Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Moral reasoning (was Re: draft of Identity Task Force statement) Message-ID: Date: 4 Dec 90 04:56:52 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 644 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , I wrote ROK> These are honest questions: how does one tell what part of Paul's ROK> teaching is to be elevated to an absolute principle (you, my brothers, ROK> were called to be free -- Gal 5:13a) and what part is to be disregarded ROK> (but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature -- Gal 5:13b)? ROK> What criterion is available to us that will enable us to be confident that ROK> it is _right_ to accept Galatians 5:18 and ignore Galations 5:19--21? Our excellent moderator has provided a reply. Now, moderating soc.religion.christian is a very demanding task, and the last thing I want is to make it a discouraging one. I should make it clear that I am extremely grateful to Hedrick for keeping the signal/noise ratio in s.r.c. so high. (s.c.j. is not moderated. What a contrast.) Hedrick also does a superb job of remaining neutral but informative; even now I cannot be sure whether he was presenting his own views in his response to my question, or whether he was trying to maintain a balance. He is certainly amongst the peacemakers that Jesus called "blessed". The moderator wrote: Mod> [Sorry for misunderstanding your question. I was commenting Mod> specifically on homosexual activity, not extra-marital intercourse. I Mod> see why you might conclude that the argument I summarized for allowing Mod> homosexual sex would generalize to allowing extramarital heterosexual Mod> sex. However the folks arguing for homosexual relationships in the Mod> past seem to have been talking about a relationship involving a Mod> long-term commitment. While they did not always say so specifically, Mod> I took them to mean a commitment of the same sort as marriage. I Mod> don't recall any past proposals here that Christians should engage in Mod> sex outside of such a relationship (unless you are making such a Mod> proposal, and you don't seem to be). I really don't want to go into all the personal background of this, but I do need, I think, to make it absolutely clear that I am not asking abstract questions here. I tell you with all the earnestness that I possess that the question came up in ordinary life, that indeed I am reading soc.religion.christian as a consequence of meeting this question, that I have spent several hundred dollars on ethics texts this year and have asked a lot of people for help with it. What I am about to tell you is not the whole truth, but it is the truth. There is a woman I met in California who had wanted to be a missionary and had been accepted as a candidate for mission by one of the major USA denominations. She told me that - heterosexual intercourse - without love - without commitment - for the purpose of "exploring her sexuality" - with someone who "wasn't a priority" was a morally excellent thing for a Christian to do, and that accordingly she had done it. What is more, we had both been attending a church of that denomination, and the minister of that church - affirmed that this _was_ right - stated that her own beliefs were "more liberal" - commanded the first woman not to let her beliefs be questioned Both of them refused to give me any explanation of how this belief could be reconciled with the Bible, and demanded that I accept this belief as "Christian" _without_ explanation. The first woman further condemned my continuing virginity as "ingratitude to G-d". A minister I consulted here for advice also told me that I ought to just accept what they said as Christian and treated the problem I had doing so as a psychological problem rather than a philosophical/religious one. So the question hasn't come up _here_, but it really did come up in my life, with people in major denominations who identified themselves as liberals telling me I ought to accept this position as Christian but not being willing to give me any kind of rational argument. Our moderator insisted on dragging homosexual behaviour back into the discussion. Such interest as I have in _that_ question is entirely academic. I would point out, however, that these three people that I have in mind show that you can't draw a line: if today you say "anything goes as long as there is commitment", then tomorrow the condition on commitment will be dropped. Rightly so: we do not call a man righteous because he copulates with only one of his adult daughters and intends never to copulate with anyone else. [My father being a lawyer, I have heard at third hand of about five cases where a father and daughter above the age of consent were having sex and the daughter was extremely angry at having the relationship broken up by the rest of the family. Which is not to say that all incestuous relationships are like that. The majority aren't. But if commitment is the magic ingredient