what is a believer?

Healthy skepticism of ALL worldviews is good. Skeptical of non-belief like found in Atheism? Post your challenging questions. Responses are encouraged.
abelcainsbrother
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Re: what is a believer?

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Jac3510 wrote:I doubt we'd reach an agreement, actually. The "heart" doesn't enter into it, at least, not as you are using the term. Emotions are arational. They are not irrational, as some hold. They are arational. They are "passions" in the classical sense of the word. That is, they are psychosomatic responses to some (intellectual) judgment. They are, in this, distinct from "feelings" generally. "Feelings" are somatic only. Sleepiness and pain are feelings, not emotions. They are purely bodily. Love and revulsion are emotions, because while they (necessarily) are somatic, just as feelings are, they are set off by a psychological component. I love this or am repulsed by that because of what I judge to be true about it. I fear a dog attacking me because I believe that such will put me in danger. My body then produces a physiological response to that belief: fear. That fear motivates me to make a choice--that is, it encourages my will to choose a course of action. My intellect has judged (I believe--I don't choose to believe) that running from the dog is the best course of action. My fear motivates me (powerfully) to accept that course of action. I then choose to so act in accordance with that judgment.

Nothing Rick has said, and no examples he has provided, suggest anything other than the above is true. It is, bluntly, just false to claim that we choose to believe anything. It is, again, a confusion of the functions of the intellect and the will. I cannot say this enough: the intellect does not choose, and the will does not judge. Rather, the intellect judges and the will chooses. To say we choose to believe is to make choosing a property of the intellect, which is just a confusion, as you say, of the properties of what it means to be a person.
It seems to me you are lost in technical language but either way we go as you explained it,we see the word choose at the end and so it seems to me that no matter how we go about believing we still choose to believe in something or reject it and pay the consequences for the choice we made,regardless of how we came about choosing which course of action was the correct choice for us to make.

But from a biblical standpoint it really seems like you are denying we have free-will to choose to believe in God or to not believe in God.Are you saying that we can't choose to believe in Jesus because we were already programmed to believe in God or to not believe in God like robots?
Hebrews 12:2-3 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,despising the shame,and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

2nd Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,lest the light of this glorious gospel of Christ,who is the image of God,should shine unto them.
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B. W.
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Re: what is a believer?

Post by B. W. »

Jac3510 wrote:... And I would ask you, as an evangelical preacher myself, not to give yourself permission to say nonsense on the basis of your being an evangelical preacher. It reflects poorly on the rest of us.
Ahh I made my point - we do often get a little to wordy at times don't we!

I do keep messages around 25 to 30 minutes, unless the audience is used to an hour!

Nice to banter with you Jac Blessings :lol:
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Science is man's invention - creation is God's
(by B. W. Melvin)

Old Polish Proverb:
Not my Circus....not my monkeys
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