On May 5, 3:04 pm, SM <[email protected]> wrote: > > If you're saying that people must have this certain attitude before > > they can understand some things about God, how can we tell if we have > > attained the right attitude? It's obviously not something that can be > > measured. Again, it's something that is only felt. > > > If you believe that line of reasoning, then you can simply assert that > > people who understand the important aspects of God or understand the > > important messages of Scripture (i.e. people who more or less agree > > with your preferred interpretation of Scripture) have approached it > > with the right attitude of humility, the right condition of their > > hearts, whatever vague and immeasurable and non-falsifiable qualifier > > you'd like to attach. > > Ah, a better question (in my view anyway, because it implies desire). > How can we tell? The most satisfying answer is that we'll know because we > will begin to understand.
That's not helpful, because you'd just say, "Ah, this person agrees with my favorite interpretation. Therefore he understands. That person does not agree with my favorite interpretation. He obviously does not understand." Apparently that is not an effective way for a person to tell whether they are humble enough or earnest enough or avoiding arrogance, because I feel like I understand perfectly well. Lots of atheists and Hindus and Zoroastrians would honestly say that they understand. (Or they feel like they understand.) > However, I admit that there is a less satisfying > answer of "I don't know", because not only can we not accurately judge the > hearts of others, we cannot even accurately judge our own heart; God alone > can do this. Great. I'm glad that you agree it's too subjective to be reliable. > Since our understanding of truth requires God's actively revealing himself > to us, there's also the possibility that we might achieve the appropriate > attitude of heart, and he not act...but I find this to be inconsistent with > Scripture which says that God desires that all men be saved and come to the > knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). Scripture also teaches that we cannot > even 'make' our hearts desire God (Gal. 5:17, Eph. 2:3,4); on this too we > are dependent on him, so I would think it likely that if God gave us the > grace to desire to understand, he would likewise continue the work of > opening our eyes to truth. It's really confusing and frustrating to try and understand why we would be held responsible for attaining some result that we can't find or even desire unless God causes us to desire it. Or I should say, it's very confusing and frustrating that so many people would pronounce the character a good and moral one after reading all that. A God who gives people eternal suffering because some of them don't desire him, but the only way they would get desire or learn the truth is if he works his magic on them. He holds us responsible for something that we can't possibly do without him making us do it. > "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6) God creates people that He knows will be proud, then finds them "repugnant" and holds them responsible for their sin of pride. What a guy! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A Civil Religious Debate" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/a-civil-religious-debate?hl=en.
