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Wednesday, 18 May 2011

  • literary criticism, Deconstructionism, the clearity of the Bible, and office of overseer as a female

    Here is the context:
    http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/forum/topics/when-morality-becomes-literary?groupUrl=unbelievable&xg_source=msg_com_gr_forum&id=2060181%3ATopic%3A852292&groupId=2060181%3AGroup%3A1121&page=1#comments

    My response:

    It is a good thing that our society does not live on the basis of literary criticism. Surely there are not fixed text that says what is right and wrong driving, or business interaction, or payment of taxes. Nope, there sure is no standard of written down right and wrong. Anyone can just drive as they so please and everyone will be safe on the road. Anyone will conduct their business and their will always be honest interactions.
    Please excuse the sarcasm, but I was using it to point out the fundamental fact that the writer opposing literary criticism has over looked the fact that our society have laws written down and lawyers are paid to argue over it. I think most democratic countries have a constitution of some kind (or is that just the US?) and judges are to rule from the "teaching" found in it (rather than making rules up from the bench).
    The problem I found with the interaction was the Bible was not really handled rightly. The book dealing with the elders in the church (1-2Tim and Titus) was not even opened. Sure, a simplistic opening of the Bible to get what the Bible says about the matter is foolish, just as a superficial looking at the constitution would result in people think that the constitution was not clear on a given issue, when there may have been an entire section on the subject but was not pointed out or not taken into consideration. The instruction of the elder of the church is to be a husband of one wife.  (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9) How is a female to be a husband of one wife? Where is the instruction for the female as an elder of the church? No where. It is they who hold to the ordination of females as elders, who need to present the positive case for it, when the Bible gives no provision for such a role.
    To depart from the instruction given as ordination of Elders results in who wants what to happen rather than what does the Bible teach on the matter. The issue of the family and creation of male and female surely is a part of it, and related, but the instruction for the church is given in the verses above. It is to be a male. This does not say that males are better or smarter, but that the role is to be filled by a male. The issue of how one feels about or approves of a female elder is incidental. There are many-things that a sinner may not like about what the holy God has to say about on all kinds of subjects, but it is us who need to conform to God's standard rather than conforming the Bible to the sinners. The Bible says it is to be a man, who is a husband of one wife and so on. The church is not to distort the standard of God's word based on popular opinion. If the shifting sand is mere opinions, then there is no foundation. The foundation for the church is the Bible, and if one depart from it, they are being inconsistent to their faith. So, the issues it not literary study of God's word, but the negation or the overlooking of God's word. Justin did try to stick to the text of the Bible, but sadly it did not go into analyzing the text, the back ground, and so on, and it resorted to mere opinions.
    The assumption of absolute egalitarianism is a false assumption that was being made, but yet not pointed out as the undermining humanity as God made them. For God did make humanity as male and female. They are one, united in Christ, but they do not loose their femaleness, or maleness. Their genders remain. Paul nowhere abolishes the male and female distinction. This false assumption may also be said to be at the roots of the problem with homosexuality (the lost of identity.. the first law of logic).
    However, I even think that an atheist or other form of outsiders can appreciate this honest truthfulness, "That is what the Bible says, and those who claim to be honest Christians are committed to their Bible." They would say, "I don't agree with it, but I can respect that that is the foundation of their faith and they are seeking to keep to that foundation."

    James,
    Where you aware that there are written laws in your land? That law needs to be examined and applied? How is not your statement undermining all laws and contradicts?
    There is no such thing as a single correct interpretation of a complex, multi-faceted, multi-authored and contradictory text like the bible.
    Given your claim, then no text can be understood rightly, then why did you write what you just did? Note the problem. You are writing words to say that text has no single correct interpretation. You are either contradiction yourself by writing or you are wrong in writing the above statement. Deconstructionism is a false and foolish approach any text because it is self refuting.
    Yes, there are right and wrong understandings of the Bible. The Bible stands as the standard from which one may be said to be falsely interpreting it. Take the text:
    1 Timothy 3 (ESV)
    1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

    The Bible says that the Elder is to be "the husband of one wife", how would one distort that to mean that the elder is to be a female? IF you think the text can be distorted to mean that, then you would have to prove it from the text.
    When the text is analyzed, your statement above is just too simplistic and self contradicting.

    James,
    I think even you know that I have read what you wrote and have soundly rejected it (though writing from work, resulting it being poorly written.) You are shifting to a less weak position which makes your statement inconsequential.

    Your strong claim was:
    There is no such thing as a single correct interpretation of a complex, multi-faceted, multi-authored and contradictory text like the bible.

    Now your weak claim is that:
    There can be simple texts which do have unambiguous meanings.

