The Bible - indications of divine inspiration

nozzferrahhtoo

King Mob wrote: »

So then, what's the objection to the OP's question?
There's no objective evidence to show that the bible contains any information from a supernatural source.
I believe that's the point he was making. But I fail to see yours.

I understand your frustration, conversation with him generally goes in this fashion.

There is clearly several groups of people with different beliefs on this matter. Some think that books like the bible and Koran actually were written by god. Some groups think that humans ghost wrote it but it was dictated by god. Some people think that god acted more as a muse, that while not actually dictating it... managed to massively influence those that wrote it. While others think that the writers of the Bible did so while in a relationship (real or imagined) with god.

The OPs post clearly was directed at the group(s) earlier on in my list, not the latter ones. The question from the OP appears to be to ask if there is any support... for example content in the bible that people at the time should have been precluded the ability to write.... for the notion that god had any direct hand (by writing or dictating or even invisible mental tinkering) in the authorship of the text.

The user you are clashing with is ignoring this and talking instead about the people who think "divine inspiration" means what the people in the latter end of my list mean by it. A definition that, while valid, says precisely nothing for the reasons I laid out in post #28 on this thread but was for obvious reasons ignored. Alas much of theism is geared around saying nothing but saying it with a lot of words..... such as the Cracker approach of saying a literal change occurs in crackers but not a physical one... which essentially is the con artist saying "This has changed even though it appears to you to be the same!". A comment as impressive as a magician with a hat saying "Now the hat is empty..... now it is not as it contains an entirely invisible rabbit! Ta da!".

In essence he is talking past both you and the OP. I have encountered this with the user before. Where I spoke about people who believe in a quite real physical transformation of crackers in the Eucharist he instead harped on about the people who think the change is real but not literal, or not real but symbolic.

It would seem to me the user is interested in talking past you and attempting by this to frustrate. While you try to deal with the topic at hand and the point you want to make he will try to frustrate by talking about other things. Just stick by your point and do not be derailed and you will be ok. In the end it seems when he fails to frustrate you he will get frustrated himself by his failure to derail you and start making personal comments about your love life in lieu of any actual real, on topic, mature points. So be under no illusions of just what kind of person you are dealing with here. When someone needs to pull the conversation to that level, it is clear that mature and useful discourse is not their aim on these fora and a red flag should be raised.

To go back to the topic of the OP therefore.... yes I have heard it claimed from a number of directions that the Bible, Koran and less often some other texts were actually written either by the hand of god or by the hand of man but at the direct dictate of god. In Islam for example some try to prove this by claiming that Mohammad was illiterate and so could not have written the words without Divine assistance.

I have seen not a shred of evidence at all to support such a claim. One such support for such a claim would be if the Bible contained anything that we knew, or even strongly suspected, should have been impossible for people at the time to have written. However no such text is known to me within these books that even gives one the merest inkling that someone had access to knowledge above and beyond what was common at the time. In fact we see the opposite in things like some Muslims attempts to show the Embryology in the Koran which when we look at it shows not only what was common knowledge at the time, but what we now know was WRONG common knowledge at the time.

While Jesus in the NT for example might have been morally ahead of his time (though in many ways behind ours) I can attribute nothing but mild respect to him for this. I certainly see no reason to attribute divine origins to his preaching, many of which predate him anyway.

So in short... something I clearly am not... the answer to the OP is "no". Anyone claiming that the Bible or other texts were written or dictated directly from a divine source are doing so on a basis entirely opaque to me.

MagicMarker

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That's not the question you asked. You asked was there any evidence to suggest that the Bible "wasn't written by various people in the middle east a few thousand years ago". The answer was "erm, no" because no one suggests it wasn't written by people.

You're being a bit pedantic here in fairness. I don't think anyone believes that God wrote the bible himself using his finest Mont Blanc. I thought the OPs question was pretty clear.

sephir0th

dead one wrote: »

First i will give you passage which indicates, Bible was divinly inspired when it was revealed then i will give you passages which show corruption in bible
Quote:
New International Version (NIV)
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...17&version=NIV

This is just circular. Saying 'This book is divinely inspired' in a book does not make it divinely inspired.

