Robert George: The Days of Being a Socially Acceptable Christian Are Over

[Peter_Plato]

For most of American history the position that blacks were inferior was considered the biblical position. Those that used the bible to support slavery, and then later Jim Crow, may have been wrong, but it is certainly true that they did so and that most American Christians agreed with them.

Well no, actually. You made several “blanket” statements that can hardly be taken seriously.

The position “that blacks were inferior was considered the biblical position” was a position taken by those who supported slavery and tried to defend it using the Bible. That is all. These individuals were hardly representative of the Church or serious, ethically-minded, Christians.

It is also an unsupported statement to claim “most American Christians” agreed with them. Do you have data to support that claim? I would suppose that slavery would have carried on after the Civil War if “most” Americans supported it. It is also an error to conflate most “Christians” with most Americans. It falls into the same trap as Solmyr when he equates nominal or self-designated “Christians” as being authentic Christians. Sure, that is the prevailing notion, but that alone is insufficient to make it true.

As regards American Catholicism, there were very few Catholics in the United States prior to the Civil War. The Church – specifically Pope Paul III – came out and condemned the practice of slavery involving Native Americans in the Spanish colonies in 1537. Later, Pope Urban VIII issued a decree forbidding the capture and removal of African peoples from their native countries by the Portuguese.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

.

The left thinks it gets to decide who is a victim and who isn’t, just like they think they get to decide what and who is racist.orn.

I had this very argument with my brother a few months ago. (He is a poster boy of the progressive left.) He basically claimed that only the Christians who are killed for their faith such as in Asia and Africa, are victims, while the Americans Christians are just a bunch of spoilt whiners. At the same time he strongly believes that some groups who feel offended by other’s beliefs, or in any way feel lack of support and affirmation about their lifestyles are real victims and need to fight the bigots in all ways.

I called him on this double standard, that some groups just need to feel offended to be considered victims, while others need to be killed to get the same status, and he couldn’t refute it, but he got upset. Logic, eh?

 

[TMC]

Well no, actually. You made several “blanket” statements that can hardly be taken seriously.

The position “that blacks were inferior was considered the biblical position” was a position taken by those who supported slavery and tried to defend it using the Bible. That is all. These individuals were hardly representative of the Church or serious, ethically-minded, Christians.

It is also an unsupported statement to claim “most American Christians” agreed with them. Do you have data to support that claim? I would suppose that slavery would have carried on after the Civil War if “most” Americans supported it. It is also an error to conflate most “Christians” with most Americans. It falls into the same trap as Solmyr when he equates nominal or self-designated “Christians” as being authentic Christians. Sure, that is the prevailing notion, but that alone is insufficient to make it true.

As regards American Catholicism, there were very few Catholics in the United States prior to the Civil War. The Church – specifically Pope Paul III – came out and condemned the practice of slavery involving Native Americans in the Spanish colonies in 1537. Later, Pope Urban VIII issued a decree forbidding the capture and removal of African peoples from their native countries by the Portuguese.

Do you have support for your blanket statements? How did slavery and then Jim Crow survive without the support of the Christian churches? The answer is that it did not, American Christians believed that the bible supported treating blacks as inferiors.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Yes, of course, there are minority groups that do suffer disproportionately from various problems, but I would contend that those who “genuinely” do suffer are not the ones who tend to be vocal about their suffering. If they “genuinely” suffer, they remain quite silent about it precisely BECAUSE they do disproportionately suffer. The vocal ones, who harp on about their “suffering” continue to be vocal about it to the degree that they are NOT oppressed. Real oppression would have silenced them many moons ago.

So black people immediately stopped being discriminated against as soon as the Civil Rights Movement was formed? Come on, that’s such a superficial analysis. Ignore all of the actual statistical data and instead come up with things like that. Obviously white men are the most oppressed since they’re the least vocal.

If you want to find “genuine oppression,” I wouldn’t be looking to what the headlines in major newspapers are trumpeting as “oppression.” Nor would I look to the loud, proud and unabashed. Perhaps the silent, cowering and fearful, would be a better indicator of “genuine” oppression.

