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Paul's Theology—Issue Arguments
Terms of Argument.
Words can mean anything. It is the contex which gives words their meaning. But context can also be questionable, and then it is applications that ultimately determine what words mean. This is one of the reasons why Christ used the examples of his life to demonstrate what he was teaching. What did Paul demonstrate? A bunch of sin (Rom 7:15-19), as did his followers (1Cor 5-1).
Fundamentalists in particular, and other Christians to some extent, are of the view that Paul cannot be questioned, because his words are in the Bible. But the meaning of his theology is not agreed upon, and the meaning of everything must be questioned. When contradictions are clear, they have to be called such in Paul's words or anyplace else. For example, Christ said in effect that the Mosaic laws other than the Ten Commandments do not apply anymore. He gave several examples, such as not stoning an adulteress (John 8:1-11), allowing questioned foods to be eaten (Mark 7:19) and not giving decrees of divorce (Mat 19:7-9). This shows that there is material in the Scriptures which is not infallible truth. Christ did say that Scripture cannot lose its force (John 10:35) or "be broken" KJV. But each time he referred to Scripture he conditioned it upon the normal assumptions, such as calling it "your law" (John 10:34). He was saying that a consistent standard has to be applied, while he was not imposing a particular standard. He was leaving the questions open to alignment upon objectively determined truth. He used the word "force" instead of truth because he was referring to whatever significance the Scriptures had rather than absolutizing them as unquestionable truth. Humans wrote most of the Scriptures and determined what would be in the Bible. Why do you suppose there are sixty six books in the KJV Bible. It's because corrupters make such decisions, and they wanted to use satan's number. It was the same reason why they called themselves "father"—because Christ told them not to. In other words, there is nothing sacred about Paul's words being in the Bible. For historical and evaluation purposes, it is good that Paul words were recorded in some manner, but claiming they are unquestionable is not valid. The standards of evaluation cannot be changed for the Bible, because the manner in which human minds function cannot change for the Bible; and the meaning and tests for truth cannot change for the Bible. The Old Testament is riddled with alterations by "the lying pen of the scribes." Numerous additions were made to some books such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. It means discrimination is needed. Notable Example Why should anyone be a Christian or consider the Bible to be true? Usually because authority figures seem to be impressive in saying it's true. How do they know it's true? The only way anyone can know Christ's words are true is to test them against the objective evidence in the lessons of life. By this test, Christ's words have super human wisdom in them. Why should not Paul's words, or any other words in the Bible, be evaluated by the same tests for objective truth as Christ's words? Why should Paul be above question when Christ cannot be? The cheapos often say if they find one word wrong in the Bible, they are going to throw it all out. Do you suppose they would throw away a gold Cadilac if it had one thing wrong with it. They are trying to make their corruptions unquestionable. Even if the source were perfect, humans can never represent it perfectly, as demonstrated by the fact that the cannot agree upon interpretations. Every word in the Bible, like everywhere else, has to be put to a test of objective evaluation, not just to determine if it should be there but to determine what it means. More or less, one could rationalize every word in the Bible by aligning it upon objective truth. But some words are obviously put there by corrupters and should not be rationalized. Paul's words could all be rationalized (with much difficulty), but the usual interpretations of them and the obvious purpose of Paul indicate that they should be called false instead of being rationalized. The purpose here is to show the falseness rather than rationalizing them. One final point of overview is this: Paul states his claims in more than one way as a method of covering his behind. One version is promoted as a theology, and then another version is used to say the opposite in opposing critics. Having two versions of reality does not make them both true; it means at least one version is wrong, and the persons who do that are dishonest. Examples are at bottom of page. ßßß The Theology of Justification. Justification is described as something that is done to God. As such, it should not be any concern to humans, even if it were true. And it is preposterous that a pagan ritual involving murder could do anything constructive to God. In numerous places the Bible says atonement is not a proper ritual (Isaiah 1:11)(Jer 7:22)(Hosea 6:6)(Psalms 40:7, 50:8-15)(Mat 9:13, 12:7)(Mark 12:33). A rationale added to justification is that humans are not worthy enough to appease God, and therefore Christ did the justifying for them on the cross (Gal 