I know the fundamentalist answers to these questions but I’m curious about the thoughts of those moderate or liberal Christians who consider themselves to be less literalist, more ecumenical, and generally less dogmatic than someone like His4Ever (I mean no slam against H4E, I’m just using her a frame of reference here)
1.) Do you believe that a belief in the divinity of Jesus is necessary for salvation?
2.) If the answer is yes, do you then believe that all non-Christians go to hell?
3.) If the answer is no, then doesn’t that mean the crucifixion was meaningless?
4.)Is it possible to follow the pure ethical teachings of Jesus without a belief in Christ as a saviour?
I have follow-up questions to these based on the answers I get but I’m not trying to set any logical traps here, I’m genuinely interested in your answers.
Nope. One is obliged to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. The wisdom of the Church down through the ages has been that “In Jesus we see God in human form.” The doctrines about His divinity, the Trinity, and all are based on an effort to try to explain that in terms that humans can wrap their minds around.
But to have faith in God and to follow Jesus, take Him as Lord and Savior, and keep His commandments is key – what doctrine you find amenable to try to understand how He fits into God’s picture of the Universe is your problem, not His or mine.
I don’t put any bounds on God’s love. I personally have a lot of confidence that He is quite capable of reaching those whom my liberalism or His’s legalism has turned off, and that He will do it in His own good time.
See John 3:16. It was the supreme expression of God the Holy Trinity’s love for us, not an attempt to buy off God the Father’s legalistic wrath by the self-sacrifice of God the Son.
Maybe. One can certainly try – and the world is a better place for those who do. Us Episcopalians promise to do what He commanded in the words, “I will, the Lord being my help.” It’s kind of a handy reminder of the need to humbly realize that one often needs help – something that got driven home to me quite forcibly the past month!
No. Good people get salvation, whether they consciously believe in God/power of good or not. Those who act in evil - I honestly don’t know, “judgement is mine, saith the Lord.” Maybe just part of them gets there, the few unstained threads of humanity that still perhaps exist even in childmurderers and rapists. I think there’s a text “he who is good, God lives in him” or something - this sort of sums it up for me.
N/A For the record, I actively DON’T believe that all non-Christians go to hell. IMO people who hold this belief are more likely to end up at the end of a red-hot pitchfork for all eternity than the average, good-doing non-Christian!!
No, it was significant. I don’t fully always understand how, but I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The most important thing is to act in love and peace.
Easily, yes. Jesus’s basic message was “love thy neighbour, love thy god.” Given the interpretation “love thy neighbour, love goodness” - it’s something anyone can - and should, IMO - follow.
Not for me to judge, THANK THE GOOD GOD…He judges, I just do the best I can to express His love and present his message. Not very well, according to some.
Not applicable, I guess.
I know that it is possible, but given how hard it is for ME to follow Christ’s teachings with His HELP, I don’t know how anyone does it. They DO, though…there are so many loving and giving and WONDERFUL people out there who don’t believe in Christ. So I know it can be done. I just don’t know how ANYONE does it, frankly. And I mean ANYONE, with Christ’s help or not.
Of course, I think you would consider me a fundie, maybe. I once told a good friend who was venting about “fundies” that… “ahem, I am a fundie.” He said “What? How could YOU possibly be a FUNDIE?” “Well, I believe the Bible is literallly the word of God, written by men but inspired by God. Isn’t that what a fundamentalist IS…someone who believes that?”
No, he said. A fundamentalist is different from a “fundie”. YOU are not a “fundie” because you aren’t judgemental."
I don’t know about that, so I leave it to you to decide. Possibly I don’t belong in your “Poll”…if you don’t think I do, feel free to disregard this post.
1.) Do you believe that a belief in the divinity of Jesus is necessary for salvation?
Nope. Personally, I believe the only way to avoid salvation is active hate and judgement (both often disguised as “enlightenment” by both theists and non.) Unfortunately, this is common common in humans.
2.) If the answer is yes, do you then believe that all non-Christians go to hell?
N/A
3.) If the answer is no, then doesn’t that mean the crucifixion was meaningless?
