James White irc chat

[Guest]

Point of interest:

I understand that the Quakers regard the extant "Letter of Paul to the Laodiceans" as genuine.

[Quilter2]

Upon reflection, I have decided that I need to respond to the appeal to Luther here. Firstly, the appeal is false on its face as this ignores the entire context of the exchange. Darin came into a chatroom with a group of people well known for their strong adherence to sola scriptura. He then began voicing dissatisfaction with the current canon. Here are some examples:

<darin> What if we found a transcription of Christ's Sermon on the Mount?
<Floggy> no one will ever completly know the scriptires.
<Floggy> are you claiming that you know all that the scriptures teach and need more?
<darin> Of course not -- I'm suggesting, the text of Scripture is not the complete story -- it is sufficient, but not enough. I want to live according to all that Christ taught, whether in our canon or not.

<AOMwrkg> therefore the question to you is: whar role does the current canon play in your thinking?
<AOMwrkg> otherwise how are we to understand your concerns[/color]
<darin> no -- (recognizing you're trying to avoid my line of questioning) but, satisfaction needs defining. What do you mean by "satisfied?"
<AOMwrkg> you want more
<AOMwrkg> I read up......that is the impression that I get from what you wrote
<darin> AMEN! I want more and all I can have of God's Word. Do you read commentaries?
<AOMwrkg> I am asking a specific here of you
<solafide> the word "more" needs to be qualified
<AOMwrkg> can you not answer it?
<darin> I did answer it. I want more and all I can have.

If I were to go on to a Roman Catholic forum and start attacking the perpetual virginity of Mary I would expect to be swarmed with hornets. If I then shut my mouth and just logged the responses......then ran back to my own forum and posted those responses divorced from my comments that prompted them......what would that make me? Think about it.

Now Steve, you can characterize our response to this however you choose to. But I believe that the fair minded reader will see that Darin's case is not the case that you make. Nor is it Luther's. I keyed on the denial (or doubt) of Jude because it demonstrated the arrogance of his position as that of someone who sits in the place of judgment over the word of God. This is not the same as Luther, (btw, I believe the link below will demonstrate that Luther viewed this issue strictly on textual critical grounds and not on grounds even remotely similar to Darin's subjective need for more). There is a place for textual criticism but that isn't what Darin was advocating if you look at the whole exchange. Darin takes the same road that so many others have taken in the past......."The bible isn't enough for me yet, I need more scriptures." This is the same approach that Joseph Smith Jr took and so many others like him. I identify this case as that of someone who is a bible skeptic based on the man's own words, nothing more. To bring Luther into this is simply false.

Secondly and more importantly, the blog at http://aomin.org/aoblog/ has its its own resident Luther expert on hand. His name is James Swan. You might want to take a look at his excellent work from last year titled "Luther Myths." One in particular is relevant to this exchange as Steve employed it in his response. See the whole truth for yourself here: http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=1892

p.s. Let it be known that I don't appreciate the ad hominem remarks that have been made in this thread toward those of us in #prosapologain. I see no reason for comparing us to children going through their "terrible two's" and other such comments. I called for those in our chatroom to restrain themselves from ad hominem after the first debate and will continue to do so. Such behavior only distracts from these very important issues and propagates hard feelings that just aren't necessary.

[Guest]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I read all of the things you bolded and made larger, AOMin, in Darin's transcript of the conversation. Why are you implying that he left out certain parts?

[Quilter2]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I read all of the things you bolded and made larger, AOMin, in Darin's transcript of the conversation. Why are you implying that he left out certain parts?

See the 2nd paragraph in my comments from my first post on this thread.

[Guest]

Hmmm... I must be missing some key bit of logic here, but let's see how this goes.

First, when I entered the chatroom, I was (and even until now, it seems) unaware that the channel had a particular distinctive view towards sola scriptura in any way similar to the distinctive view the RC church has towards Marian dogma.

Second, and perhaps most importantly (and a point I continue to try to make), I did not raise the issue of inerrancy or the canon and had NO intention to do so (it's not even a core of my belief) -- it was channel members who would not discuss anything further until I responded to their challenges in this regard who brought the issue up.

