Hold on...

[The Lorax]

This ancient scroll (dated at about 100 B.C.) was found to be the same as the current Hebrew Bible in over 95% of the text.

Are you sure you trust the carbon dating? (Sorry, couldn't resist. )

2 Timothy 3:16 is as valid today as when Paul wrote to Timothy – remember the “scriptures” referred to were the OT cannon written centuries before Timothy read them: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

In other words, scripture is correct because scripture says so. A little circular, don't you think?

I understand your respectful disagreement with my position; you bear an assumption which I don't: that early scripture is 100% accurate. When we find that (parts of) scripture haven't changed over time, like the Dead Sea scrolls' copies of Isaiah (there are 22, btw), this only shows that the book hasn't had errors added; it doesn't tell us if the book was accurate to begin with. In order to evaluate the historicity of the document it must be compared with non-biblical sources.

Are you sure you didn’t learn about His deity when you read John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Remember – “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” – faith comes from the word of God not some whispering in the ear.

What is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Just words read from a book? The Holy Spirit reaches all of us, even people who have not read the Bible. (Whether we listen to it is a different matter.) And hopefully you know I've been speaking figuratively--the Holy Spirit is not heard; it is felt.

I don’t play “what if” games with God’s revelation to mankind.

It's not a game; it's a simple question.

Would you still believe Jesus was God if it turned out he was never resurrected?

Why did Messiah die on the cross? Because “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, whoever puts his trust in God's Son will not be lost, but will have life that lasts forever'' (John 3:16). My prayer is that you will come to the knowledge of the truth in Christ Jesus.

Of course. Again, I do believe the death of Jesus was a sacrifice.

[The Lorax]

The Bible is not just "a book".

I never said it was just a book. I told you earlier I believe the Bible is divinely inspired.

LYou refer to the Holy Spirit as an “it”. Do you not believe the Holy Spirit is a Person, i.e., the third Person of the Godhead?

My pronoun use was arbitrary. The holy spirit is more profound than persons as we know them, so I am not sure "person" is the right word even if you capitalize it. And numbering the holy spirit is also an arbitrary distinction I'd also like to avoid. God and the Holy Spirit are more profound than the terms either of us are using.

It is a game and once again, I do not play games with Holy Writ.

How is answering a hypothetical question a game?

But you deny His resurrection? Why?

I don't deny his resurrection; I said I do not know.

At times I feel like you genuinely want to hear what I have to say, but when you started banging your Bible I guess you can't hear me.

[The Lorax]

I was certain you said that the nanosecond God’s inspired word “hit papyrus” it became nothing more than a “worldly” book just as “War and Peace” and “Alice in Wonderland”. What exactly is your definition of a “worldly book’?

The Bible was divinely inspired, but that doesn't mean it has been divinely protected ever since. The point is simple: the Bible has been a book for ~2000 years here on Earth, subject to transcription, translation and possible error--unless you believe it is somehow divinely protected from corruption. ...Do you?

But God is referred to as a Person just as Jesus is referred to as a Person. Why not the Holy Spirit? Doesn’t Holy Writ refer to Him in a “personal way”, "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me. The verse doesn’t refer to Him as an “it”, the text plainly says “He” will testify of Jesus.

Scripture identifies the Holy Spirit in terms only used for one with personhood – the Holy Spirit loves (Romans 15:30), He teaches (John 14:26), He intercedes (Romans 8:26). If you can acknowledge Jesus (who is God Incarnate) as a Person why not acknowledge the Holy Spirit as a Person?

Matt. 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

What's your point? People naturally personify abstract/intangible/ineffable entities.

I don't deny his resurrection; I said I do not know.

What would it take for you to believe?

I don't play "what if" games with my faith. Really though, you ought to answer that question before you keep piling yours on.

Oh I can hear you – I just want you to think a little harder about what you are saying. Sometimes you make a lot of sense and sometimes you don’t. You seem to pick and choose what you wish to believe regarding God’s word but if the Bible is not reliable as you suggest how can you accept anything within its pages as being true? Isn’t it all arbitrary in your view? Do you always need a little whisper in the ear before you believe?

I think you have already decided that, since I don't take the Bible as 100% literal and inerrant, I must simply be picking and choosing. Like you asked me to think a little harder about what I'm saying, I'll ask you to wait a minute before you jump to conclusions. Curb the relentless search for contradictions and you might learn something about what I actually believe. We might have a pleasant conversation.

[Guest]

I am all ears.

I would like to know what you believe and why you believe the way you do.

Why don

[The Lorax]

“Every scripture is inspired of God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

In other words, scripture is correct because scripture says so. This is circular logic as I've pointed out before.

If it was important to God to reveal through inspired writers His “God-breathed” word (and it was) why would He allow it to suffer irreparable corruption? Is not God powerful enough in your estimation to preserve His word to humankind?

I've addressed this point already. God's power is not the issue here (He is powerful enough); it's His will and His nature. I do not believe it's God's nature to intervene in human affairs through anything other than the Holy Spirit, and even then, the Holy Spirit only reaches those who are open to it. Free agency enables humans to do great and terrible things which God does not correct (everything from quotidian crimes to atrocities like the Holocaust.)

There is a principle in logic known as the “Law of the Excluded Middle”. Briefly it states - something must either be, or not be, the case. A line can only be straight or it can only be not straight - there can be no middle position. Either the Bible is both inspired and preserved by God, or it is not inspired and preserved by God. There is no middle ground – some parts preserved some not. If the Bible is not the preserved word of God then it is simply the “work of men” and all of its claims to be “God-breathed” only merit contempt.

