Thank you for making this video. It did answer some of my inquiries, Dr. Nemes. I admittedly struggle a bit with a purely liberal Protestant version of Christianity, not because I am committed to orthodoxy or fundamentalism, but because it doesn’t convince me in the truth of the existence of the Christian conception of God. Even though I’ve been a Christian for 35 years, I readily admit that our world looks far more like one with a deist god than the Christian God. This wouldn’t trouble many liberal Protestants, but in my case, it still does. Thank you again for the shout-out and for sharing this with your audience.
As a liberal, yet serious religious Jew, I am sympathetic to elements of your approach (besides the critiques of fundamental Christian doctrines which, naturally, I'm not going to have much problem with). But there is some very important theological work that is lacking here, in my view. Probably the biggest one (and the one that most overlaps with my Jewish concerns) is your approach to Scripture. After rather breezily-I think it's fair to say-"badmouthing" Scripture ethically, spiritually, and aesthetically, how is one supposed to rescue or ransom the few, select ideas you've decided pass muster? I feel you certainly need some theology of progressive revelation or the like which articulates why the Bible (as the source of any possible Christian teaching) remains worthy of reverence today, while accounting for its difficulties in the past (as you see them; I won't get into possible responses to some of your specific criticisms). Right now, you seem to be suggesting a cut-and-paste job even more severe than Thomas Jefferson's Bible. To put it bluntly, if the Bible is as poor overall as you claim it is, why in the world would one put any stock in the theological message which you say forms its core? Existential safety is an essential biblical idea, I agree; but if you're correct about all the deficiencies (to put it mildly) you see in Scripture, why are the few good messages it contains, on your account, believably connected to the God of the Bible? After all, the God of Abraham or Moses or Isaiah or Jesus must be real in order to provide ultimate security.
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate the engagement with my video. I can’t respond in detail now as I am working, but a couple quick points: 1. I think it is up for liberals themselves to decide how much importance the Bible is going to have for them in their daily lives and in their churches. There does not need to be a single liberal position. 2. I do believe that God exists. I don’t believe that the Bible’s message of existential safety in God is inseparable from other particular ideas about God that it presents in the text. I think of it like this. There is a fundamental idea which forms the essence of religion in my mind-existential safety in God-and this idea is present in the Bible, but it’s also present outside the Bible. The Bible is only manifestation of this religious idea in history, and the manifestation is bound up with other things separable from it that are particular to the context of the Bible’s authors.
@@drstevennemes Thank you for your reply, Dr. Nemes. I know you're busy with your academic "day job," so I'll limit myself to this: My remarks were mainly meant to suggest that most anyone who is serious about their faith, and who wants to understand a liberal Protestant perspective, would need to hear more about how to perform, with intellectual integrity, the separation you point to. Your task, I imagine, is not to require them to follow your path in doing so, but at least to give them one such rational option. It would begin to address questions such as: (a) How does one (or did you) determine the one "essence of religion," since the Bible (and other books) say so many different things? (b) The NT, pretty consistently, makes existential security conditional on some sort of devotion to Jesus. What does this mean for your approach? (c) Is the Bible a kind of department store where one picks out one's favorite items? If so, are we not simply taking our own preexisting, pet beliefs and calling them divine? (d) If the previous answer is "yes, and there's nothing wrong with that," then what is the theology underwriting this divinizing of our own ideas? (e) If even the Bible (not to mention the Trinity and the Incarnation), is fairly dispensable, what, at bottom, makes this faith "Christian"? I know you mentioned Jesus as an exemplar of sorts, but why not a "best of all world religions" approach to faith?
Your perspective is very interesting. I will be honest, I am not a Christian, and nothing here convinces me to be Christian, but I do find your perspective refreshing compared to (small-c) catholic theology. If you are interested in discussion I think we disagree on the fundamental tenet of religion. If I understand your view correctly you believe that an absolute security in God is the center of faith, however I believe fear of God is central to faith. Fear, like all aspects of man, is implanted in a man for a reason, and as such rightly ordered fear is part of rightly ordered life, in my view.
