The Impossibility of Scriptural Authority

[Rick O'Shez]

Even at best, the scholar is still embedded within his own set of presumptions.

Yes, and this is compounded further by us being embedded in our own set of presumptions. I think scriptural authority is little more than a comforting fiction.

 

[Windwalker]

Windwalker,
This concept is not a new idea, in fact it is a false concept called, Prolepsis, in which nothing is certain, because we gain all of our knowledge through our five senses. It is thought that because our senses can be fooled, that no information we gather can be certain. This can be true, but is not when it comes to the only true God.

If "this can be true", then what I am saying is not a false concept, but a true concept. You cannot say it is false, and then turn around in two sentences and then admit it is true as you just have. Here's the thing you do not understand, or want to, is that everything we read, hear, see, and interpret is filtered through our perceptual awareness (I'm talking much more than the five senses here BTW, but worldviews, culture, language and the like), then any exposure to what "God says", likewise must come through those filters into our thinking. It doesn't matter if you conceive of God as the Final Authority on topics and issues, it is still you and your thoughts about what God says. The only way to perceive and understand as God, is to be God. You will not do, and your thoughts and ideas about God, are just that. Your thoughts.

Evidently you do not believe in The Omnipotent Creator of all things, who is also the Lifegiver to all living things.

Evidently? Why? Because I don't agree with your thoughts? Do you consider yourself and your ideas as God's, proving the point of this thread by showing the fallacy of your notions about your own ideas? You have no idea what I believe about God. What's that verse that Jesus admonishes the religious not to do? Oh yes, "Judge not lest ye be judged."

Many believe as you do, because they have not taken the time to search the Holy Scriptures, Ps 10:3,4, 14:1, 53:1.

Please enlighten us. What is it I believe? As far as not taking the time to search scripture, I actually have a degree in theology and have spent well over half my life digging deeply into these things, hence why I am qualified to make the observation I have at the outset of this thread. So much for your ideas about me. I think they can serve as an example of just how far off base we should consider them when you speak to know what God thinks. You can't even penetrate my thoughts as a human and even come within the same country, let alone the same city, let alone the same ballfield.

The Bible must be researched in order to have trust in what it says.

So your trust is in the Bible? That's the same as saying your trust in is you own ideas. The point of this thread. I'm not hearing what I would expect to hear from someone who has faith, that their trust is in Spirit, they trust in God, not in the "Bible". The Bible is only as good as the one reading it. Ever hear of Westboro Baptist Church? They read and trust the Bible too. What makes you right and them wrong?

Another reason to believe in God's word is; many things written in the Holy Scriptures were not known by any man on earth at the time of writing, such as the shape of the earth, hanging on nothing, Job 26:7,10, Isa 40:22. No man knew the exact order of creation. Today scientists agree with the first chapter of Genesis.

I will say this, all of these arguments are being used by you to justify your belief in your belief. This is not the same as believing in God. True faith can accept the error of their own ideas, about God especially. You repeat you trust in the Bible. You do not say you trust in God. There is a night and day difference between the two.

To my mind, what you say about learning is proved beyond doubt, at Pr 2:1-10. Here the Bible has recorded; if we search fo God as for hid treasure we will get insight, discernment, knowledge of God, whose Proper Name is Jehovah.

Ah yes, Pr. 2. "If you will receive". But how does one receive? One receives by being open. How can you receive when you start with an idea and read that idea into scripture? I say very confidently that most "True Believers", are so full of their own beliefs, trusting in them to the point of closing off their own hearts that they are unable to receive anything from God. How can you receive any water into your glass when it's already full? People who are "True Believers" have their glasses full and cannot receive God. This is the problem Jesus ran into with the Pharisees. The knew the "proper" interpretation of scripture. Jesus of course saw straight through the error of this thinking.

Unless you study the Holy Scriptures with a good heart you cannot understand, Dan 12:10, Isa 26:10.

And how does one get a good heart? And when you do, how does it act? In judgment of others?

There are only three professions that are recognized as LEARNED professions, Medical, Law, and Religion, so it takes many years of study and research to be proficient in knowledge of the Bible.

Color me proficient then.

Once you have come to believe in The Only True God you will use His word to prove things that men wonder about, or debate, 2Tim 3:16,17, God's word is inspired by God Himself, and His Holy Spirit guided the writers, to make sure that what they wrote is accurate.

This is of course arguing to prove your ideas about the Bible are right, hiding it behind a plaster mask of God to keep you from seeing this. In other words, it's a form of self-deception. If you want to prove God, then live God, not make logical arguments for God based upon your reading, or your group's reading of scripture. All anyone really hears is a religion promoting itself. Not God.

The only people who do not believe in the Bible, are people who do not know what it really says

Once upon a time in my naive and zealous youth I used to be amazed how people can't see what's plainly there on the pages of scripture! Oh, what I naive young man was I. I think my point of this thread is to maybe help some naive youth as I was to pause and consider just how much they really think they know. It might save others and themselves a bit of embarrassment. In short, I speak from a great deal of experience in this.

Men, such as yourself, called Higher Critics, have tried to find anything untrue in the Bible.

Once again, you do not know what you are talking about in your grand pronouncements of others. Firstly, you do not understand what actual "higher criticism" entails, apparently. It has nothing to do with debunking the Bible! Secondly, I find plenty that is true within the Bible and I value it on a spiritual level. But I do not create an idol out of the Bible and "believe in it", as you do. Bibliolatry is the term others have come up with to describe that mentality. I am just able to reasonably, rationally, and spiritually discern the contexts in which we can understand the value of it in it light of modern awareness. In other words, I don't treat it mythologically, like it is "infallible", something it never claims itself to be. That is a modern invention of fundamentalists. In my experience this frees someone to grow spiritually, rather than entrench themselves religiously into their beliefs, to the exclusion of God.

Any time they have thought they have found something inaccurate, later they had to eat crow. It will always be that way, because Jehovah God knows everything, and He has had recorded everything that men need to know Him, Matt 6:8, Rom 1:16-21.

Clearly, you have an understanding of God that looks a certain way. Perhaps in time you will understand that this is a perception of God filtered through everything I mentioned in my OP. One thing you said in this that has any legs for you in the long run is about the heart. Once you actually begin to look at that, which happens when you realize the very relative and fleeting ground of your beliefs and ideas, then you start to see and hear with those eyes. That's an entirely different animal that what you are describing. It's what Jesus was teaching.

 

[McBell]

*climbs up onto pontoon boat*