Yeah but...why is there so much of that in Christianity?

[nobspeople]

In seeing so many conversations here, there seems to be a lot of 'yeah but's' and 'well you need to understand's' ' the original text says' and on and on and on.

It makes me wonder:
If Christianity is supposed to be for everyone, why is it not crystal clear?
Why do some think you need to 'understand' the original text, the culture of the time, what they 'meant'?
You see people saying Christ hates and others saying Christ loves, all quoting the same scriptures!
Some would say that what happens when people get involved - they muddy the waters. But why isn't God clearing out the pond then?

It's madness!

Or, does all this little stuff (how ever one defines that) - all the minutia not matter? Only the main message matters (whatever that may be which even Christians don't all agree on) matters?

If the minutia doesn't matter, why are we here 'debating' it?

Seems to me, God should be a lot more clear and should be weeding out those that sow confusion of his message to the people!

For discussion:
If Christianity is supposed to be for everyone, why is it not crystal clear and why hasn't God eliminated those that cause confusion with his word?

[William]

Christianity should forever be known as that which is implicated in historical atrocity and as such, the identifying label "Christian" should be avoided by all who acknowledge that truth.

The same could be said of labels like 'American,' 'Chinese,'

True. Religion and state are similar monsters, and have historically worked alongside one another when profitable.

or simply 'human.'

Not true. Human is the default.

I take it you're not identifying yourself as Christian any more?

Correct.

[Purple Knight]

The only way to do it would be to assume that if you see a contradiction, you have it wrong, and then try to select another interpretation.

That doesn't seem very logical at all really
At least not from the standpoint of someone (God) wanting you to understand and 'get it right' initially.
Perfect sense from the standpoint of anyone else I suppose.

Well maybe it doesn't want us to get it right initially.

(See what I'm doing here? If I can't get the pear with the tools I have then I reason that if God is fair, it doesn't want me to have the pear.)

Now, if God isn't fair... if it's just a bully that demands heights of us which we simply were not built to be able to reach, and it does this in order to gleefully punish us "deservedly" (for, we actually did get it wrong) then it doesn't matter what the entity thinks and we can all just ignore it.

[historia]

Is the Nicene Creed crystal clear regarding the deity of Christ?

Sure. It may not go into as much detail as you would like, but creeds are not meant to be detailed.

Without having addressed the apparent incoherency of terms like 'eternally' begotten (without an eternal mother) and a single God which is both begetter and begettee, a mere assertion that it offers clarity on the subject really doesn't carry much weight.

The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to clarify whether the Son is a created being or fully divine. Arius and his followers fully recognized that the creed rejected their belief that the Son was created, so it seems to have clearly served its purpose.

Your complaint seems to be that the creed is not as detailed as you would personally like. But lack of detail is not the same as lack of clarity. Consider an analogy: Is the scientific claim that "light behaves as both a particle and a wave" unclear? It doesn't, in its brevity, explain in any detail the apparent contradiction it presents. But does that make it unclear?

Claiming that God made it all clear through the quasi-political efforts at Nicaea three centuries after Jesus' death would obviously be a bit of a stretch!

Why? How did the primitive Christian community resolve disputes? They met together in a council and decided the matter.

If it "seemed good to the Holy Spirit" (Acts 15:28) that disputes should be resolved in that way, then why is it "obviously a bit of a stretch" to extend that to later councils?

That seems like a strange verse to make your case with

I take it from your sideways response here that you do not dispute the fact that Christians have, from the earliest times, resolved their disagreements through councils, which they saw as guided by the Holy Spirit.

The fact that you like the ruling of the Council of Jerusalem, but would have preferred that Constantine's position prevailed at the "quasi-political" Council of Nicea, is merely an expression of personal preference, not an argument that ecumenical councils cannot, in principle, serve this role.

There's little or no agreement on what the essential core of beliefs/practices should be, as we see with the wildly abstract Nicene additions to the practical concerns that the Jerusalem council considered essential.