You're trying very very hard to set up a false dichotomy: that the Bible is both (A) inspired by God and (B) preserved by God thereafter, or neither. But there's no logical reason A and B must be tied together. It is entirely possible that scripture was inspired by God, and after that time it was subject to error and misinterpretation like every ancient text. Try as you might, you can't rule out that possibility, certainly not with logic anyway.

This is your great dilemma – if Holy Writ is not the authoritative source of our Christian faith then our faith is in vain.

That's your dilemma. Error in the Bible is such a scary thought we must put it out of our heads! This idea, of course, is an argument ad consequentiam, a logical fallacy that lies at the heart of claims for Biblical inerrancy. It is also rather cynical, I think. (For instance, the Bible would still have value if it was only 80% inerrant, the remainder being Jewish myth.)

But really, it is a dilemma for me too. Accepting the fact the Bible is a human book makes my life as a Christian a little less sure-footed. It would certainly be easier for me to believe it was protected by some kind of holy forcefield like you seem to believe. (You still haven't told me how you believe God preserves the Bible.) I'm a little busy right now but I will get around to my personal beliefs eventually, probably in a thread of their own. I'll consider the questions you asked me.

[Guest]

But really, it is a dilemma for me too. Accepting the fact the Bible is a human book makes my life as a Christian a little less sure-footed. It would certainly be easier for me to believe it was protected by some kind of holy forcefield like you seem to believe. (You still haven't told me how you believe God preserves the Bible.) I'm a little busy right now but I will get around to my personal beliefs eventually, probably in a thread of their own. I'll consider the questions you asked me.

So Dear Soul, you do not believe The Holy Bible is God's Word.

And what you really believe is either Evolution or something else.

But, whatever it is, it is tomorrow!

Some day tomorrow will be too late!

Joshua 24:15

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Love, Joe

[The Lorax]

Is it circular? All philosophical worldviews start with presuppositions (axioms) that we accept as true. From these axioms we deduce theorems. I could reason as Descartes did in his Meditations that lying is a “defect of character” and since God is by definition pure and without defect it followings that He is incapable of lying. Therefore, the Bible’s claim to be the “inspired” word of God that guide us “completely unto every good work” must be true because this is revealed from God who cannot lie. He (correctly) reasoned that God is no deceiver and we can only know about the concept of a perfect being such as God only because God built that idea into us, like a craftsman marks his own work (pride in workmanship if you will).

I could also go the route of the “ultimate intellectual criterion” as presented in Michael Kruger's, “The Sufficiency of Scripture in Apologetics” which states that “the Bible does not just happen to be true…rather it is the very criterion for truth”:

“To deny circularity when it comes to an ultimate authority is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons. If a person holds to a certain view, A, then when A is challenged he appeals to reasons B and C. But, of course, B and C will certainly be challenged as to why they should be accepted, and then the person would have to offer D, E, F, and G, as arguments for B and C. And the process goes on and on. Obviously it has to stop somewhere because an infinite regress of arguments cannot demonstrate the truth of one's conclusions. Thus, every worldview (and every argument) must have an ultimate, unquestioned, self-authenticating starting point. Another example: Imagine someone asking you whether the meter stick in your house was actually a meter long. How would you demonstrate such a thing? You could take it to your next-door neighbor and compare it to his meter stick and say, "see, it's a meter." However, the next question is obvious, "How do we know your neighbor's meter stick is really a meter?" This process would go on infinitely unless there were an ultimate meter stick (which, if I am not mistaken, actually existed at one time and was measured by two fine lines marked on a bar of platinum-iridium allow). It is this ultimate meter stick that defines a meter. When asked how one knows whether the ultimate meter stick is a meter, the answer is obviously circular: The ultimate meter stick is a meter because it is a meter. This same thing is true for Scripture. The Bible does not just happen to be true (the meter stick in your house), rather it is the very criterion for truth (the ultimate meter stick) and therefore the final stopping point in intellectual justification.” ~ Michael Kruger

You've brought up a good point here about presuppositions, but I will stress that presuppositions are not created equal. Of course rational thought requires presuppositions but, like you said, presuppositions must be axiomatic. Causality in temporal succession, for instance, is generally considered axiomatic (although some scientific observations have brought even this axiom into question.) Every effect must have had a prior cause. This is an axiom: a basic ontological statement about the universe. But the claim that a particular set of ancient texts is 100% true is far from axiomatic. It would be a much more ambitious, complex claim that is historical in nature. Even if the Bible is indeed inerrant, this fact isn't axiomatic and it should never be presupposed. To presuppose Biblical inerrancy and then use Biblical claims of self-inerrancy as evidence thereof is still dizzyingly circular.

He preserves His word in the same way He preserves His church “until the end of the age” – by His "promise". “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew16:18)

We can see from the thousands of Christian splinter sects that the church's preservation has been compromised. If any particular church is still protected by God, it is one among many. There are over 33,000 sects of Christianity and, not coincidentally, each and every one believes it is right. (One reason I don't subscribe to any particular orthodoxy.)

I will be looking forward to your presentation.

In the meantime here's a Wikipedia entry on theistic evolution, which I do subscribe to. As you can see in the article it has actually become a mainstream idea among many Christian sects.

[The Lorax]

Hey horizoneast, I like the way this conversation is going.

Of course all reasoning is based on presuppositions and I feely acknowledge that many of my presuppositions come by reason of God's work on my soul. And I also freely admit that there are many things that I (and you) assume to be true, without being able to prove them true. We all argue about the evidence but in reality we are arguing about our

[Guest]

It is beyond the scope of this thread to go into great detail on this subject but I will reiterate - the

[ted]

If you guys keep this up, you're gonna miss the baseball season.

t.