Ask the Conservative Christian Theologian!

Great Debates
61

I don’t belong to any religion, but I also have had an encounter with the Divine, it totally changed my thinking, and made me a different person. I know from my readings that literally millions of people have experienced God in all countries of the world. It is a very humbling event filled with love and compassion.

Doctors have long known the effects of hallucinations, and they don’t include transcending love and Divine knowledge. I am pretty sure the drug stuff doesn’t apply to Theologue. This old and very tired “saw” that skeptics keep bringing up only works for non-experiencers. It is easy to disprove and has been disproved many times. I won’t bother to give any links, they are never read.

If Skeptics really want to learn about religion, spirituality, and such they will need to do some research on the subject. You are only in touch with half of yourself.

62

Loop, do you have a way of proving that all that you perceive to be “real” is actually shared with others? (You could just perceive it to be shared with others.)

I don’t disagree with you about the origin of such experiences as very possibly being a chemical response or brain stimulation. But isn’t that pretty much true of all of our perceptions? Is the color blind man “wrong” or is he merely “limited”? If most people were color blind, is the person who perceives color “wrong” or “advantaged”?

DtC, were you looking for mathematical proof? Logical proof?

63

You seem to be permanently and irrevocably in touch with your willfully ignorant half. If you actually read anything but literature that flatters your conceits, you’d know shamanistic religions have been utilizing hallucinogens as an express-lane to the very sorts of transcendent experiences you profess to have had yourself. And has someone who has both dropped acid and eaten “magic mushrooms”, I can say with great confidence these drugs exert a potent effect on the emotions, including euphoria. Why don’t you read a little.

64

Oops, my last post was for lekatt.

65

Yeah, I can ask them. The alternative world-view is solopsism. I suppose if you want to believe you’re a figment of my imagination, you’re welcome to that oppinion. As for colorblindness, the colorblind don’t have an ability that I have, so I suppose you could call them “deficient” in sensitivity to certain bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Fully blind people are even more so. It’s not a value judgement, it’s a demonstrable fact. We can play epistemological games all day, if you like (debating here is a great way practice your angels-dancing-on-pins arguments), but what’s the point? These are not new arguments. I asked a particular poster his particular oppinion on the subject. I seek no greater mind-expansion at this point.

66

Physical proof. Empirical and indisputible confirmation of the core truths of Christian doctrine. I’m especially talking about Christian salvation theology. What is the proof that Jesus was God or that his death somehow redeemed me from my sins? What evidence is there to support that?

Please be advised that I’m not talking about faith or theistic belief in a more general sense, I’m addressing the particular Christian contention that it is necessary to “accept Jesus as my savior” in order to go to Heaven. If it is important to believe that Jesus is my Savior…if my salvation is entirely contingent upon that belief…then why hasn’t God left any evidence that would pass a basic laugh test? Out of the thousands of belief systems which have existed in human history, how can a person be fairly expected to know that THIS one is the correct one and that all the others are false? How is it possible to arrive at the correct belief other than random chance?

67

Might I suggest that all of this, from both sides, is off-topic?

68

Certainly you can suggest it, but without empirical proof, it remains a question of private belief.

69

Salve, Asbestos Mango-one of my favorite user names! Thanks for giving a question I can put my teeth into.

I affirm the creeds and the Chalcedonian formula about the nature of Christ. The title “Mother of God” originated from the Greek term theotokos, which is better translated as “bearer of God.” Much of the early theologizing about Mary was for the purpose of defining who Jesus was and what His nature is. If you affirm that Jesus is God, then the one that bore him should be acknowledged as the Mother (or bearer) of God. This I affirm, as do most Protestant theologians, albeit grudgingly. What we object to is the apparent syllogism:

  1. Mary is the Mother of God
  2. God is Trinity
  3. Mary is the Mother of the Trinity

Which I know Roman Catholic do not believe, but it sometimes looks that way. We do deny the immaculate conception, assumption, and other exalted roles given to Mary as unbiblical. Moreover, these are later concepts contradicting earlier traditions. Good question, though!

John Mace, my view of sexual ethics are very similar to those found in Roman Catholicism. Go chastity!

