Discussion with Daedalus part 2

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Originally Posted by daedalus2.0 View Post
We all know the Ont. argument. I won't repeat it, but something occurred to me.

The most perfect, excellent or greatest Being I can imagine would be one that would offer me all the joys of Heaven, and my family and friends, despite what I believe, since it is a given that such a great being can think on such a higher level than I, that it would be impossible for me to understand what it is and how I could come to believe in it.

This effectively disproves the Christian God.

After all, the Christian says that the greatest being they can imagine is one that tortures infidels for eternity. But since it is greater to forgive (a clear Christian doctrine), a forgiving God - despite a persons acceptance of Jesus - the Christian god MUST be forgiving to be the greatest being imaginable.

It is a clear contradiction that requires us to disbelieve that the Christian God can exist.
you are attacking the version that was going about in the middle ages. Why don't you try dealing with the modern version, the modal argument?

(1) If God exists, he must exist necessarily, if God does not exist his existence is impossible.

(2) Therefore, God is either necessary or impossible.

(3) God can be conceived without contradiction

(4) therefore, God is not impossible

(5) Since God is not impossible he must be necessary.

(6) Since god is necessary he must exist.
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[QUOTE=daedalus2.0;5546783]It's word play. It doesn't define God other than an assumption that God=Necessary.[/qutoe]


Not word play. the defining thing is not an issue. you are misunderstanding the nature of definitions of God.

This argument ws revived by Norman Malchom and two major philosophers made their reputations on defending it. By the turn of the 20th century the OA was considered a thing of the past, an artifact of a by gone era in philosophy one that would never come back. But by the end of he 20th century all the major philosophers who revived it had become major based upon their defense of it (Hartshorne and Plantinga, Purtil to some extent and Maclum who was already famous and respected but the became more so).

"definition" of God is the big hairy atheists think it is. There are four or five options.

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Change "God" with "Alpha-Condition". (The definition of Alpha-Condition is "the Necessary, ever-existing State of Affair that is able to create a Universe. It Necessarily exists without a God. It is a priori and non-contingent.")

that argument is reversible. it works both ways. you are just calleing God "whatever." In the end the point is it doesn't matter what you call him. There can only be one and he had to be the ground of being, so we know what we are talking about, it's just a question which tradition mediates best what he wants (if anything).

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that is, the argument smuggles in the presumption that the definition of "God" includes a necessary existence, and assumes that something like that exists.

The concept "G-0-D" refers to necessary existence. That's just the definition of what "God" is. That doesn't mean the argument is defining God as "that which exists" because it's either or, god either exists necessary or is impossible."

So there's no resting premise on conclusion because there are two possible outcomes. then its' just a matter of eliminating one of them.

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Then, it does a little bait and switch and plays on "Well, if it isn't impossible, it must be not only possible, but Necessary! Voila!"

what makes that a bait and switch? The bait and switch means you change one thing for another, not that that you eliminate one of two alternatives. That's process of elimination.

example of bait and switch is where reductionists say consciousness is brain function, then they go on to show that brain function is rooted in brain chemistry. But property dualist don't believe that consciousness = brian function.

The modal argument is not saying impossibility is the same as necessity. But that they are two possible alternatives and the argument is won by which ever one is not eliminated logically through process of elimination.

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so, i don't see how the term "god" means anything, since it is undefined in this argument, and even if so, it can only be defined enough to make it true... defining God into existence.

God arguments don't have to supply definitions of God within the logic of the argument. All they have to do is be compatible with whatever definition one things fits the argument. you can use the model argument for standard theistic view of God.

My move is to not argue for the existence of God but for the idea that belief is ratinoally warranted. Then you are not talking proving that God exists. Thus Ground of being could be argued for this way even though Tillich nixed doing so.

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And, then, the leap from if it "can be concieved without contradiction, it's possible, which means it's Necessary" isn't warranted.

the argument turns on that move, yes, but it is a valid move. Because due to the concept of necessity vs contingency there can't be a mere possibility of a necessity. Possibility becomes necessity in the sense that iff (if and only if) you are dealing necessity anyway, there are only two options, necessity or impossibility.

