[[How has been]]

Sunday, April 30, 2017

[[Addendum to "against sola scriptura???"]]

Think, after several rounds of discussion and some debate/heated debates, I felt it would be prudent to clarify and/or elaborate on certain points. Thanks to all who have engaged and, felt concern for me and, agreed with me and whatever not.

1. I think, having been given much input. My beef is not with sola scriptura per se (ah come on, I don't even have a beef, it is just my comments). Rather, it should be a clarification as to how alone is scripture alone. I think it is the final arbiter, since it is verified (as mentioned in post).

2. Since it is the final arbiter and verified, it is helpful and authoritative on the Christian's life.

3. Yet (and this is the implication perhaps this is a slight change in focus from how it was in my original post), there is room to interpret differently certain things on the Bible. While yes, your interpretation might be more correct (my own words), that does not mean that those who do not share your interpretation are heretics or outside the kingdom of God or condemned to hell. They are still your brothers and sisters in Christ for they have the true gospel, that which brings salvation. The gospel is not the same as a correct interpretation of the bible though it comes from a correct interpretation of some crucial parts of the Bible.

4. So a person possessing more correct knowledge ought to work together to teach and encourage (AND EVEN LEARN FROM) the people with less "correct" knowledge. Point is should work together rather than to split from, just because of differences. These differences are not sufficient to split the unity of the church.

5. So the question is one of action. Do we reach out in love or do we distance. Or do we make you accept this pre-condition of mine e.g no female leadership before we work together?

6. Much wisdom needs to be had on what is crucial and not crucial. I think sins are definitely crucial. Things that are addressed to specific historical churches, maybe not so much? (VERY BROAD, VERY GENERAL, DONT KILL ME FOR THIS)

[[I wrote this at]]*|6:38 PM|

[[Thought of the day - on legalising suicide]]

Why not legalise suicide and, yknow, even provide proper avenues to do it?

So i need to begin by saying, don't commit suicide. Especially if you are a Christian, your life is not yours to take away. If you are not Christian, don't commit suicide too, that is my personal opinion. I am writing the post below as if I were an agnostic. If you would like, I would think, a brave, post-modern, everything is subjective agnostic.

But the thought here is that a life is a person's own to do with whatever he likes. Why should a person be deprived of the choice to will his/her own death? Afterall, if he/she lives, it is he/she that lives and not the state/anyone else. This is a purely agnostic/atheistic way of looking at things. Secular if you like. And giving some value to free choice. You can choose what you wanna do insofar as it does not harm others. (see here, you might "harm" your dependants but that is like an absence of a positive rather than an actual "harm")

And here is a proposed system, that I think has great benefits. First is there should be a government department or statutory board created to deal with suicides. Let suicides be legalised. Of course, there is illegal suicide, the one that you do e.g jump in front of a train, that screws over many peoples morning commutes and costs the economy millions of dollars. That, and provide some perks, like free coffee .etc. And market it along the lines of a responsible way to commit suicide. I think you'll be able to get like 90% of the people (arbitrary number) to actually go to this center.

So what happens is that you start by taking a Breathalyzer and/or a quick drug test. (I guess these tests can even be opt-out rather than mandatory but they have to do it knowing that they are drunk or high on drugs). you fill out some forms. Forms that say who you are, bla bla bla, request to terminate your life bla bla bla, for what reasons bla bla bla. Then there will be some steps that they go through. first would be settling their affairs. Put their affairs in order. This can be done through provision of drawing up a will, writing a final note (however crude they want it to be), maybe phoning some people goodbye .etc .etc. Take a final photograph, famous last words. Can even have a "suicide yearbook" of nice quotes. Might be the instagram version of death. Maybe some choice lines can be the "live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse", "YoLo", "see you later, alligator", "**** off humanity", "life sucks", "mama, I just killed a man" or the classic "this is the end, goodbye".

Then there can be a sorta system where one is opt-out to see a counsellor or religious help or whatnot. Can have volunteers or whatever. See, the beauty of it is that in "coercing" them to this place rather than at a rooftop or what, the help is on hand and not something extra that you have to do, like call a suicide hotline. If the person is a case where he just wants to talk .etc. he will find it amply provided.

I think the beauty of this (sorry for repeated use of beauty, i just find it, yknow, beautiful) is it forces the person to really take responsibility for his suicide. To not let it be an impulse thing or a trigger thing. At every stage, the option to die is left open. It is to make an informed decision to die. As informed as possible. At any stage, a person can choose not to die. He can even save the paperwork .etc. to make it faster for him the next time he changes his mind. If he so chooses not to die, it is blatantly clear to him that the decision not to die is his and his alone, so he takes the responsibility for it. I'd rather that than, "oh Im not going to die because of so and so, and then one day so and so says something mean, oh I wanna die again". That kinda idea.

At the next stage, I guess here is where things become "fun". So the person through it all maintains that he wants to kill himself, then he can choose how to kill himself (I guess). There should be choices like drug overdose, I would think the gas used for anaesthesia would be pretty high in demand (at slightly higher doses it is lethal), painless, just like falling asleep and you can have an open casket funeral. Maybe even give a jump from height option? For those that like wanna experience flying before dying. But perhaps the recommended one (for borderline cases) would be some sort of russian roulette. Where the guy stands in front of a machine and has a button to press. When he presses the button, a pseudo-random distribution will fire a bullet or a blank. And he can stop any time. It should be pseudo-random in the sense of with each press the chance of the next shot being a bullet rather than a blank increases. Maybe the first press is 10% then 20% then so on and so forth until the 10th shot is 100%. The guy can stop pressing the button whenever he wants. (It has to be pseudo random to not let people come in and play for fun). This allows yknow, people who, after they jump, realise they wanna be alive. Of course, you don't have to tell the guy that it is pseudo-random or anything. Just say when he presses he will get shot and die. If a blank is fired, could come out with some thing like technical error or something.

There can be interventions anywhere, like by friends or family or even the warden or something. Of course, in all these, the person retains the choice to ignore them and go ahead.

I guess there are some surefire cases e.g suicide because they are wanted for murder, have huge debts, have a terminal illness .etc. Maybe these could be "fast tracked" past the counsellors .etc. Of course in cases like if wanted for murder then, maybe there is basic legal immunity for him to just do all his stuff and then off himself. Point is, let him off himself here rather than in some secluded alleyway and afford him some basic human dignity to settle his affairs. But of course, dont let this be exploited e.g dragging it too long.

What this does is respect the choice a person has over his own body and own life. And I guess, de-stigmatise suicide and death. What is so bad about dying. Everyone dies anyway. You either die on your own terms or you die on nature's (God's) terms. What is there to be afraid? It could be even like, family sending off their loved ones (i guess for cases of chronic illness or what, more like euthanasia). And like if there is a suicide pact, then at least they two can die together or something.

Lots of negative externalities can be mitigated by this system. First is the cleaners and whoever do not need to face the shock of finding a dead body and clearing it up. Trains dont have to be delayed and the economy can tick along efficiently, heartlessly, without even a minor disruption to mark a person's tragic decision and passing (I use the word tragic here out of habit, it doesn't have to be tragic actually). Children don't have to be scarred with the wounds of finding their parents lying in a pool of blood. Furthermore, given that there is an avenue to settle final affairs, I would think the chances of parents killing their children then killing themselves will be lower since they can be assured that the children will be handed over to social services (especially if they don't trust their other family members to take care of their children, they can make this very clearly known to the suicide administrators). Furthermore, foul play .etc. can be quite clearly ruled out. If someone manages to induce a person to go through the whole system and off himself, he could clearly induce him to off himself elsewhere so... not the systems problem. Cases like a guy killing himself because he failed his exams, yknow, the parents can be notified and stuff... Also, prevents things like a horrible suicide attempt that is just painful and debilitating and your life sucks worse than before you attempted and now you have to attempt again.

On the positive side, this can give lots of vital statistics as to the reasons why people die. It can also save lots of space and time by providing economies of scale (lololol) since the entire death industry can exist together. More crucially, it gives a person control over his final destiny and a death with dignity. More importantly, from the utilitarian standpoint, people with lives not worth living can end it and contribute to higher aggregate utility and higher average utility. Make the world a better place yknow. Also, saves lots of state resources, say a person is mental and wants to kill himself and he is on unemployment or in and out of prison for petty crimes. Why not just let him die. I mean he might commit the crimes cos he doesn't have anything better to do anyway.

Perhaps some other laws might have to be tightened, e.g you can't get a person to borrow huge sums of money to give to other people then go off himself. But that is for another discussion.

Ok if you really wanna commit suicide, disregard all that I wrote above and come talk to me pls. Thanks.

Some other notes:
1. If a person chooses not to kill himself in the end, he has to pay a fee, e.g 100 dollars cos waste of state resources. This has to be told from the start. Sure there can be donors who would like to donate to cover these. Up to them. Prevents people from suka suka spend a day there and feel sad for themselves right, like casino levy. Also, maybe if you take the 100 dollars from do-gooders you are under contract to call them in a week to update on your life or something. I dk, I dont really care either. Let the economy develop here.

2. This is actually, on a deeper level, a satirical extrapolation of the secular agnostic kinda thought. There is no justifiable defence for life is inherently valuable other than "i think life is inherently valuable" if we are all really evolved bacteria. And this "i think life is inherently valuable" can only be given to yourself, no reason to extend to others right? How is your view of the suicidal person's life better than his own view on his own life? If this makes you recoil or whatnot, perhaps you might want to rethink secular agnostic thought. Or whatever, bite the bullet, yes suicide should be legalised. Im sure many would choose that. But if you wanna, yknow, consider Jesus, can talk to me too. LOL. (how did it come to this).

3. Uhh, feel free to share and comment. Pm or tagboard or whatever. Face to face.

4. In this hypothetical proposal, im not saying to give you an easy way out without helping in any other way e.g helping with financial woes. What this system does is regulate would be suicides to controlled suicides. So any case that wouldn't be a suicide in the first place, wouldn't come under its purview.

[[I wrote this at]]*|4:42 AM|

Saturday, April 29, 2017

[[On things ending]]

It feels like, the ending of something is more acutely felt then how much time it has left. Personally for me, I feel the shittiest at the start of any route march and generally feel better as the end draws near. Like more energetic and higher spirits. It is at the end that you make meaning of it. I need to update this. But point is about exchange ending.

On another note, aren't we all lunatics?

[[I wrote this at]]*|8:59 AM|

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

[[Thoughts on language precision]]

I have noticed, that precision in language helps greatly in precision in thought. For one's language limits one's conscious, articulate-able thoughts. For sure there may be concepts that cannot be articulated with the best language due to the limitations (necessary limitations?) of language. One example would be... Lol.

But one thing I have noticed, recently, is that in my attempt to speak in Chinese, I form sentences in English to translate into Chinese. And my Chinese vocabulary is not up to the task. Yet I'm sure the Chinese language might be up to the task. Yet it is not purely in the vocabulary, but the way of expressing something. With all its cultural contexts and idioms and sentence formation and so on and so forth. Note: Two separate things are mentioned, one is the linguistics, the other is the (social) use of the language.

In this sense, I am, now, only fluent in my own language (sounds awfully lot like a private language, maybe it is, I haven't revised Wittgenstein enough to tell you whether it is or not). The Nicholas language. The language this blog is written in now. It changes over time as well. Just look at my posts through the years. I guess it is closest to Singlish. And not just any kind of Singlish, perhaps, it is a subset of Singlish, the more internet kind, and the less uncouth kind. Yet not really. It is a subset of my experiences and who I am.

How I see it, there are ranges of understanding. One might not fully understand one's own (past) language, it is on a spectrum. Other people's languages are also understood to different degrees. Obviously, I would think, with experience, one can pick up nuances and subtleties within the language. Which is why, talking to someone familiar feels so easy. Or texting someone you have texted for really long feels much less scary (Of course there are other factors here as well). Which is why, as you read an author, you get used to how he/she writes. It is like a glimpse into their mind yknow. I find actions, unless you are actually observing another person in action, to be a very bad representation of one's own mind. To know that "he dropped the plate for the 20th time", doesn't tell you anything about the person other than he did that. But writing, there is more to read into than just the content. For "he dropped the plate for the 20th time" is someone else retelling and relating and phrasing and constructing. In writing (or typing, typing loses the handwriting element), one gets to see how one narrates. Essentially, one sees how another views something, or at the very least, chooses to construct something. It is like a work of art. With distinctive strokes, and preferred patterns, and quirks, and whatever not. And I think, one's writing follows one's thought. For writing seems to be a very conscious activity. As one drifts in thinking, changes in thinking, matures or otherwise, one's own writing changes to reflect this.

I wonder what impact this has on things such Bible reading. Is there a one true reading, one that the Holy spirit intended in inspiring the word. Even if there is a one true reading, does it differ from person to person?

Of course, I should be doing my essay. But here I am.

[[I wrote this at]]*|8:06 AM|

Sunday, April 23, 2017

[[]]

There are days when I feel (and think) that I should read more.
There are days when I feel I should write more.
There are days when I feel I should learn more, days when I feel I should pray more.

There are no days when I feel like I should watch more Dota videos. Or are there?

[[I wrote this at]]*|7:15 AM|

Saturday, April 22, 2017

[[Travelling (updated)]]

I must say, travelling alone is so different from travelling with people. And I think I can finally articulate what, I think, is the point of travelling alone, the impetus behind it. It is people, I think. Really nice to be able to like go up and interact with people.

So, I think thus far for people I have had extended convo with, perhaps I ought keep a list.

Lets see

Day 1 (Paris). Slept alone in a park for about an hour? Was really cold and like, was the start of me being alone anyway. Met this Mexican girl, Sara, on exchange in France, who missed her bus (I missed my train), talked for a couple of hours before she left to meet her friends (our bus were both overnight buses). Actually I was quite shy to even approach but I did I guess. She seems rather energetic, while I was like really tired. Though she seemed interesting, I was literally falling asleep at the bus station. She invited me to join her friends, but I felt it was weird, sigh, mistakes. I have her whatsapp somewhere. Was really tired. Cos of the early morning train that I missed. Talked to a guy waiting for his friend at the arc de triomphe. Works in TV? Think he is doing some sort of reality tv show, says he wants to do a documentary, maybe in the future. I love macdonalds. Cos there is free wifi. While waiting for the bus, talked to this filipino nurse-in-training. About the difficulties of living in a foreign land. And how one supports oneself through social networks .etc. Bus came. Talked to a guy from manchester, a black man, on the bus to Stuttgart. Really interesting and helpful man, apparently he shuttles between England and France much. Doing some sort of parallel import of car for his wife?? Not very sure how that works. He also helped when there was some minor incident regarding another person's lost phone whom i saw.