2:21, 3:11-13). This point is important to the promoters of Paul. They focus on the unworthiness of humans as an indication that the crucifixion was needed for justification. This concept of humans being unworthy is a link to another concept—that humans cannot do anything to save themselves. Salvation. The theology of Paul slides into the concept of salvation from the concept of justification, as if to be justified is to be saved. In Paul's analysis the only problem that needs to be solved is God's anger, and therefore to appease God is to save humans, supposedly. Paul says, "we shall be saved by him from God's wrath" (Rom 5:9). One reason why Paul's claims about the crucifixion are false is because God designed the crucifixion, and his purpose was not to influence himself (Mark 8:31-33). Once the concept shifts to salvation, a whole lot of questions appear. Christ was often asked what needs to be done to get saved. His first response was to say to follow the Ten Commandments (Mat 19:17). To go further, he said poverty was needed (Mat 19:21). Paul addressed this question with a prepositional phrase. He said works are not involved in salvation lest a person might boast (Ephes 2:9). Not boasting isn't much of a reason, particularly since the persons who claim to be born again through the theology of Paul claim the Holy Spirit works within them assuring that their words are so infallible that no one can question them. Supposedly, it is not blasphemy to attribute one's own perfection to the Holy Spirit. Whether it has a name or not, it is certainly a far more serious corruption than boasting. It destroys the reasoning process and the ability to objectively evaluate corruption. Since Paul did not give a significant reason for saying works are not involved in salvation, the rationale which he applied to justification is implicitly his rationale for salvation. This assumption is consistent with his description of sin as being God's fault in creating flesh (Rom 7:5-9). He implies that humans do not have a responsibility for sin since it is God's fault, and saying works must not be involved in salvation is in line with that assumption. Flesh as the Cause of Sin. Paul said flesh is the cause of sin (Rom 7:5,6). He used two ratinalizations. One was the power of flesh. He said flesh would overpower himself (Rom 7:15-18). The other rationale was that only flesh can create law (Rom 7:1), and there cannot be sin without law (Rom 7:7-9). After getting the cause of sin pinned down as flesh, he said the answer is getting separated from flesh (Rom 6:7, 8:2)(Gal 5:18). If flesh were the cause of sin, satan would not be sinful, because he functions in the spirit world. If getting separated from flesh were the answer, then dying would be the answer, and there would be no reason to preach. Of course, Paul's claims are absurd. Is Law Done Away With? An obvious contradiction which gets rationalized is Paul's claim that law is done away with (Gal 2:16). He states (Gal 3: 10, 11), "All who depend on observance of the law, on the other hand, are under a curse. It is written, 'cursed is he who does not abide by everything written in the book of the law and carry it out.' It should be obvious that no one is justified in God's sight by the law, for 'the just man shall live by faith.'" Christ said that not the smallest letter of the law is to be done away with (Mat 5:18). Paul made contradictory statements about law (Rom 2:13), but the actual interpretation is demonstrated by promoters of Paul's theology who tend to show a lot of contempt for moral responsibilities using Paul's rationale stated above. Is Sin a Human Responsibility? Christ said sin comes out of the deep recesses of the mind (Mat 15:19)(Mk 7:21). Humans have a lot of problems with sin. It is quite apparent that sin gets imbedded in character. Do not evil spirits and evil humans have corrupt character? Supposedly they were created in God's image. Something had to change since then. The relationship between sin and corrupt character is quite apparent. Modern psychology has studied in much detail how behavior is controlled through the subconscious mind. Any behavior which is repeated enough becomes a reaction triggered by stimuli. Learning skills, such as typing, is possible for that reason. It is also apparent that corruption creates reactive habits of behavior. Such psychologically conditioned patterns of corruption are what Christ meant by sin coming out of the deep recesses of the mind. This can be known by observing the patterns of sin. Sin is difficult to overcome because it is caused by habits embedded in the subconscious mind. That's why Christ said the path to life is difficult (Mat 7:14). Paul said that all persons are under the domination of sin (Rom 3:9-18), which means sin is a serious problem. What Paul said about sin is that it is caused by flesh (Rom 7:15-19). One might see some relationship to flesh for some types of sin. The problem is that Paul applied that rationale to all sin, and exclusively so. He indicated that there is no other cause for sin but flesh, any time or any place. He said this through a line of logic which says there must be law before there can be sin (Rom 4:15), and there must be flesh before there can be law (Rom 7:1-6). When adding up