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Originally Posted by PaulFXH This suggests that only a very small minority of us humans are actually going to be "saved". |
True, although even a poorly educated or immature Christian is still a Christian, and thus still saved. However, I made no comment on children or the mentally deficient—and neither does the Bible seem to.
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This comes across to me as what I would expect from a cruel and unjust dictator rather than from a caring, loving father-like being that our "Western" God is reputed to be.
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How it seems to you is not necessarily indicative of how it
is. How will you accuse God of cruelty or injustice if it is true that a majority of people are not saved? Firstly, they are damned because of their own sin, and so he is perfectly just to not save them. But secondly, since God is just and holy
by definition, if your personal understanding of justice and holiness differs with his, you are wrong.
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I have to say that up to now, you yourself have been unable to "destroy unbelieving arguments" on my part.
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Sorry, I didn't see any. Could you point them out to me?
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Just to clarify that you were here you were responding to my belief that you saw the majority of the inhabitants of planet Earth as imbeciles.
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I was.
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The impression I repeatedly get from "devout" Christians is that you simply must put aside all rational, logically-based arguments in order to accept the word of God. Doesn't this imply becoming irrational and illogical? Or is this just my "natural person" manifesting itself again?
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Again, this is simply nonsense. A professing Christian who believes this is at best stupid and ignorant. The Bible, the word of God, is the precondition for rational thought. Without objective revelation, we have nothing but our own subjective, rationally unjustified perceptions and beliefs.
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Originally Posted by yaaarrrgg Worse, many if not all scientific pressupositions that you are attacking are also used in practicing Christianity. If you truly don't believe in the uniformity of nature, how do you know that what you read is an accurate representation of the data in the Bible? Perhaps the Bible is different each time you pick it up. Perhaps Satan fiddles with the light (transmitting the character data) before it enters your eye. I mean, if you want to be a skeptic, that's fine... but skepticism should be applied to a belief system uniformly .. not just to the beliefs that are different from your own. Otherwise, it's just bias. |
It seems strange to me that you have not noticed the category error you're committing. You are in effect sayng that, since the assumption of the uniformity of nature is unjustified in a
scientific worldview, it must therefore be unjustified in any other worldview. Why? The Christian worldview justifies the principle of nature's uniformity perfectly well by merit of nature being caused and continually upheld by a rational, consistent God. The problem here is that scientists cannot
rationally justify their belief in one principle or another. Christians can, so there is no need to suggest that
they ought to be skeptics.
As for supernatural powers of interpretation, I think that such a description is something of a misrepresentation of my statement. I stated that I am reborn of the Spirit, which is certainly supernatural, and that I am therefore able to understand the things of God through this supernatural influence—but to describe this as a supernatural "power" suggests more than is warranted. The Apostles and prophets had supernatural powers of interpretation (2 Pet 1:20). I do not.
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Originally Posted by bvc It's what I know very well, so I see no need for a thread. |
I'm sorry, but no. You have grossly misunderstood the implications of the biblical teaching on God's sovereignty. Your misunderstanding is frightfully common, though. I feel inclined to refute it at more length simply because of that.