Well, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement with my definitions, as loose as I tried to make them.
So I guess I should start by asking the Christians what makes them Christian, with as little reference to your specific denominational beliefs as possible: what essentials do virtually all Christians agree upon:
There is an omniscient, omnipotent Creator?
It created everything?
It created a living being known as Jesus Christ that then died as a martyr specifically as a means of “saving” people?
I have no credentials as a Christian Theologian, nor education in such matters.
I speak for no person other than myself and caution all who read this that I have no authority whatsoever.
I have vast reservations about what is taught about Christ. I have no reservations about Christ himself, as I know Him. I have not been given a message to pass on to you, other than that He loves you, and will know you in the end of all things.
Yes. I also feel it to be somewhat presumptuous of me to critique Him on methods, and means.
The image of a spiritual being, reflected in the physical flesh is something that I cannot quite wrap my mind around. I don’t doubt it, I just don’t understand it. The favorite part is bullshit. Divine love doesn’t suffer from the limitations of more/less, better/worse, favorite/other. It is not that God loves you more, it is that He loves you Perfectly.
Well, my own assessment of self cannot imagine any sort of eternal existence which would not overwhelm my individual being, and cease being a reward, or even avoid being a torture eventually. Since I don’t believe it is a reward, or a torture I am fairly sure something about me is gonna have to change. I can hardly begin to imagine what that change will be.
Eternal life is not in my nature, so, automatic is out of the question. And earning an eternal reward is silly in any rational thought. Eternal existence of man, then must be a consequence of man’s desire, and ongoing attempt to become close to God. If that works, it is because God makes it work, and perhaps it is not a dreadful extension of life beyond all joy (hell?) only in the very specific case where the man allows God to love him, and loves God in his own turn.
The purpose we might ascribe to God is our perception, though we be saints, and witnesses to His miracles. God chose to become a man, and by that suffered as we suffer, and was tortured and murdered because of it. And He forgave us, each and all for that, and for every other sin we have sinned. I believe He shall save every soul that will be saved, because of His nature, and His love can only be thwarted by refusing it, and denying it. He has given us free will. Should we use that will to separate ourselves from Him, and His love, we shall perish. That is not punishment, it is a consequence of the nature of our being. We are given the means to overcome that by the love of God.
I don’t think it’s a club. There might be a bouncer at the gates of Heaven, but it seems unlikely to me. (Actually gates seem a bit odd as well.) Scripture says some will say “Lord, we did not know you! When did we feed You? When did we give you drink? When did we visit with you?” And the scripture says He answered, “As you have done to these, even the least of my children, so you have done to me.” It’s not about getting out of hell free. It’s not about earning your reward. It’s about love. The love of God, the Love of Christ, and about your love for God, and for His children, including Christ.
More on the rest of your post later. I am willing to discuss it, but I am sure you will find my reasons, and understanding to be unrelated to logic. (more alogical, than illogical)
Of course most of it came to me from American, Protestant, Suburban, White Peoples Churches. Not because of God’s nature again, but because of my nature.
I haven’t had time to digest this thread completely, but based on a cursory glance, I can see several problems with the OP. To wit,
Humans do have a special place in creation; however, I don’t know of any churches or denominations who teach that this makes humans his “favorite” creations. In the interest of accuracy then, I don’t think that one should describe Christian doctrine in such terms.
This part is definitely incorrect. There is no guarantee that one will be reunited with one’s loved ones. The Bible certainly doesn’t state such a thing, nor do any churches that I’m familiar with. Indeed, Christianity makes it clear that some people will go to heaven, and some won’t.
Also incorrect. Evangelicals in particular teach that salvation is a gift, not something to be earned. The gift must be received, which means (among other things) that one must believe in the need for this gift, but it is not earned.
Also incorrect. The Son is part of the Godhead, but was not created. (See John 1:1-4,14.)
Like I said, I don’t have time right now to go through this entire discussion, but there are some very clear errors in the first few tenets alone.
