Because what I don’t see the Scriptures requiring me to affirm, I do not present as dogma. Why would that invalidate me as a supporter, on this one minor point? I am a monthly contributor to their ministry.
@jongarvey?
I’m not qualified to comment on RTB, having had little to do with their particular position except, paradoxically, through their involvement with Joshua here. Seem a nice bunch.
However, there seems nothing strange to me in being affiliated to a group with provisos, or else from the empirical side you are presumably supposed to be part of some monolithic “consensus science” that agrees on everything and mysteriously shifts as one, uncannily resembling totalitarianism.
And on the religious side, you keep splitting off until you are part of the one tiny group that has everything right… “There’s nobody saved except you and me, and I’m not so sure about you.”
Was wondering more about your take on the OP, and whether “God created” should be taken to exclude “the laws of nature unfolded to produce” or to include it as a de minimus shade of meaning… suggesting something more.
Science, IMO, has not demonstrated that “God is an unnecessary hypothesis” but has instead made it rather obvious that He has, and continues to, act in ways that defy sheer empiricism or determinism.
Ha, ha. You can bet it’s not a minor point for Hugh Ross…!
Could you provide an example of this action, preferably one relevant to this thread?
1 Like
Well, obviously, the resurrection of Jesus would be one. You’re one, and, surprisingly, I’m one too! We cannot be fully explained as the products of a hapless gradualism.
You are a “living miracle,” my friend.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” C. S. Lewis, from “The Weight of Glory”
Cheers!
We have spoken amicably before, on several occasions, and even corresponded privately.
We are, after all, brothers in Christ!
That’s why I support him, and work to keep he and @swamidass and @AJRoberts in touch!
See the “theology of nature” category on The Hump!
The question is the old one of whether the regularities that God created in the universe are suffficient to produce all that exists, or whether his contigent choices were involved as well. In other words, Deism v Theism. God absolutely involved in both cases, but in my view creating an organised universe from a limited number of low-information laws is implausible.
If anyone wishes to make God unnecessary in either case, they need to explain the origin of the regularities in nature, and/or the creative power of anything they consider to be contingent rather than regular. And that has been the issue since the first millennium BC.
Words fail me. Was that seriously intended as a response? Was the quote from Lewis intended to annoy me?
You are either too easily annoyed, too easily confused, or too unable to take others seriously, while maintaining a humorous outlook.
Or, maybe it’s just me? :o)
Yes, I believe it’s just you. I’m not currently interested in word games.
It’s no mere game, my friend. How convenient for you if it were only. There are vital and
significant issues underlying these questions.
What issues? What questions? And I don’t think you’re my friend, judging by your attitude.
You are free to imagine that I am not.
The rest, you already know --and from my vantage on the situation, you are diminished by pretending otherwise, my friend.
No one feels “comfortable” with the thought that they are accountable to God, at least until they come to know that God is good --through Jesus.
So, I get the reluctance, and can identify with those feelings.
Right, @Michael_Callen ? :o)
I have come to the conclusion that you don’t much care if I understand what you’re talking about and that you’re writing for your own benefit, whatever you may derive from it.
1 Like
Yes, that’s the convenient conclusion.
No one can understand what they won’t consider.
So, if I can clarify anything with you, great! If not, we may be at a temporary impasse.
Cheers!
Also, your smug, condescending attitude is not endearing.
I would however like to take you up on your offer of clarification: what are you talking about?
1 Like
I don’t know what to say here, but you two are clearly talking past one another.
Perhaps you can explain. What is he talking about?
John, while I have gotten used to your style of communication, many have not. I have learned over time that comments that “sound” smug are not intended that way. It’s a choice to be gracious and to go along with a conversation even when the style if foreign. Guy may be coy, but he is certainly not condescending. Definitely not intentionally so.