"If the Gospel is not good news for everybody, then it is not good news."
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  "If the Gospel is not good news for everybody, then it is not good news."
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Author Topic: "If the Gospel is not good news for everybody, then it is not good news."  (Read 744 times)
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« on: September 28, 2020, 02:20:42 PM »

My pastor said it yesterday. Obviously he didn't create the quote, but opinion of it?
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2020, 02:22:41 PM »

The Gospel *is* good news, and it is for everybody.

/end thread
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RI
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« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2020, 03:44:39 PM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.
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John Dule
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« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2020, 04:16:58 PM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"
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« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2020, 09:01:45 PM »

do you go to a catholic church?
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« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2020, 09:19:59 PM »

It’s basically Romans 1:16. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of Salvation for everyone who believes.”
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RI
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« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2020, 11:47:17 PM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"

This reductive statement is as valid as saying the message of marriage is "Love your wife so she'll spare you what she'll do if you don't lover her." It is technically valid, in a bare minimum sort of way, but also precisely backward.

The Christian message is to love God for what He has already done for you. Love God because He made you by hand, because he knew you in your mother's womb, because He filled your lungs with His own breath. Love God because He is with you every moment of every day, guiding you with His Spirit, and nudging you toward your heart's greatest joy. Love God because He sees your every flaw, your every fear, your every sin, yet loves you regardless.

Love God for the perfect and beautiful world He created for us, a world designed so that, vastly inferior as our minds may be, we may too know intimately the nature and heart of our creator. Love God because He let us be free. Love God because the sin we choose in that freedom shows us His mercy and justice, lets us understand what the love which is inherent to triune God's nature really means, and through its overcoming and reworking to our good testifies to God's glory.

Love God because He became one of us, lived as one of us, suffered as one of us, and died as one of us. Love God because He redeemed the human nature by His participation in it, healed the mortal sickness that kept us from communion with Himself, paid the price we could not pay, pardoned our crime for which we'd rightly been convicted, and gave us an invitation to rejoin Him forever when we should rightfully wilt in His sight.

And if, after all that, we choose not to love Him in return? If we instead despise Him for what He may do or for what He didn't do or even perhaps for what He did? If we put our love and faith and trust and worship in ourselves or our idols instead of Him? What happens then?

God respects us enough to honor our decision. He'll let us walk away. As CS Lewis writes, "there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, `Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, `Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell."

Separated from God, we collapse in on ourselves. Only without God do we fully realize how much His vast love meant, but in its place we only find our own infinitesimal smallness. Ergo, the pain and agony of Hell are self-inflicted, the door locked from the inside.

It is the husband's love for the wife which makes divorce meaningful and painful. So too it is with God.
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John Dule
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« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2020, 12:08:34 AM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"

This reductive statement is as valid as saying the message of marriage is "Love your wife so she'll spare you what she'll do if you don't lover her." It is technically valid, in a bare minimum sort of way, but also precisely backward.

You think that logic is valid? That's the foundation of an abusive relationship. Although ultimately, I suppose that's what Christianity is-- an abusive relationship with an ever-absent father figure who only shows up every few years on pieces of toast.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of the gibberish you wrote because it sounds like something a patient would scrawl on the wall of their cell in a mental institution.
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« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2020, 12:38:32 AM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"

This reductive statement is as valid as saying the message of marriage is "Love your wife so she'll spare you what she'll do if you don't lover her." It is technically valid, in a bare minimum sort of way, but also precisely backward.

You think that logic is valid? That's the foundation of an abusive relationship. Although ultimately, I suppose that's what Christianity is-- an abusive relationship with an ever-absent father figure who only shows up every few years on pieces of toast.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of the gibberish you wrote because it sounds like something a patient would scrawl on the wall of their cell in a mental institution.

That isn't a very convincing response to what RI wrote, even as I suspect our understandings of Hell and eternal punishment might differ in some fundamental ways. Even so, you're better than this, and you're smart enough to know you've deliberately misrepresented what RI said by picking out four words and ignoring just about everything else.

But it self-evidently is valid. A marriage lacking in love is obviously not a marriage at all even if the state says it is. So with this analogy, the threat of a divorce is pretty meaningless if that is the consequence of a loveless relationship. That is not abuse.

Also, the fact that you sum up the God of Christianity as "an ever-absent father figure" pretty clearly shows you don't understand the basic underpinnings of Christianity, because to the Christian (unless said Christian is a deist), God is ever-present. But you are apparently convinced that any alternative understandings of God to your own are the thoughts of an insane person, so you've essentially rendered any dialogue impossible.
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John Dule
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« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2020, 01:35:36 AM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"

This reductive statement is as valid as saying the message of marriage is "Love your wife so she'll spare you what she'll do if you don't lover her." It is technically valid, in a bare minimum sort of way, but also precisely backward.

You think that logic is valid? That's the foundation of an abusive relationship. Although ultimately, I suppose that's what Christianity is-- an abusive relationship with an ever-absent father figure who only shows up every few years on pieces of toast.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of the gibberish you wrote because it sounds like something a patient would scrawl on the wall of their cell in a mental institution.

That isn't a very convincing response to what RI wrote, even as I suspect our understandings of Hell and eternal punishment might differ in some fundamental ways. Even so, you're better than this, and you're smart enough to know you've deliberately misrepresented what RI said by picking out four words and ignoring just about everything else.

But it self-evidently is valid. A marriage lacking in love is obviously not a marriage at all even if the state says it is. So with this analogy, the threat of a divorce is pretty meaningless if that is the consequence of a loveless relationship. That is not abuse.

Saying that you should do something for me out of fear for what I will do to you if you don't is a threat, plain and simple. It's not a valid reason for staying in that relationship.

Also, the fact that you sum up the God of Christianity as "an ever-absent father figure" pretty clearly shows you don't understand the basic underpinnings of Christianity, because to the Christian (unless said Christian is a deist), God is ever-present. But you are apparently convinced that any alternative understandings of God to your own are the thoughts of an insane person, so you've essentially rendered any dialogue impossible.

Seriously, your argument is that "Christians say God is ever-present, thus God is ever-present"?
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« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2020, 01:46:54 AM »

It's a plainly true statement that is only remotely controversial if you use it to imply universalism. The Gospel is good news for everyone in the sense that everyone was damned under the law but now has the chance to be saved. It's not good news for everyone in the sense that everyone will be saved, and the Bible is pretty clear about that.

"Love God so that He will save you from what He will do to you if you don't love Him"

This reductive statement is as valid as saying the message of marriage is "Love your wife so she'll spare you what she'll do if you don't lover her." It is technically valid, in a bare minimum sort of way, but also precisely backward.

You think that logic is valid? That's the foundation of an abusive relationship. Although ultimately, I suppose that's what Christianity is-- an abusive relationship with an ever-absent father figure who only shows up every few years on pieces of toast.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of the gibberish you wrote because it sounds like something a patient would scrawl on the wall of their cell in a mental institution.

That isn't a very convincing response to what RI wrote, even as I suspect our understandings of Hell and eternal punishment might differ in some fundamental ways. Even so, you're better than this, and you're smart enough to know you've deliberately misrepresented what RI said by picking out four words and ignoring just about everything else.

But it self-evidently is valid. A marriage lacking in love is obviously not a marriage at all even if the state says it is. So with this analogy, the threat of a divorce is pretty meaningless if that is the consequence of a loveless relationship. That is not abuse.

Saying that you should do something for me out of fear for what I will do to you if you don't is a threat, plain and simple. It's not a valid reason for staying in that relationship.

We practically operate on fear every day of our lives. If we don't show up to our jobs, the boss gets mad and cans us. If we don't show up to tomorrow's test, we receive a failing grade. If we're not kind to our parents, you can expect to get the cold shoulder at minimum.

I can't speak for RI on his views regarding Hell, but if we continue with RI's marriage analogy, then fear of divorce is perfectly valid if we're not staying faithful or loving our spouses. Then the relationship dissipates, as one does between really any religious believer and their creed.

Quote
Also, the fact that you sum up the God of Christianity as "an ever-absent father figure" pretty clearly shows you don't understand the basic underpinnings of Christianity, because to the Christian (unless said Christian is a deist), God is ever-present. But you are apparently convinced that any alternative understandings of God to your own are the thoughts of an insane person, so you've essentially rendered any dialogue impossible.

Seriously, your argument is that "Christians say God is ever-present, thus God is ever-present"?

I'm not making an argument, I am literally stating what the Christian belief on God is. Your characterization of an ever-absent God is an alien one to all but a minority of Christians, especially among the practicing.
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« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2020, 10:15:42 AM »

The Gospel is terrible news for Ed Miliband the smug and comfortable.

Also, yes, Dule, you are in fact better than these kinds of misrepresentations and two-cent insults. If you think (as you evidently do) that the Christian belief in an ever-present God is simply not supported by observable reality, then just say that so this conversation can continue to other topics.
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John Dule
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« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2020, 03:09:53 PM »

The Gospel is terrible news for Ed Miliband the smug and comfortable.

Also, yes, Dule, you are in fact better than these kinds of misrepresentations and two-cent insults. If you think (as you evidently do) that the Christian belief in an ever-present God is simply not supported by observable reality, then just say that so this conversation can continue to other topics.

I don't think anything I've said in this thread is even remotely unfair. There is no good reason as to why I should have to take a post like RI's seriously.
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« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2020, 04:03:26 PM »
« Edited: September 29, 2020, 04:10:44 PM by Alcibiades »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempt to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious. Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the mysteries of the universe.
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« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2020, 04:10:45 PM »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectually serious now; if someone feels that a religious claim (or any other kind of claim for that matter) doesn't meet that person's evidentiary standards for entertaining a belief about the world, that's an intellectually serious position. What did I say that implied I thought otherwise?

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Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #15 on: September 29, 2020, 04:14:29 PM »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

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Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.
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« Reply #16 on: September 29, 2020, 04:20:35 PM »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

Quote
Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.

So, I anticipated that this would be part of what your concern was, so I edited the post you're quoting to address it. I'll quote that again so it's in this post as a response to you:

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectually serious now; if someone feels that a religious claim (or any other kind of claim for that matter) doesn't meet that person's evidentiary standards for entertaining a belief about the world, that's an intellectually serious position.

It's the (as you say) Dulean rhetorical style with which Dule is advancing his position that I think is irking people, rather than the position itself, which is standard empiricism. People tend not to respond well to arguments against their beliefs that begin with the assertion that those beliefs are self-evidently wrong; it's the same reason presuppositional apologetics is so impotent. It's not that it's bad logic or unserious thought given Dule's premises, it's just that it could be better as an argument.
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John Dule
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« Reply #17 on: September 29, 2020, 10:26:51 PM »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

Quote
Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.

Woah, edgelord. Neckbeard much? Get out of the basement and start handling poisonous snakes and speaking in tongues with the rest of us well-adjusted individuals.
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Nathan
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« Reply #18 on: September 29, 2020, 11:08:51 PM »

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

Quote
Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.

Woah, edgelord. Neckbeard much? Get out of the basement and start handling poisonous snakes and speaking in tongues with the rest of us well-adjusted individuals.

I knew a snake handler (they prefer "Church of God with Signs Following") once. An interesting guy. He sure didn't like gays or Jews, though.
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« Reply #19 on: September 29, 2020, 11:56:36 PM »

It's a good quote, though one must understand that it may not appear to be good news on first impression.  You may have to wrestle with it and let it change you.
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« Reply #20 on: September 30, 2020, 12:56:07 PM »

Saying that you should do something for me out of fear for what I will do to you if you don't is a threat, plain and simple. It's not a valid reason for staying in that relationship.
I do agree with this. This anthromorphized, magic guy in the sky image of God has been painted by Christians - especially YEC Christians - for years. As such, it’s really damaged our understanding of God; by defining Him as personal, we have gone farther and defined him as being like a person.

God to the Christian is the transcendent setter of the laws of the Universe, both its physical laws and its moral laws, who exists outside out of our understanding of space time. The real comparison here is not to a marriage between equals, but between a uniquely superior law giver and inferior law followers. It is this understanding of God - as having an authority most similar to a government - which is far more defensible. After all, a government doesn’t punish you for simply not “respecting it”; a government has the ability - and thence the authority - to make laws, and to punish you accordingly.

Now some claim that they fully understand these laws and their punishments, but I don’t. I find it unlikely for me to fully grasp the consequences of breaking the law, so instead I search out what this moral law is and follow it. Someone who says they have the authority to tell you what laws you are breaking and what the punishment will be is someone to be wary of; they are either the greatest of prophets or a common conman, and one is much more likely than the other.
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« Reply #21 on: September 30, 2020, 03:22:01 PM »

I actually consider the "moral legislator who must not be disobeyed" model of God significantly more authoritarian and fear-oriented than the "personal guardian who must not be disrespected" model, possibly because in my own life I've been treated abusively by administrators and public officials but never by teachers or parents. It's one reason I've never really cared for most of the Western Church Fathers.
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« Reply #22 on: September 30, 2020, 05:46:46 PM »

I actually consider the "moral legislator who must not be disobeyed" model of God significantly more authoritarian and fear-oriented than the "personal guardian who must not be disrespected" model, possibly because in my own life I've been treated abusively by administrators and public officials but never by teachers or parents. It's one reason I've never really cared for most of the Western Church Fathers.
I was trying to suggest that the marriage analogy is not particularly apt, because marriage is a bond between equals.
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