This is a fair question; but you should keep in mind that, I’d say, Christianity is not fundamentally an intellectual system or theory to be assented to but a relationship to be lived out.
If you want to probe someone’s beliefs, it may not help to start off by announcing that you don’t want to hear what they believe.
Of the other three questions, are there answers you won’t be listening to there as well? Please let us know so we don’t waste time telling what we think instead of what you want to hear.
Hell, why not? It beats my other Net option of responding to a left-of-center Christian discussion which seems to be centered on which group is worse- Rapturists or Dominionists or their Zionist overlords.
1.) Any system has to resort to Eternal something- whether it’s steady state, expansion, or expansion & contraction (oscillation), or Time/Space or TimelessSpacelessness or Matter or Energy or whatever. I believe in Eternal Energy & that said Eternal Energy is also personal thinking & feeling & acting consciousness, ergo - God (specifically YHWH- “I AM Living”- Who is Source & Intellect & Emotion aka Father & Word/Son & Breath/Spirit). I think that my Eternal something being Conscious is just as rational & the atheist/agnostic’s Eternal something being Unconscious.
2.) The Bible teaches Universal Revelation & Opportunity, if not in this life, then in the Afterlife. Christ evangelized those in the Netherworld who lived prior to His Incarnation. The Bible gives no reason to believe that was the last mission to the Netherworld. There are even hints that even as Christ commissioned His Church to go into the world to extend His message of salvation, that the Faithful who depart this life might continue that mission into the Netherworld.
3.) God knows the difference between an honest inability to believe & a rebellious refusal to trust & will judge fairly. In the Light of seeing YHWH/Jesus as He truly is & themselves for what they truly are, the former may well fall before YHWH/Jesus in adoring surrender & the latter may well remain locked in their stubbornness & self-centeredness forever (or it may even be that they eventually open up to Grace- who knows?)
I can even try a little - it’s not that salvation is earned - more than we, as sinners, have earned damnation. And God, being perfect and without sin, does not see past the sin.
Jesus was the key. In coming to us as a man, the Father gave us the Son, perfect and without sin, to die our death for us. He paid the price for our sin, so that if we accept that, it washes us clean in the Father’s eyes.
Christianity is the acceptance of that belief, that we are sinners, that we do deserve death and that Christ died on the cross in our place. But it’s also so much more.
To be a Christian is to live in community with God, to have a personal relationship with Him. It’s not something you 'earn" because it’s not something we are capable of earning, but you have to accept the gift.
Absolutely, definitely and emphatically not “created”. The Nicene Creed is quite clear on the point: “begotten of his Father before all worlds… begotten, not made; of one being with the Father”. Jesus Christ is the Word made Flesh, the Son born in human form. You might say that the body of the infant Jesus was “created” in Mary’s uterus (effectively, the God that said “Let there be light” said “Be you pregnant with a male child”) but the personality dwelling in it was the eternal Son who existed before Time.
The reason that there are so many denominations is that there are so many disagreements on the very things that are listed in the OP as “basic” beliefs. They aren’t. Even within families there is much disagreement. The Rev. Billy Graham does not believe that you have to be a Christian to have eternal life in heaven. His son Franklin (also a minister?) believes that you do.
Stoid, are you aware that the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Mary and not to that of Jesus?
If it is a gift that is given and not earned, what is the point of Christ at all? Isn’t “believing” the same as “earning by believing”? It’s not given to me if I don’t believe, so it seems I must earn the gift by believing it exists.
Please correct what I’m incorrectly understanding, but this is what I’m getting from the answers so far.
Here’s the way it was explained to me (I was raised in a conservative Lutheran church by an evangelical hippie mother, so bear with eccentric bits. Also, FTR, I am now agnostic, and do not believe any of the below to be factual.)
All humans are inherently sinful, and are therefore ineligible to be in heaven.
