Biblical Pronouncements on Homosexuality and Related Topics

[Jnyusa]

No, it's an article of faith that the Bible is the Word of God.

But the assertion went beyond that, yov. It is the 'beyond that' whose necessary logic I am questioning.

One can believe that the people who wrote the Bible were inspired by God and that somehow the working out of all contradictions within the Bible will be revealed to us in the end. It does not require a belief in personal infallibility to believe this.

Jn

[halplm]

who believes in personal infallability?

[yovargas]

Sorry, Jn, I don't follow what you're trying to say.

somehow the working out of all contradictions within the Bible will be revealed to us in the end

Naturally, the people this thread is discussing don't see any contradictions, mostly just misunderstandings.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Isn't this simply called faith?

No. At least not to my understanding. One has faith in God (Yahweh, Allah, Christ, Rastafari, Oludamari, etc.). That faith may lead one to believe that the bible is the Word of God, but that is a different thing.

[Cerin]

On what grounds could a Hindu say the vedas are divinely inspired but the bible not, or a Moslem say that the Koran is divinely inspired and the vedas not, or a Jew say that the OT is divinely inspired and the NT not, or a Christian say that the NT is divinely inspired and the Koran not,

On the grounds that the person believes God had to do with one and not the others. I admit, I don't see the difficulty there.

unless they first asserted that they alone were capable of recognizing divine inspiration?

Do you mean that they and those who chose as they did were alone capable of recognizing divine inspiration? I don't see it as a capability (of recognizing something); I see it as a choice. Everyone has the same ability to make a choice (to believe). We just choose differently.

In order for this text that I have chosen to be infallible, I must first be infallible in choosing it.

I don't see the logic of that. I could theoretically choose to believe the Bible alone is true, and be mistaken.

One can believe that the people who wrote the Bible were inspired by God and that somehow the working out of all contradictions within the Bible will be revealed to us in the end. It does not require a belief in personal infallibility to believe this.

Jn, I don't see the difference between this and the other position you were asking about. Perhaps it's the term 'infallible' that has thrown this off. I adopted the word because The Watcher used it, but perhaps it isn't correct after all. The fact that there may be contradictions in the Bible doesn't concern me. I don't think they interfere with the truth God was intending to impart to us. Your above statement pretty much states my attitude about that.

One has faith in God (Yahweh, Allah, Christ, Rastafari, Oludamari, etc.). That faith may lead one to believe that the bible is the Word of God, but that is a different thing.

If one believed the Bible to be the Word of God, then one would believe in the God portrayed therein. That is, one would become acquainted with this God through this writing, so belief in them naturally goes hand in hand (though would not necessarily go hand in hand, if one's belief came a different way).

[Jnyusa]

hal: who believes in personal infallability?

I didn't say that anyone did. I suggested that a certain combination of assertions requires an underlying (and unspoken) belief in personal infallibility in order for all of them to hold. I am asking whether the people who make those assertions do in fact belief they are personally infallible, or if not, what other grounds they are using to make their assertions.

Yov: Naturally, the people this thread is discussing don't see any contradictions, mostly just misunderstandings.

No, that's not right. I've never heard any religious person claim that the bible, OT or NT, contains no contradictory accounts. It does contain contradictory accounts, but that does not mean that all of the bible is not inspired by god. It simply means that our understanding is limited as to how the paradox should be resolved.

If one believes that one's own understanding is limited, then one does not believe in one's own infallibility, right?

Jn

[Jnyusa]

Cerin,

I missed your answer while posting. But let me do this other thing first ...

Announcement: with Cerin's permission I am moving this thread to Tol Eressëa, and I believe Cerin will edit in a topical thread title.

We weren't sure in what direction the thread would go, and since it seems to be sticking pretty close to the religious aspects of the question, we'll send it to TE.

Thanks!

Jn

edit: the thread title will remain unchanged

[yovargas]

Yov: Naturally, the people this thread is discussing don't see any contradictions, mostly just misunderstandings.

No, that's not right. I've never heard any religious person claim that the bible, OT or NT, contains no contradictory accounts.

Seriously!?

Um, I was raised a Christian...I've met a lot of Christians...and I can't recall meeting a Christian that didn't say that the Bible was 100% true and infallible or who would agree that there were "contradictory accounts" until I started posting in Manwë. No offense, but if you haven't heard any religious person claim that, you haven't been listening very hard!!

[halplm]

Jnyusa, I don't know what your point is.

You seem to be saying that to believe the bible is the literal word of God, while other religious writings are not, you have to believe you yourself are infallable.

This makes no sense to me. I belive the Bible to be the Word of God because THAT makes sense to me. It is the only way that does. Other people think otherwise, or think other texts are ALSO the word of God, or that some parts of the Bible are not, but are say... the words of Paul.