those concepts, there cannot be sin without flesh, because there is no law that can be broken without flesh. He lied. Satan sins without flesh. Most sin has nothing to do with flesh, such as thievery, lying, scandalizing, blasphemy, etc. Christ said people must be perfect to be saved (Mat 5:48). In Paul's theology, a person becomes perfect when getting separated from flesh. You might think that this requires dying. Not so, according to Paul. He claims some persons who are not dead are "in the spirit" (Gal 5:18). Then in customary fashion, he complains of corruption by persons who are supposedly saved and in the spirit including himself (Gal 2:11)(2Thes 3:11)(Rom 7:15). You see Virginia, it just isn't possible to call that much theological corruption the infallible words of God. And it isn't just my twisted interpretation of Paul's theology. I described what Paul's theology means as the promoters of Paul describe it. The only difference is that they pretend there is no problem with that theology, because they never look at the contradictions honestly. They rationalize the words, but their applications are contradictory to Christ's teaching in their contempt for moral responsibilities. Either the meaning of Paul's theology has to be drastically changed to align it correctly upon the objective truth as Christ taught it and as we can observe it in the lessons of life, or it has to be said to be in error. The first does not happen regardless of any amount of criticism. Therefore, Paul's theology is in error. What about the usual claim of Christians that the Bible is entirely God's word. The person's who say that are also the one's who promote Paul's errors. The only words which contain suitable wisdom, correctness and authority to be a reference for truth are Christ's. All other words, in the Bible or elsewhere, have to be taken for whatever they are worth. That means testing them in relation to objective evidence including Christ's words. This means the following: The words of Isaiah have a lot of value as indicated by the content. The additions at the end by other persons are usually corruptions but some appear to have a value. The words of Ezekial are so rambling and irrelevant that they should be considered to be corruption but of little consequence. Hebrews is somewhat informative, but the definition of faith within it is unenlightened, as it describes "blind faith" (Heb 11:1). Peter (written by an aid) is somewhat informative, except that the promotion of Paul is gullibility (2Pet 3:15, 16), unless that statement was a later add-on, which is characteristic of corrupters of religion. All of Scriptures must be evaluated in that manner distinguishing between truth and falsehood based on all evidence. To make gods of humans because humans decided to incorporate their writing in the Bible is blasphemy. The Irrelevance of Paul's Theology The irony of Paul's theology is that even if it were true, it would be irrelevant to humans, because it describes a quirk of God's (unable to forgive without sacrifice), and the sacrificial act occurred two thousand years ago involving Christ and no one else. Therefore, such theology would not negate anything Christ taught. But Paul then negated human responsibilities by saying people are saved by faith without works. Such nonsense could mean anything. What is getting saved by Paul's criteria? It's anybody's guess. Even Paul's promoters cannot describe or agree upon what getting saved means. Are works relevant to some other purpose than getting saved? The followers of Paul interpret his theology to mean that anyone who promotes good works is damned to hell for contradicting Paul. Christ said that on judgment day the saved will be separated from the unsaved on the basis of who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, etc. (Mat 25:31-46). Nothing else is mentioned. Why do the follwers of Paul preach, if there is nothing for humans to do to get saved? They preach to talk people out of their human responsiblities. They do nothing that Christ taught, and they preach only to teach others to do nothing that Christ taught. Examples of Paul's contradictions and nonsense designed for rationalizations. (Rom 2:13) ...those who observe the law will be justified. (Gal 2:16) ...for by works of the law no one will be justified. (Rom 2:14,15) ...when...by nature observe the presecriptions of the law...They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts. (Rom 7:5) When we were in the flesh, the sinful passions roused by the law worked in our members and we bore fruit for death. (Rom 5:20) The law entered in so that transgression might increase... (Rom 6:14) ...you are not under the law but under grace. (Rom 6:7) For a dead person has been absolved from sin. (Rom 7:25) Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin. (Rom 8:9) But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit... (Gal 3:13) ...the curse of the law... (Rom 7:12) ..the law is holy... (1-Tim 1:8) We know that the law is good..with the understanding that law is meant not for the righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane...ÝÝÝ What Christ Said About Atonement Rationality in Religion Fundamentalism Faith Paul External links on criticism of Paul: Famous Persons Moslem A Moslem B |