that makes a sexual relationship right, why not in this case?] So, - I am not proposing that it is right for Christians to copulate outside marriage - I have never thought or claimed that anyone has said so _in_this_newsgroups_ - however, people identifying themselves as liberal Christians who are in a position to teach others what is right and wrong _have_ made that claim to me in person - and I want to understand what seems like an extreme case of doublethink. From now on, ">" quotes the moderator, not me. > First, you seem not to be convinced that the Law does > not apply to Christians. You quote Mat. 5:17-20. ... > The simplest way to reconcile this passage with others that seem to > challenge the Law is that in Mat 5, Jesus was preaching to Jews. That simply won't do. Nearly _everyone_ Jesus preached to was a Jew. The promise of the Holy Spirit was made to Jews. Shall we then say that the Holy Spirit is only available to Jewish Christians? By no means! The Lord's Prayer was given to His Jewish discipines. Shall we then say that only Jewish Christians should pray it? By no means! "It is easier for heaven and earth to come to an end than for one letter of the law to lose its force." Where is that found? In Luke! Was Luke a Judaizer? The interesting thing there is that when we look at the whole passage, we find [REB] Luke 16:15 [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], "You are the people who impress others with your righteousness; but G-d sees through you; for what is considered admirable in human eyes is detestable in the sight of G-d. :16 The law and the prophets were until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of G-d is proclaimed, and everyone forces a way in. :17 It is easier for heaven and earth to come to an end than for one letter of the law to lose its force." So whatever v17 means, _"Luke"_ thought it was compatible with v16. What _do_ I believe about the Law and Christians? To be perfectly honest, I *don't* *know*. I am struggling with this question. A Jewish friend stumped me: "Why don't Christians follow the Law?" Well, perfect sacrifice once for all, mumble, grace, mumble, explicit cancellation of kashrut, explicit teaching about circumcision, mumble, mumble. "But you _do_ follow some of it; you talk about the 10 commandments, many of Jesus' commands are just like what I find in the Talmud. So how do you tell _which_ bits of the Law you'll keep?" Er, not sure, mate. I'll try to find out. [Interesting point: the woman who told me I was ungrateful to G-d because I am still a virgin is strict about Sunday observance and the one defence she ever offered for her opinion was that "there's nothing in the 10 commandments against it", not that Calvin agreed.] We have affirmation after affirmation in the NT, including statements from Paul, that the Law was *HOLY*. BEGIN DIGRESSION I have been helped a lot by some of Walter Kaiser's books. Probably the best one to read if you haven't come across him before is Toward Rediscovering The Old Testament Walter Kaiser, Jr Zondervan, ISBN 0-310-37120-1 Australian price AUS$31.95 (hardback) END DIGRESSION > The agreement in Acts 15 (and Paul's position) neither abolished the Law > nor challenged its application to Jewish Christians. Well, the agreement in Acts 15 says in the REB Acts 15:28 It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and our decision, to lay no further burden upon you beyond these ESSENTIALS: :29 You are to abstain from meat that has been offered to idols, from blood, from anything that has been strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves free from these things you will be doing well. Farewell. The relationship to the Noachian laws is obvious. It is also clear that these commands refer to things that weren't obviously wrong to the Gentiles. I have never to my knowledge eaten anything that had been offered to an idol, I always let the blood drain out of meat before I cook it (and never eat black pudding), I don't _think_ that the way meat is slaughtered here counts as strangulation, if I did think that I'd turn vegetarian (or else ask my Jewish friend where he shops (:-)), and I have refrained from any of the practices that counted as fornication. To be perfectly frank, I am relying on this passage as one of my principal reasons for not following the ceremonial and dietary parts of the Law. The only reason that I can appeal to Acts 15 as authoritative is because I _do_ accept its authority. It would not be honest for me to cite it as permission to refrain from reciting the eighteen benedictions unless I also accepted the "burden" which is equally claimed to be "the decision of the Holy Spirit". I should say that I accept the burden as a burden on _me_. I have never told my parents, for example, not to eat black pudding. They are old enough to read for themselves, and probably understand better than I do. I am _not_ advising anyone else in this newsgroup to stick to the letter of Acts 