Thread: Can't we do without this? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
I have been thinking about those bits of the Christian faith that are difficult or awkward. I suspect that we all have bits that we feel a little bit uncomfortable with - the bits we quietly ignore or the parts of the Creed where we metaphorically cross our fingers when we say it.

So, what part of the Christian faith would you like to see quietly (or not so quietly!) dropped?

What I am looking for here is something which you think causes unnecessary difficulty and which you think could be omitted without compromising the Christian faith as a whole.

Please feel free to make a nomination. But please also provide some defence for your position.

To start, I will would like to nominate The Second Coming

Why is it a problem?
Well, to begin with the bleeding obvious and to quote the words of 10CC, 'two thousand years and he ain't shown yet.' The early Church appear to have believed that the world was about to end and that Jesus would return as part of the final denouement. But it didn't happen.

Another reason for my nomination is that there have been endless apocalyptic groups who have done all sorts of crazy things based on the expectation that 'Jesus is coming soon'. Quite frankly, it's an embarrassment to any serious thinking Christian.

I well remember the time when, as a teenage new Christian, I read too much of Hal Lindsay and got myself scared shitless. Too many people end up like that, I have found. It's not healthy.

It is also a cause of some disgrace to the credibility of the Christian faith that so many have made predictions about the Second Coming and been proven 100% wrong. It just makes us a joke, doesn't it?

Finally, the expectation of a literal return of Jesus (and all that is commonly associated with it) really makes less and less sense the more we know about the universe and how it came into being and how it will probably end (in billions of years time). Believing that God will suddenly step in and wrap things up seems increasingly absurd.

Will it make a difference to the Christian faith?
I really don't think so. Let's face it, we kept things going for 2000 years. Will we really be shattering the faith if we expect to keep going for the indefinite future?

In fact, I would argue that the Christian faith would benefit by dropping this belief. Instead of sitting back and saying 'we will let God sort out all the problems with the world' we would have to take seriously our responsibility to work for Kingdom of God to come to fruition 'on earth as it is in heaven'.

So that's my nomination. What's yours?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
It's the odd and difficult parts that inspire growth and understanding. If science left out the bits that didn't fit the current paradigm, it would never progress. We'd still be believing Aristotle and thinking he was cutting edge. I think a similar thing applies to theology. The things I find most difficult or unbelievable or absurd may be the things I need to spark my spiritual growth.
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
I might counter yours another time if no one else does, but in the spirit that this seems to be posted in, I would choose to nominate the virgin birth.

Why is it a problem?
Because its historicity is very hard to defend. Most of Jesus' ministry was done in the presence of many witnesses who generated the oral history on which the gospel writers drew. Yet of all his followers, we only know of one who was around at his birth, Mary. The single witness is inherently more doubt-worthy than the multitude who witnessed Jesus resurrected. It would naturally be in Mary's interests to say that she was a virgin prior to her giving birth to Jesus' siblings.

Then there is also the issue with the Septuagint mistranslation of Isaiah 7 which makes the whole thing very suspect.

Will it make a difference to the Christian faith? A bit, to some.

I have heard an increasing trend not to argue from the point of historicity but to say, "if the virgin birth didn't happen then christianity falls apart because..." with an argument that usually falls along the line of original sin. It's one that I fail to find convincing as it implies that simply by being human one is born in sin. To try to remove this possibility from Jesus by invoking a virgin birth throws the baby (almost literally) out with the bathwater as the logical conclusion is that Jesus wasn't fully human. In other words, my case is that arguing for a virgin birth is implicitly docetist.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
For me, it's the so-called texts of terror; the Old Testament passages in which God apparently commands the Israelites to commit genocide. How that harmonises with the Jesus who apparently wishes his followers to 'repay evil with good', 'not resist an evil person' and so on is, let's say, tricky...

(Incidentally, I'd go for option 6 in the article I linked to.)
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
I would nominate the Epistles, especially those of St Paul

Why are these a problem?
We know that he says that "The letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life", but did that stop him writing those letters (and setting a fashion that has lasted to this day)? No, it did not. These bossy and bitter diatribes against the church in various places are used week after week to berate God's people such that the Gospels are put firmly into second place. While there is agreement about the content and meanings of the Gospels there is nothing like that about the Epistles. No wonder His Church is divided.

Would there be a problem without the Epistles?
Actually, there would. The NT would be very short indeed and a lot of preachers wouldn't have a scriptural basis for their sermons, homilies and talks. Come to think of it, there wouldn't be a scriptural basis for a lot of our preachers, but would that be so bad if we had no more than:

- All the scripture Christ had
- The accounts of His life, death and resurrection
- The adventures of the early church
- The hippy-trip that is the Revelation of St John?

[ 16. June 2014, 20:03: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
In the interest of this being Purgatory I'm going with a defence of the Second Coming.

Of course it's a doctrine that has had some really whacky interpretations. I'm not going to defend those whacky misinterpretation - the writings of Hal Lindsay, those who have predicted a date for the Second Coming, or those who have declared that we don't need to care for the earth or protest poverty because Christ is Coming.

I will defend why I think the Church needs to believe in the Second Coming.

1. We pray as Jesus taught us "your Kingdom come, your will be done as it is in heaven". I believe that God answers prayer, that the Kingdom is coming in all it's fullness, a time when the will of God will be done on earth.

2. I don't believe that because God is going to bring in His Kingdom that therefore we are excused from working towards that happening. We have the promise that our efforts will not be in vain, that despite whatever setbacks we experience in our efforts to bring justice, peace, equality, righteousness to our world will be overcome.
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
"your Kingdom come, your will be done as it is in heaven."
I've never thought of that as Second Coming related but more a request to know gods will and for his aid in acting according to his will so as to help create his kingdom on earth.
 
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
I tend to agree with the statement about the Second Coming, but I would probably try to get along as well without the book of Revelation entirely.

The "terror texts" are annoying, but one can ask how important they are to modern Jews, too, as well as to Christians.

Another way to go at this is to ask what parts one would like to emphasize rather than to eliminate.
 
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile
The single witness is inherently more doubt-worthy than the multitude who witnessed Jesus resurrected. It would naturally be in Mary's interests to say that she was a virgin prior to her giving birth to Jesus' siblings.
So our Lord was born to a liar?

Doesn't seem plausible to me.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
It's not the texts or creeds that are problematic, it's our epistemologies, our dispositions, our weakness, our ignorance. I look forward to doing without that.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Firstly, the Second Coming is probably more meaningful to people who believe that the world has problems that it needs to be delivered from. Especially to people who are in the midst of such problems.

Secondly, despite all the lip service now paid to Christian unity, I feel that disunity is the inevitable outcome of a religion that seems to have been created for the moment. The information and spiritual direction in the four gospels or in some of the epistles could perhaps have been expressed more concisely, and we could instead have had an extra text that gave more instruction about spiritual disciplines and about the structure of institutional Christianity for the long term. Then we wouldn't have had to disagree about these things so much! (But we probably still would, I suppose.)
 
Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
For me, it's the so-called texts of terror...
Thanks for this. Just read the book of Joshua last weekend.

I'd nominate the part after King David has an affair with Bathsheba and one of his sons rapes his daughter. The daughter never did anything wrong beforehand. She goes into seclusion and is never mentioned again. No gradual healing, no battle to regain dignity. She's just destroyed and forgotten.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
It's all well and good to ask "Can't we do without this?" when it comes to Sacred Scripture, so long as we come round to the fact that the answer is, and will always be, "No."
 
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82
It's all well and good to ask "Can't we do without this?" when it comes to Sacred Scripture, so long as we come round to the fact that the answer is, and will always be, "No."
[Overused]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In the interest of this being Purgatory I'm going with a defence of the Second Coming.

Of course it's a doctrine that has had some really whacky interpretations. I'm not going to defend those whacky misinterpretation - the writings of Hal Lindsay, those who have predicted a date for the Second Coming, or those who have declared that we don't need to care for the earth or protest poverty because Christ is Coming.

I will defend why I think the Church needs to believe in the Second Coming.

1. We pray as Jesus taught us "your Kingdom come, your will be done as it is in heaven". I believe that God answers prayer, that the Kingdom is coming in all it's fullness, a time when the will of God will be done on earth.

2. I don't believe that because God is going to bring in His Kingdom that therefore we are excused from working towards that happening. We have the promise that our efforts will not be in vain, that despite whatever setbacks we experience in our efforts to bring justice, peace, equality, righteousness to our world will be overcome.
[Overused]
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It's not the texts or creeds that are problematic
Texts are fine. Creeds, not so much. Let's get rid of those.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
I say it's all or nothing, because Jesus said 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life' and was curiously reticent on the subject of which parts of (Old Testament) Scripture should be edited out. Maybe you could make a case for taking some of the New Testament out of the canon, but are we any more likely to get the editing right than the various ecumenical church councils in the fourth century, who had the advantage of being fifteen hundred years or so closer in time to the actual events?

I'm not arguing for the inerrancy of Scripture; I don't believe that. I'm not even arguing to keep all the doctrine (I'm not sure I believe in the virgin birth either). I just think it's wrong to airbrush all the controversial bits out.

This is our faith, warts and all. Pretending the warts aren't there is... just wrong. Unhistorical. Unhealthy. Unworthy of our Lord, who claimed to *be* the Truth.

If He's right, we have nothing to be afraid of.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Highfive:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
For me, it's the so-called texts of terror...
Thanks for this. Just read the book of Joshua last weekend.

I'd nominate the part after King David has an affair with Bathsheba and one of his sons rapes his daughter. The daughter never did anything wrong beforehand. She goes into seclusion and is never mentioned again. No gradual healing, no battle to regain dignity. She's just destroyed and forgotten.
Not to mention the utter repugnance of the penalty for David's sin falling on his baby son - who's done fuck all wrong and dies.

Do people *really* believe God does that sort of sick shit?
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
This is why I find the 'progressive revelation' idea of interpreting it all through the lens of Jesus (being the 'visible image of the invisible God and all) so compelling. Some people say it's subjective and therefore useless as an interpretive method, but I think that's simply not right; it is based on our revelation in the Bible of what Jesus is like, how he lived and how he taught his followers to live.
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So our Lord was born to a liar?

Doesn't seem plausible to me.
Less plausible than a virgin birth? [Paranoid]

quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It's not the texts or creeds that are problematic
Texts are fine. Creeds, not so much. Let's get rid of those.
[Overused]
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Highfive:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
For me, it's the so-called texts of terror...
Thanks for this. Just read the book of Joshua last weekend.

I'd nominate the part after King David has an affair with Bathsheba and one of his sons rapes his daughter. The daughter never did anything wrong beforehand. She goes into seclusion and is never mentioned again. No gradual healing, no battle to regain dignity. She's just destroyed and forgotten.
Not to mention the utter repugnance of the penalty for David's sin falling on his baby son - who's done fuck all wrong and dies.

Do people *really* believe God does that sort of sick shit?
Plenty of that sort of sick shit happens to this day, mostly to people who have done no wrong.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Karl:
quote:
Not to mention the utter repugnance of the penalty for David's sin falling on his baby son - who's done fuck all wrong and dies.

Do people *really* believe God does that sort of sick shit?
Some people do. Some people believe God will heal any illness 'if your faith is strong enough', which is the same idea from a different angle (if you're not healed there's something wrong with you).

I think they're wrong, but I'd rather try to persuade them that God isn't like that by pointing to what Jesus said in the New Testament than by taking the story about David's son out and pretending it didn't happen. Just as I'd prefer to leave the story about David's daughter in; the poor woman was raped by her brother and had to spend the rest of her life in purdah. The only memorial she has is a few lines in the book of Joshua; if you take that out she's gone completely. Surely, pretending she never existed is more disrespectful than acknowledging what was done to her?
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Highfive:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
For me, it's the so-called texts of terror...
Thanks for this. Just read the book of Joshua last weekend.

I'd nominate the part after King David has an affair with Bathsheba and one of his sons rapes his daughter. The daughter never did anything wrong beforehand. She goes into seclusion and is never mentioned again. No gradual healing, no battle to regain dignity. She's just destroyed and forgotten.
Not to mention the utter repugnance of the penalty for David's sin falling on his baby son - who's done fuck all wrong and dies.

Do people *really* believe God does that sort of sick shit?
Plenty of that sort of sick shit happens to this day, mostly to people who have done no wrong.
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It's all well and good to ask "Can't we do without this?" when it comes to Sacred Scripture, so long as we come round to the fact that the answer is, and will always be, "No."
Rather than simply making this essentially conservative assertion, would you care to defend it?
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time) is much better than God killing a baby for a reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Rather than simply making this essentially conservative assertion, would you care to defend it?
What more defense can there be than "It's Scripture?" "The mouth of the LORD hath spoken it," and we live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

[ 17. June 2014, 12:09: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Rather than simply making this essentially conservative assertion, would you care to defend it?
What more defense can there be than "It's Scripture?" "The mouth of the LORD hath spoken it," and we live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
I think the point made was to look at the assumptions inherent within. For example what do you mean by "It's Scripture" - maybe
this thread may help.

Do you mean the collection of 66 books that are commonly recognised under the term 'the bible' to be synonymous with 'scripture', do you leave out some books or add others (e.g. the apocrypha/deuterocanonical books, gospel of Thomas, Shepherd of Hermas)?

Then what reasons might one employ to equate whatever set of writings (i.e. the etymological sense of 'scriptures') you choose to be equated with "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"?

In short, all things may be questioned. Holding on too firmly to our beliefs has the effect, not of affirming them, but of squashing them out of all recognition.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
In short, all things may be questioned.
Of course, though not if you want to be a Christian. For Christians, the definitive word has been spoken, irrevocably, in Jesus, whom we encounter in this set of books at the center of this community called the Church.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I always thought specific parts of the bible were only troublesome to literalists and inerrantists. Don't worry about the specifics so much. The parts about being kind to each other, sharing, fairness and gentleness continue to apply. The mythology and various prophetic bits, where inaccurate, are pretty well obsolete, and where accurate are either happy coincidence and a sign that the writers were at least as bright as we are today at predicting things. They just lacked electronic gadgets.

