We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you believe the God of Scripture is working through various types of religions to be present in the world?
16 comments:
You surely enjoy the provocative! Can I dare to limit God? Romans 1 somewhat begs the question. I might have worded the question differently from you, but ultimately I think that God is present in the world and works over, under, in, around and through various religions to let himself be known.
I hope so. Otherwise this world will never come to peace. With all due respect to the Christian religion, it will never rise to a unversal religion. God better pour himself out there in any way he can.
But maybe the world is already in peace because there is no peace and no war but just aesthetics. I doubt it though.
I would like to think that people of various religions can find God and right standing with God through their various religions. But you ask about the God of Scripture. So what does Scripture say? Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Can one come to God through Jesus without acknowledging Jesus? Perhaps. Honestly though, I find it difficult to argue from Scripture that a follower of a different religion can be justified by the God of Scripture (for example see 1 John 5:10-12). Perhaps Scripture teaches that justification cannot be accessed through any other religion, but I think one could argue from Scripture that other religions provide pieces of the truth – thereby revealing parts of the God of Scripture. I do think a distinction should be made between various Religions -which teach a mixture of truths and falsehoods and the Individuals who practice various religions –hopefully able to pick out the truths of their religion and in so doing find pieces of the true God.
Carter,
Thanks. Looks like Romans 1 is more creational, than religious per se. I think God's presence/absence, in all the ways you mention, is there partially and not there completely from this standpoint. Many religions, however, would go against the God of Scripture, so I guess another question is how far this God can be stretched before becoming the ultimate contradiction to that which claims to have been revealed.
Sisyphos,
Thanks. Seems to me that peace on earth will only come about when the God of Scripture decides to set it in place through some massive act or event. This God can do this without having to put himself out there and hoping for the best.
I agree with your claim about the Christian faith not being able to rise to a universal religion (that would support the point about the need for God to definitively act) and the doubt about "just aesthetics" - there is so much more.
Ben A
Thanks. This is a helpful way of starting to formulate it. While there may be some fragments of the God of Scripture in various religions, the overall orientation of them can end up being against this God, when assessed by the claims of Scripture.
I suggest that insufficient pieces of truth may have the double function of leading people towards or away from Christ - who is the truth, and this will depend on a myriad of factors that somehow the God of Scripture will take into account.
Then what is he waiting for? He should better have come long ago. Or as System of A Down put it: "Young men standing on the top of their own graves
Wondering when Jesus comes, are they gonna be saved
Cruelty to the winner, bishop tells the king his lies
Maybe you're a mourner, maybe you deserve to die
They were crying when their sons left
God is wearing black
He's gone so far to find no hope
He's never coming back."
On the other side, maybe there is some hope. We have crossed the circle of inclusion of race, now we are at the brim to the circle of inclusion of all men. Maybe it will happen soon, but you never know in this world. Maybe a comet knocks us out tomorrow and then the 7000 years of civilization will be nothing. It is amazing what human beings achieved in the last 500 years. From "the earth is everything" to "Universe is so incredibly big and vast" but what is the end of that? All knowledge will fade away one day. Well, we dont know. We can just speculate. Coming back to the religions though and Scripure: there is this passage in Acts in which Paul sees "the unknown God" and says that this statue is the God of Scriptures.
Can we really believe that the people in other religions didnt care about the truth? If they did, wouldnt God somehow reveal himself to them and wouldnt this revelation influence their religion?
Time to let some reason rule my thinking.
All right, can we agree on the assumption that human beings have some choice and are not totally evil? Whoever does not share this view but believes that human beings are totally evil, may raise his words and I will try to respond to this assumption.
If we are fine with my assumption, then it follows that people who never heard of Scriptures were looking sincerely for God. How would God respond to that? Well, he could not reveal himself but give those people credit for their "good heart". That would mean that he saves those people but that their religion is still untrue.
Fine, sounds coherent.
But wouldn't he also somehow influence them and their hearts? Wouldn't he pour out the spirit into them? Why would he hesitate to do so? It seems to me more probable that he would do so. In this case the religions must have been influenced by God because some religions are very open for different points of views. Sure, Popism is a religion based on power. The Pope speaks and his bishops behind him and whoever disagrees (like Hans Küng) is casted out. But Hinduism for example is so different from this powerstructure that you almost cannot call it a religion. It is a loose worldview in which there is much mouvement and different points of views. Sure I think they have their holy texts but I think they are very open to different interpretations. Would God not hae found some "open heart" there and poured his spirit into them, thus influencing their writings?