15. My point is that I don't see how I can appeal to part of Acts 15 and reject the rest and still retain my intellectual integrity. I don't know what Catholics teach about this passage. They _do_ have a method which allows a present-day Catholic to read a text other than literally; the Catholic Church offers its adherents an interpretative community which is continuous back to the 1st century, and can say "we have always understood that passage _thus_". Someone who accepts that the Catholic Church has faithfully maintained the traditions that were handed down clearly _can_ read the text in other than the obvious way and still retain his or her intellectual integrity, by virtue of using the best interpretive method believed to be available. Conservative evangelicals can and do appeal to the Fathers for clarification, although they do feel free to rank other considerations higher. The Mormons also have a method which allows them to contradict the explicit teaching of the BoM. They accept the continuing prophetic ministry of the First Presidency, and hold that G-d was able to change the status of polygamy because he was able to change his own law. I don't share that belief, but given such a belief they could alter their belief every time their prophet spoke and still retain their intellectual integrity. (I think.) As I see it, fidelity to scripture demands that I be corrigible. I do believe that Scripture has authority over me. I do _not_ believe that my _readings_ of Scripture are infallible. As a specific example (this may lose me some of the friends I've made so far) I don't read Genesis 1 literally, although I used to. Why not? Because In the Beginning Henri Bloch [author, title, or both may be wrong; the book is in another country and it's been about a year since I saw it] convinced me that another way of reading it was more faithful to the nature of the text. It's entirely possible that my mind may be changed by another argument. Let's look at Acts 15 again. The 4 commands don't mention murder, or theft, or rape, or incest, or extortion, or perverting justice. Are we to suppose that those things are permitted? I think Acts 15 has to be understood in the light of the Noachian laws, and that the point was to tell the Gentile Christians about things they didn't already know. They already believed in one G-d, for example, so they didn't need to be told to do that. > Jesus intended to call people to a life of moral strictness. Yes, but what does that _mean_? If I decide that I ought to mortify my flesh, and deliberately go out in a wee boat to the middle of the Pacific Ocean without food or water, is that ok as long as I have enough "moral commitment"? Margaret Thatcher had a great deal of moral commitment to her political vision, she sincerely believed that she was doing the best she could for Britain. Yet the woman who told me my virginity was "ingratitude to G-d", being English, had an effigy of Thatcher hanged by the neck in her car, and thought it right to condemn Thatcher no matter how earnest she was. Strictness about _what_? > Thus according to both Acts 15 and Paul's arguments, > the Law does not apply to us. But both Acts 15 _and_ the letters of Paul __purport__ to be giving us commandments that we ought to follow. Acts 15 goes so far as to call them "essentials". Paul says explicitly in 1 Cor. 6:9--10 Surely you know that wrongdoers will never possess the kingdom of G-d. Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolater, no adulterer or sexual pervert, no thief, extortioner, drunkard, slanderer, or swindler will possess the kingdom of G-d. [REB] We've got exactly the same question that we started with: how can we -- accept Paul's arguments that we are not "under" Law -- REJECT Paul's far more explicit lists of things that we shouldn't do -- and retain our intellectual integrity? If we do not trust Paul when he tells us unconditionally that "fornication" (yes, I know how broad its scope is) and so on are wrong, what right have we to appeal to anything else that Paul said? How can we be sure that the "rule" "we are no longer under the Law" is not itself one of the things that has changed? Let me state quite explicitly that I cannot claim to be holy. The Jews of today boast of their teaching against lashon ha'ra (slander when false, gossip when true). If we will take Paul and James at their word, then lashon ha'ra is equally (though less voluminously) forbidden to Christians, and I have been guilty of it. I go red just thinking about some of the things I've said and passed on. > We are still called to a life of obedience and moral > strictness, but the moral strictness is not necessarily going to be > based on the Law. But obedience to what? Strictness about what? If not based on the Law, based on what? How do we know _what_ to base it on? > We do have an example of Jesus dealing with someone > who was outside the bounds of the Law ... > was a "God-fearer", i.e. someone who accept