Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Belief - (nf) Message-ID: <671@pucc-h> Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 09:47:30 EST Article-I.D.: pucc-h.671 Posted: Fri Apr 13 09:47:30 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 08:38:10 EST References: <330@iuvax.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 90 Daryel Akerlind properly demolished an article I think I wrote when I was half asleep.... >> = Sargent > = Akerlind >> ....there is a choice that one can make: One can choose either to commit >> oneself to follow Christ (you might add: if He's really there) and try to >> live like Him and be as self-sacrificing as He, or to continue to live >> entirely for oneself. It's a question of commitment more than belief. > (1) Can you really expect someone to commit themselves to Christ when they > do not believe? That strikes me as absurd; it would be totally arbitrary. > I might as well commit myself to following the Reverend Moon or Allah. > (No offence intended to Muslims.) For the moment, one can at least commit oneself to the attempt to live a loving life, as Christ exemplified, and as Paul analyzed in I Corinthians 13; i.e. commit oneself to a life of growth into full humanity. I agree that it's unlikely, if not impossible, to commit oneself to someone in whom one does not believe. > (2) How dare you say that the alternative to committing oneself to Christ is > living entirely for oneself! I expect the followers of every other > religious persuasion as well as the humanists and many others to leap on > you for that. I think my paragraph came out wrong. (I've just been reading C.S. Lewis's *The Problem of Pain*; much of this material is a dyspeptically digested version of some of his stuff. This, BTW, provides an argument against those who would wish us to post summaries of books on the net; our summaries may well be distorted.) Actually, Lewis himself has speculated (in *Mere Christianity*, even) that God may save some people who have never heard of Christ or Christianity, but who try to live a loving life. (I do wonder what God will do for the Jews, many of whom undoubtedly are very good people but who reject Jesus as Messiah despite His fulfilling many prophecies of the suffering Messiah.) Perhaps what I wanted to say was: Don't trust in your own righteousness, though it may be great (in fact you come across as basically a very good person--honest, sensitive, etc.--just bitter); rather, ask for God to give you Christ's righteousness. I grant that this gets back to your basic difficulty of belief that God is a) there at all, b) righteous, c) loving. I'll talk more about this later. I cannot disagree with your comment that someone who is seeking truth, God, or what/whoever as sincerely as he (she?) knows how is not cutting himself off from God (yes, this is slightly paraphrased, but I think this states the idea correctly). I also agree that committing oneself to something which one does not think true is indeed a "betrayal of [one's] search for truth"; since it would mean committing to something which one considered untrue, this is obvious. I am glad that you are looking for truth rather than doctrines. As to why it is recommended to "try Christ": Many belief systems include the idea of trying to be righteous and gain approval of god(s) (if any) entirely by our own efforts. Christianity states that we are unconditionally loved even while we are sinners, and that we can have help as we seek to be righteous. Christianity offers a better deal. > At first I was told "pray and Christ (or God) will surely answer you". > When he didn't answer me I was told that was because I had prayed without > belief. (I guess that some Christians have a well-developed sense of irony.) Aarghh! If that were really the way things worked (or didn't work), no one could be saved (i.e. if you don't believe, pray; but your prayer won't work because you don't believe). Some Christians, it must be conceded, apparently lack a well-developed sense of logic.... > So, if God (Christ or whoever) is out there, why is he making me suffer > so much by not revealing himself to me. I am trying my hardest to find > the truth, and if he is the truth, then I am trying my hardest to find him. Alas, I have only one honest answer to your question: I don't know! (That exclamation point means to read the sentence very plaintively.) I have no idea why, specifically, God would make you wait. I hope that someday you will look back on this experience and see that it was better to wait than to know right off. The Bible does contain a verse which is usually translated something like "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." The kicker is that (if I recall correctly) the verbs in the Greek are actually in a tense that might more accurately be translated "keep asking", "keep seeking", "keep knocking". I pray that you may have the strength, courage, and patience to do that. -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq One man's data are another man's garbage.