Day 2(Stuttgart). Talked to this yemeni student, hashim. He studies in stuttgart. His brothers are also all in germany. He says yenmen's situation is not ideal. He is probably going to stay in germany after graduating. We talk abit about arabic, he buys a croissant for lunch. He asks when was I going to tubingen. I say tomorrow. He says oh, he is going there today. That is unfortunate. Else I could have gone with him. Then he leaves to catch his bus. I find my hostel. I leave my hostel after using the internet for quite abit. I find a guy sitting at some monument. I ask him whats it about. He says he doesnt know, even though hes been working here for 3 years or smth. We talk abit, he is on his lunch break. He recommends me some castle to see. And we talk abit about history, kinda found what the monument is to. Some war, during the time where bismarck was unifying the german tribes. He recommends me a beer garden with a nice view. He does it during weekends or free time. And like, its on a hill. I head to the park. I wander around, a chinese girl mistakes me for another. Idk, i ask for some sort of directions, Lots of people sunbathing at the park. Talked to this guy waiting for his girlfriend. In front of an opera house. I asked him about opera. Lol. He is mixed. Filippino german? He is studying music. Seems cool enough. We talk for about 15 minutes. His girlfriend comes, a fully german girl (at least how it looks to me). He also recommends me this foodcourt place. And a park which is nearby. He says bye, we shake hands. I wander around the park. A Chinese lady asks if i speak chinese. I say yes. Im not from China. She wants me to help repair her wechat. She says her husband doesn't know how to work the chinese app. I say I dont use wechat, im sorry. Her husband is German. Ok. I see a half naked man lying down in the grass. Looks interesting. I talk to him. I say hi. He says whats the problem (or some derivative). I say nothing, what are you doing. We talk for about 2 hours? In the sun, on the grass. Hes a palliative nurse. Learn about his life, an interesting life. Was in the rock and roll business. Went to india to join mother teresa for a couple of years, finding himself. Apparently it was the in thing to do then (lol baby leecia). Was an alcoholic. Is divorced, with a child. Now with a girlfriend (or is it second wife? I cant remember) who also has a child. He plays music to express his soul. He plays me a song, he wrote it, something about his soul. Its good. He plays well. He says he plays the guitar really well. I believe him. He says he sees alot of shit in the rock and roll business, but when he was training to be a priest, he sees the same shit. Lots of hypocrites. priests getting drunk, having affairs, having gay sex. He says its disgusting. He says Jesus teaches us to love one another. Love each other as I have loved you seems to be his favorite verse. I don't really wanna point out that I think in that it refers to people of the Christian community. He says everyone is the same. I say what about the people of other religions without Jesus. He says you should still love them. I agree, point taken. How we act ought to be not dependent on their salvation. Of course they will probably not be saved. But that is not for me to act on, nor for me to decide. I finally have him add me on facebook. He says like his page. I said I thought you quit the show business. He says its not about earning money now. We take a photo, I share with him some food from Singapore. The photo goes on to his facebook, and mine. Ok I go to park. then I go to food place the guy said. Ate some Indian food. Went back to hostel. Stomach felt weird. Talked to my hostel mates. Theres this croatian that is fat and really into martial arts. Theres this really well travelled 26 year old man from Italy. Recommended me all sorts of places and things to do. Apparently he travels every long weekend. An engineer of sorts by trade I believe? Italian says that he is going to eat supper, pizza. I would join him, but my stomach is feeling queer due to Indian food for some reason. Theres this moroccan guy. He came in, I told him these beds were taken. He choose the bed on top of mine. Then he sat on my bed to take his stuff out. I said that is my bed. He said he knows. I let it slide. Rofl. Culture contexts. Whatever. We talk for quite abit. Hes from Morocco. Speaks 4 languages. Given that he is in Germany and Morocco (i know) speaks French and Arabic, I said his english is really good (since it is presumably his fourth language). He says he is least fluent in German. We talk a little more. About linguistics. The Italian guy is in this conversation as well. I think I learnt quite abit. Had to defend Chinese though. Think they were saying something like it was more primitive. Because pictographs. I said it is elegant and concise. We talk about other stuff. Turns out this moroccan is even more well travelled. Many places. Think hes been to everywhere except africa (outside of morocco). Turns out he is an architect. And teaching architecture at the university in Stuttgart. Wao. So much for first impressions. I guess his age, wrongly. By about 10. He is only 31. Nice. Whatever, the next day I wake up, they are all gone. Only the british guy that I think drank abit last night remains