I believe the message God wants us to see is in the Bible. I believe this message is infallable, and is in fact literally the word of God. I think we, as human beings, can interpret things erroniously, or take things out of context, or in genera, screw things up.

However, I think the Bible has been given to us as is, because it's all important to our understanding of our relationship with God, and the things that are not in the Bible, are not important to our understanding of our relationship with God.

Paul had very intense opinions about Sex. He made a big deal about it in his letters. To me, this means Sex is a Big deal to God. Paul said don't have sex, unless you get married. Marriage is better than wanting to have sex all the time and sinning by having sex outside a marriage. To me, this is the literal word of God.

Paul phrased things strongly, and said things like STAY as you are, meaning don't get married and stay celebate, because things are better that way (I'm paraphrasing). Do I think that means God doesn't want us to have sex? No, I think that's God, saying through Paul, that it's better to not get married, and not have sex, than to have sex whenever you want.

Might I possibly not be reading things correctly? Sure. In fact, I'm sure I've got some of it wrong.

But my point is... I think the message God wants us to see is there, and you can misinterpret things and miss the message, or you can intentionally ignore the message and explain it away logically... but the message IS there, and it is from GOD, not Paul.

That's what I believe anyway... and any other text I don't believe is from God... because I believe if it were, he would have shown that to me.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I don't think you have to give creedence to other religious writings just because you (generic) believe the bible is the infallible word of god. Surely, if you are aiming for objectivity, you might have to, but I've never met a person of faith who is aiming strictly for spiritual objectivity.

[Jnyusa]

Cerin: Perhaps it's the term 'infallible' that has thrown this off.

Yes. If claims of infallibility are not at stake, then my question is not relevant. If you acknowledge the that your belief in the truth of the Bible might be mistaken, then you are not claiming that the Bible is infallible.

You see, the Catholic church has a doctine of infallibility, and one may agree with this or not, but they have formulated it properly in that it is not the statement of the Pope which is infallible but the Pope himself who is infallible when speaking 'from the Chair of Peter.' Any assertion that a text is infallible is first of all an assertion that the person making the statement about the text is infallible.

In a way, this forumulation parallels the formulation of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception, which does not say that Jesus was born without original sin but that Mary was born without original sin.

We can say what we want about Catholicism, but it does know how to construct a syllogism. The doctrine pays attention to the fact that the external validity of a premise must be verified in order for claims of 'objective truth' to be made.

The syllogism that I imagined being constructed was one of this form:

Premise 1: The Bible is the word of God
Premise 2: The word of God is infallible
Conclusion: Therefore the Bible is infallible.

This is a true syllogism. I would guess there are many believers who are not only happy to hear that this syllogism is true but also agree with both the premises and the conclusion.

Premises do not have to be accurate for a syllogism to be true. The conclusion need only follow from the premises according to the rules of syllogism. The following is also a true syllogism of the same form:

Premise 1: France is a country in Africa
Premise 2: London is a city in France
Conclusion: Therefore London is a city in Africa

Here it is easy to see that although the syllogism is true according to the rules of syllogism, there is something wrong with it. It is not true that France is a country in Africa, nor that London is a city in France, and therefore not true that London is a city in Africa.

So there is an apriori step involved in constructing syllogisms which are both true and valid, and that is the verification of the premises.

Question 1: What is the basis for stating that the Bible is the word of God?

Answer 1: I say it is. (A human person, me, is offered as the external reference for the word of God. This is actually what the Pope is claiming when he makes an infallible statement. The name for this in logic is "solipsism" and the Pope does not do it very often, for obvious reasons.)

Answer 2: The bible itself claims to be the word of God. (This is the answer more often given by believers; it is not solipsistic and much easier to defend because there are many paragraphs in the bible that begin with the words Adonai omer ....)

The second premise is also solipsistic. One can offer no verification beyond one's own assertion that the word of God is infallible. But it seems (in my experience) that all people who believe in the existence of God also believe that God does not make mistakes, so this is a solipsism which has the status of a universal. There is no one (that I know of) who would accept Premise 1 but challenge Premise 2. All the grounds for challenging Premise 2 would also apply to Premise 1.

The problem arises when you try to add corollaries to the conclusion. The Bible is not the only text which claims to be the word of God. Answer 2 requires that all texts which claim to be the word of God are the word of God. So if you are using Answer 2 to provide external validity to Premise 1, then you cannot have a corollary which says that other texts claiming to be the word of God are not the word of God, unless you offer some distinction between this text and all the other texts other than your own belief. If your distinction is made on the basis of your own belief, then you have given Answer 1 (the Bible is the word of God because I say it is) and not Answer 2 (the Bible is the word of God because it says it is).

There is nothing wrong with statements of the sort given in Answer 1 as long as they are acknowledged to be solipsistic, i.e. having no determinable validity beyond the persons who make them.

