Really enjoying this song right now:
14.
Q. Special revelation must have been communicated in a way which is exempt from potential for human fabrication.
E. People are not perfectly trustworthy. The testimony can't be entirely dependent on a few dudes in the woods who say they saw God and wrote a book about it. The method has to be more broad than just revealing it to one small group of invested individuals.
15.
Q. Special revelation must have been confirmed by a supernatural sign.
E. I hesitate to use the word "supernatural" because the source has its own nature, so since nothing is really above the nature of the source, nothing truly fits the face-value definition of the word "supernatural". What I mean by this is that the revelation should be confirmed by some proof that the source is above our nature, to demonstrate that it is capable of doing things which we are not able to do. The goal, then, of this point is that the source first communicate to us that it satisfies the prior points, and then demonstrate that to us by exercising its prescriptive governance on the universe.
16.
Q. The method for delivering special revelation must have included direct, verbal communication from the source.
E. We've already established that special revelation must be delivered externally in addition to its derivation from necessity. Vision and dream-type prophetic encounters are useful without words, but they are too abstract to deliver concrete, qualitative information about the source's character which can be retransmitted from person to person without deviation from the initially intended meaning. Special revelation is important, so we need it to be spelled out for us, and words have the unique quality of being limited to their lexical domain, enabling communication with objectively similar interpretations. (If I didn't firmly believe that this was the case, I wouldn't bother communicating with words.)
17.
Q. The primary contents of the verbal communication, and the record of the signs, must be available today in a form which inherently demonstrates the supernatural origin of the information while satisfying #14.
E. It's not necessary that the source continually deliver new, direct communication, as long as the record of prior delivery satisfies the points for validity above.
18.
Q. The contents of special revelation must be accessible for anyone who desires to know the source.
E. The revelation doesn't have to be known by everyone, but it has to be available to everyone. Anyone who desires to learn it must be able to acquire access to it, and everyone who seeks it must succeed in finding it. However, it is not necessary that everyone aware of the information accepts it, because (in the context of this discussion) it only serves the purpose of relatably validating the qualities and existence of the ultimate source whose qualities and existence can otherwise be derived in theory (i.e. utilization of the general revelation does not depend on acceptance of the special revelation). Furthermore, it does not have to be the case that every person has immediate means to access the information, but the source may (and must) by prescription enable each person who genuinely seeks the information to find it.
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I think these points really drive home the personal nature of the source. With that, I think we're down to basically just a few options, and to the best of my knowledge we are left only with the mainstream sects of the Abrahamic "Book" religions. (Maybe soon, in another post, I'll describe how these religions are presently able to satisfy #14, #15, and #17. That information I think isn't directly relevant to the study, so I won't include it in this series.) I am content with the way that #18 rules out the possibility of some unknown tribal religion out there being the true religion, and it highlights the question for Christians about people groups unreached by the gospel.
To touch that in one paragraph, it is the case that God decrees every aspect of everything, and God is honest, and so when God said "you will find me when you seek me with your whole heart", and "I will call them my people who are not my people", and "the foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord...these I will bring to my holy mountain", he did not exclude anyone from the promise. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that there may be very large people groups with no inclination to seek after God, as it was written, "the Lord looks down...and finds no one who seeks after God" (Psalm 14:2-3).
The I don't know enough about Islam to identify why the differences between the God of Judaism and the God of Islam are representative of essential qualities necessary for intelligibility; I have never done a careful comparison of those two religions with one another, because I believe them both to be misguided on account of the comparisons I've done between them and Christianity. The trinity is useful as an explanation for how God fulfills parts of His own revealed plan, it fits the Biblical evidence, and it works well as a demonstration of God's relatability, but I do not yet know how to present it as a self-justifying fact, without presenting it as a comparison against the failures of nontrinitarian religions. Likewise, the Son of God appeared too late in history to act as "the" relatable revelation for the first humans, but the prophesies about him make him a good means to satisfy conditions for self-evidence in modern records of the prior revelations without needing continued, direct, verbal interaction from God. However, I have not yet reached the point where I can derive why it is an absolutely necessary condition for intelligibility.
