From: n5ppm264 (Charlie Board)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Sola Scriptura (was Re: Perfect Prophets?)
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:01:16 GMT
Organization: bnr

In article <Aug.18.03.34.53.1992.28477@aramis.rutgers.edu>, hedrick@aramis.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
> 
> bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
> 
> >Even if it is, the disturbing tendency among Christians is to
> >base an entire belief or dogma on one or two scriptures, or even on 
> >one WORD in their favorite scripture.  Look at the abortion storm over
> >the phrase "before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you".
> 
> >Many Christians will try to extract volumes of information out of the
> >placement of words, or even where a comma falls; i.e. Christ's words to
> >the thief on the cross:
> 
> >"Verily I say unto you, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise."
> >vs,
> >"Verily I say unto you today, thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
> 
> There are areas where Christians realize and admit that there is
> disagreement.  While a noisy channel can be used for communication,
> there are going to be times when individual portions of the signal
> can't be interpreted.  Implicit in the concept of using redundancy is
> that the total amount of information is reduced.  You put in a noisy
> signal, and you get out a smaller amount of information that you're
> fairly sure about.  At the edges there are going to be things you're
> less sure about.  Eschatology is generally understood to be one of
> these areas.  (Not that Christians generally explain it in terms of
> information theory, but there's a basic principle that disagreements
> on eschatology are not matters on which to deny Christian fellowship.)
> Fortunately, this is not an issue on which salvation depends.
> 
> However I would also say that this is only one of many passages
> involved in the discussion.  You're right that people spend lots of
> time looking at the implications of specific passages.  But that's
> only the first stage.  Having reached what they think is an
> understanding of a number of passages, they try to make sense out of
> all of them.  It's sort of a spiral process, because passages that are
> clearer are used as a basis to try and make sense out of those that
> are not so clear.  At any rate, I guarantee you that no theologian
> would decide the question of whether there's an intermediate state
> between death and the second coming based on that passage alone.  Yes,
> it's an important text, but there are others.
> 
> Discussions on the net can be misleading, because it's simply not
> practical to present arguments in complete detail.  Most major
> theological issues have many monographs written on them -- whole books
> that deal with single issues like the intermediate state.  These books
> review the evidence from the Bible as a whole.  They in turn quote
> from journal articles and more specialized books, which will deal with
> single passages or study a single word throughout the Bible or (more
> commonly) as used by one Biblical author.  This approach is used by
> everyone -- liberal and conservative.  In fact if there's any
> tendency, the conservatives probably have more voluminous scholarship.
> Obviously I'm talking about what I'd regard as "responsible"
> conservatives -- which certainly includes many who believe in
> inerrancy.  There are plenty of churches where one person receives a
> "revelation" and sets himself up as an authority.  But most of the
> views you see argued here have good scholarship behind them.
> Unfortunately the people posting here (and I'm included) simply don't
> have the background or time to present all of the scholarship.
> 
> Abortion is a similar issue.  It's natural that Christians would try
> to find Biblical evidence on the subject.  But it's not a topic that
> was ever dealt with specifically in the Bible, so we're trying to find
> implications that are somewhat indirect.  This isn't an issue of
> error, or of noise in the signal.  Rather, it's an issue of trying to
> find information on questions that aren't dealt with at all, by
> looking at related matters that may allow you to extrapolate a
> conclusion.  In some cases, even though something isn't dealt with
> explicitly it's clear what would be said.  But it's not surprising
> that in others it is not.  At any rate, the point I'm trying to make
> is that inerrancy is not at issue in abortion.
> 
> But again, no one that I know of justifies a position on abortion
> based on a single passage.  The analyses that I've seen all look at
> quite a range of passages.
> 
> There has been a debate recently on Num. 5.  The original posting
> seemed "playful" to me.  That is, it seemed like a straightfaced
> literalist argument being made by someone who didn't actually take the
> approach seriously. 
  
 I believe I was *the original poster*, at least this time around. I plead
guilty both to making a literalist argument and to not taking that approach 
seriously. However, I assure you that there was no "playfulness" intended!
I was merely trying to engage my "enemy" on their battlefield, since as a
general rule they refuse to engage on the more rational fields of 
liberty and constitionality. I don't know about Catholic areas, but here
in the Bible belt (North Carolina in my case), the prime (nearly the
only) argument made against freedom of choice is that it is against God's
law as revealed in the Bible. Here at least most of those making that 
statement hold either to a strong inerrant or literalist tradition. I was
trying to make the point that even according to this position (which again
I don't hold), I see NO biblical evidence that god disapproves of abortion.
If the Numbers passage DOES refer to abortion, God commands it. If not, then
there is no direct statement on abortion in the bible. The clearest biblical
reference to the issue of "humanhood of the fetus" is the Exodus passage that
indicates the fetus is not human. The ONE passage that I've seen used
to support pro-life positions (the Jeremiah verse) is most easily LITERALLY
 read as a reference to foreknowledge and has to be twisted to imply
anything about abortion or the personhood of the fetus. While I feel that in
a free society NO AMOUNT of "religious" evidence can justify repression of
freedom, I don't think it's unfair or "playful" to point out that your
enemy's argument is faulty even on their own terms.

> So the debate you've seen here may not show much
> about how exegesis is done by people who actually affect churches'
> decisions.  My guess (and it's just a guess -- I haven't seen very
> much of the literature on abortion) is that Biblical scholars on both
> sides would see the passage as not having any clear relevance.

Maybe so..but if it is no clear relevance then there certainly are no others
which do. 
> 
> The paradoxical fact is that the amount of noise you see on this group
> about a subject is inversely proportional to how much it matters.  The
> central points of the Bible are clear.  Thus there's not likely to be
> much debate over them.  Endless discussions are over the matters where
> things are not clear.  This can leave the impression that our
> attention is focused on those matters.  It's not.

I'm VERY curious as to what these "clear central points" of the Bible are.
(Note there IS a HINT of playfullness here, but my primariy desire is to 
understand your position better). Would you mind posting a handful of what
you consider to be clear centar points so that we can examine them? I hold
the position that there is not a SINGLE MAJOR POINT in the bible (attribute
of God, event in Jesus life, major doctrine of Christianity,etc) which is
presented redundantly (necessary to overcome your "noise" factor) and clearly
in the bible. While I certainly cannot "prove" this (I can't examine every
"major" point in the Bible), my previous experience can be used as evidence
that it is true. I would be interested in trying to transfer that evidence to 
you by attempting to refute the clarity of some of your most absolute
certainties - are you game?

Sincerely,
Charles Board (email: cnc405@bnr.ca)

"The opinions above are probably not mine alone - but neither are they 
necessarily related in any form to those of my own employers."
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc