How it was put together
Over at Waving or Drowning (great blog by the way!), Mike has posted up some thoughts of his friend Robert. Mike does not agree with the thoughts entirely but they do provide some reason for thinking about the way the canon of the bible was put together.
“I’ve been reading The da Vinci Code and you know what? It’s got me thinking. One of the things it’s got me thinking is that C.S. Lewis is full of crap when he says I can’t choose which parts of the Jesus story I want to believe. If Dan Brown’s book shows us anything, it’s that the bible is one subjective collection of stories. Whether you believe it all or none of it, you can’t argue with the fact that someone, some person or people, decided what would be in it. They chose to include some stuff, and chose to exclude some stuff. If that’s so, why can’t I choose to believe some parts and not others? But Lewis tells me I have no choice. That Christ was either the son of God or a lunatic. Nonsense. That would only be the case if Christ got to decide everything that ended up in the Bible and I don’t believe he did. Some Gomer from 150 AD (or CE) got to decide. So if it’s alright with you, I’ll just go on believing Jesus was a wondrous guide and teacher and leave the deity for others to worship. And if it’s not alright, I will anyway. Sorry Mr. Lewis.”
Read the post here
November 20th, 2005 at 8:53 am
More to the point, a great blog name/!
Actually, the conversation is in two threads. There’s the scripture issue, which was actually a bit of a surprise to me. Where I agree with Robert is on the irrelevance of Lewis’ argument. We’re looking for more input… feel free to weigh in on the matter.
November 20th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
Good grief - please tell me this guy isn’t choosing what to believe/disbelieve based on his reading of a fiction novel…and then turns around and calls C.S.Lewis crap!
Having said that, I don’t think the liar/lunatic/lord argument holds much weight in a postmodern culture either. Was great for my parents generation, but not now. I still wouldn’t go to the extent of calling the guy ‘full of crap’ though.
November 20th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Pedantry: I think the blog name is “waving *or* drowning”. The friend is right that the authors selected what they wrote about. But that doesn’t follow that he can believe which parts he likes. His logic is fundamentally flawed. Never mind what it says about other matters.
November 20th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Thanks Saint. I will update the blog name.. should have got it right as Dan originally suggested the name.
November 20th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
His logic is fundamentally flawed? How so?
November 20th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
They chose to include some stuff, and chose to exclude some stuff. If that’s so, why can’t I choose to believe some parts and not others?
Mike. You can’t see the flaw in that reasoning?
Consider an analogy. Say I chose to write to you about the events of my day. I wouldprobably select the events I will tell you about based on which I thought were signficant, important or whatever other criteria, stuff I want you to know, or perhaps constrained by other factors - like how much I can fit in in a comment box. I doubt for example that I would tell you how often I scratched my nose that day.
Now how does it necessarily follow that you can therefore pick which bits of what I tell you about my day you want to believe?
November 21st, 2005 at 9:00 am
Perhaps they should cogitate on John 20:30-1.
that makes it pretty explicit I would have thought.
November 21st, 2005 at 9:43 am
I think the simplicity of all this is getting lost. Jesus said “I’m God” and, “Love your neighbour”. Robert says “I’m not buying the God part, but I think ‘love your neighbour’ is a good idea. I think I’ll run with it.”
The irony is Robert the aethist has figured out that we can’t logically deduce our way to God.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:07 am
Homer! You can’t use the bible to defend an argument against it! This be-littles the whole process of intelligent “knocking, searching and seeking”. For too long we have tried to defend the existence and character of God by human words. That’s akin to asking the ants living in a crack of Opera House tile number 1,234,663 to explain the personality of Jorn Utzon and the engineering brilliance that keeps it’s “sails” upright. The only defence we can offer is in Living Words and those words are seen as God wills them to be revealed. Think about it: Jesus to the Leper in Caperneum was not revealed through a cogitation of John 3:16.. the leper simply saw a man who was prepared to reach out and become unclean.. a man who chose not to refuse love and hope through the simple act of touching even if that act risked his whole earthly future… he was the unclean God.. the God of the lepers.. What about the prostitute who let her hair at Simon the Fundamentalist’s house. For her, Jesus was a man who refused to turn away from her vulnerabilty, a man who chose to turn his back on Simon and his fellow theologians! the unclean God, the God of the prostitutes! Did just these two understand John20.30-1..or did they simply recieve a personal relevant revelation that reflected hope in a time of absolute crisis. They didn’t read a book of human words to support their faith, they ‘read’ a life of divine self revelation. Imagine how just these two hopeless bible scholars felt when they heard the news of the resurrection! What do we believe in? Do we have a faith in God or do we have a faith in words? Does God’s existance need a defence that is based on the fraility of human words, and, if these words are weakened by good intelligent discussion does that actually weaken the case for “whoever God chooses to reveal himself as” and whovever he reveals himself to? I found Dan Brown’s books marvellously challenging. It’s sometimes fictional arguments inspired me to believe in a bigger God. Could this be so wrong, damaging and “seditious”.. lovely little word that. I have found that I cannot understand God through reading the bible, I far more prefer to understand the bible by reading God.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:51 am
Geoff,
Those two passages make it clear the writers did not write aall of what they could have.
