# Ask the Conservative Christian Theologian! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 18, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849 "2005-04-18T04:29:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/41 "2005-04-18T17:10:29Z")
Theologue, could you give a fuller explanation of your view (and perhaps a summary on other conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist views) of scripture? Is it\* inerrant\*, do you read it _literally_, and what exactly do those terms mean? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/42 "2005-04-18T17:13:11Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > For an example of what I mean - let’s assume for a moment the Gospel accounts give a basically accurate presentation of the works & words of Jesus and how his enemies responded to him- > > so we have a man who does actual undisputed miracles & teaches both the love/grace and the moral perfection of God who is totally hated by some people to the point they want to torture-kill him. This has already been shown to be nonsense: You are assuming the conclusion. Yes, I agree that if there was a man performing undisputed miracles, that would be a different story. But the fact is there is no such person. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/43 "2005-04-18T17:13:26Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Are you kidding me? :dubious: No; as I said, you don’t agree. That’s fine; I was just trying to give you the traditional Christian answer. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/44 "2005-04-18T17:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] Unless in the Judgement process, you were shown every moment you could have chosen to trust God/Jesus & instead rejected Them (unless there were no such moments).[.quote] I’ve never had such a moment. Such a moment for me requires absolute proof of God’s existence. I’ve never seen anything close. > [@](#): > > For an example of what I mean - let’s assume for a moment the Gospel accounts give a basically accurate presentation of the works & words of Jesus and how his enemies responded to him- But I know for a fact that they don’t. I’m not guessing. I can PROVE that they don’t. Where does that leave me? > [@](#): > > so we have a man who does actual undisputed miracles & teaches both the love/grace and the moral perfection of God who is totally hated by some people to the point they want to torture-kill him. You have several mutually contradictory stories, all of which contain factual and historical inaccuracies, none of them from eyewitnesses and all of them alleging things which are physically impossible. A story in a book is not evidence. If Jesus wants to come down now and do miracles right in front of me then I might consider that to be evidence (after I get my CT scan). But I’m not taking anybody’s word for anything and I’ve never been shown a reason why I should take the gospels any more seriously as history than myths about Buddha or Krishna (both of whom are alleged by their adherents to have been real historical figures who did miracles). > [@](#): > > THAT is what I mean. There have even be some people in the Board who have said something similar to “if the Bible accurately depicts God, I’d rather spit in His face than worship him”, and who feel totally free making obscene jokes about Jesus or dismissive comments about His agony. Well, they may well just get to stew in their pettiness while the Triune Yahweh undeniable & inescapably reigns over them. Might does not make right. If the God who ordered the Israelites to slaughter Amalikite babies is real then he is evil. Being powerful would not make him any less evil or worthy of worship. I refuse to worship a God who is not good and I can not be cowed into it by threats of divine wrath. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/45 "2005-04-18T17:16:59Z")
In the course of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth [Matthew 6] taught folks how to pray: “After this manner therefore pray ye: our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” (etc). a) What’s your interp of “after this manner”? Do you consider it significantly important, or merely tradition, to repeat what he said verbatim (well, verbatim translated into English or Latin at any rate)? If not “say this”, was he indicating that this is the form that prayer should take, or was he focusing attention on the content that prayer should have, or something else? b) Insofar as I’m male and Jesus of Nazareth indicated here and in various other places that I should conceptualize God as my father, do you have any theological objections to my referring to myself as son of God? c) If one person goes forth and teaches the lessons taught in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, mentioning only that these things were taught by Jesus of Nazareth a couple millennia ago, and teaches nothing else about Jesus; and a second person goes forth and teaches that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, the Messiah, died for our sins on the cross and rose from the dead, and if you accept him into your heart as your Lord and Savior, but does not recap any of the lessons taught in the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plains or the various other instructions in living and parables, etc., taught by Jesus of Nazareth during his lifetime, is one of these people doing the proper work of God, or both of them equally, or neither of them? Is the content that they teach of equal importance, or does one bear the more important and central message, and if so could you elaborate and say why do you think so? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/46 "2005-04-18T17:22:55Z")