That’s a very superficial sociological analysis. I don’t think you actually believe it. Black Americans suffer more from poverty and are more likely to be killed by the police (and more likely to be killed while unarmed than white unarmed people). These are issues you will probably have heard about but that really doesn’t make them any less real because you haven’t heard them. Besides, the biggest issue with your argument is that conservative Christians whine incessantly about their perceived oppression. Whole news sites like Barbwire exist purely for that reason.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So black people immediately stopped being discriminated against as soon as the Civil Rights Movement was formed? Come on, that’s such a superficial analysis. Ignore all of the actual statistical data and instead come up with things like that. Obviously white men are the most oppressed since they’re the least vocal.

I think you missed the proper inference of my point. No, “black people” didn’t stop being discriminated against as soon as the Civil Rights Movement was formed. First of all, oppression is not the same as discrimination, so you are playing a bit fast and loose with switching terms. The civil rights movement could only succeed to the extent that those in it were not oppressed. They may have spoken for the oppressed, but the oppressed had a voice to the extent that they were permitted to have one by circumstance, by support from non-oppressed groups or individuals, or by the failure of their oppressors. Real oppression, in that sense, occurred when slavery was fully operative and black Americans had no say in what happened to them.

That’s a very superficial sociological analysis. I don’t think you actually believe it. Black Americans suffer more from poverty and are more likely to be killed by the police (and more likely to be killed while unarmed than white unarmed people). These are issues you will probably have heard about but that really doesn’t make them any less real because you haven’t heard them.

Interesting that you leave out the little tidbit that black Americans are far more likely to be killed by other black Americans than they are by the police and yet that never seems to be mentioned by those who want to make a point about oppression and discrimination. So why don’t black Americans stop killing other black Americans if they are so concerned about black Americans being “discriminated” against? It appears that black Americans, too, discriminate against other black Americans by oppressing and killing them inordinately. This is to say nothing of the number of black Americans who abort their babies in far higher numbers than other groups.

Besides, the biggest issue with your argument is that conservative Christians whine incessantly about their perceived oppression. Whole news sites like Barbwire exist purely for that reason.

So you extrapolate from “sites like Barbwire” to “conservative Christians,” as a whole, engaging in incessant whining? Your brush seems a bit wider than it needs to be unless, of course, you are intentionally white-washing your argument.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Do you have support for your blanket statements? How did slavery and then Jim Crow survive without the support of the Christian churches? The answer is that it did not, American Christians believed that the bible supported treating blacks as inferiors.

How does abortion survive without the support of Christian churches? The answer is that a large number of nominal “Christians” support it, despite the fact that it is determinably an anti-Christian position.

There are gays and lesbians today that use the Bible to support their behaviour. Nancy Pelosi thinks abortion is a legitimate Catholic moral position. There are people holding all kinds of bizarre notions that use the Bible to support their bizarre notions. That does not mean all American Christians or American Christians, generally, are to be saddled with all of those bizarre notions merely because someone, somewhere uses the Bible to argue their case. This is where your “argument” becomes indistinguishable from a gross and misrepresentative stereotype of American Christians.

And it is where your argument demonstratively goes wrong because you entertain the same semantically vacuous meaning of the word “Christian” as someone else on this thread.

 

[TMC]

**How does abortion survive without the support of Christian churches? **The answer is that a large number of nominal “Christians” support it, despite the fact that it is determinably an anti-Christian position.

It does not, as you point out.

There are gays and lesbians today that use the Bible to support their behaviour. Nancy Pelosi thinks abortion is a legitimate Catholic moral position. There are people holding all kinds of bizarre notions that use the Bible to support their bizarre notions. That does not mean all American Christians or American Christians, generally, are to be saddled with all of those bizarre notions merely because someone, somewhere uses the Bible to argue their case. This is where your “argument” becomes indistinguishable from a gross and misrepresentative stereotype of American Christians.

