Fire My Words Myth #6: Revelation is dead. Reason is the competent judge of all truth and is the sole source and final test of all truth. Thomasticguy equates revelation with philosophical speculation and scientific dispute in writing “The most essential and fundamental statement given to us by the revelation of Scripture is from Genesis 1:1 “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” …It tells us several things: 1) the universe had a beginning; 2) God is the creator and originator of all things; and 3) God created everything from nothing. These insights remain on the cutting edge of philosophical speculation and scientific dispute.”
For all at Dummies, reason through logic has been applied to the method of treating revealed truth theologically, by casting it into a reasoned discussion and forum, and employing philosophical classifications in its elaboration.
Through this method, Thomisticguy and all his disciples constantly revise and adopt new theological principles through the use of reason, thereby neglecting the supernatural, extracting pertinently true revelation, discarding faith. Faith is lost when fundamental truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ are acceptable only upon reason. Where pieces of revealed truth has been forgotten, reason will not bring it back.
Where we have Moses separating the Red Sea by the authority of God because he is a Prophet, we have the well reasoned theologian reasoning that it could have been accomplished naturally through certain weather conditions. Thus in neglecting the supernatural, we loose the true demonstrated meaning of the event. Reason, in this way, denies revelation. Reason allows for the possibility of mistakes having been made by Christ and the Apostles with debatable non-essential parts of religion. Over two millennia, all gospel principles have become non-essential due to the infestation of those who work iniquity. The once noble forest of revealed truth has become infested with termites. Noble doctrinal principles have fallen where it is unreasonable in our world to preserve them.
Whenever the Lord has had a people on earth, they have received revelation from appointed prophets, apostles, and seers. If at any time they ceased to receive revelation, they ceased to be the Lord’s people. This has been the unvarying course from Adam to the present moment. The receipt of revelation is one of the chief identifying characteristics of the true saints; where there are saints there is revelation, and where there is no revelation – coming from apostles, prophets, and seers – there the true church is not. The true church receives revelation from those who are called of God to receive his mind; false churches are not guided by prophets, do not have living apostles and seers, and do not receive the mind and will of the Lord for their day and time.
From Adam to Jesus and his apostles, there was an almost unbroken period of some four thousand years during which appointed leaders received the word of the Lord and announced it to the people. From Adam to Noah, there was no break whatever, nor was there after the flood until those periods in the history of the Israelites where there was utter and complete rebellion and when the people worshipped Baal or other false gods.
Either there is revelation or we receive nothing from the spiritual realm; either there is revelation or there is no purpose in life, no hope in the future, no glory in Christ or in his atonement. Revelation is truly the beginning and the end, the reality that makes all things possible, the great and outrageous principle that separates the saints from those in the world who are without God and without authentic hope.
In the world of the Orthodoxy, where they tell us there are no truths above reason, they stand revealed.
Thom never said revelation is dead, nor that reason is superior to revelation. In fact, I can give you a quote from him that clearly says that revelation is superior to reason.
If you look at your quote, you will not that, while the words revelation and reason are used, the context you run with is completely irrelevent. Now, one thing that I have often said, and what I know Thom has agreed with, is that new revelation must be coherent with previous revelation.
"new revelation must be coherent with previous revelation" subordinates and constrains revelation to be reasonable to you. Reason is paramount for you guys.
In the wilderness, Moses raised a stick above his head with a depiction of a snake at it's tip. He declared that those who simply looked upon it would be protected and healed from the "fire breathing flying snakes" that tomented them. Many reasoned this was stupid and superstitious....and above all for you....."this is not coherent with anything else you have done before, Moses!" And faithless they died. All they had to do was be obedient.
You have demonstrated the accuracy of the myth better than I. Thank You.
For example, the first or second sign (I'd have to look to verify order) was that Moses's staff turned into a serpent. Moses used his staff to do many great wonders, including the parting of the Red Sea. Aaron's staff budded letting the people know he was choosen.
