Post by gregory on Oct 10, 2022 7:37:29 GMT -8
So ,I was pondering how a large swath of Christianity works over the years, and I have come to some interesting findings. It looks like a lot of churches function on this same core system that they attach their doctrine to, but the core remains the same. Spoilers, it is Augustinianism. I'll lay out what it is, and some issues I see in it.
So, for those who don't know, Augustinianism is a theological system, and is used as an operating system of sorts in various religious schema. It is based on various axioms that build off one another, and both necessitates various questions and leads to defined conclusions.
The following are the axioms:
God is all powerful.
God has the right to do all things.
God has no limitation on his desires; what he wants to happen happens.
God knows all things, past, present and future.
God's nature is unchanging.
God, in his creative acts, knowingly made everything exactly as he desired it to be, making them predestined to conform to his will, which renders certain, all events and deeds past, present and future.
God creates all things for the magnification of his glory, the amplification of his glory, and the penetration of his glory, for, through, and to all things.
God is the source of all things, and nothing exists without God having knowingly willed it into being.
God ordained and mandated that the ramification of the fall of mankind be that all would become completely corrupted and unable to do good.
God ordained and mandated that the punishment for the inability to do good be an eternal conscious torment in torture, fire, and anguish.
God created all humans while he knew this would occur.
God deliberately created the vast majority of mankind knowing fully that they would be destined to punishment.
God created mankind completely unable to choose to repent outside of his will to allow them to do so.
God created mankind completely unable to prevent themselves from being punished.
God for-knew all inspired communication he would have with mankind, and made the authors of all texts made through this communication to write them down in exactly the way he desired.
The axioms necesitate various inescapable conclusions, namely ones related to the nature of actions.
All things happen for a reason, because all things that happen are sanctioned by God.
All inspired texts existed within the mind of God before the creation of the world.
All actions are ordained for the glory of God.
God ordained and desired that the fall of mankind would occur.
All sin exists to glorify God.
All of those who will leave damnation, since they are plucked out of the fire by God alone, need to have information about God placed before them to be changed.
God wholly and solely directs the paths of all men, and calls them to conform to his will, a call which is irresistible.
All men stand justified in their actions as all of their actions are in accordance with the will of God, and bring God Glory.
Obedience to God is both out of obligation and compulsion.
These axioms and conclusions necesitate the following questions:
Question 1: How are humans responsible for their actions, and liable for punishment, when they were, and are, wholly conforming to God's will?
Question 2: Why does God save from punishment some, and not all?
Question 3: If all sinners are conforming to God's will, acting wholly according to his decrees laid down for their life before they were born, through the predestining of their lives, how are they disobeying God?
Question 4: If God preordained all men to act, how can they disobey God?
Question 5: Why does God ordain "true believers" into having false beliefs about him?
These questions are commonly answered by Augustinians as followed:
Answer 1: It's a mystery.
Answer 2: Who are you to question God?
Answer 3: Free will and determinism are like two pillars that appear parallel to one another. As they tower into the sky, far out of sight, they meet even though we can't see them touch, we must take on faith that they do.
Answer 4: That is how he ordained it.
Answer 5: They aren't "true believers". If one does not have correct beliefs one is not elect. Those with false beliefs are solely created for God's purposes and to further his glory.
Often, Augustinians develop problems deemed by themselves to avoid once aware of 'God's sovereignty', ones with ramifications on one's faith and worldview, that often come in direct contradiction with held dogma. The doctrinal disconnect, i.e. doctrine held as good while seemingly inconsistent with the worldview framework, tends to be held in word, but not in action, as the unconscious affects of the worldview regularly trump the consciously expressed values.
Some of these problems are as follows:
The idea that discipleship is unnecessary.
The illusion of self-justification is mandatory:"what I do is God's will", but we must fight it, living as if it were not so.
A fatalistic attitude toward the world, a clockwork world described by Augustinians as "double predestination"
The ambivalence toward sin: once we have proof of our salvation, either toward heaven or hell, we get a free pass to sin, as our sin does not affect our eternal destination. We remain saved or damned already.
Constantly judging others as destined to hell, based on their actions and held beliefs, leading to endless boundary policing and purity testing, lack of forgiveness, and internecine conflicts.
A view that God created evil, either deliberately or by proxy, when he 'ordained the fall', a way of describing the emergence of evil, as necessary in order for God to 'show his glory'.
A complete irelivence of the person of Jesus and his teachings, as the system functions, and thus far, was completely described without him being present, needing to be referenced, or doing anything whatsoever.
When diving into ancient religions, and Augustine's past, in fact, this whole system is simply Manichaeism with the serial numbers filed off. Ie without the gnosticisms and cosmic dualism. The same determinism the same problems.
How do we continue to live in contradiction to the faith in Jesus, when we force him into a box filled with pagan foundations? Why is it that people love their theological systems more than their god, and let them get in the way of meeting Jesus as he really is?
