Ransom said:
bibleprotector said:
Sadly, your side has adopted some thinking and influence of the Modernists/Higher Critics/Rationalists.
We'd never know, because you are either unwilling or unable to define those terms.
Good grief. You're so evasive about defining your terms, even Taoists would want you to quit weaselling and get to the point.
Not only have I referred to these things, but they are well known: I don't have my own pet differing definitions to what others have to these terms.
Obviously, there are a number of different uses of the word "Modernism", but we are not talking about the art movement. This is not about the pedantic difference between Roman Catholic usage and Presbyterian usage. We are talking about the unbelieving movement which was manifest through the 19th century and beyond in regards to doubting the supernatural origin of the Scripture and moving away from proper Christian doctrines (e.g. to deism, etc.).
“The student of history is well aware that the sceptical and decidedly hostile attitude toward the supernatural which is so prevalent today is of relatively recent date, being largely the result of the ‘empirico-scientific’ world-view which so powerfully influences and even controls the thinking of the ‘modern’ man. Miracle and prophecy were formerly quite generally regarded by Christians as furnishing conspicuous, even irrefutable, proof of the truth and divine authority of the Christian religion. They have now come to be regarded in many circles, even professedly Christian, as constituting the great and even the insuperable obstacle to the acceptance of Biblical Christianity by the scientifically trained man and woman of today. Consequently, a vigorous and persistent effort has been made to eliminate the supernatural from the Bible, or at least to minimise its importance and to ignore it as much as possible. In text-books which represent the ‘critical’ or ‘higher critical’ viewpoint it is regarded as a matter of prime importance to explain the supernatural, which often means to explain it away, and to deal with the Bible in such a way that the supernatural will really cease to be supernatural. The seriousness of this attempt cannot be exaggerated. For it is not too much to say that ‘by its own claim the Christian religion must stand or fall with the reality of the supernatural. ... It presents itself to us, not as an evolution of the divine in nature, but as a direct revelation of and from God, who, though in nature, was alone before it and is also distinct from it and above it.’ In a word, to get rid of the supernatural in Christianity is to gel rid of Christianity. For Christianity is supernatural in its very essence.†(Oswald Allis).
“But the general intention of those who espoused these new principles was evidently to insinuate the insufficiency of Revelation as well as of Reason, and to excite a prejudice against Christianity by representing the uncertainty of its doctrines and its evidences. In the hands of such men, Scepticism ... was made to consist in the disbelief or doubt of truth of every kind, natural or revealed: and he only was held to be enlightened or scientific, who believed nothing, and ridiculed all pretensions to certain knowledge. The injury thus done to Christianity has been incalculably great. ... When once it became a received opinion, not only that Reason and Faith were irreconcilably at variance, but that no truth was with certainty to be deduced either from the one or the other, men were left to the guidance of a blind or perverted imagination, with liberty to think and to do, ‘every one, what was right in his own eyes.’ ... Accordingly it appears that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, no countries abounded so much with false Philosophy and Atheism as Italy, the seat of Papal dominion. ... these new systems of Infidelity gained a footing in Protestant countries also.†(Bishop Van Mildert).
I have also pointed out that the influence of the leaven of Infidelity has come into evangelical, fundamental and Pentecostal Christianity. This is called lower case "m" modernism, in that proponents are those who believe in six day young earth creation, miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, second coming, eternal damnation, etc., but have accepted doubtful views in regards to what happened to the Scripture and its meaning beyond Bible times. Thus, they see no perfect text of scripture, no perfect translation and no possible way of having perfect interpretation or perfect doctrines until the Millennium or Future State. This is because they uplift a view that error is prevailing, despite their adherence to orthodox Christian doctrines (e.g. regarding salvation, Trinity, inspiration of Scripture, etc.)
I uphold the Word and Spirit view which is therefore promoting an attainment view of blessings and oppositional toward the leaven of Infidelity among those who are likely the truly born again Christians (from various denominations).