Fallen and Flawed

While we may never know why people suffer, at least not while we are here on earth, we can take comfort in something God himself said in Exodus 3:7, “I am concerned about their suffering.”

That’s all I need to know.

D, I really must ask you to elaborate on this statement:

“The universe and the earth that floats in it are nothing more than machines grinding away by impersonal forces. Sometimes those forces involve the destruction of humans.”

In particular, what do you mean by the phrases,

1. “nothing more than” and

2. “by impersonal forces”?

The earth and all its fulness are (not “were”) the Lord’s, and He is Lord of heaven and earth, land and sea, war and peace, weather, and all life, caring even for the sparrows and the lilies of the field. Nothing catches Him off guard, and nothing transpires without His aforeknowledge and permission.

I’m only trying to establish that you aren’t portraying Him as an absentee landlord who, having once made everything, has wandered off towards other interests and who may or may not drop back by later on to see how things are going…

We all know the their are things in life we don’t have the answers to, we just don’t, or if we have an answer, usually it’s a partial one, that tends to be better at creating even more questions. I believe suffering falls into that as for why it happens. Having lived through a horrific childhood and with that childhood mentality that things never ever end, I’m no stranger to it. I have seen things from that though that have made me who I am today. They sharpened me and tempered me. It’s clear to me that it’s on account of God’s grace it worked out in my favor, but also because I was willing to let it work that way. It fits in perfectly with 2 Corinthians 12:10, I’ve seen that through my suffering and in my weakest state, Christ has benefited me. I guess what I’m getting at is, I don’t know the inner working exactly of the Why? Which truly does drive me crazy, but in the end, I know it’s to God’s glory, just as you said.

Al, no deist here. I affirm God’s sovereignty, omniscience and omnipresence. Indeed, affirm he invaded/s this world, namely through Christ and new birth.

Luke: Great comment. Especially summing it up with 1 Corinthians 12:10. Well said. And God bless you.

The simple answer why the Haiti tragedy happened, based on current knowledge is that the island is placed where 2 tectonic plates collide. Therefore phenomena like this can be expected. It would be wrong to blame anyone – good or evil for this. If you walk under a hanging weight and it falls and hits you, you can only blame the laws of nature.

On the other hand, a legitimate question would be, if there is an all-powerful, omniscient, benevolent God, why didn’t it act? The only answer I have is that God is not what we imagine it to be, and our idea of God clearly failed (again).

So questioning our faith is a very legitimate exercise under the circumstances. Thing is, when you question it you just may lose it.

Jag, yep, that risk exists, as I pointed out. But shouldn’t persuade us from doing it. I endorse it like you.

That’s very courageous of you, Demian. Now do you accept that different people questioning their faith honestly may come to very different conclusions? Or are you saying that this may only happen under demonic influence, emotional hype and the like?

Jag, why do you suppose nature is subject to laws? To presume law is to imply a lawgiver. Who established the laws of nature? Natural laws must be absolute, assured, or they are not laws. Even if you call them likelihoods based upon the law of averages, you appeal once again to law. Law > Lawgiver / no Lawgiver > no law.

On another note, the believer in Christ does not “blame” God for natural disasters because that would imply wrongdoing, which would in turn set up the blamer as God’s judge, setting him at a level higher than God. Rather we attribute these events to an all-wise, all-knowing, almighty God who is both worthy and able to manage all the affairs of His creation without consulting us for permission, approval, or direction.

Jag, I’m not exactly sure what you are asking, but I’m okay if people come to different conclusions as they examine their faith. I can’t persuade them. Only the Holy Spirit does that. Bottom line, if it’s real, it’ll stick. I’d rather them be honest [no matter what the outcome] rather than hypocrites. See this post: From Believer to Unbeliever for an expansion of this idea.

The first great tragedy on the Earth was man’s fault. Every tragedy since then, great or small, is directly related. Not as punishment, but as consequence.

Al,

“Laws” of nature are observable: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_nature.)

Even if you are antheist, you can still observe them. Yet there is no observable lawgiver. I think you are confusing human laws (changeable, established by visible lawgivers) and laws of nature (unchangeable). The fact that laws of nature are absolute excludes the possibility of a God that breaks the laws it established by acting supernaturally.

Also – we have a duty to prevent suffering and to relieve it. It’s in the Gospels. If God does not do that (though it presumably can), then this would make us better than God! Unless, of course (and it is my hypothesis), God cannot act in any other way but THROUGH us!

Demian,

Well said – I am all against hypocrisy too.

