Without the Scriptures, everything is worthless human philosophy and articulate “What I think is truth” theology, even if it is accompanied by Van Goghesque sincerity.

You still miss the point in Paul’s comments in Romans 1. It is not to give “an out” via “natural law” to those who have not heard the message, but rather to indicate that even if they have not heard, they have the evidence of Creation and have sinned against it (so they are without excuse).

So one man rejects the existence of God in spite of creation while another distorts the meaning of creation and rejects God buy constructing his own inaccurate theology, even sometimes worshiping the creation.

Without the Scriptures, everything is worthless human philosophy and articulate “What I think is truth” theology, even if it is accompanied by Van Goghesque sincerity.

Natural theology is implicitly and absolutely subjective because it is based entirely on observable evidence, personal processing, and a host of cultural and educational influences.

Even so, Rick, Paul indicates that evidence of Creation is enough to give no man an excuse for rejecting God (which was the original point).

In a word – “opinion”.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Today we celebrate the day God said “YES” to all of creation in Jesus the Messiah.

yeah karl!

an appeal to rabbinic judaism strange – hannah

i’m do see why this would be strange. i’ll grant that chris l. puts a lot more emphasis on things jewish that i… probably than most.

you offered a very soecific hypothetical. and the problem with hypotheticals is that they are most often extreme cases and can cut both ways.

for every hypothetical like yours – i could post one about some careless slut who uses abortion as a form birth control… or someone who has two girls and want a want a boy…

anyway, chris l’s point was to show how exceptions can be made, and on what basis this is done.

Hannah, I’m not trying to offend you, I’m trying to understand what you mean by orthodox. – joe

hannah,

i suspect had joe started off with you this way – it would have gone better.

joe and i have gone back and forth before on the style of commenting. he tends to be more blunt, i tend to be more conciliatory.

so – when he pushes, push back. when the points are made and understood he can agree to disagree.

hope that makes sense.

hope that’s not condescending – joe.

neil – the conciliator

it’s hard to argue against one pericope without the whole – but i do see the problem of foundationalism – that seems to be the very thing paul is advocating.

and, even though campbell states it as fact, he does not say why he thinks this creates an a priori rejection of God, or atheism.