mdarus

People have been debating for ages why God required this of himself. The Why questions are the tough ones. One meaning of "grace" is "for no good reason." It is not usually described as fun, but in my experience it is fun to do something for the benefit of someone else that costs me something but results in something good for them.

The concept of boredom and God is too deep and complex for me to comment on.

Bobinius

Now the sending of Jesus on Earth becomes a mystery? It is a criptic act of grace? No, it is just a logical contradiction which shows the incoherence of Christianity. People were saved before Jesus AND God sends his Son to save people, that have to believe in him for that. This is a contradictory state of affairs. And contradictory states of affairs do not exist. There is no mystery except the stubborness of irrational faith.

Trust me : it is. The irony is not going to save your faith. God had no reason for sacrificing his Son (for three days, but still).People were already saved. God had no reason to create the world, he is perfect. Perfect beings are complete and do not lack company and do not have the need to love something that they have to create. If this love was the reason, he should have made the world earlier. I am telling you he got bored.

mdarus

Bob, (do you mind if I call you Bob?) Fine, if you disallow that the faith of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, etc. was anticipatory faith in Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah, then it makes some of the New Testament’s statements about salvation incoherent. It destroys any linkage between OT Judaism and NT Christianity. But please note, it is your rejection of the solution that causes the incoherence, not anything inherent in Christianity. Please forgive me if I remain a little stubborn.

Agreed in principle but there are some nuances that make interesting discussion. If you take the position that God acts in accordance with his character, there can be a driving force that motivates him to express his creativity, love, justice, etc. But it leads to questions about whether God determines his own character or is controlled by it … it gets messy quickly.

I am intrigued by this new attribute of God: boredom. But leaping to a discussion about why God created the world and why he selected the timing that he did would definitely highjack your thread. I am not sure where we would get the evidence for the discussion since biblical revelation seems to point to love (which in your estimation is too little, too late) and general revelation sources (logic, philosophy, nature) would only lead to grasping at speculations. I am not comfortable psychoanalyzing God’s internal motivation for anything.

John A. Broussard

Early Christians, in the course of their proselytizing were dealing almost entirely with people believers in the OT. To facilitate conversion, it was almost essential to connect the new faith with the new (done all the time--viz. Joe Smith and Mormonism).

Unfortunately for Christianity, the strained linkage between the OT and the NT has become increasingly embarassing over the centuries. It has become especially so as many Christians want to stress the loving quality of their god. That's just not at all easy if the OT fables are considered to be an essential part of the Jesus myth.

I think there's a growing feeling among Christians that, if Jesus is god, he needs no crutch supplied from the OT to prove it.

My estimate of the extent of that feeling may be way off, of course, but I have heard it voiced by strong believers in the divinity of Christ.

Thanks for your analysis of that connection, by the way. I don't happen to agree with it, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Clarice O'C

Yeah, to watch xians squirm.

Bobinius

Call me Bobinius. If I wanted 'Bob' I would have wrote 'Bob'.

I don't disallow that 'anticipatory faith' because I don't like how it sounds. I reject it because is just your anachronistic post-factum interpretation. And as I already shown you are Affirming the Consequent. And you fail to make Christianity coherent. But you haven't adressed my rebuttal.

You have to explain how can you have faith that the man Jesus is the Christ before Jesus existed. How can you have faith in his message before it was uttered.

I don't understand what good is this for your case anyway:

People were already capable of being saved, but God sent his Son because he loved his people so much and wanted them to be saved. It is logically contradictory. Either God is an incoherent idiot, or your premise is wrong.

It destroys the link? What does that mean? You are begging the question by claiming that there is some logical coherence -link- between the two, if you are talking about that link. Christianity has a logically inconsistent message. Begining with the Trinity. All sorts of artificial and mysterious creeds that 3=1. Of course, because they contradicted the unity of YHW. Show me where does it say in the OT that God has a Son that is actually the same with him. Show me where the messiah is identified with God. The zealots were waiting for a military leader for example.

Same with salvation. If people were already saved, God had not reason to send his Son (who is actually him, there's one God) to save us, Jesus is not necessary. If people were not saved and Jesus' coming was needed, he burns all those people for something they were not responsible for. This is not a mystery: just the fact that Christianity is incoherent.

