Yes, I think you're exactly right. Thanks for your wonderful post. I see what you're talking about every time we are compared to Muslims, which is often. I suppose that without the extra-scriptural Tradition of the Church, everyone else, including other Christians, are all Gnostics.
Conversely, we Christians who have "ears to hear" accept only the words of God as certain knowledge. Sensory perception and reason are greatly subordinated. We walk by faith not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7)
Yes, and thanks for the great supporting scripture. I have been reading this conversation and I think you and I may be getting to the same place from slightly different directions. I have been saying that our faith is indeed a reasonable (reasoned) one, but with the prerequisite that we start with Godly presuppositions. These must be given by God. Without them, God's word is nonsense, but with them I think the faith makes perfect sense.
Man is not the "measure" of God.
AMEN! Absolutely true.
If a person believes Mohammed, then everyone who does not is an "Infidel."
If a person believes Joseph Smith, then Christians who do not are "Apostate."
If a person believes the dogma of the Catholic Church, then Christians who do not are "Heretic."
If a person believes the Catholic Church has the singular power to impart the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands in the sacrament of confirmation, then any non-Catholic Christian who testifies to the indwelling Holy Spirit directly by the grace and power of God must be "Gnostic."
And so on.
I believe God alone. Moreover, I count it all joy when others call me "Apostate" or "Gnostic" or "Heretic" or "Infidel" or whatever pleases them.
Yes, I think you're exactly right. Thanks for your wonderful post. I see what you're talking about every time we are compared to Muslims, which is often.
Spiritual is unreliable, unrepeatable and basically whatever one wants to make it. It relies on "miracles." It cannot be measured, painted, described, or packaged. We could just as easily call it subjective.
We have no way of knowing if there is such a "thing" as a spirit. The word itself comes from the ancient Hebrew and Greek words for "breath." The ancients assigned life-like properties to that breath, which is really a mechanical movement of air and it is present in all creatures that have active lungs. In others, gas-exchange takes place passively.
When humans and other lung-reathing animals die, they stop bretahing. Death (irreversable cessation of mechanical life functions) follows a while lated when the cell fuctions cease do to lack of oxygen, and not because the "spirit" left the body. Let's get real here.
The Reformed are being equated to Mohammedans not because of their "spiritual" perception but because of their fundamentalist views, which are very often identical.
The empiricist looks at the universe and says "I have no clue why I am here. I could make up a story and let my fancy weave a myth, but I will just accept life as is, and if there is something higher out there, I offer my deepest thanks for all the blessings I received." That's not rejecting God, it's simply not presuming anything we cannot understand.
I suppose that without the extra-scriptural Tradition of the Church, everyone else, including other Christians, are all Gnostics.
Gnosticism is well defined. It holds that spirits pre-existed their bodies (Origen was specifically condemned for this Gnostic belief), and that the spiritual person "knows" rather than believes. We know who they are and we call them for what they preach. It is not Christianity.
I have been saying that our faith is indeed a reasonable (reasoned) one, but with the prerequisite that we start with Godly presuppositions
There you go again with that a priori acceptance. Like I said, once you accept something on blind faith, everything else the becomes self-evident "truth."
These must be given by God.
Objection! Conjecture.
Without them, God's word is nonsense
Objection! Assumption.
but with them I think the faith makes perfect sense.
I am glad you said "I think" because you are not sure, are you? There is some "empiricist' still left in you, FK. :)