Before I go on I want to thank you for discussing these things with me. I receive your comments in this forum as care and concern for me and for those reading. I have probably been too harsh in some of my posts and I am bothered that I can only communicate with words here (as opposed to actions and face to face communication which allows for voice fluctuations and non-verbal cues). The last thing I want to be is ungrateful for your investment or come across as a clanging cymbal. I believe sharpening can occur instead of just a fruitless argument and I trust you believe the same since we continue
In regard to reason and logic:
God is reasonable but:
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9
"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?" Romans 11:33, 34
God is reasonable to God, but His ways and His judgements are unsearchable and unfathomable to us! Who has known the mind of the Lord? His thoughts and ways are higher than ours by more than we can measure! How much higher are the heavens than the earth? Where do the heavens end that we could even measure this distance? This should humble us before a mighty and Holy God. Everyone who encounters Him throws themselves on their faces with fear. Every angel has to first say, "Don't be afraid! Do not fear!" before addressing us.
His words are reasonable, as are His ways, but His reason and understanding and comprehension are far above ours.
Merriam-Webster defines reason:
the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways.
Rational is: having reason or understanding.
Understanding is: a mental grasp : comprehension.
Comprehension is: a : the act or action of grasping with the intellect : understanding b : knowledge gained by comprehending c : the capacity for understanding fully <mysteries that are beyond our comprehension>
Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes
Proverbs 3:5-7a
I don't want to get in the way of God's Word speaking to you. I beg you to meditate on the verses I present in their context, but I won't be offended if you ignore my words, nor will insist that I am infallible. Just because I haven't agreed with most of your critiques so far doesn't mean I insist I am infallible. I just disagree with you about the interpretations of a number of verses. I believe God's law requires perfect righteousness.Benstenson wrote:
You have effectively written on top of the words of the bible by using faulty reasoning instead of sound reasoning in order to understand the bible. You have actually elevated your own faulty reasoning above the bible by calling your interpretations "God's Word" and not accepting a critique of your interpretations unless the critique is consistent with those same interpretations. You have thereby constructed a wall of infallibility around yourself. You may have changed your mind about passages here and there but you have shown a total disregard to sound judgment in this discussion because you treat logic as if it is fallible and you are not.
I believe that human logic is fallible (including mine) but I believe that God's logic is not fallible. I believe that human logic and God's logic are very different (based on the above verses) and that is why I believe we should use God's Word to discover His logic. We certainly use our own logic to interpret scripture, but when we don't lean on it (rely solely on it) we can be guided by His Spirit in understanding it (Galatians 5:18). When using our logic to interpret His logic, we may come across something we don't understand. We can write it off, or we can submit ourselves to it, as God's Word. When we run across something in God's Word that doesn't jive with our understanding, how do we become aware of this dilemma? I think confusion is my indicator. My logic stops and I have to make a choice about what I am going to trust.
God's judgement is the only sound judgement. My judgements are wrong until they are His, and they will probably never be perfectly aligned until this life is over (1 Corinthians 13:12).
I believe He has shared part of His logic with us in this life. However, there are many times where we are just asked to trust, without understanding the reason why (Proverbs 3). I think we probably contradict ourselves a lot, without realizing it. God is faithful and in 2 Corinthians 1 Paul states that he is preaching God's promises which, in Him, do not contradict themselves (they are yes, in Him). I believe this rests the responsibility for congruency in God, not man.Benstenson wrote:
Logic is not fallible because it is an attribute of God's own mind which He has shared with us. Our underlying assumptions are fallible, but when logic is used properly, it only has one primary rule, don't contradict yourself. The bible says, "As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No." Not contradictory. What would be wrong with their word being yes and no if holding someone accountable for blatant contradictions can just be shrugged off and belittled as worldly wisdom? So to interpret the bible, which requires using logic whether one admits it our not, and then to reject logic, which bible-reading actually depends on, when a contradiction appears between one's interpretation and sound judgment itself - that is truly a contradiction, a Yes and a No.
"But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us-by me and Silvanus and Timothy -was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes" 2 Corinthians 1:18-20a
Do you feel that you are holding me accountable for blatant contradictions and I am shrugging it off and belittling your rebuke as worldly wisdom? I apologize if I have communicated this to you. It was not my intention to do so. I want to encourage you to stand firm in your faith, and to grow in it. I believe you are looking intently into God's Word, and I do not believe you are rebuking me with worldly wisdom. You present God's Word, which I appreciate. As I apply God's laws to my life and continue to fall short of His righteousness, I continually rely on His grace and mercy which has brought me to my current understanding of the verses we have discussed. I don't find any blatant contradictions in my interpretations, even as you rebuke me. Please see my response below concerning the definition of love.
