Board index ‹ Salvation

[MarybethL]

Hello to all,
I am new to the sight.
Needing your help to understand.
I am very uncomfortable with the "I'm saved" vocabulary. It sounds like blind faith or arrogance to me.
Is there a difference between being born again and being saved ??? What do these terms actually mean ???

[jimwalton]

Thanks for asking. Glad to help. Feel free to respond about anything you don't understand or want to talk about more.

"Born again" and "being saved" are both expressions of the same thing in the Bible: coming to new life in Christ. There are several ideas behind the "born again" metaphor. It comes primarily from John 3:3. One idea is that when a person comes to Christ, they "die" to their former self (their sinful self) and are "born again" like a new person, now a follower of Jesus. It also has the imagery of now being in God's family rather than, like, lost and alienated. The third idea behind it is that when you were born from your mama you were born physically; when you are born the second time (born again), you are born spiritually. There is another verse in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." A fresh start, as if God has created something brand new that wasn't there before. It's the same ideas as "born again." God transforms people into something new. Our very nature is changed.

"Being saved" is the same thought with a difference emphasis. The idea behind it is that we need to be rescued from sin. Sin, metaphorically, has us bound, enslaved, and imprisoned. We need to be rescued. The word "saved" and "salvation" are very common in the Bible, because that's one of the overarching themes that goes through the whole book: We are slaves to our sin nature, and our only hope is a miracle from God that transforms us, makes us a new creation so that we are born again, and thereby we are rescued, set free, so we can live in the newness of life and with a new nature. There are so many verses that speak of it I hardly know where to begin, but Ephesians 2.8-9 isn't a bad place to start.

But there's no blind faith to it at all. Faith in the Bible is based on evidence. It's making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable to make that assumption. God revealed himself to Noah, and then it was up to Noah to respond because he believed. The same with Abraham. If you know the story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3), God showed himself to Moses and did miraculous things, and only after that was Moses expected to believe. It was the same with Jesus also. He taught and did miracles before anyone was expected to believe in him. Evidence always preceded faith, so there's nothing blind about it. Now, for people who believe, there is still evidence of what they see in the world, what they see in other people, what they read in the Bible, and what they experience in their heart. Only after these things does faith come.

As far as arrogance, not at all. It's actually the opposite. It's humbling to know that we are incapable of rescuing ourselves, but God in His mercy has done everything necessary so we can be saved, offers it to us as a free gift, and extends a promise of forgiveness, full and free, if we will just turn to Him. He makes us born again; it's not something we do. It makes us very humble to know we didn't earn it or deserve it, but it was given to us out of love and at great sacrifice.

So that's what the terms mean. I hope I answered your questions, but feel free to write back if there's more or if I missed something.

[Dinopresley]

Hello! This is also my first time posting. I've been reading both you and Dr. John Walton's stuff since I first heard about you guys. You guys are doing extremely encouraging and thoughtful things. Anywho, I figured it was about time I started posting considering how much I consume. Haha

You mentioned something in the last post that I'm curious about.
"Faith in the Bible is based on evidence. It's making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable to make that assumption."
I've been a Christian in numerous denominations throughout my life. In nearly every case (outside of looking online for like-minded people), whether that be in a book/bible study, to just having a conversation, it's either explicitly stated or assumed faith is the LACK of evidence. Believing what you cannot know. Now, Jesus and his disciples often said, "Come and see" to those who doubted, which when seen ignited their faith. Personally, I have always had a hard time swallowing blind faith. I'm just curious if you've experienced the same thing I have; if so, do you have any insight into how to better understand and dispel that line of thought?

[jimwalton]

Sure, glad to talk. Thanks for finally getting up the courage to post something!

If you really want to jump on the bandwagon, then you need to come up to speed on another one of my brothers, Bob Walton. His writings are on Amazon as well. He's a church history guru.

On to your question. Faith, according to the Bible, can be defined in various ways:

- Faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” This is the commonplace use of the word apart from any religious significance, such as when a person has faith in a chair to support his weight or has faith in his employee to do a job well.
- Faith is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” This is the definition unbelievers often use to ridicule believers, insisting that they, unlike religious people, trust only in that which is demonstrable.
- Faith is “belief in, trust in, and loyalty to God.” This is an explicitly religious definition, in many ways similar to the theological definition of faith as involving knowledge, assent, and trust. Faith here is pictured as going beyond belief in certain facts to include commitment to and dependence on God.
- Faith is “a system of religious beliefs.” This is what is meant when one speaks of “the Protestant faith” or “the Jewish faith.” What is largely in view here is a set of doctrines. The Bible uses the word in this way in passages such as Jude 3.