No darus, it is the incoherence that is not saved by your artificial solutions. The solutions are ad-hoc and absurd. And this is the case because you are putting your faith in Christianity, the conclusion, above all else. Whenever a christian is shown the inconsistency of the doctrine, he will invent a defense that is just as inconsistent and unjustified in order to save his faith. There is nothing more I can do.

You seem to be intelligent enough to spot the problems, but you choose to ignore them. His character is perfect. If the driving force to create is part of his character he should have created from all eternity. He should be creating now, since his character does not change. The mess is there. The solution is to reject it all, not to cover it with some artificial forced defenses.

You should analyze it.It is the God you are believing in. Doing things out boredom is compatible with a lack of need. He has it all. He is perfect. So, out of his bored spontaneity the world appears. But, the believer wants to be in the center of things. We are the special creatures of a perfect God. The Universe was made for us. We are the center of creation. It is not a theo-centric religion, but an antropo-centric one.

Victor Reppert

I think we can see a logical slide here. Bobinius's statement does not follow from the verse. The verse says that every who comes to the Father comes by Christ, Bobinius's comment implies gratuitously that no one comes to the Father except by believing in Christ. Inclusivists and universalists would agree that every who comes to the Father comes through Christ, what they deny is that in every case this requires a pre-mortem belief in Christ. And the passage quoted does not mention the atonement, but Bobinius's inference includes the atonement.

Insofar as the arguments here use Bible verses, they imply that Christians are committed to the inerrancy of Scripture. And even if the sentence were uttered by Christ, it is possible to hold that Christ's divinity was compatible with his uttering at least one falsehood. C. S. Lewis, generally known for the orthodoxy of his theology, thought that Christ, in his humanity, incorrectly predicted his return within the generation.

Now maybe Christians ought to be inerrantists and they ought to be exclusivists. But an argument against Christianity, without arguing for these two claims, is not entitled simply to assume these things.

If I pay off your debt, and you don't know that I did, it's still paid off, whether you believe it or not.

mdarus

Bobinius it is.:notworthy

Maybe this is semantics. By calling it “anticipatory� I may be inviting the anachronistic accusation. It is only anachronistic if we require those messianic features of Jesus that were not known until the incarnation were required to be the content of faith to people who lived before. But I am not making that claim nor does Jesus or the New Testament writers.

Faith is certainly a requirement of salvation for all people at all times. However, the content of that faith can be minimal. Christianity does not require that the content of faith include all the complex doctrinal constructions about Jesus. However, when certain beliefs are rejected or denied, there seem to be consequences. The content of the faith need not be sophisticated. The content of the faith can be fledgling trust in God’s provision of a solution past, present or future. This is affirmed by Galatians 3:

1) Paul sees continuity between the faith of Abraham and the faith of Christians.
2) There is an anticipatory or prophetic element in the promise of benefit to all nations through Abraham. By inference, this is the provision of a Messiah fulfilled in Jesus.
3) The benefits that Christians receive by their faith is equated with the faith of Abraham (see verse 29).
4) The context of the rest of this chapter makes clear that faith in the promise, not works is always the content of successful faith (verse 18).
5) Abraham was not required to have knowledge about Jesus, his incarnation, or his atonement -- only that God will be sending a solution.
6) The gospel message that Abraham heard did not have the content you are requiring yet it was a sufficient message.

It could be said that Paul’s explanation is after the fact of Jesus incarnation but this seems unavoidable since that is when Paul was writing. There was enough new information about salvation than an explanation about the relationship between Jesus’ message and God’s prior revelation was required. When the explantion was given does not affect its validity.

As to whether this was an interpretation of Jesus’ life and message depends on whether the source of this information was Jesus himself or imposed on Jesus' life. Did Jesus believe that his incarnation was prophetically anticipated? Our only source is the gospels. It will not help clarity to deny Jesus said all of this:

I think your trouble with John 14:6 and John 3:18 is not one of logic, but hermeneutics. As Victor posted, John 14:6 does not address the content of faith required. It only affirms that Jesus provides the way (and that he is the truth and life also). Your premise 1 cannot come from John 14:6. John 14: 6 does not require faith in Jesus diety or atonement. It only states that Jesus will provide the atonement (and truth and life).

