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?
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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.
What is that quote about consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds?
Ok it was “foolish consistency” …but… why do I suspect that the bigger the mind the more of the obsessions with consistency look foolish? It is because of what I see in physics where inconsistency between the idea of the basic constituents of the universe being particles or being waves look pretty sharp and un-bridgeable. If science didn’t force this on us, who would accept such a preposterous notion? …of course the point here is that God has the biggest mind of all… LOL
So… what makes you so sure that everything has to be consistent? For me this is directly tied to the question of whether reality is exclusively objective (for which we have no objective evidence). For if there is an irreducibly subjective aspect to reality and thus a good portion of reality is simply not the same for everyone then expecting consistency with regards to such things between different people would be unreasonable.
Please take note that this does not change in the slightest my three part definition of rationality…
- logical coherence is a requirement for things to be meaningful.
- consistency with the objective (scientific) evidence is a requirement for things to be reasonable.
- agreement with the standards of a free society (like tolerance) is required for things to be moral (at least in the world/society that I want to be a part of and am willing to peaceably accept).
This only requires logical coherence in the assertions of a single person for those assertions to be meaningful. It doesn’t require logical coherence between the worldviews of different people or that reality of different people must be totally the same. And of course consistency with the objective evidence doesn’t even come close to requiring a consistency between worldviews generally.
“Invariably”? You’d have to show some empirical figures to convince me of this in context. “Questioning” ones preconceived materialist notions is indeed what has led to many people embracing the faith, after all.
There have never been so many ‘nones’ in the US, in number and proportion.
And the rule is my tagline.
One night at Forest Home, he walked out into the woods and set his Bible on a stump – more an altar than a pulpit – and he cried out: “O God! There are many things in this book I do not understand. There are many problems with it for which I have no solution. There are many seeming contradictions. There are some areas in it that do not seem to correlate with modern science. I can’t answer some of the philosophical and psychological questions Chuck and others are raising.”
And then, my grandfather fell to his knees and the Holy Spirit moved in him as he said, “Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word!”*
From my experience this is how Evangelicals deal with doubt. Billy Graham was not an exception.
Now, religion has one thing going for it, and that is the concept of morality. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with the Bible morality, but the idea that there’s an “objective “ morality has strong appeal. Also, SJW crowd has, in my opinion, hijacked secularism to where if you don’t accept trans as normal (and I don’t) something is wrong with you. This is where Jordan Peterson has an appeal to even atheists, in my opinion. Personally I like him as well. His views on the Bible are very unorthodox but he has an appeal from the POV of morality. I think I’m rambling a bit here but hopefully you get the point.
Various seasons of life will probably make different things rise up into the foreground of our immediate attentions, imposing themselves as our driving necessities of the moment. Even the most ardent rationalist cannot (I suppose) always keep their radical concern for rational consistency as the uppermost consideration of their every waking thought. There will be times when life intervenes and the rationalist, the scientist, the pietist, the social justice warrior, the tribal politicist, etc. are each in turn obliged to set aside something they would have, in more calculated moments, maintained as a center of their attention and homage. The desperate man may, in his moment of desperation set a considerable number of important things aside, in order to take hold of one thing he perceives of lasting importance … “Lord - I can’t see how this works now - but I recognize my need to just trust you through this, and that my understanding can come along later.” Such a season of life shouldn’t be seen as precluding the necessity of at least some growth of understanding later - or the responsibility to seek understanding without permanent deferral.
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And then I could offer the testimony of C. S. Lewis, C.E.M. Joad, Frank Morison, or plenty of others, who were reasoned into their faith, and who got there by doubting their former materialism. And i doubt they would view themselves as “exceptions” either.
But it sounds like what you’re getting at more is why we maintain belief even in the face of doubts, and why we do not pursue with greatest passion any and every possible course of doubt… I would commend Lewis’s article “On Obstinacy in Belief”, where he addresses that very topic:
We have been told that the scientist thinks it his duty to proportion the strength of his belief exactly to the evidence; to believe less as there is less evidence and to withdraw belief altogether when reliable adverse evidence turns up. We have been told that, on the contrary, the Christian regards it as positively praiseworthy to believe without evidence, or in excess of the evidence, or to maintain his belief unmodified in the teeth of steadily increasing evidence against it. Thus a ‘faith that has stood firm’, which appears to mean a belief immune from all the assaults of reality, is commended.
There is so much in the article it is hard to summarize, but i appreciate and resonate with this line from his conclusion:
Our opponents, then, have a perfect right to dispute with us about the grounds of our original assent. But they must not accuse us of sheer insanity if, after the assent has been given, our adherence to it is no longer proportioned to every fluctuation of the apparent evidence.
