True, good point. As I recall, he actually tried to claim that someone had to be a born-again Christian first before being able to understand what the Bible says about salvation!! i.e., to keep from having to pay any attention to whatever Jeff might be saying. That’s such a purely mystical position it practically disavows any point to evangelism at all! Since after all, one might suppose that any evangelist is supposed to be presenting the gospel as found in scriptures; but if that’s so, then (on this plan) the intended receiver has no hope of understanding and accepting the gospel from any evangelist, whether from the NT writers or from anyone afterward, until the intended receiver is a born-again Christian.
…hey, who was complaining earlier about universalism being ‘not true’ because (he thought) it totally disavowed evangelism? hmmm…
Anyway, good comment Craig.
And of course the ‘immunity’ to cross-examination is a big appeal to being a ‘mystic’. I mean it’s a big appeal to a certain class of people, because it offers a shield from behind which they can toss whatever grenades they feel like without being called to account for it. How dare they be questioned?–they’re mystics! They have dreams prophetically revealing The Truth!
Which of course is why the term is now brought into such low esteem in some circles: a ‘mystic’ must be someone who is (basically) cheating in order to sound like they’re talking profoundly about something.
I’m not kidding when I say, I have prophetic dreams, too, which even come true (although, as it happens, never in any way which has benefitted me in some fashion I’d naturally prefer. Very much the contrary. ) They have been of unspeakably huge importance to me personally. But I don’t appeal to those when trying to make a public witness.
And as to writing in mystical forms: first, I do the dry boring logical math. Then I get to play with the results. That way I can answer people who want to know what the heck it is I’m doing and why.
(Pushups first. Lovemaking afterward. )