After I became more of a questioner, and more curious about a lot of things I no longer experienced such manic-depression. . Enns' view is that the Bible is essentially a human collection (s) of different stories (by different authors/editors) that have a common reference to "God". What do you think of people like George Mller? Peter K. Enns. For me, I often think about thinking in this context more than either a historically analytical school or even Continental. Who said God is a HE? Messiah College Pseudo-Solomon and His Scripture: Biblical Interpretation in the Wisdom of Solomon,, The Contribution of Ecclesiastes to Biblical Theology,. Introduction: This article will be on the subject of God's wrath and retribution. Were two thousand years in. Rather, knowledge of God is described by terms like: immediacy 800 spiritually empty words. I think the Mystics have something important to say. I would take as examples of this people such as Jesus and the profound impact on the entire world for the good, that his truth has produced, and by extension, His Apostles and their experience. In this context, for practical reasons, some times its time to stop thinking and to take action based upon the best information and limited brains computational power and time available. But how is it that you still believe in God? Thank you Joseph. Pete Enns critiques John Piper's recent remarks about the Jewish conquest of Canaan in the Old Testament. Contemplation is apprehension uncluttered by thoughtparticularly preconception and analysis. Again, while it takes a God-given faith to believe the substance of Peter and Johns testimonies, are we to take from your article that we should not put trust in the authenticity of their writings? How do you know these are HIS words? Youve concisely and clearly explained the way I understand my faith and conviction in the existence of God. The moronic Magic-Man-Fantasy was the human races greatest mistake. That is a blessing from God. Peter Enns (PhD, Harvard University) is the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-recovering-from-alcoholism-drug.html, See also my paper the critiques the claim that the Christian experience is unique Sorry for the late reply. One, what does God mean? Its not that we dont know, its that our knowing is ultimately so relative. Thats not to say that understanding the world as-is doesnt matter; it does. What of our spiritual experiences then? You can although quite innadequately (as with so many other things in life), still put them on the table. (Isnt this another example of a way of knowing?). Meaning external, physical evidence. While some would say the orthodox Nature of God and his Oneness pertains to Being, I think most more linearly worship something that is more a manner of /a/ being than Being. prof at Westminster Seminary for his progressive evangelicalism, and has not identified himself as a universalist. This is why I read your blog, Pete! In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. To me it seems, the more beliefs correspond to reality, the better the organism is adapted to survive and reproduce. This implies that Joker3857 believes that one cannot be a christian if they think the bible to have errors. So we have an eyewitness account of a historical event in which God reveals His great pleasure in His Son, Jesus Christ. Did you see the same thing I saw? Does it mean that same thing to you?. We would then be wise to doubt the veracity of our own sight. While specific sins against a particular God, prophet, holy book, holy place, or sacrament, are as diverse as could be. The Spirit? In other words, I dont believe in God because I see no evidence for God or I believe in God because the evidence proves it are both nonsensical claims for me. I would like you to rethink your own perspective a bit more, perhaps move a bit more toward universalism and religious pluralism like John Hick, but even that would not be nearly as far away from your present point of view as the distance you have already come from fundamentalism to your present point of view. Culturally, we tend to have a project-based approach toward church life. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. And if you dont fit into the system? He speaks actively in academic and ecclesiastical venues on topics pertaining the Bible and Christian faith. This sort of knowing is beyond reason, but it is not irrational. With all due respect my guess is you dont really engage with non-believers in person? Proud men who reject His call are incredibly stupid and foolish beyond measure. Peter is 61 years old. Havent found much written on it. Bavinck has a tendency to get to the point doesnt he ? Peter Enns is a very appealing writer evidenced in his The Bible Tells Me So. 1 Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; attestations that Lincoln composed the Gettysburg Address. Enns believes that there are many different views of God and that we human beings cannot tell which is the correct ones, and that it is better that we do not know for certain than that we do know for certain. Scientists tend to understand everything through the lens of our basic five senses which reside in our body and soul. You will know whom I mean, Atheism may be comparatively popular with God himself, When a pious visitor inquired sweetly, Henry, have