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So, here is my argument for a Godless Universe(s): Still convinced by the argument? I'm not. Not until one can prove the definition is accurate!

prove that tables are things to put things on?

let's say I have a table, a level surface on four "legs" or columns. I say "this is a table, it' function is to put things on.I use the term "table" to mean this."

you say "prove it's really a table."

"that's what table means it means this thing here."

"you are just defining it into existence."

"but it does exist, here it is. I'm just telling you want I call it."

"no no! it can't exist becuase you are confusing the name of it with the quality of its existing."

but actually I'm not. I'm just telling what I call something that exists.

you might say "but this is an argument." Yea but it's an argument for something the logic of the augment prove this "something" exits, and I choose to call it "God." I could call it birdy birdy nam nam if I wanted to that doesn't really matter. The fact is the logic proves it exists.


the confusion arises from the atheist failure (no offense) to grasp what necessity really implies. atheits tend to think of God in terms of contignent localized personalities. They think "the God of Christianity" they thin of a big man in the sky.

They can't see the big man and the personality as the metaphor and the reality that points to as "an aspect of being" or as "primordial being" rather than a big man.

that's why the name doesn't matter and "which big man" is not an issue. There is no big man, there is only this one aspect of relaity and anything that fits it is it.

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Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."

Discussion with Daedalus part 1

This discussion began on CARM. It looked like it was shaping up to be a good discussion. I don't know anything about Daedalus but he seems bright and more informed than most.He also seemed eager to have a good discussion and not a Ping contest, so that makes him a worthy opponent and it makes his arguments worth dealing with. This discussion kept foundering becuase he kept saying he didn't have time but would get back latter. So It kind of built over time by little pieces step by step. He reflects a lot of "typical" atheist understanding of many important issues that dealing with, but when I say "typical" I don't mean that as a pejorative.



#1

Quote:Meta

the mystical tradition in Christianity is old and all organized religion is probably based upon mystical experience at some level. The assumption that any temporal image used to discuss God is just a metaphor pointing to God is implied in all theology. we don't have to have the kind of precision we have with science because it's not about words on paper or mathematical equations, it's about personal experience.

Daedalus:

I will be short in my responses. I don’t mean to be curt – ask if you want clarification. I think you probably understand the principles I am raising as well (or better) than I do, so I hope you will extrapolate the best argument you are aware of, rather than going for the quick kill. I will try to do the same.

I agree that all theology attempts to talk about God tangentially. In fact, it seems a weakness to me, since it seems unable to talk about God in ANY direct manner.

MEta"Tangentially" Is a bad word. Analogically is better. I would expect that argument. First,it's a necessity, weakness or not it can't be helped. God is beyond our understanding. You are playing up the self confidence of reductionism which is a sham and based upon ruling out most of reality and sticking to only that which we knwo (minuscule). Secondly, all language is meatphor. We don't have a set of words that accurately tell us the ultimate nature of reality, and scinece doesn't tell us that. Science is just as stumped epistemological when it comes to transcendent aspects of reality that aren immediately given in our limited experience. We do not know ultimate reality, we don't know the basis of reality. We have no more clue as to Heidegger's ultimate question (why something rather than nothing) now than we did in his day.


Daedalus:

The power of science, and Materialism, is that it relies on extrapolations of well-known principles that can be objectively proven.

MEta:That's an illusion because while the principles can be proved the extrapolation, like a abridgments (extrapolation is an abridged version of truth) must leave out huge gaps in knowledge and into those cracks fall all that makes cinece less than self confident, all the basis of metaphysical principle and religious belief.

Deadalus:

Personal experience is, obviously, a contentious philosophical topic. I don’t expect us to settle it here. It is enough to say, IMO, that we must rely on it to some extent, but that we must also understand its limitations. The discrepancy between the two (Objective vs. Subjective, vs. Inter subjective) is the crux of the issue it seems.