Hi, **Theologue**. During my early years as a Christian, I had several questions that have never really been answered. 1. Where did Cain’s wife come from? I’ve heard everything from “she’s just a character in an parable” to the theory that she was one of his sisters born after the banishment and the bible isn’t all that hot on the time line involved. I gotta admit, when you read Gen. 4:16-18, it sure sounds like Cain was married by the time he arrived in Nod. And if she is just a character in a parable, why was the parable presented as fact and not as a parable? 2. Did Jesus really exist as the bible describes him? At the core of every myth, there is usually a grain of truth. There probably was a live human being back then that we know as Jesus, but was he really a demigod? One of the better theories that I’ve read on this is that he actually existed and actually was the king of the Jews. As such, he was a pain in the Roman ass. They caught him and executed him, but his followers faked his death by drugging him. He lived until the siege of Masada where he committed suicide. 3. Was he crucified or hung? Is the crucifixtion story the result of a mistranslation? In Deut. 21 is the passage about how someone who hangs from a tree overnight is cursed by God, which would indicate why it was so important to get his body down before sunset. Paul, writing in the Greek, uses a word that basically means to hang and was used to refer to hanging someone from a tree; there’s another word that is used in the Septaguint that indicates hanging as in having built gallows. The indications from the language are that he was hung from a tree, not crucified. 4. Why are there no contemporary records of his life? There is nothing written about him during the time he was supposed to be alive; nothing shows up until mark, 40-some odd years after his indicated death. The Romans were anal about recordkeeping; if the trial story is true, there would have been some mention of it somewhere. If we can find lists of the names of men killed in the arena, why can’t we find a single thing written during his lifetime? For someone that was so famous, with multitudes of followers far and wide, it seems strange that no one bothered to write anything about him. These questions (and many others) lead me to ask this question: 1. Given that there has been more research done on Christianity than any other religion ever and that no one has been able to prove that the bible story is true and factual, how does one then avoid the conclusion that Christianity is just another in a long line of con games known as religions? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/47 "2005-04-18T17:39:19Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Romans 1 says you have; obviously you don’t agree, and I’m sympathetic. But that’s not an argument that will be resolved on earth. Are we actually supposed to accept this as the product of a thought process, or should we just assume it to be the total cop-out that it appears to be? “Oh, you disagree with me? Well, instead of trying to offer an intelligible argument, let’s just wait and see what happens after you’re dead.” ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/48 "2005-04-18T19:19:27Z")
If **Theologue** gets to half of these questions in a month, I will be most impressed! My questions re: prosletyzing can wait–and they aren’t really theological–more practices and customs. Is it true that Jesus never claimed to be Divine? That that came from Paul et al later? As I move thru my life, I can see Jesus more and more as a prophet, but not as a god. A religion that ignores half the worldI(women) is a bit too much for me to support. Can you address the misogyny of Christianity? ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/49 "2005-04-18T19:42:28Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Might does not make right. If the God who ordered the Israelites to slaughter Amalikite babies is real then he is evil. Being powerful would not make him any less evil or worthy of worship. I refuse to worship a God who is not good and I can not be cowed into it by threats of divine wrath. , **Diogenes** , don’t disappoint **Friar Ted**! Let’s hear a good obscene joke about Jesus! ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/50 "2005-04-18T21:15:28Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Are we actually supposed to accept this as the product of a thought process, or should we just assume it to be the total cop-out that it appears to be? Well, I won’t speak for the OP; but I think he’s already said that while he’s happy to explain his beliefs, to any who are curious, he’s not really interested in defending them here. That question is a whole thread unto itself. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/51 "2005-04-18T21:25:21Z")
