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Has the generation of 1914 passed away?

Has the generation of 1914 passed away?

Spirituality

F

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
But the fact remains that I didn't say, or intend to say, what you have claimed.
And yet somehow I managed to come up with a verbatim quote of you saying it. Strange that.

Ro

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Originally posted by FMF
And yet somehow I managed to come up with a verbatim quote of you saying it. Strange that.
Verbatim, yes. But not including the words 'divinely' or 'inspired'. Strange that.

More to follow shortly.

Ro

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Originally posted by RJHinds
The system can work very well if both the defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney do an honest job and the the Judge and jury are all fair in their decision. If one of these breaks down, then no telling what can happen.
I find myself agreeing with you again for the second time in as many months.

Is this becoming a trend?

Proper Knob
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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
it has been demonstrated with reference that the writers of the watchtower articles are
not nor have ever claimed to be infallible, why does this demonstrable fact evade you.
If i got a stamp made up and stamped it upon your forehead in large red letters would
it penetrate past the bone, percolate to your consciousness and register there? I ...[text shortened]... ls to acknowledge this fact or its
based upon ignorance of the meaning of the term infallible.
Is the view that the JW organisation is the 'sole holder of God's truth on earth' fallible or infallible?

rc

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Originally posted by Proper Knob
Is the view that the JW organisation is the 'sole holder of God's truth on earth' fallible or infallible?
its my view, therefore as the Pontifex Maximus, my word is infallible!

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
Verbatim, yes. But not including the words 'divinely' or 'inspired'. Strange that.
So you are of the view that JW printed material can be BOTH "divinely inspired" AND "fallible", and that JW members should be left to cherry pick and assert whatever they want as they beat their hairy chests and browbeat other Christians? 😀

Proper Knob
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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
its my view, therefore as the Pontifex Maximus, my word is infallible!
So it's not a JW/Watchtower teaching?

Ro

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Originally posted by FMF
I wonder what Rank Outsider will make of all this.
OK – there are a lot of different aspects going on in this thread now, so I will have to pick one, and so I am going to look at the ‘divinely inspired’ one.

English is blessed with one of the largest vocabularies of all languages. Even then, it cannot remotely cope with all the shades of meaning that the human mind wishes to convey, so it saves time by assigning multiple meanings to words and phrases. Efficiency at the expense of potential ambiguity or confusion.

It seems to me that ‘divinely inspired’ could be applied perfectly legitimately to any of these situations of increasing influence by God.

Grade 1

The word, act or object was motivated by a person’s own admiration for God.


If you had asked Bach “Was the B Minor Mass divinely inspired?” he might well have answered “Yes, indeed” (in fact, he did describe his work as 'divinely inspired'😉. Actually he might have answered “Duh, the clue’s in the title” but I have it on safe authority that he was quite a polite chap. With better English than I remember.

If he had, and you had jumped down this throat and said “So, you believe that the the Lord is using you as a means to disseminate perfect heavenly music to the world. And yet look, you wrote a D natural here when it should have been a D flat” I think he would have thought you were just a little bit weird.

But being the polite chap he was, he would probably have said “No, no, I don’t mean that”. If you had then said “Aha! So you admit you are contradicting yourself” then he would have known you were a little bit weird.

Grade 2

The word, act or object was initiated at the behest or instruction of God.


So, if I were to say that the building of the ark was 'divinely inspired', I would not expect you to jump in and argue that God has better things to do all day than to measure out bits of gopher wood, and look that dove-tail joint would have been much more waterproof than a mortise and tenon.

Indeed, I found one reference online to Noah’s Ark as being a 'divinely inspired' building project.

Grade 3

The word, act or object was actively guided by God, but not in each and every aspect, and not to the extent that it is perfect in all regards.


If I said my life is or has been divinely inspired, I don’t think it would be legitimate to argue against this on the basis that I was once a petty thief, or even that, in some other part of my life currently I still stray from the strict path of righteousness. Indeed, I might argue that it was only through divine inspiration that I managed to put aside some of my worst characteristics.

Grade 4

The act, word or object is the perfect manifestation of something that comes directly from God.


I understand that the JWs believe that the Bible falls into this category, and that it is the only document that falls into this category.

However, it should also be noted that, just because something falls into Grade 4, it does not mean that its creation might not have exhibited other grades of divine inspiration at the same time.

For example, I presume that the writers of the Bible were not simply golems whose bodies were taken over by God to do his bidding in writing the Bible whether they wanted to or not. I presume that the writers were also motivated by their personal admiration for God (i.e. Grade 1 inspiration).

So, if you said “were the writers of the Bible divinely inspired in the same way as Bach was divinely inspired in writing his music” you could argue that, if you were referring to Grade 1 inspiration, the answer is yes.

So I understand that JWs believe that the Bible falls into Grade 4, and that documents like Awake fall into Grade 3 (or possibly even Grade 3.9) but not and never into Grade 4.