AHunter3, those are excellent questions. I will try to get to those later. (I don’t have internet at work.)

70

furt, regarding the inerrancy of Scripture:

The biblical statement about the quality of Scripture is that it is “inspired,” literally “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16). I like that definition, even with its vagueness, and would like to leave it there.

Evangelicals and Fundamentalists theologize from inspiration to inerrancy, which means that Scripture is without error of any kind. The reasoning is that since God is perfect, the Bible he inspired must also be perfect and free from any sort of error. (The Bible itself, however, does not include any statement asserting such.)

There are problems with that: some of the phenomena in the Bible itself. To assert absolute inerrancy is risky, because there are some things in the Bible that do look like errors. In 1979, a group of prominent evangelical theologians met and released the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.” It puts many qualifiers on what exactly inerrancy means, which I think dilutes the definition too much and renders it meaningless. Still, most Evangelicals affirm inerrancy and have become increasingly strident about it, to the point that it defines the movement, rather than personal, living faith in Christ.

I am reluctant to point to a particular verse and say, “The Bible is wrong.” But inerrancy is apologetical suicide. I don’t want my faith to depend on the number of soldiers at a battle, the name of a king, or Matthew’s looseness with OT quotes. Some of the harmonizations offered to resolve Bible difficulties make sense and are logical and should be accepted. Not all of them work, though.

It is also an interpretational error to automatically equate Scripture with “the Word of God.” I prefer to assert that the Scriptures “contain the Word of God.” This view is closer to neo-Orthodoxy. I still do have a high view of Scripture, and as a Protestant, I accept it as my highest epistemological authority.

Regarding interpretation of the Bible: I interpret it literally. That is the default and safest place to start. When the Bible says, “Jesus wept,” it means, “Jesus wept”; what else could it mean? The Bible should be approached as any other literary work; 95% of the time that will lead to the best interpretation.

Of course, there are parts of the Bible that are symbolic; those should be interpreted symbolically. Parts of the Bible are didactic, which means they teach us what to do and believe, like Paul’s letters and the words of Jesus. Parts of the Bible are descriptive, not necessarily instructive, like the historical narratives; just because a Bible character did something doesn’t mean it was good and moral and correct, like Solomon with his many wives. Parts of the bible are expressive, like some of the imprecatory Psalms; God is letting people vent, not necessarily endorsing their feelings. All these things need to be interpreted in their literary and historical context. What we absolutely should not do is “proof-text,” taking isolated verses from here and there to make a point while ignoring their context.

Finally, I would like to speak briefly to the issue of the historicity of the Bible, particularly the Gospels. In the 19C and early 20C, it was very fashionable to assert that the NT was written many decades after the events happened, that the Gospels are not historical at all, etc. The pendulum of mainstream scholarship has moved the other direction. Even the liberal Germans are starting to move more to the center, seeing the Gospels as more historically reliable and acknowledging that something extraordinary happened on Easter Sunday. Also, the tools of textual criticism have been so refined that we can be certain that the 99% of the NT as we have it today is the same as the originals.

If one accepts (and I don’t) all the tools and conclusions of historical and literary criticism and strips away all the “later accretions” from the Gospels, there is still a core left. That core still has a high Christology and is in synch with later Christian belief. There is a great abiding significance in Jesus that I recommend not be ignored.

71

Jesus performed exorcisms. Is this a conflict between supernatural beings or a spontaneous remission of schizophrenia? Is the possessing demon a metaphor for poorly understood psychological phenomena, or an actual being, a malefic spirit tormenting the innocent for sheer malicious joy?

72

Please forgive my impudence but this is completely false. Mainstream scholarship has done no such thing. On the contrary, virtually no one but the most staunch conservatives accepts traditional dates or authorship any longer (they are simply not defensible) and there is no methodological, historical or literary basis for accepting the Gospels as historically accurate (and more than a little is demonstratively ahistorical). There is also no consensus at all in mainstream Biblical criticism that anything “extraordinary” happened on Easter Sunday, certainly not of a supernatural nature. When the rubber hits the road, there is no proof that a single human being ever claimed to have seen a physically resurrected Jesus. I apologize for seeming rude but I have to believe that you are either misinformed or have some radically different idea of what constututes scholarship than I do.

