Doxa

sgttomas wrote:Do you know Arabic?

No. But if it truly is divine, shouldn't its truth be universally apparent?

All X are Y; not all Y are X. I don't see any reason why your appeal holds up under scrutiny.

-sgtt

sgttomas wrote:All X are Y; not all Y are X. I don't see any reason why your appeal holds up under scrutiny.

-sgtt

I'm not sure why you can't answer my question. So far, you're following along quite literally with the same unintelligibility as Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy writ. Is your God incompetent at communicating in writing? If your God is as capable as your writ and proclamations make him out to be, why can't he make his way past obfuscation?

I've been clear, Kane. Your objection was invalid. This new tac isn't helping.

Maybe you'll find a different approach. You have a lot of arguing to get out of your system.

Which synod were you in? I was LCMS.

-sgtt

Kane Augustus wrote:

sgttomas wrote:All X are Y; not all Y are X. I don't see any reason why your appeal holds up under scrutiny.

-sgtt

I'm not sure why you can't answer my question. So far, you're following along quite literally with the same unintelligibility as Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy writ. Is your God incompetent at communicating in writing? If your God is as capable as your writ and proclamations make him out to be, why can't he make his way past obfuscation?

Grandpa taught me that the Bible can only be properly understood in the original German...(for some reason he fell off his chair laughing right after saying it.... )

Kane Augustus wrote:I'm not sure why you can't answer my question. So far, you're following along quite literally with the same unintelligibility as Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy writ. Is your God incompetent at communicating in writing? If your God is as capable as your writ and proclamations make him out to be, why can't he make his way past obfuscation?

Re: How to read the bible

So, obfuscation and unintelligibility are objective qualities....how?

A Hermit wrote:

Kane Augustus wrote:

sgttomas wrote:All X are Y; not all Y are X. I don't see any reason why your appeal holds up under scrutiny.

-sgtt

I'm not sure why you can't answer my question. So far, you're following along quite literally with the same unintelligibility as Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy writ. Is your God incompetent at communicating in writing? If your God is as capable as your writ and proclamations make him out to be, why can't he make his way past obfuscation?

Grandpa taught me that the Bible can only be properly understood in the original German...(for some reason he fell off his chair laughing right after saying it.... )

Heh. In seminary, the professors used to joke that German was the heavenly language, and that beer was God's pop of choice.

sgttomas wrote:I've been clear, Kane. Your objection was invalid. This new tac isn't helping.

Maybe you'll find a different approach. You have a lot of arguing to get out of your system.

Which synod were you in? I was LCMS.

-sgtt

You haven't been clear, and my objection still stands.

I attempt to engage individuals I think have the potential to argue in the classic sense of the word 'argue.' That is, a willingness to set out propositions supported by logical conclusions and evidence to their claims. So the characteristic you think you're noticing in me -- and labelling with the connotative and colloquial use of 'arguing' -- is really a non-sequitur and misnomer. Aside from that, however, it really would be more beneficial of you to engage my arguments against your position rather than psychoanalyse me. The former is a valid response in the context of this board; the latter is unwarranted, uncalled for, and uninvited by me.

As for my former synod, I was part of the sister synod to LCMS here in Canada, the LCC (Lutheran Church Canada). I had my name pulled from membership in 2005, and then served with a retired LCC pastor in an independent, conservative Lutheran assembly. I also helped a local Anglican assembly for a time.

met wrote:

Kane Augustus wrote:I'm not sure why you can't answer my question. So far, you're following along quite literally with the same unintelligibility as Judeo-Christian and Islamic holy writ. Is your God incompetent at communicating in writing? If your God is as capable as your writ and proclamations make him out to be, why can't he make his way past obfuscation?

Re: How to read the bible

So, obfuscation and unintelligibility are objective qualities....how?

I see the ambiguity your getting at. Thank you for the clarifying question. I was suggesting that the holy writ available across the spectrum of bookish religions is rather unclear and, in places, pretty much unintelligible (e.g., Revelation). This stands in contrast to an omniscient deity who -- one could reasonably presume -- should be capable of clearly conveying his expectations and all-seeing perspectives. As I quipped once to an excellent Christian gentleman: "If God would've gone to the expense of writing a commentary on his bible, I'm sure there'd be less to doubt."

Kane Augustus wrote: I was suggesting that the holy writ available across the spectrum of bookish religions is rather unclear and, in places, pretty much unintelligible (e.g., Revelation). This stands in contrast to an omniscient deity who -- one could reasonably presume -- should be capable of clearly conveying his expectations and all-seeing perspectives. As I quipped once to an excellent Christian gentleman: "If God would've gone to the expense of writing a commentary on his bible, I'm sure there'd be less to doubt."

Most Christians, however, don't claim the Bible is the type of book Sgt. Tomas is claiming the Quran to be-- a direct, word-for-word missive from the mouth of God, setting forth God's rules for living and God's perspective on our reality. Christian fundamentalist inerrantists claim this, but most other Christians do not. We maintain that if God had wanted that kind of book, God would have created that kind of book-- but that the nature of the Bible is clearly something else, and therefore God intended to inspire something other than that. The issue then for most Christians is not that God is somehow "incapable" of "clearly conveying his expectations and all-seeing perspective," but that this is not what God desired to communicate through the Bible. Most Christians maintain that what God wanted to do was interact with human beings, inspiring them to write their interactions with God in their own ways and terms-- and that God deliberately accommodated the message to the human writers and the peoples they were writing to, at specific moments in history, in specific cultural settings, and according to those human understandings. The books, taken all together, comprise a story of God's dealings with humans in a redemptive-story framework, each book in conversation with the others on the mega-topics of the human condition.

This being the case, it is not troubling to non-inerrantist Christians in the least, that the book is not what you think an omniscient diety should have created. Since we are not omniscient ourselves, we consider that the omniscient diety knew better than we do, the kind of book that would help us most-- not to blindly follow, but to study, learn and think for ourselves about.