As requested, what I believe

[toothycat]

I believe there is a God.

I believe the Bible is a tool that has the purpose of pointing us towards God. This includes describing who God is, how to get in touch, and why one might want to; and also the kinds of things he has done for people and wanted from people in the past who did and who did not, and the kinds of things he has promised people in the past, and the kinds of things he promises us.
The people trying to read the Bible as an absolute set of rules for life, the people treating it as cyphertext and trying to decrypt it, the people trying to read every single bit literally... are missing the point.

I believe that in order to call oneself Christian, it is both necessary and sufficient to accept Jesus as God, place one's trust in him and strive to do his will, to the best of one's knowledge and ability. The placing of one's trust in God in particular is faith.

I believe the way one comes to a faith in God - to knowing God - to trusting God - is not a logical position that one can arrive at through intellectual discourse. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast." - Ephesians 2:8-9.
This personal revelation is something that happens to each individual internally, and is not transferrable; it is something that God gives you when you call out for it through repentful prayer. "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." - Matthew 7:8
This is not to say that any spoken request for faith will automatically be granted as though from some mystical vending machine. The atheist who puts God to some form of double-blind test, then turns around to his Christian friends and says, "Hey, I did everything you said - went through all the motions - but nothing happened! You lied to me. Matthew 7:8 is a lie" - as I once did! - that person is missing the point. The seeking out, turning away from one's denials, calling for God - it must be meant; must come from inside; it is not what you say, but what you mean that will be given to you.

I call myself a Christian; I place my trust in God. This means that when, by some convoluted - or direct - theological intellectual reasoning someone points out to me that something Christians believe about God or something the Bible says about God or something I might opine about God leads to self-contradiction, or to an evil God, or a God that does not agree with the world as we see it just by looking around us, or some other flawed and unacceptable thing, this says to me not that Christianity is wrong and my faith unfounded but that my understanding is flawed. Participating in theological debates, I feel a bit like the popular image of the Zen monk surrounded by students trying to catch him out might; by the very act of opening one's mouth to start on some intricate disproof of God, one demonstrates one has already missed the point. cathedral_life was trying to show this to me years ago, I think. Faith in God is a function of trust, not one of mathematical proof. God cannot be pinned down with words. Mu and three pounds of flax to you all.

I realise this is a somewhat closed-minded and intellectually unsatisfying position. The truth is that for many of the intellectual problems with Christianity that I had as an atheist, before I became Christian, I still have no answers. Instead, I feel able to trust that for those questions that are not based on false assumptions, answers exist, and perhaps one day will be revealed.

Edit: some readers may not realise this, but this journal is actually shared by MoonShadow and SunKitten; beliefs, however, might not be. The above is MoonShadow's braindump, as requested by several people over the last few days; this earlier post was SunKitten's.

Comments

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

Yikes! No wonder you think you're pestering people by talking about your faith if you think referring to the bible is like quoting Oxford Dictionary at them. Using the Bible in that way would be absolutely disastrous, but thankfully I don't know anyone who would use it like that.

Almost all of the evangelism I've seen or done that has involved the Bible has not been primarily saying "The bible says this, and it's an authority so you must accept it" (as one might with the OED), but more as you would treat any text that made truth claims about reality. By saying "well the bible argues that world would be like this, and you'd feel like this, and this and that, does that match with how you think things are?". As a Christian I never treated it as a textbook, but I did treat it as a book containing truth that was rational and worth discussing and analysing.

[toothycat]

Using the Bible in that way would be absolutely disastrous

It appeared to me to be a very common final resort in debates with some Christians at uni. I never quite understood the purpose.

Edit: I suppose if one were to believe that the book one holds in one's hand is infallible, using it as one uses the Oxford Dictionary would be logical. Especially so since the OED can't claim infallibility!

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

I don't think it would be logical because the OED is a book of definitions (actually more accurately a book of the common usages of words). The Bible is AFAICT a very different kind of book.

Anyone who wanted to prove that Jesus was the messiah, entirely based on "The bible says so *points at page* here. QED", might well be right. But they'd have to show (which presumably they could) to the person they were talking to that the Bible could be relied upon in that way.

If someone had never heard of the OED likewise you'd have to explain why it is trustworthy to this degree before you started using it like an authority in discussions.

[toothycat]

I don't think it would be logical because the OED is a book of definitions (actually more accurately a book of the common usages of words). The Bible is AFAICT a very different kind of book.

*shrug* and yet I encounter people who use both in the same way and must posit some theory for why they do so. You have perhaps a better one?

If someone had never heard of the OED likewise you'd have to explain why it is trustworthy to this degree before you started using it like an authority in discussions.

Indeed, as I keep saying.

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

Indeed, as I keep saying.
Ack! But that's because it's a book of definitions, which the Bible isn't.

If instead we were talking about a science text book, someone might not accept that it is an authority, but they could test the things in it by... testing the things it talks about! And seeing if the things it talks about (e.g. there is gravity which makes things attracted to things with mass) could be checked against the experience of the person and of other people.

[toothycat]

You're nitpicking pointlessly. What are you actually arguing against? You could go around and observe people talking to collect the kind of data that the OED is based on and test the correctness of its definitions. The fact that it's a dictionary has nothing to do with its authority as a reference for spelling and the use of language.