Faith or Belief?

Windwalker · Jul 23, 2019

Rise said:
This exercise using something simple is designed to establish at what point you're willing to agree that objective true and false statements can be made about a claim.

I should give the definition of "objective truth" here to avoid potential confusion: Objective truth is true, and continues to be true, regardless of what an individual's subjective belief or perception is. That is why it can be universally established and recognized as true by individuals regardless of their subjective bias.

It's good we are getting to the heart of the issue here. Even though in everything I have posted, saying that what is true at one level, may not be true at another, that all "realities" are a product of the frameworks of reality, etc., I would think it would be clear I do not accept any claims to what we see or think about the world is objectively true, in an absolute sense of the world. It is "objective" insofar as it is consistent with those within the particular framework we us as part of that "consensus reality". I've mentioned this things throughout my replies, to a fault overburdening them with examining these points.

But to put a fine point on it, what we call objective reality, is a conceptual construct which imagines because can agree together collectively on something, that makes it independent of our subjectivities. It however does not. Consensus reality is a better term for "objectivity". What makes it "objective" is because it is not just you seeing are agreeing about something that appears to exist independently of either of us. It is "objective" in an agreed upon intersubjective space. That's why I joked referencing Matthew 18:9 , "Where two or three are in agreement, it will be done". A more postmodern way of spinning that, "Where two are three and in agreement, it shall be called objectivity."

Now, there are multiple spheres of "consensus reality". (I'd recommend at this point trying to understand conceptually what that is I am referring to. It is an actual "thing": Consensus reality - Wikipedia ). Different frameworks of reality we as humans use can be generally categorized as archaic, magic, mythic, rational, holistic, integral, and such. (Reference: AN OVERVIEW OF THE WORK OF JEAN GEBSER ) Each one of these are frameworks through which we collectively interpret the world symbolically. Within each of these, there are wildly differing views of what qualifies as "objective truth".

To someone in a mythic system, who sees illness as a curse, see that sick person is objectively being cursed by the spirits. Collectively, it is their system, their structure of consciousness, their framework of reality, that assigns that cause to this effect. To someone in a rational, modernist framework, it is objective reality that it is virus that makes one sick. The mythic person interprets the rationalist person as insane to not understand the truth of the world. The rationalist person considers the mythic person "primitive". But in both instances, they are doing the exact same things as each other, just with different symbol sets. What is objectively true to one group, is objectively false to another, and vice versa.

What I am saying is while I may myself see something as "objectively true", I understand that is only that way to me, or us, if we have common set of glasses we are interpreting the world though. It is not necessarily objective truth to someone else, or some entire group of elses.

Does any of this help to shed light on what I'm saying? "Objectivity" is relative to the group who is using a particular framework, be that a mythic system, a magic system, a rational system, a pluralistic system, etc.

To answer in advance a likely objection, yes, there are something views of reality that are common to all the different frameworks, such as stepping off a cliff will make you fall and die. But as I said before, those are too basic to try to reduce the enormous complexity of reality down to. That is what reductionsists within philosophical materialism try to do, reduce God down to a chemical response in the brain, for instance. That's the lens they see the world through, and I view it as partial, but hardly "objective".

Also to add, much of what I am saying is well-known in the science communities themselves. That the observer affects the experiment. You cannot ever divorce reality from itself. You can never see objective reality that excludes the subject, for it is the subject seeing and interpreting it, individually and/or collectively. The subject is part of the objective reality it sees.

Rise said:
If you are not willing to do that then it at least establishes that we don't share that common ground. That then changes the nature of what we are really debating - it ceases to be a debate about what the Scripture says but instead becomes a debate about how, why, and under what circumstances anything can be said to be objectively true or false.

I don't believe anything that just anything we want can be said to be objectively true of false. I'm saying it has to be qualified to be called that and have some basis for it. Someone can't just say, "I believe this, so therefore it is objectively true". It takes more than one person for that. But what I will say, and have been, is to understand the basic different frameworks exists, and that we will generally be speaking from within these, will help understand why we can be looking at the same verse and end up with very different understandings. I will offer my objective reasons for saying so, as I have been so far, not just stating personal opinion as objective truth.

For instance, the Gospels. You may look at these as a miraculous Spirit-guided creation, intended in God's Divine plan from before the foundations of the world to save modern man in the last days, or something to that effect (not sure what you actually believe yet, as we haven't gotten that far!

). What you will hear from me is that I view them as historical parables, not eyewitness historical records. They are an interpretation of Jesus to speak to their respective audiences, having their Jesus presented in a way that says what they as the authors want to say, correcting other Gospel writers vision of their Jesus. This is based upon modern scholarship, and not just personal opinion.

Now, that framework of modernity, may cause a great deal of distress to one whose framework views the Bible a Divine Miracle. This is what happens when the framework one is using has itself not open to include that modern framework. It sees it as "wrong". As you have used the word. But it's not wrong to the modernist system. It is consistent with, and objectively true as that goes for any system internal to itself.

Lots of words here. I'm sorry for that. But I try to be a thorough and detailed as I can. To a fault, I know.

continued....

Windwalker · Jul 23, 2019

Rise said:
And if you don't first deal with that question then any discussion about what the Scripture says, or doesn't say, would have difficulty gaining traction.

I have dealt with the first question. Relative to the common use of language, that would fall on the "wrong" side. Yes, they are wrong, if we all agree that the word horse and man point to two different objects. We agree on this.To use it in deviation to that, without any valid rationale for doing so, is an error. They would be wrong in calling it a man. I can't state it any more directly than that.

Rise said:
That is why, before we can move forward, I need to know from you one way or another where you stand on whether or not my claim about picture #1 is objectively true or false. Because that determines which direction we go in the discussion.

Hopefully that answered it. Yes, they would be wrong, if they had no valid reason for calling a horse a man.

Rise said:
If you had stopped there, I'd have a clear answer.

It's this caveat you add that makes it questionable to me how clear your answer really is.
It leaves wiggle room for you to later claim that you really didn't take a definitive position on the question either way.

Does my making qualifications somehow how invalidate the answer? There are always qualifications by what we mean. Context is always a part of any answer, even if unspoken. I'm just choosing to speak it. Do you disagree that there could be possible other reasons for the deviation? And that if that is so, that calling it "wrong" wouldn't really apply then? Do you discount what I have said about all of that? I think this is an important question to be answered.

Rise said:
If you're not willing to defend your claim of what is true against what you see as false, using reason and facts, then you were never really making a claim about what is objectively true to begin with - you were merely stating an opinion.

As you see in my "Disclaimer" below, everything I say is an opinion, as is true of everyone, novice and expert alike. It's really more a matter of how well-informed those opinions are or not. I hope for most everything I post to be reflective of a well-informed, and well-considered opinion. Sometimes, I'm not so good with that.

Rise said:
If I were to insist to you, "No! That picture is of a man playing a tuba! That is not a horse!", what logical process would you use to demonstrate that your claim is correct and my claim is wrong?

I would ask you to explain the basis for that deviation. From there, I'd asses whether you saw something I didn't, or you were just mad. What process I would you to claim that is not a man, is to provide the evidence that you never find it referred to as a man anywhere in any reference material. This is something simple. That same process might not apply to something far more nuanced and subtle than that, however....

Rise said:
If you would not be willing or able to even tell me I'm wrong or defend that you are right, then you never really made a conclusion about whether or not my statement was true or false to begin with. You merely expressed your opinion that you don't see what I see.

Yes, I could make a case why he should call it a horse, but at the end of the day, if he has a rational basis for deviating from the norm, and can strengthen that by pointing to entire groups of people who do the same, then suddenly that shifts my being right and him being wrong, to having my understanding of things expanded to include a different perspective than the one I'm familiar with. Without that however, he has no valid objective reason to say otherwise in this case.

Would you agree with this for yourself, in any discussion with me or anyone else?

Rise said:
I would be forced to conclude, based on what you've said up to this point, that you are not willing to make an objective declaration about what is true or false in that picture.
Is that an accurate assessment of your position?

Again, no. Based upon the conventions of language, he is objectively wrong, until other data shows otherwise. If shown otherwise, then he is no longer wrong. Would you agree with this?

Rise said:
Now, if I have mischaracterized your view in any way I welcome correction - but part of why I'm trying to get a clear answer to my questions is so I know exactly where you're coming from and I don't risk strawmanning your position unintentionally. In the absense of clear answers to my questions I'm forced to start drawing my own conclusions based on what you have said.

I hope I've provided enough of a common ground for discussion. I also hope that I have exposed how things are not always easy black and white answers, and that truth may be found in a wider ranges of shades of colors.

All I've been hoping to do is not allowing the framework to lock down reality to black and white, true and false choices, is to open possibilities. But it cannot be just some willy-nilly, "I believe it's true, therefore it's valid", vacuous claims. It has to be supportable.

Rise · Jul 26, 2019

Thank you for taking the time to help me understand where you're coming from. I was happy reading your latest post because I feel like there's some common ground emerging.

Windwalker said:
Would you agree with this for yourself, in any discussion with me or anyone else?

I agree that one needs a reason for why their claim is true, and if they can provide a valid reason then we'd have cause for changing our conclusion about their claim.

Where the disagreement here appears to be, however, is what constitutes valid reasoning for establishing the truth of a claim.
And also, the concept of whether or not two contradictory things can be true at the same time.

Yes, I could make a case why he should call it a horse, but at the end of the day, if he has a rational basis for deviating from the norm, and can strengthen that by pointing to entire groups of people who do the same, then suddenly that shifts my being right and him being wrong, to having my understanding of things expanded to include a different perspective than the one I'm familiar with. Without that however, he has no valid objective reason to say otherwise in this case.

This would be an example of an invalid way for establishing the truth of a claim as it is not logically sound.
The popularity of a belief doesn't determine whether or not something is true. There's a formal term for that logical fallacy called "argumentum ad populum".

Why can we state for a factual truth that this form of argument doesn't work for establishing what the truth of something is?
Because, like anything in science, we can test this hypothesis against reality.

It is an established truth that jumping off a cliff will kill someone, because gravity.
However, if enough people collectively agree that they won't die when jumping off a cliff, does reality change to suit their belief?
No. It doesn't.
So we've established that the popularity of a belief doesn't change the truth of reality.

This concept applies to everything in life. We can conclusively prove that there are various aspects of reality that don't change based on how many people believe it's true.
Does 2 + 2 = 5 if enough people think it does?
Objectively, no. We can test that claim and find it isn't true.

Likewise, we can objectively measure to determine the earth is not flat.
Does the reality of the earth's shape change to become flat for the people who collectively agree it is?
No. We can conclusively state that many things are objectively true regardless of what people believe about them. The reality of them doesn't change based on what the masses happen to believe.