Day 3 (Stuttgart)
So I carry my huge bag around. Meet a couple of random tourists. Im heading to the hill that was recommended by the guy yesterday. And like, walk past a some churches. All locked, for some reason. Saw a crowd of Germans. Queuing for some food. I joined the queue. Asked this middle aged guy what was everyone queuing for, whats good. He said currywurst. I had the currywurst. It looked small. I asked, is that enough for lunch. He said yeah he eats a light lunch. Eat too much will get sleepy. Ok. Eat and carry on finding the hill. I had a look around a erotik shop. And like, dang. Even had a short chat with this old guy taking notes about porn dvds?? Whut. He asked me for a cigarette. I said I dont have. He said good, dont smoke. That was abit weird. Then I seem to be one street off and the map my hostel gave doesn't have the street names and actually, the place i wanna go is just outside the corner of the map. Asked a lady where is this beer garden. She pointed me in a direction that I just came from. I said no, I want in that direction. She kinda nicely searched google maps. Apparently there is a beer garden 4 miles away. Hmm. So I went wifi hunting in supermarket. Supermarket wifi is best. Then I walk out, see a guy in a singlet casually sitting on the steps to the building. He too, like the guy that suggested the beer hall, is reading a kindle. Or what I think is a kindle. I talk to him. He works upstairs. As a software engineer of sorts. Lots of engineers in Germany. Nice work attire. He points me in the direction of the beer hall im seeking. He says he walks past it on the way home. I say I intend to stay there for quite a couple of hours. If he passes by he can join me. He also says it is a million steps. It wasn't a million steps. It wasn't even as many steps as polytechnique. Which is like, 200+? Whatever. Some helpful people point the way up. And I ask this brown lady (pardon the word brown, it is just a normatively neutral descriptor) where is this place. She looks at my map. Says she has never heard of it. And she stays just behind it. Ok cool. Turns out the place is like a hundred paces away. Lots of people, seats are good. You can see the whole stuttgart just like what that guy said. I go to the top place, where nobody is sitting. A guy is standing there. I smile at him. He smiles at me. And then, we start talking. He is from stuttgart. Meaning he studied in Stuttgart, but from a town near stuttgart. Thats what they mean by from. Now he is working in Italy with Bosch. Lots of engineers, I meet. And also people waiting for a girl in their life. rofl. Maybe they just have this bored look that invites me to talk to them. He recommends some local (baden-wittenburg) cuisine. And some beer. Theres this mouth-bag thing. And he tells me a story of how legend has it that this dish was created as christians were supposed to eat vegeterian food on fridays. Apparently by stuffing the meat into the bag like a dumpling you can get past it. Ok. He also says he was a Christian. And, he decided not to be because there is a 2% tax on all Christians in Germany which goes to the church. Well! Finally he has to go pick his wife up. And i find a good seat and ordered the stuff he recommended. They were not bad. I sit there for about an hour and a half and then wander around. On my way back, to meet the other Singaporeans, On the street, this black guy middle aged guy carrying a huge back is saying something loudly in english. I look curiously at him. He approaches me, I back off a little. He says dont be afraid. I am from Jamica. I say Im from Singapore, im not afraid (just personal space yknow). He says if you are free, come to this bar for live music. I follow him. He introduces me to the owner of the bar, ryan, and says he needs to set up. I say when are they playing he says 9pm. I can't make it. Its ok, I decide to watch them set up. He is Michael. There are two angmohs but they are speakin in Spanish. I talk to the younger kid, hes 19, apparently Michael picked him up from the street cos he told him he does Reggae music and he was busking I think. He wants to study music but is still trying to get a place. He has long hair, like dreadlocks except they are tied into a sorta ponytail. The bar provides them free drinks. And pays them apparently. Michael brings another big black dude in, hes so funny. Always smiling. I keep chuckling at him, and he is sorta tickled or amused by my laughing at him. Apparently he is on the keyboard. He goes about transcribing some keys. Michael returns, after awhile with 2 more black dudes. Apparently picked them off the street (like how he picked me and the young spanish speaking dude apparently). And apparently they need a bassist. And one of this guy's friend is a bassist. Wallah! God provides, says Michael, to older spanish speaking guy. Older spanish speaking guy replies something. They keep trying to oneup each other (like how i've seen in key and peele about gangster or street talk among black people, I thought it never happens in real life, apparently it does). Like telling stories about how michael broke both his legs while skiing, the guy said what is important is he is alive. Spanish speaking guy relates a story about his friend, dunno did what, almost died, but God is good. Michael says my cousin, fell from the coconut tree, and a stick pierced through him. But he lived. And God is good. And rastafa (he keeps repeating that word). And later I ask if he is a rasta, he says he is a real rasta, not like the others man. And like, its all about love man. and they clear a stage for him to do his thing. And he freestyle raps abit. About soul and love and stuff. Wish I could see him do his thing. My time is up and I leave. He very sincerely says bye. I read the wikipedia page on rastafari that night.

[[I wrote this at]]*|8:05 AM|

Friday, April 21, 2017

[[]]

It seems that I have to adjust my expectations, again. When can my expectations be what God wants? Why do I want what I want and not what is best (objectively)?

[[I wrote this at]]*|8:02 AM|

Thursday, April 6, 2017

[[]]

I re-realise art as a form of critique of society.

Within 1 musical wicked, I see themes of friendship, love, government, family, truth (vis a vis post modernism), the plight of circumstances, how actions can be thought best but not perceived as best while best is indeterminate.