Would it not be right to conclude that the old testament scriptures were considered to be inspired because of the way new testament writers quote from them as prophetically fulfilled by Jesus, and Jesus himself referred to them, such as Adam being joined to Eve, and also saying that the scriptures cannot be broken. Paul says for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Hebrews 11 covers quite a lot of the old testament. Paul takes up the illustration of a potter having the right to do what he wants with the clay, arguing that God can do what he wants. He is righteous, of course, so if we doubt this, there is something wrong with our thinking rather than with God. Godly Christians, down through the ages, such as George Muller who fed thousands of orphans by faith, with the goal of proving to skeptics that God exists, had no problem with the God of the old testament. Abraham offering Isaac is an illustration of a loving father offering his beloved son for a higher cause, as God gave his son, for us. This can not be compared to the heathen offering their children continually as sacrifices to idols. Anyway, God stopped Abraham from doing it, which means he never intended for him to do it, so this accusation falls to the ground. And Abraham believed that God would raise him from the dead to fulfil his promises through him. The Canaanites were wicked, and their infants would have grown up wicked too. The death penalty is still in some States in America, and war often takes the lives of infants. I would agree with you that a lot of the RC orthodox doctrines disagree with the new testament. I believe we all have the right to study the bible for ourselves. When I discuss things with other Christians we have the bible as common ground, and it is really my anchor, and if I let go of it, what would I have to hold on to. I would lose my hope.
So overview of the first 5min talk about Trinity and please correct me if I am wrong. so the three persons are the one being (a Corporate Unity) meaning none of the persons can be by Personal self be that One Corporate Unity (Uncaused, Neccessary, Aseity) and since the Creeds make the Father everything the Corporate Unity is by Unity. Therefore, they have a Contradiction.
Dr. Nemes, thank you for sharing. How would you interpret Jesus Christ’s teachings of hell with the definition of being a Christian as ultimate safety as a child of God?
If you desire "existential safety in God," why do you deny every single teaching that actually secures this? Truly a laughable thesis, I wonder what vice has you chained to it.
Your whole thing is a huge misunderstanding of terms. You aren't speaking the same literal language of Christians and that's why these seem like contradictions to you.
A case for what now? 1:43 Case. 13:00 The heresies are not yet over. 13:1315:00 These are downright atheist talking points. 16:15 The bulk of the heresies are over. And from there you start the case for Liberal Protestantism.
Thank you for making this video. It did answer some of my inquiries, Dr. Nemes. I admittedly struggle a bit with a purely liberal Protestant version of Christianity, not because I am committed to orthodoxy or fundamentalism, but because it doesn’t convince me in the truth of the existence of the Christian conception of God. Even though I’ve been a Christian for 35 years, I readily admit that our world looks far more like one with a deist god than the Christian God. This wouldn’t trouble many liberal Protestants, but in my case, it still does.
Thank you again for the shout-out and for sharing this with your audience.
@@AaronGardner98
Thanks for your comment, Aaron.
Of course, there would be a lot to talk about. But hopefully this is a start.
Excellent, this is the way forward
Foward to hell
As a liberal, yet serious religious Jew, I am sympathetic to elements of your approach (besides the critiques of fundamental Christian doctrines which, naturally, I'm not going to have much problem with). But there is some very important theological work that is lacking here, in my view. Probably the biggest one (and the one that most overlaps with my Jewish concerns) is your approach to Scripture. After rather breezily-I think it's fair to say-"badmouthing" Scripture ethically, spiritually, and aesthetically, how is one supposed to rescue or ransom the few, select ideas you've decided pass muster?
I feel you certainly need some theology of progressive revelation or the like which articulates why the Bible (as the source of any possible Christian teaching) remains worthy of reverence today, while accounting for its difficulties in the past (as you see them; I won't get into possible responses to some of your specific criticisms). Right now, you seem to be suggesting a cut-and-paste job even more severe than Thomas Jefferson's Bible.
To put it bluntly, if the Bible is as poor overall as you claim it is, why in the world would one put any stock in the theological message which you say forms its core? Existential safety is an essential biblical idea, I agree; but if you're correct about all the deficiencies (to put it mildly) you see in Scripture, why are the few good messages it contains, on your account, believably connected to the God of the Bible? After all, the God of Abraham or Moses or Isaiah or Jesus must be real in order to provide ultimate security.
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate the engagement with my video.
I can’t respond in detail now as I am working, but a couple quick points:
1. I think it is up for liberals themselves to decide how much importance the Bible is going to have for them in their daily lives and in their churches. There does not need to be a single liberal position.
2. I do believe that God exists. I don’t believe that the Bible’s message of existential safety in God is inseparable from other particular ideas about God that it presents in the text. I think of it like this. There is a fundamental idea which forms the essence of religion in my mind-existential safety in God-and this idea is present in the Bible, but it’s also present outside the Bible. The Bible is only manifestation of this religious idea in history, and the manifestation is bound up with other things separable from it that are particular to the context of the Bible’s authors.