I didn’t say that American Christians were correct to use the bible to support racism. Nor did I say that most do now. I said it is a historical fact that most did in the past.

And it is where your argument demonstratively goes wrong because you entertain the same semantically vacuous meaning of the word “Christian” as someone else on this thread.

Yes, I know that you and some others claim to control who can and cannot call themselves “Christian” using a Scotsman fallacy. But during slavery and on through Jim Crow major American denominations used the bible to justify racism. Bob Jones did up until at least the 1990s. Southern Baptists, as just one example, insisted that the bible mandated differential treatment of blacks (although to their credit they now insist the opposite equally strongly). If being racist disqualifies one from calling himself “Christian,” there were few Christians in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Even if you disagree with me that their view was the majority, it certainly was not some fringe.

 

[Solmyr]

So by your theory, the justice system should incarcerate and judge the guilt of those who confess to crimes simply on that basis – i.e., because an innocent person would never confess to a crime or declare themselves guilty, ergo it is “reasonable” to presume guilt?

Your penchant to create straw man arguments seems to be “catholic”. What has confessing a crime to do with affirming one’s world-view?

Funny stuff is that the Catholic doctrine says: “the baptism leaves an indelible (inedible?) mark of one’s soul”, so if you were baptized as a catholic, you will ALWAYS be a Catholic. You cannot renounce it. No matter how you behave, no matter what you support.

But, please go one and continue. The entertainment you provide is nearly priceless.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, I know that you and some others claim to control who can and cannot call themselves “Christian” using a Scotsman fallacy.

Actually, you are mischaracterizing my position. I am not claiming to “control who can and cannot call themselves ‘Christian’.” What I am claiming is that if the word ‘Christian’ is left to self-designation then it is semantically meaningless. It would be like claiming that the meaning of the word “dog” is determined by whomever wishes to call themselves a “dog.” If so, a “dog” could be an elderly psychotic Indonesian peasant, an imaginative three year old or a fast-talking, middle-aged playboy. Certainly, no actual dogs would belong to the set.

In other words, it is YOU who are claiming that the control of the meaning of the word Christian is determined by whoever calls themselves “Christian.”

I am simply objecting that determining the meaning of any word that way is nonsensical. If the word “Christian” is to mean anything at all, it cannot depend on the capricious whim of whatever anyone at all wishes it to mean totally devoid of any demarcating characteristics.

By the way, this is where the “Scotsman fallacy” becomes a fallacy – if the meaning of the word ‘Scotsman’ is left vague and undefined, then it becomes susceptible to fallacious application. Properly define the word “Scotsman” and there is no fallacy.

I am merely arguing that the word “Christian” requires a proper definition or set of determining characteristics and then it will become very clear who qualifies as one. Failing a proper definition, the word is meaningless and empty. Better not even use it.

Yet this is where you seem to want your cake and eat it, too. You want “Christian” to be a useful and meaningful term to actually describe a class of individuals, but are completely unwilling to properly define it. It is YOU, in effect, who is committing the “No True Scotsman” fallacy by failing to define what a “true” Scotsman is.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your penchant to create straw man arguments seems to be “catholic”. What has confessing a crime to do with affirming one’s world-view?

Funny stuff is that the Catholic doctrine says: “the baptism leaves an indelible (inedible?) mark of one’s soul”, so if you were baptized as a catholic, you will ALWAYS be a Catholic. You cannot renounce it. No matter how you behave, no matter what you support.

But, please go one and continue. The entertainment you provide is nearly priceless.

Yes, I know Catholic doctrine.

According to Paul, a “Catholic,” (i.e., a member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church) is someone baptized into the Body of Christ. In other words, a Catholic is someone who bears the marks of being part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church; one who is “animated” by the Holy Spirit and who is, therefore, “Catholic” to the extent that they are in harmony with the will of God who animates the Body of Christ.

