[Mb-civic] Lyle: Response

[Ian]

Lyle:

Although I knew that you and I had different "interpretations" of Scripture, I had not realized that you do not even accept the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as "God-breathed"; i.e., interpretable, but nevertheless exactly what they purport to be.

If this is the case, there is clearly nothing gained in you and I engaging in any further discussions about it.

It does make me wonder, though, how you can posit interpetations of something you do not even accept at face value.  If it "has been translated so many times that no logical or even faithful human being can swear to its accuracy," and the "actual words of Christ" were "not transcribed" during His lifetime, on what basis do you even begin to posit interpretations of Scripture?

The entire point here is that "faithful" Christians "swear to its accuracy" on faith alone; after all, the "textbook" definition of "faith" is "belief in things unseen and certainty of things hoped for."  Thus, we did not have to "see" Jesus (or the apostles and disciples) during His ministry in order to believe that the words in the Scripture are exact, or near-exact.  We take it "on faith."  If you refuse to do so, that is, of course, your prerogative.  But that makes it disingenuous and self-serving in the extreme for you to posit any interpretation of Scripture; indeed, it makes it prima facie absurd, since you do not believe that the underlying text is accurate to begin with.

C.S. Lewis wrote: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."

Ultimately, as noted, since you and I have opposite beliefs in the "accuracy" of Scripture, any further discussion is moot.  This leaves three possible outcomes: either we will see each other in Heaven, or we will see each other in Hell.  Or we won't see each other at all...

Peace.
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