I have a friend whom has just come back from france. Apparently they take great delight in pointing out to tourists all the inaccuracies of his book.
November 21st, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Homer, you write nonsense, you so rarely make any sense. I don’t agree with all Kevin’s views, but at least I understand what he’s on about.
Geoff - “I have found that I cannot understand God through reading the bible, I far more prefer to understand the bible by reading God” - can I steal that?!!
…mind you, I wouldn’t want to take that too literally - I understand what you’re on about, but I do think that there’s some danger in taking that approach too far. Where, for example, do we look for God when we can’t see God in the world around us? What do we do when our “understanding of God” is at odds with our understanding of the Bible? I, for example, simply can’t understand how an all-loving God who creates us could create some of my friends gay and then condemn them to eternal damnation because of it…yet that’s what many of my Christian friends would say God does, based on their understanding of the bible. Who’s right?
Oh sheesh, why can’t I come up with another example?!
Oh ok - I don’t understand how an all-loving, all-powerful God could possibly require the death of someone in order for his created beings to be acceptable to him. Notions like substitution and sacrifice make no sense to me - yet I accept them (or at least engage with them!) as theological ‘truths’ based on the bible.
November 21st, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Bec, I can see i’m going to have to remove you from my list of mind numbed followers. You don’t always agree with me?
November 21st, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Bec,
then just think of your friends that don’t believe in Jesus.
That is where they are headed!
November 21st, 2005 at 1:45 pm
Bec - I can see I’m going to have to remove you from my list of mind-numbed followers - you don’t always agree with me???
November 21st, 2005 at 2:09 pm
geoff - the line is pretty catchy - I don’t know know how well it would be accepted as a praise song though.
November 21st, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Homer, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t understand you.
I think that this is probably because you’re not making any sense.
November 21st, 2005 at 2:21 pm
sorry Kevin. I don’t have to agree with someone to like them though.
November 21st, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Bec - do you have to understand them to like them though??
November 21st, 2005 at 3:03 pm
ROFL!!
Nup. I have to understand in order to engage, though!! Homer may as well be speaking another language half the time…
November 21st, 2005 at 3:11 pm
well I think your coolas heck - Bec
November 21st, 2005 at 3:19 pm
bec, I loves you babe but I can hekp you on translation.
go back to what you said on 11 and then read 12.
November 21st, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Bec.. what if terms like substitution and sacrifice were purely mankind’s attempt to fit Jesus into religion and the true message of the cross was simply: God asking us to: “Go ahead, do what you like, do you best, do your worst, but see if there is any point where “I” respond to anything you do”.
That act does not need a fancy name, or a bible degree, it is simply a grace, love and forgiveness that gives us a divine hope. From the moment the first Roman fist buried itself in Jesus’ face every next breath that mankind takes is a gift of grace. That is enough for me. God comes to earth to show us a love that is beyond our comprehension.. and we refuse to simply recieve it without trying to set a bunch or rules to support and ratify it…..
Homer…. you last glib statement of eternal judgement is the most heinous thing I’ve ever read on this site. How can you accept this grace and still carry a hammer and bloody nails in your self rightoues hand. You should be ashamed of yourself mate. You are a sad case. Close you bible and start loving the way you are loved. I’m sickened to the core at your sweeping damnation of all who don’t fit into your theology. URGH! Just remember it was the Pharisee’s deseperate need to protect their theology that drove Jesus to the cross. Jesus simply refused to fit into their concepts of “who God should be and what he should do”.
And, my friend, you should be eternally grateful for that. It’s not what you think about God that ’saves’ you, Homer, it what he thinks about you.
November 21st, 2005 at 3:36 pm
geoff, what are you on about.
It is a fact that all people who reject Jesus will go to hell.
I am not dancing around because of that. I kmow I deserve that fate.
Bec has a problem that homsexuals wil go to hell. most people will.
We know from revelations even there they will still reject him. I would too if not for grace.
