My friend UnkleE and I have been having a wide-ranging discussion on several topics related to Christianity that ultimately come down to epistemology, or how Christians know God’s will. The discussion began in my last post, which critiqued a doctrine common to more moderate circles within Christianity. UnkleE had more to say on the subject than could reasonably fit within a comment, so he decided to do his own post in response, which is worth reading. We conversed a bit within that comment thread, where I said:
The President of the US and his spokespeople now regularly say things that are factually untrue. Yet plenty of his supporters are content to ignore reputable sources and only listen to the sources that they want to agree with. Where do you go from there?
It seems to me that the view you have of Christianity is similar. Why does the New Testament speak so much about false teachers, if it’s perfectly fine to get your beliefs from private revelation? If Paul and Hymenaeus have a disagreement, perhaps Paul is the one who’s wrong? Or maybe both of them are right, simultaneously? How can one use scripture to “teach, reprove, and correct” in such a system?
In the end, isn’t such a religion just anarchy? How can there be such a thing as “truth” when each person’s version is just as good as someone else’s? At least as an atheist, I can point to my understanding of reality and the physical world to try to reach a consensus with others. And if they can provide data that invalidates some position I hold, then I can change. But if I took my own random thoughts and feelings as revelation from the supreme creator of the universe, how could I ever be convinced of anything else?
Once again, this opened a big topic that was better suited to a full post, rather than a comment, so UnkleE offered his response here. And as my reply to that post grew and grew, I realized that I needed to offer it as a post as well. What follows will reference and borrow quotes from UnkleE’s latest post.
What Is the Gospel?
Under a section called “Another Gospel?” UnkleE gave this introduction:
Nate references Galations 1:6-9, which warns of accepting another gospel. But what does Paul mean by “gospel” (or “good news”)?
He then listed out 5 main points that he views as central to what the gospel is:
- Jesus, the “son of God”, lived and taught about the kingdom of God.
- He died to deal with human sin (how that happens is very much up for debate!).
- Jesus was resurrected and so conquered death.
- We need to change our thinking, turn away from behaviours that displease God, and seek forgiveness.
- Our new way of life should include loving God, loving neighbour, and even loving our enemies.
But it seems to me that the New Testament spends time referring to false doctrines that are ancillary to those 5 points. The entire book of Galatians has Paul accusing the Galatians of turning their backs on the gospel and trying to follow the Law of Moses, when it really just sounds like they were trying to follow both:
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
— Gal 5:2-6
To me, that sounds like something that we’d view as a matter of personal preference, today, certainly not something that would qualify as a “different gospel.” And look at 2 Cor 13:5-10:
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
We don’t know the specifics of what Paul is criticizing here, but if these individuals were still present in the congregation to see Paul’s letter, then it’s likely they still held to the basic principles that UnkleE outlined above. What else could they be lacking that would make them “fail the test”?
In 2 John 7, it was considered heresy to question whether or not Christ had actually come in the flesh (like docetism, I guess):
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
To me, this seems kind of minor in many ways, though it was a huge deal back then. If someone still believed that Christ was the son of God and brought salvation in some way, should it have mattered if they didn’t fully understand how that happened? But 2 John shows that some early Christians had a huge problem with the doctrine.
2 Tim 2:16-19 talks about another form of false teaching:
But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
To me, this also seems like a minor quibble that runs outside the principles UnkleE laid out as the core of Christianity. Again, exactly what people believe about how/when the resurrection works, or even exactly what the writer means by “resurrection” here seems minor if an individual still believes Christ is the avenue for salvation, etc. Incidentally, there’s an interesting discussion of this passage here.