Except there is a great deal of agreement among orthodox Christian churches on most issues of faith and practice. To imagine otherwise is to miss the forest for the trees.

And the Council of Nicea dealt with a number of practical concerns beyond just the Arian controversy.

[Mithrae]

Without having addressed the apparent incoherency of terms like 'eternally' begotten (without an eternal mother) and a single God which is both begetter and begettee, a mere assertion that it offers clarity on the subject really doesn't carry much weight.

The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to clarify whether the Son is a created being or fully divine.

And it does so by making a distinction between "one God, the Father" and "one Lord, Jesus Christ" who is a dependent/begotten being... but nevertheless also "true God from true God." As I said, if it were clear, it would clearly be polytheism. For the record, according to Wikipedia Arius held that the Son was indeed divine and was indeed begotten: We're going to need a bigger microscope to see exactly what it was the Nicene Creed 'clarified'

Your complaint seems to be that the creed is not as detailed as you would personally like. But lack of detail is not the same as lack of clarity. Consider an analogy: Is the scientific claim that "light behaves as both a particle and a wave" unclear? It doesn't, in its brevity, explain in any detail the apparent contradiction it presents. But does that make it unclear?

Wave/particle duality doesn't imply a logical contradiction like the Nicene Creed does; but if something requires further clarification to be understood, it obviously lacks clarity. Substituting 'detail' for clarity may or may not have more semantic merit, but it doesn't fix or change the concern raised in the OP.

That seems like a strange verse to make your case with

I take it from your sideways response here that you do not dispute the fact that Christians have, from the earliest times, resolved their disagreements through councils, which they saw as guided by the Holy Spirit.

The fact that you like the ruling of the Council of Jerusalem, but would have preferred that Constantine's position prevailed at the "quasi-political" Council of Nicea, is merely an expression of personal preference, not an argument that ecumenical councils cannot, in principle, serve this role.

We don't know how accurate Luke's portrayal of the 'Council of Jerusalem' is, even assuming such a formal event occurred at all. As far as I'm aware the only early report which could be considered confirmation, of sorts, is Paul's claim (Gal. 2) that he went to Jerusalem in response to a revelation and met with the leaders there in private regarding what requirements those "so-called" leaders wished to impose on gentile converts, allegedly resulting in a division of ministries of Paul and Barnabas to the gentiles and the others to the Jews. From Paul's account, far from suggesting some kind of formal authoritative council it would seem that neither Paul nor the 'judaizers' had any intention whatsoever of changing their views at the behest of James or Peter; Paul merely hoped to bring the 'pillars' around to his view, and perhaps was fortunate that (by his report) they had relatively little interest in reaching out to gentiles at all.

Luke's apparent embellishment on those events - even if taken as true and accurate - wouldn't serve as a precedent to justify all future 'councils' in any case. As I noted (and you have not answered) in answer to the question of what requirements to impose on gentile believers "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.." Saying that this justifies a bunch of bishops coming along three hundred years later and declaring that, actually, it's also essential for Christians to uphold some incomprehensible abstract metaphysical assertions too is nonsensical.

My preferences don't even enter into it. But if there were some actually important controversy to discuss and perhaps resolve - unlike homoousianism vs. homoiousianism, which is quite literally one of the worst examples of semantic hair-splitting over utterly unknowable and otherwise inconsequential speculation in human history - my preference would be more along the lines of Paul's approach of seeking some measure of consensus, perhaps compromise, or at least mutual understanding, if it can be found, but ultimately maintaining the primacy of individual conscience, reason or personal 'revelation' over institutional authority. In the scenario of instead choosing to misappropriate the 'precedent' set by Luke's version of events, my secondary preference would be that a supposedly authoritative council actually follow that supposed precedent by using a similar approach of cautious minimalism. A bunch of bishops arrogating to themselves the authority to make binding, incoherent proclamations about the finest details of the very nature of God is about as far removed from even Luke's version as it is possible to get, short of initiating wars and persecutions (which of course many of these later 'councils' also did under their supposed divine mandate).

