Posted on 06/27/2009 10:33:55 PM PDT by bdeaner
The Pharisaical party, (to which Paul claims to have belonged) did not have a claim on "orthodoxy" in Judaism until well into the current era. Canonical debate over Jewish scriptures continued way past Paul, so your verses are meaningless.
One has to only review the qualifying criteria for what is "scripture" (establiished after Paul) to realize that it has nothing to do with God but with men, whether it is the Jewish or the Christian canon.
You may wish to cite some examples because I highly disagree. To the best of my knowledge, no council, local or general, considered changing the Christian canon as accepted by custom throughout Christendom since the 4th century AD.
The Reformation continued with the NT canon, but set aside the disputed OT books that had never won full acceptance
You may be confusing different naming and divisions of the deuterocanonical OT books as being different books. The deuterocanonicals were fully accepted by the Church, East and West.
I think most Protestants agree that the Catholic Church hadn’t drifted very far during the first 300 years, and were in a good position to know what the local churches had already believed for 250+ years
The Church had the liturgy, the Eucharist, the sacraments, the exaltation of Mary as the advocata of Eve and other elements rejected by the Reformers in this period.
As for what was believed, there was a wide variety of heterodox beliefs. The Trinity was not in dispute; just the ontological issues regarding the Trinity, as well as Christology.
Judging what individual fathers considered canon it is obvious that canon grew as time progressed and varied widely among individual authors. So, neither the Church theology, Christology, or canon were in any way or form uniform to support your statement implying that local churches believed pretty much the same thing.
Logic only carries you so far, after which there is a ‘leap of faith’ - but as someone pointed out to him, there was also a leap of faith to go backwards into unbelief.
That's ridiculous. Logic can be applied to the reality. It's a tool that helps us understand what cause and effect is. Our logic can only go so far, because at some point we cannot determine cause and effect and must surrender. Nothing logically justifies a "leap of faith" nor does it prove that our ignorance is somehow enlightened with unknowable truth by doing so.
As for unbelief, it is simply a surrender to our limited ability to know, re-sizing man to his proper size without interjecting human fancy into it. It is brutally honest.
Logic is a mental discipline, a tool that help us construct things. We are capable of it by nature. Whether we use it or not is a different story. I think it's much easier to create a world in your fancy than to deal with the real one.
Part of growing up is recognizing the difference between wishing and reality, between magic and the world around us. To a 5-year old, Santa may not only be "logical" but is definitely "real." The world we know today tells us that it is way too big for our understanding but that doesn't justify inventing a deity because it "solves" the problem.
Perhaps at the root of this is man's unwillingness to accept his position in the universe, a sense of entitlement, and fear of the unknown. Perhaps mankind has more growing up to do.
But this is all unnecessary. I simply asked "how do you know it is from God" or "how do you know it is "God inspired" or "how do you know this holy book is true and the other is not?" I am not interested in critiquing other poeple's beliefs. I am simply asking a logical question form those who seem to claim to know something as certainty but are unable to prove it.
If someone really believes he can fly like Peter Pan but cannot corroborate it may be better not to make such claims publicly. If someone says that he or she believes that under certain circumstances we can fly like Peter Pan there is nothing to question. It's a hypothesis at best. But if it is claimed as a matter of fact and not faith, then proof is in order and you better have one in order not to look like a fool.
I think of all people, Christians should have the humility and wisdom to never make such matter-of-fact claims because, after all, faith is hope of things unknown.
No human behavior has been linked to genetics. Homosexuals have tried, but there simply is no evidence for that. All human behavior is learned. Some have better propensity to learning than others, but that has more to do with conditions leading to the birth and any damage incurred in the process.
If you take an infant, put him in the backyackrd, in a cage, give him food and water, never talk to him, never hug him, etc., you won't have a "human" being as we know it. He won't be able to speak a language, he will have none of the social graces, or qualities we consider "God-created" humanity. You will have a human beast. His human genes will do nothing to making him "civilized."