Meta:The limitations of personal experience are absolute. You can't get around them. To pretend that you can is the "epistemologist's fallacy." That means there is no objective knowledge. Think about it how can objective knowledge read us objectively if we can't be objective? It's not that numbers on paper have person biases, 2 + 2 = 4 in base 10 every time, but when we go to connect the "big picture" we can't do it. The info is distorted through a necessary lense of personal perspective that means we can't have objective anything except at the most mundane an immediate level.


Deadalus:

There is a vast difference between our experience of, say, Electricity (scientifically proven; its laws established and repeatable) and, say, Beauty (metaphorically described and subjective/Inter Subjective).

Meta:
Yes but again Electricity is established by "facts" in evidence because they mundane and within the limited sphere of our perceptions. But by the same token that creates the illusion of certainty and objectivity but when you go to connect it to some higher level and solve some real epistemological problem then it all has to go through the distorting lens of our assumptions. Moreover, the 'certainty' we think we found with Electricity is nothing more than the limited perspective which we can reason, which is by hits nature a prori a correlation and not causality itself. The same problems resolved in the same way in a religious sphere are dmissed as "speculation."

Daedalus:

It appears God floats in the middle ground: not scientifically provable, but also not a simple subjective feeling, according to – I think – your argument. God, according to your explanation is a generally agreed-upon “experience’ that people attribute to something they call God.

Meta:That's right. God is what Tillich calls "the unconditioned." That is transcendent of the subject/object dichotomy. The unconditioned is both subjective and objective. It's objective to the extent that everyone can see it and find it and reason to it, but it's not located in any one individual it's personal experiential perspective of everyone. Some don't experience it, but of those who do they experiences the same kinds of things.

Quote:Meta

I wouldn't say God needs anything, but the fact is all humans everywhere have always tried to define the human problematic and the one and only thing that mediates the definition and the resolution is ultimate transformative experience.

Daedalus:

Many religions claim God “requires” (needs) certain actions or acts of faith by us. No, I suppose by classical definitions, God doesn’t have Needs, although, philosophically, I’d say he does:

Meta:
I don't see why you say "philosophically." Why would God have a need?


Daedalus:

If God created the world for even just ONE person to realize something of his nature, or plan, then if no one did realize it, his experiment would be a failure. He NEEDS someone, anyone, to become enlightened or else why make the Universe and Life at all?

Meta:
straw man argument. You are assuming God's purpose in creation is this "experiment." You are deciding what you think he wanted to get out of creation. That's no guarantee that's it.


Daedalus:

That is if God is conscious in a way that I understand as a conscious, intelligent Being.

Meta:
That's the irony isn't it? god is not conscoius in the way we understand it. becuase God is beyond our understanding.


Daedalus:

Just to clarify, all Gods need something. Even the Creator of the Universe – if acting with purpose, needed to create the Universe, for some reason we can’t fathom. Otherwise, it was either created unwittingly – without a purpose – which makes the act of creating a Universe analogous to sweating: it’s just a by-product. Or it is a Want, which means it is by a whim.

Meta:
But that's still straw man argument. You are deciding in what sense the term "Need" really applies and in what sense it doesn't. The term "need" applies in two different senses here but you treat it one sense. For the argument to do some damage to a generic God concept, it has to be a need of dependence. To use the term in the ordinary sense of fulfilling a purpose, while technically sounding bad for a God concept is actually not a threat to God's impassibility or aseity. God can "need" to fuflill a purpose without being dependent for his existence or well being upon fulfilling it, and certainly without being unable to fill it. The ability of Go to supply any of his own needs means he is still a se and not contingent and not dependent.

Of course implacability is a quality Christian philosophers borrowed from Aristotle's unmoved mover.

Another mistake in your statement is the idea that there could be a multiplicity of gods. In my view God is the ground of being, thus there can only be one. Multiple gods would be contingent, in my view God has to be necessary.

Daedalus:

I Need food. I Want Cordon Bleu. There can be no moral Good, I would argue, that comes from a Want, not in the most strict analysis. Wants, by definition, are selfish.

