I’m no academic. I have no philosophy degree. But, I try to understand these kinds of things. Maybe I shouldn’t.
In response to Tony Jones’ post on the Gnostic gospels, Tom Estes wrote the following:
These kinds of topics are so much simpler when you know who God is. Genesis starts off with “In the beginning God.” The fact that their is a God emphatically states that this God has to be sovereign over His creation, because to not be so would necessitate that “God” is not God.
So if you know that God exists and is sovereign, you know that the Gnostic “Gospels” are not included in the canon of Scripture and are rejected by Christendom because of the divine decree of Almighty God, making discussions as these mute. This doesn’t mean that learning about how our Bible was put together isn’t instructive, because it is, but it would, however, serve as a constant reminder that the Bible is what it is because of God, not man.
Therefore any discussion about why certain books were left out why books were in the canon would always go back to the One who ultimately decided to have them in or out; God, and would dismiss any notion of conspiracy.
So, because “God did it,” there is no possibility of a conspiracy? To which I replied:
Tom, I’m sure you wish that one day there was not a Bible and then the next day there was. But, that’s simply not how it happened. There was a process, which involved actual human decisions. That doesn’t negate the possibility that “God” was somehow involved in the process.
Tom continues:
Where did I say that? My point was that we have a God who is sovereign, therefore we know that what is in the Bible was ultimately His decision. I never said that man was not used by God because he was. I was just saying that these discussions are very simple when you remember the real reason why the Gnostic “Gospels” never made into the canon; God.
So, I asked Tom how he knows this:
How do I know what? That God is in control? That is the only logical conclusion to which one can come. If God exists, He has to be sovereign, considering those words are basically interchangeable. Therefore it necessarily follows that God is in control of all things, which would include the canonizing of Scripture.
Like every other claim I make about God’s Word, I make this claim by faith.
I think that I used to “reason” this way; I believed that the Bible was in some sense “true” so it was my “foundation” for any reliable knowledge that I could claim to have. So, any other claims to knowledge had to be weighed against (how I interpreted) what the Bible said. But, I don’t think I’ve had this much clarity about the ridiculousness of this kind of thinking until today.
If your only evidence is “the Bible says it,” or your only argument is “God did it,” you have no evidence and you have no argument. You should just go ahead and admit that your understanding of reality is very small. You have nothing to say to anyone who doesn’t agree with you. It seems that your only purpose in even trying to communicate with “us” is to convert us to your tiny world. And that doesn’t even qualify as an actual conversation.
This used to make me angry. Now it just makes me sad. One of these days, your tiny world will be shattered – deconstruction happens – and you will have nothing left. Because you’ve created your reality out of a delusion.
In Nietzschean fashion, I pray tragedy upon you.
Tom’s perspective, childlike in its simplicity and adult in its righteous superiority, is very satisfying. To reduce something that is actually opaque and complex to a simple “God said it” (because it’s in the Bible) and “God did it” (because it happened and God is sovereign) is a mental/emotional relief that many people crave–otherwise why would fundamentalism have any pull at all? Those of us who grew up in such a context can understand his attachment to it even as we find it personally repelling. What Tom feels for those of us who do not share his perspective is not love, although that is what he believes it to be. Actually, it is sympathy; a feeling that elevates him and ratifies his rightness even as he kindly reaches out to those he considers lost. I know that feeling. I lived it for many years. It finally dawned on me that it was a feeling that did not connect me with others, but separated me from them. It was that realization that set me on another path altogether. Honesty and integrity and yes, love, required more of me than did that calculated simplicity.
Good insights well-said, Rob. Thumbs up. Likewise to you, Susan; growing out of such a cave is a painful process, but ultimately rewarding, I think. I’ve still got the scars from my own transition out of it, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
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