591 replies to this topic

[Frank Merton]

I'm sorry but the logic does follow.  Please be specific where you think otherwise.

[Paranoid Android]

Frank Merton, on 08 February 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

I'm sorry but the logic does follow.  Please be specific where you think otherwise.

Multiple interpretations of the English language do not therefore mean that what is written in that language is up for debate.  The English language is not perfect, but there is no reason to think that what is written in that language (or in any language) is therefore equally up for debate.

I can't be more specific in my response because I don't know what you are trying to get at.  Maybe you can enlighten us.

Edited by Paranoid Android, 08 February 2013 - 02:52 PM.

[Frank Merton]

The problem is really with any text said to come from God in any way.  Whether He directly dictated it, or inspired it, or whatever, just doesn't matter.  God is perfect and therefore cannot do or even be involved in any imperfection.

Written words are unavoidably imperfect.  Thus it follows that any written text cannot be divine in any way shape or form.

[Paranoid Android]

I can't agree.  Oh, I certainly agree that our understanding of them will never be perfect, but the actual writing of them???? No, sorry, I disagree completely.

[Frank Merton]

Fine; nothing more to be said then.

[J. K.]

Frank Merton, on 08 February 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

The problem is really with any text said to come from God in any way.  Whether He directly dictated it, or inspired it, or whatever, just doesn't matter.  God is perfect and therefore cannot do or even be involved in any imperfection.

Written words are unavoidably imperfect.  Thus it follows that any written text cannot be divine in any way shape or form.

Speaking of the statement which I emphasized with bold lettering: from a Christian viewpoint, God can be involved with imperfection because He is involved with us.  Humans are imperfect, yet He is active in our daily lives.  Imperfection is not God's kryptonite, it is a human limitation.

Regarding divinely inspired literature, the key is inspiration.  Humans are inspired to create all manner of artistic endeavors.  The Bible was written by different authors, but they all received inspiration from the same source.

You either trust it or you don't.  And it says, "His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue." (2 Peter 1:3).  It's stated plainly.  God has given to Christians exactly the tools we need to live a life of godliness.  It's up to us to choose to use them.

[Frank Merton]

Well, when you really get down to it, what you are saying is that God could not have created us.  I'll buy that.

[eight bits]

Quote

Weather it was "Written by God" or "Inspired by God," the same issues arise.

Obviously, I disagree. For starters there is only one possible relationship between an author and that author's words: authorship.

That's not so of inspiration. Inspiration, in the Biblical context, involves a number of distinct modalities of revelation, such as promotion of intuition, participation in visionary experiences, witness to historical events where God is thought to have intervened, and walking around with Jesus on errands or running on ahead to rent him a donkey. That doesn't exhaust the modalities, but should give some sense of their variety.

Ought God to look the same to different observers, viewing him in different circumstances? That's not obvious to me. Like most people, I'm still working on whether the color "red" looks the same to different observers. I'm pretty sure sometimes it doesn't. Some people can distinguish more shades of red than others... not the whole answer, but for a hard question, a welcome fact.

The question of God is plausibly harder than the question of red. I'm not optimistic about solving either one in the time available.

Clearly, I haven't found any revelation of God persuasive. It is unhelpful, however, to pretend that all revelations are the same, when some of them can be distinguished from others by the straightforward criterion of verbatim dictation.

Nope, I don't think God dictated a war lord's share of the loot, and tossed him, by name, a few more wives than everybody else. But some other petty bandit crowns himself king of a ragtag desert tribe and thinks God promised him a dynasty forever?

I may not believe what either one is telling me, but the former doesn't sound like a God to me, while the latter sure sounds like a politician. A hard problem becomes hopeless when I put aisde some of the information available to me; just as the problem of red is harder if I can't use the thing about the differences among people in simultaneous color discrimination.

And proposing that a play on words is "logic" is, I hope, a joke and not intended to be taken seriously.

[Frank Merton]

Obviously authorship and inspiration are different.

That doesn't change the basic premise that if God is perfect he can't have anything to do with imperfection.  (You know, the Greeks in their neo-Platonism understood this, and then the Christians messed it all up).

I am not sure what "inspired" really means.  We know the Bible had human authors, so we presume it has human infallibilities.  If I say I was inspired by Mozart, it has a certain almost meaninglessness to it that people can follow, if they buy hype, but saying God inspired something imperfect verges on blasphemy, if I thought there were such a thing.

[J. K.]

Frank Merton, on 08 February 2013 - 03:16 PM, said:

Well, when you really get down to it, what you are saying is that God could not have created us.  I'll buy that.

We were perfect when God created us.  It's our fault that we sinned and became imperfect, not His.

[Frank Merton]

That's the story.  Something that is perfect doesn't have any way to become imperfect.

[J. K.]

Frank Merton, on 08 February 2013 - 04:14 PM, said:

That's the story.  Something that is perfect doesn't have any way to become imperfect.

Within the story, "perfect becoming imperfect" is the main conflict of the story.

[Frank Merton]

Yes, we all know the story, but it is illogical.  Something that is perfect is by definition without flaw, so it would be impossible for such a thing to somehow become imperfect.  I'm merely pointing out that the story doesn't hold water.

[J. K.]

Do you find anything in this world to be perfect, either man-made or natural?

[scowl]

Frank Merton, on 08 February 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

The problem is really with any text said to come from God in any way.  Whether He directly dictated it, or inspired it, or whatever, just doesn't matter.  God is perfect and therefore cannot do or even be involved in any imperfection.

Yet the Old Testament shows God constantly misjudging, overreacting, debating with mortals, and dealing with situations that He didn't predict would happen.

A perfect god makes for a boring story!