[[I wrote this at]]*|7:00 AM|

Sunday, April 2, 2017

[[Against Sola Scriptura??? (sorry, maybe better understood as a clarification of sola scriptura)]]

Let the stance x be: Only the Bible is the full, complete special revelation from God.

My stance is that the Bible is helpful, "verified" revelation from God and should be treated as such. This is against more common stances such as x. The main dispute is with the word "only".

Much of the dispute is actually with the canon of the new testament. I think the main facts is that it was canonised 300+ years after the death of Jesus by a council of Christian leaders (after Constantine made Christianity the religion of the roman empire). It wasn't that these people (somewhat arbitrarily) picked and chose books, they had certain criteria which included consistency with rest of scripture, claimed authorship, traditional acceptance amongst churches up until then. Of course there were some disputes over certain more contentious books, some of which made the canon and some of which didn't.

The first thing is that the Bible does not say anywhere in the Bible that it is to contain such and such writings of who and who. If it were, it would be self-choosing (as it were) and alongside self-authenticating, make it a very formidable force, (in a circular way). The Bible, (supposedly) divinely inspired works, were put together by men 300+ years later. Even if one grants apostolic authority, it seems a stretch to grant that these men 300 years later were, as it were, perfectly divinely inspired.

Since these people are not divinely inspired in the way scripture writers were, the sovereignty of God has been commonly appealed to as "insuring" the rightness of scripture. But as it were, God is sovereign over everything, there is no insurance that God would have protected, in particular, that all special revelation would be within the canon. After all, God sovereignly allowed the church to conduct crusades, meddle in politics selfishly in order to keep political control and did other kind of stuff that we now agree as "wrong".

It is perhaps more plausible that God would have acted sovereignly, given wisdom and his spirit to these people to not include what ought not be included. After all, there are letters of Paul, referenced in the Bible, that are not included in the canon and presumably lost by the time the canon was created since books thought to be written by Paul were considered canonical (probably due to the verse in 2 Peter about Paul's letters being authoritative). What ought not be included can also sort of be tested against the other criteria of consistency with rest of scripture. If they were deviant and ought not be included, it seems likely that it would fail the criterion of consistency. Furthermore, along the lines of some King James proponent argument, it seems sensible that God would preserve some truth for the people whom he loved rather than have them misled the entire time.

Furthermore, the Bible does not claim a closed canon (The verse in Revelations seems to only refer to itself. If you want to argue that God foreknew the canon would happen in that order and inspired John to write in in a way that does not seem to suggest the whole Bible but actually does actually mean the whole Bible then,,, I don't have much to say but such an interpretation seems bound to run into other problems elsewhere). Why then, is the Bible, if it is the only authoritative word of God, a closed canon? Here I can provide a sort of reductio ad absurdum argument.

1. Bible is the only authoritative word of God

2. Bible does not claim it is a closed canon.

3. Bible is a closed canon.

4. Bible being a closed canon is not a move authorised by the word of God. (from 1-2)(Since Bible is authoritative, anything regarding it is authoritative on lives of other people hence it requires authority from itself)

5. Bible must be an open canon. (from 4)

There is the idea that apostolic authority has ceased with the death of the apostles and hence, by logic, Bible is a closed canon. I would say... Is apostolic authority within the Bible? I mean apostolic authority in the exclusive sense, for sure apostles do have apostolic authority, but are there no more apostles and even if there are no more apostles, does no one else have that authority? What about, say, writings of timothy? How about people who know Timothy? Is 1 relation gap from the apostles sufficient to preserve apostolic authority e.g Luke. How about 2? E.g someone who studied under Titus/Timothy/Barnabas? How about a possible newly discovered writing of Bartholomew?

Is the Bible sufficient for salvation? I would say it is, but then again, I would say that the gospel, as long as it is presented truthfully is sufficient for salvation. I would think the early church, without the Bible, got salvation. Hence, Bible is not necessary, the Gospel and the working of the Holy spirit is necessary. The Bible contains the gospel and more. There would also be like, (supposedly) Thomas's disciples in India who only heard the gospel from Thomas and still believed without having access to the Bible for like a thousand years or something.

