Christianity in a nutshell

Second-Hand Revelation

My comment on this blog

One could say that virtually every verse in the Bible, Qu’ran, or other holy text from a revealed religion could be preceded by "Some guy said God told him to tell you..." Millions have taken it for granted that an omnipotent God chose second-hand revelation as a primary method to communicate to us.

One seeming paradox of second-hand revelation is that God supposedly had a message for all of humanity, but God told just a few guys. For unexplained reasons, God apparently stopped communicating that way from then on, putting the burden on them to be messenger boys. Well, perhaps God didn’t stop entirely, as we continue to get claims of revelation periodically, but many revelations claim to be the final one and pronounce dire warnings to any who claim later ones. That might explain the tendency for many to accept ancient revelation over modern revelation.

If God uses a few selected scribes to reveal all-important truths to the rest of us, we are essentially stuck taking their word for it. To me, it seems ironic and contradictory that God allegedly would want a personal relationship but then use bronze-age tribesmen as agents to obtain it.

Why would an omnipotent being choose this method in the first place, with all the risks of translation error, copy error, miscommunication, cross-cultural differences, appearance of favoritism, inherent limits of human language, and so on? It can’t be more trouble to simply speak to us directly, if omnipotence is a reality.

Why are conflicting revelations allowed?

Some claim that the path to eternal salvation lies in second-hand revelation. If so, wouldn't that place your salvation into the hands a fallible human? It seems odd that this arguably most important of truths would be communicated indirectly by fallible humans, especially when God is said to be omnipotent.

Would the originating force behind the entire universe choose a method so fraught with potential for trouble? As if God needed a spokesguy... In the churches of my youth, we simply took it for granted and never gave it a second thought. Is that common?

JANUARY 2, 2010 4:03 PM

And a reply from Bob A, who said...

Philip, I believe your thoughts cross many minds that really want to seek the truth. I remember I wrestled with the same questions when I was first introduced to the Bible. But the more I read, the more I saw within His word that it was the simple things that God chose to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:26-28 26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,….).

Unless this book is a series of our-right lies (it has withstood the test and punishment of man and time without a scratch), we need to take it for what it says it is…the truth (Jer.34:12; 2Tim 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Rev. 1:1; 14:13..and my favorite 1 John 5:13) …..this is of course where faith comes in….but not blind faith…..faith that believes on evidence and reason.

There are so many scholars that spend their lives searching and defending the Bible through apologetics. I have found a great source to be Josh McDowel’s “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict”. Also check out Dr. James White on his website, http://aomin.org/ he's great.

I guess for me the testimony of the inspired men of God that became martyrs for their beliefs gave me the historical evidence I needed combined with reason, logic, the laws of evidence and faith…Paul seems to have summed it up for me.....

Galatians 1:6-24 No Other Gospel
“ 6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul Called by God
11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

I would say it is common for the world to look at God’s word this way…….I would say it is unfortunately, but what is common to man is not common to God.. 1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful……”.

1 Corinthians 2:15-16 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?"[a] But we have the mind of Christ.

Aren’t you glad He chose us to be able to look at the things of God His Way?!

JANUARY 4, 2010 4:23 PM

I am beginning to find that there is no debating with people like Bob A, no inch that they are prepared to give, no admission that their beliefs could appear to be absurd and then they pull answers out of the bible to show me they are right.

I'm just as bad because I know I am right. There can be no concept of me being wrong either unless god is a sadist. And then which god? Now that's given me an idea, "Which God? - We test all the major religions and come up with a best buy and recommended".

He's from Denmark

"Islam is the one and true religion. The Quran says so - and then it gotta be true. So i REVERTED to islam. Because all people are BORN into islam. That is a biological fact. So when you "convert" to islam you actually revert - because you are only returning to the one and true religion. That is a fact"

http://www.youtube.com/user/reverttoislam


It's going to be a long hard ride fellow anti-theists. Give the man an axe. He's from Denmark you know.

Right and Wrong is human made

I like the point he makes about the concept being invented by humans and then attributed to their gods. He states that there is no one or nothing to miss us if we all perished tomorrow and it's perhaps that thought that drives believers deeper into their faith as this reality is just too much for them.

Have they actually considered what Heaven will be like when they get there? No board games by the sound of it. And no one ever comes back to tell us.