That's not true.
Well, .................................... ? :)
FK: "You appear to be unable to obey God when He says through Peter: "1 Peter 3:15..."
You have not shown me that it is God speaking through someone pretending to be Peter. You are telling me that it is. How convincing is that? Not very, FK.
You appear to accept the writings of the Church Fathers without much or any question, but you have great trouble accepting the authenticity of the Biblical authors themselves. Yet, your Church accepts the authenticity of these writers. Can't I just use your own Church to convince you? :) Or, does Orthodoxy deny that Peter wrote the epistles ascribed to his name, or that scripture is "God's word"?
If God gives you faith, as your side also believes, then you don't know why you believe any more than you know why you were born where you were born and why your eyes may be brown or blue or green. You can only say "because God gave it to me," which is the same as saying "I don't know."
I believe because God gave me irresistible grace. I was born on Long Island because that's where God wanted me to be born, and my eyes are green because that is my wife's favorite color for eyes. That God wants it is not at all the same as "I don't know". God tells us in the Bible to trust Him. By His grace I can do that with full knowledge that it is His will.
FK: "Well, I for one KNOW that my faith is stronger because it is in conformity with the reality of our world and existence."
You may know but you can't prove it. The reality of the world is a matter of our perception, so the only thing you can say is that your faith is in conformity with your perception of the world, or it is not.
Can we of different views have a common perception of the reality of the world? Schaeffer would say "absolutely YES!". However, he passed away 20 or so years ago, and such thinking may very well be passed.
FK: "We know that God created all matter with gravimetric properties."
We do? What verse is that?
I did not say or imply it was from the Bible. We know it now from scientific observation, and mathematical calculations. Gravity is logical to me, as it seems to prove out today and it does not offend scriptures.
That certainly is a terrific observation. They appear to trust the "church fathers" implicitly, yet they stumble on the word of God.
As God wills.
I believe because God gave me irresistible grace. I was born on Long Island because that's where God wanted me to be born, and my eyes are green because that is my wife's favorite color for eyes. That God wants it is not at all the same as "I don't know". God tells us in the Bible to trust Him. By His grace I can do that with full knowledge that it is His will.
lol. Your wife is very fortunate that God gave her such a wise husband. 8~)
FK: You appear to accept the writings of the Church Fathers without much or any question, but you have great trouble accepting the authenticity of the Biblical authors themselves.
The Church Father give their opinions. The Church Fathers do not claim God is speaking through them. They merely express their faith. But you claim (a) that 1 Peter was written by Apostle Peter (who was dead when that book was written!), and (b) that the words in 1 Peter are those of God Himself, no less.
I am simply asking you (again for the nth time) to prove to me that it is God speaking through the author and that the author is indeed St. Peter even thought we know he was dead when 1 Peter was written (between 80-110 AD).
Yet, your Church accepts the authenticity of these writers. Can't I just use your own Church to convince you?
No!
Or, does Orthodoxy deny that Peter wrote the epistles ascribed to his name, or that scripture is "God's word"?
The Orthodox Church, to the best of my knowledge, accepts the authenticity of 1 Peter as scripture as far back as the 2nd century AD, and (probably, although I never heard or read anything about the subject from Orthodox sources) that it would be St. Peter's work as well.
It was one of those books that made it into the canon early because, to a large extent, it represent a badly needed reconciliation between St. Paul and St. Peter in terms of theology. The end of the first century also marks the beginning of wide-spread persecution of Christians unknown at the time of Perter (the one of Nero was an isolated incident limited to Rome).
This is evident also from his strongly Pauline language, signaling who of the two will be the defining Apostle of the faith. It's the historical framework and geographical facts that betray it was not written by Peter.
1 Peter begins in a positively Pauline language:
"To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance."
The "strangers" (exiles) in those areas were not there when Peter was alive in the mid 60's of the 1st century. They settled those areas when wide-spread Roman persecutions began, at the end of the first century! If he were to speak of exiles, he would have mentioned Rome, where Nero during Peter's lifetime castigated Christians. Yet 1 Peter doesn't even mention Rome.
Other sources of doubt include his impeccable and highly educated koine Greek (not the Galilean market Greek), as well as the fact that the author never recounts his personal experience with Christ but speaks only of the "suffering Christ." Surely, for someone who was singled out and had so many personal memories of Christ, he would have made it more personal than that!
Be it as it may, the Church accepted it and it's been canon ever since, and it would be very difficult for the Church to backtrack on anything for that matter. I do remind you that the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas were considered canon until the middle of the 4th century and are found in the Oldest Christian Bible.
For some unexplained reason between the middle and and the end of the 4th century they were "decommissioned" as being inspired. Once the canon was set, backtracking would mean the Church made a mistake and that's a big non, no.
I believe because God gave me irresistible grace
Well, if you say so. That Calvinist construct is simply not universally accepted among Christians.
I was born on Long Island because that's where God wanted me to be born, and my eyes are green because that is my wife's favorite color for eyes. That God wants it is not at all the same as "I don't know".
Well, this leads me back to Hitler...and you don't want to go there because you know well that if God controls everything we are and do, then it was He who created Hitler, who created him evil, and Who is ultimately behind the Holocaust because He preordained it.
You will have to show me that God wanted you to be born on Long island (that it would really matter where you were born) and that the color of your eyes is also something God willed. Then you can also tell me why is He making so many suffering children in this world!
My answer is that God doesn't create suffering children; we do. God did not create Hitler as evil. Hitler is responsible for his own evil. And as far as where we are born, it could be just pure chance or luck (bad luck or good luck, depends). But we really don't know, do we?
I did not say or imply it was from the Bible. We know it now from scientific observation, and mathematical calculations. Gravity is logical to me, as it seems to prove out today and it does not offend scriptures.
FK, gravity is a property of matter. We don't know why bodies attract. You can's say that something is "logical" if you don't know the cause of the effect. Today, we know that hygiene and communicable disease are connected because we know how diseases spread. So we can say that personal hygiene is a "logical aspect" of disease prevention. We can't say that gravity is a logical property of matter because we don't know what causes it.
Of course, we can always default to the Dark Ages and just say "God made it that way" and be done with it. In which case we would still be treating bubonic plague as a "curse" (as quite "logical") without taking any preventative steps to avoid its spread.