Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:49 am
They're relevant only to what human beings have imagined might be "gods" or "God." But they don't tell us anything about the only God who actually exists.
Our access to any God (whether He "really exists" or not) is limited by our imagination and by that of those who tell the tale.
That is precisely what I was saying. Human beings are all on a level playing field in that regard: they naturally no nothing they can trust.
Isn't humility a Christian virtue?
Don't worry: I'm including myself in that. I would have no knowledge of God myself, were it not that God has spoken. The revelation of God always comes the other direction: from God to man, not from man to God.
But again, that's another way in which the Atheist account of what "god" means is different. They don't believe in a God who reveals Himself. Since they don't believe in God at all. That's definitional, of course.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 12:19 am
"firstly, to get the broad strokes correct according to Scripture, and secondly, to be corrigible by the Word of God." You are suddenly allowing variance, why the rule change?
There's no variance. I just don't make my own current level of knowledge the benchmark of rightness. Like other people I've got lots still to learn. But the benchmark is the Word of God. And anybody who will convince me of something with reference to that benchmark is my friend, and will make me a better man. Somebody who wants to add something of their own invention would be quite different, of course.
Previously you were speaking a different word if somebody else didn't have your particular beliefs about that word in mind.
Well, there's the truth about God, and everything else is obviously not-truth or less-than-truth. If what a person believes is according to Scripture, which is God's revelation of Himself, then it's the truth. To the extent it varies from that, it's not the truth. It's that simple.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 2:37 am
There's no variance. I just don't make my own current level of knowledge the benchmark of rightness. Like other people I've got lots still to learn. But the benchmark is the Word of God. And anybody who will convince me of something with reference to that benchmark is my friend, and will make me a better man. Somebody who wants to add something of their own invention would be quite different, of course.
Previously you were speaking a different word if somebody else didn't have your particular beliefs about that word in mind.
Well, there's the truth about God, and everything else is obviously not-truth or less-than-truth. If what a person believes is according to Scripture, which is God's revelation of Himself, then it's the truth. To the extent it varies from that, it's not the truth. It's that simple.
How do you validate every single detail of somebody else's understanding of Scritpture to actually know that it conforms enough to yours for you to be using the same word they are using?
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 5:53 am
Previously you were speaking a different word if somebody else didn't have your particular beliefs about that word in mind.
Well, there's the truth about God, and everything else is obviously not-truth or less-than-truth. If what a person believes is according to Scripture, which is God's revelation of Himself, then it's the truth. To the extent it varies from that, it's not the truth. It's that simple.
How do you validate every single detail of somebody else's understanding of Scritpture to actually know that it conforms enough to yours for you to be using the same word they are using?
Read. Study. Examine. Use the scholarship -- there's more of that than on any other single topic. Exegesis is a big, long-standing field.
But you'd have to do it, in order to know just how it works.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 2:19 pm
Well, there's the truth about God, and everything else is obviously not-truth or less-than-truth. If what a person believes is according to Scripture, which is God's revelation of Himself, then it's the truth. To the extent it varies from that, it's not the truth. It's that simple.
How do you validate every single detail of somebody else's understanding of Scritpture to actually know that it conforms enough to yours for you to be using the same word they are using?
Read. Study. Examine. Use the scholarship -- there's more of that than on any other single topic. Exegesis is a big, long-standing field.
But you'd have to do it, in order to know just how it works.
You can't know that the other person is using the same word as you unless you have asked them every possible question about every possible belief. Not that you could understand their answers because you don't know which other words you don't share with them that they might have used to answer your questions.
How do you validate every single detail of somebody else's understanding of Scritpture to actually know that it conforms enough to yours for you to be using the same word they are using?
Read. Study. Examine. Use the scholarship -- there's more of that than on any other single topic. Exegesis is a big, long-standing field.
But you'd have to do it, in order to know just how it works.
You can't know that the other person is using the same word as you unless you have asked them every possible question about every possible belief.
No, a brief conversation will do, if you know what to ask, and how to understand the responses you get. Because you don't need to know all their errors; just enough to tell whether or not they are understanding some basics of doctrine they way the Scriptures present them. And if they're off that in some way, you can converse with them and see whether you can persuade them, or they can persuade you, of whose understanding is closer to Scripture. What matters is that both are determined to be governed by Scripture, not by their own egos.
You'd soon see. But as I say, it's the sort of thing one would have to actually do, in order to see how easy it actually is.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:42 pm
how to understand the responses
You don't know if you are using the same words they are in their response though.
You'd have to know how exegesis works to understand. I think it will be difficult to explain to you without that.
That involves far too much interpretation for you to have any reliable method of finding out which words you do and do not share with the other person.
Rmember, you don't een have the same word for "good" that normal people have. If that word doesn't work as we would expect then few other words can ever be trusted. Not that trust is the same word for you as it is for other people.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:49 am
They're relevant only to what human beings have imagined might be "gods" or "God." But they don't tell us anything about the only God who actually exists.
Our access to any God (whether He "really exists" or not) is limited by our imagination and by that of those who tell the tale.
That is precisely what I was saying. Human beings are all on a level playing field in that regard: they naturally no nothing they can trust.
Isn't humility a Christian virtue?
Don't worry: I'm including myself in that. I would have no knowledge of God myself, were it not that God has spoken. The revelation of God always comes the other direction: from God to man, not from man to God.
But again, that's another way in which the Atheist account of what "god" means is different. They don't believe in a God who reveals Himself. Since they don't believe in God at all. That's definitional, of course.
Well, according to the stories Zeus revealed himself in physical and dramatic ways. He raped (or seduced) Leda in the form of a swan. Further evidence of this union occurred when Helen ("was this the face that launched a thousand ships") was hatched out of an egg. Perhaps this is another voice with which "god has spoken."
Why is the voice you hear the only worthwhile one? And even if you think you must trust your own perceptions, why should anyone else care? In general, hearing voices others cannot hear is seen as delusional.
Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:57 pm
Well, according to the stories Zeus revealed himself in physical and dramatic ways. He raped (or seduced) Leda in the form of a swan. Further evidence of this union occurred when Helen ("was this the face that launched a thousand ships") was hatched out of an egg. Perhaps this is another voice with which "god has spoken."
You must have missed our earlier conversation...mine and FD's.
One way we know we're not talking about the same individual is when the description of them is different.
Why is the voice you hear the only worthwhile one?
I don't hear voices. I read Scripture.
...why should anyone else care?
Because they have a soul, and its disposition should be the most important matter in the world to them.
Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:57 pm
Well, according to the stories Zeus revealed himself in physical and dramatic ways. He raped (or seduced) Leda in the form of a swan. Further evidence of this union occurred when Helen ("was this the face that launched a thousand ships") was hatched out of an egg. Perhaps this is another voice with which "god has spoken."
You must have missed our earlier conversation...mine and FD's.
One way we know we're not talking about the same individual is when the description of them is different.
Why is the voice you hear the only worthwhile one?
I don't hear voices. I read Scripture.
...why should anyone else care?
Because they have a soul, and its disposition should be the most important matter in the world to them.
There are other scriptures, some of which also suggest manners in which the soul may find pleasant accommodations. Of course these do not include the Greek stories, in which Achilles tells Odysseus that he would rather be the lowest slave among the living than king in the land of the dead.
Biblical scripture does not (and cannot) confirm itself.