> [@Hoodoo Ulove](#): > > , **Diogenes** , don’t disappoint **Friar Ted**! Let’s hear a good obscene joke about Jesus! I’ve got nothing against Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/52 "2005-04-18T21:46:26Z")
> [@](#): > > That whole thing about God’s love tasting like burning makes no sense to me whatever. How does that work mechanically? What’s going on spacially and temporally? I get that it’s a poetic allegory but it doesn’t really convey any information. From Kalomiros’s _The River of Fire_: > [@](#): > > Now if anyone is perplexed and does not understand how it is possible for God’s love to render anyone pitifully wretched and miserable and even burning as it were in flames, let him consider the elder brother of the prodigal son. Was he not in his father’s estate? Did not everything in it belong to him? Did he not have his father’s love? Did his father not come himself to entreat and beseech him to come and take part in the joyous banquet? What rendered him miserable and burned him with inner bitterness and hate? Who refused him anything? Why was he not joyous at his brother’s return? Why did he not have love either toward his father or toward his brother? Was it not because of his wicked, inner disposition? Did he not remain in hell because of that? And what was this hell? Was it any separate place? Were there any instruments of torture? Did he not continue to live in his father’s house? What separated him from all the joyous people in the house if not his own hate and his own bitterness? Did his father, or even his brother, stop loving him? Was it not precisely this very love which hardened his heart more and more? Was it not the joy that made him sad? Was not hatred burning in his heart, hatred for his father and his brother, hatred for the love of his father toward his brother and for the love of his brother toward his father? This is hell: the negation of love; the return of hate for love; bitterness at seeing innocent joy; to be surrounded by love and to have hate in one’s heart. This is the eternal condition of all the damned. They are all dearly loved. They are all invited to the joyous banquet. They are all living in God’s Kingdom, in the New Earth and the New Heavens. No one expels them. Even if they wanted to go away they could not flee from God’s New Creation, nor hide from God’s tenderly loving omnipresence. Their only alternative would be, perhaps, to go away from their brothers and search for a bitter isolation from them, but they could never depart from God and His love. And what is more terrible is that in this eternal life, in this New Creation, God is everything to His creatures. As Saint Gregory of Nyssa says, “In the present life the things we have relations with are numerous, for instance time, air, locality, food and drink, clothing, sunlight, lamplight, and other necessities of life, none of which, many though they be, are God; that blessed state which we hope for is in need of none of these things, but the Divine Being will become all, and in the stead of all to us, distributing Himself proportionately to every need of that existence. It is plain, too, from the Holy Scriptures that God becomes to those who deserve it, locality and home and clothing and food and drink and light and riches and kingdom, and everything that can be thought of and named that goes to make our life happy.” ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/53 "2005-04-18T21:50:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Now if anyone is perplexed and does not understand how it is possible for God’s love to render anyone pitifully wretched and miserable and even burning as it were in flames, let him consider the elder brother of the prodigal son. That was a parable, a made up story. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/54 "2005-04-18T21:51:18Z")
> [@](#): > > That was a parable, a made up story. Indeed it was; that does not mean that it cannot be used for explanatory purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/55 "2005-04-18T23:56:22Z")
The prodigal son knew his father existed. The analogy doesn’t work for me. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/56 "2005-04-19T00:04:20Z")
> [@Theologue](#): > > Note: I am a theologian, not an apologist. I can address the “Why are you a Christian?” and “Why should anyone be a Christian?” questions, but they are not my area of expertise. Theology deals mostly with issues concerning those already inside the faith, the “Why do Christians believe this?” and “What does this mean?” and “How does that work?” questions. > > Hello, **Case Sensitive** , let me try to address your good thoughts and questions, which I’m sure others have as well. As noted above, this is a little difficult for me to put into words. > > I doubt that I can supply objective, rational arguments to “prove” the Christian faith that are better than ones you have already heard; I _know_ I can’t do a better job at apologetics than you can find in books available on the subject. > > But it’s not as simple as “I believe because I believe.” I