Meta:
That's unfounded. That reminds me of this obscure English spy movie about a female James Bond figure called Modesty Blaze. There's a rock group named for it too. In the film (which was a real failure) the villian was this high living rich guy who has expensive tastes. He's crawling through the destert dying of thirst and he's saying "Champagne!" "Champagne!" Instead of "water!" As I drew the distinction between need for fulfillment of purpose vs. need for dependence you ad another one, selfish wants. So you are confusing want with need. But granting that desire introduces a "needy" aspect to wanting, it's not still not the same as the notion of "needing" for fulfillment of a purpose. To need for fulfillment does not require that one depend upon the fufillment for life or sustainance.


Daedalus:
God Needed to create the Universe.

This, of course, really makes a problem for the Theist. After all, if they claim that God is conscious in some way and He made the decision to create the Universe, that means the Universe (and everything about it) is Contingent. (This means Logic is Contingent and the Theist shoots himself in the foot claiming that he can use Logic to support his claim that Theism, Christianity, or whatever, is tenable.)

However, if the Universe is Necessary, then God is reduced to a step in a chain of something He is not in control of. If, in every possible world, God created a Universe, then there is no possible world in which he didn’t create a Universe. That is, God MUST act to create a Universe by a Law that He can’t even control – and he either CHOSE to make this one (with all the Suffering in it) or had no control over it (which makes him less potent than a God is usually defined as).

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Mystical experience is validated by over 100 empirical scientific studies (closer to 300). these studies are validated by Ralph Hood in the development of his instrument known as the "M scale." Through cross cultural verification he has demonstrated the verification for the theories of W.T. Stace and all the major mystics. so thesis validated and verified scientifically.

I’m not aware of these studies and must admit I am skeptical. If these truly showed some insight into the Supernatural, I think we’d be hearing about them much more.

I’d also have to look and see what the studies were and what they claim to find.

I don’t doubt mystical experiences happen.. I would just call them unknown experiences. I don’t see how you can attach a dubious experience to an unknown (God).

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Religious experience is not just subjective. Its' also inter subjective and thus contains verifiable aspects.

I don’t doubt that. However, connecting the experience to “God” is the problem. I don’t think anyone discounts that Theists aren’t experiencing SOMETHING!

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Quote: Quote: At least, we all agree Matter and Energy exist, which, to me, is the base at which we all start, not one that is more Idealistic in nature. That's going in the wrong direction. You've already biased your findings from the beginning by sticking them with a metaphysical assumption about reality and concreteness. Why something is any more real just because it's more concrete? That's a metaphysical bias.

Wait a minute, though. We both agree that M&E exist and can be talked about Objectively. I am just stating that it is a reasonable place to start since we both agree and the added element is “Other”. We don’t know what “Other” (Supernatural) is. It could be anything.

It could actually be a simple misunderstanding of M&E and nothing more. Since it is unknown in a testable sense (in the same way as M&E), I don’t think it is unreasonable to place it in its own category and ask more questions about it.

After all, if it is a separate category, then it deserves to be measured by its own rules. But, if measuring M&E have shown to be effective/useful, then it also seems appropriate to rule it out by using the Scientific Method.

I imagine this is where your studies come into play. What do they claim? What do they show? What was the methodology? Etc?

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Quote: Quote: That discussion is beyond this scope. After all, if one of us can prove our position at this level, the one who wins the next (Idealism vs. Materialism) ultimately wins - unless God is a Materialist God.... (which the Bible implies if read literally, but is vague is Idealistic) No offense but that's just a trumped up game. All you've done is stick on some biases that limit inquiry to the material realm then you will turn around and claim that this proves there's nothing beyond that because there's no proof for it, forgetting that there's no proof only because you eliminated the possibility of proof from the outset. In other words, your method is circular it rests your premise on your conclusion.

Well, I hope that is not what I am doing. I will try to formalize it, if it comes to that so we can move past prose and into logical argument.

My point is that “IFF” my argument, with it’s assumptions, holds true, then “IFF” the foundation of those assumptions is shown to be true, then my conclusion would logically follow.