There's little or no agreement on what the essential core of beliefs/practices should be, as we see with the wildly abstract Nicene additions to the practical concerns that the Jerusalem council considered essential.

Except there is a great deal of agreement among orthodox Christian churches on most issues of faith and practice. To imagine otherwise is to miss the forest for the trees.

And the Council of Nicea dealt with a number of practical concerns beyond just the Arian controversy.

Is the bible an infallible and/or sole rule of doctrine and faith?
Did death enter the world through the sin of a human being?
Should Christians obey the teaching and example of Christ?
Is God's grace administered sacramentally through the Church?
Can non-Christians be saved / Is a good heart and good works sufficient for salvation?
Can salvation be lost / Are ongoing devotions or good works necessary for salvation?
Is Jesus going to literally come back and conquer the planet?

There are widespread disagreements among Christians on almost every major point from their source/s and reliability of religious Truth, through origins mythology and the value of Christ's own teaching (admittedly, Christians are fairly unanimous in deciding not to obey his teaching and example, but it's a strange one), to the means and nature of 'salvation,' and ultimately to the teleology or destination point as a whole. There's also widespread disagreement on any number of minor points, obviously. Even something like Jesus' divinity - which in terms of creedal confessions enjoys something like 99% agreement among Christians - would probably find considerably fewer positive responses if we individually asked those billions of folk who just go to church every so often because that's how their parents raised them. It really is only those few points which constitute a vague outline of comforting beliefs like "God is real," "I'm going to heaven" and "Jesus died for my sins" (and hence, yes, "Jesus is God" even if it turned out to be 'only' 70 or 80% agreement) which I'd expect to have anything even remotely approaching a Christian consensus.

[bjs1]

Is the bible an infallible and/or sole rule of doctrine and faith?
Did death enter the world through the sin of a human being?
Should Christians obey the teaching and example of Christ?
Is God's grace administered sacramentally through the Church?
Can non-Christians be saved / Is a good heart and good works sufficient for salvation?
Can salvation be lost / Are ongoing devotions or good works necessary for salvation?
Is Jesus going to literally come back and conquer the planet?

These do not strike me as general questions aimed at addressing unity or disunity among orthodox Christians. Rather, they seem like questions about specific details that are designed to present an appearance of disunity without speaking to the substance of that issue. Each question could be rephrased to point out considerable unity among orthodox Christians.

Is the bible an infallible and/or sole rule of doctrine and faith?

Is the Bible the most important guide book for a Christian’s faith and practice?

Did death enter the world through the sin of a human being?

Are all people fallen in sin?

Should Christians obey the teaching and example of Christ?

Should Christians obey the teachings of the Apostles? (We don’t actually have direct teachings of Christ. We have the teachings of the Apostles about Christ. I understand that "teachings of Christ" is a common short hand, but I'm not sure if that is what you meant here. Apologies if I am wrong.)

Is God's grace administered sacramentally through the Church?

Do all Christians practice sacraments through the church; specifically the Lord’s Supper and Baptism?

Can non-Christians be saved / Is a good heart and good works sufficient for salvation?

Are Christians called to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to all people? (The original question seems purely academic. What a Christian believes about the matter will affect neither the truth of the matter nor the right action for that Christian.)

Can salvation be lost / Are ongoing devotions or good works necessary for salvation?

Should Christians continue to live godly and devout lives after receiving salvation?

Is Jesus going to literally come back and conquer the planet?

Will this age come to an end?


Obviously there are idiosyncratic answers that break from the norm, but virtually every group of Christians agree on the answers to these questions.