Now Jesus explained by way of metaphor (the tree and the branches) that the branches are dependent for “life” upon the tree – the Body of Christ. It is possible to “cut” oneself off from the tree (the Body) and no longer receive sustenance from it. That place of former joining, I suppose, qualifies as the indelible “mark” which remains an aspect of the branch, since baptism was a grafting of sorts onto the tree to begin with. The proper way of looking at it, then, would be that a Catholic who has cut themselves off from the Church, the Body of Christ, is properly speaking a spiritually “dead” Catholic in the same sense that a branch cut off from the main plant is a dead or dying branch; or a human being no longer exhibiting signs of life is a dead human being. I suppose, that they were once alive as human but are no longer, which has, similarly, left the dead body with the “indelible” or undeniable markings of having once been a human being, as far as that goes.

It is questionable whether having the indelible mark of Baptism makes whatever behaviour that person chooses to exhibit to count as “Catholic” behaviour. I doubt that the meaning of “Catholicism” or “being Catholic” should be determined by the behaviour of those who choose to act contrary to Church teaching or who have otherwise cut themselves off from being animated by the Holy Spirit, the implications of which are clearly spelled out in Church doctrines and the CCC.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Funny stuff is that the Catholic doctrine says: “the baptism leaves an indelible (inedible?) mark of one’s soul”, so if you were baptized as a catholic, you will ALWAYS be a Catholic. You cannot renounce it. No matter how you behave, no matter what you support.

Sure, but that does not entail that “no matter how you behave, no matter what you support,” become determinably “Catholic” behaviours nor do they, ipso facto, become folded into Catholic doctrine merely because a baptized Catholic supports them, which is what you are trying to imply.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your penchant to create straw man arguments seems to be “catholic”. What has confessing a crime to do with affirming one’s world-view?

Apparently, considering and thinking through parallel arguments is not your forte.

But, please go one and continue. The entertainment you provide is nearly priceless.

But at least you are easily entertained. :tiphat:

 

[TMC]

Actually, you are mischaracterizing my position. I am not claiming to “control who can and cannot call themselves ‘Christian’.” What I am claiming is that if the word ‘Christian’ is left to self-designation then it is semantically meaningless. It would be like claiming that the meaning of the word “dog” is determined by whomever wishes to call themselves a “dog.” If so, a “dog” could be an elderly psychotic Indonesian peasant, an imaginative three year old or a fast-talking, middle-aged playboy. Certainly, no actual dogs would belong to the set.

In other words, it is YOU who are claiming that the control of the meaning of the word Christian is determined by whoever calls themselves “Christian.”

I am simply objecting that determining the meaning of any word that way is nonsensical. If the word “Christian” is to mean anything at all, it cannot depend on the capricious whim of whatever anyone at all wishes it to mean totally devoid of any demarcating characteristics.

By the way, this is where the “Scotsman fallacy” becomes a fallacy – if the meaning of the word ‘Scotsman’ is left vague and undefined, then it becomes susceptible to fallacious application. Properly define the word “Scotsman” and there is no fallacy.

I am merely arguing that the word “Christian” requires a proper definition or set of determining characteristics and then it will become very clear who qualifies as one. Failing a proper definition, the word is meaningless and empty. Better not even use it.

Yet this is where you seem to want your cake and eat it, too. You want “Christian” to be a useful and meaningful term to actually describe a class of individuals, but are completely unwilling to properly define it. It is YOU, in effect, who is committing the “No True Scotsman” fallacy by failing to define what a “true” Scotsman is.

An… interesting argument. I am perfectly happy to let people self-define themselves as Christians, true. You appear to have a set of “demarcating characteristics” for Christians. Would you care to share them?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Ah, yes, the way in which to determine whether a proposition such as “I am a Christian” is true is merely to take it at face. A “Christian” is merely one who “self-professes” to be one.

It is amazing how you adamantly require stringent and vetted “evidence” before accepting some claims and then turn around and decide the truth of other claims purely on the basis of someone making a claim that such is the case. Your inconsistency is, again, showing.

If to be a “Christian” merely means “whatever one declares it to mean,” then the word is semantically empty.

