Posted on 07/18/2008 6:46:18 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Sorry, misspelled this: “Armenians” should be “Arminians”.
They are correct inasmuch as they can discern Truth from God's revelation through the natural world and through supernatural direct revelation.
Is religious truth subjective or objective?
Truth is objective. Period.
If 2 people have a supernatural direct revelation that differs, how do you know which one is correct?
If religious truth is objective, how does someone go about proving it?
That's what the Church is for.
If religious truth is objective, how does someone go about proving it?
By "objective" I mean that it exists independently of the person. It is not a "subjective" thing, like I prefer chocolate ice cream and you like vanilla.
The most fundamental relgious truth, that God is, is objectively true. It doesn't matter how many do or do not believe it, it remains true. That doesn't mean it is scientifically provable.
First person mis-represented our teachings, and the second guy just repeated the mistake.
Jesus Christ is the church's one foundation, and one of His names is the WORD, as in "The WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us". Thus the bible is the foundation of the true Church, and the bible says;
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Good works are the evidence of salvation, but no amount of good works will save a man's soul without faith in Jesus Christ, and conversely no amount of evil works will condemn a man who has had his sin debt accounted to Jesus and paid for by His death on the cross. That is the pure New Testament gospel of Christ as exposited in holy scripture through the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul and other NT writers. The only trouble is that it is so simple and so generous that many people can't accept that it doesn't require any good works by the supplicant in order to assure his or her salvation. If fact, God said that all our good works are just filthy rags in His sight. That doesn't mean that good works are actually bad works, far from it. Good works will be rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and evil works committed after conversion will result in a loss of rewards. It means that good works won't justify us before Him, because the penalty of death for every sin ever committed must be paid and good works can't cancel out that penalty. But God in the person of Jesus paid that penalty on the cross for the sins of every human being who has ever lived, and He offers His perfect holiness to all who will believe in Him and accept Him as Lord.
We could probably argue the rest of today and never agree on this issue. But I have no desire to argue doctrine with my fellow believers in Jesus Christ, as I assume you are, and I will continue to put my faith in the veracity of holy scripture and the simple truth of the sola fida gospel that the Apostle Paul preached and taught, and that was agreed to by all the other human instruments who God used to write His eternal, infallible, indestructible Word on parchment.
I don’t see anything we disagree on. By grace, through faith, for works.
There are many different churches. Does that mean any one is correct?
So faith and religious truth is the opposite of subjective?
What criteria is used to prove it in a non-scientific manner? If it is just a matter of faith, then what does it matter how someone believes?
That's what I'm sayin'...Non Christians who have no knowledge of God...Course, everyone in the modern 'free world' has a knowledge of God, and many have rejected Him...
Well said, and scripturally on the money...
Read this later
And I can add a third point:
3) The Baptists didn’t come up with the concept of people frying in hell for eternity.
I said: It does? Please tell me where you find it.
Post #11 deals with this quite nicely, I think.
Not really. Although Rom. 5:8 mentions that Christ "DIED" for us - meaning that we face death, not life in a lake of fire (hell?). Just like Rom. 6:23 says, "the wages of sin is death", not a miserable "life" everlastingly.
Again, where in the Bible do you find the doctrine that the unredeemed with spend life after death in "hell"?
And that's why they were not considered "inspired" by God. And you're right, the doctrine is not found in Christian Scriptures.
Very true. It came from the philosophies of pagans.
I find your post to be very interesting, and it reflects what I have heard some say...that those who are redeemed are the ones who gain an everlasting life, in Heaven...the unredeemed, are simply blotted out....that the unredeemed do not spend an eternity in endless torment, but rather, much like humans know well enough to put down a mad dog, God in His mercy, punishes the unredeemed, by putting them down, permanently....
If Harry Caray was elect, what difference does it make whether the commentator has examined the "evidence"?
I still haven't gotten this advance copy of the Book of Life all these commentators seem to have gotten their hands on.
Those so-called lost "gospels" are not divinely inspired gospels any more so than any other secular writings of that era. God wrote the NT through the agency of divinely inspired human authors such as Paul, Peter, and John, and the Holy Spirit led the Council of Nicea to choose only those inspired books and epistles to form the canon of holy scripture. The spurious "lost gospels" are full of mistakes and contradict one another in many instances, but the "God breathed" New Testament scriptures in the writers' autographs are totally accurate in every detail and do not contradict one another.
Satan knows that without a bible in which seekers of God can have complete confidence that it is truly God's Word Christianity will fall short of His divine plan for saving lost sinners by means of their faith in His Son. So as his alloted time of liberty and demonic power grows short he has directed his primary effort at discrediting the bible as the infallible Word of God. The recent appearance of Hollywood films, TV programs, and a flood of books that purport to show that the bible is just another flawed book written by uninspired men who were prone to make errors, and if not to deliberately lie at least to exaggerate the truth, is evidence of Satan's desperation as his day of judgment before God and his subsequent 1000 years of torment in the lake of fire draws ever closer.
Speaking of that side issue, I don't know whether the lake of fire cited in the Apocalypse as Satan's place of confinement during the millennial reign of Christ on earth is an actual lake composed of some kind of burning substance, or is some other punishment that is equally horrific. But I tend to think that a spiritual being such as Satan would not be vulnerable to the physical pain of literal fire, and that a spiritual being may suffer as much or more intensely from spiritual punishment as a human in corporeal flesh would suffer in literal fire. Just my tentative opinion, and not intended as advocacy for either viewpoint.
“Please tell me where you find it. “
Revelation 20.
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