There is widespread disagreement among Christians on a number of minor points. Christian tradition and scripture both specifically allow for such disagreements (See 1 Corinthians chapter 8). However, there is widespread agreement on virtually all major Christian doctrines. The most influential work on this topic in the last century was Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and in his introduction to that book Lewis said that he was only repeating what has been said by virtually every generation of Christians for nearly 2,000 years.


Edit: Looking over this again, the issue of being purely academic seems all the more prevalent. With the exception of the first and third questions (and maybe even then), two Christians could disagree on the answer to the original questions while still having essentially the same practice and considering themselves one in Christ.

[Mithrae]

Is the bible an infallible and/or sole rule of doctrine and faith?
Did death enter the world through the sin of a human being?
Should Christians obey the teaching and example of Christ?
Is God's grace administered sacramentally through the Church?
Can non-Christians be saved / Is a good heart and good works sufficient for salvation?
Can salvation be lost / Are ongoing devotions or good works necessary for salvation?
Is Jesus going to literally come back and conquer the planet?

These do not strike me as general questions aimed at addressing unity or disunity among orthodox Christians. Rather, they seem like questions about specific details that are designed to present an appearance of disunity without speaking to the substance of that issue. Each question could be rephrased to point out considerable unity among orthodox Christians.

It's true that if we gloss over the divisions we'd be left with the appearance of unity. We could do the same thing between capitalists and socialists; besides the tiny, tiny detail of ownership of the means of production, well, they'll agree on most points of social and economic theory when they're phrased right. It's not as if I've taken trivial, inconsequential issues (like homoousianism vs. homoiousianism) and tried to blow them out of proportion as if deviation from an orthodoxy were 'heretical' or somesuch; these are questions about the very source/s of doctrine, the origin- and end-points, and the means and nature of 'salvation.'

Is the bible an infallible and/or sole rule of doctrine and faith?

Is the Bible the most important guide book for a Christian’s faith and practice?

Note that you had to focus on books specifically to create even a semblance of unity. But is the bible even Christians' most important source of guidance in general? Many Catholics would say that Tradition is equally important (and generally takes priority as 'interpretation' of Scripture). Many Christians scarcely ever read the bible, and trust in their priest or pastor's guidance. Many others believe that the 'new covenant' involves God's law written on their hearts and minds and they should all know God directly. Many Christians view their religion in terms of simply 'believe in Jesus and be a good person,' if that, and see little value in designating any further guide for "faith and practice."

Did death enter the world through the sin of a human being?

Are all people fallen in sin?

If "fallen in sin" means "not perfect" basically everyone on the planet would agree: But it's air-brushing an important (some would say crucial) NT doctrine which has caused many Christians to reject the sciences of geology, paleontology and so on. Beyond the 'mere' denial of science, if humans are evolved animals, if our imperfections long predated our species, then God made us 'sinners'. (I mean, obviously he did in any case, there's no way around that, but that fact is right up in your face if you recognize the prevalence of self-interest, killing and death throughout biological history.) It cuts to the core of one of the main criticisms of Christian psychology; is there an element of self-loathing in the doctrine of original sin? Are our shortcomings fundamentally our fault? Is hellfire really justice, and 'salvation' really an undeserved grace? Or is it essentially just fixing possibly unavoidable design flaws?

Should Christians obey the teaching and example of Christ?

Should Christians obey the teachings of the Apostles? (We don’t actually have direct teachings of Christ. We have the teachings of the Apostles about Christ. I understand that "teachings of Christ" is a common short hand, but I'm not sure if that is what you meant here. Apologies if I am wrong.)

You're not wrong, though I imagine many Christians would disagree with a claim that the gospels are not the teachings of Jesus; it seems a distinction solely intended to edge in the self-proclaimed apostle Paul. Otherwise, the teaching and example of the apostles as reported in Acts 2 and 4 - Christians selling their lands, holding everything in common and fellowshipping daily - is pretty much universally rejected by Christians just as much as the gospel example of itinerant preaching.

Is God's grace administered sacramentally through the Church?