To be a Christian means to be a follower of Christ BECAUSE the professed follower has determined that Jesus’ claims about himself were determinably true. Principal among those claims is that he is God. For that reason, every claim, every teaching, of his are understood by true followers of Christ to have significance far beyond the teachings and claims of every other person in history.

It is very easy to use the teachings of Christ to sort kernel Christians from chaff.

For example, Christ alluded to the existence of Satan, whom he called the “Father of Lies.” Someone who denies or otherwise explains away the existence of the evil one is no longer “following” Jesus on this point and to that extent no longer being a “Christian.”

Jesus declared himself, in numerous ways, to be God. Anyone who denies THAT is no longer “following” Jesus on that point and, therefore, no longer Christian to the degree they deny the truth of it.

Now, it may be debatable at what point precisely, one ceases to be “Christian” to the significant degree that one is no longer Christian at all, but what is not debatable is to tether the very meaning of the word “Christian” to mere self-designation. A person is NOT Christian merely because they make a claim to be.

This is one of the problems with epistemological relativism, which you seem to be ready to espouse to treat some issues or questions but disparage for others. If the meanings of words and realities are turned over to whatever anyone wants them to mean, proper discussion of topics and ideas becomes impossible. For meaningful discourse to occur, the meanings of terms have to be determined beforehand and not left to the whims of whoever wants to make whatever claim they choose.

Sure, you are content to permit the meaning of the word “Christian” to deteriorate into oblivion, but that would seem to be because you are ready to dismiss what it means to be Christian completely. In other words, you have already discriminated against what it means to be genuinely Christian by your atheistic predilections to give Christianity short shrift.

He did so in this thread. Here it is again.

 

[Peter_Plato]

An… interesting argument. I am perfectly happy to let people self-define themselves as Christians, true. You appear to have a set of “demarcating characteristics” for Christians. Would you care to share them?

The answer is rather simple: Those who do the will of God are the disciples or “followers” of Jesus – i.e., Christians.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34-8)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. (Matt 7:21)

Now you have said, "Yes, I know that you and some others claim to control who can and cannot call themselves “Christian” using a Scotsman fallacy,” but in actuality it is you who have made the claims about “American Christians” and by stating that individuals can self-designate being “Christian,” it is actually you who are determining or “controlling” what it means to be a Christian.

My claim is quite the opposite to yours. I am stating that there is a simple definition of what it means to be Christian given to us by Jesus himself: those who do the will of God. Therefore, the definition was not mine and it also means that we should not take it upon ourselves to look around and presume to determine who is and who isn’t “Christian" or “American Christian." God alone determines that.

This is why it is patently untrue that I am claiming to “control who can and cannot call themselves ‘Christian’.” I am saying that the determination is up to God and not at all ours to make, while you are claiming to have the right to make it, or at least to determine that everyone has a right to make it for themselves, thereby assuming the authority to tacitly approve self-designation as the appropriate means of determining who is or is not “Christian.” Clearly, God alone can make the judgement and we have no right to presumptuously self-designate or assume we can or should permit others to do so.

 

[TMC]

The answer is rather simple: Those who do the will of God are the disciples or “followers” of Jesus – i.e., Christians.

How is that functionally different from my position? I doubt there are any self-described Christians who would not also say they are disciples of Jesus who are trying to do the will of God.

Now you have said, "Yes, I know that you and some others claim to control who can and cannot call themselves “Christian” using a Scotsman fallacy,” but in actuality it is you who have made the claims about “American Christians” and by stating that individuals can self-designate being “Christian,” it is actually you who are determining or “controlling” what it means to be a Christian.

Ok, this is just odd. By saying that there is no control over who can claim to be Christian, I am exerting control over who can say they are Christian?

My claim is quite the opposite to yours. I am stating that there is a simple definition of what it means to be Christian given to us by Jesus himself: those who do the will of God. Therefore, the definition was not mine and it also means that we should not take it upon ourselves to look around and presume to determine who is and who isn’t “Christian" or “American Christian." God alone determines that.

