Thomas Doubting's article on Salvation was fundamentally flawed because he used humans as his proof for God's 'nonexistence'.

The fact is that God doesn't need us to be in agreement to prove that he exists or otherwise. Neither does he need any denomination to agree with another over the issue of right or wrong doctrine. Doctrinal stance is irrelevant to the argument about the existence of a higher power.

God existed before humans, or humanists, came into this world. He doesn't need evidence, or proof of his own existence. He is not panicking about whether Thomas believes or not.

The reason of men has always been flawed. When we try to understand God's word through reason, of course we will end up with a number of different opinions. This doesn't in itself nullify the existence of God. It just says that we think differently to others.

Thomas would be better to study the evidence of nature than to investigate the flaws of human thought. Anyone can prove a point by beginning with a premise. Just seek out the information which proves your position, and publish it as fact.

Many of the so called 'denominations' in his list use this method to prove they are right and others are wrong. This doesn't say anything about the existence of God. It just shows how ignorant people can be, whether they call themselves Christians, or believers or not.

Neither does it disqualify them from being saved. Salvation isn't dependent upon understanding the doctrine of salvation. It depends on accepting that God exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek after him.

Salvation isn't a legal contract, it's heart connection. It's not by law, or rote, or formula, or rules, or regulations, or doctrine, or denominational stance, but by God's grace, through our faith. He gives it to us. We don't earn it. It's a gift, not a thing we can buy, work for or obtain through ritual, ceremony, intelligence, gifting, ability or any other human operation or trait. It's just plain old faith!

Thomas would be better off searching for God's handiwork in the cosmos, than researching dogma.

Look at any object or plant under a microscope, or study the vastness of the universe, and it amazing interactive co-dependence. See the evidence of something, or Someone, great in its patterns and logic.

The Apostle John spoke about logic. He said that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) This was in reply to the Platonists, who at least had the intelligence to work out that there must be a Maker who put this all together, and that he had to be the highest form of Reason, the Logos, that there is. John merely points them to the truth that the Logos, the Word, is God, and that God is the Logos they are searching for.

Humanists are almost on the right track as they seek Reason as their god (even though they deny the existence of any 'god'), but have such a poor attitude towards any kind of 'religious' idea, thought or heart-felt desire that they miss the point of their own argument most of the time. At least these Greeks had an open mind towards the existence of a higher power. At least they were humble enough to allow for the possibility.

But Thomas follows the crowd and delves into 'his' unknown in a vague attempt to disprove God by attacking Christians.

His use of scriptures was interesting. As I read through them, which only took a few seconds, I could see no contradiction in any. They flowed, as the Bible generally does, seemlessly. If you didn't grasp the context of what they said and how they relate you would miss the unflawed consistency.

Thomas used them in a negative way to attempt to 'prove' an invalid point, which had no bearing on the context of the scriptures presented.

Apart from this, no scriptures were written in chapter or verse from in the originals, so you can't just take a verse out without the context and prove anything. It's illogical and dangerous.

Don't doubt, Thomas. Take another look at the amazing panorama of God's handiwork. Forget about the contradictions of denominational doctrine. Cut through this and get right to the heart of the matter. Your relationship with God himself. That's where the proof is waiting for you.

Steve Rowe

-DM-

Steve:

Thank you for your "feedback" to <a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192" target="_blank">Christian Salvation?</a> by Thomas Doubting--such as it is.

Inasmuch as your feedback doesn't address the main conclusion of the article but is instead a kind of straw man, and inasmuch as your feedback is basically a belief statement based on Christian doctrine, and inasmuch as your belief statement is accompanied by nothing in the way of convincing evidence and/or argument--I'm not going to bother the author with notification regarding your feedback. Instead, I'll make a few comments.

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The author was not "fundamentally flawed because he used humans as his proof for God's 'nonexistence'"--in fact, the word "nonexistence" does not appear in the article and the existence or nonexistence of "God" was not the point of the article. The point of the article was that Christians themselves cannot agree on the necessary requirements for salvation and the Bible is inconsistent on the subject. As the author put it:

THAT is the point of the article--a point which you seem to have missed.

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Speaking of Paul and what he might have had to say on logic, I say that he would likely flunk Logic 101 and therefore we shouldn't trust him on the subject. Here's one example of what I mean:

See if you are any better than Paul at figuring out the illogic of those two verses taken together.

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Finally, if you believe that the Bible flows seemlessly, then I'd say that YOU need to be a bit more thorough in your Bible studies. A thorough study of the Bible itself is one of the surest paths to nontheism for those who are both open-minded and discerning.

--Don--

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/index.shtml" target="_blank">Biblical problems</a>