If galveston75 made a mistake, and I am not saying he did, then the mistake may have been simply to use the term ‘inspired’ without clarifying which grade of inspiration he was referring to. He even said he was prepared to substitute ‘guided’ instead of ‘inspired’. And it also might explain why he was not prepared to retract that he stood by the 'meaning', as his meaning was not what was being implied by FMF, which was Grade 4.

Robbie / galveston57 – I realise I won’t have got everything precisely right here, but would this, broadly speaking, be a reasonable view of how you see the Bible and other works such as Awake in terms of divine…..err…..influence shall we say?

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
If galveston75 made a mistake, and I am not saying he did, then the mistake may have been simply to use the term ‘inspired’ without clarifying which grade of inspiration he was referring to. He even said he was prepared to substitute ‘guided’ instead of ‘inspired’. And it also might explain why he was not prepared to retract that he stood by the 'meaning', as his meaning was not what was being implied by FMF...
If you haven't actually read what galveston75 specifically claimed about how he thinks God intervenes in JW printed material by using humans to write on paper what He wants other humans to read "about His thoughts and guidelines", then you really should not be commenting or offering analysis. If you are falling for the flannelly "substitute ‘guided’ instead of ‘inspired’" excuse while, out of the other side of his mouth, he is absolutely refusing to retract the meaning of what he has clearly said, then you surely haven't read what he wrote.

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
So, if you said “were the writers of the Bible divinely inspired in the same way as Bach was divinely inspired in writing his music” you could argue that, if you were referring to Grade 1 inspiration, the answer is yes.
I asked him: "Is it your view that the people who write "The Watchtower" and "Awake!" are instrumental in proving "God's ability to teach"?"

Here was galveston75's answer: Yes you don't seem to understand that the printed page can be used as one of God's avenues to teach. It's been done since the ten commandments. All the bible writters were used by God to write the Bible. So since he has used humans before, why can't he use them now?

rc

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Originally posted by Proper Knob
So it's not a JW/Watchtower teaching?
It could be, but i presented it as my own, half in jest at first, but no one picked up on it,
until now!

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
So I understand that JWs believe that the Bible falls into Grade 4, and that documents like Awake fall into Grade 3 (or possibly even Grade 3.9) but not and never into Grade 4.
Well people will make what they want of what you "understand" about what JWs believe. Here's another clue. I asked galveston75: "Are you saying that the employees of the JW organisation who write The Watchtower and Awake! are divinely inspired in the same way you believe the bible's writers were?" galveston75's answer: Yes we do. What they are used for is not to write another Bible but God inspired bible aids. God has always used humans in one form or another to bring us God's thoughts and guidelines.

Ro

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Originally posted by FMF
I asked him: "Is it your view that the people who write "The Watchtower" and "Awake!" are instrumental in proving "God's ability to teach"?"

Here was galveston75's answer: [b]Yes you don't seem to understand that the printed page can be used as one of God's avenues to teach. It's been done since the ten commandments. All the bible writters were used by God to ...[text shortened]... ite the Bible. So since he has used humans before, why can't he use them now?
[/b]
I can't see that is a refutation of my post above. Saying that aspects or parts of a writtten document may have been directly guided by God, is not the same thing as saying that every aspect has, by definition, to have been directly guided by God.

You also make the presumption that galveston75, in referring to Biblical writers, meant that God was using the writers of Awake in precisely the same way as Biblical writers. Whereas he may have been referrring to the simple use by God of writers, not the manner in which they were used.

But galveston75 can clarify whether anything I have said makes any sense to him.

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Originally posted by Rank outsider
I can't see that is a refutation of my post above. Saying that aspects or parts of a writtten document may have been directly guided by God, is not the same thing as saying that every aspect has, by definition, to have been directly guided by God.

You also make the presumption that galveston75, in referring to Biblical writers, meant that God was u ...[text shortened]... were used.

But galveston75 can clarify whether anything I have said makes any sense to him.
You require "every aspect" to be being done in "precisely the same way" before you will accept that galveston75's claim is what I contend it clearly is? You have your tongue in cheek, surely.

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Originally posted by FMF
Well people will make what they want of what you "understand" about what JWs believe. Here's another clue. I asked galveston75: "Are you saying that the employees of the JW organisation who write The Watchtower and Awake! are divinely inspired in the same way you believe the bible's writers were?" galveston75's answer: [b]Yes we do. What they are used for is n ...[text shortened]... lways used humans in one form or another to bring us God's thoughts and guidelines. [/b]
I think that point has been covered in my earlier post.

I do not presume to be accurate in everything I have said. I have set out an honest appraisal of what I think might be an explanation of the long and winding road that you have gone down and why the concept of divine inspiration and infallibiliy are not synonymous, or at least do not necessarily need to be.

I have read the other threads you were referring to (though you presumed incorrectly I hadn't, which was indeed the case yesterday) but I did not see anything that contradicted my analysis.

But I can't speak for robbie or galveston75, and my analysis may just be a load of old hokum as far as they are concerned.

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