The same thing works on the individual level too - Just because a person believes something to be true doesn't change reality. It doesn't matter how real it feels to an individual that they are holding 5 apples after combining two apples with two more apples - the reality is they are still only holding 4 apples. We can test and measure that to confirm whether or not their belief is true.

Truth is also consistent, by definition.
Logical contradictions are how we establish truth from falsehood.
This is the foundation upon which science is built. That foundation is math and logic.

You've tried to assert that this changes when dealing with more complex issues, but the fundamental fact never changes that truth by definition does not contradict itself - otherwise it ceases to be truth by definition.

That's one of the fundamental problems here with your approach to Scripture is that you appear to think you get to apply a different standard of logic and truth to reading it, when the reality of what truth is never changes no matter how complex the topic you're talking about is. Truth never can be contradictory and still be truth.

That is why, without coming to terms first with what objective truth is, and how truth is determined, any discussion of what Scripture objectively says is true would be much more difficult.

I have dealt with the first question. Relative to the common use of language, that would fall on the "wrong" side. Yes, they are wrong, if we all agree that the word horse and man point to two different objects. We agree on this.To use it in deviation to that, without any valid rationale for doing so, is an error. They would be wrong in calling it a man. I can't state it any more directly than that.

Appealing to language barriers doesn't prove your claim because it's not logically related to the point you're trying to prove.

We're talking about disagreements over what the reality of Picture #1 actually is. The question is can someone be said to have a truthful conclusion about Picture #1 when it is in direct contradiction with what we know and can prove is true about Picture #1.

We are not talking about two people who have the exact same conclusion about the reality of what Picture #1 is but then they merely speak in a different language to describe what they are seeing.

Your original argument was trying to justify why someone might come to a different conclusion about the reality of what picture #1 is, in logical contradiction to what we know and can establish is true, yet still be capable of having their conclusion be regarded as true.

Language barriers as an excuse don't support the kind of argument you were making because language differences don't change the reality of what the individual concludes the picture to be.
Language differences are not the same as logical contradictions.
There is no contradiction in what the two individuals are concluding, they just have different words to describe the same thing.

And yes, there might be confusion that arises over the language, but like anything there are objective ways of determining what each other means by their words - which is why it's possible for us to learn new languages we encounter in the world and establish communication with new people groups. We don't just throw up our hands and say it's impossible to know what each other really means by our words and therefore nothing can be said to be true or false. If we took that approach then science, engineering, math, law, governmental order, and everything else that makes our society function would be impossible because no one would be able to communicate concrete truth to each other that would allow everyone to act in unison and build upon what others have done.

Does my making qualifications somehow how invalidate the answer? There are always qualifications by what we mean. Context is always a part of any answer, even if unspoken. I'm just choosing to speak it. Do you disagree that there could be possible other reasons for the deviation? And that if that is so, that calling it "wrong" wouldn't really apply then? Do you discount what I have said about all of that? I think this is an important question to be answered.

The issue I took with hypothetical qualifications in this case is that I was asking you to make a specific judgement concerning truth and falsehood about a specific picture based on what you know and what you are prepared to logically defend as being true or false.
Putting qualifications on an answer risks suggesting that maybe you weren't willing to stand firmly on making a judgement and be willing to defend that judgement against challenges.
I'm not saying that's what you were doing, but it is what I wanted to be sure wasn't happening, so that there was no confusion going forward.

As you see in my "Disclaimer" below, everything I say is an opinion, as is true of everyone, novice and expert alike.

That is what this all comes down to : Is everything just an opinion or does objective truth exist?

You talk about believing in "objective truth" but you don't seem to define that term correctly.
My definition of objective truth would be the mathematical, scientific, and Biblical definition of truth - Meaning that the dynamics of reality exist independent of subjective personal experience.
Objective truth is not defined as what a group of people subjectively all believe is true, in contradiction to what another group believes, so both are equally true or equally false and we can't tell which is really true.
Objective truth is universal, and we can all use the same universal process called logic to establish if something is proveably false. That is why a scientific claim can't be valid unless it is falsifiable, meaning it can be tested.

I must point out that you don't appear to actually believe or live according to your claim that everything is just an opinion.
The fact is, you make arguments in a way that says you do believe in my definition of objective truth. Furthermore, we can demonstrate you not only believe in it but you use it in your everyday life.

You have been trying to argue that your view of reality is the right one, and you have tried to use logical reasoning in order to establish why your view is the right one.
Whether you realized it or not, you are taking a stance that an objective truth exists - Even if that objective truth is the idea that there is no truth because only subjectivity exists and truth is just an arbitrary construct of what a collection of people subjectively believe reality to be. You are still trying to assert that your viewpoint is the one right way of understanding reality, why mine can't be true because it contradicts yours, and you try to defend why yours is the right way of understanding reality by using appeals to logical reasoning.

Furthermore, you don't live your life by a belief that your subjectivity determines what is true either, do you?
You obey the laws of nature as you understand them. You obey the laws of society to avoid punishment. You don't live as though your subjective experience determines for you what is true and therefore alters reality to allow you to do whatever you'd like without negative consequence. You are subject to the truth of the reality of the world around you, whether you want to be or not.

I can see the appeal of believing that our subjectivity determines truth/reality because it essentially makes the individual out to be god - able to do as they please when they please and no one could tell them otherwise because reality is shaped by them alone.
But Biblically we know that isn't true. That is why God is defined as Truth. He is said to be the Creator, the one who holds together reality by the power of His Word. It is Biblically a defining attribute of what makes God God, different from everything else in existence.
This is why the Bible talks about the key to salvation being knowing what God says is true and bringing ourselves into alignment with that. Because he defines what truth is, and if we don't align ourselves with that then we perish. That is why Jesus said it is the Truth that sets us free and leads to life.
The Bible tells us that believing lies is what is killing us and keeping us separate from God.

To say you are the one who gets to determine what objective truth is to say you have the power to alter reality according to your will, which is to take what only God has and try to claim it as your own.
Now, granted, the Bible does talk a lot about how an individual can move literal mountains with a spoken word and see other great things happen - but in context it is done out of being in union with God so that everything you are doing is an extension of His will, rather than being a manifestation of your will. That is why Jesus models for us a lifestyle of power being unlocked in submission to God's will, in total union with God, not under the control of sin where that power would be misused and abused for evil.
That is a stark contrast to a lot of new age beliefs where individuals think they get to exercise that kind of power and authority under their own will, for their own purposes, which we know is Biblically not the case and that mentality is what results in Matthew 7:21-23

Windwalker · Jul 29, 2019

Rise said:
Thank you for taking the time to help me understand where you're coming from. I was happy reading your latest post because I feel like there's some common ground emerging.

There is actually a common ground that is not dependent upon reaching the same logical conclusions. Faith is not based upon what we believe mentally is objective truth, as that can and does change for us individually and collectively. That is the point of Romans 14. I am hoping to steer us towards that rather than us getting too lost in "disputable matters" such as our respective views on epistemology, which is what we are focused on right now.

I'm going to jump around a little bit in your points, as it is too easy when you have two people who are as thorough and detailed as we are to create an unmanageable thread. Too easy to get lost in the weeds and overwhelmed, as it were.

Let's go ahead and start with the epistemological question, and then hopefully we can get to the far less black and white questions, and get into what Paul was talking about in Romans 14. That is in no small part what this thread is supposed to be about.

Rise said:
That is what this all comes down to : Is everything just an opinion or does objective truth exist?

I'm going to stop you right there. The way you just set up the framework here is worth drawing specific attention to. First you created a false dichotomy, and then heavily biased it against one of the two proposed options, framing the second choice for us as,"Just an opinion".

On the contrary, opinions have varying degrees of weight to them. I believe everything we believe and hold to be true are our opinions. Some opinions are more powerful, reaching, practical, and more certain than others, which lack any hope of a credible consensus opinion. "Just an opinion" does not fit talking about credible opinion. It fits talking about what some uninformed person on the street might opining about what they think is wrong with the world. "Just an opinion," frames the discussion as if all opinions to be of no more value than vacuus speculations. That is false.

So, no, it is not correct for you to make this a false choice between "objective truth vs. 'just an opinion'". That is not the choice.

The choice really is, upon a spectrum of opinions from which are we to choose, which of those have the greatest support in order for them to be the most useful to us? Which opinion is considered more valid to us? Which opinion has the stronger support for us? Which opinion carries more weight for us? For instance, is scientific opinion regarding the makeup of the cosmos more valuable and more true than a five year old's opinion that moon is made of green cheese?

If I were five, I might think the green-cheese model of cosmology might be a better fit for me, because that would be something my mind can relate to much better than computational models of gravitational forces and the laws of physics. It's a more magical model, and that fits a more magical mind. It is much more easy to relate to mentally for that type of mind.

But for an adult living in modernity however, that green-cheese model has been transformed, or upgraded into a new kind of magic called "physics". The literal interpretation of the green-cheese model can only serve us so far. At a certain point we have to upgrade the model we are using if we hope to go further in our understandings of the world. But it's still "just a model".

The use of "objective truth" in our language as a sign, in fact is captured within what I am saying. "Objective truth" is what the best of our tools we are using to understand the world we share together tells us is real. Our opinion, to the best of our abilities, is what is objective truth to us. But the danger is when we take that term, which is at best a metaphor for a type of truth, and turn it into an Absolute. That is not possible for any human being to claim as "objective truth". At that point, it's religious opinion, a philosophical assumption, and not what it sees itself as "being objective".

It's turtles all the way down. It's opinions of what is objective reality, all the way up and all the way down. Objective reality, is a perceptual reality, ultimately. But for practical purposes, as a "shorthand", we can use "objective reality" if you wish. I just encourage you not to believe it too tightly. God has a way of annihilating what we believe is "objective reality", no matter how advanced we may imagine we were about determining that.

Rise said:
Where the disagreement here appears to be, however, is what constitutes valid reasoning for establishing the truth of a claim.

And that is going to depend upon the nature of what we are trying to look at. When it comes to epistemology, how we determine something as true is arrived at by other means than this mythological "reasoning" which is projected as this imagined transcendent Answers-God, with a capital A.

For instance, "Come let us reason the taste of an orange together, saith the Lord". And so, we sit at a table and evaluate all the literature we can find about oranges, debating the different descriptions we find, using logical, or even mathematical models to ascertain, based upon a matrix of chemical compositions, which of these descriptions is a "True" description, which is the Authoritative Word upon oranges. And then, we write statements of heresy against which opinions are "wrong", based upon our conclusions of the data, banishing those opinions into the dustheap of learned opinion.

