The Tension of Faith

But what else do you expect. I don't have knowledge in the same sense that I know that the sun is out today. I make a point of saying that "I believe" or "I think" to make the point that I am not claiming absolute knowledge. It is the Christian faith.I try to present my rationale as best I can for why I believe as I do but I can’t do better than that. In one sense it is no different than the atheist who believes there is nothing beyond the material. They can’t have absolute knowledge of that either, as the atheists that I have had discussions with are honest enough to point out, and yet it seems you expect me to be less honest. But to a large degree that is what we should expect. I think that one thing that jar, Faith and myself can agree on is that what God ultimately wants of us is that we live as per my signature which is that we actively and humbly love, kindness and mercy, and that we act justly. Yes we all might differ as to how to apply that but the fundamental idea is consistent. That is the essence of the faith. Jesus said that we are to love God, which is where the humility comes in with the admission that it is God’s love that enables us to love, and that we are to be reflectors of that love to our neighbours and for that matter the whole world. That is the essence of the Christian faith, and of course it isn’t just Christians that believe that to be true, particularly the second part.The differences come in our theology. I doubt I could find another Christian in the world who has spent time considering Christian theology where there wouldn’t be areas of disagreement. I have no doubt that some things that I’m quite convinced about are wrong, but of course I don’t know which things they are. I have changed my mind on a number of issues over the years. Again, it is a belief or faith and not absolute knowledge. I have gone through this before but I’ll try again. I start out with two beliefs that I treat like absolutes. The first is that God is and was always good and the second is that God resurrected Jesus confirming Jesus’ life and message.
With that is mind I regard the Bible as a library of books written by men who were inspired to preserve their cultures, beliefs, experiences etc. That does not mean that they always got it right. I don’t worship an inerrant Bible, but an inerrant Jesus, and the two just aren’t compatible. I’ve already given examples where that is evident.When I read through the Gospels it is clear that Jesus was very much a part of His 1st century Jewish culture. He obviously had tremendous knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, (in all likelihood had them memorized), as He so often references them in His teaching. This is important when it comes to understanding the theology. For example, Jesus often refers to Himself as The Son of Man. Why does He do that? If we look at the book of Daniel Chap 7 we can get a very good idea of why He did that. So again to understand the theology of the NT we need the OT.However, it is a symbiotic relationship. In order to form a theology around the OT we need to do it through the lens of what Jesus taught and how He lived. As I said earlier, when we read about Yahweh commanding genocide and public stoning we can understand that it is an act of evil that is contrary to His will by looking at Jesus and His command that we are to love our enemy.
Hopefully this answers your questions. I appreciate the way they were asked BTW.

Jesus' life confirms that passage. It is one verse from the Bible. I'm afraid I don't get your point.

There are a lot of views out there about the nature of God and what He wants of us. What do you mean by require. Required for what?

My signature just tells us what God wants of us. I agree that belief in Jesus isn't necessary for that, although I do believe that it sure helps. Is that your point?

It's hard to win around here. In post 422 Aussie says this: To which I replied in 427: As far as the debate about the use of resurrection it is really clear in the Bible that what happened to Jesus was quite distinct from what happened to Lazarus and I think you said that you agreed with that.My signature is simply a quote from the Bible. It isn't me making an absolute statement.

I simply assumed you were trying to make the same point that Aussie was here. I guess that wasn't your point so we are in agreement.

Essentially I agree. The only point I’d make is that I don’t see how you can make the statement that atheists don’t believe that there is even a theoretical chance that Christ rose from the dead. However I’ll let you speak for the atheists.Yes, it is by faith that I believe that the NT writers were correct when they wrote that Jesus rose from the dead.I also agree that it is an add on to the argument between basic theism or even deism and materialism or atheism. It is largely what differentiates Christianity from other theistic religions.

OK Faith. Just which part are you going to choose here. This is from 2nd Samuel 24. Yahweh is mad at the Israelites and tells David to take a census as we can see.

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1 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.
2 So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.
3 But Joab replied to the king, May the LORD your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?
4 The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel.
5 After crossing the Jordan, they camped near Aroer, south of the town in the gorge, and then went through Gad and on to Jazer.
6 They went to Gilead and the region of Tahtim Hodshi, and on to Dan Jaan and around toward Sidon.
7 Then they went toward the fortress of Tyre and all the towns of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went on to Beersheba in the Negev of Judah.
8 After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: In Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.

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Now then we go to the next verse and David is conscience-stricken for having done what Yahweh told him to do and asks for forgiveness.

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10 David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the LORD, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, LORD, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.

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Now it gets stranger because even though Yahweh told David to take this census He punishes the Jews by bringing a plague and killing 70,000 of them.

