Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Self-Serving Beliefs Message-ID: Date: 16 Jan 90 09:56:04 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 127 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article brandy@mimsy.umd.edu (Brandy R. Provine) writes: >My questions were intended to address the situation where a person who has >a headache snaps at someone else says "I'm sorry I said that, I have a >headache" instead of "I'm sorry I said that, I'm a sinful human." In such >a situation, do you claim that the belief that headaches sometimes promote >short-tempered behaviour is a self-serving one, only held by people who do >not want to face up to their own sinfulness? If so, how do you address the >problem that many Evangeligal Christians hold that belief? (These being >people who, presumably, accept that humans are sinful.) The correctness of a given doctrine is not determined by majority vote. It is, rather, determined by what God has actually told us within the Scriptures. Even the most devout Christians cannot help tainting God's truths with lies as they are still living within sinful flesh. God has told us that death, sickness, disease, discomfort, unpleasantness, etc. were not part of the original creation and that they only entered into the creation as a consequence of the curse which He invoked after man chose to sin. This means that the various weaknesses of our bodies which make us susceptable to health disorders, and this would include the average headache, are most definitely a result of sin. While God has been kind enough to permit us to have all sorts of medications which significantly alleviate the unpleasant side-effects of diseases, it would be wrong to attribute our diseases to anything other than the desire of man to be sinful. A perfect human body, e.g. those of Adam and Eve before their act of rebellion and that of Jesus, would not get sick. This is why people lived so long before and shortly after the flood. It took a while for our bodies to weaken to the point where our life spans are as short as they are. While any given instance of a disease is not necessarily a specific punishment for a specific sin, it certainly is a consequence of our self-inflicted rebellious conduct. There are some forms of pain, including headaches, which are not caused by disease. If, for example, a heavy object were to fall on my head, it would induce significant pain. While this pain in and of itself is not the consequence of sin, my ill-tempered response to it would be. As one of the attributes of sinlessness is selflessness, a sinless person would not dwell on any personal inconveniences for even an instant. I suspect that no one of us can imagine someone really having such an ideal attitude, but then we have become so accustomed to our sinful inclinations that we have begun to accept and even justify them as being normal. There is not one single excuse for sin. It is unacceptable before God, although so many of us do it all the time, to blame our bad behaviour on the actions of someone else or even the actions of some microbe. While I, too, often beg another's forgiveness and tolerance of my bad behaviour on the grounds that I am either physically or emotionally suffering, this ought only ever be merely to let them know that there are extenuating circumstances which are making it even harder for me to fight off the effects of sin in my life. Under no circumstances dare I even attempt to believe that any current source of affliction in my life is the actual cause of my disgusting conduct. >This ignores the problem that it is _people_ who read the Scriptures and who >interpret them. Imperfect people who read perfect Scriptures *can* make >mistakes, and misunderstand them. (Even if they are indwelt with the Holy >Spirit -- several of Paul's letters in the New Testament were to Christians >that had gotten matters confused.) You are absolutely correct. Only the original Scriptures as penned by their human authors are flawless. Any copy, translation, or human interpretation is far less than perfect. A little further on you indicated that you believe that I believe that my interpretation of the Scriptures is better than anyone else's. While many people may wish to make this claim of me in an attempt to justify their desire to ignore a lot of the things which I proclaim, I, myself, do not believe even for a moment that my interpretation is any better than anyone else's. I am well aware that each and every one of my attempts to interpret the Scriptures are frought with imperfections which are caused, among other things, by the sin with which I am infested. The interesting thing, however, is that most people who object to my interpretations of the Scriptures do not offer Scriptural support for their objections. >If you do not consider yourself infallible, why do you insist that any who >disagree with you are necessarily wrong, without recognising that you might >be wrong and the others correct? This is not saying that they are right >and the Bible is wrong, but that the Bible is right and _you_ are wrong; >you speak as if that can never happen, which sounds rather arrogant. I do not declare something to be true until I am sure that it will stand the scrutiny of the entire Bible. Many people read a few selected passages here and there which seem to agree with one another and then decide that they know what God is saying. This is a completely inadequate approach. We can only know that we have come to truth when we are also able to deal with all those passages that appear to contradict them. A far better approach is to realize that we need not necessarily understand, agree with, or even like the correct interpretation of any given point, to be aware of lots of different scenarios, and to constantly test each and every one of them with each and every verse that is read, and then to do a lot of serious Bible study, eliminating impossible scenarios on the basis that they cannot stand the scrutiny of the verses that are being read during this study. Only when coupling this approach with lots of prayer is it possible to really be assured of what God's actual plan is. >Your apparent claim to perfection (which many believe is only true of God) >is rather abrasive, and may have something to do with the occasionally >unhappy replies to your articles in this group. I, too, believe that God is the only one who is perfect. He Himself has declared that His message, when not tarnished with sinful human misinterpretations, is not pleasing to man. Galatians 1:10 says "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.". In so doing, He is giving us one way to measure how close we have come to truth. I know that I would be proclaiming lies if everyone would like what I am saying. I am encouraged by the fact that a lot of the negative criticism of my interpretations of the Scriptures is based on an attempt to impose perceived earthly wisdom on top of what the Bible actually says. The few times that people respond with Scriptural rebutals provide marvelous oportunities for me to reassess my own beliefs. All the others, which contain a lot of human reasoning, but usually not even one Scriptural quotation, convince me more and more that I am becoming more and more correct. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3