A different approach:
What are the revealing forces of the Christian Deity? Would you agree that it is Scripture and the Spirit?
Now let us look at the interpretation of Scripture within the Christian mouvement. There is the mystic God, the God beyond Good and Evil, the powerless God, the God who lets choose and the God who throws the dice (beloved Calvinism). What is the true nature of God?
I am sure some other religions will fit to some of those depictions and interpretations. If we agree that those people are saved within the Christian religion, why do we think we could exclude the other religions who somehow may fit to those interpretations. Sure, if we cut away many branches of Christianity, such as Calvinsim and Popism, then we can stay more exclusive.
Sisyphos,
Great to have your comments. You ask, What is God waiting for? That's a very good question, but one that only God can answer. I'm simply not in a position to suppose I have enough knowledge to explain why not now. My limits are severe and profound, yet as far as I can see, the waiting could have a purpose that transcends my or anyone's present existence.
No question that some care about the truth and others. But that is not sufficient to deal with the not caring and selfishness that pervades our flesh and bones. People may, for example, be fervently devoted to something or someone, but such worship may be deceptive - so devotion cannot be the criteria for the validity of the who or what.
Since you mention Acts, I include part of chapter 17 below, which may be pertinent to the subject at hand. The unknown God, as far as I can tell, is not the God of Paul. Here it is.
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Sisyphos,
Assumption is agreed. What the destiny of those who've never heard is, remains up to God, who will not do the wrong thing. God, it appears, has to consider many angles, obstacles, and perspectives, but has the capacity to do so with love and justice.
True, God may be revealing, but this does not mean that this will get through. Such a revelation is sometimes met with rejection, sometimes blindness, or it is so counter weighted by something or someone else, that it goes unnoticed.
I have a hard time seeing how the writings of some religions that may be against or relativize the God of Scripture, as coming from that source.
Sisyphos,
I would add the world.
I suppose the diversity of interpretations within the Christian context, as constructive or destructive as they may be - surely there's plenty of deception in us all to go around - do have some central claims in common.
The Hebrew and Christian Bible is full of accounts of those who thought they were in, only to find out that following God and Christ was quite a radical and surprising venture, different from what they first assumed.
If Christianity is so radical, how can you know then that you are a true follower of Jesus Christ? And if someone wants to argue with grace, then I would like to say that this is a cop-out. If the Christian God is so peculiar about the right prospositional knowledge then I would be forever haunted by fear. If he does not care about the genuine outcry of those in agony outside of sriptural information, how would he then care about my quest for truth within Scripture? Either God is very gracious and inclusive who gives peace to our tormented souls or he is the God of war who will never cease to suffocate our spirit and who will always hunt us down. His spears we will always fear, his deadly eyes will always burn into our souls, his wrath like a sword on a thin hair of a horse over our heads hovers.
"oh my, oh my, who should I be
to really be accepted by thee,
if those in fearful agony
who do not know your word accurately,
will tremble, scream eternally?"
That is what I felt within Christianity: If the right propositions are so important, then I better get the facts about him right, otherwise I might be doomed. The problem, though, as you described, is that this God is omniscient and I will never exhaust his Being but will forever fail to know who he is. If there is no understanding on God's part about our limitedness, then we ought to try like Sisyphos, and roll up the rock , while knowing that we always will fail, because the rock will roll down again and never reach the final stage. Camus said one has to imagine Sispyhos to be happy, but this God is a cruel one. If the first thing he wants to know is: "Do you know Jesus?" and the affirmation of this question is the condition for being there when a little girl is crying and pouring his spirit into heir soul in horror, then I will not care about this rock of knowledge and truth but will renounce the goodness of such deity.
Which by the way does not follow from your claim that he is more objective. The people who built the nuclear bomb certainly had more objective knowlege but I rather share my self with a primitve in a shed than with those brilliant scientists.
Allricht, the rock just went down.
Sisyphos,
Having faith in the Other - acknowledging the limits of self - admitting the striking need for redemption in all relationships and the cosmos, and accepting the veracity of the biblical text, which claims that Jesus is the Messiah, and then confessing and embracing this as for what it is, would be a few of the ways of knowing that one is a true follower of Christ. In addition, those who precede us and have made following mistakes have much to teach us about this, and we learn something about truly following from them.
Seems possible to know something of who God is, and while there is always more and mystery, this does not result in knowing nothing.
I have no reason to believe that God does not care about genuine outcry.