Jag- you said “Also – we have a duty to prevent suffering and to relieve it. It’s in the Gospels. If God does not do that (though it presumably can), then this would make us better than God! Unless, of course (and it is my hypothesis), God cannot act in any other way but THROUGH us”

First, most people don’t or won’t do a whole lot to prevent suffering or to relieve it. Most disobey Jesus second great command.

Second, what made you decide that it is God’s duty to serve man?

mjason,

I have a daughter. It is my duty to serve her. Help her. Save her. Bring her up. Prevent danger. Satisfy her needs. I am not hiding so that she cannot see me and simply expect her to worship me! But I assume you can no longer refer to God as “Our Father”?

In addition, I never said before that it was God’s duty to serve humans. I said that God can’t have higher expectations of us that it has of itself. If it is OK for God to watch Auschwitz in quiet amazement, then why should we be required to do anything about it? Unless, of course, we are to be better than the God you believe in.

It’s true that many people (maybe most) won’t do anything to help the suffering. Unfortunately we can’t count on God acting through everyone.

jag,
I am confident that we place far more worth on the duration and comfort of our earthly existence than God does. Now, if this is all there is, I might agree with you. But this is not all there is.

How do you suppose God helps us and brings us up? Does he allow us to make mistakes, and learn from them? If my Dad told me a thousand times to whittle a stick with the knife blade moving away from me, while I payed him no mind, would he better serve me by taking away my knife, or by letting me eventually slip and cut myself? Think about the benefits of his allowing me to suffer. To bleed. If my dad healed my wound immediately, I would continue to be careless and disobedient.

God has no obligation to be waiting around the corner so he can bop a would-be assailant on the head before the robber can jump out and demand my money at gun point. Or by blowing a hurricane away from shore like we’d blow candles out on a birthday cake.

Creation is cursed as a consequence of sin. Still we are not doomed to a short existence on a miserable planet, so why make God into a earthly bodygaurd? His plan is far greater, eternity, and for it we must hate sin, and without experiencing sin and it’s consequences, we couldn’t grasp how truly evil sin is and God would not be glorified in our hearts and minds and we’d not really understand the worth of his righteousness, nor would we have reason to pursue his righteousness. Without holiness, we will not see him.

I refer to God as my father. His desire is to make me better and worthy, as a good father should, not to spoil me into a worthless state.

mjason,

What happens after this life is anyone’s guess. And the more literalist your approach to the Bible, the more confused you will be, as it does not offer any consistent message about that. But it is irrelevant. We have a self-preservation instinct, presumably given to us by God. And this life is the only one we know that there surely is. Perhaps it is a test, and if you can’t live well here, then why should you be given another chance? Therefore I have to disagree with you. Otherwise, if I took your opinion seriously, I’d commit suicide (so I do not have to wait for so long to be with Jesus), or at least become an ascetic (to show God that I care more for the next life). I guess if your child is stillborn or dies soon after birth you will rejoice?

Are you suggesting Auschwitz was God allowing us to learn from our mistakes? Really? What kind of a monster-god would allow for innocent children to be medically experimented on? What did those innocent children learn before death in torment? Would that really be fatherly behaviour? If so, then I’d rather be orphaned!

Well if God has no obligation to remove evil, then why should we? Every time I break my daughter’s fall, I prove to be morally higher than God. If God doesn’t care for “his children”, then why should I? I am afraid that your philosophy leads to quite nihilistic conclusions, if applied consistently. OK, so I have no obligation to help those who suffer now. But what if I choose to do it nevertheless? Not because I have an obligation, but because I love God and my neighbours? It would appear that on the part of God that love is unrequited…

“Creation is cursed as a consequence of sin”? What/whose sin? Why is it cursed? Is God taking revenge on you and me for something from distant past? Why are we mortal, just like most of other creatures, whereas some species are virtually physically immortal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula)?

Many questions… can you propose any convincing answers, or is it all about blind faith?

I sometimes refer to God as my father – and mother – too. But even then I do realise that it is a hugely limiting metaphor. Just like the Bible.

I appreciate you’re view point here Jag, I really do, so I don’t want to get into what I know will be another circular argument.

Instead, I’d like to ask you how it is you believe anything you do about God, or namely, Jesus?

What I mean is, you dismiss the majority of the Bible and traditional Christian beliefs (i.e. early church fathers). Overwhelmingly, these are the sources for “Christian beliefs” – beliefs about Christ. How is it then that you hold any beliefs about Christ or the appreciate the Bible in a belief-informing sense? It may be interesting yes, and sometimes inspiring, but if that is all you see in it then presumably it can’t be the basis for your belief system.
And without that, or the testimony of Christians throughout the ages to base belief in Christ on (in terms of who Jesus was etc. who God is) how can you be in any sense a “Christian”?
What reason do you have to believe any of the things you do about Christ if you place no certainty in their source?

