George,
"Not many Christian thinkers would have seen these as mutually exclusive; NT is a completion of OT not an either-or alternative. Neither is metaphysics as an explanation of Genesis seen as an alternative to ethics based on Jesus’ teachings."

Happily the truth in these matters does not lie in a head count! I agree that the NT is an extension of the Hebrew Scriptures but that does not mean that the thought forms of the latter are set in concrete or are incapable of reinterpretation. Each age has always done theology in its own context. The NT had to grapple with the divinity of Jesus, heresy for Jews, and formulate a way of speaking that incorporated Jesus into the godhead in the doctrine of the Trinity. This was a long way from many expressions of the being of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. Likewise, we in our time, a time dominated by our new understanding of nature, have to reformulate, reinterpret theology. It is no longer possible to talk about the God Christians worship in terms of undifferentiated monotheism of some parts of the OT, although not all of the OT. Our understanding of nature has made the simple proclamation of God as creator of all things problematic. That does not mean that the theology of creation be abandoned, but it does mean that we probe more deeply what it does mean. The profession of God as creator for a pre-scientific culture is simple. But for us that simplicity has evaporated. Rather, we may say that God is not the creator of a thing, we may leave the existence of things to natural science, but we may say that God is the creator of a new history, a new people, a new understanding of what it means to be human.

Hasbeen,

>> I can't help feeling a little sorry for those who need the crutch of belief in the man made invention of some supreme being, for their lives to have meaning.<<

Indeed, the same as some of us might feel sorry for those who describe as the “crutch of belief in the man made invention of some supreme being” worldviews “beyond their ken”:

True, human beings may abound
Who growl at things beyond their ken,
Mocking the beautiful and good,
And all they haven't understood ... (J. W. Goethe, Faust)

Sells,

I agree with most of what you wrote, but I fail to see how this contradicts what I wrote, namely that you can be BOTH: a Christian philosopher tackling epistemological and ontological concepts, including existence and God (being silent about - not against - His e.g. Trinitarian “structure”), AND at the same time a believing and practising Christian who interprets the OT and NT, including the concept of “Creator”, in a way comprehensible “in our time, a time dominated by our new understanding of nature” as you put it.

George, I also feel a little sorry for those who are so lacking in the ability to form their own opinions, they chose to quote the opinions of others, often long dead, as if they were their own.

Fantastic quote, George.

"True, human beings may abound
Who growl at things beyond their ken,
Mocking the beautiful and good,
And all they haven't understood ... (J. W. Goethe, Faust)"

True of all of us at times....

George,
I am speaking from a Barthian point of view. Whenever the philosophical god that we investigate is co-opted into our scheme, the crucified God is always reduced and consequently irrelevant. We would much prefer a god our our own making rather than the man of sorrows. Barth based theology on the Word of God i.e. Christology and was not the first to do so but perhaps the most thorough-going. I am very suspicious of any speculation about the being of God as a being a projection of our own desires and insecurities. I would side with the gospel of John, "He who has seen me as seen the Father." The only God that Christians worship is the triune identity. When we lose that we lapse into paganism. We are also vulnerable to the sorts of arguments that we find in this forum.

This make believe God has been with me for the last eighty years and previous to that my father for ninety years and so on back, people in the future will still be worshiping this God who does not exist only in their imagination, when o when will people wake up there is no such thing, on death we return as we were before we came, knowing nothing and will be missing nothing, trillions of years will go by and who then will ever remember you, do you really believe you and the other trillions of people are in some spirit form somewhere, for goodness sake wake up and stop quoting from a man made book of years ago.