The same for yours.

IFF Supernaturalism is true, then if your argument (one in which the assumption that Supernaturalism exists) is valid, then the conclusion logically follows.

Not to be too simplistic but I would use this analogy:

A person is found dead, shot by a rifle multiple times. The detective has a theory but it relies on an assumption: that a person wouldn’t kill themselves by shooting, turning the gun around, loading it and turning it back to shoot themselves again 5 or 6 times – in the head!. (This was an actual case in the news many years ago – they called it suicide!)

Put another way:
People have religious experiences
All experiences are Natural in nature, and have natural explanations.
Therefore, religious experiences are a function of Nature (of Matter and Energy; not Supernatural)

If you agree that 1 is true, then all I have to do is show that 2 is true to arrive at 3.

If I can prove all experiences are based on M&E, or if I can show that ONLY M&E exist, then I don’t need to address religious experiences, since they would be the same as any and all experiences.

My larger point is that this is virtually impossible to prove – since it is a fundamental problem in philosophy, but there is warrant to believe it is true (that only M&E exist) for a number of reasons we can explore.

Either way, it is rollicking good fun to talk about it!

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Quote: Quote: Well, you'd have to convince me that your experience is objective in nature. If you show me how I can experience God, or, that your experience is verifiable (which seems to be the issue here). that's asking for a contradiction in terms. Experiences are by definition not objective. Sot hat would be circular. But experiences can be inter subjective and religious experience can be and has been validated by objective scientific studies.

I guess I need to see what we are talking about here, since it seems you are being inconsistent: that experiences are subjective by nature, but that religious experiences have been objectively validated…

Let’s look at the studies.

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you have get past the circular reasoning of trying to bias the result up front by lionizing the data your methods can provide and automatically ruling out any other form of knowledge.

However, it’s fair to ask “by what metric do you measure these aspects of reality that you claim exist but can’t be proven to be objective?”

It seems that you are constantly begging the question, or arguing from ignorance, that your Experiences can’t be proven, except in the way that proves them to be what you want them to be.

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there is no reason to lionize empiricism. If science didn't know empiricism is not enough they would not have invented parsimony.

It’s hard not to lionize something that has worked so well. That is an understatement. It has made the difference! It has risen above all other ways of knowing that it stands alone in the Pantheon of Knowing.

However, that is not to say other ways of knowing can’t be entertained, but I suppose my point is the opposite of yours: let us not denigrate Empiricism for a few esoteric, philosophical reasons.

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Quote: It's not a proof, it's an attempt to make it a best explanation. there can't be proof, there's nothing in valid about "best explanation." That's a lot better than circular reasoning and game playing.

I don’t think either of us are attempting to use circular reasoning or play games.

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that sort of circular reasoning that you think is so valid is the upshot of atheist ideology and reductionism. That in itself disproves your whole view, what think is the only valid form of knowledge is nothing more than circular reasoning.

Not the only valid form of reasoning, just the one that has proven to be most reliable. I think that reliability has value. That value can’t be proven by empiricism (many things can’t, and maybe nothing at all), but if Empiricism can’t prove things, there is little else that can except for Reason with some select circular (read: tautological) statements. Reason can prove things true, but only to the extent that they are “trivially true”.

For example, that a bachelor is unmarried is much less impressive than you arriving at the same atomic weight of a molecule as another person half-way round the world. Avogadro’s Constant is so magnificently large that to arrive at it by chance would be earth shattering – but people do arrive at it. Not by chance, I charge, and that seems to be a strong rationale for the reality and efficacy of the scientific method, Materialism, etc.

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Quote: Quote: I agree we know through experience, but not, IMO, through subjective experience. All experience is subjective by definition. There is no such thing as "objective." objective is ideology. It’s a game, it circular. There are only degrees of subjectivity, that’s why inter subjective has to be the standard.

I see what you are saying, but I’d have to maintain that the philosophical world accepts that the concept of the Objective exists and is useful. In fact, it is a rather Skeptical position to not accept that certain things exist, and can be known, independent of the mind.

