I noticed Corky’s response in the article “The God Factory” and i will challenge him on his conclusions.
Corky states “What Paul was teaching was the renewing of the mind, the “born again” thing.
The assumption Corky makes, which Paul does not, is that we can, by some process of our own choosing, be “born again”. A flawed assumption at the best. Corky does what most people do when attempting to respond “about” something. If I can lead people to conclude that a specific point is made without actually pointing directly to the statement or its philosophical premises, then I can convince people that I have come to the proper conclusion.
First off, let me agree with Corky that there ,most likely was no Adam and Eve, and no “fall” in a magical Garden of Eden. However, dopes that make the philosophical conclusions Paul draws false? Not at all. There are many examples of Narcissism in which psychologists draw perfectly legitimate conclusions regarding the concept of Narcissism, yet we know there most likely never was a Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection.
Corky would be correct IF Paul had stated that being “born again” actually did lie within the power of our human choice, simply because, as i pointed out in the article regarding Turing, Godel, and Church, any attempt by any human mind to define truth will lead to an infinity if undecidable propositions, which means that any attempt to “decide” which is the true religion will result in thousands of undecidable ideas about Christianity, as we see today.
Therefore, Corky’s conclusions “about” Paul’s teachings is flawed because he ignores the central statement which Paul makes: the natural mind is enmity against God and cannot be subject to God, which, in itself, points to the obvious conclusion that all human attempts to represent God will result in exactly what we see today, over 38,000 versions of Christianity.
Corky has a bad habit of throwing in general ideas. “The idea is”. Whose idea? he doesn’t say. That’s like the expression ‘they say’. Who is “they”?
There is no “they”, and there is no human “idea” that can act as authority, for the very simple reason that the natural mind is enmity against God. Does that mean Paul’s premise is flawed? Not at all. Does it mean that Christianity is flawed? Obviously, since Christianity assumes that we CAN make “freewill” choices as to what is “God’s truth”.
As Corky writes: “The natural mind was not subject to the law of God, but the born from above mind was”.
The question that immediately presents itself is: what is a “born from above” mind? Who knows? I can’t define it, and neither can any other human to the satisfaction of giving a worthwhile answer. The term, therefore, is meaningless from any human definition, and any attempt to define it will produce the “confusion of Christianity” as Corky says.
Corky writes, “Therefore, you have to die and be ‘born again’. To be ‘in Christ’ instead of ‘in Adam’.
Is there a flawed conclusion in this? Not at all, since from a purely legal perspective, you would be free from law, which means you are free from the power of human laws that would attempt to punish you of its own power. There are no laws against a dead man. Does this mean you suddenly have the power to know truth? Of course not, nor does Paul say it does. he merely says there is no condemnation to those who follow Christ. Not only a sound but of reasoning, but quite useful in terms of the application of human law.
Corky quotes from the bible: “In Adam, all die, In Christ shall all be made alive”.
Again, let’s examine this purely from the standpoint of law. The penalty of sin(lawbreaking) is death. Therefore, by the act of one innocent man who was killed and declared it the right of all men to be presumed Innocent, then within that concept, all men will be made alive. Dead to the law, since law cannot punish a dead man. Alive by the recognition that we can not be held responsible simply by the power of law.
Corky further writes: “It all depends on if you are ‘in Adam’ as ‘the natural man’ or ‘in Christ’ as the ‘spiritual man’.”
Depends on whose conclusions?” By what human standards? By what authority? Name such an authority. You can’t. None exists. Therefore, I am “free in Christ” because I say I’m free in Christ. Now suppose I say I’m free with no need of Christ or any religion. That would be equally valid, since Jesus himself told us in Matthew 24;23 not to follow any person who said “here is Christ”. That is, we are free from the penalty of law, period, without a proper accuser.
“Just a bunch of hocus pocus since there never was an Adam and Eve in the magical garden…no ‘fall’…etc”.
I’m fine with that, since I believe it’s purely a myth invented by Persian influences.
Corky writes: All this talking around it with quotes from Jesus and Paul is just adding to the confusion that Christianity already is”.
I’m not “talking around” it, Corky. You are. I’ve directly shown that statements made by Paul and Jesus are fully consistent with logic. You have rather sloppily presented arguments “around” ideas taught by people who claim to represent Christ, when there is no possible evidence of such representation.
IF the natural mind is enmity against God and cannot be subject to God, what is the result? Exactly what we see today, showing that Paul’s statement is consistent with reality.
And if the natural mind cannot be subject to God, then there is logically no reason to follow any person who claims to represent Christ, which is what Jesus said in Matthew 24:23. Simple, direct logic, Corky, and you insist in “talking around it”, not me.
Logically, since there exists no authority to represent God, as we see plainly and logically from statements made by Paul, then there needs to be no “confusing Christianity” since there’s no need to follow any religion.
prove me wrong, Corky. And do it by actual logic, not simply implications and insinuations.