Theology IV

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Unity with God. According to Christian theology, this can only come about through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. He is the one mediator between God and man, His blood necessary for our salvation, and faith in Him necessary for eternal life.

If one does not have access to the fullness of the truth, of course one should worship God in whatever way one can. One's soul is willing to have the fullness of God and simply lacks sufficient information, in that condition. Then, even if you don't know about Jesus, you can still be saved, for you are embracing God as far as you can, and He'll lead you the rest of the way. Even if that must be after death.

If one has access to and sufficient knowledge of the fullness of God's truth, though, and then rejects it for a mixture of truth and lie (or a religion in which the completeness of truth is not found, but only pieces of it), this is a purposeful rejection of total unity with God. Total unity with God is the meaning of salvation and is the nature of eternal life. No one can be saved except by faith in Jesus Christ. People who have never heard of Him can yet be saved by His blood, as they have faith in Him to the greatest extent they are able in their situation, but anyone who has genuinely received the truth and rejected it has counted himself unworthy of eternal life by rejecting complete truth for the partial (Acts 13:46).

How do you know when you've heard the full truth? What if it just doesn't seem true to you? Now, Christianity mostly describes my own world view. It is the most true to me of all the beliefs I've heard about. But I have heard things in other beliefs that I wouldn't say are not true and do not contradict what I believe as a Christian. Also, some things that are maybe supposed to be true to Christians I don't necessarily believe.

While I am a Christian, I still think about what I believe and I don't always align perfectly with what I perceive to be what we're supposed to believe. (I'm very sorry about the syntax of the preceding sentence.)

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

As Jesus said, no one is truly good except God. One might add that those that have entered perfect unity with God are also, therefore, good, as they have no sin left in them. All of us humans on Earth are a mixture of good and bad. The question is what road are we taking? Are we taking the road to complete unity with God, or the road toward separation from Him? If we reject complete truth for fragments of truth and lies, we are separating ourselves from God. That is what it means to embrace a path that does not contain fullness of truth, once the truth has been revealed.

The only path to complete goodness is through the One who is perfectly good, the single mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.

For us Christians, this is certainly true. But other religions have other ways to achieve perfect unity with God, Nirvana, or whatever other name is given to basically the ultimate goal of many religions. I feel it's a bit arrogant to say our way is definitely right and the other ways are definitely not correct. How can we know that? For us Christians, Jesus is the way to salvation, but we can't know for sure that we're right.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

That is not true. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." He is not "a way, a truth and a life," through whom only "some" come to the Father. That view is modern revisionism, changing Christianity and Jesus' words to fit our own present-day, imperfect, human social standards. It is neither Jesus nor Christianity. We claim something so, so much greater, the wonder of the Incarnation, the wonder that God came to men and brought with Him the fullness of truth, not mere fragments. And Jesus, who is God revealed to man (even His name, Emanuel, means "God with us"), is necessarily the only way to God as He Himself is the only God! One cannot be united with God without being united with God! One has to be united to Jesus, and by the means He has provided: His sacrifice for our sin on the cross. That is the only way by which we can be cleansed of evil and made pure for everlasting life. It is impossible by "living a good life" by human standards to become one with God's perfection. We must be saved from ALL sin to be totally united with the God in whom there is NO sin. And this includes belief in damaging lies- that has to go, as it has no place in the nature of God, and we must be united with Him completely to be saved. To be saved from sin we must give sin up, thus truly accepting Jesus' sacrifice that paid the price for our sins, and showing our real repentance. We must rely in and live in the one who saved us. To the extent that we fail to do this, we are not uniting ourselves from Him but are separating ourselves from Him.

I know He said "I am the way," but I still think it is too simplistic to say that everyone who is not Christian is automatically completely wrong.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Your view throws out the need for repentance and the necessity of reliance on Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Your view essentially throws out the need for humans to be redeemed from sin, which throws out all Christian theology on salvation. What you have been supporting is modern relativism, which presents truth and lie as being equal and neither superior to the other, for it says all beliefs are equally valid or true, however contradictory they may be. Thus it offers no escape from falsehood and rejects the need of Jesus, who called Himself "the truth." Thus it misdirects people away from God.

The idea of repenting for one's since is good. I don't see why my beliefs do away with this. Why would Christians not do it? And this is a moot point to a non-Christian, unless their beliefs have a similar idea.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

To the extent that they teach damaging lies, they are evil. To the extent that they teach truth, they are good. I certainly believe it is possible for pagans to be saved. People are responsible for what they have been given. If they have been given a mixture of truth and lie, they have responsibility only for the pieces of truth they have been made aware of. If they, in that condition, are then shown far greater truth, then they become responsible to become united to it too. For unity with God is complete unity to the truth, and this can never be achieved as long as unity to the truth is purposefully spurned in any way.