Again, I’d go back to Avogadro’s Constant as evidence that Matter exists independently of the mind; is Objective reality.

My point is that we ‘Know” through a number of criteria, most of which rely on some verification against our subjective experience. Inter-subjective experience only goes so far. After all, get two atheists together and they will claim that an experience of God doesn’t exist.

I guess I’d have to see why you feel “Inter subjective has to be the standard”? According to what standard? Why “must” it be the primary criterion?

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Atheists Battle Their Super Egos

I have often accused atheists of only being able to understand the big man in the sky rather than more expansive views of God, such as process theology or Existential ontology. But I've slowly begun to realize that they really are using God of the Bible as a means of venting in a cathartic process of battling their own super egos. Look at the way they sound when they rant about how evil God is, they sound like teenagers who have just moved out of the house becuase they an't stand their father. One such prime example is that of a poster on carm:Roarian

Indeed, I would put him straight in the category of malevolent and elitist : he doesn't care one bit about what you did with your life or what you believed, but merely what you did not believe : if you weren't a part of his posse, you're out forever.

Can't you just hear a post smoking kid of the 60s saying 'Dad doesn't care about me?' not that I mean to belittle this guy's feelings by saying that. Most guys my age have been there, even with the post smoking. The fear that God is only concerned with penalizing you for believing wrong things rather than with how good you may be because you believe a few right things, this is not only a tortured understanding of the Gospel, but also reminds me so deeply of a wounded kid in a struggle with his/her father.

Instead of giving all people an equal and fair chance at getting it right, he makes an imperfect world that is extraordinarily bad for getting 'good souls' if you will : he knows beforehand that billions upon billions will never even hear of him, and billions of others will be brought up in opposing beliefs, which are in this world equally unsupported by any evidence.

Such complaints are fraught with misunderstandings. As Christians we look at the wondeful love of Jesus dying on the cross for your sins and at the parables of Shepard chasing down lost sheep out of pure love. The atheist is the wounded inner soul who looks at the fear that he's being held accountable for getting it wrong. No attempt to reason about the nature of theodicy. Of course there are plenty of theories one could support, C.S. Lewis the Problem of Pain, or dare I say in the same breath (not to compare) My own Soteriolgoical Drama. Which I think covers the bases pretty effectively. The issues of billions and billions who will never know Jesus existed (where do these guy's live?) going to hell because they are in the wrong religion is merely an outright misunderstanding of the Gospels which is countered by Paul himself in two different books.

He then expects everyone to just go on faith that this particular religion among thousands is correct. He has his instructions penned down and translated several times, many of which incorrectly, in a tome some 2000 years ago in a sparsely populated area of the world.

The atheist's special vehement hatred of the Bible must be brought into it because its one of the few concrete pieces of data they actually have that's not just opinion. The understanding what we are to do in spreading the Gospel is of course totally inadequacy since ti assumed the wrong translation of the Great commission and does not come to terms with the concept of being a witness or spreading the love of God. These unhappy creatures who can't find their creator because they want to look in the right way think that it's all a matter of just spouting the right cods; we as Christians let them down when we fail to show by example that its not about bringing belief to the world but bringing God's' love to the world.

He then sits around and billions continue to die without ever being able to even known Christianity, while the bible writers sit around waiting to be inspired, finally in 300 AD or such resulting in the Bible.

But of cousre this view that God is "sitting around" rather than working every moment to draw people to himself is indicative of their lack of receptivity and their own refusal to respond. Of cousre he must mix it with the haterd of the Bible because that's really their own tangible piece of evidence, which is largely based upon poor reading skills.

This book is so poorly written that it is then misinterpreted and used as an excuse for hatred,

Poorly written. Has he ever ever read it? It's written in Greek and Hebrew you know. Most likey he's only a translation so he really don't know how it's written. Since he probably doesn't read it daily but relies upon atheist message boards to spread his venom and only cares about finding contradictions not finding value in it he really has no room to talk. Sure enough he has no argument to make as these are nothing more than platitudes he's mouthing.

and millions head to hell because of internal strife between different factions of his one chosen people, sending millions more to hell because nobody can agree on the correct religion and wars and dark ages break out. This all goes on for about 1700 years, ultimately ending up today, where a guy called Metacrock would call him omnibenevolent.