    If your strong case was true (your claim that there is "NO such thing as a single correct interpretation.."), then your weak claim (there are some ambiguous in some text, and not in others) is false, and vise-verse. If you take the weak claim, as you just have, then your point is inconsequential, for who would object that there are wording and written works that have ambiguous meanings? Your current claim is inconsequential.

Given that weak claim, one would just work out/find-out where there are ambiguities. And try to understand it. Again, that is old fashion literary criticism in the sense of going back to the text to make out what it says.

Given also that you have not taken up the challenge on this subject from 1 Timothy 3, am I right to conclude that you agree that 1 Timothy 3 is not ambiguous on the subject of elders being males?
    Let me summarize the problem with Deconstructionism:
        •    The problem is the universal claim that ALL text is ambiguous. This results in self destruction, as I have said.
        •    The other side is if one were to say that SOME text is ambiguous. This results in the claim being inconsequential, as I have said here.
    Those are the options. (If you can think of anyway out of that. Please let me know.)

Friday, 15 October 2010

  • Atheistic Blind Faith without Any Basis.

    Charles,

    It is a method, and it is not necessary to 'prove' the scientific method. The method works, as should be evident to you, and provides results. I don't see how you can even compare it with revelation or intuition or any other method for the determination of reality.

    Maybe you don't understand my point, which is that you take the "scientific method" by faith. You admit the fact by saying, "as should be evident to you, and provides results." You admit that you were not proven to hold the view, but you take the scientific method as true, because...? Faith?

    The above sequence answers your request for proof of evolution. To answer your question regarding life from non-life, you've given up before even attempting an answer, you're playing your God of the Gaps card.

    You keep saying "God of the Gaps" as if that was at all what I was talking about. You are mistaken. I did not say anything about God of the Gaps. What I have been saying is that you know full well that God exist, you just have your finger in your ears and will not acknowledge it. The positive case I have started to point out, you run away from. That is evidence of my case.

    You have not been able to prove life came from non-life, etc. Your quote does not deal with it and you have not even started to deal with your claim, yet, again, you take your atheism by faith and not as if you reasoned to that conclusion. How did you come to holding to atheism? Was it by reasoned evidence? No. But you do hold to it. How do you come to holding to the "scientific method"? Yes, you do not know that the sun will rise tomorrow. You did not test the seat you are siting on before you sit down on it, did you? You take all of these by faith. Yes, as I have said, you are a believer in so many things that you are not able to prove. No, you would not say that you hold to a personal God, because that would conflict with the faith you already have in atheism. I know you will not be willing to acknowledge this fact either.

    "A world created by a personal being?" What on earth could that mean? You've conjured up a magical 'god' and now you're calling it a 'personal being'? As opposed to an 'impersonal' being? What kind of 'being', you haven't evidence of ANY being yet?

    Charles, you know full well what those words mean. Once again you have your fingers in your ears. The reality of God is an evident fact of human life. Life came from God. If you think impersonal matter is able to for personal life, then prove it. You have not done so, yet you believe it. The very fact that you think and try to reason is the fact that you are created by the triune God who created you a thinking being. Mud did not make you, Mud does not make anything. It is your view that is in fact a reification, for you attribute intentional thinking life forming power to inanimate object of impersonal matter.

    And how would you know that? We know that matter and energy exist, we can measure them. They existed yesterday and the day before, all the way back. Where is any evidence that a God has existed at any time. let alone eternally?

    I have already answer you. God has revealed it in His word. If you are really wanting an answer to that question, then visit a Bible believing church. Join their Bible study. Speak with a pastor. Any good pastor would be more educated than a simple Sunday school teacher like myself.

    As I have shown, your 'God' has no Being. …

    You may think you have "shown" that point? But you have not. Note what you are claim that you have "shown"-- that God does not exist. No one has been able to prove a universal negative. If you think you can. I wait to read your case.

    … There is no evidence of 'God's' Being, period.

    That is your atheistic faith claim, but I am not an atheist. You have not and cannot prove your claim. Again, you take your claim by faith. That is right, those who hold to atheism does so by blind faith alone, and not a conclusion they come to after it was proven to them.

    We've worn it out Peter. If you are correct we can close down all the science labs and departments and declare 'God' a winner.

    God is the winner, even when his creatures are fighting him and will be send by him to the lake of fire. God is the winner, and those who trust in God are also winners in Jesus. It is for your sake, Charles, that I take this time to speak with you. I hope that God will open your eyes to the ways you have been running from Him; the ways you put your finger in your ears and running from Him.

    I bring a message of hope for you. God offers you salvation from all your past sins. Believe in the finished work of Jesus as payment for your own sins, and God would accept that in your stead. We know from the Bible that God is merciful to those who repent. It is those who will keep running from the Savior, who will have to answer to God on their own. Those who believe in the work of Jesus to save them, will be accepted by the Father of Jesus.