did not believe because I was born into a Christian home/country, though I admit that certainly was a factor. I did not believe because I thought that the Christian faith was the best possible explanation for everything that is. I believed because of an inner drawing towards God as revealed in Jesus Christ, what I would later learns the Bible speaks of as the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-15). It was, in many ways, a total transformation, a passing from death unto life (John 5:24, 1 John 3:14). > > When I “came to Christ,” I did not suddenly decide to adopt a philosophical system. Through grace, through his permission, I met a real Person, and I entered into a relationship with that Person. It’s a living relationship, with depth, emotion, and communication. It’s not always an easy one. It’s not one I always understand. But I cannot deny the reality of it any more than I can deny the personhood of physical human beings I know, like my wife. I have had an encounter with the Divine, something that is real, or else I am insane (or both :D). It has not left me unchanged. After such a transformation, I cannot think of anything that would cause me to disbelieve. > > I realize subjective experiences are not necessarily compelling evidence to those outside. I do not offer this as final proof, but that there is more than clinical analysis involved. I cannot objectify my faith. I am a participant in the mystery, not simply a detached spectator. I also cannot externalize my experience or package it up for the rest of the world to examine or experience. But I have had strangers from other faiths show up at my door, seeking the same, and they have received. > > Again, I have other reasons I believe, the usual biblical and historical ones. But the experience is the basis of the confidence; the other reasons are peripheral. I come from the opposite perspective; if the reasons offered are compelling but not conclusive, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, or of the faith, as it were. > > With all respect, please let me flip the question around: What would lead you to believe, if anything? Certainty regarding historical events is impossible, particularly ones that took place thousands of years ago; we can only talk in terms of probabilities, not possibilities. I believe the Bible is reliable, but it is neither perfect nor a magic book. Scientific proof of the supernatural? I have difficulty with using the word “control” and “God” in the same sentence. Personal experience of the miraculous? If you ever have an encounter with the miraculous, the same skeptics will be around with the same arguments. What would you personally find compelling? I really am curious. I expect to spend many mutually profitable hours arguing points of moral theology with you, down the road a piece. But let me say that that is probably one of the best descriptions of _entering into grace_ I have ever read, and one in which I find nothing to quarrel with, and would gladly endorse as my own, _ceteris paribus_. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/57 "2005-04-19T00:19:27Z")
> [@Theologue](#): > > I have had an encounter with the Divine, something that is real, or else I am insane… I’ve suspected for some time that the sort of experience you describe is no more “real” than the sort one might have taking a psychoactive drug, though in your case endogenous processes and substances may be responsible. By this I mean, it’s quite possibly a spontaneous product of your mind, and no other; and to assume another mind is responsible is a logical extravagance, at best. I wouldn’t go so far as to say you are insane, but your experience could still be of a hallucinatory nature, and hence your beliefs delusory at their foundation. What, if any, is the theological means of weighing the significance of either possibility, and what is it that makes the spiritual explanation necessarily more compelling than more prosaic hypotheses, which, I might add, empirical evidence already exists to support? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/58 "2005-04-19T00:38:49Z")
> [@](#): > > The prodigal son knew his father existed. Presumably you will know God exists after you die and He makes His presence clear to you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/59 "2005-04-19T00:44:43Z")
Mohammed had an encounter with divine and was told directly by an angel of God that Christianity was a false religion. What makes your experience more credible than Mohammed’s? What do you say to those who have had equally convincing experiences with Vishnu or Isis or Kokopeli? Is your experience more valid than theirs? How do you know? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849/60 "2005-04-19T00:46:48Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > Presumably you will know God exists after you die and He makes His presence clear to you. After I die, it’s irrelevant. I still would have committed no crime in not believing while I was alive and won’t feel the slightest bit of guilt or chagrin. There can be no sin in unbelief without proof. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-conservative-christian-theologian/299849.md?page=4)