Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
The problem comes when some of those Jesuses are contradictory and therefore mutually exclusive. Like the pacifist Jesus and the one who leads Christians into war. Or how about the reticent Jesus of the synoptic gospels and the self preaching Jesus of the Gospel of John? These are problems for people who find contradictions illogical. The greatest of these is the problem of the claims that Jesus was both man and God. I maintain that there is no rational way of explaining that claim.
|
You put it so well and plainly bro Zeek. Thanks.
I've been saying that for a long time, many times and in many ways. But speaking to those that are zealots for pet doctrines is like speaking to an addict. There's no getting thru to them.
In the end, as far as God is concerned, we just have to let them construct God in their heads as they want. Better a God/Man concept than a Warrior/God concept ... I think, maybe. Then again, the history of the God/Man concept, down thru the ages, isn't pretty either ...
For this reason I proclaim (another rant bro Mike-perchance) all religions, philosophies, and psychologies have failed us, when it comes to controlling human nature. The one constant, the one persistence, the one commonality, since the beginning of man, even in the paradise garden, is : HUMAN NATURE. It's been so persistent, overriding all human systems of morality, that we could call it 'super-human.' It never dies.
That Old Man/New Man of Paul is catchy in the abstract (Col 3:9-10). But in the real world, I've seen many baptisms, but never have I seen the actual putting off of the old man. Not that stuck for very long.
Methinks Paul was seeing the old man/new man thru his own experience. After all Paul went from Saul the killer of Christians to, Paul the master builder of Christianity. That's quite an old man/new man contrast. Not all of us fit the extreme of that transformation ... Paul's "Old Man" is certainly not our "Old Man." Few of us are murderers.
But we do share that ever present/persistent human nature.....