Paul, Marcion & the Church Fathers

Here are a few statements that (I think) can be widely agreed by scholars on all sides of the various fences as being 'facts':

1. Marcion (or his followers) compiled the first collection of 'New Testament' books. This consisted of one Gospel and ten letters attributed to the Apostle Paul. This was in the early part of the 2nd century.
2. The Gospel used by Marcionites (and which they thought was by Paul) was similar to the gospel we now call 'Luke' although it was considerably shorter than the canonical version of Luke we are familiar with today.
3. The Epistles used by the Marcionites were, likewise, considerably shorter than the canonical versions of Paul's letters as we know then today. They were: Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans [our "Ephesians"], Colossians, Philemon and Philippians.
   
4. In the late 2nd century (and later), the Church Fathers had access to longer versions of the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke and compared these with the Marcionite versions.
5. There is no documentary evidence of any pre-Marcionite Pauline Epistle or pre-Marcionite Gospel of Luke.

It is tricky to reconstruct what might have happened way back then.

The orthodox view is that:

• Paul wrote the Epistles, pretty much as we have them today. Someone else wrote Luke, pretty much as we have it today.
  
• Marcion took them and edited them to suit his own purposes.

However, given the lack of evidence, at least two other possibilities should be considered. First that:

• Paul wrote the Episles and Marcion used them without editing. Similarly with Luke.
  
• An anti-Marcionite edited them to conform to the emerging 'catholic' worldview. Rehabilitating Paul (and Luke) in the process.

Or, possibly:

• Marcion wrote the Epistles (and gospel, perhaps) and attributed them to Paul.
• An anti-Marcionite edited them to conform to the emerging 'catholic' worldview. Rehabilitating Paul in the process.

How can we choose between these options? I don't think we have any evidence to refute either of the latter two. All we can do is appeal to the majority - most people believe the orthodox view, so it is more likely that it is the truth. The problem is, that most people believe the orthodox view, because it was the orthodox view that won in the battle of the ideologies. The winner in a contest isn't always the 'right' one.

The water gets further muddied when you consider 'redaction criticism' - in many places it does look like the epistles of Paul have been edited or partially rewritten by later writers. I have on my shelf a copy of J.C. O'Neill's commentary on Romans. In it he pulls the book of Romans to bits and attempts to reconstruct the 'original' Pauline letter. His reconstruction is less than a third of the canonical version. I must say that I find it implausible that quite so much additional material was added to Romans in the space of a few decades, apparently by several different editors, and that no traces survive of earlier (less edited) versions of the letter. However, many of his points are valid, and it certainly looks as if someone has padded out Romans with some additional material. Bultmann referred to this person as the 'Ecclesiastical Redactor' and David Trobisch has claimed that this was Polycarp in his book "The First Edition of the New Testament".

So does the 'fact' that the canonical letters of Paul have apparently been edited lend any support to either of the later options? Well, possibly yes, although all it really casts a question over is whether the canonical letters of Paul are the same as when Paul wrote them. The evidence seems to indicate someone has edited them - presumably with a purpose. And presumably that purpose was to either remove offending content (i.e. content that disagreed with the view of the editor) or to add in sanitising content (i.e. content representing the views of the editor, which softens the blow of some other content, which has been retained).

I've not really got a conclusion here. Except to say that I can't see a strong case for believing in the orthodox transmission route. Someone wrote the Epistles, this much is clear. Some later person edited them, this is probable. Some of the content is not from the original writer, possibly. So how can you justify using these writings as a guide for living? Well, for the most part, it works. You could choose to simply be pragmatic and live by a system that has been shown to work. But what if its not true? This is where the buck stops for me. Not whether it works or not, but whether its true.

Still don't know.

Apologetics vs the Scientific Method

I've listened to a lot of apologetics lately. I mean a lot.

It has left me very frustrated. Apologetics is, or should be, a defense of the Christian faith. It really should stem from 1 Peter 3v15:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (NIV)

I find it interesting that the word 'reason' features so centrally in that verse. For it is the lack of reason in apologetics which is annoying me.

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is a tried and tested way of using evidence (generally, but not always, in the form of experiments) to confirm or refute hypotheses. The process goes something like this:

1. Propose hypothesis or range of hypotheses. These may be based on prior knowledge or may be pure speculation.
2. Carry out experiment or make observation which is able to provide evidence relevant to the hypotheses.
3. Attempt to falsify the hypotheses using the evidence.
4. Hypotheses which are refuted (shown to be falsifiable) by the evidence are dismissed.
5. Hypotheses which are unable to be falsified are considered to be reasonable and are held to be valid until further evidence is found.