Much of the Bible's own claims about scripture e.g the oft quoted 2 timothy 3:16 seems to refer to old testament scripture. OT scripture seems to be legitimised by Jesus himself, so there is not much debate about it, if anyone was wondering. But whatever, I do think it provides a good idea of what scripture should be used for: "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness". Note also that it does not have an exclusive claim to Scripture being the only special revelation from God.

The implication of my stance is not that we should seek new writings or sayings or revelations and ask if they are canon or authoritative. The Bible is helpful and we ought to use it, given that it is verified, we ought to use it even more to guard against heresy. This can be done through making sure that we do not accept anything that contradicts the Bible or does not fit in with the Bible.

Yet the fact that it is not the only special revelation from God makes it less legalistic and rigid. Yes, what it says is true and right (and rigidly so), but on many things on which it is unclear (e.g which countries are the countries from the north that will attack Israel, what is this Israel is it the current nation? even should there be full submersion baptism?) can be bracketed in favour of the things which it says are clear. Such as loving one another and telling other people the gospel. The Bible being not the only source of special revelation from God prevents people from reading too much into the Bible and becoming overly legalistic as it were, since we don't have to truly figure out what does "keep the sabbath holy" mean, like the pharisees making it into 101 laws. Similarly, we don't have to strain so hard to find out what does a particular obscure verse mean e.g "women's head must be covered" or "i do not permit a woman to teach a man" and instead obey the thrust behind it. This frees the Bible from being taken as overly constraining. What I am thinking of as other forms of "special revelation" would be God given wisdom, human counsel and the Holy spirit (surprisingly? all 3 are part of the canonisation process). There might be other forms too.

Why this stance? I must admit that I am writing in a specific context. I am probably reacting against the things I see. Reacting against some groups of people that seem more preoccupied with studying the Bible or Bible thumping than like living it out.

Secondarily, this seems to me to be a better defense The weight that rests on the Bible being the only word of God seems really hard to defend, to me. Given that the Bible only claims that it is the word of God and not that it is the only word of God (bleh, here I am not drawing a distinction between OT and NT and between the different books for simplicity).

Against sola scriptura??? Perhaps I shall try some Wright kind of idea that Luther and the reformers were reacting very strongly against the excesses of the catholic church. And they used scripture, as it ought, as a helpful and verified claim to the truth of revelation from God. But because that was their primary source, and because the Catholic church then had introduced other wrong sources, perhaps they swung too much to the other side of the pendulum and held too strong a claim on scripture and made it exclusive, beyond just being true they made it only true. And this only is inaccurate and has led to certain un-ideal implications such as more and more splits based on divisions over parts of the Bible that are more contentious (seems, splitting over infant baptism, for instance, something inferred really far from scripture is taken more seriously than unity of the church which is directly commanded in scripture). It seems that of the 5 Solas, 4 can be found in scripture with sola scriptura being the only one that is not.

Oh looky here: https://www.gotquestions.org/sola-scriptura.html Seems to be mostly agreeing with me but not going as far as to deny that sola scriptura is inaccurate.

I guess one final point of contention, and one that requires precision is whether scripture is final. Do I think scripture is final given that I do not think it is the sole authority? I think the main point is that God does not contradict himself, so in as far, since scripture is "verified", it can be "final" in terms of vetting other forms of revelation such as dreams. Whether it is final in the sense that nothing else is to be said, i would say no. Perhaps stuff can be said, and rightly so, being verified (or at least non-contradicted by scripture) but these things seem unable to then take on the role of scripture as verifiers for further revelation. So scripture is the final verifier, i guess.

I personally think a relationship with God and wisdom and reason (natural reason according to Aquinas) is really important in knowing God. Through scripture and perhaps, where scripture doesn't take us to.

Comments/ criticisms about this post very welcome. Pm or tagboard.

[[I wrote this at]]*|7:12 AM|

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A free day. Leisure. Watching the time go by. Watch people come online and off. Watch night fall in Singapore. Watch night fall in Britain. Watch people go to sleep in Singapore. Watch people go to sleep in Britain. Watch people wake up in Singapore.

[[I wrote this at]]*|5:31 AM|