Christian Theological/Philosophical Book Club discussion
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Revelation - The Way it Happened
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If you start with the unknowable (God) and build a worldview around that, you have no foundation. You must start with what is knowable, and shape your understanding of God from that.So it is a matter of epistemology. How do we know anything? I realize this is a matter of debate, but scholars approach the question by trusting more in human faculties first...reason and research. Enter the experts.
I do have friends who believe you can "know" something through faith. However, the majority of such "knowledge" seems to be false (or we wouldn't have so many faiths to choose from), which renders this kind of knowledge less trustworthy.
Lee wrote: "If you start with the unknowable (God) and build a worldview around that, you have no foundation. You must start with what is knowable, and shape your understanding of God from that."I suppose it depends on how you define "know". I have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and I can say I "know" Him in the Greek sense of "gnosis" or experiential knowledge. That doesn't mean I have His knowledge; or that I know what He knows. My knowing Him doesn't mean I have deductive or mental knowledge of His essence or substance. The senses of the word "know" is key here and you are using senses that are distinct from how a Christian "knows" God. In his essence God is indeed unknowable, but I can still "know" Him Spiritually. This is an important distinction in the sense of "know."
Lee wrote:I do have friends who believe you can "know" something through faith. However, the majority of such "knowledge" seems to be false (or we wouldn't have so many faiths to choose from), which renders this kind of knowledge less trustworthy. "
The Greek word "pistis", usually translated as "faith", does not mean just "belief", it is closer to meaning "trust". Tied with "pistis" is the notion of "apocalypseos" or "revelation." It is a mistake to think that a genuine Christian simply hears about or reads about Christ or God and with that receiving of information, they either decide to believe it or not. A Christian becomes a Christian through Spiritual Revelation and trusting in that revelation. You are conceiving of the relationship in backward way. You are saying that all information is given and received in exactly the same way through human powers of deductive reasoning. That is not so. Paul would say this is starting with the flesh and an attempt to end with the Spirit (Gal. 3:3). Spirit is first. I think all of this is evidence of trying to tackle Spiritual things on the human and carnal level. They cannot be dealt with in such a way.
I don't think we're quite on the same page yet, Erick. I have long held that our experiences with God are our best source of knowledge about "Him." Christian faith is experiential. However, to go from there to reach wild claims such as "God is omni-everything" or "the Bible is inerrant" or "someday I'm going to heaven" is totally unjustified. That is purely a belief system.
It is very hard to find a Christian who can step back and objectively separate her experiences from her faith. Rather than say "I fell on my knees and prayed for peace, and a sense of calmness came over me," they will say "Jesus heard my prayer and sent the Holy Spirit to comfort me." I understand that's the paradigm of the divine that works for some people, but it still seems marginally dishonest, since it negates the god-experiences of other paradigms that work just as well.
Lee wrote: "I don't think we're quite on the same page yet, Erick. I have long held that our experiences with God are our best source of knowledge about "Him." Christian faith is experiential. However, to go from there to reach wild claims such as "God is omni-everything" or "the Bible is inerrant" or "someday I'm going to heaven" is totally unjustified. That is purely a belief system."You are correct. We are not on the same page. I understand you, you however do not understand me. It is evident in your posts to me, and in every post that I've read from you to others, that your paradigm is as limited as it could be and lacks Spiritual acquaintance. You are functioning from a purely human perspective and that is hardly an objective one. I have already been there. I was a deist before becoming a Christian. My thoughts were not correct in regards to many things; and I could reason as good as anyone, but I measured things by my human reasoning.
You can take this as trivializing your point of view if you choose, but really I am simply pointing out that I have experienced something that clearly you have not. It is evident in your responses. You have no measure by which to gauge what I say and nothing with which you can compare it. Even when I clarify terms, you must resort to the same paradigm you know, i.e. "that's just belief" and "there's other paradigms" etc etc. You could experience what I am talking about, but you've decided to reason yourself out of it.
In my opinion, and try not to be offended, is that your effort to follow Christian discussions and dispute with Christians regularly, is not to convince them of your perspective, but to convince yourself. You must constantly reaffirm your rejection of genuine Christianity and confirm your own man made substitute. That is what is occurring here. Since it is almost certainly unconscious, I don't doubt that you'll deny it, but it is evident.
I don't think there is anything more for us to discuss. I have shared as much as I could or care to. I wish you the best.
Hmmmm. Well, that was real helpful.
Wow Erick - you are my new favorite person here. Well said.
Rod wrote: "Wow Erick - you are my new favorite person here. Well said."Thank you sir.
I just scanned some of what you guys were saying, and this quote stuck out to me. This is a rabbit trail we don't need to pursue here. But I must ask, why "must" we start here? Or to put it another way, why ought we assume there is no god till we find a god?
The way I look at it, there are two assumptions we can have: we can assume there is a God or there is not. You can unilaterally say it is more academic or wise to start by assuming there is no god, but you've really only said your opinion (albeit, an opinion probably widely agreed upon by academics). But you've given me no reason to support your opinion.