Why did God choose words...

[jaydam]

to reveal himself with, only to have some people say you can't rely on those words to understand God?

What do you guys say to people when trying to have a discussion with people regarding God, and they keep saying you cannot put God into human concepts?

Do you guys understand my frustration? Because if somebody always takes the discussion to the place where they contend no words can stick to God, then truly there can be no discussion regarding God and no attempt to understand anything about him, and it seems to negate any attempt by even God to reveal himself through words.

For example, I may question if a belief regarding God really would qualify him as a just God. Rather than consider an alternative understanding of God that may be more inline with "just" actions, a Christian will resort to, "Well, you can't understand God's justice, because it is really so far beyond our comprehension of justice."

Do you guys have any ways that you have found to overcome what I believe is a cop out, by shifting God away from the meaning of the words which he is supposed to have directly inspired to describe himself?

Hopefully you guys understand what I'm trying to say, or maybe you have experienced the same kind of attempt to end a conversation...

[steve]

Many Christians believe that God creates people who are predestined to hell, and who have no genuine ability (thus, no genuine opportunity) to repent. Then He smokes them eternally for their faiure to repent. If this does not jibe with our concepts of justice, we are told that His ways are higher than ours. But God's justice is actually being described in terms of behavior that is not "above" our concepts of justice, but far below them. If we behaved this way, He would call it sin. The justice God models is not different from the justice He requires us to understand and imitate. "Be imitators of God, as dear children" (Eph.5:1).

Proverbs 28:5
"Evil men do not understand justice, But those who seek the Lord understand all."

[morbo3000]

God did not choose words to reveal himself. He revealed himself, and then people documented it. Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul.. All encountered God, and then used words to describe their experience.

I approach this two different ways.
First, Jesus' message was an incarnation of the word. Of the Kingdom of God. Heaven came down. And that the church embodied that incarnation. Heaven is not -there-. God is not -there-. Heaven is -here.- God is here. When the church relies too heavily on the text, and not enough on embodying God, it leaves itself susceptible to the criticisms of your friends. Part of what convinces me of Christianity is the miracle of revivals, and spiritual gifts. The embodiment of Jesus in the body of Christ. A pastor I know has said that if the Holy Spirit is not still at work in the world, in people's lives, than it is all just history.

Second, when we try to defend the Bible as an inerrant, miracle, it can't stand up to the rigors of historical, and textual criticism. That doesn't mean it isn't. Just that you can't prove it is a miraculous document.

I believe the better approach is that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is the authoritative source for Christianity, because it is closest to anything we have to the 1st century church, to Paul, and to Jesus. The criteria that the early church used to select these books was their connection to Jesus' apostles. Modern textual/historical criticism may cast doubt on some of those documents. But a large selection of Paul's writings are considered genuine. And even the most critical scholars, the Jesus Seminar, do believe that we can gather some evidence to a historical understanding of Jesus' life and teachings. While each of these do not agree with what we consider available to us, they retain enough information that any critic still has to acknowledge the Jesus movement of the 1st century. Jesus _did_ live. Jesus _did_ teach. Jesus _did_ die. There's some good evidence he rose from the dead. Paul _did_ live. Paul _did_ persecute the church. Paul _did_ recant his persecution of the church, and was himself persecuted for his faith in Jesus.

The bottom line.. is that we do have textual, historical evidence for 1st century Christianity. If a person wants to criticize that on the basis of "unknowability" they are not taking seriously even the most critical scholars. If they want to honestly reject Christianity, they should honestly investigate Christianity. For most people, it's an excuse. Take the excuse away from them, and they will still reject Christianity. You only took their argument away from them.

[robbyyoung]

to reveal himself with, only to have some people say you can't rely on those words to understand God?

What do you guys say to people when trying to have a discussion with people regarding God, and they keep saying you cannot put God into human concepts?

Do you guys understand my frustration? Because if somebody always takes the discussion to the place where they contend no words can stick to God, then truly there can be no discussion regarding God and no attempt to understand anything about him, and it seems to negate any attempt by even God to reveal himself through words.

For example, I may question if a belief regarding God really would qualify him as a just God. Rather than consider an alternative understanding of God that may be more inline with "just" actions, a Christian will resort to, "Well, you can't understand God's justice, because it is really so far beyond our comprehension of justice."

Do you guys have any ways that you have found to overcome what I believe is a cop out, by shifting God away from the meaning of the words which he is supposed to have directly inspired to describe himself?

Hopefully you guys understand what I'm trying to say, or maybe you have experienced the same kind of attempt to end a conversation...

Hi Jaydam,

Can you give an example of your frustration in scripture?