Now, what would have been incoherent would have been if Moses turned around and said, "the Lord God has spoken. We are to build a graven image and fall down in worship to this. It will be the second god of Israel, and it will save us." Then later, he added on a third god, and then decided there are infinite gods, but that Israel shoudl limit their worship to the 3 gods of Israel.
Moses' brazen serpent appeared as brass and was set upon a pole, not a staff or a particular staff. Nor a particular rod that you escribed as having power unto itself? Moses could have thrown a fist of dirt on the ground and it would have become a serpent - had the Lord directed him.
He did exactly what offends you. There are countless documented sources where societies worshipped snakes throughout human history. You and Thom in your need to reason would have rejected Moses, calling him a false prophet for having you worship a hand fashioned serpent. "Worship the snake and be healed?" you would ask. "NO", you would say - putting yourself above revelation. You stand before Moses, a true and living prophet of God, and you would reason away your obedience to his command.
You worship your own intellect, moral judgement, and reasoning power above the true and living revelations from God. And by your words you say it. Think about that.
I did not say it was a particular staff, nor that the staff should be worshiped or anything remotely similar. What I was pointing out is that God had Moses use similar kinds of things previously. From scriptures in Hebrews we know that the acto of obedience was the important part, and as such, those who were obedient were cured.
What I was establishing, though, was that the serpent staff was coherent and did not conflict with previous revelation (unlike my alternate example).
You need to reason that the scriptures show only one God, we agree there is God the Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit.
What does that have to do with this topic. This topic at hand is revelation that comes to the chosen Children of God.
I have set for and will be setting for quotes from our Prophets, Seers and Revelators and you still ignore them and refuse to engage me as you do Stealth.
Many people believe that the right to speak with God the Father is not theirs but their pastors, preachers, etc...
What I know to be true is that I have the right and responsibliity to go to my Heavenly Father and receive revelation for myself according to my desires to know of the truth and that truth is manifested to me by and through the Holy Spirit as long as I ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
I don't always get the answer I want but what I do know is that the answer is the right answer for me at the time I ask. As long as I allow Heavenly Father to do His will and not mine.
I give the glory to my Heavenly Father for me to be able to stay on the internet this long and to be able to put in my 2 cents worth.
Whenever we, Stealth and I, show how modern day Prophets, Seers and Revelators are in line with both the Old and New Testaments and how the Book of Mormon fits in and ties it all together logically; I am chastised for quoting too many scriptures and using the written law too much.
I am curious if the written laws of God and the works He has left for us to study to become more like him are not to be used then why do you call yourselves Christians as All of the known scriptures accepted and not accepted testify of Christ the redeemer. What else is there to be but that fact and that if you have a testimony of what the scriptures teach then you understand and can learn line upon line and precept upon on precept to understand what it is that Heavenly Father wants us to learn from what we have available.
Not quoting them is just giving your opinion or someone else's opinion and not fact from the scriptures which testify of Jesus Christ.
So try to stick to this topic and use your blog to discuss the trinity vs the Godhead.
Take care of youself. Beth.
This particular topic rocks
Take care my brother in the gospel. I am trying to get to the gecko site as much as I can. Beth.
It is good to see you up and around. Thank you for visiting.
1. A miracle of a rod changing to a living snake eating a smaller snake on the ground showing how the God of Abraham is more powerful than the god of the egyptians.
sets a reasoned and justified path of revelation for
2. A hand made brass like serpent on the end of a pole to test the obedience of the believers, healing and protecting those who looked upon it.
One being a miracle; the other not
One was to astonish the unbelieving; the other was to heal the believing.
The events separated by at least a decade.
And with it you probably think those in the wilderness said, "Yes, we remember the miracle snake thing in Egypt before you got us out of there. Now that we are way out here wandering in the wilderness, this brazen serpent thing is true because of the serpent thing in Egypt." In the wilderness, Moses bangs his head with his palm and mutters, "Wow, its a good thing we didn't have scorpions out here tormenting us; they would have never gone for a scorpion on a pole!"
.....Or perhaps it was the pole that made it true revelation - both being made of wood.
Someone let me know.