Again, point me to a self-described Christian who claims to be defying the will of God. Your definition is merely a restatement of mine.

This is why it is patently untrue that I am claiming to “control who can and cannot call themselves ‘Christian’.” I am saying that the determination is up to God and not at all ours to make, while you are claiming to have the right to make it, or at least to determine that everyone has a right to make it for themselves, thereby assuming the authority to tacitly approve self-designation as the appropriate means of determining who is or is not “Christian.” Clearly, God alone can make the judgement and we have no right to presumptuously self-designate or assume we can or should permit others to do so.

This seems to be a completely new definition, but it is not really different in practice. You first said that Christians were those who follow Jesus and do God’s will. Unless you are willing to set yourself up as the judge of God’s will, that is functionally the same as saying Christians are those who say they are Christians. Now you say that Christians are those that God says are Christians, which means that anyone can claim to be a Christian, but no one can know if that claim is true in this life. In practice that reduces to a statement that anyone can sort of provisionally claim to be Christian.

 

[Solmyr]

The answer is rather simple: Those who do the will of God are the disciples or “followers” of Jesus – i.e., Christians.

The question is “who does the will of God”? Only God would be qualified to decide that, if only he would not be so bashful. (Side question: “why is God so shy”? Is he ashamed of his actions or non-actions?)

In the absence of God’s approval you try to install the church as the arbiter. But the church is just a conglomerate of individuals, nothing more. No “Body of Christ” lead by the “Holy Spirit”. And since many of the members have divergent opinions about God’s will, you resort to the argument: “those, whose actions I approve of” are the REAL Christians. And since the members of the other party assert the same, all we have is two self-proclaimed “authorities”.

For the audience this is rather funny. We see the two sides as stubborn children, in a shouting match: “I am right, and you are wrong!”… “No, I am right and you are wrong!”… ad nauseam.

---

And going back to the OP, there is no “war” on Christians - definitely not from the outside. It is true that the Christians cannot agree among themselves about the issues, and they are the ones who create the tensions. The ultra-conservative ones are the minority these days, “thank God”. They feel the loss of power and are upset about it. Hence the incessant whining. Why must they be such sore losers?

 

[Sarcelle]

The next time you are in a restaurant, pray.
And watch the reactions around you.

Then tell me people long for it.

I used to live in the bluest of states. I prayed regularly before meals at restaurants. The reaction has always been positive from bystanders. People would approach me and say they should also pray before meals.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The question is “who does the will of God”? Only God would be qualified to decide that, if only he would not be so bashful. (Side question: “why is God so shy”? Is he ashamed of his actions or non-actions?)

Your point ONLY holds if you dismiss entirely that Jesus was God. YET, he was pretty clear about those who are ashamed of his actions, of being too bashful to be like him or to be known to associate with him, since his way is the antithesis of what our pride and self-love expects from us.

The will of God is plainly laid out by Jesus in the Gospels and in Church teaching. There is no ambiguity. What is left is for us to carry out his will, unashamedly.

Why is God, apparently, so “shy?”

I was thinking about that very question this morning.

I would suggest it comes down to the requirement to show our mettle. When we stand alone for the truth – for the good – for its own sake, we demonstrate what God is looking for from us. We are meant to be like him precisely because we are made in the Imago Dei, and THAT means he exists as pure act – I AM WHO AM. That is the “model” of life for us who live out what it means to be made in his image. He positively wants us to stand alone in the truth – to stand erect. Think about God’s question to Cain before he killed Abel - “Why are your eyes downcast?” Cain was permitting the Father of Lies to have a go at his integrity.

God works in hidden ways and provides, mysteriously, the power and grace for us to do what is required, but our having reached his “standard” (the kind of strength of character he is looking for) is that we are willing to do so no matter what the consequences to us, no matter what the conditions around us. Think about how Paul or Peter were martyred and why God would have expected them to have suffered the fates they did.