you made your peace with God? he replied, We have never quarreled., Henry David Thoreau as quoted in Henry David Thoreau: What Manner of Man? Even today Christians keep founding relatively new and youthful institutions devoted to walling themselves up against questions, like Liberty Christian U, or Tim LaHays Heritage Christian U, or Patrick Henry U, or all the televangelist stations on TV. I'm attaching my 6 page summary of Peter Enns' new book, Genesis for Normal People: Enns on Genesis.doc (55.5 KB) Dr. Enns attempts to simply explain for average Christians how many scholars read Genesis. In these chapters God fashions "the man" (ha adam) from earth (adamah), breathes life into his nostrils, and makes him a caretaker . And it is that faith that is pleasing to God, and further that faith is a gift from God in the first place. For example, parents do this when talking of their children. . In other words, I dont believe in God because I see no evidence for God or I believe in God because the evidence proves it are both nonsensical claims for me.. I think about that question a lot. In fact, presuming that evidence-based knowledge is the only sure way of knowing anythingworth knowing lies behind both the angst and the sense of certainty many feel about Gods existence or non-existence. Which may be revealed when two people have mutually incompatible direct perceptions in these experiences. The Quran Chapter 112, Things are compound elements atoms etc, made of parts. Why do you write books attempting to make more conservative Evangelicals rethink their perspective on the authority of the Bible? But by putting these experiences on the table and sharing them, we can say some objective things about them. I think you are conflating your own journey with mine. Across religions, the evidences are the grapes and figs. Enns's methodology seems to be in direct conflict with an understanding of Scripture that affirms one divine author (and therefore one truth), and with a hermeneutic that, for the sake of knowing God and his gospel better, seeks to bring the entire relevant teaching of Scripture to bear on a particular passage.36 This is the reason, it seems . Wonder of breathing and wonder of stars and wonder of babies are indeed wonders. Israelite history; Old Testament and ancient Near East; Old Testament theology; biblical theology; wisdom literature; Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament. He affirms that Israel's laws were not new in content but were uniquely in that they were connected to a monotheistic community-Israel (57). I have asked many people who say that they dont believe, what evidence would be sufficient for them to believe that God exists, and I think the opposite, what evidence would be sufficient to convince me that God does not exist The realm of the elohim and the realm of the seen (1 sam 28.13). Try the works of John Hick, former Evangelical who became a fascinating philosopher of religion and sought a common transcendental basis for them all. But our access to the world of the Spirit is made possible by the existence of our own spirit. As is knowledge of Heavenly Father. Something that transcends your petty thoughts as to self, or day to day concerns, and fills you with so much love and gratitude and beauty that if feels your heart will burst. What about more recent writings such as the Gettysburg Address? Acts of Interpretation features essays by biblical scholars and theologians offering broad reflections on key interpretive issues, rich readings of challenging biblical texts, and interaction with the Christian exegetical tradition from Melito of Sardis to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.The contributors to this volume are leading figures in the theological interpretation of Scripture. Professor; Executive Director, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research; Robert S. Harrison Director, Cornell Center for Social Sciences. Or the mega church movement, to try and get and sustain even a greater Jesus high. One of the things I wonder is how these two general groups not talk past each other. And make sure you bring your oil along with your lamps as the bridegroom is a long time in coming yet always arrives soon. I think the proper locus of religious conviction can help one find meaning in a religion better than help one find a religion. Im still working on itof course. I want to be like you. Peter Enns' latest book is written in praise of question marks, especially those that crowd our minds when God goes missing. M.Div. Im all for that. Read Dr. Enns full CV, B.S. As Read Post The Evangelical Mind February 5, 2013 Category: General Tags: Doubt, Peter Enns, The Mind, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Theology, Wisdom There is a type of love that can only be experience I think by a parent for their child. If yes, then how are we to treat the writings from the same period by men such as Josephus or Pliny. I do not think the gospel stands on whether we can read Paul's Adam in the . If so, they can be dismissed with their faulty foundations, but offered opportunity to reconsider their understandings and emphases to get back in the race. Graciousness to Americans and more? Not really. http://www.al-islam.org/tradition-myrobalan-fruit-hadith-al-halila-imam-jafar-al-sadiq/hadith. It