I did not knwo you had a new topic up. It has been quite some time so I simply had not checked in about 5 days (before I went on vacation). I'll be right over to check. Further, I have nto "chastised" you about using such long quotes. Wha tI have said is, the long quotes tend to make it so that your intended meaning gets lost. It is much more effecient to use the shorter relevent quote and explain it. If you feel the need for a long quote, then consider how those are handled when writing a paper. They are set off differently so it is easy to see where the quote begins and ends. Now, I know you cannot do that exact kind of offset on blogstream, but you can bold the quote, which is just as effective at setting it off. Of course, you feel free to quote however you see fit, but if you want to get your message across more effeciently, there are guidlines on handling quotations that people follow so their message doesn't get lost.
let me speak slowly.
The staff and pole and other things are not the real issue.
Did you get that?
They are signs and miracles, which God had been doing all along. The mode is the difference, but the purpose and measure is the same. Obedience and faith are measured by the miracles. This is true through the entire Bible, so we can know this is coherent. The purpose of this miracle was to protect and strengthen the choosen people. Interestingly, this is also true throughout the entire Bible.
Did you get that?
This is why it is coherent.
Now, if God suddenly reveled something that contradicted prior revelation, or went totally against what He had done previously, then the new revelation would be questionable. That is what my example about what would be incoherent meant.
If God decided that a golden icon of Himself should be built to be worshiped in his stead, this would clearly violate the prior commandment against this. If God started introducing other gods to worship, then this would violate previous commandment. It would be incoherent.
If God came to me today in a vision, and he told me to go to Africa and preach the gospel, this would not be incoherent. If God came to me today in a vision and told me to kill the President, then I would question the vision because it is incoherent with previous revelation.
When we do not set new revelation against previous revelation, we open ourselves to all kinds of garbage including things like the branch davidian cult in Waco Texas.
No. I don't get it. The point is so soft. IF obedience and faith are measured by miracles from God, that point has absolutely nothing to do with the points of revelation here. This is not a post about miracles and how we use them to measure stuff. The brazen serpent was not even a miracle. It was a stick and a educational artifact.
IF you want to post on it, this is not the time nor place.
Revelation is the process of making divine information known. For the church it has always been delivered by the Prophet, appointed by God to do it. Period.
Such revelation is dead for Orthodox Christians. They reject God's appointed men, they reject His authority, they mock his one true church in favor of doctrines of worldly reason. They weren't the first to do it. Where they manufacture for themselves Church revelation, they come off like sorcerers.
Now, Orthodox Christians certainly can be faithful and obedient. But not in true gospel principles. And the outcome in being "faithful" to error is it does not generate power. And CERTAINLY, in their rejection of Prophet and Priesthood they fly in the face of how God has Always administered His affairs on this earth. Now, men in forming their own churches have tried to mimic prophets and general authorities and priesthood and there has been no power in it. It has always been revealed to be corruption.
You were the one who went off about the Serpent on the staff when I made a very clear point about how revelation is alive and well so long as it is coherent with previous revelation. My points about the serpent on a staff are to show how it is coherent with previus revelation. In fact, this example is remarkably similar to previous miracles, and works to strengthen previous revelation rather than contradicting it.
The big issue here, is that Orthodox Christianity does accept new revelation, but only if it is coherent with prior revelation.
Here is another really good example. Vocational ministry (which I know you are against) is a part of all Orthodox Christianity. Even the term "vocation" implies personal revelation. It is a "calling" from God into full time ministry.
On a side note, I love the way you aknowledge I have proven my point by complaining that I am suddenly off topic.
Now you want to talk about Paid clergy ......it is not happening here.
On topic, If the Catholics have vital doctrines that "Protestants" call heretic and Protestants have vital doctrines that "Catholics" call heretic...and ...Christians churches have doctrines that their liberal vocationally ordained ministers call unBiblical ....and the conservatively minded ordained ministers declare liberal ordained ministers within their church "hell-bound"........ and everyone Orthodox is battling everyone else Orthodox concerning what is the body of true doctrine,.....
what good is any of your revelation?