    Charley, I hope one day you would come to know God as your Savior, rather than as your judge.

Thursday, 26 August 2010

  • On the BLOODY sacrifice of Jesus the Christ


    Peter Cross,

    You wrote: "God has always forgiven without any sacrifice."

    Your post reminds me of what false distortions one is able to do when overlooking the entirety of the bible. A bloodless forgiveness undermines the bloody sacrifice of Jesus. Those who hate Jesus will have no problem with doing away with the work of Christ to save, but for those who are the children of God and follower of Jesus, they will reject this heresy. This anti-Christian view of forgiveness without cost, without blood, without Jesus, MUST BE REJECTED, for it is not the Biblical teaching, but subChristian and contrary to Biblical teaching.

    I said, "subChrsitian", because it is inferior to Christianity. In Christianity and real life, there is no forgiveness without payment. Either the person who have committed the wrong pays for the debt or the forgiving person pays the debt. The debt still must be paid.

    As I have already wrote to Phoebe:

    Thanks for bring that out. Yes! It does almost seams to be cruel and some how nearly wrong, that the sinless Son of God needs to suffer and die to save my wretched hide. However, it is not wrong. Just put in the word "willing" or the word "sacrificial" in front of Christ: "The innocent willing/sacrificial Christ." God became low so as to raise his people up. Christ died so as to give his people life. That is the joy, the glory, and the message of Christianity. The spotless lamb of God willfully lays down his life for his people. And those who are believing in Jesus to save them are thusly saved. That is what we call grace. Grace does seam all so amazing.

    So much more amazing than a false god of one's own imagination just pardoning anyone without a sacrifice to himself. At anytime there is real forgiveness, there must be sacrifice. Let us just say that your friend Ebeo took your mp3 player for a trip and lost it. You have 2 options: 1, Force Ebeo to pay for another mp3 player, or 2, you forgive Ebeo. Let us suppose that you chose to forgive Ebeo. But who is with an mp3 player? You. In order for you to say that you forgive, you must be willing to take on the consequences. You in effect pay for lost incurred by your friend. You suffered for the lost so you are able to forgive. There must be cost in forgiveness.



    I said it is "contrary to Biblical teaching" because it is in contradiction to the entire Old Testament and New. It contradicts the very work of the Son of God to save lost sinners.

    Hebrews 9 The Blood of Christ
    11When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. 12He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. 13The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! 15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

    16In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep." 21In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

    23It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. 25Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
    You wrote: "It is a great mistake of the church to think that the Master was a sacrifice for sin. No sacrifice was commanded for sin."

    The Bible:

    Hebrews 13:11
    For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.

    Romans 8:3
    For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,



Monday, 23 August 2010

  • Is God just a reification? What is God?

    Charles Coryn wrote:

    ...
    But the problem is deeper, the problem is that 'God' has no evidence of a 'being', no 'essence', no 'core', but rather God's Being is assumed, and that Being is then given every and any attribute imaginable. The process is called Reification, which is defined as:

    Reification (also known as hypostatisation, concretism, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity.

    But this God is pure imagination, you've created God's Being by fiat, then you've given it the ability to do or know anything.  It's all fiction, there is no God there.

    Can one of you kind folks please tell me what God is made of?  We are cells and fluids, but what is God?  Can God have being and non-being at the same moment?  What is the essence of a God?  
    What is God's Being?



    Hi Charles Coryn,

    If that is who you really are. For the fact is, all I see is a little image of a older gentleman, and the text on my screen. I am assuming that you intend the 26 letters to form words and those words are supposed to communicate your thoughts or ideas. The letters I see are physical dots on my computer screen. You are using the means of letter and words to communicate the idea that you have. However, your ideas are not physical are they? For what atomic mass do ideas have? What ontology are thoughts? Or in your words, what "cells" or "fluids" do ideas have?

    Then surely it follows that your idea that God is just a "reification" (or what have you) is itself a "reification". IF what you are saying is true, then your own words and thoughts are not being, not essences, not core, but are abstract/nonphysical "ideas" communicated to me by your use of words formed by letters.

    If what you are saying is true, then maybe God does not exist, but then your very idea claiming that God does not exist, is an abstraction and itself does not exist; therefore I should not agree with your nonexistent idea. I was right to hold that God exist in the first place.

    You asked: Can one of you kind folks please tell me what God is made of?

    Jesus said, "God is spirit." John 4:24

    Thanks for such a thought provoking post.

pychen

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  • The fool says in his heart, There is no God. Psalm 14:1; 53:1 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1 Corinthians 1:20 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. 1 Corinthians 3:19

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