Stage 3 is crucial in the scientific method. It is only by attempting to falsify each hypothesis that its worth is ultimately found.

Apologetics also considers evidence and hypotheses. However, the chain of events is somewhat different:

Apologetic Method

1. Start with a range of hypotheses (i.e. beliefs), generally derived from the bible or church tradition.
2. When new evidence is presented, formulate a plausible argument which can be used to explain why the evidence is consistent with the prior hypotheses.
3. If no plausible argument can be found, attempt to discredit or refute the evidence. In extreme cases, simply ignore the evidence.
4. If none of that works, simply get the argument bogged down in really technical theories so that the audience is bamboozled or loses interest.
5. Assert that the hypothesis is validated.

There are two basic problems here. The first is that the apologist assumes, from the outset, that the hypotheses are true. The apologist is convinced of that, so in the event of an apparent tension between hypothesis and evidence, it must be the evidence, or our understanding of it, which is at fault. The validity of the hypotheses is never seriously considered.

The second problem falls in the plausible argument. Just because an argument is plausible, doesn't mean that its probable or actually true.

The crux of the issue is that when there is a tension between hypothesis and evidence, science assumes that the hypothesis is flawed, while apologetics assumes that the evidence is flawed.

Of course, the evidence could be flawed. But apologetics will never lead to refinements in the hypotheses, thus will never take us closer to the truth about reality. Science just might.

The God of Moses and Joshua (and his implications)

Every now and then, books or articles I read touch on the question of the (apparent) immoral behaviour of God as presented in the early books of the Old Testament - particularly the stories of the conquest of Canaan.

God, as presented in these books, commands his people to slaughter entire towns and nations, not merely killing the soldiers involved in battles, but killing women, children and even animals. Sometimes it is implied that the women and children of the defeated enemies may be kept as slaves, sometimes even sex slaves. But it goes beyond that, God is also presented as enacting extreme vengeance on his own people - sometimes commanding groups of them to slaughter other groups of them, and sometimes sending disease, poisonous snakes, etc. among them.

What are we supposed to do with these passages? Ignore them, explain them away, believe them, in some way base our own behaviour on them? Did these events actually happen? Did God command these events?

Here are all the possible options, as I see it (if there are others, please comment and tell me):

1. It happened more or less as recorded. God did and commanded these things. His people carried out genocide in his name. This makes God (and the people who obey his commands) morally responsible for the actions and would mean that the bible contains accurate history and theology.
   
2. The events happened; the people did the genocide. But not all of the events were commanded or enacted by God. This makes the people morally responsible, but lets God off the hook. This would mean that the bible contains accurate history but inaccurate theology.
3. God commanded such things, but the people did not carry out the genocide. This makes God morally responsible, lets the people off the hook, and would mean that the bible contains inaccurate history but accurate theology.
4. God did not command such things. The events did not happen. This would make the bible neither historically accurate or theologically accurate.

Ever since I first wrestled with these issues, I have kind of assumed that option 2 was the closest to the truth. That the (later) writers of the biblical accounts knew the events in their own history and theologised them by inserting the commands of God into the story to explain or defend the behaviour of their ancestors.

The reason for this choice was basically based on the presupposition that God is good. And therefore God could not have commanded such acts. The story (as presented) seems inconsistent with the known character if the loving God, so there must be something wrong. God could not have issued these commands, so they must be insertions of the authors, not historical events.

The problem with this assumption is that it reduces the biblical accounts to being simply wrong on the question of what God is like. I never really grasped the consequences of this belief before, but if the bible is wrong on this issue, then we have no basis for knowing what God is like from any parts of the bible. If this bit is wrong, why should we expect that (for example) Isaiah or Jeremiah are any more accurate, and what about Matthew or Romans?

Pretty much all we know about the character of God comes from the bible. So here all I was doing was taking the picture of God as presented in one part of the bible, and assuming that to be true, and using it to dismiss an alternative picture of God, given in another part of the bible. I never, until recently, noticed the flaw in that reasoning. Put simply, there is no way of knowing which of the pictures of God presented in the bible is the true one. Indeed, there is no way of knowing if any of them are true.

