@Neo-X
Firstly, I respect you regardless as a Christian despite our differences here.
I just love that anyone comes to Christ, regardless of whether or not they give Scripture the same credence and authority that I attach to it.
Your frustrations I'm sure would be something you would feel within most Christian churches.
Raised eyebrows and the like that you do not accept all Scripture as truth.
Strangely, as liberal as some denominations are when their lecturers teach students, I've found the masses in the churches are often a lot more conservative.
I'm not simply talking Evangelical denominations here, but Anglican, Uniting, Catholic or what-have-you.
So obviously, no matter where you turn, anyone who doesn't accept all of Scripture will be challenged greatly.
BUT, I can't ever picture any true Christian pushing you away as a brother/sister in Christ.
I'm just glad that you have faith in Christ, however you reached it -- you made it! You know?
It is sad that other Christians don't see it that way, and would be sad if a non-Christian thought they had to accept all Scripture as truth before turning to Christ.
At a foundational level I grew up with Scripture. Then I debated it lots online. Many accusations are just fluff. Some require harder explanations. As long as a reasonable explanation exists to justify a particular passage, then I don't think it reasonable to declare it is at fault. Suspect perhaps, but not faulted.
It is strange to me that many like to consider Scripture guilty until proven innocent. We don't do that in court, and so I think it is fairer to give the benefit of doubt until proven guilty. Scriptural explanations might be suspect, but unless found guilty beyond reasonable doubt then innocence ought to be presumes. That's how I see matters. Many however, see suspicion as guilt and I consider that unfair.
Neo wrote:I really don't get the whole inerrant thing, so lets say its inerrant, so what , that flies full in the face of evidence, how do you square that?
If you see that Scripture flies in the face of reasonable evidence, then you ought to reject it.
But then, what you do believe needs to be based on more than just Scripture and some feeling or resonance.
At least if you want to have properly grounded beliefs (since Scripture obviously can't be your anchor any more).
Understand that we all come at Scripture from a different background.
Further, some of us have examined some passages more thoroughly then others.
Many Christians are naive and just accept things. Mormons know the book of Mormon is true because they listen to their heart.
No doubt many Evangelical Christian are the same as far as our Bible is concerned.
That is stupid and poor at best.
I don't know what you've read of Scripture, what you found difficult, whether you are aware of the same responses and like that I am.
Rather I can only speak for myself, as you speak for yourself.
SO for me I see that Scripture doesn't fly in the fact of evidence. How do you square that?
I'm wrong you think, just like I believe you're wrong.
General statements then aren't going to do any good here.
Rather, the details ought to be discussed.
If you want to sway me then you can present your issues, and I'll judge them for myself.
If I want to sway you I'll provide a response to your issues that I'm satisfied with.
At the end of the day our subjective opinion of the matter will dictate whether or not we feel Scripture stands up.
Like jurors might have different opinions, so too we may of what the truth of the matter is.
Only one of us is right though. Such is truth. Divisive, but immovable.
So this issue of whether one accepts Scripture as authoritative or not is largely a subjective affair.
That sounds strange, but obviously it is true. If I feel a passage can be explained, and you feel that explanation is inadequate then what more can be said?
Nothing really that I can see. It comes down to a matter of personal judgement and as such differences of opinion.
SO for myself, let me quote what I said to D220 -- not to justify my beliefs re: Scripture -- BUT to rather give you insight into why I do accept Scripture as authoritative:
- Scripture is just a source of truth, that's all I'd argue for.
Meaning where it touches upon reality and is properly understood as originally penned and intended then I'd accept it as truth.
Mind you, I'll admit that this is the most faith-based belief I have; in the sense that I can't prove Scripture is inerrant but I can justify many so-called errors (which I did many years ago with critics).
Such that being able to resolve 99% or so errors, gives me more faith in Scripture than not... which plausibly places it as a source of truth on my table of possible beliefs, that I then choose to accept as authoritative. So it isn't proven 100% (if anything ever is), but is evidenced to me as being reasonable to accept Scripture as reliable because it is hard to fault beyond all reasonable doubt.
Neo wrote:I do hold objective truths out of the bible but I also hold value to things outside the bible which we know to be true. So you will say why believe in Christ or think the Resurrection story is true? because I think its possible, because I think it makes sense with what happened later or any other logical conclusions which may lead me to see that the Resurrection could certainly happen. But more so because I believe it, because I know Christ.
I think you would actually be hard pressed to rationally ground each individual Christian belief that you would accept.
To verify each one would be a massive, indeed even impossible task -- unless you take Scripture as an authoritative truth source on some foundational level.
