Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Nazaroo · 05-12-2007, 11:04 AM

Just to open up this question a bit more, I am going to quote North, The Hoax of Higher Criticism (1989)

Quote:

THE ETHICS OF
HIGHER CRITICISM

"

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covet-
ous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers,
false accusers, incontinmt, fierce, despisers of
those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof. from such turn
away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses,
and lead captive naive women laden with sins, led away
with various lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth" (11 Tim. 3:2-7).

The real motive of higher criticism is ethical. This,
too, has been Van Til’s assertion: covenant-breaking
man’s problem is not a lack of knowledge about God;
rather, it is his lack of obedience to God. The higher
critics seek to confuse men by blurring the universal
ethical requirements of God’s holy Word. If they were
correct, then there could be no final judgment, for
God’s sanctions require God’s permanent stipulations.

To deny God’s judgment, His stipulations must be
presumed to be incoherent, unclear, and limited to
the individual conscience, rather than coherent, clear,
and universal in every human conscience.

Karl Barth was a defender of just such a radically
individual ethics, an ethics which matched his thesis
of a radically dialectical, incoherent, creed-denying,
God-man encounter – a noumenal encounter beyond
nature and history.

He denied as “untenable” the assumption
of the universality of God’s ethical commands,
for “the command of God . . . is always an
individual command for the conduct of this man, at
this moment and in this situation. . . .“ 1

In short,
on Barth’s basis there cannot be a God-revealed permanent
Christian ethics, nor civil statutes that conform
to fixed biblical principles. Statutes and creeds
are supposedly only the inventions of men, not the
appropriate human responses to God’s fixed and reliable
revelation of Himself in a God-inspired historical
document. Barth thereby proclaimed the triumph
of Kant’s noumenal trans-historical realm of randomness
over Kant’s phenomenal historical realm of sci-
entifically predictable cause and effect, all in the name
of a higher ethics and higher critical insights. This
was Barth’s assertion of the triumph of historical and
ethical relativism over the Bible. This was his announcement
of the triumph of covenant-breaking man
over God, and above all, over the final judgment.

Autonomous man seeks to impose his temporal judgments
on God by denying the historic validity of God’s
revelation of Himself. This, of course, was precisely
what Adam attempted to do in the garden by eating
the forbidden fruit in defiance of God’s explicit revelation.
The results are equally predictable.

1. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, translated by A. T. Mackay
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961), Vol. 3, Part 4, p. 11; cited by
Walter Kaiser, Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan Academie, 1983), p. 25

http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freeb...s/_bkscate.htm
North, The Hoax of Higher Criticism

dancer_rnb · 05-12-2007, 11:18 AM

Don't we know from the last prophet of God, Mohammed, that the revelations to Christians was corrupted?

Toto · 05-12-2007, 11:28 AM

Gary North built himself a bunker to survive the breakdown in society that would inevitably ensue due to the Y2K computer bug. He announced at the time that this was the great test of secular humanism. If the world did not implode in the year 2000, it would surely cast doubt on his theology, but he was sure that his view of God, the Bible, and computers would pan out, western civilization would collapse, and suffering masses would turn to God.

Amazingly, it took him a few years after his predictions failed before he came back on the scene.

Please tell me what this thread has to do with BC or H? I am thinking of a new home for it.

Nazaroo · 05-12-2007, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Gary North built himself a bunker to survive the breakdown in society that would inevitably ensue due to the Y2K computer bug. He announced at the time that this was the great test of secular humanism. If the world did not implode in the year 2000, it would surely cast doubt on his theology, but he was sure that his view of God, the Bible, and computers would pan out, western civilization would collapse, and suffering masses would turn to God.

Amazingly, it took him a few years after his predictions failed before he came back on the scene.

Please tell me what this thread has to do with BC or H? I am thinking of a new home for it.

awww, he was just a little early, as most enthusiasts are.

But this has I think alot to do with BC and H, because we are now discussing exactly what is actually at stake in the choices of world-view and methodology behind TC, HC, LC, etc.