(Just btw, all of St. Thomas' proofs of the existence of God are solipsisms.)

Jn

edted for an important 'not'!

[Primula Baggins]

I think most people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible would give your Answer 1, Jn, but with no claim of infallibility for themselves.

I don't know of any attempt to prove the existence of God that isn't a solipsism, and it doesn't worry me, because the question isn't subject to proof and never will be. You either believe or you don't; rational objective proof that your belief is correct will never be available to you.

To believe in God is to accept that there is more to the universe than can be measured by scientific means.

(I know that the converse of that is not true. )

[Jnyusa]

Yov: and I can't recall meeting a Christian that didn't say that the Bible was 100% true and infallible or who would agree that there were "contradictory accounts" until I started posting in Manwë.

I think you have misunderstood what you heard, or else the people who taught you said many things off the cuff without thinking about what they were saying.

Anyone who actually reads the Bible can see at a glance that the four books of the gospels are not identical in their accounts, and that statements by Jesus himself regarding the unchangability of the law were directly contradicted by later acts of the apostles. In most cases, acceptable explanations are offered based on the divine inspiration believed to have been given to later Church fathers.

The Jews have a similar problem with some passages from Genesis ... one off the top of my head ... that Abraham serves milk and meat together to the angels who visit him, and this is a violation of dietary laws. In spite of the fact that the law had not yet been given to Moses, the Orthodox rabbis are not comfortable leaving this apparent violation to stand. They would like to say that Abraham observed all 613 laws of the Torah. So they have concluded that Abraham served the milk to slake thirst and meanwhile roasted the meat so that at least an hour passed between drinking the milk and eating the meat.

I can believe that the Rabbis are divinely inspired in this interpretation, if I wish to believe so. Or I can say it doesn't matter whether Abraham observed a law that had not yet been handed down. In either case, it is not the truthfulness of the Bible that is being challenged but our ability to properly understand and explain what we are reading. The limitation, in other words, is considered to be within us and not within the word of God.

Now, if people are just quoting random phrases that they've heard on the radio from some radio preacher, and have never actually read the Bible or given it any thought, then they might come up with any number of ... off the wall statements. But I was addressing myself to people who taken a more disciplined approach to Bible study than that.

hal: you are a perfect example of solipsism. You believe in what makes sense to you.

Nothing wrong with that, but your belief cannot then be logically extended to anyone else because that which makes sense to you does not necessarily make sense to others. Unless there is some universal measure of sense (which is what St. Thomas attempted to provide), all such statements are solipsistic.

TED: don't think you have to give creedence to other religious writings just because you (generic) believe the bible is the infallible word of god.

No, you don't have to. It depends on whether or not you care if your beliefs are considered objectively valid. If you care about that, then you will attempt to find verification for them outside your own head.

Jn

eta:

Prim: think most people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible would give your Answer 1, Jn, but with no claim of infallibility for themselves.

Yes, I also believe that this is what most people would attempt to do. The logical problem does not lie with belief in the inerrancy of the Bible but rather with corallaries of being the arbiter of which texts are true and which are false while also claiming to be non-solipsistic. This is the combination which requires a claim of personal infallibility or inerrancy.

[yovargas]

To believe that the Bible is the Word of God requires, as far as I can see, the exact same kind of logic that believes in the existence of a God who can have Words to begin with. I see no problem with either and am rather confused as to why you do.

[Jnyusa]

I see no problem with either and am rather confused as to why you do.

That is not the part I have a problem with, Yov. Please read again my answer to Prim, edited in when I saw her post.

Jn

[halplm]

Jnyusa, you are trying to remove faith from the picture entirely, or so it seems to me.

You're statements imply that it is up to US to find God's truth. We have to sift through all that man has created, and written down, and find God in all of that human mess.

If God created us, then there is no reason to think he would then hide from us. If he's not hiding from us, then he's going to TELL us how to find him. The Bible is what I believe is him telling us how to find him. It's a matter of faith. There is no proof or logic that makes it the only or obvious choice. It's not an easy choice either.

But if you have that faith, it is the ONLY choice, becuase that is the root of that faith. You can't say "I have faith God has shown me the way to him here in this Bible, but I reject all the parts of the Bible I don't like, because they don't fit my lifestyle."

You can't be a Christian without Faith. You can't prove anything accepted on faith. Faith is also not simply belief. You can believe God exists, but that doesn't take faith. It takes Faith to believe he wants you as a companion and has shown you a way to make that happen.

[Jnyusa]

hal: There is no proof or logic that makes it the only or obvious choice.

Right. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Jn

[halplm]

But that's not saying anything except there's no proof...

[Jnyusa]

It's saying a lot if you say it to people who believe there is proof!

Jn

[halplm]

who has said that?