I'm ignoring your paragraph on corruption as I don't think it's relevant to the topic.

Peringrus, the Christian claim is that the Bible is the word of God. To be honest I don't really care if you think it was directly by God or indirectly by God.

An example that would indicate the Bible is divinely inspired would be an accurate prediction of a future event, some knowledge gleaned from the text that could not have been known by the men at the time. I think you know exactly what I mean and are being deliberately obtuse.

Anyway, I got your answer 'No'. You have nothing.

Peregrinus

sephir0th wrote: »

Peringrus, the Christian claim is that the Bible is the word of God. To be honest I don't really care if you think it was directly by God or indirectly by God.

An example that would indicate the Bible is divinely inspired would be an accurate prediction of a future event, some knowledge gleaned from the text that could not have been known by the men at the time. I think you know exactly what I mean and are being deliberately obtuse.

I do know what you mean, I think, and I’m not trying to be obtuse. I’m trying to make the point that your questions are misconceived.

Christians do indeed refer to the bible as the “Word of God”, but this does not mean, as your first question would suggest, that it was actually written by God, rather than by human authors. Bear in mind that Christians also refer to Jesus Christ as the “Word”, and you’ll realize that the phrase needs a bit of unpacking; whatever “word” means in this context, it certainly does not mean “text” or “data”. Christians in fact do not believe that the Bible was written by God (and neither do Jews, with whom the idea of inspiration originates). Consequently your question is misconceived if you think it is critically examining a position that anyone actually holds (other than perhaps a few very marginal groups).

Your second question - does the bible contain anything which a human could not have written? - looks for internal evidence that would amount to proof of direct or indirect divine (or at least supernatural) authorship. As I’ve made clear, I don’t think that there is any evidence of the kind that you are looking for. But, again, I think the question is misconceived; you’re looking for evidence that the text, if not written by God, at least contains information that can only have been supplied by God. But, again, this is not really what (most) Christians mean when they describe the Bible as the Word of God.

In short, I don’t think that, in Christian discourse, “Word of God” means what you think it means.

Or, in other words, I agree with you. There is no evidence that the bible is not the work of diverse human authors, and there is no convincing or compelling case that it contains information which could not have been produced by human authors. But I disagree with you if, as I suspect, you think that this goes very far towards undermining Christian beliefs about the bible as the “Word of God”.

18AD

What is the Word of God as you understand it? And maybe how others might understand it?

And how does this definition apply to the Bible as being the Word of God?

Peregrinus

18AD wrote: »

What is the Word of God as you understand it? And maybe how others might understand it?

And how does this definition apply to the Bible as being the Word of God?

Excellent question. But a long answer, I'm afraid.

First, a bit of context. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the creator of everything that exists (other than himself). This doesn’t mean that he built it and then walked away, like say a super-powerful carpenter who can build a table without either timber or tools; it’s a much more fundamental kind of creation than that. It means that he calls everything into existence, and is always holding everything in existence, by a continuing act of loving will. (Note that I’m not asking you to accept that any of this is true; just that is the context within which the theological concept of “word” is rooted.)

Second, another bit of context. We are talking about a very long-established usage of “word” here - which is another way of saying a very old usage, and therefore one which originated in a culture quite different to ours. Which is why it takes a long answer to come to grips with it.

So, through the magic of the imagination, come with me to a bronze age agrarian society, which governs itself through custom, interpreted and declared by a king. The king’s job, basically, is to decide what tribal custom requires in any particular situation where there is doubt. (Nowadays, we’d call him a judge.)

What this means is that the king’s word is law. If he says that tribal custom requires that this situation be dealt with in this way, then that is what tribal custom requires.

It doesn’t take long to realize that the king’s word may be needed in more places that he can conveniently be, so it gets transmitted - by written decrees, by heralds issuing proclamations, whatever - as needed throughout the kingdom. Hence his authority could be sent, and made effective, in places where he himself was not present.