Nazaroo · 05-13-2007, 11:01 AM

My friend Praxeus may have been put off by my late reply to his concerns, although I don't think he has abandoned us just yet.

The fact is, there is only so much time in a day, and I had to deal with other threads and other chores, here and elsewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Hi Folks,

So back to the OP question.

Nazaroo, how do these references have authority ?
Are they ... scripture ?

This I think may be an interesting KEY to the discussion, because this word 'scripture' obviously implies to you and many others much more than a simple identification tag for the historical canon of the NT.

So I will develop this idea shortly.

Quote:

And only for those books reference above ?
What is the NT that you reference above ?
What are its component books ?
And how do you know if a book or chapter or verse is valid, with authority ?

You are here mixing questions which are the concern of say a theologian or leader of a Christian denomination or sect, with the questions that are of concern to a simple Christian, or better yet, a simple citizen of Earth who is the recipient of a message.

Let me explain what I am talking about: Suppose a telegram arrives from your mom thanking you for your Mother's Day Gift.

Would you have any reason to suspect the content, accuracy, or sender of the message?

Only if the content was suspicious (you didn't send a gift), or if your mother never sent telegrams and lived next door.

If you had sent a perfectly reasonable gift, like some flowers, you'd more likely just smile, and think "I'm glad she got them, and appreciates me."

You would have no problem placing the telegram among your memorabilia or posting it on the fridge for a while (in case she came over), and incorporating your exchange into your long-term memories of your mother.

The telegram would not be subjected to 'analysis', nor would you waste time with inquiries to Western Union as to the origin of the message.

Quote:

And what if the authorship of these books is questioned ?
Like you questioned Galatians.

I questioned Galatians, this is true. But I have no opinion whatever on its authenticity or unauthenticity. Who cares? If I get around to reading it (again for the 50th time), probably in Greek, not English, it will be in the context of searching out some doctrine or historical question or detail of wording. Why?

Not because I would be doing a study of its 'authenticity', because frankly, I couldn't care less about that. I would be doing a study of its content, for one purpose only in my old age as a longtime Christian student:

To understand its contents better, to see if I could accept them on their face value in comparison to what I already know from studying other 'scripture'. Does it agree or disagree? Is there a significant difference in content or expression, is another layer of truth or knowledge indicated? Is a known or previously held belief of mine being challenged or modified by this letter, now as I read it again? And if so, are these modifications important?

What are the ramafications if I embrace some new piece of gold I have mined out of Galatians? Will I need to modify or abandon a theory or assumption I had before about God's message for me? Does it raise a new question that I am now obligated to investigate?

When I study the 'scriptures' these days, the issue of 'authenticity' is the LAST thing on my mind.

Quote:

Do they then lose some or all of their authority ?
Or do you simply extract the verses with which you feel comfortable ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

The only time so far as I know, that any scripture loses its authority, is if its not addressed to ME. The only time I feel a particular scripture is not applicable, is when its context and its implied assumptions exclude the case at hand.

More often than not, I do what I MUST do: Simply extract the verses I believe I understand.

If any rule could be applied that was similar to your last rule it would be this:

(1) Extract the verses which make you feel UNcomfortable, and study those a lot more closely, to find out why, and if they are important. Something like "prefer the harder reading" in Textual Criticism.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

05-12-2007, 11:18 AM	#12
dancer_rnb Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Austin, Tx Posts: 2,520	Don't we know from the last prophet of God, Mohammed, that the revelations to Christians was corrupted?

05-12-2007, 11:28 AM	#13
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Gary North built himself a bunker to survive the breakdown in society that would inevitably ensue due to the Y2K computer bug. He announced at the time that this was the great test of secular humanism. If the world did not implode in the year 2000, it would surely cast doubt on his theology, but he was sure that his view of God, the Bible, and computers would pan out, western civilization would collapse, and suffering masses would turn to God. Amazingly, it took him a few years after his predictions failed before he came back on the scene. Please tell me what this thread has to do with BC or H? I am thinking of a new home for it.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.