As for the second coming, I think we missed it and happily kill Jesus daily.
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
In short, all things may be questioned.
Of course, though not if you want to be a Christian. For Christians, the definitive word has been spoken, irrevocably, in Jesus, whom we encounter in this set of books at the center [sic] of this community called the Church.
That made no sense. In effect, if you pronounce view X then in order for me to be a christian I have to agree unquestioningly with your proposition.

This is a discussion board where there are a variety of views. While I may think many are wrong, just as many think I am wrong over a great many matters.

But you fail to address to the point of precisely what you mean by the "definitive word". Which Jesus is it? The Jesus of the synoptics, the Jesus of John's gospel or the gospel of Peter?

What about the interpretations? Would you subscribe to the Jewish mystic of Geza Vermes, the peasant of JD Crossan or the itinerant rabbi of NT Wright?
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In the interest of this being Purgatory I'm going with a defence of the Second Coming.
…
I will defend why I think the Church needs to believe in the Second Coming.
Realizing my presumption, Alan Cresswell, let me add a third reason to your list. No second coming means:

3. No "time of the final restoration [apocatastasis] of all things" (χρόνων ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων) [Acts 3:21] .

One can't really be a Christian universalist without it.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time)
You say he does. I say he doesn't. I say shit happens, not because God does the shit, but because we live in a real world in which shit happens.

And if he is into child murder, he can fucking well leave my kids out of it. And me, for that matter.

Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.

[ 17. June 2014, 13:25: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In the interest of this being Purgatory I'm going with a defence of the Second Coming.
…
I will defend why I think the Church needs to believe in the Second Coming.
Realizing my presumption, Alan Cresswell, let me add a third reason to your list. No second coming means:

3. No "time of the final restoration [apocatastasis] of all things" (χρόνων ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων) [Acts 3:21] .

/tangent

How do you get restoration from ἀποκαταστάσεως

[Confused]

Away from (Apo)
going down/according to (Kata)
standing/insurrection (stasis)

[ 17. June 2014, 13:42: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So our Lord was born to a liar?

Doesn't seem plausible to me.
Less plausible than a virgin birth? [Paranoid]
If we both assume that the atheistic and inherently amoral philosophy of naturalism is true, and therefore no supernatural intervention in the natural order is possible (i.e. no miracles can take place) and no God with a moral character exists, then I suppose a deceitful Mary would be more plausible than the virgin birth.

Trouble with that is there is no need for a Jesus, a Church or any form of Christianity.

So, no, your theory is quite obviously far more implausible than the virgin birth idea.

[ 17. June 2014, 13:50: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
 
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on :
 
WE could do woithout inerrancy and literalism. Much of the Bible is myth.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I say shit happens, not because God does the shit, but because we live in a real world in which shit happens.

And if he is into child murder, he can fucking well leave my kids out of it. And me, for that matter.

Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.
This reminds me of arguments I've heard of in which God is described as being relatively powerless. I've never read up on the theology of this, but I suppose it counters some of the problems of a God who's presented as all-powerful. The problem that arises instead is that a powerless God can seem somewhat unnecessary.

I think I lean more towards what some would see as the 'nasty God' scenario, in which God both gives life and takes it away. This fits in with my more fatalistic mindset, I suppose.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
WE could do woithout inerrancy and literalism. Much of the Bible is myth.
Precisely. I agreed with this above. Some of the lessons about kindness, love, justice, fairness continues to apply.
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time) is much better than God killing a baby for a reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Rather than simply making this essentially conservative assertion, would you care to defend it?
What more defense can there be than "It's Scripture?" "The mouth of the LORD hath spoken it," and we live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
For an Anglican, you have what would seem to be a quite fundamentalist approach to Scripture. I'd see the scriptural canon as a collection of books written and compiled by numerous persons, variously giving their nationalistic interpretations of history, their primitive theological justifications for their nationalism and wanton war-making, a sample of poetry of various purposes, creation mythology and other myths, some more advanced ethical teaching, accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (with some embellishments), history of the early Jesus Movement/Church, and a series of essays in the form of letters attempting to work out a theology and ethos for the early Church.

As to God deliberately killing babies, I'm not sure what you mean, Zach. Are you referring to spontaneous abortion, disease, and other biological processes of the natural world? If so, I hardly see that these are acts of God.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:


I think I lean more towards what some would see as the 'nasty God' scenario, in which God both gives life and takes it away. This fits in with my more fatalistic mindset, I suppose.
How would you square speaking to someone who has just lost a child and worshipping the God who's responsible for doing it, deliberately, and causing all that grief and anguish?
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Karl

Since we live in a highly pluralistic society I'd avoid talking about God to a bereaved parent unless I knew where they were coming from. I haven't been trained in ministering to the bereaved and it's not my job to burden unhappy people with beliefs that they don't share.

However, I live in an area with a high Muslim population, and I understand that Muslims tend to be more at ease with the notion of God giving and taking life. There's a certain comfort for them in the idea that God is piloting the universe, that he's allotted a certain amount of time to each person. 'God's in control' gives some people strength in their sadness.

In popular religion there does seem to be a vague notion of God 'needing' the presence of a special person, which is then used as an explanation as to why they had to die. 'Heaven is missing an angel' is a concept that makes death tangible to some, and 'the good die young' implies that there's some sort of divine system in place. I don't know to what extent Christian clergy try to 'correct' these ideas when ministering to mourners. Do they prefer to emphasise the randomness of it all?
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
In short, all things may be questioned.
Of course, though not if you want to be a Christian. For Christians, the definitive word has been spoken, irrevocably, in Jesus, whom we encounter in this set of books at the center of this community called the Church.
I really have difficulties with this.

What you seem to be saying is that Christians should just accept what they're told and never question. That's the way that led to Christians defending slavery.

In my experience, ALL progress in faith comes through questioning and examining things, rather than just taking things as given.

And perhaps - in the face of huge problems in our world caused by religious fundamentalists - we ought to be encouraging people to question what they are being told.

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith? What kind of a shitty deity do you think you are worshiping who would want such mindless adherence?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
What's wrong with the oecumenical creeds? Even I can say them!
 
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
WE could do woithout inerrancy and literalism. Much of the Bible is myth.
That is itself getting dangerously close to accepting a literalist mindset, if you'll pardon my saying so.

The bible contains books in many genres. Yes, it has myth. It also has "histories" (not to be confused with modern-era historiographies), it has poetry, wisdom compilations, law, instructive narratives, prophecy (not to be confused with divining the future), apocalyptic, songs, letters... Lots of those genres won't fit into the literal truth vs. myth paradigm.

