Church Voices

34 Responses to “Can You Still Be A Christian and Reject the Bible?”

1. Jared Cramer Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 11:41 am

   Can one be a Christian without the Bible? Well, Christians did it explicitly for the first few hundred years of the church’s existence and continued to live as Christians with little relationship to the Bible until the sixteenth century.

   Scripture may nourish, give life and a story to the Church. However, at the end of the day, the Church still precedes Scripture both historically and theologically.

   As Luke Timothy Johnson says in the Real Jesus, we don’t worship the Jesus of Scripture, who died two thousand years ago. We worship the living and resurrected Jesus, present in the World and in the Church.

2. steve carr Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 1:04 pm

   Chad, I see what you’re trying to do here and, although I’m sure it’s well intentioned, I think it’s a semantical game that’s unecessary to play.

   I believe your post is a response to Ken Hamm-type people who advocate that unless you adhere to their specific interpreatation of Biblical revelation than you cannot claim to be a Christian. These people irk me. Although I believe Scripture describes a literal six day creation period, I have a pastor friend who thinks it’s more a representation of a period of time. That’s fine with me, because my friend still believes that creation in fact happened according to Genesis 1&2.

   There are still many Christians who commit blatant Bible worship with little desire to change, but that doesn’t mean we should so easily dismiss that Christians submit to Biblical authority.

   While Jared’s comments above contain some truth, the Christianity was able to maintain and flourish despite the masses being illiterate, Scripture has been in constant existence. And even in the New Testament, the apostles held to the Hebrew Scriptures as God-ordained authority. For two-thousand years, despite many trying to hijack it, Biblical authority has remained a consistent guide for the Church of Jesus Christ.

   Biblical authority is much more important than you realize. And if we “orthodox Christians” are embarrassed to stand up and support Biblical authority then I would begin to questions what kind of church we desire to be.

3. Tim Reed Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 1:44 pm

   Bonus points awarded to Steve for mentioning Ken Hamm in that way.

4. Chad McIntosh Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 4:15 pm

   I think you really misunderstand the message of my post, Steve. The two central allegations you offer, that my post is just some kind of semantical game and downplays Biblical authority, I think are wanting.

   First, how do you think it’s a sematical game? Second, it doesn’t downplay Biblical authority at all—Biblical authority has nothing to do with whether or not someone is a Christian. It’s not the Bible itself that determines that; it’s the Holy Spirit. In fact, in your reply you suggest you agree with my central thesis by citing the example of you and your friend’s differing on the days in Genesis. By this you seem to imply that there’s a bit more to Christian belief than a specific Biblical perspective (be it an exegetical dispute, whether or not it’s historically reliable or even divinely inspired), which was exactly my point.

5. steve carr Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 5:43 pm

   The reason I believe it’s a semantical game is because the title of the post is “Can you still be a Christian and reject the Bible.” The obvious response to the question is “no, you can’t.” But you push forward to redefine the meaning of “reject” to this:

   “[Is it] still possible to be a Christian and hold that the Bible isn’t a reliable set of documents or is in some way historically unreliable or untrustworthy.”

   To that, I would also say no.

   You’re neglecting to admit that without the Bible, written revelation inspired by the Holy Spirit, we today would most likely have no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Nor would we be able to understand issues like the deity of Christ without this text. Scripture is the inspired word of God. A critical part of following Christ, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us, is submission to Biblical authority. If we believers can’t attest to the trustworthiness of the text and our need to follow it, then we might as mail it in because everything is up for assumption.

   Notice this has nothing to do with the way some choose to interpret God’s word. I believe this is what you’re actually referring to: a poor hermenuetic. But we can’t confuse Scriptural reliability and trustworthiness with misguided interpretations.

   You’re navigating a slippery slope when you allow people an excuse to from accepting Scripture in its fullness. Much of today’s liberal theology begins with the denigration of Biblical inspiration which is how your post reads.

   I’m just saying, Chad, as I read your thoughts I’m still confused to what you’re advocating here. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and would love to hear you elaborate on what you’re trying to do with this.

6. Dave Reed Says:
   August 7th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

   I am curious about Chad’s argument. Is Chad mantain ing apart from the Word a man can be zapped by the Holy Spirit and come to faith in Christ. Much like Jacob I loved and Esau I hated thing.