Logic is a tool with which you make a working model. The operant word here is working. It works. It makes no other pretenses. It does not bring in supernatural or spiritual. It simply takes what's at hand and makes it work. Is it universally true? Under the circumstances it operates, yes. That's why we know what it is is and understand how it works.
If I give you a math problem and you solve it, I can't assume to know how you did it, unless you tell me. With faith you can't to that because it's a "leap" (assumption) form the start and it's based on some experience we choose to interpret as providential.
Aristotle's physics were not real physics. They were speculative inferences without the necessary scientific method. He claimed that things fall on earth (i.e.gravity) because "things fall towards the center," implying that the earth was the center of the Universe.
Looking at the sky move around us, we can understand why he may have thought so. Ptolemy constructed a whole navigational system based on that geocentric system. It still works, from our earthly perspective, even if it is wrong. Science, unlike religion, makes no claim as to the absolute truth. It either works or doesn't. There is no guessing and there is no revelation, praying or faith involved.
Without logic, we have to depend, on chance. Now, let's see, which will I choose...do I get a job, save money and retire, or do I stick my hand out and wait for manna to fall from the sky? Good luck! You will need it!
What we do is based on logic, no matter how perfect or how flawed. We try not to do things we know will not work. So, there is always logic involved, no matter if it s driven by reason or emotion, how perfect or flawed it may be.
You have a more exalted view of logic than research suggests is valid. Logic is a construct, describing one way our minds interpret reality. Logic alone doesn’t allow you to drive a car. Excellent computers can’t recognize a tank in the trees with the success an 8 year old would have.
“Nothing logically justifies a “leap of faith”...” - yet you engage in leaps of faith every time you drive or walk.
As for the canon, there are a lot of good links here:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon.html
There is a good summary table here:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon5.html
“Luther’s criticism of these books will perhaps be found disgraceful and even shocking to modern Christians, but it should be pointed out that his attitude was not so shocking in the context of the late Middle Ages. Erasmus had also called into question these four books in the Annotationes to his 1516 Greek New Testament, and their canonicity was doubted by the Roman Catholic Cardinal Cajetan (Luther’s opponent at Augsburg. See Reu, Luther’s German Bible, pp. 175-176). The sad fact is, the Roman Catholic Church had never precisely drawn the boundaries of the biblical canon. It was not necessary to do so under the Roman system, in which the authority of the Scriptures was not much higher than that of tradition, popes, and councils. It was not until the Protestant Reformers began to insist upon the supreme authority of Scripture alone that a decision on the ‘disputed books’ became necessary.” - http://www.bible-researcher.com/antilegomena.html
The Gospels and Pauline epistles were accepted as scripture within years of their writing, and used in worship and for study. Consider: “15Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
If Peter can accept Paul’s letters as scripture, in spite of their differences, do you really think they were in dispute for 400 years?
Humans live a long time, and we cannot control their breeding. We can and have with dogs, and have bred dogs to behave in certain ways. I had a Border Collie that was 5 when she had her first and only chance to work sheep. The sheep were just off the range and not used to dogs, so it was a tough challenge - but she gathered them up and drove them thru two gates into a far pasture with ZERO training.
The rancher - who expected her to fail - offered to buy her. I turned him down because she was our pet.
That was a complex series of behaviors executed by a dog that hadn’t seen sheep between 8 weeks and 5 years.
We are animals as well. Our bodies affect our minds, and our minds use multiple ways to solve problems. Logic is merely one, and it is completely unsuitable for some decisions. You cannot use logic to get across a room. Your mind uses the same processes, but it couldn’t process the information needed via conscious thought.
Whose research? Some exalted person who depends on leaps of faith and such solipsistic oxymoronic assumptions as inconceivable but knowable deity?
Logic alone doesn’t allow you to drive a car.
Logic tells you that you can't drive a car by sitting on your living room sofa. Logic tells you that you have to be in the car. No leap of faith will get you form point A to point B.
Excellent computers can’t recognize a tank in the trees with the success an 8 year old would have
How do you recognize God who is invisible, inconceivable and "beyond everything" and not of this world, ontologically a different reality? How do you know that what you are "experiencing" is God or from God and not insanity in the making, or a brain tumor?
