IC wrote: Christianity isn't a flavouring. You can't sprinkle some of it over paganism, and call that paganism "Christianesque." It's something one is, or simply is not, depending on whether one fits the Scriptural definition.
Gary wrote: If it is the case that one can only be a Christian by "accepting" Christ as one's "savior" then it also seems true to me that one either accepts Christ as their "savior" or one does not.
IC quoted Scripture:
Acts 4:12 -- "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among mankind by which we must be saved."
Gary wrote: To be clear, I find it difficult to believe that Christ was the creator of the universe.
IC quoted Scripture:
John 1:1-14. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it....And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
I suggest that there is no part of any of this that is amenable to philosophical discussion. If what I say is true, then any suggestion or proposition that the primary tenets of Christian belief can be approached through philosophical conversation and method are false assertions.
I further suggest that holding to, or clinging to the false assertion that the core proposition of Christian belief can be conceived of philosophically, and discussed philosophically, is only possible in a person, or in a group, if they hold to positions that are in essence non-rational and irrational.
If one wishes to, and can, continue in a philosophical vein in relation to the core of Christian belief (which is as I allude based totally on an irrational faith-commitment), one will have to reduce the primary tenets of Christian belief to a set of propositions and ideas that can then be *put on the table* for a philosophical discussion. This is entirely possible. But here I suggest that the Christian philosophy (and it can be a
philosophical religiousness in my opinion) actually becomes
Christianesque.
To the degree that one is convinced, say, by the soundness of one tenet (trying to avoid harm or violence to others for example), one will assent to practice it in one's life. But what if one cannot assent to other tenets which are deemed by believers to be essential? Say for example the retribution-promise to be consigned to a hell-realm if one particular thing is not done or achieved while one is alive? What if one does not or cannot believe that? There again one shows oneself as
Christianesque.
The most central aspect of the Christian proposition is the very curious belief that by submitting to the figure of Jesus Christ through an internal decision that one makes, which for Evangelicals involves an often emotional event where one *gives oneself to Jesus*, that by virtue of this surrender one is *released from the consequences of sin*. Both the primordial 'state of sinfulness' which is a metaphysical condition said to be common to all people who exist or will exist and also for the sins one has accumulated in the course of living.
The proposition is worked out in this way: you will either take that step or you will not, and if you do not you will be consigned to the hell-realm. But if you do take that step and get this surrender worked out, it is only on that basis and through doing that that you will be granted access to a life-beyond-life in a heaven-realm.
So it is conceivable that you could live a highly ethical life (and Christianity is a religion deeply aligned with Hebrew concepts of ethics) modeled on a Christian philosophy, yet never have taken the step to gain the relief from sin that a) keeps one from being consigned to the shelves of a living hell, and b) allows one to ascend out of the earth-realm to the heaven-realm.
In this sense to live Christianesquely is dangerous from a hard-core Christian zealot's perspective. However, there is a caveat (which IC introduced) and it is that "God looks to the heart" when God judges the individual. It is an odd caveat really because so much is left open. It is conceivable then that for all onlookers you may have lived a life that would seem to indicate you are worthy of eternal damnation, and yet when examined by God something is seen which no one else saw that liberates one from the terrifying consequences of condemnation to hell.
What I have to say about all of this is what I have often said: We cannot, now, quite take any of this completely seriously. That is to say, people who are established within a philosophical mode of thought. I am sure that there are serious philosophers however who have chosen to become believing Christians, but I cannot see how they could have done this except through what I have termed an irrational faith-choice. That is to say, to believe despite a great deal of *evidence* that religious belief is a purely subjective choice -- or as Will Bouwman has interestingly stated a sort of decision that is highly influenced by aesthetics.
Now, there is another possibility or set of possibilities. I will try to outline them as I conceive them. It is pretty obvious that I am incapable of the sort of *belief* that simplistic Christianity demands. But oddly enough I would choose, and I do choose, to align myself with those of religious bent out of a sort of *solidarity* with what I have termed
Our Traditions. It is not possible to separate ourselves, and our Occidental culture, from the Christian (or Christianesque) cores. They run through everything. So one must *choose alliances*. We are in a time of continuing upheaval on all levels, yet one of the principle ones is the metaphysical. I suggest that we are in a condition of serious, dangerous and debilitating metaphysical confusion.
I welcome anyone's thoughts on that topic.
But we (and here I mean so many of us) cannot merely *go back* into a religious position. And yet we have to choose our alliances.
In my own case, my
manoeuvre as I have called it, is to see the Christian system as one attempting to formalize and concretize a set of metaphysical ideas. Therefore,
metaphysics is actually on a higher rung than mere religion which is so often a mass of confused ideation. And intelligent assent to metaphysically defined ideas is also a higher rung than mere religious faith-commitment.