And if God is unchanging, it’s hard to overlook some of the judgments he supposedly handed out in the Old Testament, like killing Nadab and Abihu for not getting their sacrificial fire in the right way. Killing Achan and his entire family when he didn’t follow the command about not looting Jericho. Honestly, there are tons of OT examples, and I won’t take up any more space with going through them. But they each show how particular God was in seemingly minor things. Now, I agree that most of the New Testament argues that such legalism is no longer necessary. But I think the passages I listed above show that it still isn’t just free rein, especially if God’s character is unchanging (Psalm 102:25-27; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
The New Testament gives parameters about divorce and remarriage that are pretty strict. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus is speaking, and he says:
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
That’s a rigorous standard that most Christians don’t really apply today, in that a large number of Christian marriages are actually adulterous, according to Jesus. Marriage and remarriage does not fall within the 5 precepts of the gospel that UnkleE laid out, but it still seems like it would be a big deal. After all, we’re told in 1 Cor 6:9-10 that adulterers can’t “inherit the kingdom of God.” What does that mean, exactly? I think it’s referring to salvation itself, and I think 1 Cor 5 bears that out. In that passage, Paul is telling the Corinthians to cast out the member among them who is sleeping with his father’s wife “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
Apparently, this Christian was in danger of losing his salvation if he didn’t repent of his wrongdoing. And to go back to 1 Cor 6 for a minute, we see that far more than just adulterers would be in danger of the same fate:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
That’s quite a laundry list. Those sins might fall within the 4th and 5th points from UnkleE’s list, so does this include married couples who didn’t divorce their previous spouses for infidelity? For consistency’s sake, I would think that they would have to be included, yet very few churches make an issue of it.
In the end, I think when Paul uses terms like “the gospel,” he’s not always strictly speaking about the 5 basic points that UnkleE outlined. I think he’s also talking about any specific instructions that he (or other apostles) laid out in their epistles. Yes, passages like Romans 14 and 1 Cor 8-10 talk about issues that individual Christians may have differences of opinion over, but that’s because those were issues that no specific instruction had been given about. But today, there are so many issues, like divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and women’s roles in the church that are considered minor by moderates today. And this is where the idea of authority comes into play. How do they justify their positions on these things?
Principles Not Rules
UnkleE goes on to argue that the New Testament focuses more on principles of how to live versus hard and fast rules. I do agree that it focuses more on principles than the Old Testament did, but I think the passages we’ve already looked at show that hard and fast rules still played a part.
UnkleE offers the following supporting points:
We serve God not according to a written set of rules, but guided by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:6, Romans 7:6). Note that he uses as his example in the latter case nothing less than one of the Ten Commandments!
But I don’t think these 2 passages really illustrate UnkleE’s point. He makes it sound as though Paul is saying that written sets of rules no longer apply, but that’s not at all what he’s saying. He’s specifically talking about the Old Law (the Mosaic Law) in those passages, and UnkleE and I already agree that Paul argues the Old Law (including the 10 Commandments) has served its purpose and is no longer binding to Christians. That doesn’t mean there’s no longer any kind of written law — what about all the teachings in the New Testament, including the gospel?!
We can legitimately hold different views on moral issues. Paul gives several examples, some of them significant issues in his day – the eating of meat that had been offered to pagan idols (1 Corinthians 10:23-30), and the keeping of rules about Sabbath days and “unclean” foods (Romans 14:1-23). But he says quite definitely (Romans 14:13): “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.”
But as we saw above, these passages are dealing with issues about which there was no direction given in the New Testament. They were true matters of personal conscience. Paul does not give permission to make these same kinds of judgments on things like divorce and remarriage. And while Paul says that they shouldn’t judge one another about these kinds of things, 1 Cor 5 talks about how they’re supposed to judge the actions of fellow Christians.
UnkleE’s third supporting point is:
Therefore, Paul’s conclusion on even important matters of behaviour is that we are free to decide (1 Corinthians 10:23), we should leave the judgment to God (Romans 14:4) and it is not rules but faith that will decide, for whatever is not done in faith is wrong (Romans 14:23) and all should be done to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
But again, all of the passages here come exclusively from 1 Cor 10 and Romans 14, which discuss issues that are merely matters of personal preference.
The Holy Spirit
This is really where my biggest concerns lie. UnkleE has this to say about it:
A key fact, which many christians as well as critics can forget, is that christians believe we have been “given” the Spirit of God. Again, I don’t pretend to fully understand how this works, but it is clearly taught in scripture. Each believer has the help of the Holy Spirit in following Jesus in our lives and – crucially for this discussion – in guiding us to truth.
The Spirit is God, which means he is above the Bible, not lesser!
This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my initial questions to UnkleE. If the guidance of the Holy Spirit can trump scripture, how can any position ever be tested? If a man is married, but strongly believes that God wants him to be with his next door neighbor, who’s to say he’s wrong? Sure, the Bible contradicts his feelings, but the Holy Spirit has authority over the Bible. Yes, common sense contradicts his desire, but “God’s ways are higher than man’s.”