Then suddenly, one researcher realizes the madness of this exercise, shoves all the research papers to the floor, clears an open space free from obstacles, peels the damn orange and puts it into his mouth. "It tastes good". Gasps are heard around the table!

A simple but truthful example. Reason, logic, deduction, maps and models, are but "just" one way of many though which we arrive at truth. Someone can know absolutely nothing about the imagery of the Bible, for instance, and know God by "tasting". In other words, using something else other than this supposedly all-powerful reason.

"Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not. All I know is I was blind and now I see". Not reason, but experience tells truth in that quote from scripture. My argument is and will be, moving forward now, is that spiritual knowledge is not something arrived at through logical conclusions. It is arrived at through a different type of knowing, a different type of seeing. It is more akin to "tasting", then it is to reasoning.

.....

Reason is not going to be your path to find Answers with a capital A (which can't exist for us as humans within our reality). Obviously, there must be something common to all of us, regardless of how we perceive, relate to, or talk about reality for us, individually and in common shared worldspaces through language and culture. Reason and logic are not the Masters of the Universe. This is the mythological proposed by Logical Positivism, of which modern Christians are falling victim to. You yourself, from what I can tell in reading your posts, are also victim to this mode of thinking.

It is precisely as Conrad Hyers aptly stated, "One of the ironies of biblical literalism is that it shares so largely in the reductionist and literalist spirit of the age. It is not nearly as conservative as it supposes. It is modernistic, and it sells its symbolic birthright for a mess of tangible pottage." It is attempting to make the Bible and its messages the end result of a devotion to the tenentants of a modernistic Logical Positivism. It fails miserably to speak the truth of it, which is found both before and beyond all our reasonings and claims of "objective truth".

I'm going to pick up some other thoughts later, as I try to consolidate and move the focus on along here at this point. I don't want to overburden this with all the evidences I can pull to support my view, but I certainly can if needed. These above are not "just my opinion", they are based on considerable depth of opinion into these exact matters by philosophers, researchers, psychologist, developmentalists, and scholars of many disciplines. Those hardly qualify as "just an opinion."

But my real hope here is to expose you this understanding of truth and reality, as a framework through which others, myself included, those within the Christian faith and those without it, share. How do you then find a common ground with someone such as myself in that Spirit? Is it based upon logical conclusions? What if their logical opinion is that you should only go to church on Saturday? What if you disagree with their logic? Beat them over the head with the Holy Rules of Logic book and try to get them to convert to your modes of thinking? Should I do that with you?

Windwalker · Jul 29, 2019

Rise said:
I must point out that you don't appear to actually believe or live according to your claim that everything is just an opinion.
The fact is, you make arguments in a way that says you do believe in my definition of objective truth. Furthermore, we can demonstrate you not only believe in it but you use it in your everyday life.

You have been trying to argue that your view of reality is the right one, and you have tried to use logical reasoning in order to establish why your view is the right one.

I just caught this error as I was looking back through your post to other points I might wish to address. What I bolded above appears to be a projection of what you might be doing towards me, assuming I must be doing the same thing (projection is a common phenomenon, I do it myself). I do realize that to a fault, my posts can be so laden with details and thoughts that you might not see the point I've been making as a theme through all of them. If you had seen it, you could not conclude as you are here.

I'm quite careful in the words I choose. I qualify all the time that all views of reality are relative. That most certainly includes my own. I recognize that what I see as truth today, can be changed overnight by some radical shift in perceptual reality. Thoughts and thinking follows in behind that shift and changes how it reframes what it perceives as truth now. You can referred to James Fowler's mapping out of Stages of Faith, as one example of many of the areas of research in human development can demonstrate scientifically.

These qualify as perceptual shifts, which when they occur changes the general meaning and truth reality for those within them. They move into looking through a different set of filters now. I've gone through these shifts myself personally, When I talk about what I perceive is truth, it is through that lens which allows a different understanding to emerge in what is seen.

In our conversation, I am speaking from my particular worldspace I share with others in that space, into your particular worldspace and those within that, while you and I share the common space of the world between us. We both see objective reality. I just realize it's more porous than what we think is true about it, given our best tools and resources and supporting evidences. You see it as more solid and concrete.

So the difficulty becomes how to convey truth and meaning across these boundaries? If you fall into the same worldspace as the other is within, commonality of thought and agreement in meaning is shortcutting through that shared space. But speaking across boundaries into other spaces with a different general set of lens that it sees through, looking at that same objective reality as the other is, will result in a decrease of the ease at which meaning and truth can be conveyed through the language, the common medium of thoughts and ideas.

I believe it is possible however, as did the Apostle Paul in his whole chapter devoted to it in Romans 14. "Let each be convinced in their own minds". God doesn't care about we think is "right". We're all wrong.

Windwalker · Jul 29, 2019

Rise said:
You've tried to assert that this changes when dealing with more complex issues, but the fundamental fact never changes that truth by definition does not contradict itself - otherwise it ceases to be truth by definition.

That's one of the fundamental problems here with your approach to Scripture is that you appear to think you get to apply a different standard of logic and truth to reading it, when the reality of what truth is never changes no matter how complex the topic you're talking about is. Truth never can be contradictory and still be truth.

Here's a point I'd like to speak to a little more. There are different types of logic, in case you aren't aware of that. Such as "fuzzy logic". When you deal with higher orders of complexity, trying to see things in strict linear, cause and effect relationships breaks apart. It fail to see the overall, intersecting, patterns of truths there are. The complexity sciences deals with different types of logic like this, such as chaos logic.

All these are in fact part of our very real, natural world. So it's not just black and white logic when we are talking about Reality. Black and white reality is not really real. It's an artificial construct of reality we as humans use for simplicity's sake. But to understand more deeply the truth of something, to understand its overall truth, or its greater truth, we have to pull back a little and loosen the grip of our mind's rigidity about things like truth in a binary, black and white reality. Truth can, and does speak, with no words (Psalm 19).

Addressing our discussion about scripture, I'm fine sticking to our basic shared frameworks of basic logic. Anything I would add to the discussion has to have support, which it does. I won't get embroiled in side discussions about whether we can or should trust modern scholarship and the sciences. That's just a given. I do trust it in as far as that goes to add perceptive. I'm not a "believer" in them. That term doesn't apply. I use them, is more applicable. I see through that lens.

Additionally, I may, and will in fact, step back outside of logic and reason, and speak from the spiritual perspective. The spiritual perspective is much more akin to the "fuzzy logic" sort of "God's eye" view of things. Looking at the nature and reality of God from a logic point of view, will get you maybe exactly where you started, which is your own imagination. It's like walking through the woods in a circle. I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts there as well.

Rise · Jul 31, 2019

Windwalker said:
Let's go ahead and start with the epistemological question, and then hopefully we can get to the far less black and white questions, and get into what Paul was talking about in Romans 14. That is in no small part what this thread is supposed to be about.

Ah, but don't you realize how it was you who first decided to make this an epistemological question about how truth is determined in the Bible?

I gave you logic reasons, contextual analysis, and facts that showed why your understanding of that verse couldn't be the correct one - and you responded by essentially saying you don't believe you need to be bound by such concepts as facts, context, or logic, when talking about what is true in the Bible.

You responded to my reasoned objection with a epistemological objection about the nature of what is truth in the Bible and how do we determine it.

That is why we cannot really expect to get anywhere talking about what the scripture says if we don't first settle the epistemological based objection you first raised to the points I made.
We first need to deal with your claim that the Bible doesn't have a singular objective truth contained within it and that we aren't meant to read it that way.
That's what the picture exercise and my previous posts were aimed at doing.

That is the point of Romans 14. I am hoping to steer us towards that rather than us getting too lost in "disputable matters" such as our respective views on epistemology, which is what we are focused on right now.

The nature of truth does not qualify as a "disputable matter" based on the context of what Paul means when he uses that phrase in Romans 14...
Now, I already explained with evidence and reason how/why you were misapplying that phrase and taking it out of context in the previous thread - and you never directly responded to the points and showed why my points weren't true. I gave you many clear reasons from Scripture that demonstrate why your reading of that verse was not only inconsistent with Paul wrote but also why it was out of context with the letter itself (to say nothing of his other letters). Truth by definition is not contradictory. Either Paul contradicted himself or you are misreading what he wrote, but it's pretty clear from the context that he didn't mean for you to assert that every matter is disputable. He specifically lists what is disputable in contrast to what shouldn't be considered disputable in the rest of the letter.

Why didn't you address those previous points I made directly and demonstrate why they aren't true? It seems like the reason you didn't is because you don't feel you are required to. And that's part of the problem here of why we can't expect to begin discussing what Scripture means if we don't first establish what truth is and how it is determined. Otherwise you seem to think your opinions about Scripture are not subject to objective standards of measurement to determine if those opinions are true or not; so you don't need to accept anything that would objectively and logically disprove your conclusions because you have already decided you don't think the concepts of logic and objective truth apply to you when reading the Bible.

But you've never established that you actually are right to approach Scripture in that way to begin with (interpretting it without a need for consistency, without regard for contradictions, without regards to context). We can't simply take for granted that your way of reading the Scripture is correct unless you can logically demonstrate why it is the best, or only, right way of reading Scripture.

Merely explaining what you believe is not the same as proving your viewpoint is the correct or even "most correct" way of looking at something. You haven't even proved that my approach to Scripture is incorrect in some way, let alone that your way is right.
That's why we currently lack a solid common ground on which to discuss what the Scripture says.

The problem with moving forward talking about the truth of what Romans 14 says is that you're approaching the Scripture from a premise that is unproven (the premise that your way of approaching Scripture is the right one). The reason your premise is a barrier to discussing the truth of Scripture is because your premise automatically makes anything you have to say about Scripture right because no one is able to objectively say you are wrong, because your premise presumes no objective truth exists in the Bible and it was never meant to be read that way. But all that is only true if we assume your premise is true - and we have no reason yet to believe your premise is true.

You would first need to prove your claim that the Scripture is only a rorshok test with no objective truth. That's why I gave the three different pictures in my original post. Each one can be logically established to be either objective or subjective in nature. The fact that you can do that with those pictures is the same principles by which you would logically determine if the Bible is a rorshok test with no objective truth behind it or if it is something that was intended to have an objective singular truth.

The same mechanisms you use to determine that can also be applied to Scripture to determine whether it's something that has objective truth or is merely a random rorshock with no objective truth. And, as I already said, the basics of how truth are determined are simple and apply to everything no matter how complex the topic is. Merely claiming "well, Scripture is complicated so that doesn't work" doesn't mean your claim is true. You would need to logically demonstrate WHY those basic universal standards of logic and truth don't work when applied to scripture, giving reasons and evidence to support that claim. Merely claiming that it's too complex, without demonstrating why, means your claim is unproven, unsupported, and thus we have no reason to accept it as being true.

