Post by jason on Nov 16, 2006 6:14:36 GMT
So I put this short little thing together awhile back, and thought I'd share:
The July 15, 2005 issue of The Watchtower has an article that begins:
"For earth's inhabitants to know what teachings are true and pleasing to God, he must reveal his thoughts to humans. He must also make that revelation available to all. How else could mankind know what God approves of in the way of doctrine, worship, and conduct? Has God supplied such information? If so, in what form? Can any human with a life span of a few decades personally reach all mankind and serve as a channel of communication from God? No. But a permanent written record can. Therefore, would it not be appropriate that the revelation from God be made available in the form of a book?"
This short paragraph has been the inspiration of much of my thinking over the past two months.
Then I came across my copy of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. It addresses the above with the following:
"Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God....Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God....Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing."
But perhaps you are not convinced? What's wrong with God speaking selectively to mankind? Why cannot the almighty use Scriptures to get the word out? Paine continues:
"If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident whatever, in that which we would honor with the name of the word of God; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human language. The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, are of themselves evidences that the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in something else."
So much for the means of transferring God's will to man via man. But what about the contents of the holy books of the world? Again from Paine:
"When we contemplate the immensity of that Being who directs and governs the incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stores the word of God."
The July 15, 2005 issue of The Watchtower has an article that begins:
"For earth's inhabitants to know what teachings are true and pleasing to God, he must reveal his thoughts to humans. He must also make that revelation available to all. How else could mankind know what God approves of in the way of doctrine, worship, and conduct? Has God supplied such information? If so, in what form? Can any human with a life span of a few decades personally reach all mankind and serve as a channel of communication from God? No. But a permanent written record can. Therefore, would it not be appropriate that the revelation from God be made available in the form of a book?"
This short paragraph has been the inspiration of much of my thinking over the past two months.
Then I came across my copy of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. It addresses the above with the following:
"Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God....Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God....Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing."
But perhaps you are not convinced? What's wrong with God speaking selectively to mankind? Why cannot the almighty use Scriptures to get the word out? Paine continues:
"If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident whatever, in that which we would honor with the name of the word of God; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human language. The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, are of themselves evidences that the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in something else."
So much for the means of transferring God's will to man via man. But what about the contents of the holy books of the world? Again from Paine:
"When we contemplate the immensity of that Being who directs and governs the incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stores the word of God."