Of course not. The crucifixion was, and still is, a lesson to all of us. Jesus dared to speak against the common wisdom of the time. He died that we may remember Him and change our ways. Call it the “martryr effect” if you will, but ultimately he DID change the way we act toward each other.
This is your most interesting question. He spoke out against prejudice (“the good Samaritan”), railed against those who thought they could bend the poor to their will through power (throwing the money lenders out of the temple), and His message questions all power structures. This is what he was killed for. The Jews yelled “give us Barabas!”, when Pilot tried a play. They preffered to free a serial rapist and murderer instead of someone who rocked the boat. There are many lessons there for all of us. One of which is hating the dissent of your opinion is evil.
4.)Is it possible to follow the pure ethical teachings of Jesus without a belief in Christ as a saviour?
Abso-freakin’-lutely. I’m Christian, but I still read Chuang Tzu. Does that mean I should become a Zen Budhist with an empasis on the Tao? Of Course not.
I fear that many American atheists discount the philosophical teachings of Jesus in order to feel superior to the mainstream. They fail to realize that you don’t have to believe in His divinity to realize the wisdom of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I also suspect that since Jesus spoke in parables rather than sound bites or simple poetry, many people haven’t actually listened. That’s a pity.
1.) Do you believe that a belief in the divinity of Jesus is necessary for salvation?
I don’t think I do. Scripture is ambiguous about this. There are several references to all people being saved, just as there are references which appear to contradict this. There are also verses which speak of those who think they’re righteous being condemned.
2.) If the answer is yes, do you then believe that all non-Christians go to hell?
I cannot see how God could admit a man who’s proud of beating his wife (see a current Pit thread) to heaven because he’s a Christian, yet send someone to hell because he’s been driven away from Christianity because of too much exposure to people like the first fellow.
3.) If the answer is no, then doesn’t that mean the crucifixion was meaningless?
Most emphatically, no! I’ll quote the Catechism from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer on this:
I’ll also offer a sentence from our Eucharist, “He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” Without Christ’s death, I believe that we are in a Catch-22. We sin, we make mistakes, we screw up, and try as we might, we continue to get things wrong and we can’t always make up for it. Human beings had trouble keeping the original 10 commandments, let alone the additional trappings of Jewish law. Paradoxically, Christ gave us a new, tougher commandment, to love our neighbors, but he also suffered so that we didn’t have to do the impossible and make up for it.
4.)Is it possible to follow the pure ethical teachings of Jesus without a belief in Christ as a saviour?
Yes. I use Zen meditation techniques as a form of prayer, but I’m not a Buddhist. On the other hand, I wish people who haven’t could experience the comfort I’ve felt from knowing he is.
So, let me ask and answer the question which wasn’t: Why become a Christian?
Simple answer first: because I believe Christianity is the right way. Now for the more complex answer. Because Christianity to me is a way of finding perfection in an imperfect world. Because it has given me comfort and strength when I’ve known nothing but cruelty and weakness. Because I take tremendous comfort in knowing that Christ, too, was cold, lonely, and outcast, just as I was once. Because in Christian terms, the idea of being “worthy of salvation” becomes irrelevant – none of us are, yet it’s given to all of us. Because the idea that the Creator of the Universe endured a sore back, aching feet, betrayal by friends and pain (Man I’m sounding sadistic!;)) is appealing because it means He understands when I endure those things. It also means He knew the simple pleasures of good bread, better friends, or even a warm bed on a cold night. Because He who created the heavens in all their vastness and the oceans in all their depths understands what it is to be a scared, lonely teenage girl who did everything wrong, nothing right, and wasn’t always sure who she was. He’s also pretty good with 30-somethings.
For one, a thing and its label are not the same. Whoever is divine will recognize divinity — whether it is called Jesus or Wudfiddle is irrelevant. Whoever knows love knows love.
Second, just because something is doxastic does not mean it is temporal. If you love love but do not love Jesus, then you have not yet recognized that what you love is Him. Those in that circumstance will see Him one day and go, “Oh, so that was you!”
Certainly not. Fortunately, I don’t even have to ask for a definition of Christian to answer that one.
