Posted by Ex-Instructor on August 12, 2002 at 12:33:57:
In Reply to: Re: Humility and Respect. posted by ? on August 12, 2002 at 12:16:34:
You make a good point. 'Jesus simply wanted to eliminate doubt in the path he set forward.'
However, I have to believe that Jesus wanted to remove doubt in that path because he strongly feels that there is no other path by which humans can have salvation. The reason for this is pretty straight forward, in a biblical sense. Jesus says, time and time again, that man is not worthy of a relationship with God. He is imperfect and full of sin. The obvious other way to God would be to perfect yourself and become free of sin. Given that this is impossible, (but a great many try through works, etc.) it only makes sense that Jesus would want to eliminate those paths by stating that he is the way, the truth, and the light. I also maintain that, since Jesus is God, he too is perfect. His perfection implies that he cannot lie. Thus, I'm not sure if the statement, 'the way, the truth, and the light' is open to the interpretation that he is trying to remove ambiguity from other paths. He is stating that he IS the path by which we can find salvation. It's not that there aren't other paths, it is that we are incapable of walking those paths.
I don't have all the answers here, as I too am walking on a path. I like Pascal's wager here (for those of you that don't know, Pascal was a 17th century mathematician and philosopher, and arguably one of the most brilliant of his time).
He begins by noting that there are two possibilities concerning God’s existence: either God exists or God doesn’t. He then notes that there are two possibilities concerning whether you believe God exists: either you believe God exists or you don’t. That makes for four possible combinations with very different outcomes associated with each combination. Pascal adds that we have no way of proving whether or not God exists, so we can’t make any claims about which of the possible outcomes is likely. (As we’ll see later on in the course, not everyone agrees that we cannot prove that God exists, but for now we won’t worry about that.)
* You Believe God Exists, you go to heaven. The worst case, you have a slight 'loss' of freedom.
* You Believe God Doesn’t Exist, you go to hell. Best case, you have a slight 'gain' of freedom.
As the table indicates, if you believe in God, the worst that happens is that you’re wrong and you miss out on some pleasures you would have indulged in otherwise. That’s not so bad, after all, you get to live a life in which you’re comforted by your faith. What’s more, the best that happens is that you're right and so get the best possible payoff – heaven.
On the other hand, if you don’t believe God exists, the best case scenario is that you’re right. If so, you perhaps get a small payoff by being right. You get to live a life in which you don’t worry about sin. Perhaps that makes you somewhat better off (although keep in mind that this doesn’t mean your actions don’t have consequences – God isn’t the only source of punishment). Meanwhile, the worst that happens is that you're wrong and so you go to Hell. That's not good at all.
Pascal sums all this up by pointing out that the best case scenario if you don’t believe in God is a small gain while the worst case is a huge loss. On the other hand, the worst you’ll suffer if you believe in God is a small loss while the best possible outcome is a huge gain. With all this in mind, he declares that the only reasonable thing to do is to believe in God (i.e., to wager that God exists).
Ah, we're waxing poetic here.
You'll note that in the argument above (which I didn't write, by the way), the protagonist is God. In this case, God is Jesus (as I previously stated).
*; =qq(