Faith is not based upon what we believe mentally is objective truth, as that can and does change for us individually and collectively.

The purpose of my last post was to contend with this claim you just made and demonstrate why it's not true.

Without that question answered first, we don't really have common ground to talk about what the Scripture says.

As I said: If objective truth changes based on what the individual or collective decides is true then by definition it was never objective truth to begin with.

You have said you believe in a type of "objective truth", but the definition you use of objective truth is neither objective nor truth by either definition of those words.

If what is considered true changes based on what an individual or a group believes, it is subjective truth by definition.

Objective truth, like the force of gravity, exists independent of what people think about it. The objective truth of what gravity is, and how it works, was always there. The objective truth of the nature of gravity, the math and physics behind how it works and why, doesn't change based on what people do or don't subjectively understand about gravity.

Truth is, as a concept, that which is singularly true waiting to be discovered. In fact, it is only because we operate from the presumption that there exists a singular exlcusive truth behind reality that allows us to use logic to progressively better understand how and why the world is the way it is around us (because if truth is objective it is singular, and if it is singular then truth by definition cannot be self contradictory. This allows us to eliminate what is false from what is true). If we didn't operate from the assumption that a singular truth for gravity exists then science, math, law, etc, and everything about how we live our life would be impossible because the idea that objective truth exists is the foundation behind the way we live and prosper.

I don't think you want to reject the idea that there exists a singular objective truth for what gravity is and how it functions, because I think you believe there is a singular truth for it. But I also don't think you're recognizing how your attempts to re-define objective truth end up denying that objective truth exists. What I find puzzling is that it seems like you're trying to have your cake and eat it to with regards to the concept and definition of objective truth. Realistically you admit it exists, but then you try to re-define what it is in a way that supports your subjective reality worldview - but in the process of trying to re-define what objective truth is you cease to be talking about the concept of objective truth anymore, and thus you defacto end up denying that objective truth exists. Which is why I think you are contradicting your own beliefs because I think you do believe objective truth exists. You argue and take positions as though it does exist. As far as I can presume you live your life as though it does exist (otherwise you might not live very long, thinking you don't have to obey the objective laws of nature to survive). But in contradiction to that you try to define objective truth it in a way that effectively denies it exists.

I'm going to stop you right there. The way you just set up the framework here is worth drawing specific attention to. First you created a false dichotomy, and then heavily biased it against one of the two proposed options, framing the second choice for us as,"Just an opinion".

It's not a false dichotomy. For the reasons I outlined, and further expounded on this post, it is an accurate summation of question you're facing.

You only think it's a false dichotomy because, as I pointed out in paragraphs above, you have an inaccurate definition of "objective truth".

By your definition of "objective truth" it's neither objective nor true but merely what someone thinks is true from their perspective. That's called "subjective truth".

Rise · Jul 31, 2019

Windwalker said:
The choice really is, upon a spectrum of opinions from which are we to choose, which of those have the greatest support in order for them to be the most useful to us? Which opinion is considered more valid to us? Which opinion has the stronger support for us? Which opinion carries more weight for us? For instance, is scientific opinion regarding the makeup of the cosmos more valuable and more true than a five year old's opinion that moon is made of green cheese?

We only can arrive at conclusions that one theory about gravity is more right than another because we operate from the assumption that there exists a singular exclusive objective truth out there. It is by the logical process of finding out what contradicts itself that we can sift away a lot of obviously wrong theories. Science uses avoiding contradiction as a guide to know they are on the right track to what is true, because by definition that which is contradictory is not true. They may hold on to contradictory models that serve a useful purpose in understanding reality while they seek out a better answer, but the only reason they continue seeking better models is because they operate from the presumption that there is a singular truth out there that does not contradict itself. And the reason they seek this is because they believe, and know from experience, that finding something closer to that objective singular truth will be even more useful for them to interact with reality than the partial contradictory truths they previously held to.

Without the presumption that a singular truth exists, you can't make any claims about what is more true than something else because you have no logical basis for your claims. We can logically recognize what is false from what is true because the falsehoods contradict what is true.

In math, science, and the Bible, truth is established to be a singular and exclusive thing. It excludes by nature everything else that it is not truth and calls is false.
2+2 cannot equal 4 and also equal 5 at the same time. There exists one truth exclusively about what the reality of this math problem is.

Without the presumption that truth is singular and exclusive math and science becomes impossible and the word "truth" ceases to have any meaning.

The use of "objective truth" in our language as a sign, in fact is captured within what I am saying. "Objective truth" is what the best of our tools we are using to understand the world we share together tells us is real.

That summarizes why your definition of objective truth is inaccurate.

Objective truth is defined as that which you are searching for and seeking to measure/observe.

Objective truth is not defined as whatever your best working theory is about what the absolute truth is.

Although we can say the best theory is objectively more true than other theories, science is not under any illusion that their current understanding of gravity represents the absolute objective truth of it's nature. They know their understanding has to grow. We can say the current theories/models are objectively more true than ancient Greek theories - but that is not the same as saying we have arrived at "the" objective truth we've been searching for. And science will tell you just as much, admitting we don't fully understand the nature of Gravity, but they won't reject the idea that an objective truth exists waiting to be more fully understood.

The only reason we can say any model is more true than another is because we presume truth is singular in nature and therefore two contradictory theories cannot both be true. If a contradiction exists then it is either because the theories are wrong or because our understanding of the issue in question is wrong. That is the presumption upon which all truth is founded, and thus why all science/math is founded on that premise.

What the Bible communicates to us as a whole is also founded on that premise when it describes God as the singular Truth in contrast to all that which is false. God defines Himself repeatedly as the one and only way to salvation, Truth itself, the definition of what is right in contrast to what is wrong and false. The entire Bible is founded on the idea that God and His ways are perfect, true, and everything else is false error (I could quote half the Bible establishing this if you felt it necessary to do so).

For instance, "Come let us reason the taste of an orange together, saith the Lord".

You are also taking that verse out of context. It won't support the point you're trying to make with it.

God said come let us "reason". Reason by English definition is a logical process. And likewise it is in the Hebrew meaning of the word:

(SN 3198) yāk̠aḥ – properly, adjudicate, argue on the basis of sound, legal reasoning – i.e. in accordance with solid evidence and proper standards; to offer reproof needed to properly settle a dispute – bringing forward what is necessary to "set the record straight"; an argument, viewed at its final application of reasoning (tau actionis form).

Further, in context of this chapter, we see God making a logical appeal to the people that if they do a particular action then something will obviously result from it. He is making an appeal to their reason to do what is right and turn from what is evil based on a logical proposition that a choice between two actions has two logical outcomes and he is imploring them to choose the one that is right because they have the capacity to reason that it is right.

18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are are like crimson, They will be like wool. 19 “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; “But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Based on the points I just made, we can objectively conclude there is nothing about the verse you quoted that would support the idea that God is appealing to the people to turn to their subjective feelings and experience as a way of "reasoning together" with God.

We can objectively establish that your understanding of that verse cannot be the correct one because it is not consistent with the context of the sentence, the context of the chapter, or the meaning of the words used - because, as I also pointed out already, truth by definition is consistent and not contradictory.

Not reason, but experience tells truth in that quote from scripture. My argument is and will be, moving forward now, is that spiritual knowledge is not something arrived at through logical conclusions. It is arrived at through a different type of knowing, a different type of seeing. It is more akin to "tasting", then it is to reasoning.

A conclusion is not the same as an argument.
You've concluded that truth in the Scripture cannot be logically demonstrated, but you haven't yet presented much in the way of reasoned arguments about why that claim is true.

You did make a logical appeal to a scripture to support your claim, but I just got done demonstrating why your use of that scripture was incorrect and could not be the right way to understand it.

So now, in order for your argument to not be disproven, you would need to be able to demonstrate why my points were not valid or why they were in error. If you can't do that then your arguments are considered disproven and your conclusion has nothing to support it's claim to truth. It's now just an unsupported assertion and we have no reason to believe your claim that your conclusion is true.

Your position is also inherently contradictory - because you are appealing to the evidence of scriptures, and logical reasoning of what those mean, as a way to demonstrate why your way of approaching the Scripture is the correct one. You dismiss the idea that truth can be logically established about what the Scripture says while at the same time trying to use logic to establish the truth of what Scripture says.

How do you then find a common ground with someone such as myself in that Spirit?

That is the point of my posts in this thread - etablishing how that is done.
This takes us back to the exercise of the three pictures, where we didn't even get to picture #2 and picture #3 because I realized you don't really accept the existance of objective truth by definition, so we're stuck dealing first with the nature of picture #1 without even being able to talk about how it contrasts with picture #2 and #3.

Only after we establish objective truth exists can I then ask you to explain why you can objectively state as a fact that Picture #2 has no right or wrong answer, but you can objectively state as a fact that Picture #1 has a right answer that is exclusive to many potential wrong answers.

If you examine how and why you came to that conclusion you'll discover the same principles of discovering objective truth apply to everything. And then you've answered your question of how we can establish common ground.

I'm quite careful in the words I choose. I qualify all the time that all views of reality are relative. That most certainly includes my own. I recognize that what I see as truth today, can be changed overnight by some radical shift in perceptual reality. Thoughts and thinking follows in behind that shift and changes how it reframes what it perceives as truth now. You can referred to James Fowler's mapping out of Stages of Faith, as one example of many of the areas of research in human development can demonstrate scientifically.

Whether or not you believe you know the truth doesn't change the fact that you're trying to assert your view of reality is the correct one, or at least more correct than mine - and you then try to use logic and appeals to scripture to bolster your claim.

God doesn't care about we think is "right". We're all wrong.

You're making an objective claim of truth even by your statement here.
Your conclusion disproves your premise that we can't objectively know anything is true - because you're trying to make a claim to know something is true - the idea that nobody can know what is true.

. Black and white reality is not really real. It's an artificial construct of reality we as humans use for simplicity's sake. But to understand more deeply the truth of something, to understand its overall truth, or its greater truth, we have to pull back a little and loosen the grip of our mind's rigidity about things like truth in a binary, black and white reality. Truth can, and does speak, with no words (Psalm 19).
...
Additionally, I may, and will in fact, step back outside of logic and reason, and speak from the spiritual perspective. The spiritual perspective is much more akin to the "fuzzy logic" sort of "God's eye" view of things. Looking at the nature and reality of God from a logic point of view, will get you maybe exactly where you started, which is your own imagination. It's like walking through the woods in a circle. I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts there as well.

This is an example where you are stating your viewpoint, which is fine to do; but you aren't giving evidence for why your viewpoint is the right way to look at and read Scripture.
You would need to provide some evidence or reasoned argumentation that would demonstrate why the approach to truth and logic I outlined in previous posts would not work when applied to Scripture. Some kinds of examples of evidence that demonstrate why your approach is is the right one.

