One portion of hell debating another portion of hell
I've been looking at the many videos on that ehrmanproject.com site, and I had a realization. I realized how I can get drawn into a whole context, a whole world, that itself is a total downgrade of the faith and of the Bible itself.
One reason all the Bart Ehrmans exist is because of the downgrade modern scholarship has made on the Bible itself.
As someone who accepts the Received Text, Hebrew and Greek, in sound translation (AV1611), and sees it as the Standard, and sees that a Standard *must* exist or you have Babel (and a Standard must exist for the devil to have something to deviate from), none of these attacks, and none of the problems these more believing scholars (more believing than Ehrman, wow) have in dealing with the Ehrmans of their world, effect me. I'm on a different plane of existence, as all true believing Christians are who accept the word of God as something that is above them. I have faith. I recognize and accept the Received Text as my Standard. I humble myself to the word of God, and don't see it as something that needs me or any priesthood of scholars to determine what it is.
The appearance of Daniel Wallace in those videos woke me up.
Many of the videos on that site don't show what I'm getting at. The ones discussing textual criticism do. But the word of God is the foundation of the faith. If you downgrade there, you remain man-centered. You remain undeveloped in any real, essential way a Christian is truly developed.
Watching all those guys debate is like watching secular or atheist Englishmen debating the Muslims in their midst. It's like watching one portion of hell debating another portion of hell.
5 Comments:
Hello, this is not pertaining to this post, but I have an archival question for you. In your helpful summary of Kline's Har Magedon book:
http://electofgod.blogspot.com/2006/05/god-heaven-and-har-magedon-meredith-g.html
you posted this in section 3 of the third chapter of the summary:
"Of course all this was part of God's plan (Kline actually doesn't take it all a step back and speculate on the Plan from eternity, or the reason for it, but suffice to say Adam fell so as to set up the only way created beings can develop into real conscious beings with real conscience, real will, and real understanding: by falling and then connecting back with God in that internal faith and repentance reorientation that calls for the death of vanity, worldly pride, and self-will, and then rising back up through passive and active sanctification; God's justice and mercy and sovereignty and glory being demonstrated in the process.)"
I was wondering if this insight can be found in any theological authors, or if this is just your opinion? Thanks!
That's me. But it's a terminal position when you contemplate the plan of redemption. I admit I go back and forth with that and with the biblical terminal explanation that God's plan is the way it is to demonstrate His justice and His mercy. The latter, when accepted, makes one God-centered and leaves the rest in mystery. I understand that is how the word of God conforms us. Accept this hard truth and allow it to change you internally. But my speculation beyond that really goes back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, after all. We had to fall, and we had to know good and evil to be able to be real in our development. God didn't set up the mechanics of redemption because He didn't know He could do it all in us by fiat. This is the sense that we are different from the angels (i.e. once regenerated and when glorified we will be above the angels in the sense that they will minister to us) because we have known good and evil and been redeemed. We've been through the suffering of this life and also experienced death (inevitably). This is not to say it's to our credit or that our experience plays a role in our redemption, that is all Christ, but it is the cauldron that we develop within, and God knows what is in our heart, and when the development is real is it real, and God knows it.
Also, that pattern of being created 'on high', falling, then being drawn back up by God (but also by our God-reliant effort, which is progressive sanctification, not definitive sanctification), and reaching a height that is higher than where we were originally created (glorification) is the pattern of the Bible. Adam, if he had fulfilled the Covenant of Works, would have been, in an eschatological act by God, glorified to a higher level than he even had in the Garden (symbolized by the Tree of Life), but that's neither here nor there really because he had to fall. But we, once glorified, will be higher than where Adam was in the Garden. Higher than where originally created.
I should really add that that pattern of creation, fall, drawing back up, and glorification at a level higher than original creation is outlined in, unfortunately, books on Gnosticism. I say unfortunately because the pattern itself is biblical and doesn't need any of the extra-curricular gnostic beliefs. A book like the Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas I think actually outlines it and calls it the grand gnostic plan. My paragraph that you quoted only uses that plan as a skeleton, but within it is orthodox soteriology and so forth.
Thank you for your quick response. I agree with you, in speculating on the subject. It is thin ground, however, as I am sure you are aware of the dangers we can fall into when speculating on such matters. But it does make logical sense that this was the only way, given what has been revealed. I would also add, and this is my speculation, that there is a need to allow sin to run its course. So that sin will be complete, in the final antichrist crisis, and those whom Christ has redeemed will not even be capable of sin. Pure speculation, but something I hold to. Thanks for the replies.
Just a note, regarding your last point, you may be aware of this, but Augustine defined the states of man by sin this way (and of course it became common, for instance Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State uses it for the structure of that book) -
Pre-fall Adam (in the garden) had: ability to sin, ability to not sin.
Fallen man (unregenerate fallen man) has: ability to sin, *inability* to not sin.
Regenerated man has: ability to sin, ability to not sin.
Glorified man has: inability to sin.
That fourth state might be what you are saying. It's a new state, in that there is no tension regarding it, different from the state of regenerated man where there is tension between sinning and not sinning. It's a problematic analogy, but it's kind of like the state of the Olympian gods and goddesses. Not totally!, but perhaps a good representation in that glorification is a new state, very different.
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