I can understand basing one’s belief system on personal experience and rationalisation alone – resulting in atheism, deism, forms of pantheism etc. But, where does Jesus come into this?

Most of what we know about Jesus comes from the Bible, and early Christian writers – passed down through the centuries. If you dismiss the majority as metaphorical, irrelevant, and (to take away the euphemisms) – outright wrong – where do your beliefs about Jesus come from? How can you be a Christian whilst doing away with the sources and norms of Christian belief? Does it not make the very title meaningless?

jag,
Man, you have come up with some stuff there. Communication has never been a strength for me. Either I’m being really muddy or you are thinking too much.

Some of those questions you asked, presumably in response to what I posted, I’m going to have to think really hard about how you arrived at the point of thinking they were relevant and ultimately if they themselves are silly or if I am just silly. Academic thought I generally leave to people who are the opposite of me. I’m a horrible communicator so I think I’ll just go back to observing these discussions. Carry on, good talking to you, I’m going back down to the minor leagues now!

I’m not dodging questions, but I think I’m wasting people’s time, so I’m just trying to stop doing that. I’m a super-duper introvert who thinks too much, or maybe not enough, probably both. Back to the shadows!

@mj, I have to disagree with you. From a believer’s perspective any randomly picked sentence of yours makes more sense than the sum total of jag’s self-admiring ramblings. Don’t be a stranger here– the brethren profit by your insights, and the goal toward unbelievers is to simply speak the truth, not to “win.” Jesus won at calvary and afterward, and the battle belongs to the Lord.

Alyssa,

If you study early Christianity you will find out that it started out as a Jewish sect. What united early Christians was a simple pronouncement that “Jesus is Lord”. Bart Ehrman’s book “Christianities you never knew” discusses how many different sub-sects there were, each with very different beliefs (including those about Jesus). There was certainly about as much diversity amongst early Christians as now – maybe more! Unfortunately one of the sects won over the support of the Roman state under Constantine. As soon as it happened, it called itself “orthodoxy”, and suddenly everyone else was a heretic! But in reality there are many ways of experiencing the holy, and both mine and yours are equally valid.

My belief is not dogmatic. I don’t think I hold any belief that I would not be happy to abandon if there was evidence against it. I experience God, in a mystical way, rather than believe in things about God. I worship God, not the Bible. I see the Bible as a roadsign to God, an important thing, but the point is not to worship the Bible but what is beyond it. Just like the Bible, I do respect the church tradition, but I also realise how limited it is, and how much it is rooted in its socio-historical context. To provide an example – God in the Bible is usually referred to as a “he”. To you it may mean that God is male, but to me it means that the Bible was written in a patriarchal society, and there was no other way to describe God as a “he”, king or lord. It’s unimportant to me what pronoun you use for God, but how you experience God and live out the teaching of Jesus.

I do not understand why you say that a historical-metaphorical interpretation of the Bible is “dismissing” anything. I must be hopeless at explaining! In fact, I think that metaphorical interpretation liberates the Bible from being frozen in time and restricted to antiquity. Do I have to believe in a flat earth to be considered faithful to the Bible? Even amongst the “orthodox” church fathers you will find more varied beliefs and interpretations than I think you are willing to admit. And, by the way, why weren’t there any “church mothers”? Wasn”t it by any chance because the original teachings of Jesus and Paul (“there is no longer male or female…”) were suppressed by your “orthodoxy”?

mjason,

Please don’t be shy! You know how it works: thesis + antithesis = synthesis! Nothing wrong with exchanging arguments, I hope. I always gain knowledge and experience from others when they share, and never lose any when I share!

al,

My apologies that I am making you insecure. Please believe me it wasn’t my intention. I am simply searching for the truth, uncompromisingly.

al,

My apologies that I am making you insecure. Please believe me it wasn’t my intention. I am simply searching for the truth, uncompromisingly.

Cute, Jag, but I don’t think anyone here is buying what you’re pushing. Except you, of course…

al,
Not selling anything, really. whatever I have to offer is absolutely free.

mjmason: You’re free to bail on a discussion, but your not free to bail from the blog.

As both al and jag pointed out, your contribution is important. Please don’t slide back into the shadows.

al,
Not selling anything, really. whatever I have to offer is absolutely free.

Riiiiiiight. But I didn’t suugest you are selling, did I:

Cute, Jag, but I don’t think anyone here is buying what you’re pushing.