But if we can't distinguish between them, how can we have any faith? I think there's three options:

1. Choose to believe that all of the biblical pictures are able to be reconciled and that all, equally, paint an accurate and true picture of God. This is the view of most conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists and is more or less the view I was raised to believe. However, it is now a view I have to reject. The more I read, the more I reflect on these issues, the more I see that the bible does not present a uniform and reconcilable picture of God, rather it presents multiple pictures which, quite simply, do not present the same God. At best, the bible presents multiple flawed views and misunderstandings of the real God. At worst, it could be that none of the views contain enough truth to be trustworthy. Which brings us to point 2.
2. Chose to disbelieve all of the biblical pictures. If none of the pictures can be shown to be trustworthy, then all should be rejected. This way, inevitably, leads to agnosticism. Possibly the whole way to atheism. The more I read (on all sides of the discussion), the more compelling this option seems to become. Perhaps this is the only truly rational choice. But its a choice I haven't made (yet?).
3. The final option, as I see it, is to pick your favourite view of God, as presented in the bible, and run with it. I think that's what most believers do in practice anyway, without actually thinking about it, but it is possible to be intentional about it too. This seems to be what certain denominations do by defining a statement of faith, etc. For example, in a recent sermon from The Meeting House, they expressed the opinion that their whole belief system is intentionally viewed through the lens of the Gospels. In other words, they start with the words of Jesus and if they encounter anything that seems to disagree with that picture, the Jesus picture trumps the alternative. Jesus trumps Paul's opinions, Jesus picture of the loving Father trumps the OT God of vengeance, etc. The problem for me is that this leaves you with the problem of how to choose which picture to follow? There is no compelling reason to choose one over another. Yes, choosing the Jesus picture is more consistent with contemporary morality than choosing the Moses/Joshua picture, but that doesn't make one more true or accurate than the other. It really does boil down to picking a favourite, or, in most cases, accepting (or never questioning) the picture that you were raised with. I'm no longer sure what to believe, and I'm also not sure if I can justify (to myself) deciding to believe one option, when the evidence for any of them is so slight.
   

But back to the original question of the Canaanite genocide.

The more I've read on the subject recently, the more things point to options 3 or 4 (from the first list up there) being closer to reality. There is no archaeological evidence that these events actually happened. Indeed, a close look at the biblical evidence (the list of unconquered lands at the end of Joshua) makes it clear that the genocide never happened either - the unconquered lands after the alleged genocide include several of the lands which should have been wiped out already.

So, either God commanded genocide, but the Israelites did not follow through, or God did not command any such thing, so it never happened.

Believing either of these options is to acknowledge that the bible is wrong. The stories are not history, they are reduced to tall tales of the olden days, which may contain nuggets of events which actually happened, but most of the story, including the commands of God, are embellishments, added by storytellers around the campfire or added by historians with an agenda to push - perhaps bolstering the claim that the Israelites were ethnically different from the Canaanites ("We must be, there's none of those guys left...").

This leads us to the point of acknowledging, once again, that some of the stuff in the bible is simply not true. Perhaps, in some cases, it is deliberate fiction. This brings us, of course, again, to the question of how you can distinguish the truth from the falsehood, and if there is any truth in there at all. And I'm slowly coming to the realisation that you can't.

Its an all or nothing thing. Accept all of the bible as true and accurate (yes, I know that some of it is poetry and some is allegory, so some of it can't be true or accurate within its own genre type) with regard to history and with regard to claims of the character of God. Or. Reject it all as true or accurate.

Problem is, I can't accept it all without rejecting reason, logic and common sense, but I don't want to reject it all. I am more than slightly concerned that "can't" inevitably trumps "don't want to", which leads to only one inevitable outcome. Maybe I have to make that choice eventually. But not yet.

Unity

John 17v20-23:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

I've been listening to a fascinating sermon series from The Meeting House in Canada over the past few weeks. It's called 'One Church' and each week, for the last 8 or 9 weeks, they have invited leaders from different denominations to their own to come and explain the basic beliefs of that denomination and to preach a short message in The Meeting House. So far I've listened to talks from the perspective of the Anglican Church, The Brethren in Christ (which is the denomination of the Meeting House, not to be confused with the Brethren), the Salvation Army, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals, the United Church of Canada, and Harvest Bible Chapel. There was a sermon by Philip Yancey in the middle there too.