The crucifixion means what it means: God loves you.
“Doxastic” means something which is believed as a matter of faith. Lib was saying that any belief in a philosophy of love is really a belief in Christ whether the believer knows that “temporally” (right now) or not.
Thanks for the answers, everybody. I had assumed that most people would answer no to question one and I was mostly curious about how the crucifixion could be interpreted soteriologically without stipulating a literal belief in the resurrection as a requirement for salvation.
Polycarp and Libertarian had the most interesting answers to this question (again, no surprise). Basically, they both interpret the crucifixion as an expression of God’s love rather than as a legalistic sacrifice. I would like to pursue this line of reasoning as follows:
1.) Is it possible for a person to live his/her entire life without ever knowing anything about the crucifixion, resurrection or teachings of Christ, and yet still be worthy of salvation?
2.) Is it possible for a person live a life in which they simply do not believe in the veracity of Christian soteriology and still be saved?
3.) If it is possible to be saved, either without any knowledge of, or any belief in the crucifixion, then how can it be said that the crucifixion is meaningful to all people?
4.) What do we have to be saved from, exactly? The notion that humans are inherently sinful is, in itself, a matter of faith. This is a belief which is actually unique to Christianity. If I do not necessarily accept that I need to be forgiven for anything am I going to have a problem later on? Should I load up my funeral suit with sunscreen?
[closed circuit to Scotticher: If you believe in the literal truth of the Bible, you are a fundamentalist. Being judgemental of others is not a requirement of, nor by any means is it limited to, Christian fundamentalism.]
I’m going to group these. I think it’s quite possible that God has made provisions for saving those who never got word of what Jesus said and did – in one case, we have Scriptural authority for it – that Christ descended to “Abraham’s Bosom” and recovered the righteous Jews there, taking them to Paradise with Him. Like I said before, I have no desire to place any limits around God’s grace and mercy. And Saul/Paul is a classic example of why we should not judge who “is saved” at any given moment in time – I guarantee that the Apostles of Acts 3-8 (without any divine guidance, at least) would have given high odds against Saul of Tarsus ever coming to know Christ.
Perhaps the best way to answer this is by giving a horrible example. One of my sons’ closest friends was a young man who resembled a younger and slightly smaller edition of the late wrestler Owen Hart. Having been tormented by other kids as a child, he went into body-building and became a person feared and respected by other boys his age and older. And, having done all this, he used his strength to defend and protect those smaller and weaker than him (which included most of his peers) – a true modern exemplar of the knightly ideal.
Then he got involved with crack.
When last I heard, he was a physical, mental, and spiritual shadow of the young man he had been. Craving and regret characterized who he had become.
It’s the consensus of moral theologians that anything other than God (even religion, taken by itself) that becomes the center of one’s life will in the truly long haul ultimately lead to that sort of character destruction. And that is really Hell.
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” -Jesus
Before I answer your new question-set, I’d like to tweak something that you said on my behalf. I don’t mean to be picky, and I don’t mind that you fielded the question, but in the interest of precision, let me say that a belief in Jesus is not a belief in a philosophy of love, but rather a belief in the Living Love, the Love Everlasting, the Absolute Love. He is a live symphony. A philosophy is just a scratchy old record played on a gramophone.
You wrote:
It’s not about epistemology, but about morality. In apprehension of a misunderstanding, I don’t mean actions but rather decisions.
Neither is it a matter of worth, but of Grace. Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life (the salvation) in a true existential sense. If you love love, then you’ve already accepted His Grace. If not, then you’ve already rejected that which would save you. (I refer you to my previous caveat about labels and identity.) You have made, are making, or will make your final (moral) decision when you see Him.
Of course. Just as there is no life in the atoms, there is no salvation in doctrine.
Because the crucifixion (or rather, the resurrection) is what made salvation possible. Love is the conduit of God’s Goodness.
Death. Not death like rotting meat and dying cells, but real death, death of the spirit, death of meaning — the absence of Love.