Which is irrelevant when it comes to establishing the historicity of their claims. Accurately copied fiction is still fiction.

I would agree that there is a significance in many of the sayings attributed to Jesus but really, when you strip away the BS all you have left is a possible core sayings tradition (maybe 20-25% of what is attributed to Jesus in the Gospels) and a crucifixion. There is no Christology in the sayings which are likely to be authentic and the miracle traditions, including the resurrection, have huge historical problems.

Theology is one thing but if you’re going to start asserting that any of this has any proveable historicity you’re on very shaky ground.

73

Dio, and I’ve never seen you make any obscene jokes about him- but there have been enough about him on the boards. I’ve seen more than enough references to … plugs.
yBeayf- I’ve got The River of Fire at home in my computer files! That is great!

74

AHunter3:

a. The Lord’s Prayer is also found in Luke 11:2-4, where Jesus says, “When you pray, say:”. I see from this that the prayer may be “said,” as is often done liturgically. That it be repeated verbatim I would not see as overwhelmingly important as there are some textual variations between the two accounts.

I believe though, that as it is presented in Matthew, it is more an outline for the content of a time of personal prayer.

b. No objections; in many places the NT uses this phrase for believers (Matt. 5:9, 5:45, Luke 20:36, Rom. 8:14, Gal. 3:26, etc.) We need to realize, though, that we are not “Sons of God” in the same way that Jesus is the unique “Son of God.” There is an ontological difference. We are sons by adoption (Gal. 4:5-7).

BTW, females are also “Sons of God.” That doesn’t mean that they are male; rather, they enjoy all the privileges associated with sonship in biblical times.

c. This is actually a huge question. It is somewhat hypothetical; as the Bible is widely available in many, many languages, there is no reason why one should not proclaim both. Jesus’ great commission (Matt. 28:19-20, Luke 24:26, 46-49, Acts 1:8) refers to both components. Which is more important, Christ’s words or his work and person? The later NT places emphasis on the latter as having priority, but (short answer), one would be remiss without both.

The heart of the Christian message is this:

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Nearly all of Christian theology is included in that sentence.

But, Jesus also gave two commandments as being the most important of all: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:27-30). This tells us how to live out the life he gives. Both are essential.

75

eleanorigby, hi.

If you wouldn’t mind restating your proselytizing question here, I will try to address it.

Jesus did claim to be divine, but not as strongly as we would probably like. When we look at John’s Gospel, it is very clear. Some scholars doubt the historicity of John, although that again is changing. One reason that they doubt is because of the clear statements of Jesus about His deity, such as John 10:22-38.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are viewed as more historical. (Please note: I do not necessarily agree with the conclusions of historical criticism; I am simply bringing up these issues to avoid saying, “The Bible says this, end of discussion.”) The references are not clear as in John, but we must remember the strong monotheistic context of 1C Israel. For Jesus to blatantly say anything remotely like “I am God” would be blasphemous to Jewish ears, as the text from John illustrates. Accordingly, even more indirect references to divinity should be taken seriously.

I will mention two: First, in Matt. 14:33, 28:9 & 28:17, Jesus’ disciples worship Him. If he were only a prophet or teacher, he would have refused this worship and corrected them, as Peter did Cornelius in Acts 10:25-26. Second, the title Jesus used most often for himself, the “Son of Man.” Among other things, this refers to Daniel 7:13ff. At the very least, Jesus’ use of this shows he believed himself to be something more than just a normal human being.

Regarding misogyny: I am unapologetically a feminist when it comes to the role of women in the church. I have received much benefit from the ministry of female pastors and teachers. All I can say about the misogyny in the history of the church is that they were not following the teachings of Christ.

It is unfair to project back modern ideas about equality onto biblical times. That said, Jesus attitude towards women was incredibly radical for his time. Women were among his close disciples and friends, he accepted them as full members of God’s kingdom, and they played key roles in his life on earth. Parables often came in both male and female versions. A lot more can be said about this, but I see nothing in his teaching that can be used to justify misogyny.

