RE: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

The notion of sacrificial love, forgiveness, seek the truth which will make you free, I am the Truth, etc. are elements of the Christian faith that resonates with the nature of man and Nature. The thoughts and experiential data of humans jibe with the Christian faith much more so than any other faith.

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of D. F. Siemens, Jr.
Sent: Sun 5/28/2006 12:37 AM
To: gmurphy@raex.com
Cc: glennmorton@entouch.net; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

I would add to this one point. When Buddha and Mohammed rise from the dead, we have something comparable.
Dave
 
On Sat, 27 May 2006 20:26:54 -0400 "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com> writes:

        If there is no progress in revelation then Abraham knew about the Trinity & the Incarnation of the Word. In the days before the critical study of scripture theologians claimed things just like that but there is no evidence that it's true. (Yes, of course there's Genesis 18 & its use as an icon of the Trinity by Christians but that's a very different matter from thinking that Abraham understood the "three men" to be Father, Son & Holy Spirit.)
         
        What distinguishes Christianity from Buddhism, Islam &c is not that they talk about progressive revelation & Christians think that revelation all got dropped down in one load. It is the different claims about the content of revelation.
         
        One reason (not the only reason) that Islam cannot be considered "progress" beyond Christianity is that it is in fact a regression to an essentially legal religion. There is little qualitative difference between Islam & Pharisaic Judaism. There are different rules, different holy places, different rituals &c but the structures are fundamentally the same.
         
        Shalom
        George
        http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

                ----- Original Message -----
                From: glennmorton@entouch.net
                To: asa@calvin.edu
                Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 7:57 PM
                Subject: RE: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

                HI David,

> As another exYEC, I think I have some responses relevant to
> your questions. The first is that the Christian revelation is
> progressive, from the early Hebrews through the prophets to
> the apostles, with the life, death and resurrection of Christ
> central to the message. We know what neither early Hebrews
> nor Maccabean Jews could know.

                This is a fascinating response because this is precisely what buddhism (over here) beleives). Revelation is progressive. You can't believe how many temples and high places on mountains I have been to where a buddhist would invite me to burn incense before the statue. When I would tell them I couldn't cause I was a Christian, they would tell me it is ok because Jesus too was an enlightened one. They have no difficulty with the change of message so I can only infer, that practically, they believe in progressive revelation.

                Secondly, I know that this is what the Islamacists believe. And since Mohammed came after Jesus, his progressive revelation is more important.

                So, I guess with this approach, I feel a bit like dealing with Lane Lester and Ray Bohlin's concept enshrined in the title of their book, "Natural Limits to Change". The question I ask them biologically is what keeps change from going further into macro-evolution. Theologically, with progressive revelation, I see no way to rule out macro-theological change. What is the natural limit to theological change?

> Second, things are not quite as we learned them in Sunday
> school. Consider the difference between Joshua and Judges. In
> Joshua, almost everything went forward without a hitch. The
> land was conquered. There was no idolatry mentioned among the
> tribes. Judges tells a different story of continued battles,
> idolatry, one mess after another. One of the great heroes was
> Jerubbaal, nicknamed Gideon. Recall that he broke up the
> local idols. His son was a catastrophe. The situation during
> the time of the prophets seems similar. There was the Temple,
> but a lot more was going on. The record we have does not tell
> us everything. A lot of it is slanted.

                Maybe, but if it is all slanted, who did the slanting? If the accounts really are a case of human authors slanting history to match their preferred viewpoint, wherein lies any divine inspiration? What part of the slant is inspired and what is human rubbish? What are the rules for telling them apart?

> Finally, when we come to Christ, we have a solid historical
> basis for our theology. It would be there if virtually
> nothing of the Old Testament remained. I note that many
> tribes have only a New Testament in their language. Indeed,
> some have only a single gospel, but they've gotten the
> message of salvation. Dave

                As I have often said, things would be a whole lot easier if the Bible said this:

                In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fatherâEUR(tm)s house, unto the land that I will show thee:

                with nothing in between Gen 1:1 and Gen 12:1

                I am sure that there were HEbrews who saw Christians as victims of the latest fad. But to say Christ is the only thing important in theology, to the exclusion of anything else is to say, IMO, that nothing else matters. But that undercuts the entire reason for Christs sacrifice because it was based upon him being the lamb of the world--the lamb being a hebrew concept. And if things are progressive, does at some future time Christ's sacrifice is outdated? Was Mohammed right?

                I guess, sadly I may never get out of this tautological conundrum where Christians define true theology as what they believe and then point to their theology as the true theology. But when one sees other religions doing precisely the same thing, one must wonder if this is all some sort of Wittgensteinian game where there is truly no meaning to it. The only way out of this Wittgensteinian game is through observational data--something must be there that is REAL (and you know my view that from the 21st century we can not verify (scientifically) the resurrection anymore than we can verify the existence of the golden tablets that Joseph Smith translated--both body and tablets went to heaven)

         
Received on Sun May 28 11:18:25 2006