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The Forum > Article Comments > The scandal of Christianity > Comments

The scandal of Christianity : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 22/6/2005

Peter Sellick argues that the critics of Christianity get it wrong.

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Peter, I admire you and I appreciate your work. I would like to attempt to distill what I understand you have been writing over the recent months.

As well I have a few things to say of your critics and their banalities.

Firstly, let me say you are exhibiting in your work two of the great Christian virtues, patience and endurance.

Secondly, your love of the Lord flows through the burden you carry in service to Him and your contributions to the "generations yet to be born", of whom He exclaimed in hope from the cross. ( Note: Mark 15:34 : Psalm 22 - the poor bloke was human and must have thought " am I a nutter? - what will come of this?", but placed his faith in His Father to whom he was bonded in faith and existence. )

For those of you seeking an argument can I say that you just don't get it!

Peter's article in its 3rd- 5th paragraphs foretells the very act of your responses. Do go back and read them slowly and think. You really have to be more original. Peter acknowledges much of your criticism of religion and peoples' religiosity. They nailed the carpenter from Nazareth to a cross because he challenged religious practices that obstructed the revelation of God's love in the Hebrew story. He talked of that love in some marvellous stories.

Of your love of reason, proof and facts. The ancient Greeks in Socrates and Aristotle et al allowed their reason to extend to the unknown, the immaterial in the realms of the gods who they put into place to provide understanding in life and to assist in coping with it. Such extension allowed them to flourish in thought and civic practice. Yet it wasn't enough, as their eventual demise revealed. Contemporaneously, there were a people wandering through the deserts and establishing a land who had a single God. Their legacy is today spread across the world in the Judeo-Christian story; the foundation for our modern freedoms, prosperity and stable institutions that underpin them.

Second component to come..
Posted by MJB, Thursday, 23 June 2005 12:51:03 AM
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Part 2:

Whilst the ancient Greeks extended reason to the reality of the immaterial, the modern scientific intellect, the temple of the Enlightenment, has restricted the rational to that which can be measured, exhibited and argued for as fact. Such sad limitations place the modern rationalist outside of the realm of mystery and wonder. Wonder restricted to the measurable is simply extended thought. Critics of Peter herein appear to me to be similarly stunted.

I understand Peter to be saying that we modern humans have a story into which we can immerse and from which savour, and in response to its source, extend to full humanity. To love and serve; to face the Absolute Paradox of which Kierkegaard writes, and respond in faith, rather than with offence to reason. To respond in the quiet of seeking truth, rather than the noise of jockeying self autonomy that demands control within a rational position wherein truth can be so easily managed in the name of self interest.

The irony is of course that Peter would have more virulent opposition to his writings from the self-satisfied, comfortable Christians who have God all dressed up in their tidy ways in their tidy lives, if only they took their head out of their Bibles or Sunday Mass Missals.

Good on ya Peter.
Posted by MJB, Thursday, 23 June 2005 12:53:09 AM
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I may be no intellectual (as I find there are some wonderful thinkers on this site) but...

"The ancient Greeks in Socrates and Aristotle et al allowed their reason to extend to the unknown, the immaterial in the realms of the gods who they put into place to provide understanding in life and to assist in coping with it. Such extension allowed them to flourish in thought and civic practice. Yet it wasn't enough, as their eventual demise revealed. Contemporaneously, there were a people wandering through the deserts and establishing a land who had a single God. Their legacy is today spread across the world in the Judeo-Christian story; the foundation for our modern freedoms, prosperity and stable institutions that underpin them."....

So, expansion is a measure of truth and right... in that case, the muslim world (which consists of slightly more than double the Christian world) is more successful... does that make them more right than the Christians?

As to the whole nature of faith and religion, as long as it serves a source of goodness, compassion, guidance and personal strength, hasn't it achieved it's goal on Earth? Can't we then wait and see what's correct in the next life (if it actually exists... which I personally would like it too!)

Cheers,
JustDan
Posted by JustDan, Thursday, 23 June 2005 1:36:28 AM
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GW, following are my answers to your questions:

1. The "problem of evil" presupposes ethics. Ethics presupposes revelation from God who is transcendent. If materialism was all there was, then there wouldn't be ethics, because materialism qua materialism is meaningless. So any talk of evil ipso facto presupposes at the very least theism (though I would argue Christian theism to the exclusion of all others).

When you ask how an omniscient, omnipotent and all-loving God can allow such gross suffering and injustice in the world, you presume to know of the character of God more than what he has revealed to you. This doesn't make sense, as a being who's knowledge base is finite cannot critique a being who's omniscient. All a finite being can know about reality is what the infinite being in his condenscension reveals to him. Besides, to find fault with God presupposes a standard of morality to apply against him , which, of course, it is impossible and nonsensical to do.

2. Deu 29:29 The secret [things belong] unto the LORD our God: but those [things which are] revealed [belong] unto us and to our children for ever, that [we] may do all the words of this law.

3. Deu 29:29 The secret [things belong] unto the LORD our God: but those [things which are] revealed [belong] unto us and to our children for ever, that [we] may do all the words of this law.

Isa 40:22 [It is] he that sitteth upon the CIRCLE of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

4. You presume there's a standard of morality to apply, one by which you find the Church to have fallen short of. But what, pray tell, is this standard of morality you presume to apply? Is it an objective standard, which by definition must be transcendent in its provenance? or is it a subjective, arbitrary standard, which necessarily reduces itself to relativism?

5. God is sovereign.
Posted by Brazuca, Thursday, 23 June 2005 12:12:46 PM
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Brazuca, I'd be interested to learn your reasoning in arguing that ethics presupposes divine revelation. This strikes me as a quite extraordinary logical supposition, but I am open to correction. That apart, your argument about divine omnipotence seems to be rooted in Saint Anselm's logically-suspect ontological argument for the existence of god, and is hardly the lay-down misere you seem to believe it to be. And please, would you mind telling me why an objective moral standard is necessarily of divine provenance?
Posted by anomie, Thursday, 23 June 2005 1:32:45 PM
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A very readable article, Peter, but taking note of your Title, I do believe Christians along with Moslems and Jews have much to mend together concerning the problems in the world today.

As a bush philosopher with a love of learning and the teachings of the younger Jesus, I will pose some brief questions and suggestions.

1. To discover the true Jesus we must go back to the Sermon on the Mount.

2. The young Jesus could have been influenced by ancient Greek philsophy taught in the Great Library of Alexndria where early Greek science was also taught at the time.

3. Many of the teachings of Socrates are similar to the proverbs of Jesus.

4. The 'Donation of Constantine' a fake document written by the the Holy Roman Church around 1000 AD giving license for Christians to take over other lands militarily, but had not been advocated by either Jesus or the later Pauline Jesus Christ. The Donation also gave the false OK for the Crusades as well as colonianism and the Old Testament-style quest for the Promised Land.

5. Christians were lifted out of the Dark Ages by Moslem travelling scholars, the Search for Enquiry" mixing Golden Age Greek reason with Christian faith later bringing on the Rennassance, the Reformation, the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment and the democratic ideals we are losing today.

6. In Moorish Spain the Moslems began a school inviting all believers in the one God including Allah, Jehovah. as well as our Christian God - again finding common ground in ancient Greek philosophy.

Indeed, a getting together of earnest Western thinkers, including Moslems, Jews and Christians, as well as so-called unbelievers, using Ancient Greek common ground, might help to end our greedy Western neo-imperialism and the associated blowback Islamic terrorism we are trying to put up with today.

Regards - Bushbred - WA
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 23 June 2005 5:21:51 PM
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