If our living out the requirements of goodness, justice and truth depend entirely upon being scaffolded or bolstered in some demonstrable or obvious way by God every second then we are not integrally strong – which is what God is looking for: for us to be truly good, truthful and just, not merely contingently or dependently so, reliant upon whether we will be supported by outside structures or prosthetics. This is why faith, trust and fortitude are requirements to live out the Gospel – we don’t depend upon the “training wheels” of constant external assurance when the situation gets a little challenging. The strength is entirely “within us” and integral to us because God, fundamentally is within our minds, our hearts and our bodies in the very essence and nature of what it means to be. Relying upon outside “signals” would imply we are yet spiritual “babes” with dependency issues.

His remaining “hidden” is analogous to the parent who steps away from his child learning to ride a bike on their own – the parent rejoices when the child shows independence and the skill to ride “alone” that they have been working on. It also shows the child trusts himself and trusts that the greater vision the parent has for him/her will be fulfilled. This kind of “knowing trust” – operating at deeper levels than the externally obvious – is what faith is all about. It is at the level of a reality that those who rely upon third party demonstrable evidence for assurance will never know about – but is known, implicitly, by those with the courage to live by the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.

I would venture that finding that kind of meaningful existence is the reason you show up on these forums challenging others to show their “mettle.” You are looking for what you haven’t known but have an inkling of some kind that it exists, you are just not sure where to find it.

 

[Tablefor9]

Your point ONLY holds if you dismiss entirely that Jesus was God. YET, he was pretty clear about those who are ashamed of his actions, of being too bashful to be like him or to be known to associate with him, since his way is the antithesis of what our pride and self-love expects from us.

The will of God is plainly laid out by Jesus in the Gospels and in Church teaching. There is no ambiguity. What is left is for us to carry out his will, unashamedly.

Why is God, apparently, so “shy?”

I was thinking about that very question this morning.

I would suggest it comes down to the requirement to show our mettle. When we stand alone for the truth – for the good – for its own sake, we demonstrate what God is looking for from us. We are meant to be like him precisely because we are made in the Imago Dei, and THAT means he exists as pure act – I AM WHO AM. That is the “model” of life for us who live out what it means to be made in his image. He positively wants us to stand alone in the truth – to stand erect. Think about God’s question to Cain before he killed Abel - “Why are your eyes downcast?” Cain was permitting the Father of Lies to have a go at his integrity.

God works in hidden ways and provides, mysteriously, the power and grace for us to do what is required, but our having reached his “standard” (the kind of strength of character he is looking for) is that we are willing to do so no matter what the consequences to us, no matter what the conditions around us. Think about how Paul or Peter were martyred and why God would have expected them to have suffered the fates they did.

If our living out the requirements of goodness, justice and truth depend entirely upon being scaffolded or bolstered in some demonstrable or obvious way by God every second then we are not integrally strong – which is what God is looking for: for us to be truly good, truthful and just, not merely contingently or dependently so, reliant upon whether we will be supported by outside structures or prosthetics. This is why faith, trust and fortitude are requirements to live out the Gospel – we don’t depend upon the “training wheels” of constant external assurance when the situation gets a little challenging. The strength is entirely “within us” and integral to us because God, fundamentally is within our minds, our hearts and our bodies in the very essence and nature of what it means to be. Relying upon outside “signals” would imply we are yet spiritual “babes” with dependency issues.

His remaining “hidden” is analogous to the parent who steps away from his child learning to ride a bike on their own – the parent rejoices when the child shows independence and the skill to ride “alone” that they have been working on. It also shows the child trusts himself and trusts that the greater vision the parent has for him/her will be fulfilled. This kind of “knowing trust” – operating at deeper levels than the externally obvious – is what faith is all about. It is at the level of a reality that those who rely upon third party demonstrable evidence for assurance will never know about – but is known, implicitly, by those with the courage to live by the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.

I would venture that finding that kind of meaningful existence is the reason you show up on these forums challenging others to show their “mettle.” You are looking for what you haven’t known but have an inkling of some kind that it exists, you are just not sure where to find it.

Very astute.