goes without saying that the writings you mentioned can contain interesting concepts, but they do not reveal the God of the universe anymore than an Agatha Christy mystery, which I dearly enjoy. I would encourage you to ask God to show you His truth from His book. Not sure what the phrase, proper locus of religious conviction means, because based on my own interactions with a wide variety of folks I have noticed that people dont have the same attraction to mystical or spiritual thinking. Which does seem not tranrational but rather irrational. In fact, if comparisons between spiritual experience seem to demonstrate anything, it is that perhaps the only objectively true thing we can say about it is that it is a very unreliable means of experience vulnerable to various illusions of reality. But when you reach the point where there is little to differentiate between different encounters or transcendent perceptions yielding incompatible truth claims, then you are not just dealing with a measure of uncertainty to be tolerated, but rather a total lack of confidence in whether what you believe corresponds to actual reality. This happens not in our mind, but in our spirit. As is our deference in religious spheres to authorities revelations. I use the words intelligent and basis. The question presumes that belief in God is something to be settled on the basis of intelligence, education, knowledge of facts, etc. Yep. And for doing it at Westminster Theological Seminary, just as Paul Seely did. I know others mileage may vary. Joyfully I can say that as a conservative Presbyterian, some of my closest friends are devout Roman Catholics. Im trying to think through/explore this. In her book Shameless, Nadia Bolz-Weber argues for a new Christian sexual ethic that allows for moderate pornography consumption, one-night stands, same-sex encounters, and virtually any sexual activity that demonstrates a "concern for each other . Relationship is key, whether we are thinking about non-living parts of the cosmos, the living world, human-human relationships or human-divine relationships. Or become a universalist mystic, or a philosophical theist rather than a religious one, and continue to question just what kind of God really exists, and what we can know for sure about who or what God is? THIS IS CANCELLED: His main public presentation will be Saturday, February 15, at 8 p.m. in Sydnor Performance Hall, Schewel Hall, University of Lynchburg, drawing from . From this, I have a question for you; isnt it also completely reasonable (and rational) to look at the fruits of other peoples experience to see that their belief and faith are grounded in the truth? Tweets at @peteenns. The other day he wrote a post that he entitled Why I Don't Believe in God Anymore. " To love as God loves means loving not just others like us, but those who are not. Id be interested to know then what your thoughts are with the more broad, inclusive sense of evidence then. Catholics see Angels, Mary and Jesus, Protestants usually just see Angels and Jesus, and one Protestant apparently saw a talking Bible in his NDE, while another claims to have been to heaven dozens of times and seen images from everything In Revelation, and Mormons have their own NDE bulletin, Betty Eade had a bestseller about meeting a Mormon Jesus who was not God, universalist NDEs, then there are Hindu and Buddhist visions and NDEs, like seeing a talking Buddhist turtle god, while native Americans have totem animal visions, and New Agers and some other folks claims to have seen Angels, UFOs, aliens of different species. Dr. Peter Enns (PhD, Harvard University) is Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, St. Davids, PA. . 254). Most people who are not believers are not believers because this side has so much certainty over things that we should not be saying we have so much certainty over. He was dismissed as O.T. But it takes the work of the Spirit of God in ones life to actually believe and rely upon these evidences. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where "'the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.' Depending on how you interpret Gods word, I hope He is not good to it in the sense of damning nonbelievers to an eternity of torment. Some people really like what I say. But in essence our Christian hope is a trust that God will in fact be good to his word (which is trust now verifying the identity of God through science observation seems impossible but there are many things, and I say many things we cannot fully grasp by using human studies, judgments, experimentation, etc). " The Bible - from back to front - is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time. Previously he was a Senior Fellow of . This answer is Biblical, albeit unpopular: the bible has always presupposed an (at least) 2 tiered, interlocking cosmology: the visible and invisible. There are great books written by the likes of Brennan Manning on trusting God and there are great books written on eschatology (Jurgen Moltmann, N. T. Wright, etc) about Gods salvation extending from the ends of the earth. This is the third post in a series on how God speaks to us in Scripture, following a discussion on what the early church fathers believed about how that process happened and Kenton Sparks' adoptionist proposal of a sacred "broken" Bible.. The question Is God real? is equal to the question Is magic real?. Also, be sure to read the book rather than a blurb to see what I am after. One task that gives me great joy is to introduce students to the big picture of the biblical story and to develop insight and respect for how the Old and New Testaments are in conversation with each other. Thanks for posting this. ". And I also can grok the paradoxical Essence of a Triune God, the kind of God allowing himself to be humbled and broken in kenotic sacrifice as an example of a new Way of Being, in hope of bringing forth a Kingdom. Peter Enns $ 9.89 - $ 15.31 The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs Peter Enns $ 16.04 Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament Peter Enns $ 5.09 - $ 20.21 Telling God's Story: A Parents' Guide to Teaching the Bible Peter Enns $ 8.89 - $ 11.40 contemplative ), but its also important in a much deeper way. In Roman Catholicism, Peter is seen as the first vicar of the church and so on. As is knowledge of Allah. I said that when it comes to experiences, peoples experience of Allah or Yahweh or Jesus or Krishna or Buddha lay along a wide spectrum. Perhaps agreat offense to many of us in the modern world is thatGod is not known in the way we are used to knowing many other thingswhich is a hard pill to swallow if youre committed to evidence-based knowing as the only path forward. Try an approach that says were really not sure but most likely in my opinion this is the one I think it is. ". True mystics do experience God in a tangible manner that is more real than anything that could ever be experienced through the five senses although those senses may be secondarily affected. St. Davids, PA 19087-3696 I think the sooner the Church heals the Great Schism and returns to the even the faith of Jesus certainly before Constantine and possibly before Paul, the better she will be on a cosmic mission. But if he gets a response in morse, he doesnt need to empirically see whats on the other side to begin the process of knowing the other side. Proceeding ahead and remixing words just a bit, Thinking one can prove or disprove the existence of *any* God through rational analysis is to apply to *any* God a wrong way of knowing.. Edit. To conclude, I'd like to quote Enns one more time. Agnostics cant figure it out. Namely the objective facts that these experiences are shared between many parents, that they have roughly the same qualia of experience, and that having a child of your own seems to bring them about. Your explanation, though a bit slippery to grab with my hands, is similar to some of my conclusions, though none have given me their answer. He has taught courses at several other institutions including Harvard University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary. As is knowledge of the Theotokos. I like your emphasis here. To me, simply, neither these two billion adherents nor their leaders really seem all that differentiated from their peer adherents of Allah, Brahma, and more in sacred task of transforming the world. Many say, Lord, Lord. Small is the gate and narrow is the road. All of life is a response. None the less, I believe in Democracy and think Iron Man is awesome. As we give exercise to examples, we often discover these characteristics are more descriptive than prescriptive in their nature. Because of the differences in interpreting Adam by biblical scholars, Dr. Enns believes that it is unwise to "cling too rigidly to any one approach" (107). Many dont understand that the contentions among faiths is fought (and will be won in the end) not on the grounds of being right, but on the grounds of making the world right. But you can deny that my experience reflects actual motion in reality. immediacy. 3 He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; It is no more Western and modern than the Greek-named constellations are ancient and Greek or the Arabic-named stars are Medieval and Arab. I suspect that leaving the Westminster cocoon could be unsettling, but you are still ensconced cozily in the moderate to liberal Christian cocoon. Such as I would imagine the Eastern Orthodox who are known for such practice and perspective on faith. Great Value. And it seems that these books coming out by Evangelicals who are now more tentative or moderate or courageously admitting they have doubts are a bit disingenuous, since they all seem to rely on being certain that the God of the Christian Bible exists regardless of ones doubts. [pp. He argues that the Bible should not be used as a literal "instruction manual but as a model for our spiritual journey," a very liberal take on Christianity. One atheist and evolutionist, Dr. Jerry Coyne, believes very strongly that evolution and Christianity are not at all compatible. 1300 Eagle Road One who holds such a faith cannot form a true concept of God, he is *IGNORANT* and will always try to believe in some *creation* of his *imagination* as his god. Pete: I much prefer your brand of Christianity to others, and the world would be a better place if more people thought like you. 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Name of Allah, the better the organism is adapted to survive and reproduce including Harvard University, Fuller Seminary...
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