Merely asserting that truth cannot be logically and reasonably discerned from Scripture doesn't prove your claim is true. You need to demonstrate how and why your claim is true and not just take for granted that your claim is true.

Windwalker · Aug 4, 2019

Rise said:
Ah, but don't you realize how it was you who first decided to make this an epistemological question about how truth is determined in the Bible?

I recall it was something that presented itself as something I thought might be worthwhile to spend some time exploring together to lay the groundwork of why I may see something differently than you do, because we are using different paradigms or frameworks through which to look at these things. The value of that exercise is to expose that we may not be using the same frameworks, rather than either of assuming the other is taking into account the same things we were. It was to establish that these exist, why they exist, and how they affect our perspectives understandings of what is truth.

The goal was not to reconcile the different perspectives. They can't be. Unless someone has integrated perceiving life through those sets of eyes, it is not possible to imagine what that is. It's like trying to imagine what is like to see the world through the eyes of an 90 year old, when you've only experienced life as a 30 year old. You can't. But a 90 year can recall what it's like seeing as a 30 year old, because that was a lived experience for them themselves. Being 90 is not a lived experience for a 30 year old. It does not go both directions (other than subtle influences).

Seeing the world as a 30 year old isn't wrong. Seeing the world as a 90 year old isn't right. They are simply different ways in which we perceive truth at the different stages of our lives. At a certain point you realize looking back at ourselves in our youth that we weren't "wrong". We were simply seeing the world the best we could given the eyes of experience we had to see with. That's a major shift in thinking away from this right/wrong, dualistic set of glasses we perceive the world through in our youth.

Rise said:
I gave you logic reasons, contextual analysis, and facts that showed why your understanding of that verse couldn't be the correct one

I actually don't recall at the moment what verse was. There's been a lot of details I've covered, and as feared we might get a bit lost in the weeds here. That's why I'm steering us back to that conversation, now that I feel we've established at least conceptually how there are different modes of understanding information that hits us. We're not going to be able to say "this view is right and the other is wrong", because we are coming from different places.

But that does not mean we cannot have a meaningful conversation and find common ground. Paul never said, "Get your days of the week you worship on straight in order to have a common belief". He didn't see that as necessary, and neither do I.

So what do you imagine that common ground was he was speaking of in Romans 14, if it wasn't about establishing a common belief of what "scripture says"? They each had their interpretation of what it says, but he says that's not important ultimately. Do you disagree that it should be ultimately important, that we are saved by what we believe mentality as accurate propositional truths?

Myself, I don't believe that at all. Good thing for all of us!

Rise said:
- and you responded by essentially saying you don't believe you need to be bound by such concepts as facts, context, or logic, when talking about what is true in the Bible.

I never said I do not use, or feel free to violate reason, logic, or facts. I don't believe that. For instance, a Creationist does all of that, exactly what you imagine I am doing, when they are denying mountains of scientific research in order to preserve their particular reading of Genesis, which is not shared by all other Christians as a matter of fact. No, I would argue I am bound, as well as they are, to integretrity of mind in taking into account valid points of view. The job is to reconcile my faith with the data, not reconcile the data with my faith at the expensive of intellectual integrity.

So, this statement you say about me is in error. All I have been saying is I am not bound to see a current paradigm of how we translate the world, as the final word on the subject. Not at all. Understanding is allowed to grow and expand and take more and more points of view into an overall larger picture than what earlier perspectives could afford us. That is all I have been saying. Not that you can throw reason out the window, like a fundamentalist does with the entire domain of modern science and reason.

Rise said:
You responded to my reasoned objection with a epistemological objection about the nature of what is truth in the Bible and how do we determine it.

And that may be a valid consideration in what we are looking at. For instance, you believe the Bible is the product of a purposeful, divinely guided process whose end result is a book without contradiction or error. That is the paradigm you start with, and subsequently you see everything through that. That will colorize everything you see with that assumption right from the beginning, as it touches everything it sees, like wearing Amber-tinted glasses.

Someone wearing Orange glasses sees Orange in everything they perceive. Green glasses green. Teal glasses Teal. Indigo glasses Indigo, and so forth. It is not that communication is not possible. But it does present challenges. When I say I see your perception, but see it as incomplete, that is because I am seeing something through a different set of lenses that I have on now. I still have those Amber glasses, and still remember what it was like to see the world through those lenses, but right now when I look at truth, I see through Teal-tinted, or even Indigo-tinted glasses.

It is still truth, but just understood through a different framework. Our views of truth and reality, are completely dependant on these filters, for both you, and for me. There is no "single view" that is the right one. And if there is, none of us can know it as such because we all wear glasses to help us see.

Paul himself points to this when he says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face". Those are the glasses of our limited perceptions, I am talking about with you. None of us should assume we are seeing "face to face", or through the eyes of God. To see through the eyes of God, is to see none of us are "right".

Again, this does not mean we cannot have a meaningful discussion and find common ground. If you insist we can't, then you haven't discovered the meaning of faith beyond what you believe with your thoughts and ideas. Haven't you ever changed how you perceived truth in your life? Does the world look the same to you today as it did when you were a younger person in school?

Rise said:
That is why we cannot really expect to get anywhere talking about what the scripture says if we don't first settle the epistemological based objection you first raised to the points I made.

Forgive my laziness at the moment, but specifically which ones do you have in mind? Romans 14? Let's just try it now, understanding there are epistimological differences. It's never been my hope that you will adopt a different framework. That's not something that is possible to do through reasoning and rationality. It's a shift that happens at a developmental level. I heard it put this way once. "It's like yelling at your bones, grow!!". That's not how bones grow.

To reiterate again, it shouldn't be necessary to agree upon what we are perceiving to be true. That was Paul's whole point of Romans 14, as I see it and can defend it rationally, logically, and with credible and valid supports.

continued.....

Windwalker · Aug 4, 2019

Rise said:
We first need to deal with your claim that the Bible doesn't have a singular objective truth contained within it and that we aren't meant to read it that way.

Very well. This is a talking point that puts all this into practice now. Let's focus on this as a primary example. The reason I see this is based upon modern scholarship from multiple disciplines. Once we remove the "has to make sense as a single truth, because it was written by a single Author, meaning God", that opens up other levels of scrutiny to examine the texts without that "must fit this idea" imposing itself first at the outset. This is what modernity does. It removes mythic and magical, or supernaturalism from the equation. That is a shift of paradigm.

Using that paradigm, which I do, the evidences point to this being the work of human beings, motivated by different visions of the divine in the context of cultural expectations and norms, as well as visionary inspiration to try to transcend that. Modernity, and Postmodernity in particular as a scholarly lense through which I see scripture allows for things like anthropology, ethnology, sociology, psychology, as well as basic literary and textual criticism through the eyes of modernity.

The fundamentalist lens however does not look at or weigh any of those as valid considerations, because it violates "God wrote it" as a paradigm. It's the same thing as Creationists denying valid science, unless it doesn't pose a challenge to them, then it's fine. That of course is not actually seeing through the eyes of science at all. It doesn't truly recognize what it is yet.

So in allowing myself to see with those proven disciplines, removing the supernaturalism of it in order to look at the actual constructions of it, affords me a perspective that supernaturalism as a norm cannot allow. What all these fields demonstrate is that is a work of humans as part of their cultures, translating the world through those magic and mythic frameworks. It's the language they used, and it carries meaning, but just not a literal fact on the ground. It is perceptual truth, wrapped in mythic language.

To be clear, I do not dismiss the reality of God. Not in the least. I just don't limit how I perceive, relate to, or talk about the Divine in terms of mythic-literal languages. The core of it is still the Spiritual, however we choose to express it or see it though our respective metaphors.

Rise said:
The nature of truth does not qualify as a "disputable matter" based on the context of what Paul means when he uses that phrase in Romans 14...

Clearly it does.

You are disputing my view of truth, calling it wrong. Someone's view of truth is that scripture teaches you should worship only on Saturday, or not to eat pork or other types of meat. Another has a different view of the same scriptures and concludes all days are alike and God is not concerned about meat. That is exactly disputing the nature of truth. It's debating that how someone sees the same thing as yourself is "wrong" while you are "right". That is precisely what Paul is addressing in Romans 14. Each was looking through their own "truth lens".

"Let each be convinced in his own mind". We serve the same Master, Paul states. Do you believe I don't believe in God, or that I do not have a valid relationship with the Divine because I don't perceive the nature of scripture the same as you? Because I allow myself to accept that the Bible does not have a single message that we have to be able to work hard to make apparent through our various theologies? Please be honest.

Rise said:
Now, I already explained with evidence and reason how/why you were misapplying that phrase and taking it out of context in the previous thread - and you never directly responded to the points and showed why my points weren't true. I gave you many clear reasons from Scripture that demonstrate why your reading of that verse was not only inconsistent with Paul wrote but also why it was out of context with the letter itself (to say nothing of his other letters).

If you are referring to Romans 14, I am addressing those through all of this, and has just done so above, showing why I don't believe you can just add "nature of truth", as "not disputable". It doesn't fit what I know about the human mind and the nature of truth and perception exposed to through research into all the fields of humanities, such as anthropology, ethnology, mind sciences, and so forth.

You dispute that. That makes it a "disputable matter". Does it not? "No, I have the facts and you are wrong", is disputable on many levels. I have mountains of evidence I use to support my views, and dispute your view as "the truth" without any margin for other understandings. It is a "disputable matter". You are disputing my views as not being true. Correct?

Rise said:
Truth by definition is not contradictory.

Definitions of words are reflections of how people use them in general, which can and does evolve over time. They are not absolutes.

Within a certain framework, truth is mostly as you say. But when you shift frameworks, what we previously saw as truth has now expanding to include things we previously saw as contradictions. So the contradiction ceased to be a contradiction.

One example of this is Creationism. Evolution is seen as a contradiction to truth as seen through the eyes of a mythic-literal interpretation of Genesis. One you get rid of that interpretation and allow for other perspectives of truth, then Evolution can be seen as a complement to the Creation myth. What was a contradiction before, now no longer is. I don't see it as a contradiction to truth at all.

I'll see if there are other points I want to adress from what you posted, but hopefully you see what this conversation is about. It's not about who has the "right" view of truth, but that there are multiple valid ways for Christians to read the Bible, think about and realize to the Divine. Or do you just believe they're all wrong and only your particular group has the "real truth", like a Jehovah's Witness might claim?