How do we fellowship with people who do these things while not denigrating them for the fact that their faith is based on a pagan framework?
So, for those who don't know, Augustinianism is a theological system, and is used as an operating system of sorts in various religious schema. It is based on various axioms that build off one another, and both necessitates various questions and leads to defined conclusions.
The following are the axioms:
God is all powerful.
God has the right to do all things.
God has no limitation on his desires; what he wants to happen happens.
God knows all things, past, present and future.
God's nature is unchanging.
God, in his creative acts, knowingly made everything exactly as he desired it to be, making them predestined to conform to his will, which renders certain, all events and deeds past, present and future.
God creates all things for the magnification of his glory, the amplification of his glory, and the penetration of his glory, for, through, and to all things.
God is the source of all things, and nothing exists without God having knowingly willed it into being.
God ordained and mandated that the ramification of the fall of mankind be that all would become completely corrupted and unable to do good.
God ordained and mandated that the punishment for the inability to do good be an eternal conscious torment in torture, fire, and anguish.
God created all humans while he knew this would occur.
God deliberately created the vast majority of mankind knowing fully that they would be destined to punishment.
God created mankind completely unable to choose to repent outside of his will to allow them to do so.
God created mankind completely unable to prevent themselves from being punished.
God for-knew all inspired communication he would have with mankind, and made the authors of all texts made through this communication to write them down in exactly the way he desired.
The axioms necesitate various inescapable conclusions, namely ones related to the nature of actions.
All things happen for a reason, because all things that happen are sanctioned by God.
All inspired texts existed within the mind of God before the creation of the world.
All actions are ordained for the glory of God.
God ordained and desired that the fall of mankind would occur.
All sin exists to glorify God.
All of those who will leave damnation, since they are plucked out of the fire by God alone, need to have information about God placed before them to be changed.
God wholly and solely directs the paths of all men, and calls them to conform to his will, a call which is irresistible.
All men stand justified in their actions as all of their actions are in accordance with the will of God, and bring God Glory.
Obedience to God is both out of obligation and compulsion.
These axioms and conclusions necesitate the following questions:
Question 1: How are humans responsible for their actions, and liable for punishment, when they were, and are, wholly conforming to God's will?
Question 2: Why does God save from punishment some, and not all?
Question 3: If all sinners are conforming to God's will, acting wholly according to his decrees laid down for their life before they were born, through the predestining of their lives, how are they disobeying God?
Question 4: If God preordained all men to act, how can they disobey God?
Question 5: Why does God ordain "true believers" into having false beliefs about him?
These questions are commonly answered by Augustinians as followed:
Answer 1: It's a mystery.
Answer 2: Who are you to question God?
Answer 3: Free will and determinism are like two pillars that appear parallel to one another. As they tower into the sky, far out of sight, they meet even though we can't see them touch, we must take on faith that they do.
Answer 4: That is how he ordained it.
Answer 5: They aren't "true believers". If one does not have correct beliefs one is not elect. Those with false beliefs are solely created for God's purposes and to further his glory.
Often, Augustinians develop problems deemed by themselves to avoid once aware of 'God's sovereignty', ones with ramifications on one's faith and worldview, that often come in direct contradiction with held dogma. The doctrinal disconnect, i.e. doctrine held as good while seemingly inconsistent with the worldview framework, tends to be held in word, but not in action, as the unconscious affects of the worldview regularly trump the consciously expressed values.
Some of these problems are as follows:
The idea that discipleship is unnecessary.
The illusion of self-justification is mandatory:"what I do is God's will", but we must fight it, living as if it were not so.
A fatalistic attitude toward the world, a clockwork world described by Augustinians as "double predestination"
The ambivalence toward sin: once we have proof of our salvation, either toward heaven or hell, we get a free pass to sin, as our sin does not affect our eternal destination. We remain saved or damned already.
Constantly judging others as destined to hell, based on their actions and held beliefs, leading to endless boundary policing and purity testing, lack of forgiveness, and internecine conflicts.
A view that God created evil, either deliberately or by proxy, when he 'ordained the fall', a way of describing the emergence of evil, as necessary in order for God to 'show his glory'.
A complete irelivence of the person of Jesus and his teachings, as the system functions, and thus far, was completely described without him being present, needing to be referenced, or doing anything whatsoever.
When diving into ancient religions, and Augustine's past, in fact, this whole system is simply Manichaeism with the serial numbers filed off. Ie without the gnosticisms and cosmic dualism. The same determinism the same problems.
How do we continue to live in contradiction to the faith in Jesus, when we force him into a box filled with pagan foundations? Why is it that people love their theological systems more than their god, and let them get in the way of meeting Jesus as he really is?
How do we fellowship with people who do these things while not denigrating them for the fact that their faith is based on a pagan framework?
