lsenders@hotmail.com:

> the essentials of faith which all Christians must accept. Briefly they
> were: (1) the inerrancy of the Scriptures, (2) the deity of Christ, (3)
> His virgin birth, (4) His substitutionary atonement, and (5) His
> physical resurrection and future bodily return.

(1) is not obvious either from the Scriptures or from early Church
decisions, at least if a narrow understanding of "inerrancy" is implied
that goes far beyond "reliable testimony" or "inspiration" or "usefulness
for the purposes listed in 2Tim.3:16".

(3) is testified in the Scriptures and in the creeds--but I doubt that of
all statements in the Scriptures and the creeds it is one of particularly
"fundamental" ones. The longer I think about it, the more I like Matthew's
point that the creeds would have been fine to define the fundamentals.

Quite obviously, they selected these two, especially (1), to mark the
difference to the "liberals". It is a tragedy that, by this decision, they
excluded quite some who were not meant to be excluded. In particular, the
term "fundamentalist" became over time a synonym of "Biblical literalist"
(before it adopted still another meaning in the recent 10 or 20 years).

> Jesus is not only Lord, but He is also God. And the Scriptures are not
> only the inspired Word of God, but they are the very word of God.

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many
times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by
his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made
the universe. (Hebr.1:1-2, NIV)

As the Scripture is witness to all of that, and is so well into these
days, it often apostrophised as "word of God". This is not wrong, as God
indeed speaks through it, but the *very* word of God is not a book but a
person, to wit Jesus.

Helmut Richter






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In article <139.59.11.05.201208000@srcbs.org>, Bob Felts says...

>Matthew Johnson wrote:

[snip]
>The problem is that the argument that the free-willer's make to try to
>make the Calvinist God a demon is the same argument that shows that the
>free-willer's God is also demonic.

Not true. How you could believe you have shown _this_ in the thread is a mystery
to me.


--
---------------------------
Subducat se sibi ut haereat Deo
quidquid boni habet, tribuat illi a quo factus est.
(St. Augustine, Ser. 96)

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