Windwalker · Aug 4, 2019

I think something that may help is for me to lay out a high level what the scriptures look like to me looking through my modernist and postmodernist or even integral lenses. Everything I read or perceive within it moves through these lenses into how I perceive and understand its truths and subsequent meanings. You do the same thing with your traditionalist lens, or possibly modern fundamentalist lens (there is a difference between these).

I see scripture as the unfolding of human conscious in its quest to realize the Divine nature of the world, found at its deepest level in the human soul. It is all a process to connect to the world and try to make sense of our existence. The nature of this is beyond what the mind can grasp, as so it is expressed metaphorically through a system of symbols and languages available to them through their cultures. These become the lenses they begin to look at life through, symbolically. We all look at life symbolically. We learned it from them.

When looking at scripture, you will see a noticeable shift in how it imagines the Divine, as a progressing evolution of ideas and frameworks, within the context of social and cultural evolution in a backdrop of early civilizations and empires. With those as backdrops, the tension between the priestly view of the divine reality, and the human culture views of earthly concerns and cultural identity, utilize that same language set to speak God to those concerns for themselves. God shifts and moves from the priestly view of transcendent truth and love, to the God of vengeance and wrath who will destroy those who oppose his chosen ones, as they viewed themselves.

This is a human story, and one that reflects all of us even today. Each of these different authors, at different periods of this cultural shifts of focus, shows this movement reflecting their times they were within. The imaginations of who Jesus was is no exception, beginning as a non-violent, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you peaceable Jesus, to a blood-drenched Christ on a conqueror's warhorse slaying enemies and feeding their flesh to the vultures, with a river of blood 200 miles long to greet his bride at his Wedding Feast.

But, while seeing and recognizing these aspects of the presentation of God through the eyes of ancient culture, finds a great deal of truth and insight into the nature of Divinity and the nature of man. In other words there is a transcendent truth to it, and a sad but true human truth to it alongside it. This still allows the divine vision to be seen, while recognizing the human side of things in its violent solutions to the world. God exists today as then, and we have a choice as to which path to follow, one of love which leads to God, or one of violence which draws back from it. We can pick which image of God symbolizes those respective paths for ourselves. Love, or Violence. For me, I choose the path of Love.

How I read passages of scripture to support the above, comes from the aforementioned modern and postmodern structures, which open to more than what a traditionalist, or literalist structure can allow for. They are not arbitrarily made up, based on sin, or bad scholarship, or any of the like, anymore than than to imagine the scientists who research evolution don't really know what they are doing either because it disagrees with how they are reading the book of Genesis and therefore Satan speaks through them. That is of course, irrational and unsupportable. This likewise has credible foundations. It's just a different valid framework than traditionalism is.

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

I apologize for taking longer to respond than I intended to. I went on vacation after the last post. I've also felt the need to take extra time to try to organize your posts and my points into a more clear and concise outline for the purpose of aiding clear and focused discussion.

Your latest post breaks down into three categories:
1. Claims you make about the nature of truth in general.
2. Claims you make about the nature of Scripture, it's relation to truth, and how you think it should be read.
3. Claims you make about what you think specific Scriptures are saying.

What I will go on to demonstrate in my post is that for categories 1 and 2 you have not offered any reasoned arguments about why your claims should be regarded as true. Remember; explaining what you believe is not the same as making an argument for why what you believe is true.

And with category 3, I will demonstrate how you have actually ignored all the arguments and facts I presented which disproved your claim about what those scriptures say; and how you instead diverted the topic into explaining what you believe about truth in general and it's relation to Scripture rather than directly addressing my points which disproved your claims about a particular Scripture's meaning.

What makes your diversion so logically invalid is the fact that you never first established proof that your assertions about the nature of truth and the Bible are true. So until you prove your assertions about the Bible just being open to subjective perception with nothing being able to be objectively concluded from it, you can't logically use that assertion as a basis for justifying why you don't feel the need to refute the specific points I made that disproved your claims about Scripture's meaning. (I will repost those points at the end so that you can see you never directly dealt with any of them).

Furthermore, your assertion about the nature of truth and Scripture is already contradicted by the many examples of Scriptural analysis I've provided which clearly demonstrated through reasoned logic and facts why we can state your conclusions about those Scriptures could not be true.
So, in order for you to be able to insist that those Scriptures have no clear right or wrong answer you'd need to be able to demonstrate with reasoned argumentation or counter facts why my claims about those Scriptures aren't true or reasons why we can't state one way or another which assertion is true.

This takes us back to the original purpose of my picture based question.
The purpose was to demonstrate that we do have the capability, and duty, to recognize the difference between something that has no right or wrong answer and something which does have clearly right and wrong answers.
We can all agree that the Rorshok Test has no right or wrong answer, and we can give logical proofs why that is true (if you don't believe that can be done, I will be glad to demonstrate how for you).
We can also all agree that the picture of the horse has clear right and wrong answers about what we are seeing, and we can also give logical proofs why that is true.

The burden of proof for your claims about Scripture is no different - We are capable of establishing by reasoned argumentation and logic whether or not the Scripture actually has right and wrong answers concerning what conclusions to draw from it's text, or whether it is just a Rorshok Test that is whatever anyone wants it to be.

Category 1

Windwalker said:
I recall it was something that presented itself as something I thought might be worthwhile to spend some time exploring together to lay the groundwork of why I may see something differently than you do, because we are using different paradigms or frameworks through which to look at these things.
The goal was not to reconcile the different perspectives. They can't be.

At a certain point you realize looking back at ourselves in our youth that we weren't "wrong". We were simply seeing the world the best we could given the eyes of experience we had to see with. That's a major shift in thinking away from this right/wrong, dualistic set of glasses we perceive the world through in our youth.

We're not going to be able to say "this view is right and the other is wrong", because we are coming from different places.

Within a certain framework, truth is mostly as you say. But when you shift frameworks, what we previously saw as truth has now expanding to include things we previously saw as contradictions. So the contradiction ceased to be a contradiction.

All I have been saying is I am not bound to see a current paradigm of how we translate the world, as the final word on the subject.

It is still truth, but just understood through a different framework. Our views of truth and reality, are completely dependant on these filters, for both you, and for me. There is no "single view" that is the right one. And if there is, none of us can know it as such because we all wear glasses to help us see.

Truth by definition is not contradictory.

Click to expand...

Definitions of words are reflections of how people use them in general, which can and does evolve over time. They are not absolutes.

1. I reject your premise that our perspectives on truth cannot be reconciled because your premise is never proven to be true. A good bulk of the arguments I presented in the previous posts were aimed at proving precisely why your approach to truth doesn't work as a general universal approach towards understanding the world around us.
You haven't addressed those points directly. So there would be no need for me to restate my arguments when they continue to stand unchallenged.

Although it's true to say that not everything can be talked about in true or false terms because there either is no right answer or we lack the data to determine what it is - you have to first establish with proof why we are dealing with a topic that cannot be talked about in true/false terms. You cannot merely assert we are but you must prove why we are. Merely asserting that we are dealing with a topic that is beyond true/false conclusions doesn't prove your claim to be true.

2. I also reject your premise that we're not able to say your view about Scripture is wrong because you've never proven that premise to be true either. I've given a laundry list of reasons in previous posts (which I will repost further down) about why your conclusion about various Scriptures was wrong. The onus is then on you to demonstrate why my attempts to prove the falsity of your claims were in error in order to prove your claim is true.

3. I further reject your assertion that the nature of what defines truth cannot change because you have not logically proved how that can happen in light of the arguments I made that demonstrate it's impossibility. I gave many specific reasons in previous posts why the nature of truth is objective and unchanging because truth is a concept of mathematical logic that can no more change than the concept of adding numbers can change to be different than what it has always been (what you label it can change, but the concept of it can't change). You have not addressed those points directly. Merely asserting that the nature of truth can change over time doesn't prove your claim to be true. You need to demonstrate with reasoned argumentation why my arguments about truth were in error.

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

Category 2

And that may be a valid consideration in what we are looking at. For instance, you believe the Bible is the product of a purposeful, divinely guided process whose end result is a book without contradiction or error. That is the paradigm you start with, and subsequently you see everything through that. That will colorize everything you see with that assumption right from the beginning, as it touches everything it sees, like wearing Amber-tinted glasses.

Someone wearing Orange glasses sees Orange in everything they perceive. Green glasses green. Teal glasses Teal. Indigo glasses Indigo, and so forth. It is not that communication is not possible. But it does present challenges. When I say I see your perception, but see it as incomplete, that is because I am seeing something through a different set of lenses that I have on now. I still have those Amber glasses, and still remember what it was like to see the world through those lenses, but right now when I look at truth, I see through Teal-tinted, or even Indigo-tinted glasses.

None of us should assume we are seeing "face to face", or through the eyes of God. To see through the eyes of God, is to see none of us are "right".

I'll see if there are other points I want to adress from what you posted, but hopefully you see what this conversation is about. It's not about who has the "right" view of truth, but that there are multiple valid ways for Christians to read the Bible, think about and realize to the Divine. Or do you just believe they're all wrong and only your particular group has the "real truth", like a Jehovah's Witness might claim?

Everything I read or perceive within it moves through these lenses into how I perceive and understand its truths and subsequent meanings. You do the same thing with your traditionalist lens, or possibly modern fundamentalist lens (there is a difference between these).

This is all an example of unproven assertions that form the foundation of your argument.
You make a claim that no one can make right conclusions from Scripture because it will shift based on subjective perception - but you never prove your assertion to be true.
You never attempt to prove that your conclusions about Scripture are valid ways of reading it in light of my factual and logical objections.
You never attempt to prove using reasoned argumentation that our conclusions are both equally valid or equally wrong.

It's like if I gave you a mathematical logical proof that 2 + 2 = 4 and you respond with, "well, that's your opinion based on your perspective, but nobody can really know for sure". Just claiming that doesn't make it true. You need to be able to prove logically why we have reason to believe 2 + 2 could also equal other things, or why the conclusion of 4 is in doubt and we just can't be sure.