The discipline of scripture needs the reader to engage with what the writer was striving to convey, to whom, and why he or she felt impelled to communicate in this way. No different to reading any ancient text actually. Just reading it as if it was written by somebody in the same culture as us, a couple of days back, makes no sense at all. Yet here we are doing just that.
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
WE could do woithout inerrancy and literalism. Much of the Bible is myth.
The bible contains books in many genres. Yes, it has myth. It also has "histories" (not to be confused with modern-era historiographies), it has poetry, wisdom compilations, law, instructive narratives, prophecy (not to be confused with divining the future), apocalyptic, songs, letters... Lots of those genres won't fit into the literal truth vs. myth paradigm.

The discipline of scripture needs the reader to engage with what the writer was striving to convey, to whom, and why he or she felt impelled to communicate in this way. No different to reading any ancient text actually. Just reading it as if it was written by somebody in the same culture as us, a couple of days back, makes no sense at all. Yet here we are doing just that.
Amen to that!
[Overused] [Overused]
 
Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
This is why I find the 'progressive revelation' idea of interpreting it all through the lens of Jesus (being the 'visible image of the invisible God and all) so compelling. Some people say it's subjective and therefore useless as an interpretive method, but I think that's simply not right; it is based on our revelation in the Bible of what Jesus is like, how he lived and how he taught his followers to live.
Amen. Scripture is subject to Jesus, not the other way around. I think that's why Jesus sometimes seems to play fast and loose with the Scriptures, as in "You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . ." and passages like that.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
For an Anglican, you have what would seem to be a quite fundamentalist approach to Scripture. I'd see the scriptural canon as a collection of books written and compiled by numerous persons, variously giving their nationalistic interpretations of history, their primitive theological justifications for their nationalism and wanton war-making, a sample of poetry of various purposes, creation mythology and other myths, some more advanced ethical teaching, accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (with some embellishments), history of the early Jesus Movement/Church, and a series of essays in the form of letters attempting to work out a theology and ethos for the early Church.
Yowza! What a weak-tea scripture you have there in your hand, sir! Surely leaving out any mention of divine inspiration or the Holy Spirit or the phrase "Word of God" was merely an oversight on your part.

What happened to "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God," to quote the Chicago Quadrilateral of 1886?

Or, "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as 'containing all things necessary for salvation,' and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith," to quote the Lambeth Resolution of 1888?
 
Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :
 
I nominate "the Bible." What I mean is not the Scriptures themselves, in whole or part, but the practice of binding them all together in one volume and calling it "The Bible." I think that lends itself to the attitude of treating this library of diverse texts written over hundreds of years as if they are one book speaking in one voice, which is of course God's. In reality there are many voices speaking through the texts, including (I believe) God's but also those of some very fallible humans. And I think recognizing this actually leads to a richer understanding of the Scriptures and of our relationship with God.
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
I like the cut of your gib! Well put.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
What happened to "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God," to quote the Chicago Quadrilateral of 1886?

Or, "The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as 'containing all things necessary for salvation,' and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith," to quote the Lambeth Resolution of 1888?
We learned some things and decided somethings were decidedly wrong. Like human beings are not evolutionarily special, that men and women might move toward equality, that skin colour doesn't define us. I would note though that strict inerrancy and literalist approaches are different than this and unfortunate developments. The bible contains good and bad examples, and some absolutely rejectable ideas. But the core message as posted about above is valid.

The weak tea is the appeal to the old formulas in my opinion. It means the thinking has all been done for us by long dead white guys.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith? What kind of a shitty deity do you think you are worshiping who would want such mindless adherence?
The same shitty deity who once said "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," and who says to Job (I paraphrase) "Where the hell were *you* when I made the world?"

Everyone has questions, and everyone has doubts. Part of the work of faith is to trust that those things which are difficult for us to grasp or believe are true, and to commit ourselves to work through our doubts and questions. Speaking personally, if Jesus is not going to return in glory to put all things right, then I can't work out why the fuck I ought to bother with all this.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Speaking personally, if Jesus is not going to return in glory to put all things right, then I can't work out why the fuck I ought to bother with all this.
That's what I was thinking, but I'm glad someone with credentials said it instead of me!
 
Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time) is much better than God killing a baby for a reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Rather than simply making this essentially conservative assertion, would you care to defend it?
What more defense can there be than "It's Scripture?" "The mouth of the LORD hath spoken it," and we live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
For an Anglican, you have what would seem to be a quite fundamentalist approach to Scripture. I'd see the scriptural canon as a collection of books written and compiled by numerous persons, variously giving their nationalistic interpretations of history, their primitive theological justifications for their nationalism and wanton war-making, a sample of poetry of various purposes, creation mythology and other myths, some more advanced ethical teaching, accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (with some embellishments), history of the early Jesus Movement/Church, and a series of essays in the form of letters attempting to work out a theology and ethos for the early Church.

As to God deliberately killing babies, I'm not sure what you mean, Zach. Are you referring to spontaneous abortion, disease, and other biological processes of the natural world? If so, I hardly see that these are acts of God.
Not to speak for Zach, but I don't think he would disagree with what you're saying. But the fact of the matter is scripture is scripture is scripture. It's what we have been handed as being ultimately authoritative. That doesn't mean we can't discuss it's meaning or bearing, but it's contents, more or less, were settled a while back. Yes, if things had happened differently, we might have a different canon. But they didn't, and we don't.

As in intellectual exercise, thinking about what parts of your faith you find difficult and might want to jettison could be fruitful. But to me, seriously entertaining that is a markedly dated, mid Twentieth-Century sort of idea, this impulse to pair down the faith to what's "truly true" and get rid of what isn't.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
How is scripture authoritative?
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
How is scripture authoritative?
By what better means do we know anything concrete about God or about Jesus?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
None Fr Weber. So what makes it authoritative? Where is it authoritative? What is it authoritative about? How is it authoritative?
 
Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on :
 
I'd argue that as Christians, we've decided that scripture is authoritative. There are a lot of reasons for this, but that's not really here or there. If you want to make the Albany, New York telephone book a source of authority for you, that might be VERY helpful and spiritual for you, and you might derive a lot of value from that. And I think that would be just wonderful for you. Doing that, however, isn't Christianity, however germane you might find it.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
I would say that if you trust Scripture to tell you true things about God, there's no reason not to trust it to tell you the truth about faith and morality. And if you accept what Scripture has to say with regard to Jesus in the Gospels, but reject what Paul has to say about Jesus and related matters, then on what grounds do you reject Paul?

My sense is that often the more difficult bits are rejected simply because they are difficult, or because they're inconvenient to the way people would rather live their lives, or because people's politics are what dictate their religion.

For me personally, I believe what the Scriptures teach because the Church declares them authoritative. I suppose this makes me an Augustinian Catholic, rather than a Protestant. [Smile]
 
Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:

My sense is that often the more difficult bits are rejected simply because they are difficult . . .