Israel's God and > presumably obeyed the Noahic laws, but not the Law. Such people were > regarded as being as righteous as an Israelite, but as outside the > range of applicability of the Law. They were regarded as being outside the range of the Law given to Moses, outside the covenant with Abraham. But as our moderator has said, they were not regarded as being outside the covenant with Noah, or outside the 7 Noachian laws. This example would lead to the conclusion that the 7 Noachian laws _are_ (as my Jewish friend believes) binding on us Gentile Christians. I would be very happy with that conclusion. > So you ask, how do we decide what to take from the Bible. I think I > disagree with your basic intent. Your basic presumption seems to be > that the Bible is a source of rules Well, that's what it _purports_ to be (among other things). John 14:15 claims that Jesus said "If you love me you will OBEY MY COMMANDS." and in verse 21 that He said "Anyone who has received my COMMANDS and OBEYS them--he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father; and I will love him and disclose myself to him." If I am not to trust that, how am I to trust anything in the Gospel of John? If Leviticus and Deuteronomy are of no value to us, why do we not throw them out, as Harnack suggested? > and that what I'm saying is that we somehow pick only some of them. No, you have misunderstood. > I'm saying quite the contrary: I > do not expect it to be an authoritative source of rules at all. It's when you say _that_ that it _seems_ to me that you are picking and chosing. There _are_ rules in the NT. If they are not authoritative, how is _anything_ in it authoritative? > However I insist that some of [Paul's] specific > judgements on things that are wrong are open for discussion, The question is, how do you tell *which*? If what Paul says about "fornication", say, is open for discussion, why not what he says about murder, or about greed, or about slander? It is important to draw a distinction here. I quite understand the attitude "I believe that such-and-such an apparent rule is authoritative, but I don't think we are sure about what it _means_, and we need to regard the interpretation as open for discussion." That's exactly what I believe about quite a lot of the apparent rules. It's quite another thing to say "I am confident about what the rule seems to be and I am equally confident that it is incorrect, we know better now." In order to say the latter, which is what you seem to be saying, you need a higher standard. What is that standard? How may I come to share it? > because I do not believe Paul intended for his advice to be turned into > a new Law. I can agree with the words exactly. But I mean something different: I think that Paul thought he was telling people what was _already_ true, _still_ true. When Paul gave *advice*, he said so! > The issue that you raise is how we can claim Biblical authority for > standards when we also claim the freedom to change those standards. > The best treatment of this question I've seen is in C.S. Lewis' book > "The Abolition of Man". In it he discusses the development of morals. Oh, that C.S.Lewis were alive to answer this! C.S.Lewis was not a Liberal. Whatever he meant, he didn't mean _that_. There's an illustration he used to make clear what kind of development he meant: Imagine that you have a friend who likes his vegetables fresh. -- development WITHIN a tradition is like telling him "why don't you grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?" -- development alien to a tradition is like telling him "why don't you eat bricks and centipedes instead?" He said more or less explicitly that development _within_ a tradition is such that someone _within_ the earlier version of the tradition can appreciate that the new teaching was already implicit in what he believed. To give an example where two opposing outcomes can both plausibly see themselves as developments within a tradition, consider abortion. (I am not stating my own view here, and I don't want to discuss abortion as such. The whole force of my argument is that _both_ sides have some claim to be developments of the tradition rather than revolutions against it.) The Tanach has no explicit teaching on abortion. There is one passage that deals with premature birth, and is a terribly unsatisfactory basis for argument either way. The NT has no explicit teaching on abortion either. People who oppose abortion on demand say -- we are taking the command "do not commit murder" and applying it, unborn children being innocent human beings it always _was_ murder so the wrongness of abortion was obvious as soon as it was considered. People who are in favour of abortion on demand say -- foetuses are not human, so they are not covered by that law, _we_ are making plain what love for our neighbour (the woman) always required Neither group (at least amongst Christians) disputes that "do not commit murder" is still valid or that "love