Heaven is here defined as being in the presence of God. There are no qualifications about who or where or what goes on in Heaven, but it is generally assumed to be a good/ideal place.
God is unable to be around sin, therefore all humans are SoL.
Because God wants intelligent company (very very simplified concept) he provided a means by which humans could have their sins “covered” by other means.
So, Jesus was born (not created) as a willing sacrifice for the sole purpose of living as a human without sin, so that he could therefore die and be made an acceptable substitute for God’s purposes.
Because we are sinful beings, we are incapable of doing anything to “earn” or “deserve” our own salvation. Our only hope is to recognize that Jesus was our substitute, and (hopefully, but not necessarily) act in accordance with our newly accorded status as “saved” people.
As it was presented to me, the phrasing “earning by belief” would be highly peculiar. One simply believes that this event happened, or they do not. If you believe, you are saved; if you do not, you are not saved.
“The importance of Christ” is that he was the gift. His very life on earth, his teachings, his sinless nature, and his death, were all arranged specifically to allow people a way to experience eternity with God.
An important corollary was the understanding of your base and sinful nature and that you required saving - I understood that belief as a requirement also, to realize that nothing you could do would make you deserving of this great sacrifice.
The last thing I can think which might help you is to point out that there are branches of Christianity which do believe that the people who are going to be saved have already been decided - Calvinism, or the idea of pre-determination.
Basically, this view is that you can’t even WANT to decide to be saved on your own - God has to choose you from the beginning of time, and if you aren’t chosen, you’re also SoL. HOWEVER, as a way to prevent people from getting uppity about it, the idea is also that no one can know one way or the other if they are predestined for heaven or hell. (This whole idea is denied hotly by evangelical and most other Christian denominations.)
Well the first thing that pops to my mind is: doesn’t God make all the rules? How is it possible that god is “unable” to do anything at all? He’s omnipotent.
Continuing with that same theme… why can’t he just overlook the sins without the “other means”?
I don’t think it’s meaningless semantics to continue with my protest that this makes no sense. If we don’t have to do anything to earn or deserve, then we don’t have to do anything to earn or deserve salvation. Period. But we do: Salvation is withheld until Christ’s sacrifice is recognized. To “recognize” is to DO something, something that must be done in order to receive the salvation. That’s “earning”, that’s “deserving”, that’s “doing”. So salvation is clearly not a freely given gift by any definition I can think of. (I know you’ve just explained something you don’t personally believe, I’m not directing this at you, I’m directing it at anyone who believes it and insists that it makes sense.)
I don’t care whether God requires that we do something to receive salvation or not do something, my investment is in an accurate identification of what’s being described, and requiring ANYTHING, whether it’s works, belief, or recognition, before you give something is not freely giving anything at all.
“allow a way”: IF they believe.
For those who do believe that salvation is a “freely given gift” and in the same breath believe that believing/recognizing Christ is a prerequisite to receiving the “freely givin gift” of salvation… well, that’s just nonsensical.
Which doesn’t mean there is no god or that Christ isn’t your savior, it means you need to stop thinking or saying that salvation is a freely given gift that you didn’t do or need to do anything to receive because it is clearly not true. In order to be true the gift would have to be given to everyone without reference to anything else at all, including their belief. (And I know that at least one person stated that some denominations do believe this.) And it would also make everyone a Christian, because Christ will have saved us all, whether atheist or Jew or Muslim or Hindu.
And this is an example of what I mean about challenging and probing; I don’t object or react to the mere fact of anyone embracing any belief, no matter what I personally think of it. What confuses and interests me is that people embrace their beliefs without examination, without recognizing things which are internally inconsistent and illogical, without caring or considering that the apparent inconsistencies and lack of logic actually do affect whether something makes any sense. I need things to make sense before I embrace them, and I’m trying to understand how things that don’t make sense to me make sense to others, if in fact they do.
