jbernier

Thank you for the kind words. The fact is that agreement is not necessary for discussion. In fact, if everyone agreed there would be no need for discussion at all.

As for hold I can hold to my view on scriptures and still hold to Christianity I will say, yes, that is challenging to myself and others. This may help: I am beginning convinced that this challenge is due not to something intrinsic or necessary to Christianity but rather due to how we have come to understand Christianity. I think that Biblical inerrancy is a historically contingent part of Christianity; indeed, perhaps the canon itself should be seen as historically contingent. The fact is that there was Christianity before the canon, before inerrancy. If one could have Christianity without inerrancy or the canon in the past then it stands to reason that one can have Christianity without inerrancy or the canon in the present. Part of my journey as a scholar-in-training and as a Christian has been to discover what such a Christianity looked like historically and how it could look again.

Sven

Yes, but not why you believe it - look at the title of the thread.

If I've been accusatory, please point the relevant passages out. Or am I accusatory just by pointing out that you haven't answered important questions and asking for clarification?

Yes, you can. Most importantly by not claiming that alternatives are impossible, but by showing it.

I pointed you to the recent discussions in EoG - what more do you want?

Of course it doesn't fit - because skeptics (usually) don't disagree with everything the bible says. There's no such thing as a "biblical antithesis". Nice strawman.

Thanks for another non-answer post by you, which was nothing more than a rant against "no-true-scot..---eh---Christians"

Sven

Since Robert already conceded the circularity (and additionally claims that every worldview is circular), this seem to be no problem

jbernier

Indeed.

Now, Robert, just out of curiousity, have you given some sort of evidence for your claim that every worldview is circular? Just wondering because I can imagine many worldviews that would not be. It seems to me that circularity is something to watch for to see where we might be making unwarranted assumptions - looking for circularities is a check on our reasoning.

jdlongmire

I believe Robert was just following the logical direction of your posts to their ultimate conclusion...

I do not think that you believe Jesus Christ is the one and only son of God (which I believe all Scripture teaches and faith/practice bears out) and that He is the only source of salvation by the content of your posts...

...which does not mean that I would persecute you...just that one should not be disingenuous...

jdlongmire

I think you will find that there are good Christian discussion forums that would welcome open discussion from many worldviews:

http://www.apologetics.com/cgi-bin/u...ultimatebb.cgi

http://forums.5solas.org/index.php

...I also think that you will find here, as in any other gathering of humanity, tolerance and intolerance...

I think the interest here is mostly intellectual curiosity and refinement for Christians and the hope that truth will cause the scales to fall away...

Most rabid, unreasonable posters either get educated by the other rational a/ theists here, or go away...

I view this as a Roman forum, with about the same expectations Paul probably had...

I live, I learn, I trust, I love...Sola Christo...Soli Deo Gloria...

jbernier

That has actually not come up in the discussion. Nonetheless, I think we need to rethink the claim that Christ is the only source of salvation for the entire human race. When the scriptures are located within their original rhetorical context I am not convinced that this is as clear and indisputable as many would maintain. Many of the passages which seem to most clearly hold this position appear to have been written in the context of no longer extant controversies over what it means to be an authentic follower of Yahweh - one set of groups, represented in the Johannine writings in particular, argued that authentic Yahwism could only be found in the acceptance of Jesus as somehow identifiable with Yahweh. Thus, goes this logic when applies lock, stock and barrel to our context, Judaism is an obselete and inauthentic form of Yahwism.

However, I think that events of the past century (i.e. the Holocaust) and the centuries of Christian anti-semitism before that necessitate a reevaluation of this understanding. Quite simply, if we take seriously the Bible's claim that the Jewish people are God's chosen and find that a particular theology leads to the mass murder and attempted genocide of said people can we really maintain that this theology comes from God?

Either way, I have not said that Christ is not the only source of salvation. What I would suggest is that the basic Christian position is that there is such a thing of an absolute Truth in the cosmos and that that Truth became incarnate in Christ. Or, to put it otherwise, Christ is the summation of all Truth and in the incarnation that summation became flesh. This is rooted in John 1 where it tooks about Jesus as the logos - an emanation from God which creates and organizes the cosmos in a rational fashion. Thus Christians can identify all truth with Christ and thus can recognize the presence of Christ in other belief systems, etc. However, one must be careful not to turn non-Christians into crypto-Christians - it is not that non-Christians are Christians who do not realize that they are Christians but that the same Truth which was incarnate in Christ is the same Truth which is present in (for instance) the Torah, quantum physics, etc.

jdlongmire

Thank you for your doctrinal clarification. I look forward to discussing your views...I think your pre-suppositions and goals are...interesting...whether they are original or old "thoughts" resurfaced remains to be seen...although I do agree that Truth is Truth...

jbernier

I make no claims to originality - there is nothing new under the sun (or in intellectual history).

Cross Examiner

1. Are you saying that, in general, issues of morality are more difficult to ascertain than issues of fact? If so, granted. But then I am not comparing issues of morality in general to issues of fact. I am comparing the intuitional understanding of the wrongfulness of baby-torture in particular to the intuitional sense of the divine in general.
2. I do not say that I believe in biblical inerrancy from an intuitional basis alone and you offer no reason to construe my intuitional basis as identical to that which the Moslems and Mormons cite so your criticism here is apparently quite misguided.
3. As I explained to Vorkosigan here, this is not an argument for the validity of intuition as an epistemological basis. Given the prior confusion citing intuition (as a basis, mind you) seemed to cause, it is simply intended as an explanation of what I mean by intuition and how I understand it to work. Since what I mean by intuition is apparently not what these others mean by it, their prior criticism is therefore towards an effigy.
4. Because my conscience is in tact. Read the sentence that you responded to here more closely and you'll likely see what I mean by this answer.
5. That'll do for simplicity's sake.
6. Well, for example, those liberal scholars who try to construe apostolic belief in the resurrection in spiritualistic/gnostic/Hellenstic terms, divorcing this foundational belief from it's very Jewish context and very physicalist roots do so do so irresponsibly.
7. Denying that which you know so as to do that which you want.

Regards,
BGic