So, I continue to take exception to your suggestion that I came in loaded for bear against your members, but was instead merely responding honestly to their inquiries and explaining my position in the best way I knew how so we could get on to other things more pertinent to the present debate.

Finally, I am also a believer in Sola Scriptura. Either you give Joseph Smith considerably more credit than he deserves (based on my understanding of the situation) or you give me much less credit in our respective views towards Scripture. It is quite a different thing to wish for more scripture (following the traditional view towards reliability and authenticity) and to wish to create your own pseudo-scripture or extra-scriptural spiritual texts having the same or higher authority than the existing scripture.

Let's apply Sola Scriptura to this situation. Even if I were 180 degrees wrong in my belief in this question (which I still don't think I am), do you believe the manner, style, or place of your rebuke is well-grounded in Scripture? Can you provide me one example of such a rebuke in Scripture? Other than demons, did Christ ever himself do this? Paul?

[Quilter2]

So, I continue to take exception to your suggestion that I came in loaded for bear against your members, but was instead merely responding honestly to their inquiries and explaining my position in the best way I knew how so we could get on to other things more pertinent to the present debate.

Exception noted. As I said before, I believe that any fair minded person can read the exchange and come to a reasonable conclusion. I am willing to stand by that.

As for the rest of your questions: of course I believe that I was being biblical and had you had the courtesy of pursuing the matter further with me at the time we might have been able to get into that. However your reaction to the entire matter has left me with a distrust of your methods so I will not interact with you further on it.

[Guest]

You suggest your response was biblical -- I'm not asking whether your views are biblical -- I'm asking whether your rebuke was biblical and where the scripture provides such an example.

Now Steve, you can characterize our response to this however you choose to. But I believe that the fair minded reader will see that Darin's case is not the case that you make.

Since you indicate a lack of knowledge of the nature of my participation on your forum, I thought it might provide the following:

Since the chat log can be difficult to follow, I provide a narrative summary below. From my opening inquiry, I was almost completely on the responsive end of the discussion. Any inquiry on my part was a socratic response to answer their inquiries about my beliefs. It would take a stretch of infinite proportions to see this narrative as suggesting that I jumped into a forum with a distinctive of the closed canon intent on openly challenging the canon or inerrancy in the face of aniticipated opposition.

• Upon entry, I listened to the conversation a few minutes to get a flavor of the discussion and not to interject a completely off-topic question.
  After listening to a few ad hominem remarks, I initiated the discussion asking whether there was anyone who wanted to discuss the merits of the debate, or just ad hominem.
  
  Someone asked whether Steve was Open Theist. Great -- an opportunity for clarifying dialogue, I thought.
  
  I explained my understanding of Steve's comments on Open Theism.
  Someone explained all heresy has scriptural support -- I agreed and commented on the critical spirit of the side conversation, but otherwise was enjoying the discussion.
  
  Someone asked me if I was an Arminian, and I avoided asking if it mattered to the discussion at hand.
  
  Someone commented that they were surprised that Steve was willing to consider views other than Dispensationalism -- I added that not only that but Steve was strongly Amillenial.
  
  Someone said it did matter whether I was an Arminian, so I said no to avoid a label that doesn't really fit, but said in humor that they would consider me 0 point Calvinist.
  
  Someone asked me to clarify -- since NT Wright is a well-known person with beliefs that are similarly hard to categorize, I asked if they would consider him an Arminian.
  
  That led to a scramble of discussion about the views of Wright, which weren't relevant to the question.
  
  Someone then asked what denomination I belonged to - again, trying to categorize me before discussing anything of substance. I obliged.
  
  We had an exchange related to Wright's views of justification and on imputation/grace.
  
  We then turned to the debate and a discussion ensued about exegesis.
  Someone (again -- not me) asked me whether Wright believed in inerrancy. I am the one that asked for definition of this term as my response would depend on what they meant.
  
  From then on, we engaged in a dialogue about inerrancy and the canon as I answered their questions and tried to help them understand my position in light of their objections.
  
  Finally, I was harshly rebuked for my beliefs and I excused myself politely after confirming the rebuke was from an officiant, which indicated to me that my kind of dialogue was not welcome and that I would not have a fruitful discussion in such an environment.