In addition to that, the pastors of The Meeting House do a separate podcast called the 'Round Table' in which they delve deeper into some of the issues raised in the Sunday sermons. I've listened to a few of those too. Highly recommended.

The aim of the series, as expressed many times in the podcasts, is to try and learn from 'other parts of the body of Christ'. They say that there is unity in the body of Christ, even though it is split into many denominations.

And yet, when you listen to the discussions between the various denominations, it is clear that several of them (perhaps not all) have the underlying viewpoint that 'we are right and you are wrong, and your way of being Christians is fundamentally flawed'. In other words, they speak of unity, and yet it is clearly not there in any real or tangible way.

Last week, they read the passage quoted above, where Jesus prays for unity among all believers. It had never really occurred to me before, but now it seems clear to me that here we have an example of a prayer that Jesus prayed which simply, in the past two thousand years, has not been answered.

Sure, parts of the church have shown unity at various times in history, but the history of the church is largely one of schism and disunity, not one of communion and unity.

The disunity in the church has always bothered me. But I'd never noticed before that the disunity is evidence that God didn't answer Jesus's prayer. The implications of that are huge. And I think I'll leave it until another post before I unpack that one...

Nerds?

Love Rob Wins Bell...

I've finally got around to reading the 'controversial' Rob Bell book 'Love Wins'. Its a very short book. Shorter even than it looks. Because (as I've said before)

Rob Bell

tends to write

large chunks

of the book

like this.

For emphasis, I assume.

But leaving that aside, what are my thoughts on the book?

I'm not sure I need to warn you of spoilers here, but if you read on, please be aware that I will be summarising my take on what Rob Bell says in this book and giving my opinions on his opinions. If you don't want to know what he says until you've read the book yourself, now would be a good point to stop reading.

(Regular readers of this blog will know that my current doubts are questioning things like the historical accuracy of the stories in the bible and whether Jesus really said the things attributed to him, but I shouldn't really bring issues like that into my thoughts on this book, so here I'll comment on this book without, for the most part, questioning most of its underlying assumptions, e.g. that the gospels are reasonably accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did, and who he was.)

Let's take the book chapter by chapter:

Preface: Millions of us

This is a fair point, well made. Christianity has never been a uniform thing, with one set of beliefs shared by all. Virtually all beliefs in any part of contemporary Christianity have been held by some people in generations gone by. There is no such, well defined, 'thing' as Christianity. Also, there are a lot of folk put off by the 'hellfire & brimstone' type preaching, so he's right. This book has an audience.

Chapter 1: What about the flat tire?

Loads of questions. As yet unanswered. Case over-stated. Makes you want to read on, but is a bit irritating. Let's see if the rest of the book lives up to this intro.

Chapter 2: Here is the new there

This is where the book gets interesting. What do we mean by 'heaven'? More importantly, what did Jesus (and the writers of the bible) mean by 'heaven'? Have 2000 years of history shifted our understanding?

Well, yes they have, and Bell makes the case quite convincingly.

Christianity is not about what happens to you after you die.
The gospel is not about what happens to you after you die.
Jesus's teaching is not about what happens to you after you die.
Eternity is not about what happens to you after you die.
Heaven is not about what happens to you after you die.

The bible talks about 'the current age' and 'the age to come'. The latter of which is not necessarily a reference to something post-mortem, but comes when God has established 'the kingdom' on earth. When the earth is renewed.

Basically Bell explains that what the bible means by heaven is not what our contemporary society understands by heaven. All well and good, and ties in with my favourite ever Rob Bell sermon, but what the chapter doesn't really discuss, in any depth, is what actually does happen to the believer or the non-believer after they die.

If the 'age to come' is an earthly age, even a 'heaven on earth' age, then will people die there? What happens then?

In reading this chapter I kind of felt that Bell had done a slight of hand and had ended up answering a different question to the one posed. Or maybe the bible really doesn't answer the 'post-mortem' question?

Yes, in general, I agree with all of his points, 'heaven' can be here not there, but what does happen when we die? That question isn't adequately addressed either here or in the rest of the book!

Chapter 3: Hell

This is the flip side of the previous chapter. Just as heaven can be here and not there, Bell shows that hell is also here, not there. Is there a post-mortem hell? The book doesn't fully answer that.

So hell is a present reality for some and will be a future reality for others, but what about when you die? This question - which seems to be the main selling point of the book - is not adequately addressed. Yes, he asks questions about it, but he doesn't really have a clear message to promote - by which I mean he doesn't say 'this is what might happen to someone when they die', rather he says things along the lines of 'that can't be right, can it?'