In the rest of the NT, we see women involved in different ministries, people such as Phoebe and Priscilla. Again, considering the times, it should not be unusual that we did not see them as active as people such as Paul; a woman would not be free to leave everything and travel so much. There are a few passages in Paul’s writings that suggest restrictions on women’s roles. The interpretation of these is difficult and messy, so I won’t go into that here, but they can be worked around. Much of those, too, were culturally conditioned and addressing local situations.

In short, I do not see biblical support for misogyny, and much for egalitarianism, chiefly being that Gen. 1:27 teaches that both men and women were made in the image of God.

BTW, in my theological tradition, the renewal movement with roots in John Wesley, we have always accepted the idea of women in ministry, in theory at least if not always in practice.

76

Clothahump:

(BTW, this is very brief. I am not trying to be abrupt, just efficient.)

  1. I really can’t add anything to that beyond what is popularly suggested. The bible really doesn’t say, so anything else is conjecture.

  2. I’ve referred to this briefly in a previous post about the historicity of the Gospels and also touched on it in my reply to eleanorigby. I’ve not heard the theory you mentioned, but it seems very implausible. That the Romans would be hostile towards Jesus, especially if anyone perceived him as king, would be likely. He would be viewed as a rebel, which was not rare in 1C Judea.

  3. Gal. 3:13 is the passage by Paul that refers to hanging, but he also uses the term crucified in other places (e.g., Rom. 6:6, 1 Cor. 1:23). He probably used hanged for apologetic purposes in connecting it to Deuteronomy.

  4. This is getting into apologetics. We don’t know what sort of records there were about Jesus; we can only look at what survived. That something written (Coliseum records) in Rome might be preserved better than what happen in a remote province is not unlikely; Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Also, the Romans crucified a lot of people, and generally Palestine was a troublesome province for them. Jesus wouldn’t necessarily stick out as extraordinary until a considerable time later, once the message of him started spreading rapidly throughout the Roman world. After all, it took considerable time for Christianity to change from a sect within Judaism to it being a worldwide message.

  5. It depends on what you mean by “prove.” Certainty about historical events is never 100%. But many would disagree that there is not at the minimum a historical core to the Bible, and that it is supported by more evidence than many other things we believe about the ancient world. This does bring up an important question about Christian origins, one worthy of deeper reflection: if it’s not true, why did they start it? What did they have to gain? Most of them died for it.

77

One problem I’m having here is that “believe” is a semantically slippery word, and open to a number of overlapping definitions: this isn’t a comprehensive list, but off the top of my head…

1/ I believe that the earth is round {I accept on the basis of empirical evidence that the earth is round, but am willing to change my mind if anyone comes up with a better explanation}.

2/ I believe that the Stones were a better band than the Beatles {This is purely a subjective opinion based on personal criteria, and is not externally verifiable}.

3/ I believe that the All Blacks will beat the Lions in the test series {Not entirely subjective, since it’s a view based on external evidence - past and current form, which are reasonable indicators of future results - but it is a matter of personal opinion}.

4/ I believe there is an invisible dragon living in my garage {I pinched this example off Carl Sagan}: my belief in this dragon’s existence is purely a matter of faith, since he leaves no empirically verifiable traces, but I have experienced his presence in my life}.

Your belief in God, and please correct me if I’m over-simplifying, seems to fall under my 4th category of belief, whereas any “belief” of mine would have to come under the 1st: a provisional acceptance on the basis of empirically verifiable evidence. This acceptance can never be absolute, since it’s always open to revision: I believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution based upon the natural selection of differentially surviving replicators is true, since there’s a good deal of evidence for it, but if anyone can come up with a better explanation, after careful scrutiny I’d be compelled to accept it.

Sorry, but I can’t see any demonstrable evidence of God under this scientific definition of “believe”, and I find it difficult to conceive of any which would convince me - submolecular trademarks in written human DNA reading “Copyright Yahweh Enterprises 4004 BC”, perhaps. And unless I experience a Damascene conversion, I can’t “believe” in anything as intangible and unverifiable as God under the “faith” category.