I can see that there is a road which will take me to that place, but it is going to take a lot of time meditating to derive information from our current points before I can articulate it well; and that's time I haven't spent yet. It could be months or years before I've completed this last step... So unless God blesses me with insight in the very near future, I'll suspend the series with this post, and return to my normal pattern of blogging until I have made substantial progress.
To touch that in one paragraph, it is the case that God decrees every aspect of everything, and God is honest, and so when God said "you will find me when you seek me with your whole heart", and "I will call them my people who are not my people", and "the foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord...these I will bring to my holy mountain", he did not exclude anyone from the promise. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that there may be very large people groups with no inclination to seek after God, as it was written, "the Lord looks down...and finds no one who seeks after God" (Psalm 14:2-3).
The I don't know enough about Islam to identify why the differences between the God of Judaism and the God of Islam are representative of essential qualities necessary for intelligibility; I have never done a careful comparison of those two religions with one another, because I believe them both to be misguided on account of the comparisons I've done between them and Christianity. The trinity is useful as an explanation for how God fulfills parts of His own revealed plan, it fits the Biblical evidence, and it works well as a demonstration of God's relatability, but I do not yet know how to present it as a self-justifying fact, without presenting it as a comparison against the failures of nontrinitarian religions. Likewise, the Son of God appeared too late in history to act as "the" relatable revelation for the first humans, but the prophesies about him make him a good means to satisfy conditions for self-evidence in modern records of the prior revelations without needing continued, direct, verbal interaction from God. However, I have not yet reached the point where I can derive why it is an absolutely necessary condition for intelligibility.
I can see that there is a road which will take me to that place, but it is going to take a lot of time meditating to derive information from our current points before I can articulate it well; and that's time I haven't spent yet. It could be months or years before I've completed this last step... So unless God blesses me with insight in the very near future, I'll suspend the series with this post, and return to my normal pattern of blogging until I have made substantial progress.
As it stands, though, I think we've done a good job ruling out other religions so far: the source can't just be a component internal to humans (humanism); it can't just be nature (Darwinism); it can't be "logic itself" (rationalism); it can't be polytheistic (Hinduism, some paganism); it can't be capricious (Greek-Roman and Egyptian gods); its revelation can't depend on modern prophets who disagree with one another (Mormonism); its revelation can't have been essentially lost for any period of time, only to be restored by some jerk in a suit (Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses); the source can't be impersonal (Deism); it must be omniscient, unable to be tricked, and omnipotent, #8 (many tribal religions); and it can't be illogical (Hinduism again). The source definitely fits into the category of religious thought, and I can't think of any other religions satisfying all these except the Abrahamic ones.
Briefly, I'll give the reason that I believe Christianity is the superior Abrahamic religion. First, the Jewish prophesies say that the Jews will be blind to their messiah, and in spite of texts such as Daniel 9, which defined that the messiah would arrive within 100 years of the destruction of their temple (which happened in 70 AD), they are still waiting for the messiah. Second, Muhammad said to measure his teachings for validity against the teachings of Jesus, because he taught that Jesus was a true prophet and no true prophet may issue even one single false word from God. Well, Jesus disagrees with Muhammad on some pretty important points, so without getting into the textual criticism and the history of the books, Muhammad summarily invalidates himself.
I've talked about parts of my epistemology with my brothers in Christ, but I've never articulated it this fully. As far as I know, this work of thought is original to myself... When I finish the posts on Abrahamic religions, I'm going to rewrite my points in a shorter, presentation format (with a slideshow maybe). I'll present this to my pastor and ask him to help me by correcting my mistakes and sharpening or challenging my points. Then, if he blesses my argument, I'll also ask for his blessing on a plan to schedule a meeting with the ASU Atheist Club and present the argument to them for feedback. If my pastor blesses it, and if the Areopagites will hear me, then I'll definitely post their best criticisms/derisions here.
"Then what advantage has the Jew?"
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