Drug pushers operate the same way… it’s always free until the victim is hooked, then it costs him everything– his dignity, his life, his very soul. The garbage you spew under the pretense of being an honest seeker, Jag, is pure poison– deadly toxic– and I’m not sure you even know it. Even though your posts are a font of evil, I don’t know whether you’re knowingly evil or just braindead. Either way, your mind is a cesspool of wickedness and you need to repent and seek God’s forgiveness while you still can– nobody has a guarantee of tomorrow.

Thank you, al, I’ll take it as a compliment. I had no idea you thought so highly of me. Wish I had 1 percent of the superpowers you believe I do…

Jag, (this is probably my longest response yet…Sorry!)

Starting out backwards:
I only refer to Church fathers in terms of referring to the early (and overwhelmingly male) influential Christian writers from who we can examine early Christian beliefs in the church – including their variation and development. Paul, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Augustine etc. – the list goes on. That’s not to say there were no females involved in the establishment and growth of the church! Rather, the records we have of traditional Christianity – and yes, because of the culture of the time – come from males. Sadly what we can know about church “mothers” is very limited.

On a similar note, I don’t think of God as male in a physical sexual sense – that would absurdly limit God – not only does the Hebrew word for male encompasses both female and male, contextually the masculine pronoun depicts attributes that a feminine pronoun would not have in the culture the Bible was written (yes, I too take context into account). I find it absurd that anyone would take from a pronoun that God has a gender determined by genetics and hormones!
But I do not refer to God as “it” as such seems impersonal and disrespectful because the connotations of the usage of “it” as a pronoun in our culture are generally disrespectful. It’s easier to adopt the traditional “he” which, as God is quite obviously not a “man” I see no need to abandon.

In terms of dismissing the Bible, I do not see this as the necessary outcome of taking context and literary form into account. By no means – good biblical exegesis requires this. I am referring instead to your many comments that show dismissal of what to you seems unreasonable to believe, not on the basis of the misinterpretation as such (for the example, many argue that Bible doesn’t actually teach a flat earth) but by labeling that part inaccurate – for instance that the Exodus never happened, prophets never performed miracles etc. I’m not arguing against such dismissal here, I am simply pointing out that it is difficult to say the Bible is a “roadsign” if it’s constantly pointing in the wrong direction, or we have no idea which way it is pointing.
You quite clearly put forward a belief in God that is contrary to the Biblical portrayal – that he does not act directly in the world etc. which requires dismissal of substantial portions (in requiring that the writers be mistaken or misled in there quite clearly stated beliefs otherwise). Now I’m not saying that you are wrong to do so, but simply that I cannot understand how you reconcile such an approach with also seeing the Bible as in anyway revealing God. You accept parts of “who” it depicts God to be, but not others – how do you draw that line?
There is a difference between appreciating metaphors where they quite easily exist, and ignoring authors intent when they portray (what they clearly believe to be) historical narrative. The NT authors take great effort in depicting the life and acts of Jesus as events that actually occurred. To read their accounts as intentionally metaphorical may yield some interesting interpretations, but it dismisses all reference to the authors professed and evident intent.
Luke 1:1-4, John 20:30-31, John 21:24-25, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, 1 Corinthians 15:13-15, Galatians 1:11-12
If they literally believed what they taught, we must dismiss them as wrong in that belief before we can look for the “metaphors” in their ideas. What then must be said is that ‘whilst the authors were “wrong” we can still find some inspiring thoughts amongst their inaccuracies and delusions’, which, given that we have already dismissed the accuracy of their ideas and ignored their motivations, is a bizarre stance.

“the point is not to worship the Bible but what is beyond it” – True, but I suppose my underlying question is – how do you know what is beyond it? How do you know you are experiencing God at all if you do not know who God is or what he is like?
How, if you don’t know what to believe about God, can you worship him/it/she at all? For all you know, he hates being worshipped.

The same applies to living out the “teachings of Jesus” – when it is obvious that you would dismiss (or label “metaphorical”) many such teachings when they are inconsistent with your own beliefs, preferences or experiences.
For instance, you frequently quote Matthew 7:3 as a literal and clear teaching on hypocrisy. I’m sure uphold many others also and other parts of the NT that support your views, but what about when they don’t?
Are they automatically on the “metaphorical” or “irrelevant” list?

I’m aware that you don’t believe the gospels etc. were written by direct eyewitnesses or directly “inspired”, therefore I wonder how it is that you follow any teachings of Jesus if you don’t know what they actually were?
How do you know he taught ANY of the things attributed to him? Are the teachings of Jesus the teachings you like and are comfortable with? The ideas about Jesus accurate only where they are consistent with your own?
If this is the standard of truth we should all adhere to, beliefs become meaningless very fast.

