Gotta push back strongly on this, Mark. If this were true you never would have believed, nor would anyone else.
If an unbeliever believes, he is no longer an unbeliever…that was my point.
Seeking, finding, being sought after, found, all the different word pictures offered by the scriptures regarding the dance between God and humanity are much messier than that I think.
So then your teacher became no longer credible, and the “non-credible scholars” he was referring to became credible…am I understanding that correctly? Makes sense.
Humanity makes it messy by putting more value on self than God. That is the bible in a nutshell from Genesis to Revelation.
He was still credible on many topics—and I learned much from him. But I learned to take bombastic statements with a grain of salt. And investigate further. People are not always careful and even-handed. I include myself in that observation. Sometimes we go too far when summarizing complex topics. Sometimes we don’t.
2 Likes
I understand the wisdom in that, thank you for the gentle correction.
Can you see how convenient this is for you? You are rendered impervious to any argument or discussion. You’re right because you’re right because you’re right. What more can be said by anyone?
2 Likes
In regard to understanding scripture, my “credentials” as a believer (in sacrificial service to God) outweigh any amount of schooling by a non-believer. The non-believing scholar would actually know this by studying scripture, if he truly understood the scripture. I can post at least 100 verses that support this, which the non-believer does not deem credible.
I don’t find it convenient at all, I find it quite annoying.
I find it circular. And I’m always right; you can believe that because I never lie.
2 Likes
I don’t claim to be right…I affirm scripture that says that the truth is veiled to unbelievers. The veil that keeps man from God is sewn throughout the bible, not something that I claim as my own, but something that I know to be true from personal experience. I think this simple statement that something is not knowable without faith is what is so offensive to intelligent unbelievers. No amount of brain power will ever bring understanding, only faith can unlock the truth. 2 Corinthians 4, Hebrews 11, Galatians 1-3, Romans 3-4, Romans 10-12, Ephesians 2, etc, etc, etc…
What is your basis for this affirmation?
What personal experience?
1 Like
The basis for affirmation and the personal experience are the same. I will answer with scripture. I know the scripture to be true because the same happened and continues to happen to me as it is written. It is my eyewitness testimony that I was not able to understand the bible until I found God in repentance and asked for wisdom in prayer. The “evidence” is in my heart and in my actions, I am different today than I was living in darkness, even my family does not recognize me as the same person.
Proverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall [a]direct your paths.
Romans 12:1-2 - I beseech[a] you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your [b]reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
James 1:5-8 - 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
John 9:26-27 - 26 Then they said to him again, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?”
1 John 2:24 Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
Galatians 2:20 - I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
So then, if it happens to me exactly as it is written in the bible, not just one or two passages, but all of it, am I to assume that it is just coincidence because authorship is contested and “scholarly consensus” is that some of it may or may not be false? No, I believe that it is the inspired word and truth directly from God, there is no other explanation.
Yeah, I don’t think that is what most people would accept as “personal experience” confirming the Bible as fact.
1 Like
I have never represented the bible as fact, I say that it is truth, they are very different things. And really? How can “personal experience” be defined any other way than what I have personally experienced?
It was not until quite recently that people were able to voice and speak up against the tyranny of the church, and be able to speak out against the consensus of their day.
Your “truth” is completely intolerant of correction and, indeed, truth itself.
Isaac Ibn Yashush, a rabbi, was labelled Isaac the blunder for daring to suggest that the Edomite list of kings in Genesis, who lived long after Moses was dead, was written after Moses died.
Bonfils works were destroyed for daring to suggest that some parts of Genesis were written by later authors.
Van Mae’s (who was Catholic) book was destroyed for daring to suggest Moses’ writings were expanded later on by later authors.
Isaac de la Peyrere, a French Calvinist, noted inconsistencies such as “across the Jordan” could not have been written by Moses, as Moses was said to not have crossed the Jordan. His writings were banned and burned, himself arrested and forced to recant to the pope and become Catholic or else.
Spinoza noted phrases such as “there never arose another prophet like Moses” could not have been written by Moses. For this , he was excommunicated from Judaism, his work was condemned by Catholics and Protestants, his book was placed on the Catholic Index, within six years thirty-seven edicts were issued against it, and an attempt was made on his life.
Richard Simon, a Catholic priest, arguing against Spinoza defended scripture by saying that scribes, undee God’s guidance, collected, arranged, and elaborated on old texts. For this, he was attacked by his fellow Catholic clergy, expelled from his order, his books placed on the Index, all but 6 of 1300 copies of his book burned, the English translator of his book Hampden forced to recant in order to be released from his tower prison.
Your religion of freedom results in many slaves - all in prisons of their own making.
I’ll tell you what you did with Atheists for about 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind, drove them into exile, humiliated them, seized their properties, arrested them for blasphemy. You dehumanised them with beatings and exquisite torture, gouged out their eyes, slit their tongues, stretched, crushed, or broke their limbs, tore off their breasts if they were women, crushed their scrotums if they were men, imprisoned them, stabbed them, disembowelled them, hanged them, burnt them alive.
And you have nerve enough to complain to me that I laugh at you.
-Dr Madalyn Murray O’Hair
3 Likes
I think your principal error here is that you fail to understand that these purely “personal” realities can, by their nature, be of absolutely no value to anyone but yourself.
When you take a position, you may defend it, but your defense of it has no possible value at all – and should not even be voiced, if you can help it – if it consists only in your own affirmation. Defense involves explanation in terms which are useful to others, not in terms that are useful only to you.
When you insist on the “truth” of something, and then retreat behind the concrete wall of subjective experience whenever it is questioned, you need to understand that this is, to everyone else, a farce. And yes, you may say to yourself, “only the believer can see just how un-farcical it is! O, Holy Rhinoceros, how wicked is the unbeliever! How you have veiled his eyes that he may not see Your divinity!” but this is not the sort of thing you ought ever to say in public.
3 Likes
So…it reads like this:
Q: What do you personally think?
A: I think this because this is what I have experienced.
Conclusion: You are most certainly wrong.
Fair enough. Replace the word “fact” with “truth” in my comment, and it still applies. What you describe are the reasons you personally believe the Bible to be true. It does not constitute evidence that the Bible is true. The latter is what would be required to justify your claim that you know it to be true.
1 Like
No. The point is that you are wrong to think that your “only believe first, and then you will believe!” advice can be of any possible value to anyone else. Is it possible that scrutiny of the evidence leads only to error, and credulous pre-decision of the questions is the only path to truth? Sure. But that is no argument; it has no value to anyone.
3 Likes