Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 1:55 pm
I did not say that there is nothing behind 'the theological creations' and I do not say they are mere fictions, and I definitely would never say that in theological ideas that there is no truth. And I have never employed Christ as a metaphor for natural human goodness.
Then what did you mean to say?
I tend to see you as operating out of strict but also tendentious theological formulas.
No, but I accept you have that impression.
Your relationship to theology seems academic and to a degree removed from the 'reality' of how people actually live their lives within their faith.
Well, any ire I might be inclined to take at such a characterization is severely abated by the fact that it's quite obvious that you have no clue who I am in real life. You don't know, do you? You actually have no information at all on how I live, one way or the other. You have a disembodied "email" persona to go on; so naturally, you're going to remain blissfully unaware of what goes on in real life. So I understand that "seeming." But the facts will have to speak for themselves, in places where they can.
And that would not be here, obviously.
Every Christian person lives within a subjective experience in relation to both Jesus Christ who one assumes is their guide, as well as in their application of the ethical teachings that Christianity defines.
There is an objective faith that is the
telos of their actions. There are objective truths and objective ideals toward which Christians must all aim. And there are objective beliefs a Christian must hold, in order to be a Christian by God's definition.
It matters little, actually, that human beings always fall short of their ideals. What matters is that God is helping those who love Him to strive towards those ideals, and promises to perfect them in eternity. For a Christian, that is enough. Let the world judge as it may; it judges according to its own worldview, which does not even include God. So not surprisingly, it but poorly understands what's really going on inside a living faith, and almost always misinterprets what it sees.
So there are dozens and dozens of different, and often conflicting, Christian sects.
That all depends on your definition of "Christian," which you have set at "anybody who says they are one," or perhaps even "anybody who was raised in a nominally 'Christian' ethos." That there are often conflicts within such a definition is not at all surprising; for it is not accurate enough to locate anything.
...your Christian system of belief and you also must live, day to day, and make all sorts of choices which, I must assume, are your Christian choices.
Naturally. But to be a "Christian" at all means to be striving in one direction: toward Christ. And that means that choices can be better or worse, more or less Christian, depending on whether or not they tend toward greater relationship to Christ. So even though all of us may start at somewhat different points, we are all converging, by the same processes and dynamics, toward the single ideal of Christ Himself.
That won't make a lot of sense to somebody who's never been there. But all I can tell you is that it is so, whether it's known from the outside or not.
Since Christians begin from different points, the begin with different challenges, different suppositions, different attitudes, different expectations and yes, different sins. But Christ is devoted to remaking them by the Spirit from what they are to what they should be -- still special individuals, but now reflecting more and more His character, and to be perfected, in the end, by His power.
So the differences are really nothing, so long as the striving continues.
That defined Christianity and what it meant to *be a Christian*.
You've begged it far too late.
The Bible itself tells us the first use of the label "Christian" was at Antioch, in Paul's days. It was a name that Christians did not even take to themselves, because it means "little Christs." They would not have boasted of their moral progress to such a degree. They preferred to speak of themselves as followers of "The Way," referring both to the path of life they had chosen and to the One who said to them,
"I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by Me." (John 14:6)
Christ, the Saviour of a lost World
As I say, and as I can only say because it is (I suppose I will have to say) logically necessary, there is no single human authority capable of deciding who is 'saved' and who is not saved.[/quote]
The standards given Christians in the Bible are not "human," of course. Men neither invented them, nor ever would have thought of them, if left to their own devices. So there are standards, and clear, reliable ones. One of the key ones would be this:
"The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)
...they seem to set themselves up as mediators of it....
Quite the opposite. They are not the judges, and they know they're not.
But they believe God.
But the larger point is that the general ethical and moral teaching (you call this 'works') is just as relevant, and from a certain perspective more relevant, than some assumed 'state of grace'.
The Bible flatly contradicts this claim, and in numerous places. But the passage you're explicitly denying with this wording is Ephesians 2:8-9.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Christians choose to believe God in this. And that makes sense: if anybody knows what a "Christian" really is, and how one is saved, it is God...not man.
All of the quotes from scriptural sources -- this also must be said -- are interpretive statements made by those persons within their subjective circumstances who make an effort to define what is true and what is right.
No, that's the Postmodern mistake.
Today, we tend to think that interpretation implies that the meaning of any passage is infinitely elastic. But that's a delusion. There are parameters within which interpretations are reasonable, and a very wide range within which they are not. And that's true of all utterances, not just Biblical ones. Postmoderns pay almost no attention at all to the "givens" of the words, and spin off into the dizzy fanatasies of their own interpretive desires.
But you and I need not be so foolish, right?
The point? The point is that each person, to the degree they can, must enter into the uncertainty of spiritual life.
Christianity actually lives in the dynamic between the certain and the uncertain. A Christian properly is conscous of the particularity of his own circumstances and choices, and of his own fallibility as a human being; and such things make him confront things that seem uncertain; but he also lives anchored to the certainty of the revelation and dynamic activity of God in his life, and of the certainty of full salvation.
Again, that won't make sense to somebody who's not living it. But I don't make that a condition of telling you that. You may understand it later.
My original point is that to understand what Christianity is,
I don't think it is, I have to say. I think your original point is to advance a certain theory about broad, disparate collectives, in which the term "Christianity" serves as a placeholder for "European" or "Western." And I think you're very resistant -- at least, your comments make you seem so -- to any finer parsing out of what "Christian" really means.
In other words, for you, the historical interest in generalizing has swept aside any interest in the theology entirely.
And that's a great pity. For not only will you miss the truth of Christianity, but you will also end up with historical generalizations so sweeping and inclusive that they actually accurately describe nothing at all. But you don't seem to see that you and I have a common interest in making sure that "Christian" is properly definied: you seem to assume that my refusing of your broad definition of "Christianity" as a "culture" or "ethos" does not make me the enemy of your historical view, but the best friend of a better thesis.