I see scripture as the unfolding of human conscious in its quest to realize the Divine nature of the world, found at its deepest level in the human soul. It is all a process to connect to the world and try to make sense of our existence. The nature of this is beyond what the mind can grasp, as so it is expressed metaphorically through a system of symbols and languages available to them through their cultures. These become the lenses they begin to look at life through, symbolically. We all look at life symbolically. We learned it from them.
When looking at scripture, you will see a noticeable shift in how it imagines the Divine, as a progressing evolution of ideas and frameworks, within the context of social and cultural evolution in a backdrop of early civilizations and empires. With those as backdrops, the tension between the priestly view of the divine reality, and the human culture views of earthly concerns and cultural identity, utilize that same language set to speak God to those concerns for themselves. God shifts and moves from the priestly view of transcendent truth and love, to the God of vengeance and wrath who will destroy those who oppose his chosen ones, as they viewed themselves.
This is a human story, and one that reflects all of us even today. Each of these different authors, at different periods of this cultural shifts of focus, shows this movement reflecting their times they were within. The imaginations of who Jesus was is no exception, beginning as a non-violent, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you peaceable Jesus, to a blood-drenched Christ on a conqueror's warhorse slaying enemies and feeding their flesh to the vultures, with a river of blood 200 miles long to greet his bride at his Wedding Feast.
But, while seeing and recognizing these aspects of the presentation of God through the eyes of ancient culture, finds a great deal of truth and insight into the nature of Divinity and the nature of man. In other words there is a transcendent truth to it, and a sad but true human truth to it alongside it. This still allows the divine vision to be seen, while recognizing the human side of things in its violent solutions to the world. God exists today as then, and we have a choice as to which path to follow, one of love which leads to God, or one of violence which draws back from it. We can pick which image of God symbolizes those respective paths for ourselves. Love, or Violence. For me, I choose the path of Love.
How I read passages of scripture to support the above, comes from the aforementioned modern and postmodern structures, which open to more than what a traditionalist, or literalist structure can allow for. They are not arbitrarily made up, based on sin, or bad scholarship, or any of the like, anymore than than to imagine the scientists who research evolution don't really know what they are doing either because it disagrees with how they are reading the book of Genesis and therefore Satan speaks through them. That is of course, irrational and unsupportable. This likewise has credible foundations. It's just a different valid framework than traditionalism is.

Very well. This is a talking point that puts all this into practice now. Let's focus on this as a primary example. The reason I see this is based upon modern scholarship from multiple disciplines. Once we remove the "has to make sense as a single truth, because it was written by a single Author, meaning God", that opens up other levels of scrutiny to examine the texts without that "must fit this idea" imposing itself first at the outset. This is what modernity does. It removes mythic and magical, or supernaturalism from the equation. That is a shift of paradigm.
Using that paradigm, which I do, the evidences point to this being the work of human beings, motivated by different visions of the divine in the context of cultural expectations and norms, as well as visionary inspiration to try to transcend that. Modernity, and Postmodernity in particular as a scholarly lense through which I see scripture allows for things like anthropology, ethnology, sociology, psychology, as well as basic literary and textual criticism through the eyes of modernity.
The fundamentalist lens however does not look at or weigh any of those as valid considerations, because it violates "God wrote it" as a paradigm. It's the same thing as Creationists denying valid science, unless it doesn't pose a challenge to them, then it's fine. That of course is not actually seeing through the eyes of science at all. It doesn't truly recognize what it is yet.
So in allowing myself to see with those proven disciplines, removing the supernaturalism of it in order to look at the actual constructions of it, affords me a perspective that supernaturalism as a norm cannot allow. What all these fields demonstrate is that is a work of humans as part of their cultures, translating the world through those magic and mythic frameworks. It's the language they used, and it carries meaning, but just not a literal fact on the ground. It is perceptual truth, wrapped in mythic language.
To be clear, I do not dismiss the reality of God. Not in the least. I just don't limit how I perceive, relate to, or talk about the Divine in terms of mythic-literal languages. The core of it is still the Spiritual, however we choose to express it or see it though our respective metaphors.

This is an example of where you go into great detail explaining what you believe but none of those conclusions are supported by any reasoned argumentation or facts to prove your conclusions are actually true.
That's why I said earlier: don't mistakenly think that thoroughly explaining what you believe is the same as crafting an argument to support why your claims are true. It's a very common mistake for people to make, in my experience; which is why I don't think you're intentionally trying to avoid making an argument to refute my points or trying to avoid making arguments that prove your claims. It's common for people to think they are doing that when they actually aren't - possibly because they take too much for granted as being true in their own mind and don't think about how much of what they take for granted actually has to be established as true first.

You cannot expect us to take for granted that your view of reality and Scripture is the right one if you cannot established with reasoned argumentation why it is right. Or, failing that, to demonstrate why your conclusion is more right than mine, by demonstrating why there is error with mine or defending why the errors I pointed out in your conclusions aren't actually problems. At the very least you'd need to be able to establish that with reasoned argumentation that it's impossible for us to really come away with a clear conclusion of what is right from the Scriptures in question.

This takes us back to the original picture quiz I gave: Because I can demonstrate logically and factually why the Rorshok Test has no right or wrong answer, and I can demonstrate why logically and factually the horse picture has right and wrong answers.

I've already given arguments and facts that back up my claim that the Scriptures you quoted were not correct, proving there are right and wrong answers about what Scripture is saying. And you haven't tried to challenge those points directly, so my points continue to stand as true having not been disproven.

The onus is on you, in light of my arguments showing you do have some demonstrably false ideas about what the Bible says, to prove your claim that the Bible is just a Rorshok Test with no right or wrong answers.

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

To reiterate again, it shouldn't be necessary to agree upon what we are perceiving to be true. That was Paul's whole point of Romans 14, as I see it and can defend it rationally, logically, and with credible and valid supports.

But you didn't defend your conclusion about Romans 14. I refuted your claim in great detail using logical supporting argumentation and Scriptural proofs (I've reposted it at the end of my posts for your reference).
You ignored my points and then responded with vague unproven assertions about why you think it's impossible for anyone to conclude what's true or false in Scripture.

I never said I do not use, or feel free to violate reason, logic, or facts. I don't believe that.

If you don't refute the logical factual reasons I give that prove your conclusions about a given Scripture are in error, but instead respond with general unproven assertions about how Scripture is too subjective for anyone to say what's a true of false conclusion, then you are effectively concluding that you are free from having to use logic, reason, or facts of any kind when drawing your conclusions from Scripture.

I believe you when you say you don't feel you can do that. But the fact is you are effectively saying you think that's true by the way you go about arguing your case. I think your actions in this regard are inconsistent with what you really believe.

It seems almost like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. On the one hand you're trying to refute my logical arguments against your claim by basically saying my appeals to logic are an invalid way of determining truth and falsehood in Scripture because it's all just subjective perception with nobody being able to say what's really true (an unproven assertion on your part); but on the other hand you make declarations about what the truth of a given Scripture is and try to logically argue why that Scripture proves your worldview is the correct way of understanding reality (which I disprove by my logical reasoned analysis of Scripture to show your use of that Scripture was out of context and incorrect).

There appears to be a double standard fallacy at play here (although I don't think you're doing it deliberately): The double standard being that logic is good when it serves proving your point but then logic is jettisoned when it is used against you to refute your point.

I think this double standard comes out of you trying to hold two contradictory positions at the same time: You want to be able to make declarations about what is objectively true from what is false while at the same time holding to the belief that nobody can really declare what is objectively true from what is false. But your assertion that nobody can objectively declare what is true is actually an example of you trying to objectively declare what is true. Even the declaration that nobody can know truth but God is itself an example of you making a declaration of something that is true and claiming that anyone who says otherwise is false. Your position contradicts itself at it's most foundational and basic premise.

But that does not mean we cannot have a meaningful conversation and find common ground.

If certain things aren't established then it actually could mean we cannot expect to have a real conversation about Scripture says.

Proof of that would be the fact that you have so far ignored directly addressing the lengthy and detailed outlines I've given about why your conclusions about particular Scriptures is proveably incorrect (I'm reposting those at the end of my post for your reference).

You don't seem to think you need to prove your assertions are logically true, as evidenced by the amount of assertions you are making without supportive argumentation behind them (although I suspect a lot of that is unintentional on your part. I've observed a lot of people don't realize that in a debate explaining your assertion in detail is not the same as making a logical argument in support of an assertion).

You also don't seem to think my logical objections to your conclusions about Scripture are relevant to disproving your claims about what is true, as evidenced by you ignoring them and then responding to them with vague unproven assertions about how truth in Scripture is subjective.

I find your claims inconsistent with your own behavior considering that you try to use Scripture to logically prove the truth of your claims, but then you don't feel the need to refute my use of Scripture that proves you are taking Scripture out of context and misapplying it to support your point. In fact, I demonstrate in many cases how Scripture actually disproves your claim but you ignore it.

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

Category 3

Windwalker said:
Paul never said, "Get your days of the week you worship on straight in order to have a common belief". He didn't see that as necessary, and neither do I.

So what do you imagine that common ground was he was speaking of in Romans 14, if it wasn't about establishing a common belief of what "scripture says"?

They each had their interpretation of what it says, but he says that's not important ultimately.

Do you disagree that it should be ultimately important, that we are saved by what we believe mentality as accurate propositional truths?

Clearly it does. You are disputing my view of truth, calling it wrong.

Someone's view of truth is that scripture teaches you should worship only on Saturday, or not to eat pork or other types of meat. Another has a different view of the same scriptures and concludes all days are alike and God is not concerned about meat. That is exactly disputing the nature of truth. It's debating that how someone sees the same thing as yourself is "wrong" while you are "right". That is precisely what Paul is addressing in Romans 14. Each was looking through their own "truth lens".
"Let each be convinced in his own mind". We serve the same Master, Paul states. Do you believe I don't believe in God, or that I do not have a valid relationship with the Divine because I don't perceive the nature of scripture the same as you? Because I allow myself to accept that the Bible does not have a single message that we have to be able to work hard to make apparent through our various theologies? Please be honest.

If you are referring to Romans 14, I am addressing those through all of this, and has just done so above, showing why I don't believe you can just add "nature of truth", as "not disputable". It doesn't fit what I know about the human mind and the nature of truth and perception exposed to through research into all the fields of humanities, such as anthropology, ethnology, mind sciences, and so forth.

You dispute that. That makes it a "disputable matter". Does it not? "No, I have the facts and you are wrong", is disputable on many levels. I have mountains of evidence I use to support my views, and dispute your view as "the truth" without any margin for other understandings. It is a "disputable matter". You are disputing my views as not being true. Correct?

All of this I've already refuted in my prior posts about Romans 14 (reposted below for reference). You haven't directly addressed the points I made and either disproven them or demonstrated why they don't disprove your claim.
All you're really doing here is restating your original assertions in different words without adding any new argumentation to it. But that doesn't get you anywhere if I've already disproven your arguments with my prior post.

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

Reposting of previous refutations of your use of Scripture that went unanswered:

As the Apostle Paul wisely recognized, "Let each be convinced in his own mind", which context shows he was referring to be settled in your own hearts on what to believe. Read the entire chapter of Romans 14, where cleary he does not instruct Christians debate about the meanings of scripture.
He says your own conscious, your heart, leads you, and it is through that and that alone we are judged. Not by "what the Bible" supposedly says or not. That too is a very modern, and confused understanding of faith and belief.