In terms of variation in early belief, this is my point exactly. If you feel you cannot trust such beliefs, where do your own come from? If the most basic (and least disputed) ideas about Christ handed down to us are quite likely mistaken (his virgin birth death, and resurrection, his being the Word incarnate through whom the world was made, his status as sole mediator between God and man – salvation and eternal life coming only by faith in him) or untrustworthy, how can you be sure of anything about Christ at all? And if you don’t have any solid beliefs about Christ, how can you believe IN Christ?

(Obviously I’m playing “devils advocate” here and just trying to point out the implications of your thinking)

Oh dear. I apologise to anyone who attempts to read that…

Alyssa: That wasn’t to bad. No need to apologize.

Is this how churches should deal with those who have differing beliefs? I don’t think it is, but what does everyone else here think of this?:

“The garbage you spew under the pretense of being an honest seeker, Jag, is pure poison– deadly toxic– and I’m not sure you even know it. Even though your posts are a font of evil, I don’t know whether you’re knowingly evil or just braindead. Either way, your mind is a cesspool of wickedness and you need to repent and seek God’s forgiveness while you still can– nobody has a guarantee of tomorrow.”

“Knowingly evil”…”braindead”…”cesspool of wickedness”. Why? Why are Jag’s words knowingly evil, braindead, and wicked?

I definitely do not agree with much of Jag’s interpretation of the Bible, but what’s wrong with the way he’s going about this process overall? He seems to be allowing the Bible to speak for itself, rather than ceding to someone else’s “default, expert” opinion. Isn’t this exactly what Martin Luther and John Calvin did? I am confident that somewhere there must have been a Catholic apologist or two who threw the same insults at Luther and Calvin.

How do you know that you are right and Jag is wrong? How do you know that the Lutherans and the Calvinists are right but that the Roman Catholics are wrong? Do you or do you not believe that almost all Christians embraced what you view as flawed interpretations of the Bible for hundreds of years under the guise of the Roman Catholic church? If that kind of established authority and historical precedent could be wrong, then why not you?

What are your standards for Biblical interpretation based on? I’m willing to wager that they overlap with someone else’s, that they overlap with some other human’s interpretation…unless God himself told you how to interpret every last word of scripture, I think this is highly unlikely.

I don’t think it’s brain-dead to question ourselves about something that you yourself would most likely acknowledge even most Christians have misinterpreted at various times in history.

Alyssa,

I do appreciate you taking the time to express your views. I must admit that I consider you one of the shining lights on this blog, and you certainly are one of my favourite people here. And I admit that even though we do not agree on many points. That is because I can see that you do have valid reasons to believe what you believe (even though they may be personal rather than universal). As a result, you do not feel threatened by opinions different to yours, and are open-minded enough to engage in an honest conversation with a different point of view. This is, unfortunately, a rare thing. I am not saying this to flatter you in any way, I just feel that you should know that I appreciate your presence here.

I do realise that women were really involved in the early church. Paul mentions a female apostle in his letters. Thecla was another early influence. The reason we only have church fathers is that the early female voices were supressed and erased quite early on, and very little survives. Compare apostle Paul in Gal 3:28, and a much later pseudoepigraphical letter written in Paul’s name to reverse that teaching – Tim 2:11-12.

Many before me pointed out that the Bible is not a scientific textbook. I do not look into for information about astronomy, physics or even history. I recommend you read prof. Israel Finkelstein’s “The Bible Unearthed”. Being a world-class Israeli archeologist, Finkelstein tells it like it is: if there ever had been an exodus from Egypt, we would have found evidence for it. As it happens, the Israelites somehow did not leave a single broken pot, extinguished fireplace or abandoned campsite, despite (according to the Bible) roaming through the desert in huge numbers for 40 years! In addition, at the time of supposed exodus, the site of Jericho was simply uninhabited. Likewise, there is no evidence of a united kingdom, and if David and Solomon ever existed then they would be tribal chiefs in an unfortified village of Jerusalem, far from the grand Solomonic empire that the Bible depicts. But I do not dismiss the stories by pointing out to their historical inaccuracies – the opposite, I am trying to liberate them from incorrect, literalist interpretation and find out their deeper, spiritual meaning. As for the flat earth in the Bible, it is everywhere, including the story of Satan leading Jesus to a high mountain so that he could see all kingdoms of the world (gospel of Matthew – note that it is depicted as an actual event, NOT a vision). Surely this would only be possible on a flat earth… or can you offer an alternative explanation? The roadsign I see the Bible to be seems to be saying – look for the deeper, spiritual meaning, not the literal meaning. And when I look for the deeper meaning in the Bible, I also compare what it says with our everyday experience. Here, again, it is far different from the literal meaning – we do not see miracles, resurrections or driving out demons in our world. Either God has changed, or those things never really happened. Which one, Alyssa? What if the Bible simply uses poetic, metaphorical language to reveal God?