Right. Now mix in a few cultural customs - naming something is an assertion of authority over it, for example - and, before long, words are turning into magical entities, with power of their own. They don’t just convey meaning; they give force, authority, even life. When spoken, they can create something - something intangible, but nevertheless real, that wasn’t there before. We still have this idea today, with things like the oath a witness takes in court, or the words of the marriage vows. Words create obligations. Words create relationships. Etc,

OK. So far, all this is true of lots of societies. (Probably of all cultures at a particular stage of development.) But now we get specific. We have the Israelites, and their notion of one true god, whom they call - in writing, anyway - YHWH. (See? They won’t write or utter his name, because that would be an assertion of authority over him, which is blasphemy.) YHWH speaks his word through prophets - his heralds, in effect. The word of YHWH is a mixed bag, frankly, but it has some consistent elements - no frolicking with other gods; keep it in your pants unless you are willing to take the woman and give her a home, status and security; do not oppress the widow, the orphan or the stranger; stuff like that. In time, this stuff gets written down.

Note that the writing down is not itself the word. It’s a memory of, or story about, the word. We can see this in phrases that about in the Hebrew scriptures that go something like “the Word of the Lord came unto Samuel, saying “Go and tell the men of Israel that . . .”. What this means is that Samuel had an insight or a revelation that compelled him to go and do something. The “word” was the insight or revelation, not the written-down account of his response to it.

Right, so. Skip forward to about 100 BC, and a bloke called Philo Judaeus who is trying to blend Greek philosophy and Jewish ideas into a coherent monotheistic philosophy. He takes the already well-established Greek philosophical concept of “logos” (literally, “word”, but in Greek philosophy a principle of order and knowledge, and used by the Stoics to name the divine animating principle which pervades the universe). And he comes up with the concept of the Logos as the Word that emanates from God and has a life and a force of its own which it carries into the world, just like the king’s messages and the teaching of the prophets carried the authority of the king/the authority of God to places they had never been. And of course what the Word of God primarily does is what God primarily does, which is to create. So the Word, or Logos, for Philo, is God’s creative work. And this ties right back to the Genesis account of creation, in which God creates things by speaking (God said “let there be light”) and by naming things (“God called the light day, and the darkness night”)

Christians, when the come along not too long later, seize on this, and it doesn’t take them long to identify Jesus Christ as the Word incarnate - this is the first main theme of the Gospel of John. And, by that, they mean that all things are created through Jesus Christ (“Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made.”) Jesus is the Logos, the omni-effectuating Word that calls all things into being and holds them in being.

Right. That’s all a bit deep and mystical, and how does it relate to the notion of the bible as the “Word of God”? Well, starting from the deep and mystical sense, we can see the phrase “Word of God” used in three senses in the various scripture texts:

1. Jesus as the “Word of God”, as just described.

2. A specific prophecy, (allegedly) revealed by God to a prophet, and then spoken or written by that prophet. (Note that “prophecy” doesn’t mean a prediction of the future; just a message from God. Note also that the “prophecy” is the message or revelation from God, and not the prophet’s response to it, or the prophet’s account of it.)

3. The collective sum of all such prophecies, taken as a single unit.

Many instances of sense 2 - that is, many specific prophecies - are recorded in the bible texts, and the bible texts are as close as we come to a record of all the prophecies embraced by sense 3. (Though, of course, there could have been many prophecies never recorded in scripture texts.) This provides a foundation for saying that “the Bible contains God’s word”. And it’s a short step from that to “it is God’s word”, and from there to “it’s the only way we can know God”. And undoubtedly this progression in meaning was helped by the Protestant reformation, with its emphasis on the Bible as the only instrument of revelation. (Though, obviously, that’s not a perspective that Catholic or Orthodox Christians would share.)

What it comes down to is this; the bible texts were written because various people, at various times, received messages from God, and responded to them, and then either they or someone else wrote about it. But the “word of God”, strictly speaking, is the underlying messages, not the texts that were produced about them.

Right, I’ll stop there. There’s bound to be a word limit on this thing.

King Mob

All that waffle to redefine a word, and yet you cannot answer a simple direct question...

Peregrinus

King Mob wrote: »

All that waffle to redefine a word, and yet you cannot answer a simple direct question...

What's your simple direct question?

(If you want to be sure of a short answer, phrase it as a question which calls for a yes/no answer.)