Well, lying is pretty bad. Evil, even. But what gives you the authority to declare that some Pagan beliefs are lies? How do you know that? They are not true to you, and that's totally fine, but they are not necessarily lies. There is a difference.

If someone said, "Harm innocent people," then we have a problem. But there aren't any Pagan belief systems that I've ever heard of that teach this.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I think you're being overly simplistic. Satan undoubtedly dominates some pagans. Others, he undoubtedly does not dominate. Some pagans are just plain evil people. Others are truly embracing God's truth insofar as they are aware of it and are genuinely seeking complete unity with Him. These are not in league with Satan, and if they persist, there can be no doubt they will be saved through Christ's blood, whether in this life or the next.

I don't actually believe in Satan, but Satan is a great metaphor for evil. And some people do seem to choose evil actions more often than good. One could describe those people as being dominated by Satan. But everyone, including Christians, has the capacity for evil, so why pick on the Pagans?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

You can't say that, Nurvi. It's blasphemy.

Well, it's a moot point since Jesus or God never did say "Paganism = Satan" right? Maybe sometimes I do think blasphemous thoughts. I will accept that God might not be impressed with me for the heretical/blasphemous things that I sometimes think. But He did give me a great brain, I like to think that He wants me to use it, even if I am sometimes rebellious.

Sometimes I don't feel like I fit in as a Christian, but no other faith describes my beliefs as well. (No faith describes them perfectly though.)

I am very hestitant to divest myself from a religion where Jesus Christ is a central figure.

Originally Posted by The Telcontarion

If you are a christian you should know that the bible is against the practices of all other religious, it does not support them. God hates them. So it does not matter if the people who practice them mean well, that is not how the god of the bible takes it, he sees it as rebellion. These practices are not about worshiping him so he sees it as "Worshiping dumb idols."

God sees this as folly, worshiping something that did not create you, "Even wood and stone," (Deuteronomy 28:64). He will hate you for it, because you give him no credit. So according to christianity, it is not just unacceptable, but blasphemy.

I agree with Lief that God does not hate anybody; He doesn't even hate Satan. God loves us all. Of course, while God does love us unconditioinally, He does want us to listen to what He has to say.

The Bible is against Christians practicing other religions at the same time. I think. I mean, if we say that we are Christian and commit to worshipping God, we can't go around also worshipping Enki. I do have a small hammer of Thor carved of stone though. But I don't worship it.

I doubt the Bible, which contains the commandment to love thy neighbour, is actively opposed to the beliefs of other people. Jesus Christ was a Jew for His entire life, don't forget. I doubt he had a problem with Judaism. He did take issue with some of the practices of some of the high ranking Jewish leaders of the time but Judaism itself is no problem. This is an example of what I believe is crucial religious tolerance inherant to Christianity.

Originally Posted by Curufin

Of course it is - I'm not Christian. Therefore, I don't buy in to the Christian mythology.

Exactly, and why should you? Christianity is awesome, but if you don't believe in it than people can hardly expect you to believe in our beliefs.

Originally Posted by Curufin

No, not really. I know malevolent spirits exist because I've sensed one before. Scared the crap out of me, too. But do I believe there's a super evil spirit who wants nothing more than to undo all the good that the Christian God has done? No. Think about it. In order to believe in Satan, you have to believe in the Christian God. I don't. When I said that Satan was God's foil, I meant that the Satan mythology makes no sense without the Christian God mythology. It's almost a yin-yang idea.

Yes, I also don't see why a non-Christian would necessarily believe in Satan.

Heck, as I said above, I don't even believe in Satan. I believe that evil exists, and that people are tempted to do evil things, to believe evil things, or to work against god. But I don't actually believe in a fellow with horns and looks very suspiciously like Pan who actively opposes God. I believe that evil actively opposes God, and Satan is a metaphor for this.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

I like this whole "Satan was created billions of years before humans" bizness from someone who claims to get his info from the Bible.

That's hilarious.

Well, the Bible does contain information that pre-dates the time it was written. A lot of important Jewish stories and parables from the oral tradition are written in the Bible; they are very old. I don't know if anyone said "billions" but the idea of ancient things showing up in the Bible is not necessarily silly. The flood story is very old, as we discussed earlier.