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There is no first hand (check the blockchain type) verification for Christian salvation. This is the essence of the “foolishness” of the message, the fundamental nature of what a “saving faith” is. Verifing his credentials is not the same as waking up in heaven. Unless I have not read the message of Christ correctly, it is salvation by faith.

R.S. Christopher 3mo ago 💬 1

Epistle of James is pretty clear on this (and this will upset many modern Christians), but “even the demons believe”, faith without works is dead, and “a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.” — this is the line that Luther famously tried to remove from the German translation of the Bible.

Man is saved by faith thru grace, but more specifically in Scripture man is saved by Christ’s perfect faith, not our own.

Faith is best understood as “faithfulness” (as in marriage) and not mere intellectual agreement (which is what James is clearly dismissing).

There’s a ton of verifiable historical evidence for the person of Christ as well as fulfillment of what He said would happen, as well as the miracles of his ministry and around the church. And plenty of saints such that we can have assurance are “in heaven”, but you’re right that the deeper mysteries of salvation as it effects you personally is not as clear, although in the negation it is — everyone knows what kind of life they could lead to not be saved. And if we’re very honest with ourselves we know the kind of life we should be living, what we’re called to, and that Christ is knocking.

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Discussion

GJM 3mo ago 💬 1

The point I was trying to highlight was that there is no independent verification mechanism available to the believer, in contrast to Bitcoin. Assurance is not the same thing as verification. To point to interpretations of scripture or spiritual “manifestations” as assurance to something that will happen in the future is not the same as waking up in heaven after you pass. I am suggesting that the reason a believer chooses to express their dedication to a “Christian lifestyle” is because there are portions of faith, trust and hope in play. If I understand you correctly, you are highlighting Christian conduct as an expression of faith (faithfulness). What I am suggesting is that has nothing to do with the ability to verify the claims of Christ. Implying that they are true is not the same as independently verifying that they are true. Hope that makes sense 😀

R.S. Christopher 3mo ago

It does, but go deeper for an answer — where does your definition and understanding of “truth” come from? How do we *know* what is true?

All ancient cultures understood “truth” as a deity. Veritas, the Latin word for truth, was a pagan goddess.

The Greeks got a little closer but Aletheia is also a pagan goddess. Socrates had his daemon. Plato a demiurge. Aristotle had a profound insight that there must be a first principle (a first cause that cannot be explained) and that it must be the logos (the divine word) of what he called the unmoved mover. But this was ultimately transcendent and unknowable to us mortals.

The Hebrew thought of logos as creator with a radical notion that humans are created in the image and likeness of God, and Christianity innovated with Christ as logos made flesh, connecting us mortals to the transcendent, to the spirit of truth (made flesh).

The presumption of objective and knowable truth is entirely born of Christianity. It is one of many “fruits” of Christendom than we tried to preserve but without the tree from which it grew.

We question Christianity with an implicit Christian ethos, exactly at a time when that ethos is disappearing in the west. And the consequences is that truth itself reverts to its old pagan relativism. We become playthings of gods (ideologies), and can’t even answer what a woman is.

But if you want actual epistemology, the radical view that humans can know truth, then you have Christianity, and only Christianity, as the source.