Mkay. We're off to a promising....start? Although I though the conversation was over...
This is a strange thing to say for a couple of reasons. First, if I have a
valid argument, then the conclusion of that argument, by definition, necessarily follows from it. Perhaps you mean "valid" in a more colloquial sense?
Secondly, the Bible doesn't have a single view point from my perspective. The Bible is a collection of
many viewpoints, written and edited by many different people. So whatever single thread or message you
believe to run through the entire thing,
is your opinion. It may be an opinion you share with lots of people, but it's an opinion nonetheless. It's not some indisputable fact.
I feel the same way.
Incorrect.
What is happening here is that you are enshrining your own views as sacrosanct and dismissing everyone else's views as "insisting on their own ideas." The thing is, you and your organization are "insisting on your own ideas" just as much as the next guy. Every church and Christian group on planet Earth believes "the BIble's view" just so happens to be, what do you know, their view! So as they see it, they're really not expressing their view, they're expressing "the Bible's view." And yet, they cannot come to agreement on what "the Bible's view" is on a slough of central theological and ethical questions. This, once again, indicates that if there is a God like the one imagined in Christianity behind the creation of the Bible, it's a terribly poor method for communicating his ideas to humanity clearly.
We've gone over this, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up again. The requirement for humility and "doing things God's way" does not solve the conundrum central to the thread. All Christian churches/groups believe they are the humble followers of "God's way" and inheritors of the apostles' teaching whom Christians are obligated to obey, based on their reading of the Bible. Yet this has still resulted in the mass confusion and division we see today in Christianity.
This is an interesting principle to bring up, because other passages in the Bible repeatedly say that God's drawing or choosing of people is not predicated on anything they do.
Romans 9:10-18
Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac. Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.” As it is written,
“I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.”
What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.
John 15:16
You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
Acts 13:48
When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.
Ephesians 2:4-10
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
And I could go on.
As you may know, this very conflict - between passages that seem to suggest that God rewards those who do right, who are humble, whose hearts are open to him, etc. and passages that seem to suggests that God foreordained salvation to certain individuals based on his own purposes, having nothing to do with our deeds or the state of our hearts and that those changes are simply the
product of his predetermined will - has produced a whole array of contradictory
opinions among Christians about how salvation actually works, what the criteria are, whether we have free will, whether election is conditional or unconditional, and so on.
So yet again, this beautifully illustrates the central problem: the "Bible's view" is actually not nearly as clear as those who believe there is one "Biblical view" think it is. Which has resulted in the mass disagreement we see and different groups all claiming to teach "the Bible's view" while significantly disagreeing with each other on countless points.
I think you are saying that the disagreements among Christians are not the fault of the Bible, because some people want to follow "their own way" rather than "the Bible's way." And that "the Bible's view" is not your opinion. And that determining "the Bible's view" requires us to be humble and listen to and obey "God's organization" (which of course, you just so happen to believe is the organization you're part of, the Jehovah's Witnesses).
I hope by now it's clear why I don't think those opinions of yours solve the central problem I've outlined. I recognize that you disagree. And we'll probably just have to leave it at agreeing to disagree, as I thought we had just done.
As I've explained, I don't agree with you about what you think "God's way" is. It's your opinion that the Bible reflects "God's way," and it's your opinion that you/the JWs accurately understand the Bible.
And as I've also explained several times now, I think if anything resembling the Christian God is behind the Bible, he made a poor choice to use the Bible to communicate his message(s) to humanity, as evidenced by the mass disagreement we see among Bible believers about what the Bible says. An omnipotent deity could instantly clear up the mass confusion, yet he hasn't. So he has chosen, presuming he exists and has the qualities typically attributed to him, to persist in using a poor method of communication.
Is my view still unclear? If it isn't, but you simply disagree with my view for the reasons you've already expressed, I'm not sure what else we have to discuss here.