Jesus' resurrection is a different kettle of fish (thank God), and Habermaus has done great work here to get at it without resorting to Scripture as God's authoritative word.
But then say your own and D220's belief of Christ sending the Spirit to verify (i.e., you "know Christ" / your relationship), Trinitarian beliefs, Jesus being fully God/fully human, Satan/fallen angels and so many side-beliefs we take for granted as Christians that'd make a non-Christian role their eyes and wonder how the heck we can believe in such things...
These are all extremely hard to ground, if not impossible without accepting some sort of special revelation.
Perhaps, you just "feel" that the Holy Spirit as you read verifies some beliefs through some heart-felt resonance. Which could happen.
It is hard for me to comprehend how such could lead to a rationally grounded beliefs though, especially when other Christian may resonate with something other
(e.g., JW's, Mormons or even YECs, Day-Age, etc who resonate differently with Scripture).
Or again, take my Mum who left Dad and moved in with another guy and she felt "God was leading her to do so" because they were wrongly yoked together by a Christian community earlier on in life.
To use an analogy I don't know how the heck came into my mind...
A dog owner grabs the walking chain and the dogs starts jumping around him all excited.
The dog jumps in front, to the back and side to side while the owner remains standing in the same spot.
This is like how we approach Scripture in some ways. Scripture being the dog's owner, and each of us jump around it offering up this or that interpretation.
Same happens with us in examining the world around us. Only the natural world is the dog's owner, and we jump around offering up this or that idea for how things work.
Now what makes things messy is if you now place "us" as the dog's owner -- whether that be our interpretations or listening to the Spirit and what resonates with us.
The immovable standards now become movable. Dogs jumping around many owners and absolute confusion everywhere.
See how it quickly becomes impossible for anyone to seriously ground their beliefs unless they appeal to an immovable source?
Having immovable sources of truth isn't necessarily a bad thing, or a blind following off the cliff of reason.
It is just a necessary way in which knowledge must be grounded.
Due to post-modern influences -- many today think that many truths are had via this society and culture or that, even if the clash that's then their truth and our truth. Some theological thinking carries this thought and wishes to apply it to Scripture. Thought like I detected in Canuckter's original post quoting Carson/Keller i.e., "
It ignores the degree to which our cultural location affects our interpretation of the Bible, and it assumes a very rigid subject-object distinction."
I detect the undertones and I'm sure if I looked into these guys more I'd be proven right. Such is just downright nonsense to me.
Just say already that the Muslim feels the trunk, Christian the tail, Hindu the leg and the complete elephant is only seen by post-enlightened folk already.
neo-x wrote:Do I reject all of it? no. Was it written all at once? no. Then why on earth would you like to treat all books the same way? It can be treated book to book as a matter of fact that is also the way the canon was compiled.
Why do I accept it as authoritative? Ultimately because Jesus did.
What about the NT? Apostolic authority which ultimately comes via Christ.
Many like to just remove the face, and say human author this, and human authors err.
Fine. But the teachings within come from those with authority, from those God sent the Holy Spirit to (John 14:26) and ultimately from Christ Himself.
So the authority in Scripture for a Christian ought to be greater than the Pope to the Catholic Church who claims apostolic succession via Peter even though many, many generations removed.
This is perhaps why Luther esteemed Scripture so much. He saw it as an immovable landmark of early Christian authority. The RCC who at the time had strayed from it so much that he wanted to try use it as a landmark to highlight just how far down river they had strayed. To try bring about reform within the church. Until he was made the enemy.
You ask why treat the books all the same way?
I'm not sure I know what you mean by this...
Treat them individually in the same way in which the canon was compiled...
Sure. How is that different from treating them collectively and what does that entail?
As a point of reference the canon wasn't necessarily "complied" by any one party or decree.
No one decided what was in or out. Not Constantine, nor the RCC as commonly accused.
The theologian, Morwenna Ludlow, words it more elegantly than I could when she writes:
- "With regard to most books it was a question of [the church] explaining why it had what it had, rather than deciding on what it should have. No council sat down to choose the texts according to some pre-established set of criteria, just as a selection committee might decide on the sort of person they want to fill a post, before interviewing the candidates. Rather, there is some sense in which the canon chose (or formed) the Church, rather than the Church chose (or formed) thecanon… [W]hat seems to be happening… is that the Church is formulating reason or explanations for why it has what it had, not criteria for choosing what it should have in the future."