How can it have integrity where in every case God is contradicting himself about His doctrines?
Together, with these ever changing doctrines, you make God to be Mr. Waffle, himself.
Your Christian Family is rife with dispute because you all fake revelation.
True Revelation comes though Prophets, who are unelected, who come by way of true Priesthood authority, as a consequence of faithfulness, by God through revelation - not debate. And the Bible amply demonstrates how it has been done for four thousand years.
Orthodox Christians have no authority to dispense revelation. They have proven it.
You have one more comment on this topic to make, if you choose to make it.
I think I will use my final comment to sumize.
You, Stealth, claim the orthodox church does not believe in modern revelation, but rather reason.
-I have demonstrated this is not true through 2 examples, and deffended against your attack regarding the serpent in teh wilderness.
-It simply is nto true that orthodox Christianity does not support modern revelation, and you have provided no support of this claim.
You, Stealth, further claim that reason is the highest level of orthodox theology.
-again, this is not true, and you have not provided any real support for this claim.
-the fact is, reason is the most base form of understanding God and His self revelation.
You make a lot of claims about Christian beliefs, but you just don't seemt o now what you are talking about. Your arguments are the "straw man" approach that Thom often calls you on. You setup this argument sayign that we believe this, and so we are wrong, but we do not actually believe what you seem to think. You're quote from Thom does not even come close to substantiating your argument, and even if you could find some people who claim to be Christian, and only hold reason above revelation, this still wouldn't support your argument. Your argument is presented as a generalized truth, but since Christianity is diverse, your real point would only deal with a very small and specific group.
Finally, I would liek to point out that the only tiem we got off the immediate topic, is when you countered my initial comment with a very specific question, which I answered, and then you continued to ask very specific questions on that same line driving us further and further from topic until you realised that I was able to counter your argument and sudenly cried "off topic." This is what I view as a concession since you have not been able to answer any of my claims against your initial argument, or the further "off topic" comments you made.
Proves you do not believe in Modern Day Prophets. I challenge you to find one quote from Gordon Bitner Hinkley that is not in line with the teachings of the Old and New Testaments.
As a matter of fact the only mistake made by the Prophet of Joseph Smith Jun ever made in prophecy was a learning tool to learn the difference from what Satan can do to make us belive he is the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit truely can do to show us the true and only path home to our Heavenly Father and those that stand with him on his right hand starting with His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.
So for the initial topic, you have proved it very well. Beth.
Revelation: God’s direct revealing of Himself through the Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets and Apostles which has been written down for us and canonized in the Bible. Essential Christian revelation is found in the Bible and all other insights, teachings and interpretations are subordinate to the biblical text.
Reason: refers to man’s ability to use his intellectual abilities to ascertain knowledge, insights and wisdom from those things he encounters in the environment. The Bible teaches that man can see in the things that are “made” and within his own conscience things about God’s nature and His Divine Law. However, because of our fallen-ness; man’s ability to know the truth about God is deeply flawed. On the other hand, once man is converted to the Christian faith he is to dedicate his mind and reasoning ability to “grow in grace” and the knowledge of our faith. Additionally, without God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture, we would not know that He is Trinity, that Christ was divine, and of God’s plan of salvation.
I thought this interesting: Stealth wrote to you, (first quoting you) "…new revelation must be coherent with previous revelation" subordinates and constrains revelation to be reasonable to you. Reason is paramount for you guys.
● I love Mr. Stealth’s comment here because it is so amazingly insightful. Of course, as you say, revelation must be coherent with previous revelation. This is obviously self-evident if you want to have a coherent doctrine and not a weird mish-mash of helter-skelter ideas that don’t make any sense, are completely irrational and stunningly impossible. Of course, LDS doctrine, as Mr. Stealth so clearly indicates here, is not constrained by reasonableness, coherence or sanity. As Mr. Stealth shows us, LDS doctrine is the religious equivalent of playing a Hip Hop record backwards or putting an alphabet in a blender and then pouring it on blank sheets of paper.