Vorkosigan

Actually, I am quite impressed with Meta here. He's really baring his theological soul here.

Although I don't understand why, if all religions have what it takes, Christianity is so important, and the HJ is so important. If everybody has some handle on the truth -- ROPE, TREE, WALL, SNAKE, SPEAR, FAN -- then particular beliefs are no big deal, so long as one is a good person.

Vorkosigan

Wyrdsmyth

Wow, Meta, you're quite the unorthodox heretic. If you said those things in the church I used to go to, they wouldn't look at you as being any better off than an atheist -- maybe worse.

Vinnie

Meta would say Christianity has the best means of creating solidarity. Its the best way to be" reconciled" to God but not the only way. Naturally, a person of another faith would disagree with him.

Personally, I am much more interested in focusing on the agreements of various faiths and people than their disagreements.

I was discussing something with Meta once and he said something that was very refreshing. I asked why I should bother trying to "convert" a pious Jewish woman who prays? I see no reason and Meta had a good answer. Don't think in terms of trying to convert. Think in terms of just trying to get people to seek God (and those who are theists) attempt to get them to seek God more. The whole tired polemic of "converting people" to your dogma gets swept under the rug.

Personally, I find particular beliefs to be "of no big deal" as long as they are not harmful or unethical or do not hinder teaching (yecism).

I don't think the HJ is important for the more liberal Christians. But most liberals were once conservatives and it usually just carries over. i honestly found Meta's reasons for the importance of HJ study to be pretty weak. He stated that history could never reconstruct the Jesus of our faith. At best it could confirm our faith picture or at worst, compete against it.

but once you rule out history as being able to reconstruct the resurrection and other claims of Creedal Christianity, the importance of it on an apoologetics level greatly diminishes.

Since Meta believes Jesus was literally God incarnate I take it absolutely for granted that he wants to to know what Jesus is like as do all other Christians (and even non Christians want to know about this man).

The problem for outsiders is one of evidence. If history or other fields cannot demonstrate the central claims of Christianity what can? Naturally the only answer I can see is authentic experiences with God. Existential experiences with the living and transforming Jesus. Unfortunately, it is a fallacy to assume that these experiencesmake your dogma correct because they occur cross-culturally. That is why, I guess I find myself outside of creedal and orthodox Christianity. I accept the creeds on a functional level. They are part of the community and part of my Christian identity but I have no evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin. There is none. All Christians have is "inspiration" or "creeds". Neither are fullproof here. Conservative versions of inspiration are not tenable and liberal versions, well, they do not necessitate a literal VB, especially not natural inspiration. The creeds, well, there is nothing which makes them infallible either.

I find myself closest to orthodoxy in my view on the need for salvation and such like that. But I have recently embraced panentheism (Christian panenetheism). The framework of supernatural theism is too hard for me to accept. God heals little Timmy of cancer but sits by during the holocaust and a trillion other incidents? The idea of a God "out there" looking in and picking and choosing when to act and not act is too hard to imagine for me.

I don't study the HJ for apologetical reasons. Historians have to prescind from faith but once you cut out historicl apologetics or the possibility of reconstructing the central points of the Christian story, what is left? I'm a functional Christian but I don't believe the dogma to be literally true. There is simply a lack of evidence for it. I cannot prove Jesus was born of a virgin or that he wasn't. Its usually said that we acept it on the basis of the creeds of the community which God has been active in but as stated, this is not full-proof. Liberal Christians think God has been active throughout the world, cross-culturally and through different faiths. God being active in our community does not necessarily lead to "the creeds are true" or tht our dogma is correct.

Vinnie

Vinnie

The Nicene Creed is a common litmus test for Orthodoxy:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I don't think Meta has ever denied any of this. I personally, just lack the valid "proof" that it is all literally true and I am not inclined to accept a creed just for the sake of accepting the creed. Meta has said he accepts the VB mainly on the basis of the Creeds. For some reason he places a special emphasis on them. Maybe he can elaborate? The natural response is "God has been working through the community" but this is complicated by "religious pluralism". Its easier for the conservatives to argue this way. The liberals who are more open to other faiths have more difficult here. This was a long lesson that I learned.

Vinnie

Fred

I find the question difficult in that I can't seperate "Biblical inspiration" from any other kind of inspiration.

Inspire v. fill with enthusiasm, stimulate, arouse (an emotion).
Inspiration n. good idea; creative influence or stimulus. - Inspirational adj.
Collins English dictionary.

BadBadBad

Toto,

I highlighted the same sentence you did:

"If the eye witness nature of the individual authors of the NT cannot be established, at least the testimony of the community as a whole can be. The NT and it's canon is a community event. IT was a community at large that produced the Gospels, that passed on the Testimony and that created the canon. This communal nature of the revelation guarantees, if not individual authenticity, at least a sort of group validation, that a whole bunch of people as a community attest to these books and this witness."

Meta,

That looks like the basis of your beliefs. Looks like you start from there, and then apply all your scholarly methods. People believed in Christianity. I assume your family believed in Christianity. Everybody believes in Christianity. Somehow that group validation makes it true. Before you start talking about inspiration of the Bible text, which parts are and which parts aren't, I think you have a little more work to do on your premise.

Kosh

To get more to the point of what brettc is hinting about: Argumentum ad Numerum is a logical fallacy.

Metacrock

I didn't say it's true because the community believes it, I said they saw the events of the stories before their eyes.

Metacrock

IN the argument I'm making there, the community serves the same function as the individual apostles in the traditional view, they saw the risen Christ, or thought they did, and found the empty tomb, heard Jesus' teachings and so on. It's not appeal to authority, it's their collective testimony as witnesses.


I also do make certain assumptions about the nature of comunity and belief. It's a fallacy to assume that community has nothing to do with belief. Community is the only basic standard for certain things like morality and basic world views. If you are a moral relativist I would think you could see that. WE don't hold our views in vacuum, just as we don't learn to speak in a vacuum. There is no such thing as a private language. all speech is thought, and all thought is culture. The langauge game we play is given us by our community.

Metacrock

Well there are different models of it. let's compare to poetic inspiration. poets of old believed the muses guided them. But modern poets settle for a general sort of "good feeling" that comes from being stemulated by something, no litteral muse required.


That differens form "Biblical" in that Biblical inspiration assumes a diety is guiding the process of inspiration. But there are different versions of how it works and what it does.

I suggest the book Models of Revelation by Avery Dulles.