The Bible is Law and Should Be Followed Accordingly

Interesting. My opponent opened his debate by offering the dictionary definition of law. But then he protested when I rebutted his opening arguments by delving more deeply into this definition. Never mind that he even opened his last argument by appealing to the "need to address what law is". Can we both at least agree that addressing the meaning of law is a discovery topic that is central to this debate? If so, my opponent cannot then talk out of both sides of his mouth: He should not appeal to the definition of law for his side and then claim that I'm off topic when I do the same on my side.At any rate, this is a moot point because my opponent already lost the debate with his opening argument. Here is why. He opened by claiming that the resolution is a "syllogism": [p1] The bible is law; [p2] Therefore it should be followed accordingly. Actually, this is not even a syllogism [1] but for the sake of brevity, let's give my opponent a pass on this. Unfortunately for my opponent, and contrary to his claim, premise 1 (p1) can and should be contested. First, the bible is a Christian text, not a Jewish text; so let's exclude Jewish people from this because they would reject the bible out of hand. This is important because one could conceivably argue that the Torah, (i.e., Old Testament (OT)) is law to all Jews and therefore all Jews should follow the Torah. The bible, however, includes the New Testament (NT), in addition to the OT. And the NT proclaims that the law of the OT is obsolete [2]:"But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." (Romans 7:6)In Judaism, the OT (aka, the Torah) is seen as the Law of God. Therefore, a follower of God in the Jewish tradition must assiduously try to follow the OT as law. In this way, a devotee of Judaism is "justified by works". In the bible, however, the NT and the OT. According to the NT, followers of Christ have been freed from the Law and they are now "justified by faith". This NT paradigm has created an age-old debate that is now known as "justification by faith" vs "justification by works" [3]. For most Christians then, the bible really should not be viewed as law. In fact, the bible as we know it today was not even compiled until the 4th century [4]. Early Christians believed that the Holy Spirit (not the bible) would guide them spiritually [5] and they also believed that Jesus' second coming was imminent. So, initially, they were not concerned about compiling a holy book for future generations [6]. Establishing a set of rules and "bylaws" for the Church as a perpetual human institution was also far into the future.So, for a Christian and his bible, the notion of law, moral and secular, is a relevant topic of debate. It is too bad that my opponent completely missed this. For this reason alone, my opponent lost this debate.In case some voters need more reasons to vote for me, I'd also like to point out that my opponent committed a debate faux pas by repeatedly putting the word, "federal" in my mouth. In fact, I never uttered the word "federal" a single time in my previous rounds. Instead, I described law as emerging by consensus within a community. The ultimate ideal is to uniformly apply a system of laws as fairly and equitably as possible. Of course this notion of law applies to any community! It is not confined to a federal system. For example, Common Law emerged at the grass roots, among small communities. As it grew into a robust system of law, it was gradually formalized and absorbed into bigger "jurisdictions" until it was adopted into a country's government. (England was the first country to utilize the Common Law system [7]. England's government, by the way, is not a federal system.)For any community (church or otherwise), the process of forming laws by consensus is complicated. It may involve political and economic pressure, debate, compromise, etc. The outcome of this process does not necessarily involve someone's personal views being codified into law. Any lawmaker would probably agree that, in the process of debate and compromise, any one person's personal views do not usually survive the law making process without significant alterations. The law making process is truly a community process -- any one person's views contribute to this process but the community does not necessarily adopt this person's views as law. The process of forming consensus is a complex process. My opponent is simply wrong to reject this notion as "entirely false". Au contraire, it is correct.Any way, as I said earlier, my opponent lost the debate with his opening argument. By asserting that the Christian bible is law to Christians, he fell into a familiar trap. Namely, he thought that Christianity falls into the conventional paradigm of a religion with moral laws that must be obeyed for salvation. He wrongly applied the Old Testament paradigm to the New Testament.Agree or not, Christians themselves view their salvation as already assured by the grace of God. The law for a true follower of Jesus is therefore obsolete. For a Christian, good works come not from adhering to moral law -- a prescription for salvation. Rather, good works are a description of a follower who has already been saved by God through grace. For a Christian, good works and moral laws are a description, not a prescription [6].By not understanding the crux of the debate, it is my opponent who has been arguing off-topic.[1] A syllogism should have three parts: a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. http://en.wikipedia.org.... [2] Bible, English Standard Version (ESV); See also: Romans 6:14, 1 Corinthians 15:56, and Ephesians 2:8[3] Are Christians Justified by Faith or by Works? http://christianity.about.com...[4] Who compiled the Bible and when? http://answers.yahoo.com...[5] Romans 8:13-16[6] The New Testament " An Introduction, by N. Perrin, D. Dulin, and D.C. Dulin[7] History of the Common Law, http://labspace.open.ac.uk...