your neighbour as yourself" is still valid, or any other law. The question is how those unchanged laws are to be applied. > He doesn't say specifically what causes them to accept changes, C.S.Lewis is clear in his writings that the answer to questions like that is Reason. He points out elsewhere that a lot of questions just didn't get considered for some time, and that when they were, reason was enough to extract the answers from the existing tradition. One clear test is that a _development_ presupposes the previous tradition as its own basis, the development itself cannot stand unless the previous tradition is accepted as valid. > Slavery involves too much power over our fellow man to be > safe in the hands of sinful people. I claim that this conclusion is a > genuinely Christian one, even though it is not present in the Bible, > and is in some sense even contradicted by what the Bible says. Slavery is a good example of development, as is polygamy. The Mosaic law _permitted_ both, but did not require it. We eventually realised that slavery was inconsistent with the Faith. Very well, no problem, there were no commandments requiring us to hold slaves. The Jews eventually realised that polygamy was risky: Pirkei Avos 2[8] "[Hillel] used to say: ... the more wives, the more witchcraft" and the commentary in the ArtScroll translation says "This condemnation of polygamy focuses upon the jealousy between rival wives. They may resort to anything -- even witchcraft -- to gain their husband's affection." Finally R.Gershom put polygamy under the ban. Very well, no problem, there was no commandment requiring polygamy. There is no denying that in the Tanach we see a "progessive revelation". Seth and Cain had to marry full sisters; only later were people told that brother/sister incest was wrong. Sarah was Abraham's half-sister (they had the same father but not the same mothe [Gen. 20:12] which at the time was not thought to count); only later was it made clear that that was wrong. Jacob married two sisters, only later was it made clear that that was wrong. Elkanah had two wives [1Sam. 1:2]; it took a long time before it became clear that that was wrong. Do we see a common thread? Yes: something which was _permitted_ but not _required_ is later understood as wrong. Jesus' command about divorce fits this pattern perfectly. > To allow a process of development involves faith that the Holy Spirit > will continue to guide Christians. Such a faith is neither necessary nor sufficient: -- not necessary: one may belief that "the Torah has been given into the hands of men" so that human reason is sufficient to discover what was always implicit -- not sufficient: if one also believes "G-d does not change like shifting shadows" (Jas 1:17) and that "the word of the Lord endures for evermore" (1 Pet. 1:23-24) one will test *changes* in order to see whether they are of the Holy Spirit or of some other spirit by checking whether they *develop* "the living and enduring word" or overthrow it. Ask a Pentecostal about this one (:-). > It also requires a tolerance for disagreement. The Catholic Church does not tolerate protracted disagreement, yet it develops! (I am not a Catholic.) What is more, we have to tolerate some level of disagreement, change or no change. I keep on pointing to the "Divorce and Remarriage" book from IVP. There is disagreement there, but all of the authors are committed to the project of discovering what Jesus taught about divorce and obeying whatever that means. > If you demand that Christianity give authoritative > answers to all questions, this is going to seem unacceptable. Perhaps > the most basic difference between "liberals" and "conservatives" is > that liberals do not demand guaranteed rules, and this seems to be > what conservatives want out of Christianity. This is not addressed to me. As my recent posting about long hair showed, I do not demand a guaranteed answer to every question. I could list the things I am not sure about, but it would be a long one. I cannot speak for conservatives. All I can say is that the issue for me is not getting authoritative guaranteed rules for all questions, but a much simpler problem: -- the Bible *purports* to present us with *some* explicit "enduring" rules; -- there is no hint anywhere in Paul that the commands he reminds his readers of may ever change; -- so how can we ignore any of those rules? As human beings we simply do not have the option of operating without definite rules. We only have a choice about whether we shall be conscious about the rules we obey. (This may be my AI background speaking here.) A moment's reflection on Goedel's incompleteness theorem, on complexity theory, or even the bandwidth of the human senses should suffice to convince us that there _might_ be valid rules for human behaviour which human computational capacity is insufficient to discover. > I do believe we need ethical rules, and > I do believe in carrying out commitments. However