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Goodbye Jesus

Evidence Of The Spirit Is Inscrutable But Irrefutible


R. S. Martin

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Yet apparently he's qualified to judge who gets saved and who doesn't.

 

Yeah it's old Charles Hodge I'm arguing with again. Him and his boundless confidence in authority. If the majority believe it he's convinced it must be true. At least, that is what he says in one place. Here he says there's no way to know if anyone has the Spirit except the Bible says the regenerate ("saved") person has it and it affects his thoughts, feelings, and actions. In his words (emphasis added):

 

 

The spiritual form of testimony is confined to the regenerated. It is, of course, inscrutable. The operations of the Spirit do not reveal themselves in the consciousness otherwise than by their effects. We know that men are born of the Spirit, that the Spirit dwells in the people of God and continually influences their thoughts, feelings, and actions. But we know this only from the teaching of the Bible, not because we are conscious of his operations. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of

the Spirit.†(John iii. 8.) This witness of the Spirit is not an affirmation

that the Bible is the Word of God. Neither is it the production of a blind, unintelligent conviction of that fact. It is not, as is the case with human

testimony, addressed from without to the mind, but it is within the mind itself. It is an influence designed to produce faith. It is called a witness or

testimony because it is so called in Scripture; and because it has the essential nature of testimony, inasmuch as it is the pledge of the authority of God in support of the truth.

 

FROM: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology3.iii.ii.iii.html, p.69

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Here's a double binder if ever there was one (from the same source, p. 74):

 

If [a man] cannot see the beauty of virtue, or the divine

authority of the moral law, it is because his moral sense is blunted.

 

So if I don't see moral as divine then somehow or other my sense of morals are blunted. I see. It is immoral not to accept things in blind faith on authority. Doing my own thinking makes me immoral. If that is the case, then I prefer being immoral.

 

I consider it immoral to blindly take things on authority/faith just because the Bible says so. I consider it immoral to personify ultimate reality and then project my own wishes and desires on it and demand that the rest of humanity obey it as divine command. There is something intolerably arrogant and selfish about that and it comes across to me as the ultimate in immorality. If that is what Hodge considers to be moral, then I prefer to be immoral in his book.

 

Incidentally, he's been dead for more than a century but we all know people who think like he did who are very much alive today.

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With all due respect Ruby, why argue? I've never seen either side concede a point in a debates such as these.

 

I used to feel like I needed to have xtians at least consider my pov, but they don't- the won't and they never will...unless they start questioning these things for themselves. If they see you living a fulfulled life of joy and peace, they may come to you and start asking for guidance.

 

Just my humble opinion.

 

PP

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If the majority believe it he's convinced it must be true.

 

 

But DOES the majority believe it? It might be the worlds largest religion, but throw in the agnostics, atheists then through in ALL the other religions and cults. Tally those that believe xtianity VS everyone who does not, I think the majority is NOT xtian.

 

Food for his thoughts?

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I just think the "majority believes it" argument is about the stupidest argument under the sun when determining truth. Something either is true or is not true. You can hold a vote for opinion but not for truth. If Jesus was executed because he roused a rabble in the temple when the Roman police were already on edge because of all the rebellious Jews swarming into town for the Passover holiday, then that is why he died. Just because a third of the human population two millennia later are convinced that he died to save them from their sins does not change that fact even though it's a serious minority position.

 

If, as may also be the case, Jesus never existed then he was never executed and did not rouse any rabble and did not die for anyone's sins. That is a seriously unpopular position but unpopular positions do not change facts.

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Yet apparently he's qualified to judge who gets saved and who doesn't.

 

Yeah it's old Charles Hodge I'm arguing with again. Him and his boundless confidence in authority. If the majority believe it he's convinced it must be true. At least, that is what he says in one place. Here he says there's no way to know if anyone has the Spirit except the Bible says the regenerate ("saved") person has it and it affects his thoughts, feelings, and actions. In his words (emphasis added):

 

 

The spiritual form of testimony is confined to the regenerated. It is, of course, inscrutable. The operations of the Spirit do not reveal themselves in the consciousness otherwise than by their effects. We know that men are born of the Spirit, that the Spirit dwells in the people of God and continually influences their thoughts, feelings, and actions. But we know this only from the teaching of the Bible, not because we are conscious of his operations. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of

the Spirit.” (John iii. 8.) This witness of the Spirit is not an affirmation

that the Bible is the Word of God. Neither is it the production of a blind, unintelligent conviction of that fact. It is not, as is the case with human

testimony, addressed from without to the mind, but it is within the mind itself. It is an influence designed to produce faith. It is called a witness or

testimony because it is so called in Scripture; and because it has the essential nature of testimony, inasmuch as it is the pledge of the authority of God in support of the truth.