For me personally, I believe what the Scriptures teach because the Church declares them authoritative. I suppose this makes me an Augustinian Catholic, rather than a Protestant. [Smile]
I agree that we mustn't simply reject bits of scripture that we don't like just because they're difficult. And I agree that scripture has authority and is in a sense foundational for Christian faith. But a few things occur to me that the authority of scripture has to be balanced with:

1. Scripture is not the ultimate revelation of God; that role belongs to Jesus Christ.
2. Scripture nowhere claims to be the sole authority for Christian faith (that I know of).
3. Tradition, reason, and experience play a part too. Sometimes reason and/or experience input new data into the equation that may necessitate a change in how we interpret scripture. For instance adjusting our reading of Genesis 1 to modern cosmology.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Not a problem guys. Scripture has never been more authoritative for me, it is authoritative in ways I couldn't dream of as a conservative.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Al, I think we're on the same page--which is why I was careful to limit the authority of Scripture to faith and morality. That makes me an infallibilist, I suppose, rather than an inerrantist.

I'm perfectly happy with Hooker's formulation of the hierarchy of Christian authority : Scripture above all, succeeded and supported by Tradition and Reason. Experience is fine in its way, as long as it doesn't contradict the other three sources of authority, but I'm very hesitant to enshrine it as their equal.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
That's a shame. Love is inferior to mere talk?
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
The bible is authoritative if you know what it means. Knowing what it means means you have to put it into context. The context is the world view, social and other other conditions of who wrote it down, and the language. The problem then with saying it is authoritative is that we don't know what it is authoritative about without contextualizing it. Thus, we debate and argue about what women might be allowed to do in terms of jobs, speaking in churches, control of becoming pregnant, among other things. We debate whether God wants us to be capitalists in competition or socialists in cooperative, and everything in between. We debate about who is entitled to love whom. Thus, to say it is authoritative creates a weapon for those who think they understand the context and have the will and means to enforce their understanding.

So I am back to the sensible and acceptable understanding that the bible is mythology with valuable lessons embedded (the truth, justice, love, fairness, sharing stuff), with completely rejectable ideas of things like the origins of the world per Adam and Eve, and particular examples to avoid like genocide.
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I would say that if you trust Scripture to tell you true things about God, there's no reason not to trust it to tell you the truth about faith and morality.
Really? Really?? There are so many holes in that sentence, I hardly know where to begin. But perhaps I will just limit myself to one comment. As Christians, we might indeed 'trust Scripture to tell (us) true things about God.'. Not ALL true things - but some true things. But does that mean we can 'trust it to tell (us) the truth about faith and morality'? (Emphasis added.) It may tell us some true things about faith and morality, but not THE truth, in the sense that it has the definitive answer.

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
And if you accept what Scripture has to say with regard to Jesus in the Gospels, but reject what Paul has to say about Jesus and related matters, then on what grounds do you reject Paul?
I refute the idea that this is about 'accepting' or 'rejecting' Paul (or any other NT writer). It is about (in part) how we look at the entirety of the New Testament (and the OT). How far should we blindly accept what we find there? How far can we go in questioning or even rejecting what we find? I might disagree with Paul about (say) women in ministry, but would still want to hold on to some of his valuable thoughts and insights into the nature of God and the implications for Christian discipleship. It ain't a binary decision.

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
My sense is that often the more difficult bits are rejected simply because they are difficult, or because they're inconvenient to the way people would rather live their lives, or because people's politics are what dictate their religion.
Sorry, but I think that this is bald nonsense. Some people may reject what they find because they have other priorities or because they refuse to face the challenge of what Christian discipleship would mean. But most people I know who question or begin to reject bits of the Bible and the Christian faith do so because they simply no longer seem to make sense. It is not the difficulty that is the problem - it is the seemingly pointless difficulty.

Dismissing out of hand people who have honest and sincere objections is not, in my view, a particularly godly thing to do.

And I have to say that I find it a little amusing that here, on a Ship of supposed 'Christian Unrest', there are people who seem to get so anxious at the slightest hint of questioning about 'The Faith' and who are ready at the drop of a hat to shut off all possibility of discussion in subjects that make them uncomfortable.

If this is not the place to ask the unaskable questions or to think the unthinkable thoughts, where is??
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
And I have to say that I find it a little amusing that here, on a Ship of supposed 'Christian Unrest', there are people who seem to get so anxious at the slightest hint of questioning about 'The Faith' and who are ready at the drop of a hat to shut off all possibility of discussion in subjects that make them uncomfortable.

If this is not the place to ask the unaskable questions or to think the unthinkable thoughts, where is??
So what, you want an encounter group where everyone nods his head and mumbles "Groovy, thanks for sharing"? You posted something, someone disagreed with it. I have no problem with you personally; I indicated some points of disagreement with you and others who posted on this thread, and you responded.

I have registered the honesty and sincerity of your objections, but I still think they're wrong. Sorry about that, but I'm sure you'll get over the pain of an Internet stranger disagreeing with you. And "I could never believe in a God who..." wangst deserves little more than out-of-hand dismissal.

Sorry about my remark re Paul. It was meant more as an example than as a representation of what anyone has actually said on this thread. However, it remains a problem that the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels are accepted as true, and certain things that Paul says are ignored or attacked solely because they contradict modern social mores. On what grounds?, I ask again, because I really would like to know if there is a hermeneutic beyond "good 21st century middle class liberals think women should be able to do whatever men do."

And if a person's perception of the truth about faith and morality don't come from Scripture, where do they come from? Their own special feelings?
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
And I have to say that I find it a little amusing that here, on a Ship of supposed 'Christian Unrest', there are people who seem to get so anxious at the slightest hint of questioning about 'The Faith' and who are ready at the drop of a hat to shut off all possibility of discussion in subjects that make them uncomfortable.

If this is not the place to ask the unaskable questions or to think the unthinkable thoughts, where is??
So what, you want an encounter group where everyone nods his head and mumbles "Groovy, thanks for sharing"? You posted something, someone disagreed with it. I have no problem with you personally; I indicated some points of disagreement with you and others who posted on this thread, and you responded.

I have registered the honesty and sincerity of your objections, but I still think they're wrong. Sorry about that, but I'm sure you'll get over the pain of an Internet stranger disagreeing with you. And "I could never believe in a God who..." wangst deserves little more than out-of-hand dismissal.

Sorry about my remark re Paul. It was meant more as an example than as a representation of what anyone has actually said on this thread. However, it remains a problem that the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels are accepted as true, and certain things that Paul says are ignored or attacked solely because they contradict modern social mores. On what grounds?, I ask again, because I really would like to know if there is a hermeneutic beyond "good 21st century middle class liberals think women should be able to do whatever men do."

And if a person's perception of the truth about faith and morality don't come from Scripture, where do they come from? Their own special feelings?
Hear hear!
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
There's a difference between wrestling with the scriptures, finding some things difficult to understand, and outright rejection of some parts whilst accepting others. On what basis does one accept some and reject others without being inconsistent? You can't interpret the scriptures through the Zeitgeist with any consistency.
 
