If you believed that I meant that the offense was man’s sin, which I did, then you could have helped me by clarifying my allegedly poor communication on my behalf.
I did not join this forum to argue about interesting ideas. I do that Monday to Friday and get paid for it. I joined it to stand before God and seek the truth together with people who I would like to trust will stand by me. Sadly today has demonstrated that the trust was premature. Sadly I have also lost my weekly day of rest in the process.
Do you have children Bob? When they fumble in the dark trying to discover ways of understanding things - do you burden them with the responsibility of making every last syllable perfectly clear? Or do you help them?
Friend, you are projecting anxiety about being a blasphemer that is way off the mark. I’ve been accused of blasphemy hundreds of times and could care less about what views people fear are blasphemous. I was asking a sincere question about what your grammar stated. If you’d rather express irritation with others confusion about your rhetoric, than to explain what you meant, I can honor your wishes.
I’m sorry that you painfully feel everyone misunderstands you, or treats you as a blasphemer.
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My main issue is that I was trying to put forward a way of understanding penal substitution which is not as crude as “placing hostility upon Jesus.” I touched on the history of dualistic thinking within the church, and the error of compartmentalising the character of God into “love” and “justice” as separate compartments. I talked about the nature of existential moral knowledge, and the relationship between Jesus’ human and divine natures. I even touched lightly on the cross as revelation of the very deity of Christ, against the very possibility of Arian and various other errors. But even now, you shove the crudest possible version of penal substitution - God being hostile to Jesus - into my mouth, in order to burn that straw man right down. For someone with a PhD that is not a very honest way of engaging with ideas.
Dr.Wilson is a kind soul, and a smart one. He has various papers onsite here, very informative.
Maybe read his and then say where you agree/disagree? A suggestion.
Thanks. If you perceive that my reaction to your words was not honest, I’ll leave it to those who you do find honest to provide responses to your material.
That is why I have removed my material from this echo chamber of a site.
I have no idea what the initial post said, but Chris, it seems you are insecure about something. Very mad at the world. These people, who you think are wearing you down. No, not a chance. Read more, speak less. You will know that most regulars here have diverse thought, and disagree much. But at the end if the day, we argue positions and avoid ad hominems.
If your position is tied to your self esteem, then you are best served by hanging out with only people who agree with you. I know I wouldn’t want to be stressed out every time a belief of mine is challenged.
Believe it or not, no one here has any agenda against you. We welcome you and assure you that no one here is trying to make fun of of you or attack you.
This forum is most definitely not an echo chamber. Again, feel free to look around, explore threads. Demonstrate where all of us magically agree on something! No, instead you will find much disagreement! But not only will you not find that, but will find friendly disagreement, often.
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Just disappointed that in 20 years of being a Christian, I have found that I can enter any given community and find that there are things that pass as right thinking and things that pass as wrong thinking. People within these communities make whatever cognitive shortcuts are necessary in order to marginalise, patronise and belittle those who bring wrong-think, and endorse those who bring the right-think.
I stand before the judgment of God, with very real anxiety about the many ways in which the contents of my mind might displease him. If only others would do the same.
Listen. When someone challenges my beliefs about solid state physics, it doesnt bother me in the slightest. Happy to be wrong. When someone challenges my beliefs about the cross - one of us is wrong. Of course I am anxious about being wrong when it comes to the very heart of God. So was Paul, who paradoxically had great confidence in Christ. Living that paradox is the Christian life.
We are all afraid. Some of us just surround ourselves with what we call orthodoxy. On this site, orthodoxy is rejection of penal substitution. I refuse to conform to that orthodoxy. That you need to take the comforting cognitive shortcut of perceiving my spiritual anxiety and recasting it as personal insecurity is dully predictable.
I am a Father of two children. 13 and 11. A son and a daughter, respectively. I don’t know if you are a Father, but I suspect you are not. The reason I say that is because my entire world view changed the moment my son was born. But you know what? There is no way someone could have reasoned with me about my beliefs before that experience.
I think I would challenge you to be bold, test your beliefs about God and the Bible. This is a very slow and agonizing process and I don’t think it can be done quickly.
For what it is worth, even though I used to identify what everything I quoted from your post, I think those beliefs are toxic now. I think you will come to see that eventually.
I am not talking about cowardly fear. I am talking about a respectful trembling. Something which I hope my own children will grow up in full confidence that it is quite compatible with love.
By the way, I do not have a single belief that has not been tested at least once through the fires of doubt.
Your discernment is really off the mark.
You may not believe me, but I am not afraid. I used to be. To be clear, I am referring to the context. I may be afraid of spiders, but not of God, nor the Afterlife or the non existence of one. In my belief, the biggest con of all is belief that “I have to get it right.”.
I am not afraid of the following things: (i) asbestos, (ii) mercury, (iii) hepatitis B. (iv) death.
I am afraid of various things that Christian existentialists in the line from Abraham, to Paul to Kierkegaard have been afraid of. Fear and love are not opposites. They inhere in each other.
Now please leave me alone.
This is really strange. You accuse everyone here of basically being close minded, echo chambers and yet you are spending time to engage while ending with “leave me alone”. Look, I think it is clear to anyone reading this thread that you are emotionally unstable. You honestly couldn’t convince me you are of stable mind. You are scattered, defensive and quite arrogant. Not to mention that any attempts to engage with you are everyone else’s fault for not understanding you. I’ll gladly step out, however. If you change your mind and actually want to engage, I’ll be here.
How loving, to be able to diagnose a person whom you have never met, who you do not know, on the basis of your own inability to understand.
Am I unstable? Maybe. Am I being patronised? Definitely.
I dont know where your diagnosis of “scattered” comes from.
But every person who has projected my own position back at me in the form of a straw man argument is guilty of arrogance.