7. Chad McIntosh Says:
   August 8th, 2006 at 2:57 am

   The reason I believe it’s a semantical game is because the title of the post is “Can you still be a Christian and reject the Bible.” The obvious response to the question is “no, you can’t.” But you push forward to redefine the meaning of “reject” to this:

   “[Is it] still possible to be a Christian and hold that the Bible isn’t a reliable set of documents or is in some way historically unreliable or untrustworthy.”

   To that, I would also say no.

   I think you’re not only confused about my initial point, but how I set it up as well. I started out by clarifying my use of the central term (reject) necessary to understand the point that followed. This is a common way (perhaps the best way) to begin making a point or stating a position, so as to eliminate ambiguity and clarify meaning since more often than not the terms used can be used in a variety of contexts with different meanings. So I started simply by clarifying what I meant by reject, for there are different ways one can reject something (as you later admit). And again to use my thesis as an example, one can reject a document’s historical reliability and not its message. Take p45, the papyri that includes most of the gospels and Acts which dates from the late second through the third centuries, for example. I am well within my rights as a person conducting historical research to reject the reliability of these documents (perhaps I find evidence of tampering, omissions, corruptions, additions, etc. ), but that doesn’t mean as a Christian I must reject the theology present in them. We may reject a text on some terms, but that doesn’t mean we can’t accept it on others. So I don’t “redefine” anything. I simply clarified on what, exaclty, I was proposing.

   You’re neglecting to admit that without the Bible, written revelation inspired by the Holy Spirit, we today would most likely have no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Nor would we be able to understand issues like the deity of Christ without this text.

   I’ve neglected to admit these things because I don’t think they’re true. This was precisely my point. I think it’s patently false to say that without the Bible we’d not have knowledge of the Holy Spirit or understand the deity of Christ. Take the following proposition, that

   1) the Bible is a message from God to us and in its entirety is authoritative for Christian belief and practice.

   I do not think that (1) is itself a necessary belief to be held by one who considers himself a Christian. I do not think (1) is a central element of Christian belief for similar reasons as Jared doesn’t (in his earlier comment). Something like (1) wasn’t accepted by the earliest Christians and isn’t to be found in the ecumenical creeds anywhere. This is partly because there were Christians before these books were written, and, barring divine revelation to them that the books were indeed soon to be written and would indeed be authoritative, they wouldn’t have known about them. Paul himself, for example, was certainly a Christian believer, who both accepted the deity of Christ and had knowledge of the Holy Spirit (two beliefs not drawn from the OT by a first century Jew), before he wrote his first epistles. Still, he no doubt didn’t believe that the Bible as we now have it, in Protestant or Catholic (or Orthodox) version, was divinely inspired or historically reliable. So from this I must conclude that (1), that the belief that God has inspired, say, the NT in such a way that it is communication from God to us human beings, or that the NT is historically reliable, is a belief not necessary for one to be a Christian. So you’re resounding “no” to my prior question, “[Is it] still possible to be a Christian and hold that the Bible isn’t a reliable set of documents or is in some way historically unreliable or untrustworthy” leads me to wonder whether you believe Christians existed before the New Testament was written and canonized, a most dubious position if I ever thought of one.

   Scripture is the inspired word of God. A critical part of following Christ, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us, is submission to Biblical authority. If we believers can’t attest to the trustworthiness of the text and our need to follow it, then we might as mail it in because everything is up for assumption.

   I agree that “A critical part of following Christ, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us, is submission to Biblical authority”, but I don’t think it’s a necessary part of following Christ (i.e. being a Christian).

   Notice this has nothing to do with the way some choose to interpret God’s word. I believe this is what you’re actually referring to: a poor hermenuetic. But we can’t confuse Scriptural reliability and trustworthiness with misguided interpretations.

   This is, differently stated, the exact point I raised in my first paragraph, although I wasn’t distinguishing rejecting scriptural reliability/trustworthiness with misguided interpretations, but rather the message of a text as opposed to a text’s historical reliability—to which you accused me of playing a “semantical game” by redifining ‘reject.’ But it was obvious I was just clarifying on what I was theoretically rejecting, which is what you’re doing here. So either you’ve chosen to play the same (unnecessary) game or I’m not really guilty of these allegations.

