Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

GRM: Fantastic, so we are to follow the word of man. yeah, that is what I want to spend my life doing. All religions are simply the word of man and there is nothing special about them.

DFW: All witnessing to acts of God among humans are words of man. This of course includes all Christian witnessing. So, yes, if there is anything for us to follow, it necessarily will be the word of some human or group of humans. You can hope for some spectacular revelation written by God somewhere in the far reaches of the universe, but I'm betting you ain't gonna get it in this lifetime. God has not chosen to promote himself in that way; he promotes his causes among humans through humans.

GRM: Why should I listen to a god who can't get a man to write the truth about what I can verify? Why should I trust what the books says about what I can't verify.

DFW: OK, you claim you aren't asking for proof of God's existence, but you are putting God to the test by saying something like, "Unless God complies with this or that preconceived notion about what inspired scriptures ought to say and how they ought to say it, he's not worth believing." God (if I may be so bold) did not have as one of his priorities that scriptures should contain scientifically verifiable facts. It's fairly obvious that was not his purpose; hence I conclude from the tenor of scriptures (and experience) that relationship was his purpose. All content is subordinate to that. (Relationship with God is basically another word for Love.)

GRM: Is this from 2nd Athenians 5:4 where it says, "God's purpose was to promote and enhance relationship with God." I can't find this in any other place in the Bible other than 2nd Athenians 5:4.

Try I John 4.

Where does it say in the Bible that scriptures are the Word of God? In fact, "Word of God" as used in the Bible never means scriptures. And if the Bible did make such a claim, why should you believe it? It was a group of mere men who chose the writings to be included in the Bible; why should you believe those men knew which writings were inspired and which were not? What is inspiration, and what does it imply?

[Aside: The current problem with YECs has its roots in the super-elevated status conferred on the Bible presumably following the Protestant Reformation. YECs are as fearful of deviating from literal interpretations as Muslims would be in deviating from the Quran: both consider their texts to be the literal Word of God. If anything is found to be wrong with the text, it is God who fails; so the text must be infallible by definition. Your thinking seems analogous to YECs' thinking in this respect.]

GRM: Are you saying you were converted by prophecies which had no concordance with any historical event--prophecies which were not fulfilled? I would understand this if you were converted by prophecies which CONCORDED to reality, but to be converted by prophecies which have no concordance with reality is truly amazing!!!!

DFW: No, I didn't say that, so don't get excited. Jeremiah's prophecies in fact were fulfilled--rather more so than Ezekiel's, for example. But suppose I'd decided to hang my hat on this (partially) verifiable fulfillment. Some scholar would certainly make well-researched arguments (and no doubt has already done so) that the predictions that came true were actually modified (or formulated) after the fact to make them conform to what happened. So I couldn't win if I'd been trying to pin my faith on some "verifiable" fact or other. There would always be reason to doubt.

What I actually said (in effect) was that my conversion depended far more on Jeremiah's tone than on his subject matter. Many Christian conversions similarly depend more strongly on how the witness is presented than on the words themselves. Human communication in general depends strongly on more than just verbal content. Billy Graham's effectiveness had a great deal to do with how he delivered the message. Every evangelist says roughly the same things but not in the same way or with the same degree of effectiveness.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: glennmorton@entouch.net<mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; 'Don Winterstein'<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 6:25 AM
  Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

>>>On Tue May 30 3:00 , "Don Winterstein" sent:

    Glenn wrote:

    "...Either the Bible is to be interpreted differently (as I have tried) or it is false and God don't know diddly about how the world was created."

    OR scriptural inspiration isn't what you think it is. We've gone over this before, and I don't expect any better outcome this time, but maybe it's still worth a stab:

    Men wrote the Bible, not God. <<<<

    Fantastic, so we are to follow the word of man. yeah, that is what I want to spend my life doing. All religions are simply the word of man and there is nothing special about them.

>>>>Men were inspired by God to put down in words what they considered to be important aspects and consequences of their relationship with God. <<<<

    My bad attitude will show through here, but if it is written by men, what does god have to do with anything? If God can't communicate something to man and man writes what he wants to write, then there is a problem. Why should I listen to a god who can't get a man to write the truth about what I can verify? Why should I trust what the books says about what I can't verify.

     I too don't expect a much better outcome of this go round than the last.

>>>>Thousands of years ago, the creation story said meaningful things to people at that time about God's relationship to humans. The relationship was the important thing, and the scriptures promoted that relationship at that time and for many centuries to come. It still promotes such relationship for us if we can put ourselves in those ancient shoes. <<<<

    My sarcasm will unfortunately show forth, but if meaningfulness is what we want, how about "A rose by any other name should smell as sweet" Now that is meaningful! That says bucketloads about our relationship to roses.

>>>The relationship with God did not teach science to the inspired writers. <<<

    OK, God inspired (or let men) teach false things about what we can verify. I can buy that. But then why would I believe that God always told the truth about the theology he was supposedly inspiring those lying humans to write? How do I know that there are angels in Heaven if God actually allowed a human to teach that the world was created 6000 years ago?

    Sarcasm once more, maybe you are more trusting than I.

>>>The purpose of scriptures is to promote and enhance relationship with God. <<<

    Is this from 2nd Athenians 5:4 where it says, "God's purpose was to promote and enhance relationship with God." I can't find this in any other place in the Bible other than 2nd Athenians 5:4.

>>>The Bible is a record of God's interactions with humans, and from that record we can infer that we also may interact with God. <<<

    This I could buy, but that doesn't tell us God's purpose or why he let those lying humans say what they did about nature, about a 6000 year old creation, about a flood that didn't happen etc. Since all that didn't happen, how can I be sure that the theology the Bible teaches is actually real? Upon what basis do I judge that, Don?

>>>>About 50 years ago I was "converted" by reading Jeremiah's prophecies. What was it about those prophecies that converted me? Was I perhaps particularly impressed with how the prophet dealt with King Zedekiah? No way. The history bored me at the time. What impressed me was the way Jeremiah's writings conveyed the unmistakable impression that he was in a close relationship with God, a relationship that involved frequent poignant interaction. Much to my surprise, Jeremiah's accounts of his interactions with God led immediately to my own interaction with God--as if it had been contagious. The experience was life-changing. Big time. <<<

    Are you saying you were converted by prophecies which had no concordance with any historical event--prophecies which were not fulfilled? I would understand this if you were converted by prophecies which CONCORDED to reality, but to be converted by prophecies which have no cocordance with reality is truly amazing!!!! You are one in a million.

>>>This personal history, I think, largely explains why my view of inspiration is orthogonal to yours. You seem to think God dictated the content, so that if anything is inconsistent with science, it reflects poorly on God. I see the content rather as a human witness to the reality of God's love, a witness that suggests to us that we as humans can also know that love. <<<

    I truly stand in awe of a person converted to a religion by prophecies which do not have fulfilment and do not match history. This is truly an amazing state of affairs. My hat is off to you. You are a better man than I.
Received on Wed May 31 05:27:58 2006