@@drstevennemes Thank you for your reply, Dr. Nemes. I know you're busy with your academic "day job," so I'll limit myself to this: My remarks were mainly meant to suggest that most anyone who is serious about their faith, and who wants to understand a liberal Protestant perspective, would need to hear more about how to perform, with intellectual integrity, the separation you point to. Your task, I imagine, is not to require them to follow your path in doing so, but at least to give them one such rational option. It would begin to address questions such as:
(a) How does one (or did you) determine the one "essence of religion," since the Bible (and other books) say so many different things?
(b) The NT, pretty consistently, makes existential security conditional on some sort of devotion to Jesus. What does this mean for your approach?
(c) Is the Bible a kind of department store where one picks out one's favorite items? If so, are we not simply taking our own preexisting, pet beliefs and calling them divine?
(d) If the previous answer is "yes, and there's nothing wrong with that," then what is the theology underwriting this divinizing of our own ideas?
(e) If even the Bible (not to mention the Trinity and the Incarnation), is fairly dispensable, what, at bottom, makes this faith "Christian"? I know you mentioned Jesus as an exemplar of sorts, but why not a "best of all world religions" approach to faith?
@@KingoftheJuice18
Thanks for your comments. These are very good and helpful points. I may try to address them in greater detail another time.
Your perspective is very interesting. I will be honest, I am not a Christian, and nothing here convinces me to be Christian, but I do find your perspective refreshing compared to (small-c) catholic theology.
If you are interested in discussion I think we disagree on the fundamental tenet of religion. If I understand your view correctly you believe that an absolute security in God is the center of faith, however I believe fear of God is central to faith. Fear, like all aspects of man, is implanted in a man for a reason, and as such rightly ordered fear is part of rightly ordered life, in my view.
Patristic pillars (William Albercht) responded to you
I saw that. Thanks for letting me know. I have left a comment on William’s video.
Would it not be right to conclude that the old testament scriptures were considered to be inspired because of the way new testament writers quote from them as prophetically fulfilled by Jesus, and Jesus himself referred to them, such as Adam being joined to Eve, and also saying that the scriptures cannot be broken. Paul says for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Hebrews 11 covers quite a lot of the old testament.
Paul takes up the illustration of a potter having the right to do what he wants with the clay, arguing that God can do what he wants. He is righteous, of course, so if we doubt this, there is something wrong with our thinking rather than with God. Godly Christians, down through the ages, such as George Muller who fed thousands of orphans by faith, with the goal of proving to skeptics that God exists, had no problem with the God of the old testament.
Abraham offering Isaac is an illustration of a loving father offering his beloved son for a higher cause, as God gave his son, for us. This can not be compared to the heathen offering their children continually as sacrifices to idols. Anyway, God stopped Abraham from doing it, which means he never intended for him to do it, so this accusation falls to the ground. And Abraham believed that God would raise him from the dead to fulfil his promises through him. The Canaanites were wicked, and their infants would have grown up wicked too. The death penalty is still in some States in America, and war often takes the lives of infants.
I would agree with you that a lot of the RC orthodox doctrines disagree with the new testament. I believe we all have the right to study the bible for ourselves. When I discuss things with other Christians we have the bible as common ground, and it is really my anchor, and if I let go of it, what would I have to hold on to. I would lose my hope.
great
So overview of the first 5min talk about Trinity and please correct me if I am wrong.
so the three persons are the one being (a Corporate Unity) meaning none of the persons can be by Personal self be that One Corporate Unity (Uncaused, Neccessary, Aseity) and since the Creeds make the Father everything the Corporate Unity is by Unity. Therefore, they have a Contradiction.
Dr. Nemes, thank you for sharing. How would you interpret Jesus Christ’s teachings of hell with the definition of being a Christian as ultimate safety as a child of God?
If you desire "existential safety in God," why do you deny every single teaching that actually secures this? Truly a laughable thesis, I wonder what vice has you chained to it.
Your whole thing is a huge misunderstanding of terms. You aren't speaking the same literal language of Christians and that's why these seem like contradictions to you.
A case for what now?
1:43 Case.
13:00 The heresies are not yet over.
13:13 15:00 These are downright atheist talking points.
16:15 The bulk of the heresies are over.
And from there you start the case for Liberal Protestantism.
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