   You’re navigating a slippery slope when you allow people an excuse to from accepting Scripture in its fullness. Much of today’s liberal theology begins with the denigration of Biblical inspiration which is how your post reads.

   I’m just saying, Chad, as I read your thoughts I’m still confused to what you’re advocating here. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and would love to hear you elaborate on what you’re trying to do with this.

   I don’t think it’s so much a liberal position as much it is you’re not allowing yourself to see the point through your conservative goggles (an accessory which I share as well), perhaps simply because the title of the post is provocative. The point made is not even really a theological one, but more a philosophical, or even more an epistemological one. And so really can’t be compared with liberal theology. In fact, one of the more conservative Christian philosophers of our day (considered by many to be the 20th century’s foremost thinker in philosophy of religion and epistemology), Alvin Plantinga, makes the same point. To hopefully clarify a bit more, I’ll quote him instead of relying on my own words:

   …[P]erhaps you conclude that on the basis of historical reason alone, presinding from what you know or think you know by faith, it is unlikely that Jesus rose from the dead, or that the Bible is not a special word from the Lord, or that Jesus did miracles of one sort or another. It doesn’t follow that you don’t think Jesus did rise from the dead, or that the Bible is not a special word from the Lord, or that Jesus did these miracles. For if you are a traditional Christian, whether Protestant or Catholic (or Orthodox), you very likely think there is another source of warranted belief on these topics, a source in addition to historical reason. Aquinas speaks here of the “internal instigation of the Holy Spirit” and Calvin of the “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.” According to each, the source of Christian belief is not historical reason, or testimony from other people, [or the Bible itself], but this working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of those who in fact believe.

   From The Experience of Philosophy (Oxford University Press, USA; 6 ed. 2005), Coedited by Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin. “Alvin Plantinga and David Kolak: Philosophy, the Bible, and God: A debate” p. 316.

   I do not mean to be too argumentative or what have you. I just hope to clarify my position, which I suspected would be demanded of me in the comments after I posted. You just happened to be the person fortunately leading me in that direction.

8. Jared Cramer Says:
   August 8th, 2006 at 1:46 pm

   I think it’s unfair to say that liberals reject the Bible. Could it be that there is might be a distinction between taking the Bible literally and taking it seriously? I, for one, don’t take the Bible literally on everything, but I certainly take everything it has to say seriously.

9. Chad McIntosh Says:
   August 8th, 2006 at 2:18 pm

   I certainly never said liberals reject the Bible. I agree with you, Jared.

10. steve carr Says:
    August 8th, 2006 at 2:31 pm

    This is going to take some work, and I don’t have a ton of free time right now, but I’ll do my best to keep at it and state my case.

    1) Let’s start with what covers this entire conversation: what is the Bible? Is it all the individual texts claiming to be Scriptural or is it the collective body of work? By it’s nature, language is a very subjective field [case in point: I don’t see too many ways to interpret “reject”] which leaves the Bible exposed to harsh scrutiny from those who practice postmodern linguistic critique. And even though the Bible has maintained the highest possible credibility, due to the seriousness with which scribes approached their tasks, people will find ways to try to discredit certain manuscripts and texts in order to prove the rest of the Bible false [Mark 16 is a prime example].

    I think you know this, Chad, which is why you’re willing to allow that our faith in God need not rest on all of Scripture being 100% historically reliable and trustworthy. This gives us the leeway to maintain our beliefs even if a part of Scripture is shown to be lacking in authenticity. I don’t think we need to go there because no one has been able to concretely prove Scriptural falsehood. And neither are we able to prove concretely that it actually DID happen. Orthodox Christian belief maintains that all Scripture was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, therefore it is God breathed an inerrant. Why we feel the need to go back on that now is beyond me.

    2) Moving on, I think you’re understating the importance of Scripture in the first century church. First, they did have the Bible to work with: the Hebrew Scriptures. The majority of teaching done by apostles was centered in the Hebrew Bible, examining prophecy that confirmed their belief that Christ was inspired. And these Scriptures were available all over the Empire to people in the popular Greek, so they could examine to see if this were true. The apostolic era ended in the 90’s [during which time the leaders of the church spoke prophetically through the Holy Spirit], and about the same time that Paul’s letters and different gospels began circulated around the churches. So there was a constant voice between the starting of the church and the canonization of Scripture in the late three hundreds where the written word of God was present. Of course the transition from spoken revelation to written revelation wasn’t seamless, but it’s not as “gappy” as you suggest.

