Truth

[aron]

Here's a website with an essay by Ron Kangas, on the subject of deification.

http://www.forthetruth.org/pdfs/02_02_a1.pdf

"We are mindful of the fact that many will react in dismay, perhaps in horror, to find themselves confronted with the assertion that in Christ and through God's complete salvation that we who believe in Christ and are in Christ will become God in the limited sense posited here"

"We become God" is an assertion, it says, which is "posited here". It's an interpretation, a conceptual position consciously taken. Does that make it truth? I say no. Yet the website is called "for the truth dot org". But something merely asserted is not something true. It's an interpretation, not a truth, certainly not "the" truth... it's neither "recovered truth" nor "High peak truth". It's merely a questionable assertion, and those who question it are not "emasculating the words of the Bible with unbelief" as a quote in the essay says (p.15). Yes, the assertion is defensible, as the author does, but it's also questionable, as I do.

The essay cites the "noble Bereans" as precedent, as having open minds and checking the scriptures. But that evaluation in Acts was on the assertion of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That issue was clearly resolved within the pages of the NT, right? I don't see that deification did similarly. If it's so important and so true, why didn't they just say so? Did the resurrection of Jesus get "lost" for centuries, only to be "recovered" by Darby or Spurgeon? No? Why not? Because it was as true to Christian's then as it is today.

I say that Christian "truth" is assented by all Christians since the pages of the NT were laid down. Jesus rising from the dead on the third day qualifies, whilst "we become God" does not. Again, Ron Kangas writes that it's an assertion, or something posited. Many of us, however, would not assert nor posit it, and they're not intellectually or morally deficient to those who do. Nor are they missing out on some great but not yet sufficiently known "truth".

But the Greek Orthodox Church teaches it, says the essay. Yes, Fallen Degraded Babylon, the Great Harlot teaches it, so that's now become the basis of truth for the LC?

I actually like the EOC and don't call them Harlot Babylon (as LSM will do), but just because the EOC holds to something that doesn't make it "truth" per se. In fact it seems to me that any "degradation of the church" which LSM deems its sole reason for existence (to ''recover'' us back from said degradation) is probably tied to the emergence of such teachings by the EOC et al - they held forth various derived abstractions like the "nature" of Christ, about which lack of consensus caused the Christian church to implode in the first place. See, e.g., the council of Chalcedon - do we really want to go back to one of the Chalcedon factions for support, to find our "pillar and base of the truth"?

As usual, the LC tries to have it both ways - to decry "poor Christianity" then turn round for support, when little else is available. That's not "truth" in any objective (or even subjective) sense.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

I say that Christian "truth" is assented by all Christians since the pages of the NT were laid down. Jesus rising from the dead on the third day qualifies, whilst "we become God" does not.

Here is a quote that seems to be saying the same thing.

Originally Posted by OBW

Unfortunately, not all of Lee's errors are so easy to spot. Too often it is that he just makes a statement that X means Y without anything more than the fact that he says so. So how do you refute those? If there is no evidence that it is actually true, then he has gone "beyond what is written" and is outside of the truth that the scripture has provided. The whole sum of truth is not contained in the Bible. But what we need is. Claims of truth beyond that, no matter how good or spiritual it sounds, is beyond what is written and is, at minimum, suspect. It is clearly nothing upon which to demand anything. It cannot be a major teaching or become something of the "core" of the faith.

And it surely does not gain the status of being worthy of the job as the decoder ring to re-read and reinterpret other parts of the Bible.

If I say, "Jesus Christ rose from the dead" most Christians would say, "Yes, that's true." Not sure how one could say they're Christian and say it's not true. This is a long-established pillar of the Christian faith. The dissolution of the church as a unified body (to what extent it was unified) followed the pursuit of ever finer points as if they needed to be ever broader, i.e. universally prescribed.

I mean, look at the scripture. "If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that God has raised Jesus from the dead you shall be saved." Pretty definitive. We can argue over what "believe" really means, and what "saved" really means, but it still shouldn't pull us from the common meaning held by the flock since the beginning. What is public, open and firmly and consistently attested to is what's safe.