 

FROM: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology3.iii.ii.iii.html, p.69

Well this is the whole thing I'm trying to look at right now elsewhere, that when things present themselves that contradict one's theology, all sorts of rational logic structures have to be built to safely compartmentalize them away from view. Doing this preserves the logic/theological structure of one's faith, but as an added side-effect, detaches the theologian from reality.

 

The fact that he speaks of the indwelling spirit as a default position of all believers, then speaks of it in a sort of clinical explanation of it's functioning’s, to me speaks of how he starts with reason and logic and ends with reason and logic. And I mean logic in the sense of logic arguments, which are hardly anything but evidence of reality, though they make for a satisfying illusion they are.

 

I kept wanting to cast back the scripture he quoted, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth". To me it is a point of case against his position.

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The fact that he speaks of the indwelling spirit as a default position of all believers, then speaks of it in a sort of clinical explanation of it's functioning’s, to me speaks of how he starts with reason and logic and ends with reason and logic. And I mean logic in the sense of logic arguments, which are hardly anything but evidence of reality, though they make for a satisfying illusion they are.

 

Antlerman: Your last sentence, can I rewrite it like this: "And I mean logic in the sense of logical arguments, which are anything but evidence of reality, although they make for a satisfying illusion that they are."

 

If that is what you meant, I really like it! I realized the same thing after reading Calvin.

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The fact that he speaks of the indwelling spirit as a default position of all believers, then speaks of it in a sort of clinical explanation of it's functioning’s, to me speaks of how he starts with reason and logic and ends with reason and logic. And I mean logic in the sense of logic arguments, which are hardly anything but evidence of reality, though they make for a satisfying illusion they are.

 

Antlerman: Your last sentence, can I rewrite it like this: "And I mean logic in the sense of logical arguments, which are anything but evidence of reality, although they make for a satisfying illusion that they are."

If that is what you meant, I really like it! I realized the same thing after reading Calvin.

 

Oh I see! I could not make sense of AM's statement but that would make much sense and be right in line with what I thought he believes.

 

And it makes a lot of sense that people get the same feeling from reading Hodge as they do from reading Calvin. I haven't read Calvin but my prof said Hodge is pure Calvinist.

 

With that straightened out, let me look again at your post, AM. You say:

 

that when things present themselves that contradict one's theology, all sorts of rational logic structures have to be built to safely compartmentalize them away from view. Doing this preserves the logic/theological structure of one's faith, but as an added side-effect, detaches the theologian from reality.

 

Anyone who claims that this does not take intellectual exercise, or that Christians don't think, does not know too much about what theologians do. This takes extra-ordinary amounts of intellectual gymnastics or thinking. My professor explained it to me that earlier philosoper-theologians had to figure out their theories in ways to keep God in the picture, whereas later atheist philosophers did not have that item to contend with. I think that tells us a LOT right there--Christians think a lot and they think hard, and they think creatively.

 

However, they think inside closed parameters. They decide before they begin what the conclusions must be--that it all hangs together with God at the center and Christians as his darlings saved through Christ's shed blood. Hodge makes a half-assed argument that reason depends on authority too. I wanted to pull him from the grave and force a face to face meeting with him before midnight to set him straight on that one.

 

He's a safe guy to grapple with since he's dead. I think once people have been dead for a good century and a quarter you can say about them what you like. If his followers don't like it they can go fuck themselves. Or try to show up where we're wrong. Their arguments stand up no better than his but they will be just as pig-headed and stubborn about it as he was in his day. Here is another piece of bullshit:

 

5. Unbelief is, therefore, expressed by doubt, fear, distrust and despair.

6 The believer knows from his own experience that when he believes he receives and rests on Jesus Christ for salvation, as He is freely offered

to us in the Gospel.

 

FROM: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology3.iii.ii.v.html, p. 92

 

It's the huge EITHER/OR. There's no in-between. They think either we're totally lost in despair and all that crap or we're "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." What they don't get is that it is possible to have the "safe in the arms of jesus" feeling outside of the arms of jesus by just living. And the plus is that there are no strings attached. In the arms of jesus we owe praise and glory and honour to jesus. Outside the arms of jesus, but with the same happy secure feeling, we owe nobody praise and honour and glory. Not even ourselves (no, we don't worship ourselves regardless of what christians imagine). That's the huge IN-BETWEEN that christians miss because of their horrid religion.

 

Sometimes I think they have to make up all this crazy stuff just to justify all the time and money and efforts they waste on their religion.

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