How do you prove that what the NT authors say about Jesus was ever meant to be taken literally? John Dominic Crossan claims the opposite, and I find his arguments really convincing.

I do realise that the NT (and some extracanonical books too) preserves some original teaching of Jesus, but I also know that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses and they date at least a generation after Jesus. Therefore I do rely on biblical scholarship (especially The Jesus Seminar) to explore the teaching of the historical Jesus, as opposed to the theological Christ figure. Why do I find it necessary? Because the 4 gospels are contradictory. They propose very different perspectives on Jesus, and they can’t all be true. The church realised this right from the beginning, hence the early efforts to “harmonise” the gospels, such as the Diatessaron (2nd century!).

The bottom line is – God is Love. Therefore any claims about God that go against it must be dismissed. Otherwise God is not Love. Of course, it is not impossible that God is not Love, but then I simply don’t care about such a God much.

Of course, I do realise that you think that the canonical gospels were written early by eyewitnesses. And you probably also think that all non-canonical gospels were late and written by non-witnesses. But you do not have any proof for that – only church tradition, and not that early either. In fact, all 4 gospels are anonymous! Personally I prefer to rely on solid scholarship than unproven traditions.

I disagree with you about the “virgin birth” being an early belief about Jesus. It certainly wasn’t! The earliest NT author is Paul – and he clearly never heard about the virgin birth! He only mentions that Jesus was “born of a woman” – not a virgin or the Holy Spirit. The oldest gospel, Mark, likewise never mentions it. Would they fail to mention such an important thing if they knew about it? Virgin birth was clearly invented much later. Why? Most Roman deities had virgin mothers. Roman emperors were born of virgins – or so it was claimed. So if you wanted to explain to a Roman audience that Jesus was someone, clearly you had to make a similar claim. But it doesn’t mean that in post-Roman times we have to take the story literally. What would it make Jesus – half-god and half-human? You subscribe to a certain interpretation of the Bible. I am not saying that it is absolutely invalid, I am just humbly offering a reasonable alternative. I am not trying to convert you, but perhaps to make you appreciate different interpretations to your own.

Teleprompter,

“Orthodox” Christianity has a long tradition of intolerance. Not only against non-Christians, but their own kind as well. Calvin rejoiced when heretics burned exactly the same way that Catholic inquisitors did (see the case of Miguel Servet!). Luther advocated persecuting Jews and supported a war against the anabaptists.

The interesting thing is, they all justified it with the Bible. Are there any words of Jesus there that could justified such behaviour? If not, then Chritianity at large has generally betrayed the teaching of Jesus.

Here’s an interesting sermon about this:

http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2005/10/liberal-religion-part-3-the-religion-of-jesus-vs-the-religion-about-jesus/

What a great world do we live in! At least I don’t have to fear being burned at the stake by my fellow Christian brethren. Guess this is how far their tolerance goes.

Hi Jag,
Thank you for your response and for the kind thoughts – it took awhile for me to realise how much more affective the “gentle” approach is, but thankfully I now know how important it is to be able to think things through rather than getting caught up in emotions.

I had to laugh to see you refer to the Jesus Seminar as I had guessed that would be right up your alley, in terms of “this one is Jesus’ teaching, but this one isn’t”. Now it would take much too long to get into that debate, but you must realise the number of writers, scholars, etc. that have spent their time refuting such views (and specifically that “Seminar”)? That’s not to say they’re necessarily right, but the fact is that for every side there is an opposing one. For the books you’ve read and scholarship you’ve accepted, there are books and scholars that advocate another, equally thought-out and researched, view. Everyone who does such research or makes such arguments, does so because they are trying to prove or support their own preconceptions – hence there is rarely a true “middle ground” that advocates (explicitly or implicitly) neither side of a debate.
Our problem, as usual, is the very ground on which we stand. I do not believe that my views are based on mere “tradition”, but – like you – that there is much scholarship that supports them. You would disagree with such scholars and uphold others, and vice versa.
Neither of us expects to change the others mind because of this great divide in starting points, but is interesting to try and understand another perspective nonetheless.

