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No Confidence

To what would I liken the concept of "intellectual assent" were it to apply to the book?

Consider a computer with some real AI, sifting through all the information on the internet, searching for evidence that the Christian God exists. The computer finds some genuine proof, but is programmed never to convert to Christianity out of bias.

Instead, when asked whether proof that God exists truly exists, it will answer "Yes!". Then, as to whether it believes in God, it will say "No!" because of its programming. It will also say that it holds confidence in nothing (no religion or here, dogma) other than Christianity, because it is honest!

So, simply not holding any confidence in anything but Christianity does not entail logically that confidence is held in Christianity.

Now, are humans so programmed by their creator? The Bible states unequivocally that "Without faith, it is impossible to please God". Such a computer (or human) could not please Him.

But does confidence equal faith? It is not true to say so. The word "boldness" used of faith springs to mind but that is not the answer either. The computer, is "dead" regardless, as it never lived. What difference would such programming have made anyway? (The analogy is to those not "born again" or not spiritually alive in Christ.)

To have faith in Christ is to be spiritually alive in Christ, and the book used as an aid to strengthen that faith with confidence and "boldness" is given with the hope it will surely do so.

One must be "born again" to enter the kingdom of God. God alone chooses His elect children, and only from those that please Him with faith. A computer cannot do that for itself; neither may its programmer add code for it to believe. There is simply no code to add other than faith. A recipe cannot save you, human reason does not save you, confidence in nothing but the answer in Christ is still, not faith.

Faith can be confident or it can be weak, both are pleasing to God, if they be properly placed in Him.

So, as to the book strengthening weak faith: rather than as someone witnessing a miracle to give themselves strong faith, what answer is there found from a mere book? (It would be as God's answer to some prayer that would strengthen faith, but come from proxy.)

The book will not add to God's miracles, but it will enable a Christian to defend God against accusations from non-believers that God has any lust to see them all suffer in torment for eternity. If the bible is to make sense, then it should make sense. There is yet one verse for those that would hold the book as some sort of talisman for replacing faith.

Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (KJV)

Faith in virtue as in the book is a faith made of great works, after all.

Jam 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. (KJV)

So, doing good works appears enough to manifest sure faith... But Christ came calling sinners to repentance. No-one (as unbelieving) can repent without the Holy Spirit to enter the kingdom of God (all will "know them by their fruits"). Is it possible to do good works for God holding merely confidence in Jesus Christ and the gospel over all other faiths without that required faith?

For sure, lets say it isn't, and unwind the sets of people in that statement.

If there is someone having no faith at all in any religion but still doing good works (as for a particular religion) knowing if a God possibly exists then He must be as Christ: does such a person give pleasure to God?

The difference is only between "in truth" and "possibly", given that "logically correct" is not taken to mean "in truth".

But if "logically correct" entails "not truth" then "truth" entails "not logically correct". This can't have been meant surely! We should disregard all logic when it comes to faith, for it is then, in essence, illogical.

Yet then if we assume faith wholly necessary and place it beyond all question of logic, what is left but modal collapse? Is that collapse to all necessity itself faith? To accept everything as true because without any of it being held true, nothing by it would make any sense?

I doubt that is what is meant by faith. But then the following statement is become too strong!

"Holding no faith in Christ makes it impossible to do good works in His name, and so in faithlessness it is impossible to please Him."

Then "impossible to do good works in His name" is that part made too strong; who am I to decide whether or when the sinner puts the godly to shame (as if a good Samaritan) before God?

Then (loosely stated) all good works made in Christ leave the matter open as to whether there is faith or merely confidence present in the individual "believer". If both leave the matter open as to whether anyone can please God, then the book has its sure place: as it leaves the matter open. By that, I mean that confidently or in faith, one may approach God perhaps a little more boldly.

One last thing,

Is it possible to have faith but no confidence in Christ? Faith as I state can be pleasing strong or weak, but weak faith and confident is stronger than weak faith not so.

Jam 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. (KJV)

Faith comes but by hearing: but, for example: Paul approached the gentiles preaching the gospel of God's kingdom in a manner they would accept, he was "become all things to all men"

1Co 9:20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
1Co 9:21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
1Co 9:22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. (KJV)

Without always quoting to them the old testament, but supplying them the new, what is now doctrine in his epistles to us was "new wine" to them. At some point the spoken word became written word and passed from teaching into doctrine. Should all teaching be dismissed unless it be doctrine?

That may sound like a vacuous case, but doctrine is fixed, safe, and immobile and there is no sense in stepping beyond it if "truth" is found only by it. So, "logically correct" then, must be reasoned from it: not from "first principles".

But faith is illogical as above, and so I merely have to state that I believe John was truly divinely inspired and it has been likewise inspiring to follow in his footsteps and do so with the book.

Was I inspired to write the book? By John, surely. By God? Not so to write scripture! In Christ? Confidently. In faith? You could so accept my fellowship or not, it would make little difference to you except for everything by it.


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