UnkleE also says this:
This merits a longer discussion than I can give now (but will post on soon), but we are told that the Holy Spirit will guide us into truth (John 16:13), so we can even know God’s will for us (Romans 12:2). We see examples of the Spirit guiding the believers in Acts (e.g. Acts 11:1-18, 13:1-3, 16:6-10). But we do, I believe, need to ask (James 1:5, Matthew 7:7-8).
So far from being “random thoughts”, if we pray, and take the precautions that the Bible gives us, we can have faith that God guides us (not just me, but his whole church) through his Spirit into true understandings – not infallibly, but steadily over time.
But to me, such a system looks exactly like “random thoughts.” How could anyone tell the difference between his own thoughts and the Holy Spirit? How could Paul rail against false teachers and false gospels if guidance from the Holy Spirit carries more weight than scripture? If 1000 different Christians all believe God has given them personal revelations that happen to conflict, there’s no way to sort among them to separate the true revelation from all the false ones.
In effect, it seems to me that such a religion can end up saying everything, which basically means it says nothing.
One More Thing
I know this post is painfully long, but I wanted to add one more thing. In his closing, UnkleE makes this point:
I suggest we should always start with what the scriptures say and expert knowledge about what it means – what would this or that passage have said to the people of the day, what do the words actually mean and how do experts understand them? We must read more than one viewpoint.
Then we must pray, consider, wait if necessary, and see if we receive guidance, and see how the Spirit is working and leading the body of believers as a whole. Our own experience and thoughts (if we are allowing God to transform our thinking) will help us.
Isn’t this exactly what we, as atheists, do as well? I’m quite familiar with the Bible (more so than many believers that I know), and I try to pay attention to what Biblical scholars have to say. I consider more than one point of view. I don’t pray, but I used to. And I believe that I’m open to being wrong — I’m even open to guidance. And I would love for God to give me some kind of message, personally. Used to plead for it, in fact. What else is there for me to do?
Closing
Let me stress that I really appreciate UnkleE’s willingness to discuss these things with me. As he knows, I was raised within a very fundamentalist version of Christianity that believed in biblical inerrancy. UnkleE has a very different perspective, and it’s difficult for me to fully understand it. My arguments here are how I try to come to terms with his beliefs. If I’ve missed some obvious answer to some of my questions, it’s solely due to ignorance, not obstinacy.
Finding Truth 
But UnkleE just admitted that personal revelation (that is the Holy Spirit’s job) is highly fallible. UnkleE is not an inerrantist. He admits that the Bible is fallible. So what is left???
We aren’t debating the existence of a Creator. We aren’t debating the existence of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century. We are debating the existence of evidence that Jesus of Nazareth is alive and is the Creator God, ruler of Heaven and Earth. Is an intelligent guy like UnkleE going to “bet the house” on such weak evidence as 1.) an empty first century tomb; 2.) the testimony of one first century rabbi’s “heavenly vision”; 3.) and the willingness of the early Christians to die for their new belief system?
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@Gary
I guarantee you will enjoy this …
https://timsteppingout.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/jesus-and-the-paraclete-walk-into-a-bar/
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When I deconverted from Christianity in 2014, my pastor and many Christian apologists on the internet told me that I deconverted because I hadn’t read enough Christian scholarship; I didn’t know the evidence in support of the Christian claims: I was ignorant.
So for the last three years I have diligently read the scholarship. ( I will list below all the books written by scholars that I have carefully read and studied since my deconversion.) I recently presented this list of books to my former pastor and do you know what he had the audacity to say to me: “I was wrong to say that the claims of Christianity are based on historical evidence. Even if there was ZERO evidence for the claims of Christianity, Christianity would still be true. It is a matter of faith and faith is a mystery.”
Good grief. What a con job.
Here are the books I have read:
1. “The Resurrection of the Son of God” by NT Wright
2. “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” by Richard Bauckham
3. “Making the Case for Christianity” by Maas, Francisco, et al.
4. ” The Resurrection Fact” by Bombaro, Francisco, et al.