Posted by Demas (# 24) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What's wrong with the oecumenical creeds? Even I can say them!
Intent. They are not centers that attract, they are boundaries that define. Shibboleths in theological drag.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How do you get restoration from ἀποκαταστάσεως

[Confused]

Away from (Apo)
going down/according to (Kata)
standing/insurrection (stasis)
You can arrive at the meaning of uninflammable by breaking it up:

       un + in + flam + able

and then sussing the sense out as "the quality of being insusceptible to breaking out in flame," but then you leave aside the meaning of "not irascible."

As well, the idea that florescence comes from florescens, or to bloom, helps you in botanical contexts, but it leaves aside the metaphorical meaning of "flourishing", which ill serves you when you run across "florescence" in a paper on salts staining the surface of water-soaked stone (a florescence of salts on the surface). You stray even further afield when you encounter the abbreviation of another form of this Latin word, floruit, when you read "fl. ca. 3rd cent" in some tiny-print footnote. It means "he wrote mostly around the third century."

To get at ἀποκαταστάσεως, when, like me, your license for Greek is restricted largely to doing word studies, you need more help.

The place to start, and probably stop, is to look up ἀποκατάστασις in Newman's Greek-English Dictionary that is bound into many UBS Greek New Testaments. There you find: "restoration", plain and simple. Do stop there.

However, if you are blessed with more books and idle time than sense, you can go to BDAG and read the short article there, which gives you three contexts for the use of the word and a verbal cognate:
  1. the return of a heavenly body (e.g., the sun) to its starting point,
  2. the return of a thing to its perfection (the sense here), or,
  3. in diplomatic documents, the return of a governmental state to "normal conditions and stability" (the sense in Acts 1:6, "restore the kingdom to Israel").
If you are sick abed, but not that sick, you can continue on to Louw & Nida's semantic domains dictionary of the NT to find that the verb is used in Mk. 3:5 ("he stretched out his hand and it was restored" or "healed").

All these books should be found in your local seminary library reference section.

That, my dear Evensong, is how you get "restoration" from ἀποκαταστάσεως. (The bit about healing was welcomed news to me. Thank you.)

[ 18. June 2014, 02:17: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
There's a difference between wrestling with the scriptures, finding some things difficult to understand, and outright rejection of some parts whilst accepting others. On what basis does one accept some and reject others without being inconsistent? You can't interpret the scriptures through the Zeitgeist with any consistency.
Becausd the bible isn't consistent within itself.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
In short, all things may be questioned.
Of course, though not if you want to be a Christian. For Christians, the definitive word has been spoken, irrevocably, in Jesus, whom we encounter in this set of books at the center [sic] of this community called the Church.
That made no sense. In effect, if you pronounce view X then in order for me to be a christian I have to agree unquestioningly with your proposition.

This is a discussion board where there are a variety of views. While I may think many are wrong, just as many think I am wrong over a great many matters.

But you fail to address to the point of precisely what you mean by the "definitive word". Which Jesus is it? The Jesus of the synoptics, the Jesus of John's gospel or the gospel of Peter?

What about the interpretations? Would you subscribe to the Jewish mystic of Geza Vermes, the peasant of JD Crossan or the itinerant rabbi of NT Wright?
Are you really that pedantic as to put "sic" after the American spelling of "center." [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time)
You say he does. I say he doesn't. I say shit happens, not because God does the shit, but because we live in a real world in which shit happens.

And if he is into child murder, he can fucking well leave my kids out of it. And me, for that matter.

Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.
You have a God that is unable to save children who die, or unwilling. Pick your poison. I choose Providence.

I don't find people need to be told to feel guilty or angry at God in times of tragedy. I try to face those emotions head on, you pretend they don't exist but for people like me.

quote:
Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.
Take it to hell, you twit. [Mad]

[ 18. June 2014, 04:05: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Karl

Since we live in a highly pluralistic society I'd avoid talking about God to a bereaved parent unless I knew where they were coming from. I haven't been trained in ministering to the bereaved and it's not my job to burden unhappy people with beliefs that they don't share.

I think you missed my point. I want you to imagine that you've a bereaved friend who has expressed their grief, anguish and pain. How they cannot imagine how they will carry on. How they cannot imagine the agony will lessen.

And then you go on to worship the God who caused all that pain. Who did it. Who made that person feel that way. Who slew their child for some inscrutable reasons of his own.

How can you worship that God at that time rather than telling him to fuck himself? I really don't get it.

I mean, perhaps you, and Zach, and Fr Weber are correct. In which case I'd rather like to stop existing all together, really, because I don't want eternity with that God, I don't want eternity in the flames, and really I don't see any point in existing.

[ 18. June 2014, 07:24: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith?
No, of course it doesn't. Bible study is all about asking questions.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
Karl's right, I think. We should put an enormous amount of effort into trying to work out and explain how perhaps God can't stop suffering, maybe due to reasons related to his character and his aims for the world, rather than stop at the idea that God won't stop suffering and then simply tell people to suck it up.

As Karl just said, what kind of God is it that we're supposed to devote our lives to, who chooses to inflict all kinds of suffering on people?
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I'm very conflicted on the whole "God causing death" thing, and the associated issues. On the one hand, any death is a tragedy and to be mourned by those left behind; on the other, death can be seen as the door to a better, eternal life, and thus in some way as a blessing (Mrs B's parents for example refer to the death of their friends in their Meeting as 'Mr Voletrouser has been taken home by the Lord'). Clearly, though, in our human experience, there is a 'sliding scale': the death of a 96-year od with end-stage Alzheimers and double incontinence is more easily viewed as a 'blessing' whereas it's well-nigh impossible to view any element of 'blessing' in a three-year old being knocked down and killed by a hit and run driver....
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How do you get restoration from ἀποκαταστάσεως

[Confused]

Away from (Apo)
going down/according to (Kata)
standing/insurrection (stasis)
You can arrive at the meaning of uninflammable by breaking it up:

       un + in + flam + able

and then sussing the sense out as "the quality of being insusceptible to breaking out in flame," but then you leave aside the meaning of "not irascible."

As well, the idea that florescence comes from florescens, or to bloom, helps you in botanical contexts, but it leaves aside the metaphorical meaning of "flourishing", which ill serves you when you run across "florescence" in a paper on salts staining the surface of water-soaked stone (a florescence of salts on the surface). You stray even further afield when you encounter the abbreviation of another form of this Latin word, floruit, when you read "fl. ca. 3rd cent" in some tiny-print footnote. It means "he wrote mostly around the third century."

To get at ἀποκαταστάσεως, when, like me, your license for Greek is restricted largely to doing word studies, you need more help.

The place to start, and probably stop, is to look up ἀποκατάστασις in Newman's Greek-English Dictionary that is bound into many UBS Greek New Testaments. There you find: "restoration", plain and simple. Do stop there.

