The word "mere" is telling. Jesus Himself got caught up in "mere" belief. He said:Kurieuo wrote:Good diagram. Sadly, I think many Christians and theologians get caught up on mere "belief" without investigating what it entails.
Whoever believes in Me has everlasting life (John 6:47)
He doesn't say "whoever believes AND." And until we take that seriously, we cannot claim to believe what He said. So since Jesus talked about "mere" belief, that's all we have the right to talk about.
No one seeks after God by their own corrupt nature. But the Father draws all men to Himself through Christ and through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It is only a "spiritual change" to believe the gospel in the trivial sense that something is different about a part of your spiritual life than it was before--namely, before you did not believe, and now you do. The "desire to follow God" has nothing to do with whether or not we have experienced this "change." To say it is, is to add to the words of Jesus. For Jesus did NOT say, "everyone who believes in Me and desires to follow Me . . ." Feel free to look back at the diagram. Make the yellow circle "those who desire to follow God."If no one seeks God, then for us to "believe in God" shows a change in our normal response. A spiritual change. A change in heart. A desire to follow God.
When we believe in something, it runs deep. This is why discussions inevitably boil over into heated debates. When someone attacks our belief, we often feel they're attacking us.
No, pisteuo is not complicated. The best translation is "place your faith in," and that only because we don't, in English, have a verb "to faith." It has the idea of placing your trust in something, which is to say, entrusting. I've written on this in some more detail hereConsider pisteuo, the term often translated into "belief": http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons ... steuo.html
It is rather complicated if you think about it. Belief is rather complicated.
You are focused on the intellectual idea of belief, which is understandable as that's the word we normally use when talking about pisteuo or aman. But a much better word is "trust" or the phrase "put your faith in." Then you won't be so tempted to look at the intellectual piece and start trying to draw these sorts of conclusions. In any case, beyond all that, the preconditions for belief/faith/trust do not guarantee in any sense of the word what happens in either the moment of faith or after it happens. As such, we cannot claim that those preconditions will necessarily manifest themselves in works after we put our faith in Christ. Again, cf. John 12:42.We as Christians cannot make ourselves believe God doesn't exist at a click of our fingers any more than an Atheist can make themselves instantly believe in God. Rather deeper changes need to happen such that belief (the end result) comes to fruition. When you finally believe then all those other deeper inward changes with you are attached to it.
But Jesus' own use of this example disagrees with you. He said,Trying to think of a good analogy here, but it'll probably be less than good. Think of a seedling in fertile ground being watered. Eventually it sprouts into a small plant or flower. In order to sprout it is receiving the water and sun such that an inward change happens that enables it to grow. The sprouting is like "belief" alone. It is the end result of God's nurturing if us will, or sometimes even God cracking our hard outer shell against the rocks to try and break us. But, to just leave it at "belief" and ignore all the changes that happened, such seems to me rather hollow.
- The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. (Luke 8:11-15)
What you are doing, though well intentioned, just like Craig, is saying that Jesus was wrong, that NOT everyone who believes as everlasting life. In His own example here, He points to examples of people who believed and then lost their faith (and so did not produce fruit) and people who believed but didn't cultivate their faith (and so did not produce fruit). But He does NOT say that they are not saved. That only applies to those who did NOT believe (the first group).
Is the faith of the second and third groups hollow? Absolutely! Is it dead? Yes! Does that mean their faith is not "real"? No. Does it mean it does not exist? Of course not. Does it man those people are not believers? Absolutely not. And to say that their hollow faith is not a real faith, that it is a fake faith, and that therefore those people are not believers, is to preach a false gospel for the same reasons I've already said before (bluntly, it makes Jesus a liar).
Notice the underlined word. You've added to Jesus' words. Jesus doesn't distinguish between true and false faith. You do that. That qualifier is NEVER found in Scripture. That's just something religious people invent so that they can claim people aren't saved when they don't act the way we want them to. Second, when a person believes in Christ, it does NOT stand to reason that "such inner changes that brought a person to that point should bear out in works." That's an assumption on your part that is both unwarranted and is refuted by Scripture (Luke 8:11-15; John 12:42). What you ought to say, with Scripture, is that if a person ABIDES in their faith, then the Holy Spirit will produce good works through them. And this is important. It is not changes that brought you to faith that causes you to change and produce good fruit. It is the Holy Spirit working through you that produces the fruit.If someone truly believes in Christ, then it stands to reason that such inner changes that brought a person to that point should bear out in works.* Jesus talks of determining false prophets by the fruit that they bear, and the way they act. (Matt 7:15-20) While it is not a hard and fast rule, there is merit to the thought that if a Christian is getting worse -- something suspicious is going on with their "belief".
Finally, Matt 7 does NOT say that false prophets are known by the way they act. It says the opposite. Their sheep's clothing is the way they act. What is the fruit of a prophet? Not his behavior, but his doctrine. And that is consistent with the Old Testament, by the way (see Deut 18:15-22). A person can act very Christian like. That doesn't make them a believer, nor does it mean we should trust their teaching. What we have to do is look at what they actually teach. We have to look at their fruit. Do they preach the gospel? If not, if they add works to salvation, then they are to be rejected as false prophets, and that regardless of how well they behave. Christians need to get serious about the fact that behavior has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not you go to heaven or hell, and to say it does IN ANY SENSE is to fail to understand or believe the gospel.
Phil 1:6 is collective, not singular. The "you" is plural, and it is helpful to know that, in Greek, there is no "generic you" like we have in English. The word "you" ALWAYS refers to a specific person or group of people. In that verse, Paul is promising that Jesus would continue bringing fruit from the work He started by the church's ministry. And He is still keeping that promise. After all, we're still talking about them, aren't we?*BUT, at the same time "belief" is an incorrigible thing to us. We can immediately know by a mere reflection whether or not we believe in something. Others don't have the same access to our beliefs that we do. So rest assured, if you believe Christ, hoping in Him for acceptance before an all-righteous God, that your faith will be accepted and Christ will intercede. You probably don't even realise all the ways you are being changed from the inside out. (Philippians 1.6)
But to your other point, belief is something we know on reflection, and others do not know it. But still less do they know it by watching our behavior. They know it when we tell them. To say that because someone is not "acting like" a "true Christian" is just to commit a True Scotsman fallacy. Again, I point you to Luke 8, John 12, and to the others I already pointed Paul to.
), but because they are first and foremost in the blue circle.
