← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · jozen1
Thread ID: 16117 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2004-12-30
2004-12-30 00:25 | User Profile
The Virgin Birth has apparently raised its head again as a point of attack against the Biblical Christian. Long held as one of the key tenets of the Christian faith as embodied in the Apostleââ¬â¢s Creed, the Virgin Birth has historically been a point of attack for the anti-supernatural crowd, and recently from those who are so hateful of Christianity that their hate has made them just plain stupid. Here is the Apostleââ¬â¢s Creed (emphasis mine).
[indent]I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.[/indent] Recently through a link at [url="http://www.littlegeneva.com/"]Little Geneva[/url], I had the pleasure of checking out ââ¬Å[url="http://www.bju.edu/resources/witw/3712.pdf"]What in the World[/url]ââ¬Â, from Bob Jones University. In this single-page publication were two references to the Virgin Birth from two different heathens: (1) columnist Garry Wills from the New York Times, and (2) the other Former Anglican Bishop of Newark, Jack Spong. If you think I am being hard on the liberal and apostate Mr. Spong read a couple of his books and then get back to me. Wills writes, [indent]ââ¬ÅCan a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?ââ¬Â[/indent] I will leave for another time the obnoxious capitalization of ââ¬ÅEnlightenedââ¬Â and its attendant presumptions.
Spong, who believes the Bible not to be authoritative (or true apparently), is troubled that, [indent]ââ¬ÅAnglicans in the Western world [might] be asked to subscribe to a pre-modern mentality that opposes evolution or demands that the Virgin Birth be interpreted as literal biology.ââ¬Â[/indent] So what is the deal with the Virgin Birth, especially in this day and age? I can understand, say 100 years ago, how you could be an anti-supernaturalist (not believe in God or miracles) and have something like these guys have to say about it. But today, only a deep-seated hatred could drive you to the heights of stupidity required to make this statement. Can we not, here in late 2004, take a virgin off the street (assuming one could be found) and take her to a hospital to then be implanted with an embryo, and thus be a virgin giving birth 40 weeks from now? Yes, we can. So why is it so impossible that God through His Holy Spirit implanted Mary with the Only Begotten? Of course, I only speak here in the biological sense, because that is exactly the basis on which opponents belittle Virgin Birth.
How can anyone with a straight face in this day and age deny such a possibility? Biologically speaking, if man can do this, why canââ¬â¢t God? It would take a pretty small god not to.
Especially absurd is to contrast this to evolution, which is not duplicable, exists on the flimsiest of forensics, and barely rises above the level of conjecture. So, these two guys take what we cannot duplicate in any fashion, are horrified that people reject it, and yet fear that those same people will accept from the Bible a feat that can be pretty much duplicated at hundreds, if not thousands, of local hospitals today. Now which of these really requires the most faith, Virgin Birth or evolution?
Virgin Birth required much faith in the past, and was indeed a miracle. Today we can easily see that a virgin giving birth is not only possible but that we can bring it about ourselves as puny and pathetic as we are. To deny that God could accomplish the same with His Holy Son is nothing more than rank blasphemy.
The reason people still deny the Virgin Birth, the best I can tell, has got to be hatred or denial, which are often two sides of the same coin. To even acknowledge that a Virgin Birth could be accomplished 2000 years ago inherently says that something exists bigger than we. That is the same reason why Intelligent Design, although it is not creationism, is so hotly opposed by the same folks opposing Virgin Birth. It acknowledges something higher exists. It is harder to be your own god when you have to acknowledge thereââ¬â¢s someone above you.
Just acknowledging that something higher could be involved means it might have implanted something of its kind. This makes the Virgin Birth opponents very uncomfortable, because here you stumble onto the possibility that Jesus was exactly who He and the Bible say He was. That being too much to bear, the Christ-haters deny even the obvious.
Spong was right about one thing though, he said, [indent]ââ¬ÅIt is now time to measure the mettle of our elected Anglican leaders,ââ¬Â he says. ââ¬ÅSpines will have to stiffen as they are not used to doing. Popularity will have to be sacrificed for the sake of truth and witness.ââ¬Â[/indent] As the Word says in Joshua 24:15, [indent]*ââ¬ÅAnd if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serveââ¬Â¦.. *
Lawrence reposted from [url]www.wildernessvoices.org[/url] [/indent] [left] [/left]
2004-12-30 00:47 | User Profile
So, if the definition of an "enlightened" nation is one that cannot believe in the Virgin Birth, then I suppose we're not "enlightened"
If the definition is, however, a nation that produced electricity, air travel, autos, the internet and amazing pharma drugs, then you'd have to say that we are most definitely "enlightened"
2004-12-30 01:09 | User Profile
Lawrence, that was a truly awesome post. I took a look at your weblog as well. You have some great thoughts.