The words of Christ, the Buddha, the Rede and Lao Tzu have no power of themselves. It is only through our efforts to Love our neighbors is the real power of Christ brought to the world. If we don’t act with Love, then all Christ taught and did is for naught. But if we do, then Faith is truly a powerful force.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a great example of what I’m talking about when I say that God is not exclusive to any one religion. Jesus taught that the Samaritan that helped the victim was the “good guy” in the story, not the pious religiously pure people who passed by. Although they passed by for practical and truly valid religious reasons, they missed the Spirit, that was summed up in Love Your Neighbor.
The Samaritan was not a Jew. He was not a disciple of Christ. We don’t know what religion he followed. Yet Jesus told us to be like him. Why? Because in the grand scheme of things the man actually was a follower of Christ when he showed Love for his fellow human. It seems to me that Jesus is showing that Creeds and Rites and Proper Belief Statements are not what is important. It is the action of Love that is what God wants from us.
God is Love. And wherever we show Love, we show God, no matter what label, if any, we apply to ourselves whether Christian, Buddhist, Atheist or Wiccan.
Legalistic interpretations of soteriology have rather fallen out of favor in the last few hundred years or so, and modern theologians have dismissed them as woefully inadequate. If you are interested in a decent summary of Catholic theology with respect to soteriology, check here. It’s Geocities, I know, but the content is decent.
I am not a Christian by any means, but my academic background is in medieval intellectual and theological history. The linked essay has some pretty good perspectives on the major theologians, but I would be happy to fill in more detail if anyone is actually interested.
And if The Punkyova is out there, I bet she could do an even better job than me, certainly with the eastern material.
I’d be interested in what Duns Scotus and the Imago Dei school of doctrine have to say on the subject, if you’re willing to get into all that. I know very little about them, but what I know I like.
OK, but what about someone who rejects every one of these principles? And if the answer is that the guy is in the same position as someone who accepts them, then what is the meaning of the words “one is obliged…”?
[quote]
**Originally posted by Libertarian
Diogenes
Before I answer your new question-set, I’d like to tweak something that you said on my behalf. I don’t mean to be picky, and I don’t mind that you fielded the question, but in the interest of precision, let me say that a belief in Jesus is not a belief in a philosophy of love, but rather a belief in the Living Love, the Love Everlasting, the Absolute Love. He is a live symphony. A philosophy is just a scratchy old record played on a gramophone.**
Point taken, Lib, I didn’t intend to diminish your conception of Christ as Love, I was just looking for a term which signified something broader than classical theistic iconography—it seemed to me that you were speaking of something more abstract than a formal “God” so I substituted the term “philosophy” for lack of a better word. I meant to imply something bigger, not smaller, than simple devotional theism. My apologies for any offense.
I don’t think I have any quibbles with either Lib’s or Homebrew’s answers, and Maeglin, thanks for the link. (Geocities isn’t that bad, I’ve cited it myself on occasion)
To Polycarp I would basically echo IzzyR’s questions. I think I’d like to hear a little expansion on the “obligation” issue. (It’s nice to have you back, btw. )
Another set of questions for everybody:
1.) What is your opinion of miracles alleged in other religious traditions? Do you believe it’s possible, for instance, that the angel Gabriel spoke to Mohammed or that Buddha could read minds and levitate?
2.) If you believe non-Christian miracles are possible, then does this give you any pause in choosing Christianity over those other religions? (example: if the Koran was dictated by God, and the Koran says that Jesus did not die on the cross, then how do you reconcile the contradiction between two equally “divinely inspired” accounts of the same event?
3.) if you believe that those non-Christian miracles did not occur, then how did you logically arrive at this conclusion? How can you say that Christian miracles are any more intrinsically credible than Hindu miracles?
Yes, I believe that anyone who deos not realize Jesus was God in human form is not a Christian.
Will all who don’t go to hell?
Not necessarily.
I am not the judge of who does or doesn’t. Hebrews 11:26 says All of Israel will be saved" so I am not worried about the Jews, they’re safe.
To the last question: When you care for the least of these, you are caring for God.
(forgot the verse).
So yes.
Sure. I will need to take a little time with my books at home, first, as Duns Scotus is both very difficult and a little early for my area of expertise. But I’d be happy to elaborate as I am able.
