XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: theswain@operamail.com
darylgene@aol.com wrote:
> On Apr 25, 6:31�am, Larry Swain wrote:
>
>>darylg...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>>On Apr 24, 4:53?am, "?jevind L?ng" wrote:
>>
>
>>>I am certain of that, I was told that I could not be a Christian and
>>>believe in evolution. To those people I am not a Christian, I respect
>>>that, that is where they have made the distinction. There has to be a
>>>line between A and not A, between a Christian and not a Christian,
>>>otherwise the terms are meaningless. I draw that distinction at the
>>>first two creeds, which is likely not where Christ does, I have not
>>>been given that information.
>>>�I wasn't really focusing there though, my question concerned to what
>>>extent two concepts of God can vary before one says they are different
>>>Gods. It seems to me, that there is an existential difference between
>>>the Christian God and God as percieved by Mohammed and the rest of
>>>Islam; that they have a different, and exclusive, nature. To clarify
>>>then, could the God presented in the creeds be the same God presented
>>>in the Koran? That way perhaps we can avoid the "who is a Christian"
>>>question.
>>
> ... �Christianity says simply that Judaism has not received the full
>
>>revelation of the Godhead, and since Islam worships the same God as
>>Judaism, it too has not the full revelation of the Godhead. �Thus they
>>see darkly what the Christian sees fully. �Of course, Islam claims the
>>same thing: the full revelation of God is complete with Mohammed, and
>>the Christians simply misunderstand their own revelation in Jesus and
>>Judaism just is an incomplete revelation.
>
>
> I find it difficult to reconcile (my admittedly sparse knowledge of)
> Allah with the God of Grace spoken of by Jesus and Paul.
Then maybe the problem is with you and your sparse knowledge. Many
people have difficulty reconciling Paul and Jesus who seem to have very
different takes on God as well, much less reconciling the God of the New
Testament with the God of the Hebrew Bible. So it seems to me that the
level of reconciliation isn't really an accurate measure of whether or
not it is the "same" God manifested differently.
They just do
> not act the same. Nor for that matter does the God expressed in modern
> Judaism, of which I have greater knowledge, though not by any means
> exhaustive.
Ok, fair enough, though I have to say that the God and Bilbliotry I see
in much of the so-called "Christian Right" isn't the God revealed in the
BIble or by Jesus (much less the fact that the Bible explicitly tells us
that a prophet who keeps getting it wrong isn't sent by God and yet Pat
Robertson, JErry Falwell, Hal Lindsey and others who have made
predictions "according to teh Holy Spirit" and yet have been wrong time,
after time, after time. And I'll not even get started on the charlatan
miracle workers et al. Yet I imagine that you would still call Pat,
Jerry, and James Dobson and Hal and the gang at CBN Christians).
Actually, in many respects, the God of Sikhism or the
> Goddess of the Wiccians (and, I suspect, the Great Spirit of Native
> Americans) is closer to having the attributes of the God I see through
> Christ than either of them. Did the Pharasees worship the same God
> that Christ spoke of? It seems to me He did not think so.
Where does Christ say this? He in fact tells his disciples explicitly
to do what the Pharisees tell them to. The question is not whether they
worship a different God, but whether they have interpreted and teach God
and his revelation correctly. Jesus says no, they haven't, but he never
says they worship a different divine being.
If scripture
> is to be believed I think the line will be drawn a little tighter than
> you propose,
Ah, herein lies the problem. We've been talking about the Christian
religion, you're talking about who will and who will not be saved. The
latter question only One can answer.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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