DBowling wrote:It shouldn't come as any surprise that I totally reject the premise that I am in any way shape or form redefining faith.
Sure, but my claim that you are redefining faith is not a premise. It's a conclusion.
You are right, as demonstrated by my recent back and forth with Rick, we do embrace the same lexical definition of faith.
Then I think you need to deal in more detail with the argument I've presented to reach the conclusion I do. Even your comments below don't address the substance--the actual premises--of my position.
My most recent back and forth with Rick also demonstrates how the concepts of submission, commitment, and repentance are natural and integral components of that lexical definition of faith/trust within the Gospel context of...
Trusting in the person of Jesus Christ to save me from my sin.
No packing or overloading involved anywhere...
No, your back and forth shows no such thing, which I've already commented on. Echoing Rick, I had said,
- You're seeing "faith" as a theological construct, a "biblical idea" you "define" by combining ideas from this verse and that verse. That commits a hermenutical and lexical fallacy called "illegitimate totality transfer." The fact is that the Greek and Hebrew words we translate "believe" (Pisteuo and aman, respectively) have a lexical meaning, and that meaning, and that meaning alone, is the meaning of the word. And the absolute, indisputable fact is that the ideas of "repentance, submission, and commitment" are not lexically or semantically related to "believe." You have read those words into our word, and as such, you simply do not believe what the text says as written. Instead, you believe what you have reinterpreted it to mean based on your broader theology. But as it happens, your broader theology is wrong, and were we to explore it, you would see that your argument turns out to be circular--which it must be, since you get your "definition" of "faith" from your theology, but since your theology is read back into the very text you are exegeting.
You responded to Rick that you accepted the lexical meaning but that while submission and commitment are not
semantically related, they are "naturally" related (whatever that means) insofar as it "implies some level of submission and commitment." But now you contradict yourself. Remember, the argument is that the
lexical meaning--trust--doesn't include those ides. You agree but then say a natural implication means those ideas are present in the word
after all. You can't have that both ways. And that gets into what I said here (I believe without comment from you):
- You are wanting to talk about the ontology of belief, but you've gotten way ahead of yourself. This question is linguistic, not ontological. The question is what the word "belief" (or better, pisteuo) actually means. That's a lexical question, and what it means is comparable to what the English word "trust" means. You can't get around to asking ontological questions until you already understand what this text means, and that, in turn, means that you can't bring an ontology of belief to the text to understand the text. That's doing eisegesis in the same way that using systematic theology to understand a text is doing eisegesis. And, of course, that's not to say that there is not an ontology of belief or that such conversations are useless. They are useful. But they are useful after exegesis because they are informed by exegesis, never vice-versa.
I'm construing your comments above to be sympathetic to K's points. Your idea of "natural" relation (as opposed to lexical relation) seems to be ontological. That is, you seem to be talking about "real" faith or else constituent parts of "real" faith--trust is only
really trust when it presumes submission and commitment. But my point is that, methodologically, you can't do that. You are begging the question. Where do you get the idea that submission and commitment are part of trust? Not from the definition of the word--we've established that there is no lexical connection between the two worlds of ideas. You get it from your own theology (as you talk about distorting the "Scriptural meaning" of "faith"). But where do you get your theology from? From the text. And yet, the meaning of the text is established via exegesis of the words. And yet, we've established that you cannot get "submission and commitment" from a lexical analysis of "faith." Thus, if you get those ideas from the word, then you are getting it from other Scriptures--but not from those words, since there is no lexical connection . . . in other words, you are getting it from other Scriptures
that you are reading your theology into.
Again, DB, you methodology is flawed. You are practicing sytematic theology before exegetical theology. You just can't do that. When you look at what the words actually
say, you cannot affirm what you are affirming. You have to start explaining things away. Take John 12:42. The pharisees would not confess Jesus even though they believed in Him. Far from commitment, there was disloyalty and a preference for the praise of man! What about Simon Magus? The text says that he believed. What about the second and third seeds in Jesus parables of the four soils? LS'ers insist they aren't saved, but yet the text says they believed. No submission, no commitment. The text is filled with examples of that.
I don't raise those examples to argue against your point. I'm raising them for a different purpose, which is this: if you don't get your claim that submission and commitment are ontologically related to faith via the lexicon (established), and if you accept my critique that you cannot get it from interpretation of other Scripture without falling into a circular argument, then the only other avenue for you is to claim that you get it from the "natural meaning" of the word, which is to say, from philosophy/normal reason. That means you are making an argument from reason. But the above examples demonstrate examples in which submission and commitment are
not present even though belief is. They, then, serve as a defeater for any such claim. And therefore, this aveneue is also closed off to you. The only way forward in this realm is to explain away such texts by saying they didn't have "real" faith--which is, again, just begging the question; a circular, and therefore irrational, argument.
Now, we can do an ontological analysis of faith--that is, following the third way here. But you'll find if we do absolutely no way forward for your theology. You simply cannot sneak in ideas foreign to the word through a backdoor. That is redefining it.
Regarding your statement...
someone entrusts themselves to Jesus--even if they refuse to love, worship, or obey Him--then they have everlasting life. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe the gospel.
Here is my equivalent statement
If someone entrusts themselves to Jesus
to save them from their sins then they have everlasting life... period.
But of course that isn't an equivalent statement, as you qualify below.
regarding...
even if they refuse to love, worship, or obey Him
This involves sanctification...
And the debate there is if that is even possible, but again that is a sanctification debate...
Your statement then is not at all equivalent. Now, if you like, we can be a bit more technical with your own words: feel free to substitute "love, worship, or obey" with "submit and commit," but here I'l just accuse you of playing semantics. Per my joke a few pages back, we all know that you affirm that where those things are lacking, faith is lacking, precisely because the faith is not "real."
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So let me summarize all of the above. You have made the outstanding claim that the verb "believe" necessarily includes (in some undefined sense) the ideas of submission and commitment. You have not, however, shown in what sense those ideas are included or how those ideas relate to the broader LS position in oppositio to the FG position. Moreover, you have claimed that those ideas are not lexically related and admitted that we are bound to the lexical meaning of the text. Therefore, you are under obligation to demonstrate all of these things: how the ideas of submission and commitment are related (necessarily) to belief if not by lexicon; and how those ideas are fitted into a proper argument such that they entail the conclusions of LS over and against the conclusions of FG.
I, for one, have a very simple argument:
1. Jesus says that trust is a sufficient condition for salvation;
2. Anything not included in the definition of trust (or necessarily presumed by it) is not therefore a condition of salvation;
3. Ideas like submission and commitment are by definition and nature not included in the definition or presumption of trust (see examples as evidence);
4. Therefore, such ideas are not conditions for salvation.
To slightly extend the argument
5. To say something is a condition for salvation that is not is to present a false gospel
6. LS'ers say that submission and commitment are conditions of salvation
7. Therefore, LS'ers present a false gospel
I doubt any brief introduction to to lexical semantics will suffice a much deeper understanding of it. Because I know many here understand also the critical importance of not taking words out of their given context, or to determine supposed meanings without comparing them precisely to a very similar point or situation used in other passages - or is further illuminated elsewhere within the same context.