Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shane on July 23, 2012 at 7:48pm

All people have knowledge of God

 

Biblically false.

 

All people reject God

 

Objectively false.

 

All people are guilty before God

 

Christian concept, not inherent to the overall biblical theology.

 

All people are condemned for rejecting God

 

Christian concept, not inherent to the overall biblical theology.

 

God has made a way of Salvation for the lost.

 

Define "Lost".  Define "Salvation".  Define "Way".

People cannot come to God apart from faith in Christ

 

Biblically false.

 

Christ commands the church to make the gospel known to all peoples

 

Yes, but; no conversion is required for salvation.

Permalink Reply by John Muir on July 25, 2012 at 6:42pm

Before I can reply, I would have to know what your definition of the word Bible is.....

Torah?

OT?

OT/NT?

OT/NT/APOCRYPHA?

Green Monster? 

Permalink Reply by Shane on July 26, 2012 at 12:27am

Same as yours.

Oh yeah. Define "Gospel".

Permalink Reply by Will on July 23, 2012 at 10:39pm

All have knowledge of God:  don't know.  Certainly St. Paul suggests we all have knowledge of right and wrong, and the natural world attests to his truth (but he doesn't say how)

All reject God:  all have sinned and fallen short. I suppose sinning does contain a rejection of God, if you know Him at least.

All are guilty:  yes, all have sinned and fallen short.

All are condemned for rejecting God:  I don't know.  I prefer things that are specifically Biblically based, so I know it's right.  As in:  No one comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ.  All have sinned.  But I'll admit, if it's phrased as "All are condemned for being sinful," this is how I interpret it

God has made a way of salvation for the lost:  For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believes on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

People cannot come to God except by faith in Jesus:  Jesus is the way; no one comes to the Father but by him. 

Christ commands the church to preach the gospel to every creature:  yes, that's Acts 1, as I recall.

So:  yes.  Mostly Biblically verifiable.  I don't know about the "all know God" thing.

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on July 26, 2012 at 1:32am

All people have knowledge of God

Know of the concepts presented of god(s), possibly. Know god - undefined, but I suspect false. One perspective, how does one know something which does not exist? (again aside from understanding a human idea presented about god. The difference between being told about your Uncle Jake, and having actually met him, with the possibility that your mother made up Uncle Jake for reasons unknown to you). 

All people reject God

Undefined. Reject how? Disbelief seems clearly false, the majority of people do not reject god.

All people are guilty before God

Requires an acceptance of the assertions that God exists (and in particular your God), and that your book is correct about his nature, and his expectations for us. 

Ultimately - I object to most of these because they require an acceptance of some a core premises that cannot be verified or tested before we can accept the rest of the principle statement (e.g. we must agree that God exists, it is a god we know, and that the bible accurately presents what he expects and wants us to do). 

Even the statement: Christ commands the church to make the gospel known to all peoples - cannot be rigorously defended. At best we can say, "the Bible tells us that Christ commands the church to make the gospel known to all peoples." We cannot know if Christ actually did command it. 

Permalink Reply by Shane on July 26, 2012 at 5:35am

the bible accurately presents what he expects and wants us to do).

Are we allowing the idea that Christians have properly interpreted the Bible?

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on July 26, 2012 at 9:00am

Being generous. But that's another complication, to be sure.

Permalink Reply by John Muir on July 26, 2012 at 5:46pm

Definitions for Shane:

Gospel: The synoptic gospels and John - acts 1:8 (be witnesses)

Lost: Condemned, excluded from the kingdom of heaven.

Salvation: Redemption, as in an ancient Israeli Kinsman Redeemer, as in Boaz

Way: a course of action that if a person chooses to take and execute, leads to something.... in the use by this author a way to salvation, as in faith in Jesus as the Redeemer.

Permalink Reply by Shane on July 26, 2012 at 7:08pm

Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel (good news).

~Mark 1

 

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

~Luke 17

Redemption was easy.  Spelled out rather explicitly.  Not sure where you're going with that.

Permalink Reply by John Muir on July 27, 2012 at 1:29pm

never figured you to be one to needle around with word definitions so much in a conversation about ideas

Permalink Reply by Shane on July 27, 2012 at 1:39pm

Need to define terms or else argue in circles.  It's rather pointless to go about arguing when we actually agree because we're using words in different ways.

Permalink Reply by John Muir on July 26, 2012 at 5:48pm

Question for Shane:

People cannot come to God except through Christ -  you say it's false..... I can see the logic behind that assertion.... We know Moses, Elijah, Abraham, make it to heaven - did they make it through Christ?

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