This is an example of where your belief about scripture can be shown to be wrong by comparing it to verses which contradict your conclusions, as well as a closer look at the context of the verse you're referencing.

You are drawing too broad a conclusion from that verse because your conclusion is not consistent with the context of that verse or the rest of Scripture.

Paul specifically is referring to "disputable matters" in that verse related to eating certain kinds of food:

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them

Your mistake is confusing that limited context with a blank check to essentially regard all matters as disputable where people are only accountable to what they believe in their heart.

However, that can be shown to not be a right conclusion consistent with even the rest of Paul's writings, let alone the Bible as a whole:

But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
1 Corinthians 5:11

hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 5:5

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Galatians 2:11-14

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
Galatians 1:8

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
1 Corinthians 6:9

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:6

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8

Here we can clearly see that objective right and wrong exists, standards are applied, people are held accountable to them, relationships are broken off with believers who refuse to amend their ways, and you can't have the Kingdom of God and have sin at the same time. None of the rest of scripture can be true without your claim being false that all matters are essentially disputable and therefore everyone is only accountable to what they are personally convinced in their heart is right or wrong.

The man who was having sex with his step mother in 1 Corinthians was not absolved of guilt because he personally didn't feel like he had anything to be ashamed of for his actions. His belief about the rightness or wrongness of his actions doesn't change the objective truth of the fact that they were wrong and consequences exist for them.

It's kind of like the fact that gravity and it's effects don't cease to exist merely because one decides they don't believe in it. Truth doesn't stop being truth just because you don't believe it's truth. 2+2 always equals 4 regardless of how much you believe it must equal 5.

Modern Christians are very much in the "head" faith, mental belief sort of idea of what faith is, preaching the Bible and what "it says" to be believed in, exclusively, even against science. In fact, many absolutely refuse to trust their own hearts. I've known many who even cite Scripture to say "don't believe your own heart", absolving themselves of questioning their beliefs, which they should if that is what they conclude from them!
What I see as consistent with "trusting and following God", in those sense of faith and belief, is not a head thing at all.
Rather, it is precisely about the heart, and the heart alone. Trust is a heart thing. Commitment and intention are heart things. The mind can be confused by many beliefs and ideas of what "God wants".

Your view of what faith is, and what it looks like, isn't consistent with what Scripture shows us about what faith is.

First off, you can't have faith without something to first have faith in:

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ
...
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?.
-Romans 10

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
-1 Corinthians 1:21

Also:
-John 5:47
-John 10:38

It doesn't matter if it's God speaking directly to you, an angel delivering the message, or hearing/reading God's word recorded in some form - you can't follow what first hasn't been communicated to you. The disciples heard Jesus speak, they heard voices from Heaven, they heard and saw angels, they saw miracles, they had the OT scriptures to hear and read from. Later believers had the prophetic words, recorded words/deeds of Jesus, OT scriptures, and then writings of the apostles (NT) to put faith in and follow, as well as miracles

Now, you might be able to make a case from some scriptures in Romans that God convicts you in your heart and you deep down know what you're doing is wrong, which is why people who have never even heard the Gospel can be condemned for their sin. Because then you are held accountable for disobeying that feeling, even if you don't know intellectually where that feeling comes from. But ultimately faith is still a matter of obeying what God has communicated to you, and you can't get away from doing that if you aren't aware of God's truth or you refuse to acknowledge it as truth. Everyone is accountable for the truth of God that has been communicated to them, and if you have heard or read God's truth communicated to you then you are accountable for whether or not you choose to put faith in it.
Luke 12:47-48.

Notice how in Jesus's parable that here how even not knowing what you were suppose to do doesn't absolve you from being punished for the sin.
What you feel convinced of in your heart doesn't absolve you of the requirement to follow the truth of God's word that has been revealed to you. God doesn't lie and doesn't change, so he's not going to communicate a truth recorded in the NT and then later tell you something that contradicts that (Galatians 1:8).

Your heart cannot be the sole arbiter in your life or what is true or false because you may not have the willingness or the experience or the understanding to sift out what of your heart is sin vs truth. That's why the Holy Spirit and God's word to us is necessary to guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

Rise · Aug 15, 2019

And, if God's word being preached to people were not necessary to align them with truth, then Paul would not have said it was necessary in Romans 10. Sending prophets in OT times, or training the apostles in NT times to lead and evangelize, would have been pointless exercises unless it was necessary to help align people's hearts to accept and obey God's truth. In 2 Kings 22, finding a copy of the Scripture that had been lost to them at that time informs the king of things he never knew, moved him to repent, and then changes come about because of it. Prophets speaking to kings had similar effects at times, if they were receptive to hear the truth and willing to act on it. Not all kings were.

Nothing we see in the Bible conveys the idea that salvation comes by merely following your heart, whatever that may be. Two reasons.

1. Because some people have their consciences seared (1 Timothy 4:2) and won't be capable of responding to any conviction in their heart.

2. Their heart is set on wrong ideas and desires. The reason you see many verses in the Bible about deceptive or wicked hearts leading people astray from the truth is precisely why you need God's truth to intervene and set your heart strait:
Jeremiah 22:17, Isaiah 44:20, Proverbs 6:14, Jeremiah 17:9.
That is why we need to rely on God's word through his prophets and apostles, as a trustworthy source communicating what God told them directly, to help us determine what part of our heart is in the truth or mired in deceptive sin. If everyone could equally trust that their hearts were perfectly attuned to discern truth from falsehood then Paul would never have had to rebuke anyone for believing a lie, God would not have had to send prophets to rebuke kings, Jesus would not have to rebuke the Pharisees for telling people lies, Jesus would not have given the great commission to reach the world with the Gospel, and Paul would not have said preachers and teachers were necessary for the sake of the Gospel to spread and for people to be saved by it.

Salvation is always said to come by Faith in God.
Acts 16:1, Hebrews 10:39, Ephesians 2:8 - as a few examples out of many that pervade the NT.

So, since it is established that faith is what leads to salvation, it is necessary that we look more closely at the Bible to understand what faith means and what it actually looks like to be sure we are actually in faith.

To that end, let's look at Hebrews 11, wherein faith is defined as following in obedience to the truth God has communicated.
Hebrews 11 shows us that faith in the truth of what God says, or who He is (actually the two concepts are one in the same, but I digress), is always paired with a corresponding action on the part of the individual that proves they really do have faith in God. In every case they did something to obey God because they trusted Him. That's what faith is.

We also see this concept explained in James 2. He specifically says in verse 14 that faith without corresponding deeds is not a faith that you should expect can save you.

Faith without obedience to God just means you never really had faith to begin with. You can mentally assent to the truth that "Jesus is Lord", but if you never obeyed Him as Lord then you may find yourself having Jesus tell you at the end:

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
-Matthew 7

In 1 John 4 we see that acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God means we abide in God, know God, and love.
Linked with that we see above in Matthew 7 that Jesus links knowing Him with being saved from fire. He also links manifesting good fruit and salvation with obedience by referring to them as lawbreakers/evildoers/etc. Good fruit is also known, from John 15, to refer to loving/abiding/obeying God.

In John 15 we see that abiding in God, loving, and obeying God, are all linked together as essentially the same thing because you ultimately can't have one without the other. When God's command is that we love, then obeying Him and loving are inextricably linked together. Which is why in 1 John we see that anyone who doesn't love doesn't actually know or obey God. Further, we see in John 15 that manifesting good fruit is linked with abiding in Jesus - which ties in with what we see in Matthew 7 about how obeying Jesus, knowing Him, manifesting good fruit, salvation are all linked together.

But of all this also ties in with faith as something that is inextricably linked with the concepts of loving, abiding in, and obeying God. Faith is the entry point to it, but not everyone who says they have faith, or thinks they have faith, actually does. You'll only know that by whether or not they manifest fruit consistent with true faith.

The point of drawing out these connections about how different concepts are linked together is to demonstrate why Faith in your own ability to discern the quality of your heart is not enough. You must have faith in what God has said and commanded and pair that faith with action. If you truly believe then you will act in obedience to that truth. But that's where it becomes important that you know what the truth is first. You can't act rightly in concert with truth if you don't accept what God says is true but instead believe in a false truth. A false truth, even if you are faithful to that false truth, will not result in obedience to God. And then you have a problem.

If you don't think you need to abide by God's truth, but you think your own version of truth is sufficient because you feel right about it in your heart, then you put yourself in the position of disobeying God because you are putting your faith in something other than Him and His Word. And since one cannot be saved and be in faith if they are in rebellion to God, you can't say you are in faith if what you put your faith in is a lie that opposes what God has already said is true. Hence, the necessity of making sure what you believe in your heart lines up with what God has already said is true.

If you really believe the gospel is true in your heart, then the fruit of that will be manifest in all these other things like love and obedience. And if you do that then you will be abiding in God, which means you will start acting more in love, which means you know God because God is love.

It's also why Jesus said the real test for a person was the fruit they manifested. Are you obeying God and loving the way he would? Then you have real faith and it has saved you.
Do you claim that you have faith merely because you feel right about what you do and believe in your heart, but your actions don't line up with what God has said you should do and you don't really obey God? Better check what you're really putting your faith in before you end up surprised at the final judgement like the "evildoers" in Matthew 7 were.

There is much more we could bring up as examples, but I believe that should be sufficient to give you an idea of why the Bible has very clear definitions about what it means to be in faith, what results from that, and why your definition of faith is not consistent with what the Bible has outlined.

For instance, "Come let us reason the taste of an orange together, saith the Lord".

You are also taking that verse out of context. It won't support the point you're trying to make with it.

God said come let us "reason". Reason by English definition is a logical process. And likewise it is in the Hebrew meaning of the word:

(SN 3198) yāk̠aḥ – properly, adjudicate, argue on the basis of sound, legal reasoning – i.e. in accordance with solid evidence and proper standards; to offer reproof needed to properly settle a dispute – bringing forward what is necessary to "set the record straight"; an argument, viewed at its final application of reasoning (tau actionis form).

Further, in context of this chapter, we see God making a logical appeal to the people that if they do a particular action then something will obviously result from it. He is making an appeal to their reason to do what is right and turn from what is evil based on a logical proposition that a choice between two actions has two logical outcomes and he is imploring them to choose the one that is right because they have the capacity to reason that it is right.

18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are are like crimson, They will be like wool. 19 “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; “But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Based on the points I just made, we can objectively conclude there is nothing about the verse you quoted that would support the idea that God is appealing to the people to turn to their subjective feelings and experience as a way of "reasoning together" with God.

We can objectively establish that your understanding of that verse cannot be the correct one because it is not consistent with the context of the sentence, the context of the chapter, or the meaning of the words used - because, as I also pointed out already, truth by definition is consistent and not contradictory.

Faith or Belief?

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