I believe the rational mind provides man's rationale, without the Word of God, which is truth.Benstenson wrote:
The rational mind provides knowledge even if there was no bible. But the bible is useless to a creature that has no rational mind. One person said "The bible was made for the mind, not the mind for the bible." This is obvious. God did not author the bible for rocks and plants to read it. God designed the bible for rational creatures to rationally understand it. Reason or rational thought is more fundamental than communication. God was rational before He became the author of scripture. Likewise people are rational before they understand the scripture. I am not devaluing the scripture. I am saying that rational thought is like a bible itself that God has written into our minds.
"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth." John 17:17
You've stated a lot of things here as if they are certainly true, but let's leave these certain affirmations of truth to God's Word. Otherwise, we may find ourselves confidently affirming things that aren't necessarily true.
I believe the middle of Romans 2 is stating that men without the law will still be judged, and not that God's Word is instinctively written in their minds. The WORK of the law is shown to be written on their hearts as they do things written in the law and their consciences accuse or defend, but I believe this is very different from them understanding God's Word...
What is the work of the law? The law was added for a purpose... which the Bible states is for sin to increase. I believe that this work is accomplished in those who defile their consciences apart from the Word of God. God made His eternal power and divine nature evident to these without His Word, through what has been made (Romans 1), but I don't see where God shows us that carnal man is as logical as God and His Word.
Our minds can identify things we have learned are things, and can remember the spiritual things God has revealed to us (sometimes) but the accuracy of the information is not equally worth leaning on as God's Word is worth leaning on. I read something in the Bible one day, and it sometimes slowly changes over time, until when I read it again I can't believe how my mind and time have mutilated it. I don't believe our minds faithfully accumulate knowledge. They leak. They forget. I see where Romans 1 states that we can clearly see God's eternal power and divine nature from what has been made, but how does this refute God's Word as better to lean on than our understanding?Benstenson wrote:
If the testimony of our own minds was not trustworthy then we could not know for certain if we were actually reading the bible or not. Maybe we are actually reading some spy novel while our faulty minds are telling us that it is the bible. This is the ridiculous and inevitable logical result of denying the validity of the human mind as a source of accurate information. If the human mind is such a poor source of information then maybe anything could be true. This is a complete rejection of knowledge and truth altogether. Unless someone accepts that the human mind is a valid source of information, they can by no means accept that the bible is a valid source of information, because no man can read the bible unless he first has a mind that can faithfully accumulate knowledge. Bible only is not even a biblical view, especially in light of Romans chapter one.
I don't say that love is more than a state of the will... God did. Read 1 Corinthians 13 again, and find what God says love is. I am not adding to God's Word. I quoted it. How is this a stumbling block, or a false Gospel? God also stated that HE IS LOVE!!! GOD IS CERTAINLY MORE THAN A STATE OF THE WILL!!!Benstenson wrote:
If you say that love is more than a state of the will then you add to God's word, create a stumbling block, and a false gospel.
God's ways are discussed in Isaiah 55:9Benstenson wrote:
You give a whole new meaning to "the letter kills" by making God's ways out to be impossible.
I only trust myself as far as I can throw myself. I am a broken, desperate man, whose only hope is in the Bible. I have found a hope in the Bible that never existed in obvious revelations to the human mind apart from the Bible.Benstenson wrote:
If someone rejects the obvious revelations given to the human mind apart from the bible then they should not be trusted with the bible.
"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14
The law was given to show man's sinfulness. Keep it.Benstenson wrote:
There is plenty of good counsel against elevating the letter of the command above the intent of the law until the law becomes impossible.
So, you never sin? You are perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect?Benstenson wrote:
Then you either chose to obey God for the wrong reasons, or chose for the right reason but then changed your mind in order to sin, or you you just noticed some involuntary shortcoming or immaturity that you had no control over and believed the devil that it was a sin. The third option is the only one that won't land someone in hell. The best case scenario is if you were accused and confused by the devil that your God-given human limitations are somehow sinful. But even so, you are still accountable to reason.
You draw your own conclusion here, but the Bible still states that sin is lawlessness. Nowhere does it state that sin is a wrong state of the will (perhaps it is, but this is not a comprehensive or biblical definition).Benstenson wrote:
The law is love. Love is a state of the will. Sin is transgression of the law. Therefore sin is a wrong state of the will.
Obeying a law is doing what is legal. Obedience is all about legalism. You obey the traffic law and you are a law-abiding citizen. You are legal. It is illegal to break a law or disobey a law. This is lawlessness and is sin. God's law demands lawful behavior.Benstenson wrote:
If you are truly wicked then your obedience was only legalism and failure inevitable. This is not what God calls us to. Obedience is not about legalism.
God's law only approves of "he who does what is right".
I need a Savior.