King Mob

Peregrinus wrote: »

What's your simple direct question?

(If you want to be sure of a short answer, phrase it as a question which calls for a yes/no answer.)

Can you distinguish true divine inspiration (which stems from a relationship with a real god, as per your waffle) and false divine inspiration (which stems from a percieved relationship with a non-existant god?)
If so, how?
If not, then why call it divine when it has nothing to do with god?

Your nonsensical and contradictory rambling implies that you cannot make such a distinction and that god has no role in divine inspiration at all, making the "divine" part redundant and making your redefinition silly.

Peregrinus

King Mob wrote: »

Can you distinguish true divine inspiration (which stems from a relationship with a real god, as per your waffle) and false divine inspiration (which stems from a percieved relationship with a non-existant god?)

If so, how?

I’m going to take the “you” there as a generic you - i.e. you are not asking me whether I, Peregrinus, can make the distinction between true and false inspiration, but whether an unspecified person can make it.

Yes, is the obvious answer, people can distinguish between true and false inspiration. You distinguish between them yourself in the question you pose.

If you mean, can someone reliably tell whether a particular text which is claimed to be divinely inspired is in fact truly divinely inspired, I’ve already said very clearly that the acceptance of divine inspiration is a matter of faith. There isn’t an objective and demonstrable proof that any text is divinely inspired.

King Mob wrote: »

If not, then why call it divine when it has nothing to do with god?

Why do you assert that it has nothing to do with God? You seem to be proceeding from “we cannot objectively demonstrate that it proceeds from God” to “it has nothing to do with God”. You don’t need me to point out the logical gaps there.

King Mob wrote: »

Your nonsensical and contradictory rambling implies that you cannot make such a distinction and that god has no role in divine inspiration at all, making the "divine" part redundant and making your redefinition silly.

Try to keep it civil, King Mob. The man who distinguishes in his question between true and false revelation and then asks whether it is possible to distinguish between true and false revelation is not well positioned to accuse others of being contradictory. The man who assumes that, if we cannot objectively demonstrate X, then not-X must be the case, should not call others nonsensical.

King Mob

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m going to take the “you” there as a generic you - i.e. you are not asking me whether I, Peregrinus, can make the distinction between true and false inspiration, but whether an unspecified person can make it.

Yes, is the obvious answer, people can distinguish between true and false inspiration. You distinguish between them yourself in the question you pose.

If you mean, can someone reliably tell whether a particular text which is claimed to be divinely inspired is in fact truly divinely inspired, I’ve already said very clearly that the acceptance of divine inspiration is a matter of faith. There isn’t an objective and demonstrable proof that any text is divinely inspired.

So then the answer is in fact: no, you cannot distinguish them.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why do you assert that it has nothing to do with God? You seem to be proceeding from “we cannot objectively demonstrate that it proceeds from God” to “it has nothing to do with God”. You don’t need me to point out the logical gaps there.

Because according to your redefinition true and false divine inspiration either way spring from the person's perceived relationship with god.
So "divine inspiration" would exist without one, therefore it is not dependant on him existing.
And since this is the case, your redefinition renders the term silly.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Try to keep it civil, King Mob. The man who distinguishes in his question between true and false revelation and then asks whether it is possible to distinguish between true and false revelation is not well positioned to accuse others of being contradictory. The man who assumes that, if we cannot objectively demonstrate X, then not-X must be the case, should not call others nonsensical.

Ah so when cornered, you do go for personal attacks...
I see I'm wasting my time here.

Peregrinus

King Mob wrote: »

So then the answer is in fact: no, you cannot distinguish them.

Why do you keep putting words in my mouth which flatly contradict what I have actually said? Why ask me for an “answer to a simple direct question” if you are then going to ignore my answer and attribute to me one of your own devising?

As I have already said in absolutely simple and direct words, one can distinguish between true and false revelation. As I have already pointed out, you do so yourself.

What I went on to say is that you cannot demonstrate objectively that any text is divinely inspired.

King Mob wrote: »

Because according to your redefinition true and false divine inspiration either way spring from the person's perceived relationship with god.

So "divine inspiration" would exist without one, therefore it is not dependant on him existing.