“Nothing logically justifies a “leap of faith”...” - yet you engage in leaps of faith every time you drive or walk.
What are you talking about? Where is the leap of faith? How can you compare that to biblical tales of a man living in a fish for three days or a talking donkey? Or pink unicorns on Jupiter if you will? You are grasping at straws at this point, trying to pin everyday life to a "leap of faith" so as to make creating God in our heads as something ordinary and even "logical."
As for Erasmus, his sources were really not much to brag about. He used latter-day (12th and 14th century) corrupt copies of the Greek Codex Alexandrinus. They were only corrupt copies of copies of copies, but they also missed some material so much so that he had to retrotranslate from Latin into Greek (and his Greek was very poor) from one of the most unreliably sources, the Vulgate (the fact that Rome considered it the Bible says a lot about the Magisterium, doesn't it?).
As for the early Church 'canon' the only thing that is sure is that every one quoted whatever they felt was true. Thus, according to Ignatius (born 60 AD) the following books were 'canon:'
We know that because that's what he quotes from. If you want specific quotes I'd be happy to give them to you, but I am trying to keep this short. he leaves out John and Mark. Two Gospels, Acts and only five books of Paul.
Polycarp, on the other ( born 70 AD), apparently had a bigger selection:
Three Gospels. No John, but I and III John are included! No Romans or Revelation either! So, we know that at about the turn of the century these books were not read "everywhere and always." he also has the so-called Letter to Philippians which betrays other New Testament texts.
Justin Martyr, c 150 AD quotes only from these
attesting to the late date of John's Gospel as well as Revelation.
Of course, none of the quotes identify the Gospels by name because the copies are anonymous. Justin refers to them as "memoirs" of the Apostles. The names were not added until Irenaeus c. 180-190 AD, who quotes form all the books of the Christian canon as we know it except
he also considered the following books, rejected by the Church two centuries later, as inspired(!):
On the other hand, his contemporary, Clement of Alexandria, lists all the books of the Bible except:
But he also lists the following now rejected books as of value:
Tertullian, also a contemporary of Clement and Irenaeus, leaves out
but lists the apocryphal Sheopherd of Hermas as valuable.
Origen leaves out
And includes the following as "divinely inspired"
The oldest Bible (Codex Sinaiticus, c. 350 AD) has Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas as part of the canon.
It is clear, then, that canon fluctuated form person to person, and that even those who recognized pretty much the same books as we have today, still considered many others as either of value or outright canonical (inspired).
The canonization of the Hebrew Bible (under Pharisiacial rabbis) continued well into the 3rd century AD by all accounts. It is clear, then, that God had very little to do with the Bible. It is a collection of men who shared more or less the same a priori beliefs and leap of faith assumptions. It took centuries for Christendom to argue one way or another as to what constituted the canon and what was it that the Church believed in (theology). The theology part was codified in the early 4th century and pretty much set in stone by the end of the century, at which time the Bible was canonized as well.
If Peter can accept Paul’s letters as scripture, in spite of their differences, do you really think they were in dispute for 400 years?
First, I and II Peter were not written by Peter. There is enough historical evidence to show that this is so, as the events that are mentioned in that books took place past Peter's death c 65 AD. Second, the purpose for I Peter was badly needed unity, as the Petrine and Pauline camps did not see eye to eye despite what's written in Acts as an attempt to smooth things over. That's when I Peter comes in. II Peter was obviously a latter-day addition that nobody wanted to touch because it dealt with the late second coming, contrary to the early Church belief that it would be within one's lifetime. (and, yes, I am familiar withe the broadly accepted rationalization that Jesus didn't really mean what he was saying [hmm, was he speaking in metaphors!?] about coming back real soon).
Humans can be studied through identical twins. Please cite studies that conclude that humans have inbred or innate behaviors. the few humans examples of humans who grew up in the wild without human contact were animals in every sense.
