some cases, begins right here on the earth.
But God would have to open these hearts and eyes, right? As in Yuri’s case, he was a preacher at one point in his life. And had a conversion experience too. What led him away from the faith is questioning.
So, I’m baffled a bit. If God is not anti-science, then he should not mind questioning. He should encourage it, as it leads people to the truth and away from the preconceived notions, some of which may be false. And yet, this questioning almost inevitably leads people away from the faith.
Can you provide an example of people praying to the wrong God because of a bad scripture?
Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, etc…
What makes you think they are praying to the wrong God, because Christianity claims to have the one true God?
Yep, is Christ not the only true God? There’s more?
Not Christ, that just means king of the Jews. You mean Jesus, the son of Man. He was not a God. If you think of Jesus as God, you miss entirely his greatest achievement. Jesus was of the order of Melchizedek, which means he had combined his warrior with his priest to make his learned behaviors intuitive. Men can do that. Not any man, just severely disciplined men. In the scriptures it’s called “writing the Law on your heart.” Scientifically, it’s the return from learned behavior to instinct.
The first time we see the process of self-sacrifice is in the Rig Veda of the central Asian steppe. It is the same process/discipline of self-sacrifice we see in the NT regarding Jesus.
The chant became flesh through the self-sacrifice. From: Meditations through the Rig Veda
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us John 1:14
Christianity embodies the universal remedy to self-consciousness which is the self-sacrifice. Because the predicament addressed by the self-sacrifice is the human condition itself, the self-sacrifice is relevant for every human being, and so Christianity is true at its core.
To the extent other religions offer the self-sacrifice they are true religions because they spur Man’s need for learning, and offer an end to ontological anxiety.
Buddhism at its core is the self-sacrifice. The Buddha is an accomplished warrior who goes off on a lifelong spiritual quest. He is combining his warrior with his priest, making his finest learned behaviors intuitive.
To the extent Hindus (caste system), Muslims (warrior caste), Sikhs (warrior caste) practice the discipline of self-sacrifice, they are true religions. I don’t know how the self-sacrifice is depicted in those religions, though I would expect to see it if I seriously looked.
No evangelical, however traditional or conservative, to my knowledge would doubt or dispute the basic observation that Scripture need be a “somewhat fluid document” in certain senses at least, e.g. the sense of being able to be interpreted and applied to numerous situations, and which gives wisdom and guidance for all manner of concepts beyond simply giving simple simplistic rules. Nor would any traditional understanding of Scripture mean that it answers every and any difficult question of faith, or that it removes any doubt or wrestling. Conservative Evangelicals have for ages known and taught about the wrestling of the the poets and the like, the psalms of despair and lament, the doubts of Job, and the like. In fact, we inerrantist folks can claim with utter certainty that God wants his people to so wrestle, since we are after all using psalms of Lament and questioning, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations as, dare I say, God’s “rules” for how we should be living and praying. Those parts of the Bible are indeed part of the “rulebook”. And if it isn’t a rulebook communicating God’s infallible thoughts and guidance on the topic, but rather as Enns teaches, a history of ancient a Jewish people expressing their own ideas about God, why should i give to the authors of those poetic books in the Bible any more credence that I would give the authors of the Bhagavad Gita or the Quran? they are all just fallible humans blind and baseless guesses about God? unless Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations a part of God’s “rulebook”, then I ought have no idea whether or not a God does or does not want me to wrestle with him and express my pains, fears, and doubts.
So it is one thing to agree that the Bible is far more than a “rule book for faith.” it is another thing entirely to argue that it is less.
Or, put another way, I don’t inherently disagree with Enns’s basic claim that Scripture, in toto, is not simply “a rulebook for faith.” But when he claims that letting the Bible define itself would require us to deny that the Bible is trying to give us any “rules”, or any “answers” whatsoever, this is downright absurd. The first part of the book is called “Torah” for a reason, no?
Oh He cares, but we don’t. In any sense. We just don’t care. Enough. Especially Christians. To whom much was given, as my tag line eventually realised, from the beginning.
PS Of course His caring is infinitely patient, this level is a mere breeding ground after all. He doesn’t care the way we do. He cares that we do, He’d like it if we did, but He’s done everything He can.
PPS Why doesn’t He care about children with eyeball worms?
This is a huge subject, worthy of much more than I can say at this time. However, let me add a few comments.
In John 14:6 Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me". This means no one can ever work hard enough themselves to please the Triune God of Christianity.
On our own God sees us as unrighteous however many good works we do. Our good works are seen as " filthy rags" by Almighty God (Isaiah 64:6).
This is why our Heavenly Father sent His Son to earth to pay the ransom for our sins (filthiness) by dying on the cross. Christianity is the only religion which recognises that we can NOT save ourselves. Christians are not arrogant in believing their human ‘fallen’ selves, could ever be seen as righteous before Almighty God. It is only IN Jesus Christ that God can look on us and accept us as righteous. All other religions believe if they do enough good works they will be saved. The New Testament unequivocally teaches this is an error.
Everything changed when Jesus Christ came to the earth for the first time. If we believe in Him, and repent of our sin God sees us as righteous IN Christ, and God will accept us into His Holy Kingdom when we leave this planet.
The Trinity/Triune nature of God is essentially a Mystery which includes: God The Father, The Son (Jesus Christ) and The Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ sent us The Holy Spirit when He returned to Heaven on Ascension Day. The Holy Spirit is the third equal part of the Godhead, and He is a person, it is not something ethereal and wispy. The Holy Spirit is the One who leads us, befriends us, and counsels us, whilst we live on earth.
Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the Law of the Old Testament, NO HE FULFILLED it (Matthew 5:17).There are so many phrophecies about the arrival and mission of Jesus Christ throughout the Old Testament; He is everywhere in this book.
With Jesus Christ we are sure of our Salvation; in the complete Bible this is an unequivocal teaching. As to what God does with all the other believers and non-believers, the Bible does not make clear; it uses so many different metaphors which can be misinterpreted and difficult to understand fully.
One thing I do know is that God Almighty is primarily a loving and forgiving God, but there will be consequences for those who do not seek God through Jesus’s Strait Gate which leads to The Narrow (safe) Way. Going via the alternative broad and impossible to navigate way to God, results inevitably in lostness (see Matthew 7:14 ). Jesus Christ is the only One who leads us in the sure Way, His Way is the only secure Path Home.
As for the others who also seek God: they will not be in the same place as Christians because Jesus Christ tells us that He goes to prepare a place for those who believe in Him (John:14:1-3).
I do not believe a loving God burns people in eternal hellfire because they turn away from Him and/or get ‘lost’. Instead God’s Fire is a consuming fire like the one which Moses saw in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-); this Fire cleanses, repairs and heals.
For me, hell would be separation from The Triune God I have come to love and know intimately; this knowing Him is so much more than just knowing about Him. I could not bear a life without Him by my side.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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