5. “Miracles” , Volumes 1 and 2, by Craig Keener
6. “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona
7. “Why are There Differences in the Gospels” by Michael Licona
8. “The Son Rises” by William Lane Craig
9. “The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus” by Raymond Brown
10. “The Resurrection of Jesus” by Gerd Luedemann
11. “Resurrection Reconsidered” by Gregory Riley
12. “John and Thomas—Gospels in Conflict?” by Christopher Skinner
13. “The Argument for the Holy Sepulchre” (journal article) by scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor
14. “Israel in Egypt” by James Hoffmeier
15. “The Bible Unearthed” by Finkelstein and Silberman
16. “Misquoting Jesus” by Bart Ehrman
17. “Jesus, Interrupted” by Bart Ehrman
18. “How Jesus Became God” by Bart Ehrman
19. “Jesus Before the Gospels” by Bart Ehrman
20. “Did Jesus Exist?” by Bart Ehrman
21. “The Resurrection of Jesus in the Light of Jewish Burial Practices” by Craig Evans, (newsletter article) The City, a publication of Houston Baptist University, May 4, 2016
22. “Has the Tomb of Jesus Been Discovered?” by Jodi Magness, SBL Forum
23. “Genre, Sub-genre and Questions of Audience: A Proposed Typology for Greco-Roman biography” (article) by Justin M. Smith, St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
24. “Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus” by Asher Norman (not a work of scholarship per se, but it is endorsed by Talmudic scholars for its accuracy in presenting a Jewish perspective of Jesus and the Christian New Testament)
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I read the bible cover to cover and watched Life of Brian again. Twice. It was enough
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unkleE, you wrote: The exact nature of that destruction isn’t highly important.
I would daresay there are a few hundred-thousand Christians that would disagree with you.
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No Ark, I don’t really follow.
you’re assuming/suggesting that their only motive is a religious one, and people very often operate with multiple motives.
and if a parent wants to teach their kids that one needs to be good, in part, because there’s some over-watching force that wants us to be good, I guess I don’t mind that.
If God(s) just become the personification of “good” then I do not care. I don’t like unnecessary condemnation along with many other aspects of religion, but again, I just dont see where this negates good that they may do, and I’m not sure where I’m failing to explain it – I’m not even sure if we’re talking about the same thing at this point.
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No, I am not.
If they … or I … do something …. work at a soup kitchen for example …. because, hey, man, they/I think it is the right thing to do, then great. Plenty of people do. And there are a lot of organisations that go around the world and do a lot of good with no religious motivation at all.
And they do not need religion do they? Read that again, William … they do not need religion.
But if they do it because they feel they are commanded or obligated to do it because of their belief in their god, or their pastor says it, or the person in charge of their mission group sends them off to do it, or they are doing it for Farking Jesus H Christ, Buddha, Allah, Mohammed, Mother Theresa, the holy ghost, Shiva, Ganesh, Quetzalcoatl, or the East Philippine god of big penises … then their motives are tainted.
And you can work at as many soup kitchens as you like, but you will never get to heaven not will you get a Big Dick.
Of for fuck’s sake!! Really? Well, not to put too fine a point on it … you are still as indoctrinated and delusional as unklee.
Stay in church, William. I’m serious, man, ‘cos Yeshua really needs as many unquestioning,unthinking hand-waving semi-lobotomized halfwits as he can get …
And remember William…. Jeezus is the MAN and he Fucking luvs ya!
You take care.
Peace.
Oh, Pee Ess
Check your toast, okay?
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Sirius
I can totally agree with your point here. Religion can motivate people to do good and to do evil. And the fact that the same religion can be, and is, interpreted so radically differently is absolutely a strike against the notion that a religion is “true.”
I don’t object to that argument at all, but I have agreed from the start that A) the truth claims of a religion should be evaluated on their own, B) the actions of religious adherents should also be evaluated (as practically and morally good or bad) on their own, and C) a person’s religious beliefs may lead them to do either good or bad things. Terrorism is immoral regardless of the accuracy of a person’s motivating beliefs. Charity is a moral good regardless of the accuracy of the person’s motivating beliefs.