However, if you are blessed with more books and idle time than sense, you can go to BDAG and read the short article there, which gives you three contexts for the use of the word and a verbal cognate:
  1. the return of a heavenly body (e.g., the sun) to its starting point,
  2. the return of a thing to its perfection (the sense here), or,
  3. in diplomatic documents, the return of a governmental state to "normal conditions and stability" (the sense in Acts 1:6, "restore the kingdom to Israel").
If you are sick abed, but not that sick, you can continue on to Louw & Nida's semantic domains dictionary of the NT to find that the verb is used in Mk. 3:5 ("he stretched out his hand and it was restored" or "healed").

All these books should be found in your local seminary library reference section.

That, my dear Evensong, is how you get "restoration" from ἀποκαταστάσεως. (The bit about healing was welcomed news to me. Thank you.)
You're a farkin legend to the etymologically interested. In fact I think that's quotes file worthy.

[Overused] [Axe murder]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
At LAST! Suffering is contingent. If you create there will be suffering. If you could create without it, you would. You CAN'T. You. One. Anyone. God. The Bronze-Iron age didn't have this concept (incipiently, nascently in 'time and chance') and had to blame somebody q.v. Job, Luke in Acts re Herod's worms.
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shit happening and God doing shitty things are very different. Especially when the reason given for him doing it is shitty.

If I believed this I'd be a nervous wreck, constantly in fear that this bastard God would murder my children because of some transgression of mine.
I'm not sure God killing babies for no reason at all (which he quite demonstrably does all the time)
You say he does. I say he doesn't. I say shit happens, not because God does the shit, but because we live in a real world in which shit happens.

And if he is into child murder, he can fucking well leave my kids out of it. And me, for that matter.

Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.
You have a God that is unable to save children who die, or unwilling. Pick your poison. I choose Providence.

I don't find people need to be told to feel guilty or angry at God in times of tragedy. I try to face those emotions head on, you pretend they don't exist but for people like me.

quote:
Do feel free to wander around mortuaries telling grieving parents God killed their child. I'm sure it'd mean we'd soon be free of you here.
Take it to hell, you twit. [Mad]
Frankly, I don't think the canonical scriptures tell us much about how the world is constructed in the sense of what we might call the terms of existence. The Creation operates by certain terms that are partially manifest to us through our science and serious scientific theory as developed to date. This would seem to involve a huge measure of freedom and chance in the unfolding of Creation, and certainly in the evolution of organic life. I don't think the issue of tragedy in life is very helpfully framed in terms of whether God allows the tragic, is unable to stop the tragic from occurring, or actively perpetrates the tragic. Rather, Creation operates by certain terms - laws of nature, if you will - that we partially understand, especially in relation to the evolution and functioning of biological life here on the earth that we understand scientifically fairly well.

I don't know how well this works for other people, but I see things essentially through the lens of a syncretism of theism and science, with a dollop of Christian existentialism thrown in.

Scriptures do tell us things about the ultimate aspirations for our species in the sense of the advent of a messianic kingdom, the perfection and restoration of life, and how we are to participate in this bringing-in of the Kingdom.

I don't think, however, that a pre-scientific and pre-modern view of the mechanics of things particularly help us deal with the whole tragic side of life. God doesn't incite floods, earthquakes, famines, disease, etc, and doesn't passively allow such events in any meaningful sense either. This is not mere deism, however, as I don't posit a God who is removed from Creation, but rather one who is pervasively omnipresent in the very facts of existence and consciousness. At once God is there and the Creation which God gives rise to is what it is. The awareness of grace saves the believer from ultimate despair: grace redeems us amidst tragedy, and we appropriate this grace to our existential state by means of faith, but grace does not perform magic tricks with genetic mutations or the laws of physics.
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
So what, you want an encounter group where everyone nods his head and mumbles "Groovy, thanks for sharing"? You posted something, someone disagreed with it. I have no problem with you personally; I indicated some points of disagreement with you and others who posted on this thread, and you responded.
I have no problem with people disagreeing. If I had such a problem, I would never have opened such a thread which painted a target on my back.

What I was pointing out was the nature of the disagreement - that some people try to close down discussion on tricky subjects by effectively declaring them off limits.

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
if a person's perception of the truth about faith and morality don't come from Scripture, where do they come from? Their own special feelings?
But Scripture cannot provide 'the truth' about all questions of morality and faith. From scripture we can pick up certain fundamentals, but there is an awful lot more for us to work out. The Bible is not a book where all the answers are to be found. It doesn't work like that and it can't work like that - not unless you take the most extreme fundamentalist position.

So it seems to me that we do have a high level of latitude to examine and assess. And this continual reassessment is not based on 'hippy feelings' but should draw upon the insights of science, sociology, comparative religion and all other disciplines that may have something positive to offer.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
So what, you want an encounter group where everyone nods his head and mumbles "Groovy, thanks for sharing"? You posted something, someone disagreed with it. I have no problem with you personally; I indicated some points of disagreement with you and others who posted on this thread, and you responded.
I have no problem with people disagreeing. If I had such a problem, I would never have opened such a thread which painted a target on my back.

What I was pointing out was the nature of the disagreement - that some people try to close down discussion on tricky subjects by effectively declaring them off limits.

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
if a person's perception of the truth about faith and morality don't come from Scripture, where do they come from? Their own special feelings?
But Scripture cannot provide 'the truth' about all questions of morality and faith. From scripture we can pick up certain fundamentals, but there is an awful lot more for us to work out. The Bible is not a book where all the answers are to be found. It doesn't work like that and it can't work like that - not unless you take the most extreme fundamentalist position.

So it seems to me that we do have a high level of latitude to examine and assess. And this continual reassessment is not based on 'hippy feelings' but should draw upon the insights of science, sociology, comparative religion and all other disciplines that may have something positive to offer.
Not to mention good old compassion, empathy and the bleedin' obvious.
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Not to mention good old compassion, empathy and the bleedin' obvious.
Hmm. I had assumed that these could be taken as givens. But perhaps I was mistaken.
 
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :
 
Compassion and empathy is how con-artists get to be successful. Just sayin'

A fuller comment would be that everything has a downside. Any analysis that can only articulate the problems of position x and why my solution y is better is by definition at best only 50% complete.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Also, Evensong, the answer is staring you in the face:

quote:
How do you get restoration from ἀποκαταστάσεως

[Confused]

Away from (Apo)
going down/according to (Kata)
standing/insurrection (stasis)
"away from a [going] down situation" i.e. going back up: being restored.

[ 18. June 2014, 20:55: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith?
No, of course it doesn't. Bible study is all about asking questions.
Which is why I'd much rather conduct a bible study with a healthy leaven of Jews, agnostics, atheists, and random skeptics amongst the frequently flavorless flat bread of GLEs and GLCs.

Otherwise, the Good Little Evangelicals and Good Little Catholics are freighted so much with distant memories of Vacation Bible School and CCD that they worry too about what is right and with what I'm I supposed to believe that they fail to engage with the phreaking text.

Give me a good secular Jew in each one of my bible studies—Please, Jesus!
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Also, Evensong, the answer is staring you in the face:

quote:
How do you get restoration from ἀποκαταστάσεως

[Confused]

Away from (Apo)
going down/according to (Kata)
standing/insurrection (stasis)
"away from a [going] down situation" i.e. going back up: being restored.
Mebbe so, Martin, but that's more going from restoration back to ἀποκαταστάσεως, the much easier direction, once you have the answer in hand.