So, its thought provoking stuff, but offers little in the way of answers.

Chapter 4: Does God get what God wants?

This is the heart of Bell's reasoning. The bible says that God doesn't want any to perish. The bible says that God is all powerful. Therefore God will ensure that all will be 'saved' - whatever saved means (but we don't really go into that here).

Here I have to question one of the underlying assumptions of the book. The problem I see here is that Bell assumes that the bible has a single, coherent message. Essentially that all parts of the bible speak with the same voice. (I commented on this a couple of weeks ago when Rob Bell was on Unbelievable). The problem - as I see it - is that your whole view of what that one message is is entirely skewed by whatever passages you start with or choose to be your favourites.

It is clear to me (from reading this book) that Bell starts with the Gospel of John and some of the parables in the other gospels. Everything else starts from that foundation. He starts with 'God so loved the world' and builds his theology from that.

If you were to start from other verses or passages, then you'd end up with a completely different set of beliefs, but still think of them as 'bible based'.

I agree, if you start with John and the parable of the prodigal son / loving father, then you will inevitably end up with a God who cannot condemn anyone to hell. But that isn't the only picture painted in the bible and there is no clear way that I can see of choosing which of the possibilities is 'right', if indeed any of them are.

Chapter 5: Dying to live

This is where the book loses the plot. He doesn't quite say this, but gets fairly close to saying that Jesus death and resurrection are just another death and rebirth motif, like leaves falling off trees in the autumn and coming back in Spring. Its like 'everything dies and everything is reborn, and Jesus is just one of those things', which isn't exactly the case. This is where some people will have serious issues with Mr Bell. But not as much as in the next chapter.

Chapter 6: There are rocks everywhere

This is the chapter where Bell basically says that some people can 'be saved' and 'come to God' without knowing about Jesus. Yes, he says, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, but anyone, with any experience of the divine, in whatever religious context, is reaching God through Jesus, even if they don't know it. He actually does go as far as to give the cliche example of the mountain with many paths to the top.

Sorry Rob, but this isn't in the bible. No matter how hard you try, you won't find it there.

Now it may be that I am more inclined to agree with this kind of reasoning than I used to be, but this is where both Rob Bell and I diverge from what the bible says. Its just that I realise that and he apparently doesn't.

Chapter 7: The good news is better than that

Here Rob Bell pads out the prodigal son / loving father parable to the length of a chapter. For the prodigal son, he thought he could return as a servant, but the good news is better than that. For the older brother, he thought he was restricted by the Father, but everything the Father had was his, the good news was better than that. And so on.

If God is love now and shows his love to you now, will he suddenly change character, and his attitude to you at the moment of your death? Probably not. The good news is probably better than that.

This feels like an unnecessary chapter. Bell has already made all of his points, but the book needs to be a bit longer, so he's added a couple of chapters. More of the same, really.

Chapter 8: The end is here

So we get to the end. What is Bell's final message? Well, its more or less 'live life like each day could be your last'. In the end, his main question is not what happens after you die, but he is much more interested in what you do before you die.

He doesn't really say this, but I think he's saying that we should live life right now, and leave whatever happens in the future (both pre- and post-mortem) in the hands of a loving God.

And that's it. A book that doesn't really answer the question it apparently set out to answer, but does a bit of slight of hand and answers a few different ones. In ways that will make (and already has made) a lot of conservative Christians quite annoyed. But this book isn't about answering the questions, its about making the reader think about the questions and, hopefully, reach their own answers.

Some will read this book and will simply reject what it says.

Some will read this book and think 'so what?'

But some will read this book and it will give them hope for the future and a better picture of a loving God. Those people are who Rob Bell wrote his book for. I hope many of them find it.

---

In the time since 'Love Wins' has come out, a number of the outraged conservative types have written books in response. Books like: "Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We Made Up" by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle (I hope he doesn't preach a message of baptism by total immersion!) and "God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins" by Mark Galli & Randy Alcorn. I have no plans to read any of these. Sigh.

Belief and knowledge

I've touched on this subject before, but I'm back at it from a different point of view. What can we claim to have 'knowledge' about and what is only 'belief'?

The distinction I'm making is that I think knowledge is the subset of beliefs which can be validated by experience or logical deduction, whereas non-knowledge beliefs are those which is is not (currently) possible to validate or verify.