[jaydam]

God did not choose words to reveal himself. He revealed himself, and then people documented it. Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul.. All encountered God, and then used words to describe their experience.

It is seems from your post that we view the Bible in entirely different ways.

I believe that God divinely inspired the writings of certain people. This means that words are written which God acknowledges can be understood to accurately describe him.

The dilemma I run into is that when I call some Christians on putting God outside of the meaning of a word the Bible uses to describe God, they come up with, "Well, God can't be put into words really." While I partly agree that the entirety of God might not be expressable in human terms, it seems apparent to me that God has inspired people to write words about him, so God himself must believe he can convey something about himself through language.

To shirk the usage of inspired words regarding God at the last minute to prevent the definition of such words from interfering with some preconceived doctrine a person holds, seems like a cop out that occurs a lot in Christianity. (Unless I am mistaken, and it is a legitimate argument, in which case I'm open to seeing why)

My struggle is in having an efficient way to convey the problem with this cop out to the one who is copping out. I was just hoping somebody else might have some experience or ideas about how to easily explain the idea I am trying to express here to somebody.

[jaydam]

Hi Jaydam,

Can you give an example of your frustration in scripture?

Well, I'll stick with the justice analogy since I opened that door, and hell is a popular topic.

If I begin to question something that tradition says God does (eternal hell), and I question if it is really meets the meaning of just, then the response is to say something like, "Well, its so far outside our understanding that we can't question it or hope to understand it, but we must accept it." In their response, they seem to take any description of God, and when called on it, they resort to, "It really can't be understood anyway."

I'm just having a problem getting around that, because it seems to really just kill any chance of discussion. If God has revealed himself (in part) in language, if language is all I have to communicate about him through, and the way one squeezes out of a critical look at language about God is to say he doesn't really fit into language anyway, then what the heck do I have to go on?

It is an illogical argument in my opinion that I am struggling with a way to get past in discussions.

There is not a singular topic this applies to, but it just seems to be a resort that people go to in order to shut down the conversation and defend their beliefs.

[morbo3000]

It's likely we view the Bible differently. We can talk about that if you want.. but I don't want to distract from your dilemma.

I would be surprised if you called someone out on this, no matter how clearly you explained it to them, that they would change their mind.

It's my opinion that a more liberal approach to the text of the Bible requires a higher amount of integrity, rather than less. It's called me to a higher standard, not less. I hold some radical beliefs with great fear and trepidation because I very well could be wrong.

If you aren't encountering that kind of humility with the people you are talking with, there is a far greater problem than their willingness to accept God's word at His words.

[jaydam]

It's likely we view the Bible differently. We can talk about that if you want.. but I don't want to distract from your dilemma.

I don't mind getting sidetracked, especially when I am curious. So, you consider yourself a Christian? (I'm genuinely curious, not being sarcastic at all.)

[morbo3000]

It is an illogical argument in my opinion that I am struggling with a way to get past in discussions.

There is not a singular topic this applies to, but it just seems to be a resort that people go to in order to shut down the conversation and defend their beliefs.

I think I misunderstood your dilemma in my previous post. I thought you were having conversations about ethics. Sounds like its theology.

People don't like to think.

In order to have conversations with people about this stuff, you'd really need to go one step back and talk about "how do we know things? How do Christians know things."

The answer to that is, we go to the authority. Which is the Bible.

Interestingly, a temporarily lower view of the Bible might help this. By calling these passages "God's words," they have the cop-out of saying "We can't understand God's words." But if you lower it to the apostle's teachings, than it must be understandable because it was to the person writing it and the people receiving it." A hermeneutical principle is "what is the plain meaning of the text." Of course that's debatable. But it begins with the premise that the Bible is understandable. Like you said.. to say that it isn't, is a cop-out.

[morbo3000]

It's likely we view the Bible differently. We can talk about that if you want.. but I don't want to distract from your dilemma.

I don't mind getting sidetracked, especially when I am curious. So, you consider yourself a Christian? (I'm genuinely curious, not being sarcastic at all.)

Yes. I'm a Christian. I'm a member of a Bible-believin' Charismatic Church. I've been a pastor twice (though quite unsuccessfully.) (Those aren't credentials.. just bio.)

My belief is that the authors of the Gospels, and letters of the New Testament did not believe they were writing inspired, inerrant, miraculous letters/books. And defending it is as such is an unnecessary burden when trying to share the gospel with post-secular people. They use arguments that there are errors and pull Davinci Code nonsense to insulate themselves from taking Jesus seriously. Your friends are actually doing the same thing. They are being post-modern relativists. They are just Christian ones.