Walking is not learned. It's a maturational development. At some point in his development a human will begin to walk. No play pen needed.
female mammals have estrus. Female humans do no have estrus. There are numerous other examples that humans are "humans" based on how they are raised.
Our bodies affect our minds, and our minds use multiple ways to solve problems
It is through the understanding of the cause and effect (logic) that humans learned how to control their impulses and superstitions, wlel at eats some of them anyway.
I gave you examples of dogs. Do you deny those? If not, why do you believe or think humans are different, when we obviously cannot do breeding experiments with humans?
Walking is, of course, a learned behavior. However, you cannot walk by the power of your conscious mind. There are too many decisions coming too fast - so your brain short circuits the conscious. It is thought, but not logical, analytical thought that makes walking possible.
A leap of faith is intuition, which also involves thought - just thought involving signals and analysis you are not aware of. You can glory in logic if you wish, but you ignore much of your brain and valuable sources of input if you do.
Your choice. Mine is to trust my intuition & my observation of what works in life and what does not. Logic alone is an empty existence, and one that can’t even handle walking across a room.
And if you truly believe you make decisions based on logic, you fool yourself.
“Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.”
I am the way, truth and the life.
As kosta so well illustrated, even if we know God said them, we still have to know what the words mean.
He is the truth.
And if one seeks Truth? And Life? And the Way? Isn't it therefore Jesus he seeks?
And if Truth and Life and the Way finds him, isn't it Jesus, isn't it God? Or is there another Truth and Life and Way. And if he is poor in spirit and pure of heart? Will he see Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven?
the only way to heaven is by and through Christ
Yes.
No church can bring you to God
Who sees this distance between himself and God? Where is God not? What is Church? Where is it? How big is it?
bdeaner:
The "Church" includes ALL of the instrumental means of salvation operating in the world through Christ and the Holy Spirit, no matter where that may be occurring.
Can this Church "bring you to God?" By definition, it is God transforming us through His Church.
I think this is true: If we place limits on His Church, we place limits on God, for they are inseparable. When we reduce Jesus to a name, we lose the better part of God. The more we deny God to another, the more we deny Him to ourself.
Heb 11:1 (1) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
There is an epistemological difference between those things not seen and those things not known.
On the contrary, unbelief, is the lack of faith in Him, placing our personal arrogant understanding as senior to His provision. It is not brutally honest, but boldly arrogant and deceiving to the person who turns any direction but to God.
Heck we share 50% of the DNA with a banana! Does that mean we can draw parallels between humans and bananas? Animal research can be used as human surrogates for simple biochemical experiments, not something that involves speech, sexual cycles and so on.
What we call "human behavior" is learned (language, social values, culture, etc.). Walking is a maturational biological process, like hatching. An infant would begin to walk at a certain age whether he "learned" or not, just like sexuality. Sexual behavior, on the other hand, is learned. In animals, even our 99% "relatives," it is instinctive. The only human instinct is the grasping reflex of an infant.
Despite ethical limitations, lots of behavior work has been done on separated identical twins to allow us to make definitive conclusions with a known degree of statistical certainty.
Like I said, you can show me some studies to back up your claims, since you started them, and since you speak with authority. However, anecdotal tales of 'my dog did this' is not in the league. It may work for the Bible crowds (after all aren't miracles anecdotal tales?), i.e. for people predisposed to acceptance on assumption that it's from God, but not in the real world.
Mine is to trust my intuition & my observation of what works in life and what does not
Intuition is like air, a 'hunch' and nothing to hang your hat on. How many times has your intuition been wrong? Do you record that or do you remember only when it was right? And what kind of "intuition" are we talking about here? Obviously, tangible, logical proof will be the norm.
How about if I tell you, take these pills, "I have a strong intuition that they will do you good"?" Sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it? I am sure it doesn't! So much for intuition. Like I said, might as well just stick your hand out the window and wait for manna from the sky.
And how do you know what 'works in life" unless you have connected cause and effect and have established some logical relationship between the two? Why, until we discovered what causes diseases, the Bible told us they were caused by "demons." And "treatment" was driving those demons out (even Jesus did)! Would God mislead people into believing that nonsense?