Unfortunately, for the Christian, I think that the balance is something kind of like this:

That is, the stuff we can know about God by experience is heavily dominated by the stuff that is belief by deduction (and our logic may be wrong, of course) and belief by doctrine (i.e. what comes directly from the Bible or what we're taught in Church, but which is impossible to test).

For example, I think that it is possible to know that:

Prayers are sometimes answered.

And from that, with some piled up experience we can deduce that:

God (sometimes) answers prayer.

But to go beyond that and say that the God who answered your prayer is the same God who created the world, is to go into the unverifiable realm of doctrine.

As I see it, only things that relate to the present can be experienced and hence verified, anything relating to the past (creation, events in biblical times, etc.) is mere belief, as is anything relating to the future, in particular anything relating to the 'age to come' (heaven, hell, eternal life, etc.).

Importantly, I don't see any way in which experiences in the present can validate beliefs about the past or the future, although Christianity (and presumably other faiths) more or less relies upon the assumption that the one can validate the other. The common reasoning seems to go like this: Christianity asserts N things, you can have experiences that validate M of them (where M << N), but because M are validated, then we can assume that the remaining N-M assertions are also validated. Sorry, I just can't accept that anymore.

Often we insert false correlations into our deductions. Such as we make the logical jump from:

God speaks to me through the bible

to

The bible must be the Word of God.

But I'm not sure that logically follows. Maybe God speaks to you through the bible simply because that's the book through which you expect him to talk. Maybe he could speak through the morning newspaper, but you're not looking for guidance there, so its easier to speak through the place you're looking in.

I just read through the 'statement of faith' of the church that I attend. Well over 90% of the statements in it fall into the (unverifiable) belief category, and the few remaining statements are all deductions (relating to the Holy Spirit) which may be partially tested based on experience.

As you can no doubt tell, I'm having a big problem at the moment justifying (to myself) making life choices that are based entirely on unjustified and untestable doctrine. Especially when some of the doctrinal assertions appear to be flawed or simply false. If some are false, my confidence in the others is greatly diminished.

I'd like to have a reasonable, rational faith. But it seems to me that in order to get there I need to jettison over 90% of my beliefs and put them into the 'I simply don't know' category.

Did God create the world: I simply don't know...
Is there only one God: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus born of a virgin: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus fully man and fully God: I simply don't know...
Did he have a bodily resurrection: I simply don't know...
Is there life after death: I simply don't know...
Is Christianity the only path to God: I simply don't know...
and so on.

Truth and filters

Continuing from my previous thought...

Is Christianity the 'truth' or is it a lens/filter through which we see the 'truth'?

How can we discern the difference?

Of course, here I am assuming that there is something which is reasonable to call 'truth'. Basically what I'm aiming for here is some way of assessing to what extent our presuppositions and cultural filters modify the way we perceive our interactions with (what, for lack of a better, all-encompassing phrase, I will call) the supernatural realm. Of course, this presupposes a supernatural realm.

But let's start with that supposition, that the supernatural realm is a reality and that there is at least one god or supernatural being within it, and that we are able to interact with it/him somehow.

Is Christianity the best way of accessing the supernatural realm? Is it the only way of getting access to it? Does the Christian world-view in any way filter or distort the way we perceive the supernatural realm? And, most importantly, is it possible to know the answer to any of these questions without actually trying out alternative filters?

Christianity makes a very strong, exclusive claim: "[Jesus is] the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by [Jesus]". The claim is not only that Christianity is the best way to access the supernatural god, but it is the only way. All other ways lead elsewhere. Or, to use my current imagery, no other filters or lenses allow us to see the truth.

There's a couple of parables which suggest that once you have found 'the truth' you should do anything to keep hold of it - the parables of the pearl of great price and the treasure buried in the field. But even if you have found treasure in a field, how do you know there's not more treasure buried in a different field? I suppose one pot of buried treasure aught to be enough for anyone, but I think I'm losing the track here, the point is, even though you've found something, how can you know that it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth unless you keep looking in other places?

Maybe there's other sets of presuppositions that actually give a clearer picture of the truth?

Unless you consider the other viewpoints, you can never see just how skewed a picture of reality your own viewpoint actually gives...