2004-12-30 02:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=jozen1] Spong was right about one thing though, he said, [indent]“It is now time to measure the mettle of our elected Anglican leaders,” he says. “Spines will have to stiffen as they are not used to doing. Popularity will have to be sacrificed for the sake of truth and witness.”[/indent] As the Word says in Joshua 24:15, [indent]*“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve….. * [/QUOTE]
Personally, I have trouble reading anything by this degenerate Spong character. He's one of the most fanatical advocates of homosexuality anywhere.
2004-12-30 02:50 | User Profile
In my experience, many modern, 'liberated' folks resent the Virgin Birth because they think it means that God considers sex 'dirty' or 'unnatural'. This is, of course, an insufficiently-considered opinion. God was making a supernatural exception to the natural process in order to demonstrate just who this Child was. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who pointed out the Virgin Birth no more means that God dislikes sex than the miracle at Cana (turning water into wine) means that God hates winemaking. Both were signs for our benefit.
2004-12-31 04:23 | User Profile
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, Of all that is, Seen and Unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, Eternally Begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from true God, Begotten, not made, One In Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us Men and for Our Salvation He came down from Heaven; By the power of the Holy Spirit He was Born of the Virgin Mary, and Became Man. For Our Sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again In Fulfillment of the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven, And is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life, who Proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is Worshiped and Glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one Holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the Life of the world to come. Amen.
2004-12-31 05:19 | User Profile
That is the full revised Nicene Creed from A. D. 381. I was quoting the Apostle's Creed which is generally acknowledged as older (circa A.D.215).
I wanted to get to the oldest, most basic creed expressing the Virgin Birth and a creed that many today use to define the minimum bar to reach and still be able to make a claim to being called Christian. This gives greatest possible charity to the opposition, who in the case of Spong still manage to not reach even that bar.
2005-01-01 04:24 | User Profile
If you do a Google or Yahoo search on the Creed, or the Catholic Profession of Faith, you are led to omitted versions . That's my point. If you just go to Church, Catholic, the Profession is every Mass. But it's not on the internet. I did not copy and paste that. I added the true verbage which is from my memory at Mass. Not everything is point and click available.
2005-01-01 14:34 | User Profile
[size=2]Still, the creed you typed is the [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm"]Nicene Creed[/url] [/size][font=Arial,Helvetica][size=2]also known as the Constantinopolitan Creed or the Creed of 150 Fathers [/size][/font][size=2]which is from A.D.381. It is actually the updated and expanded to address the heresy of [/size][font=Arial,Helvetica][size=2]Apollinarianism, whic taught that Jesus did not have a human spirit. This was the reason the council met in 381.
The version that you think has omissions actually does not. It is an earlier form approved by the church in A.D. 325 to deal with Arianism. The A.D. 381 version is the expansion used today. [/size][/font][size=2] It is the most popular creed used extensively by the Catholic church, but it is not the [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01629a.htm"]Apostle's Creed[/url]. Which I chose for age as well as simplicity as stated previously. I did choose version of the Apostle's Creed that does not send Jesus to hell.
The links I provided above go to [url]http://newadvent.org[/url] and access the Summa Theologica which the Catholic Church has placed online. It is also at [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia[/url]. As far as authority the WIKI site states:
"The Catholic Encyclopedia is an [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language"]English-language[/url] [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia"]encyclopedia[/url] published in [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913"]1913[/url] by the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church"]Roman Catholic Church[/url], designed to give "authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine". Starting in [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993"]1993[/url], the encyclopedia (now in the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain"]public domain[/url]) was placed on the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet"]Internet[/url] through a world-wide effort of volunteers." [/size][size=2] You will find that the Summa Theologica is the approved Church-produced authority in matters of church history (re: the Catholic Church), the horses mouth so to speak.
Another good resource is [url]http://www.ccel.org[/url] (Christian Classic Ethereal Library). They have available for download, many, many works including the full writings of the early Church Fathers both pre and post Nicene.
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2005-01-04 03:45 | User Profile
morre importantly, Lawrence, then let us discuss the MEANING . No need to splice hairs, when the MEANING is the SAME.
2005-01-05 06:33 | User Profile
I'd like to bump this topic in order to highlight and recommend the fairly new blog wildernessvoices.org, created and authored by a new acquaintance of mine from my neck of the woods down here in Texas. Lawrence is a reformed Baptist/Southron nationalist type and as such, I think a pretty decent and interesting guy with some good insights.
Give it a read if'n you find the time. :thumbsup: