tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8612091642455651407.post3262596181549702754..comments2023-11-05T01:46:56.818-08:00Comments on Cranium Creek: Not Good, But Good EnoughMikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05318927628939059697noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8612091642455651407.post-38023771982008876082010-08-30T12:40:50.482-07:002010-08-30T12:40:50.482-07:00Thanks Dale for your usual insight. Thanks to you ...Thanks Dale for your usual insight. Thanks to you too, Michael Gormley, for a detailed explanation of the other side of that argument. It's nice to know that I can at least attract thoughtful analysis of a topic, even if I don't provide much myself. That's one of the things I enjoy about blogging.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05318927628939059697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8612091642455651407.post-22319214098805620242010-08-25T08:21:14.043-07:002010-08-25T08:21:14.043-07:00If I might armchair psychoanalyze for a moment, it...If I might armchair psychoanalyze for a moment, it seems to me that many Christians reach a "salvation through faith alone" form of the creed out of a desire to cut through all the many conflicting strands, demands, and entanglements of actually-existing Christianity. <br /><br />I have to think that if you're a person who has it in his head to believe that Christianity is THE WAY, and you want to be thoughtful about it, you have *a lot of material* to sort through -- there are countless sects, an opinionated preacher around every corner, and enough theology books to fill a large canyon. What to do? As I say, an easy answer -- and one affirmed in at least some passages -- is to latch on to sola fide. <br /><br />As with all easy answers, it doesn't quite hang together in the real world. For starters, it puts you in heaven alongside some extremely unsavory figures, and damns some extremely good figures.<br /><br />Under the terms of sola fide, Atilla the Hun would be in heaven if he made a last-minute conversion to belief in Jesus. Maybe 24 hours before that he was putting someone on a stake to terrorize his enemies, but now he's saved because he assembled the right thoughts and emotions about Jesus in the right order. Meanwhile the person on the stake didn't make the last-second conversion -- died in agony believing in the wrong god or something, despite an exemplary life. That person is now in hell.<br /><br />I think this is, in microcosm, one of the true functions of religion: it serves as a proxy for thinking about moral and metaphysical questions. Those are difficult. The temptations to easy, clean answers are strong ones.<br /><br />Neat!Dalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10523307255698594696noreply@blogger.com