And since this is the case, your redefinition renders the term silly.

Your argument proceeds on the premise that “false divine inspiration” = “divine inspiration”, which I think you’ll have to unpack a bit, since on the face of it the premise looks unsound. Are you using a non-obvious definition of “false”?

King Mob wrote: »

Ah so when cornered, you do go for personal attacks...
I see I'm wasting my time here.

So when you talk about my “nonsensical and contradictory rambling” that’s OK, but if I respond by suggesting that from time to time you might be bit nonsensical and contradictory yourself, that’s “personal attacks”?

Yes, I think you are wasting your time here. Come back when you’ve learned how to conduct yourself in a discussion.

King Mob

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why do you keep putting words in my mouth which flatly contradict what I have actually said? Why ask me for an “answer to a simple direct question” if you are then going to ignore my answer and attribute to me one of your own devising?

As I have already said in absolutely simple and direct words, one can distinguish between true and false revelation. As I have already pointed out, you do so yourself.

You are now changing the definition of even more words to suit your argument.
It was clear from my repeated questions I meant "distinguish" as in "tell apart".
You then say:

Peregrinus wrote: »

What I went on to say is that you cannot demonstrate objectively that any text is divinely inspired.

Which means you can't tell them apart, or you can't distinguish them.

"Faith" is a nonanswer because people have faith in texts and claims you believe are false and vice versa. Faith in something has no baring on it being true, so again, you've no means of tell true and false divine inspiration apart.

If you do, let's hear it.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Your argument proceeds on the premise that “false divine inspiration” = “divine inspiration”, which I think you’ll have to unpack a bit, since on the face of it the premise looks unsound. Are you using a non-obvious definition of “false”?

No, unlike you I use the definitions of words that are in the dictionary.
And I outlined several times what precisely I meant by "false".
False divine inspiration, assuming your redefinition, is rooted in the perceived relationship with a non-existent god.

And as you again admitted you cannot show the difference between real ones and false ones. And since this is the case, then god existing or not makes no difference as they both would be "divine inspiration" by your definition. So how can we accept your definition of it when it is totally independent of god?

Dades

King Mob wrote: »

Ah so when cornered, you do go for personal attacks...
I see I'm wasting my time here.

I do think you asked for that response, KM. But now you're both at it, I'd ask you all to keep it civil.

18AD

Thanks for the insightful reply, Peregrinus.

So, for sake of simplification, Jesus himself was the Word of God, and this has not much to do with the Bible, in so far as it just records his existence?
(I love how upper case respect is dictated by the shift key. Modern day worship methods in action. Press shift if you love God.)

You mentioned earlier that God's Word created heaven and earth. Is it impossible then to see that simple fact in existence itself? Or does the Word hide itself in the very thing it created?
So God's Word created light, but light itself isn't the Word, but has no indication of it's origin in the Word? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding this point.
But could you not then actually just see the work of God in nature without the intervening records of history?

Also, is the Word of God not transimitted to people through an angel? And how do you know said angel actually comes from God?

Calibos

Heres what some premier philosophers of recent years have to say about 'The Word'...

I solve my problems and I see the light
We got a lovin' thing, we gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger we can go to far
We start believing now that we can be what we are

Grease is the word

They think our love is just a growing pain
Why don't they understand, It's just a crying shame
Their lips are lying only real is real
We stop the fight right now, we got to be what feel
Grease is the word
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionalitly belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now but we can be who we are

Grease is the word
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

This is the life of illusion
Right trouble laced with confusion
What are we doing?

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

Grease is the word
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

Grease is the word
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

Grease is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word

Sarky

Really?

Because I had been led to believe that the bird was the Word.

Dades

^^ Was just about to warn anyone off posting that.

Calibos

I'm that predictable am I ?

Peregrinus

18AD wrote: »

So, for sake of simplification, Jesus himself was the Word of God, and this has not much to do with the Bible, in so far as it just records his existence?