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Gary
Of those, are there any you would recommend as worth my reading? I’m currently reading James Kugel’s “How to Read the Bible”, which “contrasts the way modern scholars understand these events with the way Christians and Jews have traditionally understood them.” I thought it would be interesting, because so much of our understanding of the texts — and the religions associated with them — are bound up in assumptions we don’t even know we have. The Trinity or prophecies of Jesus seem so obvious to Christians and so alien to Jews. Or people interpret stories as morality tales, when they were originally intended as descriptions and the theological lessons were invented later to explain contradictions in the text. Anyway, it is an interesting read, so far.
Is there anything from your list that you think would be worth the time?
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jon I would suggest reading the late Geza Vermes
Jesus the Jew, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, Christian Beginnings, and especially The Resurrection, The Nativity
His credentials are quite impressive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Vermes
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Unklee
Perhaps we are picking at nits here — the lack of concrete numbers makes it hard to say what “small” or “flourished” mean — but I just find it difficult to believe that Christianity won large numbers of people within Jerusalem or Galilee. The gradual increase in scorn for the Jews within the NT makes it pretty clear that the Jews had rejected the Jesus cult, and tradition (and some textual evidence) suggests the leaders of the Jesus movement even left the area by the end of their lives.
My point is simply that the NT had Jesus preaching to massive crowds — many thousands of people, many times — but the early Christian movement was just a few hundred people.
The persuasive thing about Jesus was not himself, his message or his death and (alleged) appearances. It was the story — the reinterpreted, theological narrative — developed by his followers, perhaps especially Paul, afterwards. If the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was the best evidence, you might expect that the growth of Christianity would be explosive for those closest to the time of Jesus. But it wasn’t. It was gradual, over centuries, until Constantine and his (I think) grandson made it a more politically and socially powerful religion. That is when Christianity really took off.
I wasn’t going anywhere with it. It was just a sincere question, no subtext!
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Hi Jon,
I found Roman Catholic NT scholar Raymond Brown’s book to be refreshingly honest. If a particular Christian claim had poor evidence to support it he was more than willing to admit it. The evangelical scholars—Habermas, Licona, Bauckham, and especially Craig—were more than willing to seize on any scrap of possible evidence supporting the traditional Christian claims, making all kinds of assumptions and conjecture based on the flimsiest of evidence. For instance, it is well known that authors of first century Greek biographies used a literary technique called the “inclusio” to indicate the source of the material in their story. The first character introduced in the story would also be the last character mentioned in the story. This was the hidden clue that this character was the source of the story. Bauckham, Bombaro and other conservative authors are certain that the author of Mark used the inclusio to indicate that Peter was the source of the Gospel of Mark. Problem is: John the Baptist is the first character mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, not Peter! How do these conservative Christians get around this problem? Answer: They make up a new definition of an inclusio: It isn’t the first and last character mentioned in the story, but the first and last DISCIPLE mentioned.
I also like Gerd Luedemann’s book. He believes that the Resurrection belief began with one of the disciples having an hallucination. He does not believe Jesus was a god. Luedemann still considers himself a Christian, at least in the book I read. Needless to say, conservative Christians do NOT consider him a Christian.
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@Jon
Excellent point, Jon.
And of course who could forget the Rockstar Welcome and cult-like Adulation as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey … or two donkeys even.
Odd that there seemed to be no one shouting out for him when he was presented to the crowd alongside the make-believe Barabbas in the either-or-scene?
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@Ark or even that in 1 Corinthians Jesus is said to have appeared to 500 ‘brothers’, yet on Pentecost the number of believers is described in Acts as about 120.
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The Church has always wanted the “Faithful” to be ignorant about their religion.
“As ignorance was its Mother and the source spring of its world power, it is bound to cherish ignorance as its patron saint and monitor forever, for the breadth of knowledge would wither it away.” Alvin Boyd Kuhn
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Hi Sirius,
You’ve got it mixed up, I’m sorry. I don’t doubt I said what you have quoted me here as saying, but that statement wasn’t referring to ”haven’t met any Christian who thinks people should believe in hell” as you say. Look back and see (my comment of May 22), and what I was responding to was your statement (my emphasis): ”There are Christians out there that think you have to believe certain things about hell in order to really be a Christian.”
There is a very big difference between “Believing in hell” and “thinking that you have to believe certain things ABOUT hell”.