A breaking-words-into-their-roots hunt for meaning rarely turns out well. We don't do it for English words; we just reach for the dictionary. We should do the same for NT Greek.

[ 18. June 2014, 22:59: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
I am increasingly of the opinion that it is important to distinguish between faith as "trust" and faith as "belief", and that salvation by faith is essentially about having trust in Jesus Christ rather than belief in a set of theological propositions.

Those listed for their faith by Hebrews (Chapter 11) are commended essentially because they had trust in God, though many of their beliefs were questionable. IMO we should be relaxed about the creeds etc, recognising them as useful ways of organising our thinking about God, but at the same time constructs whose usefulness varies within a plastic context of time and space. It has been pointed out that Chalcedon, in settling certain issues for the Western Church, spawned a couple of important schisms. Similarly, scripture contains all sorts of contradictory ideas and is far from having a coherent systematic theology. Experience suggests that identifying bits to leave out is pretty pointless, and one never knows when an idea that seems vestigial might assume a greater significance. Such an approach, above all, promotes religious toleration and Christian unity in the bond of peace!
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
...although there comes a point where error in belief crosses the line into heterodoxy and ultimately heresy.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
...but that point and that line is so very different for everyone.

So it makes sense to try and get along.

[ 19. June 2014, 11:23: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I am increasingly of the opinion that it is important to distinguish between faith as "trust" and faith as "belief", and that salvation by faith is essentially about having trust in Jesus Christ rather than belief in a set of theological propositions.
Not salvation by faith, justification by faith. Justification and salvation ought not to be conflated.

The modern idea of faith, at least in the Dawkinsian mindset, as "belief" is a gross misrepresentation of the greek 'pistis' which, as you rightly say, is more about trust with connotations of faithfulness and loyalty.
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Ah! The minimalist and relativist position.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
Not salvation by faith, justification by faith.
Okay, I'll bite.

Would you care to distinguish the two for us?
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Though I'm not TheAlethiophile and he is certainly free to answer for himself, the way it's always been explained to me is that salvation (being freed from the penalty for our sins) comprises justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification in particular is the process of becoming or being made righteous; classical Protestant theology states that we are justified by grace, since we lack the power to make ourselves righteous.

Salvation & justification are not unrelated concepts, but they're clearly not interchangeable concepts. Justification is one part of the process of salvation.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Aye TSA, word splitting in general is futile and in hindsight is facile.
 
Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
Not salvation by faith, justification by faith.
Would you care to distinguish the two for us?
Salvation by faith is never mentioned anywhere in the bible. In correcting the errors of catholicism, the reformers didn't get everything right and this has been one of the key things they got wrong, by projecting the Pelagian heresy that was rife back onto Paul, justification and salvation got rather conflated.

I would recommend much of the 'new perspective' writers on this subject who have brought much clarity as to what the NT writers were on about. In particular, I'd recommend Tom Wright's What Saint Paul Really Said and a good discussion from a number of view points (reformed, progressive, new perspective, deification, catholic) can be found in Justification: Five Views. My reviews of each are here and here, respectively.

Salvation is, as Fr Weber correctly points out, the big picture. Justification is a part of that, but not the whole. The word translated as justification is, in essence, the verb form of the noun which is translated as righteous. So the be justified is to be declared righteous, i.e. in the right. Not to be confused with holy (the verb form of which is sanctification), which is more about inner transformation.
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I would also recommend Justification by Tom
 
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
Here’s the thing: some of the stuff that I’d happily do away with, other people do indeed quite happily do away with. People decide that they aren’t signing up to xyz doctrines all the time.

For example, I am deeply uncomfortable with the cursing Psalms. Plenty of people decide that since they’re not compatible with their understanding of God, they’re going effectively to dispense with them.

Personally, I can’t bring myself to do this. I don’t like them but I can’t get rid of them. If I really had the opportunity to excise them from the Bible I’d end up leaving them in. ISTM that the question is why I can’t get rid of the stuff that makes me uneasy.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
The stuff that makes you uneasy is the stuff that makes you think. Since the Bible, and a heck of a lot of the rest of the Tradition of the Church, is pretty awful at just giving straight forward answers I conclude that the primary purpose is to encourage people to think, to sort out the answers to their questions. Therefore, it's those awkward and uncomfortable bits that are most important.
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Indeed: surely it's down to how we (and by 'we' I mean the Church) interpret these Scriptures eg: I have often heard those particularly towards the more charismatic end of the spectrum interpret the 'cursing Psalms' in a purely spiritual rather than material way. It seems to work for them...
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
For example, I am deeply uncomfortable with the cursing Psalms.
There is a thread in Limbo about this. It doesn't provide neat answers, but it does give food for thought.

Moo
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
We're His glory.
 
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
There is a thread in Limbo about this. It doesn't provide neat answers, but it does give food for thought.
(Going off topic a little)
Thanks for the link, Moo. I had quite forgotten about that thread (understandable, as it is some 9 years old!).

I found it interesting to read what I had written back then. And pleasing to find that I still agree with myself!
 
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I would nominate the Epistles, especially those of St Paul
...
Would there be a problem without the Epistles?
Actually, there would. The NT would be very short indeed and a lot of preachers wouldn't have a scriptural basis for their sermons, homilies and talks. Come to think of it, there wouldn't be a scriptural basis for a lot of our preachers, but would that be so bad if we had no more than:

- All the scripture Christ had
- The accounts of His life, death and resurrection
- The adventures of the early church
- The hippy-trip that is the Revelation of St John?
And we could all keep on shagging our step-mothers. Or our mothers. Or who ever it was that the directionless unholier than thou Corinthian enthusiasts were getting their ends away with.

[ 22. June 2014, 17:40: Message edited by: Zappa ]
 
Posted by CL (# 16145) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith?
No, of course it doesn't. Bible study is all about asking questions.
Yes, yes it does.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
Citation needed, CL, if you'd be so kind. On what basis do you believe that asking questions or having doubts about elements of Christian doctrine makes one a non-Christian?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Which catechism do you use CL?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith?
No, of course it doesn't. Bible study is all about asking questions.
Yes, yes it does.
I would say that not asking questions places one outside the Christian faith. We are called to grow, to mature, to bear fruit. How do you grow in the faith without asking questions, without trying things out, without pushing boundaries? We are not called to bury our faith in the ground where it doesn't even earn interest.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Does raising questions about the Second Coming, or the Virgin Birth (or whatever), really place me and others outside the Christian faith?
No, of course it doesn't. Bible study is all about asking questions.
Yes, yes it does.
quote:
O’Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘Four.’
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five — then how many?’
‘Four.’
The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O’Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased.
‘How many fingers, Winston?’
‘Four.’
The needle went up to sixty.
‘How many fingers, Winston?’
‘Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!’
.
.
.
‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’
‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’

 


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