One of the hermeneutical challenges is differentiating between content that is required and content that should not be rejected.
Jesus did not claim that those who did not know about the promise of the Messiah were doomed. He did claim that those who knew it and rejected it were in trouble:

In context, “whoever does not believe� is parallel to “men who loved darkness instead of light�. This requires a rejection of the light, not absence of the light. The immediate context is those people who have seen the light of Jesus and rejected it, not those who have not heard anything. I have a surprising suggestion for your question about the Chinese but your thread is about your argument.

What this means is: it is not necessary to believe in Jesus in order to believe in Jesus. That should drive your logic crazy. I am not suggesting an absurdity or a logical contradiction. I am toying with the definition of “Jesus�.

Let Jesus A be the historical person Jesus who was also God incarnate who lived, died on a cross, and was resurrected.

Let Jesus B be the messiah/Christ/God’s provision for sin.

Jesus B(1)This can be in a prophetic (future) sense as a promise to be fulfilled such as God's promise to Abraham that through his seed all the world will be blessed or the promise made to Adam and Eve that one day the serpent's head will be crushed.
Jesus B(n)It can also be in a trust sense that God will provide a means of salvation that human effort cannot provide.

Belief in Jesus B does not require knowledge of Jesus A (as evidence by Abraham above). But belief in Jesus B is doubtful if Jesus A is rejected.

Faith in Jesus B can and did occur before Jesus A existed. And this is interesting – Faith in Jesus B may now be possible without knowledge of Jesus A or (stretching it) with a mistaken knowledge of Jesus A.

This is an important distinction lest we fall into the fallacy of equivocation.

I think the above is what you were asking for here:
and here:

And this:

And this:


I looked back at the posts. I can’t find that. Please help me with a clarification.

Bobinius

Bobinius' premise affirms exactly what Jesus says:

NO man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

This excludes (no man) all the people that did not believe in Jesus, from salvation (cometh unto the Father), except (but) those who believe in Jesus (by me).

Clear enough? I am so tired of this Christian way of twisting and turning every word when even the Bible is clear.

John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

I already gave the verses where he says what he means 'by me'. That the work of God is to believe in him, in Jesus. To believe that he is the Christ or the messiah. To believe that he, this guy that lived is the Son of God. The messiah saved us through his sacrifice. Or did he not? He keeps repeating like a broken record that he will die and rise after 3 days.

I think that the writer made a mistake when he wrote Jesus was the Son of God. Wad da ya think? If we are not 'inerrantists' how do we know which one is in error? Obviously the correct 'interpretation' is the one that is compatible with your view. The part that sounds bad or implies a contradiction is the one in 'error'.

Explain please: Why did God send his Son to save us when we were already saved? Why did Jesus have to incarnate and die when people already believed in him 'anticipatory'?

mdarus

When you ask the "Why" question, you probably know you are answering the most difficult kind of question to answer in a form that satisfies the person asking the question. Often, a "Why" intergoatory is merely a statement affirming, "There is no possible way you can explain ... to my satisfaction." It can be more than a dare than a real question.

A lady gets her car washed. Her left mirror gets ripped off. She asks, "Why didn't you have a bigger sign telling me to fold my mirror in." There is no answer to the question that will satisfy her since she is not asking a question. She is making a statement, "Your sign was not big enough. I did not receive adequate notice. I am not at fault. You are liable. Fix my car. Now!" But I think you are asking a real question.

Given that the content of Abraham's faith was an anticipation of God's provision of a final solution for sin, then the Christ had to come. If the Christ did not come, then their faith would be on nothing. The promise of the Messiah requires the fullfillment of the promise. This is not hard.

Let A be anticipatory belief that a promise will be fullfilled
Let B be the fullfillment of the promise
If B never occurs, then belief in A is not valid
Faith is only as good as the object of the faith.

Those that were "saved" prior to Christ's coming were only saved because he would actually come and accomplish what was promised. Galatians 3 describes Christ's death as a fulfillment to the promise made to Abraham. It was Abraham's belief in this promise that saved him.