Which is what I meant, Shodan, when I said:
I stated in the title that I wanted to probe and challenge these beliefs, I didn’t say I just wanted them recited to me. There’s nothing to be challenged or probed when the answer is “I just accept it/I don’t question it/ I don’t wonder about the inconsistencies/ I just feel it” - that’s swell, but it doesn’t leave anything to be probed or challenged, does it? It’s essentially someone saying: “I don’t care if it appears illogical, it feels right to me.” What’s to discuss? The only place to go wiht that is to say whatever works, peace, have a nice day, and I don’t need a thread for that. I’m hoping that someone who does believe in God and Christ as their savior and who ALSO places a high value on things being logical and making sense can explain to me how what they believe does make sense to them in anything other than a mysterious, gut-level feeling way.
I am not a believer in any shape or form, and neither were my parents before me, but to be frank with responses like yours I can’t say that I see any particular reasons for any Believers to “allow [you] to challenge and probe…” anything whatsoever.
I really don’t think you can even call yourself a Christian if you value logic over believing in God/Jesus whatever, so the entire idea sounds like a losing proposition.
Honestly, I think the number of professed Christians on this board is small enough that you don’t need your qualifications.
As for your actual questions: I actually think that the problem you are running into is one of jargon. When Christians say that salvation is a free gift that does not need to be earned, they do not include belief as something that can be used to earn. The word earn implies the concept of salvation by works, which the Bible specifically rejects.
I think you could actually get the answer to your questions by reading both Romans and James. Sure, you’d have some new ones after that, but at least you’d have a working knowledge.
The best I can sum them up is to say, “Faith is all that is required to be saved. But true faith necessarily causes you to have good works. So you don’t earn your salvation, your salvation causes you to do good. But salvation does require belief to get the whole thing started.”
My grandmother, parents, and aunts aren’t SDMB members, but they believe things work exactly as Stoid laid out in the OP. If ‘earning’ salvation means faith in and love of Jesus Christ, savior.
Beats the hell out of me why they believe it, though. Never got any satisfying answers to my many questions from them.
If, by God’s omnipotence, you mean that “God can ______” becomes a true statement no matter what nonsense or self-contradiction you fill in the blank with (like God making a rock so heavy He can’t lift it), I disagree. God is unable to do the logically impossible, though it isn’t always easy to tell what-all that includes. Can God force people to love him? Can God make people choose good over evil?
I don’t know exactly how it “works,” but I think it may be misleading to talk about salvation being “withheld” until/unless we do something. If I offer you a gift, which you have the option of accepting or rejecting, is your accepting it what you must do to earn it? If I serve you a piece of cake, which you can eat or not eat, is your eating the cake the thing you must do to earn it?
Fair enough.
Making sense, or logically adding up, isn’t a priority for everyone. Nor, really, would I expect it to be. I wouldn’t want salvation or God’s grace restricted only to those smart enough or educated enough or cerebral enough to logically understand how it works. Nor would I expect God, or Reality, to be simple enough and small enough to be completely comprehensible to human brains.
But I sympathize with and share the desire for things to make sense, and not to be illogical or inconsistent. I think questions like yours are good questions, worth asking. Some of my own questions about Christianity I’ve gotten satisfying answers to; some I’ve gotten hints or clues to; and some I’ve gotten no more than a sense that an answer could exist. And, of course, some things (not just religious things) are best understood, not through explanation, but through experience.
The main problem with this thread may be that it’s too broad. You could take any one particular Christian belief to challenge and probe and get a long thread on just that—and in fact there have been many such threads in the past, of varying light-to-heat ratios.
Well, it’s certainly not logically impossible for God to be around Sin. I’m imagining such a situation right now, as a matter of fact. Of course, if God’s character is such that it is logically impossible because God can’t stand sinners, then you run into the problem of omnibenevolence.
Why not? I think a thousand people eating two loaves and a few fish is pretty illogical. I think anything that falls under “miraculous” is pretty illogical. How these lines get drawn is another “huh?” for me.
But overall, your post is the best so far, I have to say. Good job.
