“Whose scripture and whose history?”

God’s given to the church. Which church? The one that God said the gates of hell would not prevail against. Which one is that? The one that the gates of hell have not prevailed against being defined by the consensus fidelium of the Vincention canon. Those who have trusted in Christ according to the consesus of faith as expressed through Scripture and history (explicit and clear).

Hey Chris,
Just a thought I had last night, but was too tired to post (it was 4am) which may either muddy everything or clarify things. I think you might be confusing two issues.

1. The first is what things are essential for salvation according to historical Christianity. Every historical movement, religious or otherwise, has had founders which described the beliefs of the movement and what was necessary to be a part of that movement. In addition they have often defined who is outside that movement and who they are against.

2. The second issues is whether or not this historic Christianity accurately represents the historical figure of Jesus (I guess I’m assuming here that you believe Jesus actually existed in some form, but I don’t think this is too much of a stretch since most scholars do). It is hypothetically possible that historic Christianity as traditionally understood at some point diverged from the truth about who Jesus was and what his teaching were. In contrast maybe Arius or the Gnostics got it right (now I personally don’t believe this to be true for numerous reason, but it is hypothetically possible and someone could come to different conclusions then me). However, if the Gnostics were right and historic Christianity is wrong this would not change what the essentials for salvation were according to historic Christianity it would just make them wrong (in the same way that a Muslim would believe they are wrong).

I think ultimately this is about how we define words and I know of no other way to define a word used to define a historical movement then by the beliefs of those who founded the movement in the earliest years. If I was trying to describe “Historical Communism” and define who is a Communist according to this I would do so by reading the writings of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, Yet this is of course circular again since I’ve had to decide ahead of time who the real communists are and thus I’ve excluded some people and my assumption has predetermined the result about who is and isn’t a Communist. To accept your argument about CMP’s reasoning being circular would negate being able to define the beliefs of any historical movement (again having nothing to do with whether or not those beliefs are right).

By the way, 1st Michael (Patton), if I’m in violation of the rules (it seems like, perhaps I’m misreading, that this blog isn’t an appropriate venue for dialogue…) just let me know.

Chris

And curiosity is a mighty fine reason in my opinion.

Chris

Curiosity was all….carry on

Hi Michael #2:

“1. Do you consider yourself a Christian or wish to have this title applied to you?”

No.

“2. Do you disbelieve Christ’s resurrection story based upon the simple scientific fact that dead people don’t rise from the dead or some other factor?”

Not entirely. Yes, that’s part of the story, but also because there’s not good enough evidence to contradict the scientific fact.

However, this is entirely unrelated to my point that Michael Patton’s list of essentials for salvation was constructed with circular logic. Why get off on the tangent of my beliefs?

Chris,
Sorry to interject myself in your and CMP’s conversation, but I have a couple questions out of curiosity.

1. Do you consider yourself a Christian or wish to have this title applied to you?

2. Do you disbelieve Christ’s resurrection story based upon the simple scientific fact that dead people don’t rise from the dead or some other factor?

The answer to both from my perspective is no.

First, do you accept the Scriptures as inspired or believe that Christ rose bodily from the grave? Please don’t misunderstand; I am not pulling out a trump card, but trying to focus so we don’t waste time speaking from our respective presupposition and then failing to get anywhere because we are having the wrong conversation (I do this a lot).

My basis for accepting the authority of Scripture has to do with my belief in Christ resurrection and the implications of his involvement in history. If you can’t go there with me, then the conversation that we need to have is concerning Christ’s resurrection. Its a methodological issue first.

My question was how did you arrive at those (see other post) essentials.

Your response:

“Scripture: Is it explicit stated and is it clearly presented
History: Is it explicit stated and is it clearly presented”

So the next question is thus:

Whose scripture and whose history?