What I'm wondering is this, does our Christian worldview completely colour our understanding of our interactions with the spiritual realm? We see all our interactions through a 'trinitarian' lens (for example), so we see God the Spirit at work in certain events. But maybe if you view the exact same interactions through a Hindu filter, you see Vishnu (or whatever) at work. Maybe we all just interpret events through our cultural filters and interpret meaning into them which validates our presuppositions.

Can we actually know God? Or do our presuppositions completely distort his reality?

Second hand revelation

Continuing the current stream of doubting...

I go to a church where people regularly have 'words of knowledge' or 'pictures' or other apparent direct revelations from God. Some have apparently had dreams conveying meaning from God. And while they don't generally do this in the main church service, I know that many of them speak in tongues.

I have never had any of these experiences.

The only time I ever came close was when I was on a SU camp many years ago and was talking with someone who was going through a hard time. We were out in the hills and I remember looking across the valley and seeing a tree on the far side of the valley. It was a tree, standing on its own, on an otherwise featureless hillside. It was a windy and cloudy day, with the sun breaking though only occasionally and transiently, and the patches of sunlight moved and changed rapidly. Except, as I looked, the sun broke through the clouds and the lone tree was bathed in a patch of sunlight which seemed to remain on the tree and not change or shift for a couple of minutes (may have been less than that, but it seemed a relatively long time). Seeing that 'vision' (of something that was actually there) gave me an idea for the right encouraging word to say to my companion. I've always kind of interpreted that experience as a kind of 'vision', but maybe it was just part of an active imagination, while seeking to find the right words to say to a friend going through a rough patch.

But that's the extent of my experience. And yet I know people who apparently get 'pictures' or 'words of knowledge' on a weekly basis. Sometimes these seem to be specific and aimed at a particular person or situation, sometimes they are more general. But rarely (if ever) is there a way of testing these 'revelations' to see if they have a divine source. If someone says something like:

"I've got a picture of a tap, and its turned off, I think there's someone here who is feeling spiritually dry and needs to turn the tap on again..."

then it might be genuine revelation, or it might be a random thought that just occurred to them, but if its stated in a large enough Christian gathering, there's a fair chance that somebody there will be feeling spiritually dry on that day, and so will take this to be a message for them.

This is the problem I see, if a 'picture' is described, and there is somebody there who relates to it, then its taken as a message from God and boosts the faith of both the picture receiver and the one to whom it relates. But if there isn't someone who connects with the message, it is rarely taken to mean that the picture was wrong, misinterpreted or just imagination. There is no negative feedback loop - only a positive one or a no-effect one. So, basically, whether or not these pictures come from God, so long as somebody does this often enough, the net effect will be to boost their faith, not only in God (who may have had nothing to do with the process), but also in the 'picture' ability.

In addition to that, the interpretation of such pictures is always (in services that I've been at, at least) positive and encouraging. Even if the picture is of a raging torrent of water, the interpretation is never that someone is going to be swept away and smashed on the rocks, the interpretation will be something about the power of God to break into some situation or other. So, even if the pictures do come from a divine source, perhaps the interpretation is derived from church culture rather than from above? In the Old Testament, some of the prophets had no problem issuing dire warnings based on their interpretations of the revelations they apparently received, but maybe that was just part of the cultural filter of the day? I fully expect that in some Christian sub-cultures, in some parts of the world, revelations from God are still interpreted in such a manner. But not in our culture. As far as I can tell, the culture shapes the message. If that is the case, is there any need for a divine origin for the message?

My point is this. How can you know if any claimed revelation is genuine?

Someone receives a picture and interprets it that they need to open your arms and embrace their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, at least it is consistent with some bits of the bible. So maybe it is? Revelation which is consistent with culture is endorsed.

Someone else receives a picture and interprets it that they need to kill their neighbours. Is that from God? Well, that too is consistent with some parts of the bible. But I doubt that most churches would endorse this. Culture trumps revelation.

Both pictures there could be the product of an active imagination. Or both could be from God. But both are filtered through at least two interpretation layers - that of the person seeing the picture and that of the culture. So if someone shares a picture with you, how on earth can you know what to do with it?

What has to be taken on faith?

What has to be taken on faith?

And what can we reasonably expect there to be evidence or experience for?

Does faith refer to the future, the present or the past?