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11 Before David got up the next morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 12 Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ 13 So Gad went to David and said to him, Shall there come on you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me. 14 David said to Gad, I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands. 15 So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

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To sum this up then we have Yahweh telling David to take a census, David complies but then feels guilty about doing what Yahweh told him to do and asks forgiveness. An unforgiving Yahweh though doesn’t even take it out on David but causes 70,000 of his chosen people to die.You would have us believe that the writer of 2nd Samuel got this exactly correct.Now however it gets more interesting because we go to 1st Chronicles and this is what the writer of that book tells us.

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1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.

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So now this writer is saying not that it was the Lord, as claimed in 1st Samuel, but that it is Satan and then goes on to tell how Yahweh killed 70,000 of the Israelites.Firstly then why is God slaughtering His chosen people for what David did? Does this sound remotely like God as we see Him embodied by Jesus?Secondly was it the writer of 2nd Samuel who says it was the Lord who told David to take the census, or did the writer of 1st Chronicles get it right when he says it was Satan? They can't both be right.

Thanks for providing an answer even if I do think you are making a serious error in how God communicates to us through the Scriptures. I just reiterate, that just because God inspired people to write their stories does not make them inerrant. As I've said before they are inspired but not dictated.

The question isn't whether He can or not. The question is did He or not, and it is evident that when you read what I quoted earlier that He didn't.

There are several authors in the NT who make claims of the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, that is an extraordinary claim but that does not mean that it isn't evidence.We can also look at the fact that the accounts are not what we would expect from a first century Jew. Jesus isn't glowing like a star. Crucifixion isn't just a method of tortuously killing people, but is meant to absolutely dehumanize and humiliate people. Whoever was crucified would be naked on the cross with people throwing taunts and even objects at them. A Roman citizen could not be crucified. The idea of a crucified messiah was not what any Jew would want to worship. That is why Paul has to write that he is not ashamed to preach a crucified messiah.It is not correct to say that there isn't evidence. We are free to reject that evidence or believe some of it or all of it.

That is not a reasonable comparison. We know that Harry Potter was written as a piece of fiction. Nobody after reading it has ever suggested that the story is anything but fiction. The Bible, and specifically the Gospels were written to inform people of what the writers wanted to be taken as historical. It is obviously not meant to be taken as fiction.As I said we can conclude that they got it wrong, or intentionally misled people, (without any discernible motivation for doing so), but it is obvious for numerous reasons that they intended the stories to be believed, and many people of that era, and to this day, believe that they got it right. There is no justification at all for comparing Harry Potter with the Bible. This statement simply shows a view point that is anything but objective. It appears that you start off with the belief that all religion at the outset is fiction. I am not saying that it must be true, but only that it is a reasonable conclusion. We have faith that many historical documents represent an accurate account of events without further evidence. If you write that the sorcerer disappeared into thin air and made it obvious that you meant it to be taken literally, then it is evidence which we can either accept, reject or even be agnostic about.In the case of the Gospels it isn't just one person making these claims but numerous people from multiple sources. Much of it being written while there were still eye witnesses.

Sure, but that does not have anything to say about whether or not the fantastic is historical or not. It is only saying that the mundane is easier to believe. Actually I disagree. The Gospels do not paint the disciples in a positive way, and they present the people who have the influence and the power to have them killed, very negatively. They discredit much of what was important to the Jews in their Scriptures. In the 1st chapter of Luke he says that what he has written is a collection of the accounts of the eye witnesses and others who had contact with the eye witnesses.

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1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

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Certainly there are points of contradictions as we would expect to see in any such account. Look at the variations we get in the witnesses of a car accident. However just as they all agree that an accident actually happened, all of those involved in writing the Gospels, and for that matter the Epistles, agree that the resurrection was historical. Sure but would you really expect an account from Herod or Pilate to include something about Jesus, and to the best of my knowledge we have nothing written by them about anything. About the only account we have from that era is Josephus who mentions Jesus a couple of times but that tells us nothing either. Josephus was very political and for the greatest part of his career a Roman sympathizer, and when he wast that he was with a Jewish crowd who wouldn't have looked favourably on the Christians.

Of course it is evidence. Sure, what Thomas and Paul experienced was stronger evidence but that doesn't negate the fact that it is evidence. Is it conclusive? No. It isn't a case of proper evidence as opposed to not being evidence at all. It is strictly comparing weaker evidence to stronger evidence. IMHO it is both.He is using a metaphor to explain what the historical event meant to them in language that 1st century Jews would understand.

Im on vacation and I dont want to spend a lot of time on this so I just want to respond to this. I have not claimed that faith requires evidence. Faith does not require evidence.My claim is that there is evidence in the fact that the NT exists. That is evidence which can be accepted or rejected. We can discuss the strength of that as evidence, and on that we will obviously disagree, but the fact remains that it is evidence.