    3) You wrote this:

    “Paul himself, for example, was certainly a Christian believer, who both accepted the deity of Christ and had knowledge of the Holy Spirit (two beliefs not drawn from the OT by a first century Jew), before he wrote his first epistles. Still, he no doubt didn’t believe that the Bible as we now have it, in Protestant or Catholic (or Orthodox) version, was divinely inspired or historically reliable.”

    I’m not sure what to do with that. I don’t think you can compare what Paul went through to where we are today [I’ve never known anyone blinded on the road to Damascus except via an Israeli bomb]. Did he, and all other NT writers, realize what the Holy Spirit was doing through their writings? We can’t be certain, but I think they did.

    4) When discussing the idea of “liberalism,” this thinking is quite foundational in developing such a theology. Just recently the Episcopal Church voted to support the ordination of homosexual clergy. Two of their guiding principles in coming to this conclusion were 1) Scripture couldn’t be fully trusted with this topic because of certain unreliabilities and 2) that Christians need to be “led by the Spirit” to come to such decisions. What they neglect to realize is that the Spirit already made a decision on the matter through Scripture. When the Bible is subtracted from the equation of Christian belief, then more is up for grabs than you realize.

    5) You may not believe that the point of your post was actually a theological in nature, but I would say that it is. Theology is “God talk” and I believe this, and almost all conversation, qualifies. I’ll admit that I’m a hack when it comes to philosophy and I know that’s were you, Chad, spend a ton of your time. But there are many places where theology, philosophy, and history intersect. And I find this to be one of them.

    How about this admission: the Bible isn’t the most important form of revelation. Natural revelation, creation, speaks at a higher volume. But right after creation, I would attest that Scripture is the most important means by which the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

    So back to my original critique, I think your post was provocative and could easily be misinterpreted. I know it was intended to be misguiding but most likely is.

11. Aaron Burgess Says:
    August 8th, 2006 at 3:25 pm

    One question: what makes something historically reliable?

12. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 9th, 2006 at 12:41 am

    One question: what makes something historically reliable?

    It really all depends on what you’re looking for. We can look into the reliability of an historical hypothesis within an historical document or the reliability of an historical document alone. But still, one’s test for historical reliability may be relative to whichever document is being tested. That’s why I was general in my definition of historical reliability, for I sought to speak of the historical reliability of the entire Bible. So something is historically reliable if by historical reason it can be shown to host information of events that most probably happened at some point in that past. In “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Craig Blomberg used a similar definition for what he means by historical reliability before he began exploring the topic: “…[W]here the Bible purports to be relating things that happened on this earth at a particular period of history, is it conveying accurate or reliable information about what was said and done?”

    The four most common and widely agreed upon criteria for historical authenticity are the criteria of dissimilarity, multiple attestation, environmental typicality, and coherence. I would also add as an important feature of determining an historical document’s reliability the amount of time between the event and the recording of the event; obviously the earlier the recording date is to the date of the event recorded the better.

13. Josh S Says:
    August 10th, 2006 at 12:15 pm

    How many people do you know believed the Gospel because they were first convinced that the entire canon was inerrant?

14. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 10th, 2006 at 1:21 pm

    Zero.

    Which leads me to think such a conclusion is not a necessary belief to be had by a Christian.

15. steve carr Says:
    August 10th, 2006 at 9:22 pm

    Do you need to believe in inerrancy in order to become a Christian? Obviously not, and I never argued that. But how would you know about the gospel if it hadn’t been written down and meticulously maintained over thousands of years?

16. Kibble Says:
    August 11th, 2006 at 1:58 pm

    One reason why the Bible should be historically reliable (as in, that which it declares as history, happened) is that the main way we learn about God is through the story of his work among man, culminating in Jesus Christ. That is the basis of our faith, not a Magic Book. And that is what much of the Bible is for: recounting God’s works with Israel, the early Church, or the Nations. The Bible helps us be connected with God’s historic work; it’s dangerous in many ways to pretend the past or Church History doesn’t matter.

17. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 11th, 2006 at 4:54 pm

    I’m not sure what it is about this topic, but it seems everyone is refusing to read the post carefully. I am not at all denying the importance of church history or the inerrancy of scripture. What I am saying, however, is that, say, to be considered a Christian, one must accept x as true (however he does so is not the point). Now the purpose of my point wasn’t to explore the barebones of x in order to state the necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving it (such would be an extremely difficult if not impossible thing to assess). My point was to show that what some, if not most (which is apparent by the comments) consider necessarily a part of x, some evidence or belief y, is not, in fact, necessary for x at all given clear-cut examples of x obtaining under conditions without y. In this case, y happens to be the belief that the scriptures are historically reliable.

    Nobody, besides perhaps a comment by Steve (which I shall respond to shortly), has even recognized this as the point being raised, let alone challenged it.

18. steve carr Says:
    August 13th, 2006 at 11:24 am

    “My point was to show that what some, if not most (which is apparent by the comments) consider necessarily a part of x, some evidence or belief y, is not, in fact, necessary for x at all given clear-cut examples of x obtaining under conditions without y. In this case, y happens to be the belief that the scriptures are historically reliable.”

    Chad, I think this last post was your best explanation of what you were trying to say. Perhaps the conundrum could’ve been avoided if that had been stated clearly in your original post.

    I would add though, sticking with the formula that you laid out, that the conditions of x would be difficult to ascertain without y. So there is an important connection between the two.

    The deeper question here, revamping some of the previous discussion into a new question: does a denial of y affect x? I would agree to your point that it doesn’t HAVE TO, but that in the majority of cases it does.

19. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 13th, 2006 at 1:32 pm

    I am in complete agreement with your last post. You agree, given our variables above, belief y isn’t necessary for noetic structure x to obtain. But I’m having trouble reconciling your acceptance of that in lieu of your earlier response to this point:

    “[Is it] still possible to be a Christian [x] and hold that the Bible isn’t a reliable set of documents or is in some way historically unreliable or untrustworthy [y].”

    To that, I would also say no.

20. steve carr Says:
    August 13th, 2006 at 11:24 pm

    I might have misread your original X/Y comment. This is how I interpreted it.

    You stated, “to be considered a Christian, one must accept ‘x’ as true.” I understood this to mean a recent convert: one who had just accepted the saving gospel message. You can definitely become a Christian without knowing much about Scripture. Yet it should be noted that without the Bible, our knowledge of ‘x’ would be limited at best or, most likely, non-existent.

    But what happens as you grow in your faith? Can you then choose to deny the validity [inerrancy] of the Bible while claiming to be a Christian. I don’t think so. Submission to Scripture is part of the obedience process Originally you wrote:

    “The source which warrants Christian belief is the Holy Spirit, who conveys the necessary truths of Christian belief to the subject.”

    As I noted before, Scripture was written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So submission to the Spirit is accepting Scripture. God spoke. We must listen.

    So maybe we’re further apart than I thought.

21. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 14th, 2006 at 9:20 pm

    Haha, further apart? Steve, you seem to be paraphrasing my original post the more we talk about it. At this point I don’t see where the issue is. Like I said, the Holy Spirit is responsible for belief in the existence of God, the gospel message, the inspiration or even the reliability of the Bible.

22. steve carr Says:
    August 16th, 2006 at 12:43 am

    “Steve, you seem to be paraphrasing my original post the more we talk about it. At this point I don’t see where the issue is. Like I said, the Holy Spirit is responsible for belief in the existence of God, the gospel message, the inspiration or even the reliability of the Bible.”

    If I’m paraphrasing your original post, then I didn’t understand it in the first place. And I’ve reread it many times in the past few days and still can’t see what you were trying to accomplish.

    Your recent explanation doesn’t summarize my position at all. The Holy Spirit isn’t responsible for our belief. It is our duty to respond to the voice of God and accept his grace. We don’t benefit from the indwelling of the Spirit until we make a decision to follow Christ; then we can fully benefit from it.

    The issue I still have is that nothing written thus far fully explains this original statement that I found so disturbing:

    “I think one can still be a Christian and reject the Bible as historically reliable”

    This might have been a passing phrase but it is indeed huge and it is false. And I would guarantee that many, many people would agree. And if it requires this much explanation in order to clear it up what was really meant, then it probably isn’t worth explaining in the first place.