Take the 'heroes of faith' chapter in Hebrews 11 as an example, here's the whole text, with interjections by me:

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Here it would seem that faith refers to God's actions in the past - we have no evidence that God formed the universe, so we have to take it on faith.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

Here I think it is safe to say that Abel did not need faith to know that there was a God, or that God wanted offerings. Rather, his faith related to the way he approached God.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The Enoch verse is odd, as it doesn't tell us anything about how Enoch's faith was manifested, but verse 6 is interesting, in that it implies that even the existence of God is something we have to take on faith. Does that mean there is no evidence for God? I'll come back to this below...

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

Here Noah receiving the warning was not an act of faith, his faith was demonstrated through the way he responded. He believed the warning was true and put that into action.

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Here again, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah show their faith through believing the promises that they were given. Receiving the promise was not an act of faith, and it doesn't seem like their belief in the promise giver was an act of faith, only the way they trusted the promise and acted accordingly.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This is a bit odd, as some of those listed above did receive the things promised before they died. Anyway...

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Once again, faith is demonstrated in trust. Not trust that God exists, but trust that the things God says are true.

20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.

I'm not sure what these three examples teach us about faith, but hey.

23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

God spoke to Moses audibly out of a weird burning bush. Hearing that voice was not an act of faith, acting upon what the voice said was.

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

And again, faith is demonstrated by believing that that the instructions of God are trustworthy and acting on them.

32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

So in almost all cases, except verses 3 & 6, faith is seen to be trusting the promises of God, and acting accordingly. Belief by itself is not enough, faith seems to be belief in action.

In almost all instances there, the pattern is this:

1. God speaks (audibly, visibly, clearly) to someone.
2. Person acts on the basis of the message, even if they can't necessarily see the end result.
3. Faith is demonstrated by believing the message and acting on it.

However, for us, there are a lot more links in the chain. Do we have to take all of these on faith?

For the vast majority of us, the 'message' comes to us from words written down some 1900 to 2500 years ago. It is filtered through our own personal interpretation of the words, and through the imposed interpretation of the (church) culture we are part of or were raised in. Beyond that, for most of us, there is the filter of the translation, and possibly also the filter of transmission. Next we have to contend with the filter of canonical selection (Were all the 'words of God' included in the canon? Was anything else let in by mistake? Were any genuine 'words of God' omitted?) and (so some claim) the filter of the 'ecclesiastical redactor' who may have edited some of the NT writings before they became 'canon'. Beyond that, we don't know with any certainty who wrote most of the NT writings, and we have no idea at all who wrote the majority, if not all, of the OT.

Were the gospels written by eyewitnesses? If they weren't (as seems probable), then where did the information come from? How many jumps are there between the eyewitnesses and the written documents? Did any spurious stories make their way into the gospels? If so, how can we distinguish the facts from the fiction?

There's too many question marks there. Either you accept (on faith) that our contemporary interpretation of the books of the bible is 'The Word of God' or you doubt one bit and the whole edifice begins slowly to crumble. Without faith in the end product, there's almost not compelling evidence for believing any of it.

What evidence is there that the Bible is the Word of God?

Indeed, what evidence is there that there is a God to have a Word?

I think many Christians would use the existence of God as evidence for the Bible, and would use the Bible as evidence for the existence of God. But that's circular reasoning and gets you nowhere.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not doubting the existence of the Deity in general, but I am beginning to doubt the existence of the God-in-three-persons as interpreted from the Bible. If you use the Bible as the filter through which to view God, you get a definite and fairly well defined picture of God. And that is what I am currently questioning.

I believe in 'religious experience' and I believe it is evidence for the existence of the divine. But the more I reflect on this, the greater a gulf I see between experience and the Christian picture of God. As I said in a previous post, I believe in the Holy Spirit, its just the Divine Father and the Divine Son that I'm wrestling with. Or rather, I'm wondering if the 'Holy Spirit' of Christianity today, and the 'Father' who Jesus prayed to, and the God of the Old Testament are simply the same God. Not different aspects of God, not different persons in a Trinity, just one God, the same one. I wonder if we've been misunderstanding God for the best part of two thousand years, perhaps much, much longer.

Almost all of what Christians believe is taken on faith from the Bible. What if the bible is in error? I don't see that we have any way of testing the authenticity of the bible. Indeed, historical criticism of the Bible has shown, in many different ways, that it is a human document, which has been compiled, edited, changed, rearranged and contains errors. Unless you take it unquestioningly at face value, there is no compelling evidence to believe in the God it presents, over any other God presented in any other holy book.

I'm not sure I have enough faith to believe in that God anymore. Largely because the reasons I had for my faith have been shown to be resting on very scant evidence.