I argue that rules > are subject to change over time. Presumably slow change, But by what standard do we judge these changes? When will it be right to kill innocent adult human beings who are not willing to die and whose continued existence poses no danger? When will it be right to worship idols and hate the true G-d? If the answer is "never", then why are _those_ rules unchangeable and not others? It is important to distinguish between - the dispersion of knowledge of a rule among the people (which may change) - the depth of knowledge of a rule (which may change) - the range of situations to which a rule must be applied (which may change) - the inconvenience of following or affirming a rule (which may change) - the values of the parameters a rule is applied to (which may change) - our current belief about the correct expression of a rule (which may change) and the rule itself. If a rule has the form it is always wrong to do X at one time, and at a later time it has "changed" to some people may do X then the original form of the rule was ALWAYS wrong. If there is any rule, then it must have been some people in category C may do X and in the original situation there happened to be no people in that category. For example, Lionel Tiger (not a Christian or a homophobe) points out that giving pregnant rats barbiturates tends to feminise the male pups, and suggests that the rise in numbers of people adopting homosexual behaviours may be due to the thoughtless prescription of barbiturates for pregant women. If he is right, then the correct form of the rule for homosexual behaviour (the example the moderator continued with) might be men feminised by chemicals ingested by their mothers may form committed monogamous relationships that include male/male copulation, other instances of male/male copulation are wrong. and that would be a case where the earlier form of the rule was INCORRECT, but was tolerated because the relevant class was empty at the time, and the correct formulation of the rule would have been unintelligible to the people who had to transmit the tradition. But this would not be a case of what the rule really is changing, but a case where the form of the rule had *always* been incorrect, and there was a correct form which did not change. Again, one thing that the woman who brought this issue to my attention said was relevant is that she never thought she was likely to marry. Perhaps then the rule is not sex without love or commitment is always wrong but if you think you are unlikely to marry, it is ok to experiment, but otherwise sex without love or commitment is wrong. If whatever-the-rule-is-NOW permits sex without love or commitment outside marriage for even two people (a minimum of two being required (:-)), then the form of the rule that both I and the moderator accepthas ALWAYS been INCORRECT. Not that the rule has _changed_, but that I have always been simply _mistaken_ about the rule. > One of the rules I am committed to > is against sex outside of marriage ... Fine, so am I. But there are at least ministers in mainline demoninations who do not accept that rule. The woman I wrote of above told me that she was taught as a teenager in a mainline church in England that male/female copulation outside marriage was _not_ fornication and that it was fully in accord with Biblical principles. She has acted on that faith, and a USA mainline demonination found that acceptable, and a minister of that denomination stated quite explicitly that _she_ believed that it was in accord with reason and experience and that her own beliefs about what was permissilble were "more liberal". We are not talking about straw men here. This is _real_. > I will believe you are making a misjudgement [if you accept fornication], > but I will not accuse you of violating the Law. But I *would* be violating the rule *you* hold, even if you don't think it is Law. So the question is, what kind of grounds can you have for your belief that it is wrong? To hold something as a moral principle is to hold that it is universal. You hold this principle, the four people I have mentioned (but will not name) do not. You cannot with logical consistency believe that they are *right* (though you may with logical consistency believe that they have come by their opinions honestly and are entitled to them). So how can you be sure that you are *right* that male/female copulation without love or commitment is to be avoided in the USA in the last quarter of the 20th century and that those four people (three of them ministers and one accepted as a candidate for mission) with a contrary people are mistaken? Why is it RATIONAL for a Christian to live according to this rule? I personally believe that reason and experience are sufficient for this one. Musonius Rufus came to the same conclusion, and he was no Christian. But I am talking here about real people who claim the opposite, although three of them were unwilling to explain how come. (I never