I use faith, as I believe Hebrews 11.1 does, in the first sense. Here's my explanation:

Jesus never said faith is blind, and the Bible doesn't imply that faith is blind. In the Bible, faith is evidentiary. I define Biblical faith as "making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable." In my opinion, belief is always a choice, and is always based on evidence. When you sit down in a chair, you didn’t think twice about sitting down. You believe that the chair will hold you. Faith? Yes. You’ve sat in chairs hundreds of times, but you can't be absolutely sure it will hold you this time. Things do break on occasion. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you sit down. That’s faith, and it was a conscious choice.

Almost all of life works this way because we can never know what lies ahead. Every time you turn a door knob you are expressing faith. Because 10,000 times you’ve turned a door knob, and it opened the door. So you turn the knob and move forward. Does it always work that way? No. Sometimes you turn the knob and the door doesn’t open. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption.

We know chairs hold people. That's past experience and learning. We know turning door knobs open doors. We know that when we turn a key a car starts. But every time we turn a car key, we do it because we believe it will start. The evidence is compelling, and it was a conscious choice. We don't know for sure that the car will start, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't. Then we use our knowledge to try to figure out what to do about it. We dial our phone (as an act of faith, assuming it will work and help us reach another person), and try to get help.

You'll notice in the Bible that evidence precedes faith. There is no "dumping on a random doorstep" and good luck to ya! God appears to Moses in a burning bush before he expect him to believe. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence to go on. The whole Bible is God revealing himself to us all—and I mean actually, not through some exercise of faith.

My faith in God is a conscious choice because I find the evidence compelling. It's an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for me to make that assumption. When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. See how it works? My belief in God is based on my knowledge of the credibility of those writings, the logic of the teaching, and the historical evidence behind it all. The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it. My faith in the resurrection is an assumption of truth based on enough evidence that makes it reasonable to hold that assumption. The same is true for my belief in the existence of God, my belief that the Bible is God's word, and my understanding of how life works.

I would contend that faith is never blind. Talk to me.

[Dinopresley]

That was very well articulated. I would absolutely agree with what you stated and what I think you were getting at- our faith should be a thinking faith. To not think is to deny a basic aspect of the breath of God inside of us. Obviously, not to put words in your mouth, that just seems to be what you were saying.
That being said, I have two branching lines of thought to build off that. Theologically, and practically.

Theologically:
While I 100% agree that we should have a thinking faith, one outlined by evidence, I think there are two possible issues.
1: The evidence isn't enough.
2: There is no evidence.

1. In the first scenario, I'm going to use a very hard analogy, so bear with me. A child is abused by her father over the course of years. Her mother, finding out, takes him to court for a divorce and physical abuse charges. The judge orders for a psychological analysis and a physical to see if there's emotional and physical scarring. There is evidence for abuse for the psychological analysis, but there is no evidence of physical abuse. Consequentially, the charges are denied on lack of evidence.
In that scenario, the truth of the matter is the the girl suffered abuse. But the lack of evidence, and ruling thereafter, creates a dichotomy of our relative reality. So for any person to believe her, thus believe the truth, they have to make a decision to not only ignore the lack of evidence, but in some cases deny the conclusion of the evidence that is there.

2. In the second scenario, I'm going to use a much different analogy. In the dark Knight, the joker (essentially) steals a literal mountain of cash. Immediately after acquiring the moo-lah, he sets it on fire. The evidence for what was stolen is literally non existent. Likewise, if a stranger steals my toothbrush and burns it to ash, I have no evidence to conclude who stole it, if it was even stolen, or where it is now. That neither changes the fact that this person stole it and it was in his possession.

My conclusion for the theological side is, while we should have a thinking faith, there are situations that must transcend thought.