Withdraw belief? What? Turn off our brains and believe nothing? Is this the naturalist version of the old religious mantra of “it is mystery, so STOP ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT!” LOL
The absurdity of this is only exceeded by the dishonesty of the other bit of rhetoric which says “my answers are the default answers which you should believe unless you can prove something else.”
The simple fact of the matter is that life doesn’t wait for proof and faith is a necessity not only for life but for all knowledge. Yes that includes scientific knowledge (scientist speaking here). We have faith that the methods of science reveal the truth about some things. We have faith that there are no demons (malign invisible forces) arranging the evidence out there to deceive us.
To be sure there are lots of questions where we can live without an answer to, and maybe even a few where the risk of a wrong answer exceeds any benefit we might get from a correct answer. But for most question there remains the questions of priorities and where we are going to devote our time, especially when these are things which large numbers of people devote considerable time to.
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Seems to a little more to it with Lewis anyway. it may be said reason brought him to theism, but regarding his faith, he states in Surprised by Joy,
“I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”
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Like evolution. [Sorry, mustn’t do one liners must I? Morality is hard wired by evolution in to our brains and the concept of it is not unique to religion. We have six moral taste receptors starting with the universal do no harm and be fair, which liberals have a positive imbalance of. They can’t help it.]
Well, of course there’s more to it, with Lewis and anyone else… anyone who merely reasoned their way to an intellectual belief, and no more, would essentially be in Satan’s position… “believing in one God”… but who ought be trembling.
But point remains… for all these people, and plenty more, doubting materialsm was a major step in their path to faith.
I think I get the point, but if I do, I’m not sure your difficulty with theism in general.
Firstly, I assume you mean an objective and/or absolute morality… one that exists above, outside, and apart from human development, opinions, cultures, or experiences. i.e., one that is transcendent. An absolute and overarching morality that would not permit Nazis to simply claim their morality was different but just as legitimate as any other cultures… but rather, an eternal and objective morality that could in fact judge some systems of morality to be superior to others, or some to be faulty in certain ways, or the like?
Secondly, if I tracked you so far, i observe that morality like this, independent of humanity, would have to reside within a mind. protons and neutrons don’t care what people do, there are no moral laws written into any fundamental particulars nor into any physical laws. there is nothing written into quarks that say that, if they arrange themselves into certain patterns that allow for thought, that certain behaviors and choices are right and others wrong. only a mind - a person - would or could care what humans ought and ought not be doing regarding other humans.
And thirdly, i don’t see what at core distinguishes the above recognitions from religion in general. this vague theism may not be equated with any particular religion, granted, but this is yet inherently religious, and theistic, unless i is something?
If i’ve missed something, or misunderstood, please correct me.
That is debatable. If there is an advantage for morality in religion, then I think it is a subtle one that comes from belief in an afterlife rather than belief in a deity. In fact, as many atheists have frequently pointed out and demonstrated, belief in a deity can be a rather scary detriment to morality. But I do think the context of an afterlife can add some strength and support to morality.
I did just fine with morality without religion and the same is true of many other people. The most you can say is that this has been the focus of religion for a lot longer and thus it has a head start on the promotion of morality. But all that is going to get you is the response that, not only do we not need it any more for that purpose, but that considering the history of religion, we can do better.
Well sure… but I don’t think religion provides morality that is either absolute or objective. Morality from religion/deity remains relative to that religion/deity and is certainly no less subjective than ones belief in the things of religion. If you want absolute morality then you need good logical reasons why some things are better than other things and if want it to be objective then you need demonstrable evidence to back up those reasons.
You are right there. I was paraphrasing the religious concept of morality that you have summarized above. I disagree that there exists such objective morality, as even Christian apologists, like Dr. Craig have to use double speak to justify OT God’s orders to kill women and children on the one hand, even as they argue that humans have a moral compass whereby killing women and children is objectively morally wrong.
This is what I meant when I said that religion has some things going for it.
Thinking this over and hearing theists talk recently I have to take this back. The belief in a deity can also help with morality in a subtle way. Sometimes it helps simply to know/believe that someone is watching, especially someone who cares.
So perhaps the right way to say this, is that in both cases, belief in deity and belief in an afterlife, there are subtle ways in which they can help even if this does not necessarily follow. It is not guaranteed, for these beliefs can be misused to the detriment of morality. This explains why atheists often have moral reasons for discarding the belief in a deity and/or belief in an afterlife. But at the same time I have often heard atheists express the sentiment that religion does benefit morality and perhaps this is not totally just about religion having a head start on its promotion.
I would like to get the thoughts of @MarkD on this for this seems right up his alley.