I’m sorry bro, but this is pretty mixed up as well. Again, check the discussion. Your original question was very specifically about divine revelation, not about knowledge and truth generally: ”how do you specifically determine whether you’ve received divine revelation? In other words, how can you tell if you’re receiving instruction from a deity versus a thought that’s not part of a relationship with a living deity?”
You made this clear in your second comment to me, when you clearly contrasted divine revelation (which you were asking me about) to Biblical precepts (which most christians would say is the major source of their knowledge about God): ”it can get referred to sometimes as divine revelation, divine inspiration, plain revelation or inspiration, talking with god, and many, many other things.”
Then you said that you wanted to ”get a fair and accurate depiction of your reasoning behind what you believe” and I warned you: ”I’m not so sure my answer to your question will help you evaluate my reasoning behind what I believe” and then went on to describe briefly how I see knowledge in the wider sense. And you replied: ”My only interest here at this time is your position on special revelation“.
So you made yourself pretty clear. But now I am honestly really confused about what you have been talking about all this time – sometimes you say it’s personal revelation, WHICH I HAVE SAID ALL ALONG IS A MINOR COMPONENT OF MY LIFE AS A CHRISTIAN, and sometimes you make points that relate to a christian’s total belief in God.
If you can clarify what you mean, and if you want to discuss any more, please feel free. Otherwise, perhaps we have too much confusion now and it’s time to stop? What do you think?
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Not going to answer for SB, he is far more clued up and erudite than I am. However, for what its worth …
I feel fairly confident in writing that most on this thread would agree with this statement and acknowledge that this would probably apply to the vast majority if not all Christians.
Yet, all along the entire thrust of this particular point has been to identify exactly how you determine what you believe to be personal revelation, is not, in fact, simply a form of minor delusion.
I stand under correction but as far as I can tell you have failed to offer a direct answer to this question.
From an outsider’s POV there seems to be only two responses to the question:
One: Offer a full explanation as to exactly how you identify you have received a personal revelation from Jesus of Nazareth/Yahweh or:
Two: Acknowledge there is no actual way to identify the difference between what you consider personal revelation(or whichever term you prefer) and a minor form of delusion.
Responses that are not direct often come across as ambiguous as if the respondent is trying of obfuscate.
Sometimes a simple Yes or No is perfectly acceptable and cuts to the chase.
So, unklee, One or Two?
Thanks.
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Hey UnkleE,
I actually did clarify the difference in my response to you on May 22 by saying:
If you missed this part of the comment, I understand why you might be confused. Indeed, I felt like I should clarify because of our difficulties in communication. Since your reply was after that clarification, I thought you read and understood it.
With regards to my initial line of questioning, I was trying to get at two things: (1) clearing up your process for evaluating special revelation; and (2) could you articulate a process by which any Christian could determine if a thought is special revelation or mistake. The conversation got stuck in item 1 and never fully got to item 2.
Your original statements included the idea that special revelation involves the Holy Spirit in guiding people to truth, not just for you, but for all Christians. You’ve also stated that Christians can be mistaken about this. Reading through your posts and other commentary on this, I haven’t found your thoughts on how Christians are supposed to determine how they’re getting it right.
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Hi Jon, I think I’m ready to call this a day, thanks. I don’t think we are going to get further, but I would rather say ”the early Christian movement was possibly just a few hundred people”, though I don’t actually care that much what the actual number was. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these matters.
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Hi Sirius,
“I haven’t found your thoughts on how Christians are supposed to determine how they’re getting it right.”
OK, this is the question I’m now answering. Here are my thoughts.
1. No human being ever gets everything right. Christians are no different. We all live our lives with a degree of uncertainty, sometimes very little, sometimes a lot. Christians are no different. Yet we all manage (at least mostly) to move forward, make decisions, live life, have reasonable confidence in things. Christians are no different.
2. Christians have all the sources of knowledge that everyone else has – observation, experience, intuition, expert opinion, discussion with others, etc. We just have one additional one (which I think non-believers and other believers can also have, they they won’t always recognise it) which is revelation. All of this constitutes evidence of varying reliability. The Bible is actually several of these forms of evidence in one – obviously revelation, but it also depends on expert knowledge (e.g. in translation), plus it records people’s experiences, etc.