    I’m not sure if I’m the only person who cares about this anymore, but the reason I persist is because that statement is one the deserves refuting.

23. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 16th, 2006 at 3:45 am

    Steve, I’m not trying to quibble, but it really seems you’re either undecided on this and are going back in forth on the issue, or are just unaware of how many times you’ve posted seeminly conflicting messages. Perhaps it’s just me? It’s ok to disagree with me (although your comment 18 seems to indicate not), so if you’re getting frustrated or feeling misunderstood, I apologize and would be fine with ‘agreeing to disagree’ (call me liberal; I’m fine with that, I suppose).

24. steve carr Says:
    August 16th, 2006 at 2:39 pm

    Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I’m not confused with what I believe at all. I know how I come down on the issue. But I am still terribly confused on what you were/are trying to say. I guess I thought you were trying to be too wordy to get a simple, but provocative idea across. I can’t tell. I would say that if you hold to this statement:

    “I think one can still be a Christian and reject the Bible as historically reliable”

    Then I’d have say that you are a liberal. And that I should just leave it at that and move on.

25. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 17th, 2006 at 3:41 am

    I have to admit, I like these sorts of discussions, on top of the hope I have not to end this so sharply. So I’ve put my argument in a syllogism that we might pinpoint exactly where the problem lies. But if you do not have the patience, time, or what have you, I understand. So with that:

    Let the proposition “the Bible is the inspired Word of God and, in its entirety, is historically reliable” be represented by belief a, all the beliefs in set x to represent those necessary for genuine Christian belief to obtain, and C to represent genuine Christian belief.

    1) All beliefs in set x are necessary for C to obtain.
    2) At some time t, C obtained without belief a.
    3) Therefore, belief a is not in set x.
    4) Therefore, belief a is not necessary for C to obtain.

    *Note that ’some time t‘ doesn’t necessarily entail one specific time, but just an occasion (perhaps among many) for argument’s sake.

    I am not sure where you are disagreeing. I’m pretty sure you’d take issue with premise (2), but I honestly don’t see much potency coming from any argument you can muster on behalf of there not being a time t when C obtained without a.

26. Joni Says:
    August 17th, 2006 at 12:56 pm

    Chad,
    From what I can tell, you are making the assumption that those who come to (C) come to it based on all of these beliefs in (x) with no understanding of where they came from or why they exist in the first place. While the Holy Spirit is clearly the one doing the leading and the saving - people do not often accept a belief without accepting the premise of the belief as “true”. So if all the things accepted in (x) are in the Bible and are clearly understood to have come from the Bible, it seems a logical contradiction to then throw out belief (a). In order to believe that all the things in (x) actually happened and are worth staking your salvation in them, you must believe that (a) is true. This doesn’t mean that at the time of conversion you are studied and discipled enough to know how to articulate that belief, but your decision and commitment to believe the things in (x) which are found in the Bible, would seem to preclude it.

27. Chad McIntosh Says:
    August 17th, 2006 at 3:37 pm

    From what I can tell, you are making the assumption that those who come to (C) come to it based on all of these beliefs in (x) with no understanding of where they came from or why they exist in the first place. While the Holy Spirit is clearly the one doing the leading and the saving - people do not often accept a belief without accepting the premise of the belief as “true”.

    If my argument is sound in showing C has obtained without a in the set x, origin of the rest is irrelevant. But if I had to give an answer, the source of the knowledge of the beliefs in set x could vary greatly. Be they orally conveyed, supernaturally, written, whatever. But it is the Holy Spirit who ultimately convicts the person that these beliefs are, in fact, true (simultaneously or after which they assent to them).

    So if all the things accepted in (x) are in the Bible and are clearly understood to have come from the Bible, it seems a logical contradiction to then throw out belief (a). In order to believe that all the things in (x) actually happened and are worth staking your salvation in them, you must believe that (a) is true. This doesn’t mean that at the time of conversion you are studied and discipled enough to know how to articulate that belief, but your decision and commitment to believe the things in (x) which are found in the Bible, would seem to preclude it.

    This begs the question. “So if all the things accepted in (x) are in the Bible and are clearly understood to have come from the Bible” (emphasis mine) is where the misunderstanding comes in. You start with the assumption that all the beliefs in set x came from the Bible, which is the very thing my argument is challenging.