The bible gets called “the word of God” because it is a story, recollection, memory, what you will of the collective sum of the “words” of God - i.e. the messages from God to humanity. And (for Christians) the first and paramount such “word” is Jesus Christ. But note that Jews would also be comfortable with the (Hebrew) Bible as the “word of God” in this sense, even though the Hebrew Bible doesn’t mention Jesus at all, and Jews in any event would not see him as the “word of God”.

So a Christian understanding of Jesus as “word” is not essential to understanding what describing scripture as the “word of God” means. I introduce it mainly to highlight the fact that calling the bible “the word of God” does not mean, as some might think, that it’s basically a long e-mail from God.

18AD wrote: »

You mentioned earlier that God's Word created heaven and earth. Is it impossible then to see that simple fact in existence itself? Or does the Word hide itself in the very thing it created?

Well, I think the Christian tradition would see the Word as discernible in the fact of existence. God is the creator, meaning that God holds all things in existence; God is the fundamental condition without which there would be no existence. And, since things do exist, God (in that sense) is.

18AD wrote: »

So God's Word created light, but light itself isn't the Word, but has no indication of it's origin in the Word? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding this point.

The light isn’t the word. The creation of the light is the word. But, remember, creation involves sustaining things in existence, so this isn’t a word that was “spoken” once and for all at the big bang; this is a word that God is always speaking.

18AD wrote: »

But could you not then actually just see the work of God in nature without the intervening records of history?

Yes, is the conventional Christian answer; the existence of God can be deduced by natural reason from the observation of the universe. But I think this only addresses the view of God as the creator, the fundamental ground of being. And that could be God as a universal force, God as something impersonal. The notion of a personal God, a God who can be said to be intelligent, to communicate, to love, etc is not necessarily something that can be deduced in the same way.

18AD wrote: »

Also, is the Word of God not transmitted to people through an angel? And how do you know said angel actually comes from God?

The scriptures occasionally mention the involvement of an angel, though this could be a literary device. And sometimes in the Hebrew scriptures an “angel” is simply an expression meaning God active in his creation, so it doesn’t necessarily indicate an androgynous being with oversized wings.

But, whether an angel is involved or not, anyone to whom the “Word of the Lord” comes, in whatever way, is obviously faced with the challenge of knowing whether this is a message from God, or merely the product of an overactive imagination or a feed of pints on a Friday night or some seriously bad weed. And the Christian position is - this isn’t a judgment that you make on your own, or at any rate that you can make with any particular authority or reliability.

Take the Book of Ezekiel, which records prophecies attributed to a bloke of that name who prophesied during the Babylonian exile, in the decades after 597 BC. The general scholarly view is that, probably,

(a) Ezekiel was a real bloke,

(b) he really did prophesy during the Babylonian exile, and

(c) the Book of Ezekiel really is an account of his prophecies, probably written not by him but by one of his followers who heard him prophesy. And it was probably revised by other followers, and quite possibly by Ezekiel himself. And it may also contain supplementary material provided by later disciples.

Why is this “scripture”? Because Ezekiel thought it was? No. There is no evidence at all that Ezekiel regarded this work as scriptural, claimed that it was scriptural, or expected others to treat it as scriptural. And, if he had, we have no reason to think that anyone would have taken him seriously (and plenty of reason to think that they wouldn’t). No, the reason that it turns up in all the printed bibles today is that it came, over time, to be regarded as scriptural by the believing community, i.e. the Jewish people. This almost certainly happened after Ezekiel had died. It was an organic process, not a formal decision of any religious authority. The book simply came to be used in worship and devotion; it became the subject of critical attention from Jewish scholars; it came to be accepted as embodying a message or messages from God.

In other words, it’s the community which discerns whether a particular insight or teaching is, or is not, to be received as a message from God, and the text which remembers it to be treated accordingly. The mechanisms by which this happens are diverse, and mostly organic rather than planned. And how does the community make this decision? Well, we do have some records of correspondence and debates, not about the book of Ezekiel but about later texts - specifically, the New Testament texts. We can see from that factors which were considered included, who wrote this text? Was he an apostle or a person of authority? Was he close to such a person? How has this text been received so far, and how universally has it been accepted by different communities in different places? How congruent is it with what we find taught in other texts, and what we already believe? How much sense does it make?