I suppose the part that I’ve been trying to get my head around is that, in consideration of all you have said, how do you make such statements such as “God is love”? I mean, what reason do you have to believe that? I know what I base my beliefs on, and I know you disagree with much of that, so my ongoing question is where do you get your beliefs? How do you discern the “deeper meaning” you call us to focus on?

My assumption would be simply your own rationality and experience – what seems/feels true, what you want to be true (which guides what you see in the “metaphors” what you accept as accurate or not, what you agree with about who/what God is). This may be an oversimplification, but it the impression you give.
I admit that there is an element of this in everyone’s belief systems – we’re hardly going to agree with something we don’t want to! But I think there are different extremes. Most Christians do not put much faith into human wisdom and reasoning and feel even experience can be misleading. In part it comes from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, 1 Cor 2:13, Romans 1:21,25.

Mere human ability to recognize and accept truth is not held in high esteem (hence the emphasis made on the guidance of the “Spirit”). Though you likely disagree with the approach – it can mean treating apparent contradictions or inaccuracies in the Bible as signs of incomplete understanding on our part, rather than limitations of the Bible. That’s why theology is such an enormous field – it often attempts to resolve these.

In terms of the rest, I’ll just say:

“The earliest NT author is Paul – and he clearly never heard about the virgin birth!”
Paul may not have directly referred to the virgin birth in his letters – but that does not imply he never heard of it, especially given he does not contradict it. He does however make clear his other “miraculous” beliefs about Jesus in 1 Cor 15:2-8 which is considered to be the earliest existing Christian creed.

“What would it make Jesus – half-god and half-human?”
Not quite, the ‘traditional’ perspective is “fully-God” and “fully-human”, God-incarnate, or in earlier phraseology: “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” Col 1:19, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” Col 2:9 (also Paul)

“In fact, all 4 gospels are anonymous! Personally I prefer to rely on solid scholarship than unproven traditions.”
Which relates to my early point – it is “other” scholarship that attributes authorship and affirms canonicity, not just tradition.
And finally, in terms of the different perspectives of the gospels, wouldn’t we be more suspicious if they were all the same?! Four writers separately reviewing such events are hardly going to have identical accounts. Each writes using different (but sometimes overlapping material) – each had different sources (what they had heard, seen, been told etc) to draw upon; different motivations for writing; different intended audiences; different backgrounds (Jewish, Greek etc.); different styles, focuses and ways of arranging their accounts depending on the point they wanted to make; and different understandings of the significance of the events.
Attempts to ignore such differences (such as the Diatessaron) are no less misguided than dismissals of the accounts as untrue based upon these differences.

Biblical scholarship is not divided into one side that rationally deduces which parts are true/metaphorical/inaccurate – and one side that ignores context/genre/differences and just says ‘it’s all true!’. Biblical scholarship also describes fields that attempt to use rationality, context etc. to form as accurate an understanding of difficult passages as possible, and in doing so to reconcile supposed contradictions and address previous misconceptions about the “literal” meaning.

The problem as usual is where we start out from – those who hold the Bible as directly inspired and authoritative will take a different approach in examining and understanding such areas than those who have already concluded it is errant and historically inaccurate. Hence, the great divide at which we stand.

And Teleprompter,
No need to abuse the word “Orthodox” – literally it means “right belief”, so we could quite easily say those supporting such violence were not at all “Orthodox” – I strive to be orthodox, and that means I disagree with persecuting anyone… Luke 6:27-36

Opps what a typo! That last part is actually for you too Jag – misread whose comment it was, sorry Tele

Thanks. I was a bit confused at first, because I don’t even recall using the word ‘orthodox’.

Alyssa,

Thank you for your kind words. And you are right about the kind approach. Isn’t that what Jesus taught too? If so, why so few Christian listen?

Unfortunately, Jesus never left us an autobiography. In addition, the synoptic gospels disgree with John’s gospel (I am ignoring the fact that the synoptics disagree between themselves too). So if we want to see what the real Jesus was likely to be like, we need a methodology. And The Jesus Seminar offered just that. Is their interpretation the only one? Certainly not. But it is compelling, and having studied other possibilities I find their approach quite convincing. It is also transparent, so if they propose something, you know exactly why. Not to mention that many of their fellows are cutting-edge Christian theologians. Don’t worry, I will not be offended if you say that you find other theologians – eg. W C Lang more convincing. While it is true that we all tend to have preconceptions, when it comes to historical Jesus study it is tempting to fall into the existing moulds – either he was a “failed apocalyptical prophet”, which is what sceptics like Schweitzer or Ehrman claim, or he was a half-God born of a virgin and bodily resurrected as the conservatives say. But a close study of the texts does not fully support either! Hence The Jesus Seminar has done some groundbreaking work. I am not saying that they discovered all there was to know. I hope there is plenty more!