Practically:
Theologically speaking, I agree with you 99.5%. However, when it comes to seeing how other Christians live out and describe their view of faith (the concept, not religion), I've experienced a divide between the biblical theology and the practice. There seems to either be a vague, abstract understanding of the concept of faith, or a complete avoidance of the term all together.
While I'm bothered by the seemingly general naivete of something so central to the Christian worldview, I would have to admit that I find solidarity in the fact that people find faith in the absence of knowledge.
Largely, I'm speaking to the problem of evil. To paraphrase Dr. William Lane Craig in his defenders series, if I may, there are two ways people look at pain: academically and emotionally. While I think I might be able to argue the evidence of God's goodness, to someone who's son was just in a fatal car accident the evidence may not be enough to soothe their heart.
On the flip side, if there were a sole survivor in a village wiped out by a volcano eruption, the evidence may not come across so much as a good God. Emotionally they certainly wouldn't see it. When pain clouds the vision, what do we call believing if we believe through closed eyes?
But there are other examples. In my opinion, there are multiple kinds of evidence. There is evidence for the mind, but there is also evidence for the heart. For example, there is great amounts of evidence to support evolution. Enough for me, as a Christian, to believe. However, even WITH the large amounts of physical evidence, there is not enough evidence to satisfy my souls desire for meaning. For some it does, but for me it doesn't. For me, no matter how many physical facts you present to me, evolution doesn't witness to my heart.

My conclusion for the practical side is, while we should have a thinking faith, there are seasons where faith must endure in spite of thought.

My question following those conclusions, if you would concede to them, would be: if there are situations and/or seasons that must transcend (and even endure in spite of) thought, how should we view faith in light of that?

My initial answer: We sometimes have a blind faith (I.E., one we believe regardless of evidence).

This has been me thinking in writing, so thank you for the conversation! My logic is evolving as I'm continuing to think it through, so it may not be perfect. I would love to hear your thoughts!

PS. Have you considered making an app version of your website?

[jimwalton]

Dinopresley, excellent thoughts and excellent conversation. Thank you. I agree with you so strongly, but I might push a little further than you are willing. I'll explain.

In scenario 1, the lack of physical evidence doesn't mean physical abuse didn't happen. Obviously, (1) if it happened long enough ago to have healed, and (2) it didn't leave any permanent scarring, then the only evidence we have to go on is the personal testimony (anecdotal, eyewitness evidence) of the child or of the mother. I know that many of the atheists I converse with regard all anecdotal evidence as illegitimate, but I don't see it that way. It depends not on the nature of the evidence (anecdotal), but on the veracity of what is said. If the physical abuse actually happened, then the testimony is evidence, all right. It's just not subject to scientific inquiry (but then again, many things are not subject to scientific inquiry, despite what atheists claim).

The second scenario is similar. All anyone would have to go by, then, would be the eyewitness testimony of all the thugs who were there and watched him burn it. Again (1) it really happened, (2) there is no physical evidence, therefore (3) physical evidence is not the bottom line of confirming reality.

So is there a time when faith is blind? I don't think so. Our evaluation of the little girl is still based on evidence. (1) we have emotional and anecdotal evidence that her father was an abuser, (2) neighbors and workmates may testify to the instability of his personality or the bursts of temper, other expressions of violence, etc. , (3) we can perceive through body language and testimony that the girl isn't lying and has no motive to lie, so (4) we're not just flying blind when we believe her. In the second scenario, (1) we know the money is missing from the banks, (2) we know the mob has it, (3) 10 people testify to watching the Joker burn it, (4) so we do have evidence, such as it is. Some of it is circumstantial, and some of it comes from morally questionable people, but we're not just flying blind. Even circumstantial evidence can be compelling if it is both possible and reasonable.

I would guess that nobody believes things in a completely blind sense. There has been at least a little bit of exposure, background, or, if nothing else, the testimony of someone else that the person implicitly trusts. There's always something behind an individual's decision to believe. I'm not sure it's ever blind, though at times it may be minimal. Even Christians who find belief in the absence of knowledge have had enough previous experiences based on knowledge and evidence that we give a free pass this time even when evidence and knowledge are lacking. But that decision is still based on enough evidence in previous experiences to make it reasonable to make that assumption.

As far as other Christians and the way they speak about faith, I'm confident through my exposure to them via conversation that some have been atrociously trained, particularly in the postmodern mindset that faith and reason are separate categories, one being blind and the other based on knowledge and evidence. I think it's both a ludicrous and false dichotomy, but some Christians have been trained (indoctrinated) to believe that way.