[Church_of_Christ] Re: Creeds
Norman,
There is a lot of confusion going on here. I'm not blaming you for it, nor myself. The problem lies in our different understanding of certain terms and concepts.
In much of your post you seem to flip flop on the 'perfect knowledge' issue. Rather than try to correct that, I want to TRY to explain some things in hopes that it will help.
There is a running theme through your understanding that to be CONFIDENT in ones doctrine is to have perfect knowledge of God, seen in comments like this:
>you know the mind of God perfectly or
> you would not be able to tell me His total acceptable package.
This may be the very heart of our miscommunication. I regard such a statement as illogical on any level. One does not have to know the mind of God perfectly to know His total acceptable package.
This doesn't make any sense to me at all, though I have heard it many times before.
I can be CONFIDENT and 100% percent certain regarding a handful of doctrines without knowing the mind of God perfectly. Knowing the mind of God perfectly would mean I know everything God knows and I'm right in 100% of my doctrine. Even in secular matters we don't believe this, which is why such a claim confuses me.
I am a certified Math teacher. I freely admit there are some levels of math I have never studied. There are certain math problems you could place before me and I wouldn't even know where to begin. Does that mean I can't do basic multiplication tables? Does my lack of knowledge of higher math prove that I know nothing FOR CERTAIN about math AT ALL? Of course not. Nor would I think for a moment that you would claim such a thing about me. No one would. Partial knowledge in a field does not imply a lack of confidence in the partial knowledge.
But that is precisely what you are doing concerning doctrine and God. You are claiming that unless we have perfect knowledge of God, there is room to be wrong on EVERYTHING we believe! Nonsense! Why do you even THINK that? DO you really believe that YOU can't be sure of SOME of your knowledge unless you have perfect knowledge of God?
I can't imagine such a situation myself.
anyway, there is a lot more ground to cover and I want to address many things in your post, but I thought I would start with this.
I will get back to you on some other things. Thanks.
Ray
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