Either - or formulations, as you have stated it tend to reduce our options and the one you mention is not persuasive.
What you "felt" in Christianity might not be trustworthy - "felt" might mislead or even deceive. A much more holistic account of interpersonal dimensions, that is, reason, imagination, sense observation and so forth, are important as a first step in assessing claims.
You seem to assume the view that God is totally responsible for all that happens - not sure that is feasible or what kind of a world it would be or beings we would be, if it was.
I think the orientation that you fall into embracing is Cartesian - starting and ending with self. That's problematic on several accounts, perhaps even your own.
d“Having faith in the Other - acknowledging the limits of self - admitting the striking need for redemption in all relationships and the cosmos, and accepting the veracity of the biblical text, which claims that Jesus is the Messiah, and then confessing and embracing this as for what it is, would be a few of the ways of knowing that one is a true follower of Christ. In addition, those who precede us and have made following mistakes have much to teach us about this, and we learn something about truly following from them. “
Which other? This is not a path which universally would lead to truth. If I was an Indian the other would be a Buddhist and according to your opinion I should not trust him.
What is the use of being redeemed if the world is not? What is the purpose of me being happy and alive if the world is in tears?
“Seems possible to know something of who God is, and while there is always more and mystery, this does not result in knowing nothing.”
You are assuming that a person can know God who knows Scripture, but what about the Indian who never heard about the word of God? He would be caught up in total mystery if he rejected the religions around him.
I have no reason to believe that God does not care about genuine outcry.
“Me neither but what is genuine outcry? What does he want from us? Aren’t the poems of so many people enough talking about pain and suffering? Aren’t they crying out for God?
“Either - or formulations, as you have stated it tend to reduce our options and the one you mention is not persuasive.”
In the face of judgement there is just either – or.
“What you "felt" in Christianity might not be trustworthy - "felt" might mislead or even deceive. A much more holistic account of interpersonal dimensions, that is, reason, imagination, sense observation and so forth, are important as a first step in assessing claims.”
Don’t we all do that in some way? We all imagine and think and observe and so forth yet we disagree. What do you think you have which separates you from those who not believe in Christ?
“You seem to assume the view that God is totally responsible for all that happens - not sure that is feasible or what kind of a world it would be or beings we would be, if it was. “
What does he want? Why did he even create this world? Because he wants freedom rather than goodness? What does he want? How does he spend his time? Watching us die and cry while justifying himself? Why did he watch this world for billions of years to be created? Why did he create this world through pain and survival of the self? What does he do? Where is he? What did he do while millions of Jews were killed? Why does he not turn off the light? There is aesthetics, yes, but also pain and the fear to be judged one day by God.
“I think the orientation that you fall into embracing is Cartesian - starting and ending with self. That's problematic on several accounts, perhaps even your own.“
I don’t understand your last sentence.
Thanks for your comments. I am not very reasonable in my comments, I know. Yet maybe the existentialist and emotional view has its right, too, I assume. I can detach myself from my emotional writing if this is requested and let reason and detachment kick in again.
Sisyphos,
I think there is only one Other - the Infinite, who reveals through creation, Christ, Spirit, and the testifying word.
But the claim is that the world is being and will be redeemed - how? that's for the Infinite One to decide. Being redeemed may not make one happy - this is such a hard concept to describe - not sure what happiness is.
I already mentioned this earlier in a comment - "What the destiny of those who've never heard is, remains up to God, who will not do the wrong thing. God, it appears, has to consider many angles, obstacles, and perspectives, but has the capacity to do so with love and justice."
By the way, I don't think the Indian or anyone else for that matter, who might reject their various religious perspectives, would be left in total mystery - there is no such thing as that - and some Indians can and do become followers of Christ.
You come to the either-or of judgement - not sure how you get here - your source of this either-or and why you trust it are of interest.
There is a difference between what we do and what we are aware of - monologues are deceptive - but they often are primary - whereas interpersonal dialogue heightens awareness, leading to a truer picture of being human. We are distinct from each other, but related to each other in many ways. I would say that a Christian has a different views including, the Other, self, world, truth, deception, trust, and suspicion.
Some of these why, where, and what questions are unanswerable for anyone - but of course they can all be countered with positive factors and outcomes - you dwell in the negative and I agree there is a place for that in our world - it's just not a big enough picture.
The last sentence about Descartes and you. I just meant that you would probably not agree with Descartes - yet if you begin and end with yourself - that's what you're doing.
Thanks so much for your interaction with this question, and for your thoughts, and comments.
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