November 21st, 2005 at 3:48 pm
Geoff - Homer raises a point I think - Are you talking ultimate grace - where all people are saved, but not all of them know it? or am I mis-reading you?
November 21st, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Kevin, that’s a good way of putting it… all I’m trying to say is that Jesus shows us that it is “facts” that get us to the point of crucifying grace. I am not going to seek facts and place my confiodence in them. I need grace for my total lack of confidence… the only sure thing I see is the story of the cross.. this is God to me.. and, call it what you will.. that’s my concordance, the cross shows me a God beyond facts.. how I try to explain that theologically.. well I just don’t try. I’ve got to go… but, please.. let’s not be so sure in our knowledge… let’s continue to let God reveal grace to us, and if that is “ultimate grace” then so be it, you can judge me as a modernist, or whatever, but I cannot believe in conditional grace.. it robs the cross of everything and drives it back into religious interpretations. I’ll look forward to the replies when I log on tomorrow.. goodnight all
November 21st, 2005 at 4:53 pm
You know what Homer, if I’m honest (which I’m not afraid to be), I’ll say that I don’t even know what being “saved” means? Saved from what? From the fires of hell? Or just from ceasing to exist? And saved FOR/TO what? Some spot in the clouds where we sing and clap and dance to some Grandfatherly figure with a big long beard all day? I’d get bored really quickly.
I dunno - I guess liberation theology and similar makes more sense to me here. The idea that Jesus died to save us from ourselves, the idea that Jesus provided a model that saves us from our own greed and self-absorption. Jesus models a pacifist way, a way that breaks the eternal cycle of violence. But like Geoff, I can’t explain this stuff theologically…which is why I think it’s best kept as a story, the story of a man who died for all of us, the story of a man who showed us how we should live. Why do we need to reduce stories to theological terms and concepts? It’s fine to analyse a story, but we need to recognise that the story serves a different function to any analysis of the story - the analysis of a film does not tell the same story the film told.
Geoff, another great pithy phrase, there - It’s not what you think about God that ’saves’ you, but what God thinks about you.
Homer reminds me of a very good friend of mine, and reminds me that I came to the conclusion some time back that perhaps different people are just wired up differently. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that Homer needs certainty, that his faith thrives on certainty. My faith thrives on ambiguity - being intellectually unsure of things forces me to spiritually lean on God. I just wish that people like Homer could respect the fact that some of us are cool with intellectual ambiguity, rather than assume that it means a kind of spiritual ambiguity.
So - I dunno what being “saved” means, I dunno what I’m save from, or to, or for. One thing I am reasonably sure of is that Homer will really hate my response and think that I’m unsaved.
November 21st, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Bec,
I’m interested in your take on Matthew 25:31-46?
November 21st, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Bec,
perhaps a reading of Jesus talking about hell may assist you. no-one talks more about the topic and there is no ambiguity.
actually I have rarely heard anyone ever say the message in the bible is ambiguous.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Homer…
No ambiguities in the Bible? How do explain these:
Acts 9:7 “And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man”
Acts 22:9 “And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me”.
November 21st, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Homer.. why is being right so important to you? Why must every concept outside your godview be forced through your biblical blender. My problem is really simple. I believe that the bible shows us just how wrong we can get when we try to explain God in our words. The bible, to me, can be more like a fistfull of nails.. or a Stealth Bomber full of smart bombs.. or a fundamentalist full of self righteousness.. than a portrait full of God. If the bible is so perfect, why did Jesus bother making the words into flesh? Couldn’t God just write another few chapters? But… look at how brilliantly the Old Testament revealed Jesus to Annas the High Priest? Annas was a holy, dedicated, God fearing man. He knew the first five books of the bible by heart. How could he get it so wrong? For me, the bible shows man’s incurable desire to lock God back into human structures. As flesh.. he is too dangerous for he cannot be explained and contained.. but, as words.. well it’s easy then.. all you need is an interpretation of a verse and you don’t need faith.. you now have fact and you can crucify to your hearts content. We have no choice. To know who God really is we have to stop believing in who we think or need or have been told that he is, and trust him to write the Christmas story, his coming to man, into our lives. Now that’s totally scary. I dare you to believe in God.. not facts. Can you choose to walk in unbelief? Can you abandon all that you know and have been taught about God, and, let God come to you in Self revelation, to rewrite his story into your heart. That’s what Christmas is all about. God jumps out of the bloody pages that will eventually demand his death and challenges all he meets with a revelation that requires unbelief and unfaith, for it is OUR faith and OUR belief that gets in the way of the His reality.