3. When I want to know truth, as best as I am able to know it, I use all the above ways of knowing that are appropriate. If it is a scientific matter, it will be based mostly on observation (by scientists or technicians) and expert opinion. If it is a personal matter, say about another person, I will rely on my own observation & experience, intuition, what they say (which we may regard as expert opinion or experience), etc. It is also likely that I will pray and that may give me some additional intuition, and on very rare occasions, some more obvious revelation. Some things are very important (e.g. choosing to get married or have a child, choosing who to vote for), other things are less important (e.g. deciding what to have for dinner). I give more attention and require better based knowledge for the former than the latter.
4. So if I want to know about truths about God or religion I will do the same. I will read the Bible (which is revelation plus someone’s experience), I will read experts (in history, language, theology, philosophy, whatever), I will ponder, pray, discuss, check out what other christians around the world are thinking, etc. Some matters are, as we discussed, very well accepted by christians, well supported in the Bible, make sense, etc, and these are often what we might call core beliefs and we have discussed what they are (something like what is in the creeds). Other things are less important, e.g. is God really a Trinity? Did Adam & Eve really live?, etc. Still other things are just peripheral, e.g. which version of the Bible to read, what colour shirt will I wear to church tonight?, etc. So like for other decisions, I give more attention and require better based knowledge for the core than for the secondary matters, and care even less about the peripheral matters.
5. In summary, I read the Bible in the light of good scholarship, I pray and trust my thoughts (to a reasonable degree), I look to see what is the consensus of christians (as a sign of the possible guiding of the Holy Spirit) and I keep an open mind which I sometimes change as I see new evidence.
6. So it isn’t really magical or unusual (for me at least), it is rather prosaic. Except I pray a lot and I believe God helps me via intuition, coming across the right books, having useful conversations, etc. Very little of that is visible to anyone else, but it’s very real to me.
7. In the end, I (and I think most christians) believe God is more interested in “heart” than “head”. Truth is important, and knowledge is helpful, but a “right spirit” is necessary. So uncertainty is not necessarily a barrier, though greater knowledge is better.
How’s that?
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While there are others who will offer a much more erudite response to this explanation sometimes it really is necessary to ”dumb it down” for those in the cheap seats who are common as muck: such as me, for example.
So, in other words, you are basically full of shit. If we are being honest, that is?
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“Stay in church, William. I’m serious, man, ‘cos Yeshua really needs as many unquestioning, unthinking hand-waving semi-lobotomized halfwits as he can get … ”
William is NOT a halfwit, Ark. You owe him an apology.
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William is NOT a halfwit, Ark. You owe him an apology.
Along with his notably obtuse replies and apparent refusal to recognise the difference between a good action done by a religious person simply for the sake of doing it and the implications of doing it because of religious motivation – which I stressed again and again throughout our dialogue – he finishes up with this monumental whopper of sheer unadulterated stupidity:
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Using the term Halfwit was actually not the first pejorative that came to mind I can assure you.
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Hey UnkleE,
Thank you for a restatement of your views, but it doesn’t get at what I was describing. Any response of mine would rehash issues I’ve already raised, so I don’t think any further commentary would be productive (i.e., the conversation would go to matters we’ve both discussed).
Thanks for trying!
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Unklee
I could agree with that. If I had to make a guess — acknowledging that it is necessarily very speculative, with large error margins — I would say that the Jesus movement immediately following his death was probably around 100-200 people, it probably only grew to the high hundreds or very low thousands in 1st century Jerusalem before 70AD and it was probably very diverse, with followers ranging from fairly orthodox Jews (e.g., James); to more pious fundamentalists (e.g., the Ebionites); to more gnostic-leaning types (at least, in a formative sense, stipulating that it probably didn’t evolve to the Marcionite sense until later in the 1st century); to the more Messianic/apocalyptic types who thought the world, or at least Roman domination, was about to end; to the Pauline types who were busy peshering and midrashing the hell out of everything to make sense of what had happened to them.
Rodney Stark estimated there were less than 10,000 Christians by the end of the 1st century. That seems low to me, but not implausibly low. And it would explain why reports about Christians were relatively few and generally felt a need to explain who they were, as Christians were not so common that everybody would already know.
I agree that the number doesn’t really matter a whole lot.
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