Essentially, identifying “scripture” is basically an act of faith in the believing community, in the community’s relationship with God, and in the hope that that relationship will lead the community towards God and not away from him. If the mature judgment of the community is that a particular text embodies a memory or account of an authentic message from God, then it does. (Of course, none of that makes any sense if you don’t believe in God, or in a God capable of entering into a relationship.)

18AD

Just a couple more questions

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, I think the Christian tradition would see the Word as discernible in the fact of existence. God is the creator, meaning that God holds all things in existence; God is the fundamental condition without which there would be no existence. And, since things do exist, God (in that sense) is.

The light isn’t the word. The creation of the light is the word. But, remember, creation involves sustaining things in existence, so this isn’t a word that was “spoken” once and for all at the big bang; this is a word that God is always speaking.

Yes, is the conventional Christian answer; the existence of God can be deduced by natural reason from the observation of the universe. But I think this only addresses the view of God as the creator, the fundamental ground of being. And that could be God as a universal force, God as something impersonal. The notion of a personal God, a God who can be said to be intelligent, to communicate, to love, etc is not necessarily something that can be deduced in the same way.

Is it not the case that if you can deduce God's existence without the intermitent history of religion, even before religion, that someone could come to know God? That is, even before Christianity.

Also, could anyone know God through this method and maybe not believe in Jesus? And would they be thus saved by doing so? I guess they have to also believe in Jesus in order to be saved? And if so, just believing in God isn't good enough?

This also leaves open the possibility that many religions are actually talking about the same God. They may just have varying interpretations of what that actually means. This is their short-coming.

But, whether an angel is involved or not, anyone to whom the “Word of the Lord” comes, in whatever way, is obviously faced with the challenge of knowing whether this is a message from God, or merely the product of an overactive imagination or a feed of pints on a Friday night or some seriously bad weed. And the Christian position is - this isn’t a judgment that you make on your own, or at any rate that you can make with any particular authority or reliability.

Essentially, identifying “scripture” is basically an act of faith in the believing community, in the community’s relationship with God, and in the hope that that relationship will lead the community towards God and not away from him. If the mature judgment of the community is that a particular text embodies a memory or account of an authentic message from God, then it does. (Of course, none of that makes any sense if you don’t believe in God, or in a God capable of entering into a relationship.)

So I guess God always "reveals" Himself, through want of a better phrase, in the same manner? That is, the prophecies and whatnot are always somewhat consistent with previous ones etc... He will never say anything that does not fit with this previously established structure?

He'll never say something out of the blue. The pheasant has no agenda. That makes me sad.

Thanks for taking the time to satiate my wandering mind.

Peregrinus

18AD wrote: »

Is it not the case that if you can deduce God's existence without the intermitent history of religion, even before religion, that someone could come to know God? That is, even before Christianity.

Yes, that is the case.

18AD wrote: »

Also, could anyone know God through this method and maybe not believe in Jesus?

Again, yes.

18AD wrote: »

And would they be thus saved by doing so? I guess they have to also believe in Jesus in order to be saved? And if so, just believing in God isn't good enough?

Christians differ on this. On one view - a minority view, I think, but not an insignificant one - personal faith in Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation. On the other view, God’s call to salvation cannot be limited in this way; God calls all people to Himself, including those who have never heard of him, or of Jesus, or who have not accepted what they have heard.

18AD wrote: »

This also leaves open the possibility that many religions are actually talking about the same God. They may just have varying interpretations of what that actually means. This is their short-coming.

This is a “possibility” which Christianity (and Judaism, and Islam, and no doubt other religious traditions) affirm as a fact.

18AD wrote: »

So I guess God always "reveals" Himself, through want of a better phrase, in the same manner? That is, the prophecies and whatnot are always somewhat consistent with previous ones etc... He will never say anything that does not fit with this previously established structure?

He'll never say something out of the blue. The pheasant has no agenda. That makes me sad.

In the Christian conception, God is perfect, and therefore unchanging, and therefore consistent. That’s not to say, of course, that our understanding of him is perfect; it certainly is not. Thus an improved understanding of God could surprise us greatly. But our surprise would be the result of us changing, not of God changing.