It is the same with the Bible – when it comes to interpreting it, we all pick and choose. All of us. This blog is a great example – there was a post about life after death. I am not saying that what Demian proposed went against the Bible, but it certainly wasn’t the whole of the Bible. He affirmed “life after death”, but to do that he had no choice but to “explain away” biblical texts that talk about death being the end as well as those about “soul-sleep”.

As for apostolic authorship of the gospels, as far as I know there is only tradition to support such views. And even the oldest tradition is dated about a century after Jesus. And like I said, ALL gospels are anonymous. There is therefore no need to believe that Mark, Luke etc. wrote them, though we use the traditional names for convenience.

Paul can’t imply he never heard about something that wasn’t known at his time. But virgin birth? It would be something top special, how could he not mention it? Same refers to the author of Mark’s gospel.

I do realise that traditional view is that Jesus was both human and divine. Yet this belief was formulated long before we discovered genetics. If he only had 50% of his genetic material from a human (his mother), then he could not be 100% human. Unless, of course, the virgin birth is not a historical event. I absolutely agree with Paul (and the early Christians) though that they were able to see a fullness of God in Jesus.

I also totally agree that different gospel writers had different motivations. That’s why they picked and chose various stories, and often modified the same stories to suit their agenda.

Are you familiar with the phrase “to read the Bible for the first time again”? That’s what I always try to do. And the result I always get is that it is historically inaccurate. This part has been shown beyond the shadow of doubt, and I can provide countless examples. But I do hold the Bible dear, so a metaphorical-historical interpretation is the only choice I have. And it does work for me.

Jag, you obviously don’t know anything about Calvin. That is a stereotypical [he relished heretics burning at the stake] and pervasive notion held only by those who don’t examine the truth.

You both [Tele and Jag] picked up on something that isn’t a surprise to anyone, especially Luther, who saw the risk of putting the Word of God in other people’s hands worth it given the liberating influence the gospel of Jesus Christ would impart.

That a gun is misused doesn’t condemn the gun–just the user. Man is wicked and corrupt and your comment that Christianity has had a long history of intolerance suggests it is the only segment of humanity to have done so [excluding even you, how convenient!] is short-sighted. Be brave. Condemn all of mankind.

Thus the need for a savior. Not a self-help manual.

Any other interpretation is to make the ultimate author, God, say things he never intended.

Jag: Let me apologize for making yet one more sweeping statement about you. [I'm chuckling because it drives me nuts when people do this...and here I am doing the same thing.]

Who knows, you might be well read on Calvin. But if that’s the case, I’d find it surprising that you hold this belief about Calvin.

Yes, he was involved with the Servetus execution, but he actually grieved over it. Moreover, it was the council that actually pursued and brought the sentence on Servetus.

Good resources to check out by Piper and panel discussion on “Should we hold the death of Servetus against Calvin?“.

Demian,

I never said that Calvin relished burning “heretics”. The point rather undisputed by historians is that he was able to do something to protect Servetus, but instead did nothing. He certainly was no Good Samaritan – more like the priest or levite from the parable. It appears that he considered death sentences for differences in faith to be just. Even evangelicals know that Calvin was in the wrong: http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/ashes.htm. I would certainly hope that he really grieved over the matter. Better late than never.

As for Luther (vicious anti-semite who inspired Hitler by the way), he removed the authority of the church to interpret the Bible and gave it to normal people – like you and me. Who’s to say which one of us is misusing it? We just represent different approaches, but are both Luther’s children, because we wouldn’t be able to do what we do without him.

You see, I am not condemning Calving or Luther. I don’t see them in black or white, just a huge spectrum of grey. They were real people, sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

No, humanking is not wicked and corrupt in general. We are children of our world, we evolved with instincts for both selfish and selfless behaviour. We have never been “perfect” and never will be, though it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Making someone feel wicked, destroying their self-esteem is the best way to take possession of them and controlling them. The Jesus I encountered never asked for that.

What does the history of intolerance show? Only one thing. That Christianity is not magic potion, and that Christians are the same people as everyone else. Our religion is not in itself better than any other – you can tell this by its fruit.

As for the saviour thing, this is another strange doctrine that no-one can explain. The death of Jesus helps us with nothing. Even his resurrection (however we understand it) is of limited use. What really matters is his life – something that Mel Gibson totally missed in his movie by the way.

I am not worried about sweeping statements. It actually helps me to understand how people see me, and to put my arguments in a better way (hopefully). I think I’ve known you well enough through this website to accuse you of any ill-will.

Jag, Fair enough.