Of course it's only going on in his imagination because he's making fundamentalist assumptions instead of seeking to truly understand the Gospels.

Popular misconceptions of the nature of the Gospel.

"Gospel" means "Good News." The Good News is not that people are going to hell. The Good News is that God cares and provides a way to orient our lives toward him so that we can know him in this life, and in the world to come.

Are there really well meaning people?

"All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." From a human perspective, relatively speaking from one human to another there are, of course, well meaning people. There are good people all around us, from a human perspective. Relative to the Divine however, no one is good, no one is capable of meriting salvation. We all have our sins, we all have our human frailties. We are all caught up in "height" (our ability through the image of God in which we were created to move beyond our human finitude and seek the good) and "depth" (our nature burrdened in the sinful wickedness to human deceit).

These are Augustinian terms and they basically mean that we are both, good and bad, saint and sinner. God knows the heart, He Knows what we truly seek. God is merciful and is able to forgive our trespasses. But, if we are really well meaning toward God we will seek the truth. If we are seeking the truth than God will make it plan to us.

Other Religions

Paul said "To those who through persistence seek glory, honor and mortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) through a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philsophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolotry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolatry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

Justice of Punishment.*

Jesus himself never speaks directly of hell, but always in parables. The other statements of Hell are mainly in euphemistic passages or in apocalyptic passages such as the book of Revelation. But I suggest that for some crimes hell is deserved. The slaughter of innocent people, the disruption of thousands of lives, the Hitlers of the world, and those who rationalize the deeds through "following orders" deserve to suffer the consequences of their actions. Evil has consequences, and those who commit evil should suffer the consequences, and they will.I have no direct knowledge of what hell is. It is based upon the Greek mythological concept of Tartarus which got into Hebrew thinking through Hellenization. There is no "hell" in the Tennach or the Pentateuch ("OT"). In the Hebrew scriptures there is only mention of Sheol, or the "the grave" to which everyone goes. But in the books of Revelation it does speak of those who work inequity being "outside the Kingdom of God." I don't' believe that hell is littoral fire and brimstone, I do believe it is some state of anxiety or desperation from God.

Knowing God.

Heb. 8:10-12 "...I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man say to his neighbor 'know the Lord' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." This passage promises a "personal religion ship with God."The word for "to Know" is the Greek Term Ginosko, which means personal epirential knowledge. To give one's life to Jesus means to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said (John) "My sheep know my voice..." Personal relationship means that it is more than a set of rules, more than an ideology or a belief system, but a matter of the heart, the emotions, religious affections. IT may not be through dramatic miraculous effects (although I do believe that that is open to all Christians) but it is deeper than mere rule keeping, and does make for a satisfaction nothing else can match.God acts upon the heart. Salvation is a matter of "knowing God" not of mere intellectual assent. What does it mean to know God? It means that being a Christian is a matter of experiencing God's love in the heart and of loving God and others. It is also a matter of being "led" by God through impressions upon the heart, and not merely a set of rules or a list of beliefs that one must check off. IT is the development of "religious affections."The excitement of knowing God is unequaled by anything else in this life.

There are so many misconceptions to disabuse them of, but I really put the blame on myself and other Christians. We have to show them the love of God. This is the only way we are going to correct these misconceptions.


*This was one of the first articles I put on Doxa years ago. At that time I still had a sort of Hell light idea, with some form of separation but not the big fire stuff. Now I don't believe in hell at all. I do believe that those who reject God and die in their sins will cease to exist and perhaps they will before doing so realize what they did wrong. But I also believe that God is love, so I don't know if even this much hell is real. I know God is mercy and I also know that atheists expect to cease existing so they really complain about it too much if that's the case. what I don't believe is that God will torture people becuase they believe the wrong thing. That idea is childish and it was never what the Bible said.