Just to cover my bases and avoid accusations of being a soullessly hard-nosed pure rationalist who only believes in things he can see, I’d better add a 5th category of “believe”:

5/ I believe in a thing called love {I pinched that one off the Darkness. OK, now we’re getting really slippery by dealing in abstract nouns, but it’s widely accepted that a strong emotional and romantic attraction can exist between two or more people, and I subscribe to the common consent that this phenomenon, though intangible, both exists and can be labelled “love”}

The last definition may seem overly pedantic {and a trifle tongue-in-cheek}, but I’m anxious to distance it from statements like “God is love.” Anyway, that post was slightly rambling and unfocussed, but hopefully it goes some way to clarifying my position.

By the way, I’m not an atheist, you’re a theist: since defining myself negatively on the basis of what I don’t believe seems counter-intuitive, the ball’s in your court to define yourself positively by what you do believe. That, and I like to be difficult sometimes. :slight_smile:

78

You can say the same thing about any religion. Why start Islam? LDS? Scientology? All religions start somewhere. So what?

There is not a shred of historical evidence that any direct followers of Jesus were martyred, but even if they had been it would still prove nothing. The people who drove the planes into the WTC died for their religion. Joseph Smith was lynched for his religion and refused to recant to save his own life. Millions of Jews were martyred in the holocaust and before that, thousands were tortured and killed in Christian inquisitions. The fact that people will die for their beliefs does not prove the beliefs are true.

79

I don’t want to get into an argument about this–I am enjoying the tone of the discussion too much–nor do I want to move the focus entirely to apologetics. On reflection, I do think I need to be more careful when generically referring to the historicity of the Bible. Obviously we are dealing with entirely different things when we talk about “the historicity of Genesis” versus “the historicity of geography in John or Luke.” Different kinds of literature in the bible and different events have different demands for when we say, “This is historical” or “This is not historical.”

One problem with biblical scholarship: you can find research to support any conclusion you like. An atheist will be more open to scholarship that supports his beliefs, just as a biblical Christian will be. An atheist may define mainstream scholarship as that which denies there is any historical basis in the Gospels; I would define that as “far left.” A fundamentalist may define mainstream as that which claims, “every word is 100% accurate and without error”; I would define that as “far right.” (And yes, I would still consider that scholarship; you can find well-read Ph.D’s who claim such.) A fundamentalist will reject suggestions of errors in the canonical writings. An atheist, I think, will reject anything that does not share a naturalistic worldview.

I would define the mainstream position on the Gospels as “a historic core with later, legendary accretions.” As you shrink the core and increase the accretions, you move to the left; as you increase the historical core and shrink the accretions, you move to the right. I am admittedly fairly far to the right, though not at the extreme and final right. But I do not agree that it is fair to put the mainstream at the far left.

I should not have said “the pendulum has moved,” but rather “the pendulum is moving,” particularly with regard to German scholarship. Bultmann, still radical in my mind, was to the right of many of his 19C predecessors. One of his successors, Wolfhart Pannenberg, accepts the historicity of the resurrection. That is a pendulum shift. If Pannenberg is not mainstream, I don’t know who is. Same with James Dunn.

One issue not brought up yet, or at least not called as such, is naturalism. To be a Christian, to any extent that connects with the historic faith of the church, is to believe in the supernatural; that there is something beyond this system in which we are encased; the universe is not completely sealed. On the other hand, I don’t know of any kind of true atheist except for naturalistic ones. (Please correct me if I am wrong. I would be interested in meeting a non-naturalistic atheist.) Naturalism says this system is sealed, and what goes on in it is all there is, and naturalistic explanations are the only valid ones. Anything that has some sort of naturalistic explanation may be true, but anything that only has a supernatural explanation is necessarily false

I don’t care to go into a debate over naturalism; if you do, please open another thread. But to do genuine research and be considered a scholar, does one also have to accept naturalism a priori? If so, then no Christian can do genuine research on the Bible.

With all respect,

Theologue

80

I don’t know many people who I could call a strict naturalist, in that they insist there is no supernatural realm. I think what “naturalist” and “supernaturalists” of your variety must both accept is the notion that the natural world, including the other minds that inhabit it, is “real”, meaning it exists whether we do or not.

Considering the alternative, I suppose I can live with that level of faith. I regard it more as a pragmatic imperative, actually, as operating under the assumption I dreampt it all up leads to problems if I expect that somehow makes me special.