You have told me much more than I asked for but not what I asked. You made one stunning confession—that faith is an a priori assumption. I respect your honesty, but you stopped there.
Now that we have established that your faith is an assumption, I ask you (again) how do you know what is inconceivable, how do you know what God is, and how do you recognize or even detect or that which is 'beyond everything?'
Can someone explain to me the significance of genetics for the topic under discussion? I seem to have missed something. I appreciate it if you could catch me up. With my training in psychology, I would have a lot to contribute to the discussion of behavior and genetics, but I somehow missed where this related back to theological issues we have been discussing.
Boldly arrogant is a claim that something inconceivable, invisible, unimaginable, unrecognizable exists because it "revealed" itself to us.
It is even more arrogant to say that this inconceivable, invisible, unrecognizable, uncrimcumscribed, amorphous, bodiless, ontologically incompatible existence dwells inside those who who "hear" and "see" it.
Just jump back a few posts and you will catch up. Mr. Rogers seems to think that human behavior is innate, just as in animals. He is using an innate streak of is dog as proof.
The writer uses the word hypostasis which literally translates as hypo (sub, below) stasis (stance, foundation, something to stand on), something real. Greek theology however doe snot treat hypostasis as such, but as some sort of substantive reality, as in the "Persons" (Hypostases) of the Holy Trinity.
The way I read Hebrews 11:1 is that "faith is the basis of things hoped for, and a tested proof of things not seen."
No matter how you word it, it doesn't follow, it doesn't make sense. How does he know that this is how it is?
Since you decided to jump into epistemology, just how do you and the author of Hebrews know things not seen (or detected) exist that you may have faith (trust) in them?
bdeaner - this seems to be a side discussion to the main thread, since kosta50 wants to know how anyone can know anything about God or the world. He holds up logic, and asks for proofs. I tell him there are none, because God is revealed, not concluded.
He wants to know how someone can believe a revelation, since it is not logical. I’ve argued logic has limited value in understanding the world, and suggested some books for reading. By thinking rationally, I cannot get my body to walk across a room. Conscious thought doesn’t allow me to drive a car. The mind operates quite effectively in many areas without resorting to logic or conscious thought, and it seems foolish to me to assume that logic is the rule that we can submit belief in God to. In such a discussion, logic is inadequate.
I am, as I’ve told you before, a former electronic warfare officer. However, accident investigations required reading about how the mind works, and how we process information. One of the books I recommended, Deep Survival, uses accident investigations to bring life to discussions about how we think - both with logic, and with intuition and belief and emotion. If you don’t know how the mind works, then you cannot teach pilots how to avoid future accidents such as flying into mountains, or flying a good airplane out of fuel...and I say that as someone who has had an engine flame out while pulling off the runway!
I’ve also worked a little with automatic target recognition systems. A child, without thinking, can pick out a tank in the trees better than a computer can. That suggests intuition CAN be better than rational thought. That was known in WW2, when aircraft recognition was taught quite effectively as something done without thinking.
kosta50 - I used dogs because I know something about Border Collies, and because even learned men like yourself ought to know something of a Lab’s behavior. If behavior - complex behavior - is inheritable, then we should be cautious in trusting our powers of logic. If you knew more about Border Collies, you would know that top breeders breed for behavior, not looks or body. I used an anecdote to illustrate, not to prove. I’m not going to try to teach you about Border Collie breeding or trials - feel free to research it on your own.
There is a lot of research showing an interconnection between mind and body. In this, I’m more sympathetic to Catholics than most Baptists, since it suggests that physical rites are more important than a separation of mind and body would allow. If you think your mind operates independently of your body, you aren’t very bright. Hunger and weariness obviously affect out thinking. Why? Because our mind is part of our body.
How do I know about God? The Holy Spirit. Sorry that you don’t like that answer, but it is true. I pray you might someday learn the truth of it.
“There is a chasm between humans and animals.”
How do you know this? It is contrary to all my 50 years of experience with animals and humans.
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