spamandham

Obviously, it doesn't use the word "magic", but a rose by any other name...

Transplanar

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I think there's still more to this arguement (which I haven't had time to go back to until now)

Suppose we change the scenerio, then.

As in the second scenerio, you have a preacher (or even a scientist, philosopher, or whatever) telling people things and convincing them against the ideas of Christianity. You have a Christian that kills this guy to get him to stop spreading his message, then the Christian repents before God and has this sin anulled. Does that make what he did good? He did save other people's souls, and he (presumably, for the sake of arguement) did pay the price for it.

I only use "killing" as an extreme example. They need not kill the heretic so much as stop them from spreading their message that would draw people away from faith in God.

And how does one define "full knowledge" and "deliberate consent"? If they had "full knowledge" of the subject then (if Christianity is true) they would know that the teachings of the false prophet are false and that Christianity is true. Consent is also a gray area.

Suppose someone was Muslim for 20 years then became a Christian. For those 20 years they had wittingly become a Muslim and rejected Christianity. Upon coming to Christianity, would one redefine their 20 years of being a Muslim as a time of "confusion"? No one knows everything, and all people have different ways of interpretting their perceptions of the world due to their experiences and how they are hard-wired from birth, therefore one can only truly consent to believing in something that makes sense in their world view, nothing more. Most people do not become athiests or join some other religion other than Christianity out of spite and outright rejection of the Christian God. They do so because it does not seem likely or coherent in their view of the world.

llamaluvr

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "he did pay the price for it." Anyway, repenting and receiving forgiveness never renders an evil act good, it only absolves you of guilt of committing that act.

An interesting paradox (not sure if that's the right word for this, but whatever) to the whole thing is that, in order for your scenario to be possible, the Christian who committed the act would still have to believe that the act he committed was objectively sinful, even after his repentence makes the act good. In Catholic theology, you cannot recieve forgiveness unless you're actually contrite.

I think you more or less have the essence of what is and isn't full knowledge and deliberate consent. If you come to an incorrect understanding of your own free will, but it is the only logical solution you can concieve of, you're not obstinant, you're just lacking "full knowledge." If the truth is readily available, but a psycological condition prevents you from accepting it, you're just lacking "deliberate consent."

Justin Martyr made an interesting statement about this around AD 151:

"We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]. Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and unafraid" (First Apology 46 [A.D. 151]).


The ancient Greeks did not have really any revelation from God, so they were lacking in knowledge, but from what we know of them, several philosophers were earnest in their pursuit of him through reason. They were doing the best they could with what they had.

That doesn't mean that just because we find our positions reasonable we should therefore feel no worry of condemnation. Our reasoning can be very much subject to our perceptions and our knowledge. We can cross-check our abstract reasoning with our morality, though, as morality is just reason acted out in our everyday world.

I wouldn't dare to propose an example with, say, an athiest, because I would surely generalize, so I'll use myself. I used to reject Catholicism out of an honest lack of knowledge, and a steady stream of misconceptions. I could guage no deceit in my heart due to my rejection of it. Later, as I learned more however, I would still reject it, but I noticed that rejection was tainted with my fear of eating my own crow, or what it would have done to my relationship with my girlfriend. I realized that those were selfish reasons eventually, so I gave up and changed my mind and my heart.