Do all Christians practice sacraments through the church; specifically the Lord’s Supper and Baptism?

In many if not most Protestant churches those are deemed commemorative or symbolic 'ordinances,' rather than supernatural or grace-bestowing sacraments. According to many it's a distinction on which one's salvation may hinge, but of even more practical consequence is the depth and scope of temporal authority and control which church institutions exercise on the basis of holding these 'keys to the kingdom of heaven.'

Can non-Christians be saved / Is a good heart and good works sufficient for salvation?

Are Christians called to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to all people? (The original question seems purely academic. What a Christian believes about the matter will affect neither the truth of the matter nor the right action for that Christian.)

If non-Christians are necessarily damned to hell, and if church sacraments are a vehicle of grace, then logically it would be an act of 'love' for passing explorers to baptize and then execute heathen babies rather than leave them to grow to adulthood in condemnation. Virtually any kind of bigotry and oppression can be (and has been) justified if 'salvation' can be found only within the Christian faith, with an exceptionally strong precedent of Israelite genocides to back them up. Hardly an academic point.

Can salvation be lost / Are ongoing devotions or good works necessary for salvation?

Should Christians continue to live godly and devout lives after receiving salvation?

Of all the questions this is perhaps the least consequential, since its effects are likely to be mostly in the realm of family members' pressure/indoctrination to keep each other in the fold and emotional anguish over those destined to hell by their backsliding.

Is Jesus going to literally come back and conquer the planet?

Will this age come to an end?

This is probably the most consequential of the questions, with belief in an imminent return having caused many Christians to throw away all their possessions and prospects; served as a justification for trashing the planet since "the present form of things is passing away"; and been one of the catalysts for disruptive policies and conflict in the Middle East (a great war there being one of the supposed precursors to the return of Christ). Obviously, many Christians don't believe any of that will happen.

There is widespread disagreement among Christians on a number of minor points. Christian tradition and scripture both specifically allow for such disagreements (See 1 Corinthians chapter 8). However, there is widespread agreement on virtually all major Christian doctrines. The most influential work on this topic in the last century was Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and in his introduction to that book Lewis said that he was only repeating what has been said by virtually every generation of Christians for nearly 2,000 years.


Edit: Looking over this again, the issue of being purely academic seems all the more prevalent. With the exception of the first and third questions (and maybe even then), two Christians could disagree on the answer to the original questions while still having essentially the same practice and considering themselves one in Christ.

A bible-thumping, rapture-awaiting, fire and brimstone-preaching young earth creationist Christian could have "essentially the same practice" and even consider themselves "one in Christ" with a liberal Christian atheist, but that doesn't make their differences "purely academic."

If memory serves, in Mere Christianity Lewis implicitly rejects both the atoning sacrifice view of Jesus' incarnation and death and the eternal distinction between Creator and inferior creation, instead suggesting that the purpose was to show/make us eventually the same as Christ himself simply because God was unable to directly 'beget' multiple Sons without first instantiating them/us in a material world. Does that represent a point of unity in Christian belief? As you say, Lewis was explicitly attempting to present a unified, ecumenical view of Christianity, and according to most Christians (and its most-recognized symbol) Jesus' death is the single most important aspect of the religion; yet Lewis apparently couldn't bring himself to stick to traditional orthodoxy there. He was a smart fellow who presumably perceived some kind of... indefinable problem, shall we say... with the view that our loving God needed a human sacrifice of his own son to allow him to forgive us of the faults that he made us with. Is there widespread agreement among Christians even on this most central aspect of the religion?

Offhand, I think there may actually be more agreement in American political views than there are in Christian religious views. Would you argue that point? The issue isn't that there aren't some things which most Christians agree on, however vaguely defined - some version of God, some version of Jesus, imperfection/sin, grace and heaven, for example: It's that there's nothing special about Christian 'unity' that suggests any kind of deity has offered or is offering clarity to those who seek Him.