This problem with this is that even if you believe something is spelled out in black and white in the Bible, you are still interpreting what is being said through all of your relative filters. No interpretation is absolute. Even though you may hold that God does not change, how we understand God in fact does. It always changes. And no one point of view of God is absolute. You can not say the Bible's point of view is absolute either, because they Bible does not read. It is read. And those who read are fallible in their interpretations.
A very basic example of this would be if I typed something on the screen for you to read. You read it and you walk away with an understanding of what I wrote. But it is not my thoughts. It is your thoughts about my thoughts. You see? And I guarantee you, how you process what I say coming out of my mind, will not be identical to what my mind was seeing. It's not possible. You don't have all the prerequisite contexts in which I am placing my understanding and speaking from. Now, if you were to walk away as an "authority" on what I said, proclaim yourself right and all others wrong for their interpretations of my words, I'd consider you deluded and foolish. Make sense?
Damn, this is going to take a while.
Yes it makes sense.
I am called to surrender all I know of me to all I know of God ... at this moment.
I do the best I can at each moment.
Yes, my point of view changes. Sometimes daily.
Tomorrow, I will know more about me and more about God and, therfore, more will be expected of me, by me. However, God's word will not have changed. God's character will not have changed. So the RIGHT thing to do, whether I see it or not, will not have changed. That is Truth, God's Truth.
Is it? If you place your ideas about God as the truth, isn't that putting your ideas before God? Isn't it a form of self-deception, that one believes they are placing God first, when in reality they aren't through insisting their own points of view about God are absolutely true? How can one learn anything when your glass is already filled by your own beliefs?
But furthermore, there is a basic test that is given by developmental psychologists that goes like this:
A man that has no money to afford some medication that will in fact save his wife who is dying has an opportunity to just steal the drug and save her life. Should he take it? And what state the reasons for why you believe he should or shouldn't he take it.
I would be curious to hear your answer to this moral dilemma. There are three basic responses that people always give. Is yours "No, he shouldn't steal it because stealing is always wrong. In which case his wife will die, but it was the morally right thing to do because stealing is always and forever wrong"? Or do you have another way you might answer this dilemma?
A clever game, but I don't care to play.
I have had too many opportunities to live out those sorts of issues in real life.
Do you remember the Donner Party?
Was it wrong to turn to canibalism to survive?
How have they lived with the consequences of their decisions?
We can play 'what ifs' with sick wifes, but what are the unintended consequences of stealing the medicine? Does she acidentially OD and die anyway, then he goes to prison and his children get raised by the state? Had he not stolen, might he made the local news, gone viral and brought help to others in similar circumstances? Will she recover and he commit suicide from the guilt?
In the real world, these stories play out in complex and unpredictable ways.
I have, thus far, chosen to trust in the innate goodness of God no matter what the circumstances. It has served me well for 35 years.
But you do have choices, and the world is full of morally ambiguous choices. You have to make choices that are not spelled out for you. That's part of being a mature individual. I do not believe God expects people to be stuck following rule books their whole lives. When grow up we become responsible for making good choices when things aren't spelled out in some pocket-law book. I can provide Bible verses to support this, if you like.
I was unclear. Whether YOU stealing the medicine for your spouse, or marrying someone of the same sex, or smoking cigarettes, or eating raw shellfish, or swearing like a sailor is right or wrong is not MY responsibility to decide. Too many people seem to feel compelled to be Jimminy Cricket to everyone around them, proclaiming THUS SAYS THE LORD, YOU HEATHEN SINNER!!! I feel no such urge. My God is big enough to handle your sins all by himself if He feels that they need handling.
If you are dumb enough to ask me, then I am obligated to tell you the Truth to the best of my ability, but your sin (or not sin) is between you and God. I have no reason to be judging anyone for anything (except me).
However, I have found that if I ask God a question, he ususlly provides an answer with an amazingly short turn around time. The 'dificulty' in understanding scripture is often greatly over-stated. God's instructions tend to be easy to comprehend and harder to actually do. (like 'Love your enemies'.)
Don't mistake the "laws" of physics with the rest of reality.
People have choices to make. They are not machines following binary code language injecting into them like robots. The world is far more subtle and nuanced than that, far more complex than just the law of gravity. You may be able to predict where Jupiter will be in 100 years from now, but not be able to predict where your dog will be 10 seconds from now. Very few things actually are that predictable like that. Gravity and the rest of life are not a valid comparison. And yes, how we feel about truths in fact influences their reality, when you move past the lowest possible components into higher realms of complexity, such as the notions of truth in human societies and cultures.
So, do you then reduce God to a mathematical formula? Do you believe we could know God if we have the correct code to unlock these fixed truths? I do not. I believe truth is created. I believe truth is dynamic, not static. That's why it's called "Living Truth". It something is static, it's dead.
The complexity is beyond my comprehension, but not beyong God's comprehension. I view God's character/nature as every bit as unchanging as the laws of Physics and far more complex than even Quantum Physics. My inability to fully comprehend and predict God, does not make him random or capricious or morally relativistic.
My predominant choice, faced every day, is to trust God or to not trust God (and attempt to grab those reins myself). I choose to trust God.
I literally despise that response when people pull it out. It's such a discussion kill. In reality I do not believe all opinions are of equal value. I believe some opinions people are in fact not entitled to hold. Some opinions are ill-informed and therefore illegitimate. As far as religious truths in my view as "opinions", it's a bit more complex than that! There are perspectives, interpretations and understandings of truth. And though all interpretations are not absolute, some are in fact better than others. I do not see these as "just an opinion". I would call them insights, versus just blathering out whatever enters into their minds. Some do this of course, and I consider those to be just uninformed opinions worth very little.
Sorry to **** you off.
The reality (especially around here) is that there are a LOT of people that are never going to agree with the personal convictions of a Calvinist Baptist Fundamentalist. For me to pretend that I am going to chat my way into a middle ground with most of the people that I meet here is crazy. 'Live and let live' is the only philosophy that allows me to participate at all. I state my opinion where it might provide more light than heat, and I move on. Outside the DIRs, I enter a topic with the expectation of being 'enlightened' until there is just no fun left in the discussion.
I hear this said all the time, but I've never seen a Bible verse that says you measure someone's connection with the Truth by how they interpret the Bible. I read instead Jesus' words when he says "By their fruits you shall know them". It by what comes out of the heart of man that judge them. Not what their opinions about what this verse or that one means. I think fundamentalists have it absolutely backwards and upside down if they place their theology ahead of the fruits of the Spirit.
I could in fact make an argument that many people who are "self-sacrificing" doing everything for others and nothing for themselves, may in fact not be acting out of genuine love at all. It goes much, much deeper than you may imagine.
Time for another claification. As a Calvinist, I am sort of sensitive to anything that even hints of earning your salvation by works. Fruit of the Spirit is the RESULT of salvation, not the CAUSE of salvation. That was my only point.
I attend a Pentacostal Church with a few 'saints' that think that any crazy thought that pops into their head must be from god and needs to be proclaimed like an OT prophet. "God told me you will be a preacher." "God told me that you will start your own business." I ususlly respond "Thank you, but I am waiting for God to tell me, Himself."
Your 'many self-sacrificing' people sound like they should hang out with my 'prophets'. Both churches would be better off.
Some people are idiots. Why should the Church be exempt?