met the 4th.) I am not interested in accusing anyone of anything at all. What I want to know is "how can I know what to do?" I am a bear of very little brain, my reasoning powers are limited, my knowledge and experience are ludicrously inadequate, and I am prone to self-deception. Yet I must live; I must act. On my understanding of the Scriptures, which *purport* to provide rules, although they do not purport to provide a *complete* set of rules (that would be impossible), I do at least have a standard against which I can cross-check my reasoning. When I detect a contradiction between what I think is right and what I think the Bible is saying, I must revise one or the other or both. As soon as I accept that rules the Bible purports to provide were ok for _then_ but aren't (necessarily) valid now, then I am suspended 70,000 fathoms over an abyss: either I accept what other people tell me as my standard against which to judge both myself and the Bible, or I am left with no standard at all to check my reasoning. And as soon as I accept that the Bible's claim to provide enduring rules is invalid, I am left in the same giddy position: _everything_ must be doubted. I think we may have succeeded in narrowing the question down: -- given that there are things in the New Testament which are on the face of them unconditional rules, commands, or prohibitions, 1a. how can we tell when one of these rules should be modified so that what used to be forbidden is now permitted, 1b. and given that everyone in the dispute about such a change will claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, how can we tell who _is_? 2. and if those claims can be invalidated by the passage of time, why should we place any greater trust in the rest of the NT? -- I am not now and never have been a member of Mensa. -- Ariadne. [I'm less clear than you on why changes should always be in the direction of being stricter. A change is a change. I guess my basic perspective is simply very different. I don't see any unchangeable rules in the NT at all. It's hard to come up with a non-controversial example of a weakening on the rules, because of course there are people who believe as a matter of principle it's not possible to happen. I see the increased role of women as one. Becoming Christian involved a radical change in perspective. I see no reason to think that all the consequences of that change were immediately apparent, even to Paul. The principle is clear: in Christ there is no male or female. But in the 1st Cent. situation I am not surprised that it wasn't completely carried out. (It even makes sense. Their goal was to proclaim Christ, not to become known as innovators in social relationships. Having scandalous changes in the role of women would detract from the basic scandal of the cross.) I guess I see dealing with the NT in areas of ethics as being a more complex process than you do. Simply finding a place where somebody says not to do something doesn't end it for me. I start wanting to know why he said it. Was he giving advice specific to the situation, either of the particular people he was talking to or of the culture as a whole? Does it follow from the Gospel in a direct way, or does he ends up saying, "well, if you don't agree with me there's nothing I can say except we don't do it that way." (I Cor. 11:16) So I think my basic disagreement is over the claim that Scripture purports to provide rules. I believe one of the basic messages of Christianity is that there are no rules binding on a Christian. However as you say, we have to live somehow. In principle I think everyone has responsibility for their own standards. However in practice I expect to start with standards from the Christian community (my own, since Christianity is far from uniform). I use the Bible to judge it. But what I expect to get out of the Bible is not final judgements so much as examples of how a Christian makes decisions. Unless my situation is the same, I won't necessary expect to get the same result. However it should be possible to trace my judgements back to the same starting point in the Gospel. The problem with this is that I'm not going to be able to say "this is Wrong" or "this is Right" and have a clearcut way to prove it. But I am not convinced God intended us to have assured truth. When you look at the world, or even just the Church, it seems to me that you either have to take a very narrow view -- there's an absolute truth, and only I know it, and 99% of the world is damned -- or you have to conclude that God is simply not as concerned about complete agreement as we are. As far as I'm concerned you do your best to determine the right way to act, and you trust to God's grace to rescue you from your mistakes. But you shouldn't expect to know for certain that you are Right. To me that's what the Tree of Knowledge represents: a guaranteed source of knowledge about what is right and wrong, that would eliminate the need to depend upon God. --clh]