(Morwenna Ludlow, "'Criteria of Canonicity' and the Early Church" in John Barton and Michael Wolter (eds), Die Einheit der Schrift and die Vielfalt des Kanons /The Unity of the Scripture and the Diversity of the Canon (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 69-93)
Neo wrote:So why can't I still trust or believe the genesis story? because now its not a matter of how fantastic the story is or how sovereign God could be. The facts go against it and since I don't think God could be at fault, I can only surmise that the story is.
As far as objective truth is concerned, no, when it comes to burning the witch or stoning the whores I don't take it as an objective model to follow, neither do you. So we already divide among the scriptures of what is objective and what is not. Do you accept all scripture as is? You don't. I challenge you that the Bible doesn't support OEC. You have stretch it to make it such. In its own reading it sounds VERY VERY Yec, with multiple references to 6 day creations unless you knew about the an old earth, the idea wouldn't fly. And it wasn't until the last few centuries that it did. Regardless of the fact that I can be wrong in my assumption, what objectivity can you offer me to show me that OEC is objective truth? None!
So how objectively do you take your bible?
You are entitled to your own subjective judgement on the matter.
Many higher authorities in Hebrew than I think even YECs could muster would disagree with you.
And I'm not defending that OEC -- let's say the Day-Age interpretation -- is objective truth, only that Scripture is a valid source of truth.
There is something interesting I find here in all this. A little irony.
You along with D220 and I'm sure PaulS and Canuckster
would be the first to point out "
interpretation of Scripture" is not Scripture itself.
BUT, then you attach a YEC beliefs to an interpretation of Scripture that you believe to actually be what Scripture "objectively" says.
What are you here affirming as the immovable source of Scripture --
1) Human interpretation (YEC), or
2) Scripture itself?
If the latter, then THAT'S how objectively I take the Bible.
So open the gates to all subjective interpretations and put them to the test against all accepted sources of truth.
If the former, then "objectivity" has nothing to do with how we take the Bible really -- "Scripture" and "interpretation" are two different things.
Further, I want to highlight something with the creation debate regarding Genesis 1, since this is a main issue that you mention.
Because it is absolutely false I think to say categorically there is such a thing as the YEC or OEC interpretation (even if we use such language all the time).
Rather, it is more that a particular way of interpreting Scripture fits in with YEC or OEC beliefs.
Let me explain further what I mean so many can hopefully get what I'm saying.
In saying "YEC interpretation" many believe that this means taking the days in Genesis 1 to be an ordinary day (actually symbolic of a 24 hour period).
A more
literal understanding would be to take the days in Genesis 1 to be intended by the author as literal solar days.
Where am I going with this? Obviously if the author meant real days, then there was some reason. What is that reason?
Well one reason is because the author saw importance to the Sabbath and keeping the 6-1 pattern of rest. You can find the association between the days of Genesis and Sabbath in the 10 Commandments. Thus, the author I put forward did intend actual ordinary solar days (not longer periods, not 24 hours) and the hearers of the time were well aware to the greater significance behind the days and the example God sets in His own creative work and rest.
I go into detail elsewhere on this board regard this "Sabbatical" interpretation of Genesis 1.
BUT, in a nutshell, similar to how prophecies take on dual meanings (that is, a meaning understood in the immediate context with a much deeper meaning the author also seems aware to that becomes more clear to us as the event transpires). Similarly, the author and hearers of the time would have understood that each day and the 6-1 pattern being an divinely set example of the Sabbath while each day as they actually transpired during creation represented some stage of creation.
Now this interpretation may/may not be true. For my purposes here I'm not trying to prove it is true.
What I am trying to simply show is this.
Many associate a "YEC interpretation" of Genesis 1 with the days being literal, or at least a 12-24 hour period (since the Sun doesn't exist until Day 4 on the common YEC view).
Yet, what I offered equally takes the days in Genesis 1 to being intended by the author as literal solar days for sabbatical exemplary reasons.
Therefore if by "YEC interpretation" you have in mind
the day in Genesis being understood as ordinary days then such is by no means exclusive of belief in an older Earth and universe. There is another interpretation (the sabbatical one) which can possibly (even if you may not believe it, it is still possible right?) fit in with beliefs of an older Earth and universe.
Therefore, I'd argue there is really no "YEC" or "OEC" interpretation of Genesis 1.
What we have are simply interpretations devoid of any comment on the age of the Earth or universe.
Certain interpretations might fit in with young Earth beliefs, other interpretations old Earth beliefs and perhaps some both.
If true, and you agree with this, then it doesn't make sense to say Genesis 1 sounds really, really YEC, OEC or what-have-you.
Better to explain what you believe the author intended and why -- which is a lot more work to do but more legitimate and fair.
