Salvation, and joy without limit in eternal fellowship with God Himself qualifies as “something extra” for everyone.
Tris
No, Frank. Suppose you’re a kid, and your father buys you something you’ve always wanted and never expected to get, let’s say a particular bike. You’d try to be a good kid for him in consequence – but it would be the farthest thing from anybody’s mind to say that he bought you that gift because you were good, or to coerce your goodness. He gave you a gift because he loves you – and he expects you to use your bike safely and in accordance with the rules he lays down for riding it. But that’s also because he loves you and wants to keep you safe and healthy. There’s no legalism involved at all. If you come to know someone and desire to please that person, you will do what he or she wishes – not to “buy their love” but because you love and because you are loved.
Tris, I was really pretty much kidding about the “something extra”.
Poly, How to the citizens of village D know what God wishes? The only information their given is that he exists, that he’s divine and if you believe, good things will happen. How are they to come to know God (to the extent that’s possible for humans?) That’s why the D’ers seem to be worse off than the E’ers to me. They aren’t given any guidance as to how God would like to see them behave. The E-ites (E-ians? E-ese?) can at least take comfort in following the roadmap they’ve been given.
I’m not really disagreeing with you. It’s not really a question of legalism or “buying love”. A D villager could love God and sincerely want to please him but would have no idea how to go about it.
One more reason I don’t worship Paul.
He can see into the future in his spice trances, he can see into the memories of all his ancestors from having taken the Water of Life, he has the skills and training of both a mentat and a master swordsman, he is the Kwizatz Haderach and the Lisan Al’Gaib, and still you don’t worship Paul? Hmph! Infidel! Muad’Dib forever!
Nor do I. Actually, I can’t think of any Christians who do.
However I think I am beginning to understand the confusion about God is love. It seems to me it’s sort of a Gospel of the Beatles. As in: “All you need is love”.
While it is true that the Bible tells us God is love, the reverse is not always true. In other words, it’s not a mathematical formula such as: God = love. Love is merely one attribute of God. We also read that God is light. But again, light does not always equal God. As an even more basic example: My door is wood, yet wood does not always equal my door.
It is important to understand the** context **of Scripture in order to understand what a particular passage means. Here’s one I’ve seen partially quoted to support the idea that love is the only thing we need. In this case Jesus is speaking to people who claimed to be followers of God and who were supposed to be waiting for the Messiah.
Matthew 22
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question,** tempting **him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him,** Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.**
(If we could accomplish this goal we would never break any of the other Commandments.)
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David.
43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,
44 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?
46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
I’d say that it’s not all that sound from a Christian perspective. The Orthodox Church repeatedly warns its members to flee from “the faith of Demons”, which is mentioned in the Epistle of James. The faith of Demons is the belief that Jesus Christ is God and is the Son, but this faith is not backed up by action.
IF it were true that acknowledging Christ’s divine status were sufficient, in and of itself, to impart orthopraxis (right behavior, the “fruits of salvation”), then there would have been no need for Scripture to warn us that it is NOT sufficient, in and of itself. Scripture would not have explicitly called such faith “the faith of demons”.
In a sense, but not complete life. We were created body and soul, so a complete human being is body and soul, not a soul alone.
No it doesn’t. It merely asks who, if anyone, will go to heaven.
OK, so the OP wants a debate on the necessary Christian doctrinal elements for salvation, but no! let’s talk about something completely different.
Our friend TheRyan, perhaps the premier splitter of semantic hairs on this board, is judicious in when he makes semantic distinctions of this ilk, and I have never seen him distinguish between an instruction of an initial presumption and an assumption of an initial presumption. Rather obviously, in a world in which there is no Heaven, the people in the five villages will be reincarnated, become extinguished in toto when their bodies die, come back as Highwaymen or single drops of rain, or some other conclusion not compatible with evangelical Christianity of the sort presumed (but again not overtly) in the OP. If I were to suggest that people who make this sort of semantic nitpickery will go to Hell, would it be necessary to first instruct you to make the assumption that Hell exists? 