28. steve carr Says:
    August 17th, 2006 at 11:01 pm

    :cool:

    First, Chad, I never use those stupid icons but I thought I’d throw one out there to say thanks for still thinking.

    I think Joni raised most of my objections with your syllogism, which was a good effort in logic by the way, so let me jump to the last thing you just wrote:

    “You start with the assumption that all the beliefs in set x came from the Bible, which is the very thing my argument is challenging.”

    I think this is probably at the root of where we differ. I’ll try to write up some thoughts on that soon.

    And I do apologize if I sounded short with you in previous posts. I usually don’t go back and forth on comments sections like this, it’s really a horrible way in which to dialogue if you think about it, so sometimes the pauses between don’t help.

    More for you later . . .

29. steve carr Says:
    August 17th, 2006 at 11:02 pm

    :neutral::twisted::???::evil::oops:

    I still don’t think I use this things right.

30. Ben Walker Says:
    August 28th, 2006 at 11:34 am

    It is possible to come to belief in God without belief in scripture… for the first century audience, yes. But in the modern era we have one primary source text of information on the issue (that being the scripture). While it might be possible to accept the gospel and become a Christian without specific knowledge or belief in the text, or the complete inability to read said text, I’d say, hardly possible to maintain a belief in God without some honor/respect/trust in both the practical and historical validity of scripture. For those who never learn to trust the word, I have serious doubts about their ability to gain any sort of enduring depth:

    Matt 13:20-21
    20 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;
    21 yet he has no {firm} root in himself, but is {only} temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.
    (NAU)

    Which motivates your action more a real 600 lb Gorrilla standing behind you, or a metaphoric one? If scripture cannot be trusted, then it’s only a matter of time before one starts selectively appropriating/ignoring the moral codes and specific instructions therein. (If you are inclined to say I’m making an assumption, then consider it one based on the experience of a minister who has watched the moral idealists wash out with the tide of personal preferences, while those founded on the word stand strong).

31. Ben Walker Says:
    August 28th, 2006 at 12:49 pm

    The more I think about the epistemic ramifications of this argument, the less plausible any position that diminishes or rejects scripture becomes. Scripture has been in use from the earliest inception of Christian thought (With regard to the O.T., oral traditions, and circulated manuscripts). The attempt to diminish its central functionality in conveying the gospel (with a deference to the Holy Spirit or general revelation) is a dismissal of the car in deference to the road. Like it or not, the scriptures are the only means by which general revelation becomes specific. And as such, the primary means by which God becomes known in the person of Jesus who is the Christ. One can hold that the Spirit will do X,Y, and Z to bring a person to faith, and I’ll grant that He’ll do as He will, but we’re fools if we fail to see that what he has done is ENGENDER A BODY OF WRITINGS TO INTRODUCE US TO THE VERY CORE OF WHAT HE NEEDS US TO KNOW OF HIM IN THIS LIFE.

    James 1:21-24
    21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and {all} that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
    22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
    23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;
    24 for {once} he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.
    (NAU)

    2 Tim 3:14-17
    14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned {them}
    15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
    16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
    17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
    (NAU)

    Rom 3:1-2
    1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?
    2 Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.
    (NIV)

    Here is where the rubber meets the road: Would you be comfortable teaching ANYONE that the scriptures don’t matter and aren’t necessary (for salvation or otherwise)? It’s one thing to speak in hypotheticals about what God may or may not do, but quite another to put your eternal soul on the line by misleading someone (or many someones). Caution here, bro. Your thinking in the first post was well intentioned and held truth, but you seem to begin defending positions that you yourself don’t hold, or shouldn’t rationally hold. Always come back to praxis.

32. Truth Says:
    September 6th, 2006 at 11:34 pm

    Read John 1:1, Chad. God’s word IS God…period!

33. Chad McIntosh Says:
    September 7th, 2006 at 2:43 am

    “Truth,” read my post beyond the title.

34. Doxazo Theos » Blog Archive » Can You Still Be A Christian and Reject the Bible? Says:
    January 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    […] * After some dialogue, I now realize this post may read more controversial than what was initially intended. While I stand by the represented position, some clarification might be helpful. Such can be found in the comments here. […]

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