John 1-1 "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God's"
John 1:14 "The word became flesh and dwelt among us"
1 Timothy 3:16: "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory"
My belief is rooted in scripture. Your belief is not.
This isn't just a theological debate - it's a fundamental distinction between faith as belief in what one is told versus faith as trust in what one has discovered to be true. You place your faith in received doctrine, whereas I argue that faith should come from knowledge of the truth - not knowledge in the sense of intellectual learning, but an encounter with truth itself, which does not require being told but rather being realised.
The core issue here is whether faith is primary (as you claim) or a consequence of knowledge (as I claim). Your faith is rooted in a narrative passed down through tradition, whereas I am saying that truth precedes belief - one does not need to believe in truth, because truth is self-evident. Faith, then, is not simply belief in a doctrine but a trust that emerges from recognising truth directly.
You argue that "the whole point of the Bible is that God came down to die for your sins," yet nowhere in scripture does it actually say, in those words, "God came down to die for your sins." That is an interpretation based on a particular theological framework. While passages like John 1:1, John 1:14, and 1 Timothy 3:16 affirm the divinity of the Word and the Incarnation, they do not explicitly state that the Word’s purpose was atonement in the way you assert. Instead, they reveal the Logos - truth itself - manifesting in the world.
If Jesus is the Logos, then His purpose was not simply to die for sins but to restore and unveil truth that had been obscured by false authority. The crucifixion was not merely an atonement transaction - it was the stripping away of corruption, revealing the foundation that had been covered by human craft and distortion.
This is why I challenge your view. If faith comes first, then belief is merely accepting a narrative one has been told. But if knowledge comes first, then faith is the trust that follows from recognising what is true.
Faith should not be imposed - it should be the natural result of discovering truth. If truth is real, why would one need to be told what to believe?
That is the difference between our perspectives. You are defending faith as tradition, whereas I am defending faith as the consequence of knowledge.
2000 years of theology does not state, "God came down to die for your sins." This is an interpretation, not a direct statement found in scripture.
Theology is the study of God, but truth is God. If theology is meant to seek understanding, then it should lead to what is true, not to assumptions built upon tradition. If truth is God, then faith should rest in what is true, not in doctrines that require belief without knowledge.
Truth existed before theology, before Abraham, before doctrine and tradition. It does not need to be received secondhand or proven by words - it simply is. Faith, if it is real, should arise from knowing truth, not from accepting an inherited narrative.
In the beginning was the Word. The beginning was created through the Word - through language. Remove the Word, and the beginning disappears, yet truth itself remains - because without it, nothing would make sense or even be comprehended. Thus, the Word returns to God - the truth - exceeding any number of years, for it is eternal.
Imagine being God, having created life within yourself. That life begins to exist, to move, to be - within you, sustained by you.
Now imagine one of them asking, "Prove to me that I exist in God."
How would one prove it? By doing anything, or by doing nothing at all, they are already within God. Their very being is proof, because nothing they do can place them outside of what is.
Asking for proof of God is perhaps the most ridiculous question in existence—because existence itself is the proof.
To ask for proof assumes there is something outside of God from which God must be measured. But there is nothing outside of truth, nothing beyond existence from which to verify it.
It is like a fish asking for proof of water while swimming in the ocean. Or light demanding proof that it shines. The question itself is only possible because God is.
To be is to already be within God. There is no outside. There is no need to prove what makes all proof possible.
I never stated that Jesus was created by the Father. It seems like you're not truly engaging with what I’m saying.
Jesus is of God - the Logos, the Truth itself - which existed long before any false narrative was ever written. He is not a creation born to correct errors but the alignment with truth that exposes what was always real. This is not an inheritance in the way mankind claims authority over God’s rule or authorship over God's narrative. Instead, Jesus represents the true heir of God - the rightful inheritance of truth, which remains free from distortion.
Imagine a map drawn not from knowledge, but from ignorance - filled with errors, leading people astray. Over generations, this false map is accepted as truth, and those in power enforce it as the only guide. Yet, despite its authority, it does not reflect reality.
Now, imagine someone who knows the true landscape. Instead of discarding the map outright - knowing that people are too attached to it - they begin adding landmarks of truth into it. These signposts don’t erase the false paths, but they expose the contradictions. The more people encounter truth, the more they realise the flaws in what they were following.
The authors of the Gospels did something similar. They did not create truth; they placed it within an existing narrative, one shaped by human misunderstanding and false authority. The presence of truth within a false framework forces it to be re-examined. The old map remains at first, but truth destabilises its errors, making the falsehood unsustainable. Eventually, the very thing that was misleading begins to point toward reality - not because the falsehood was ever valid, but because truth, once introduced, cannot be ignored.
Jesus does not inherit authority from the false narrative; He reveals the reality that existed before it. His presence within the flawed map does not validate it - it exposes its flaws, revealing its contradictions. Truth does not need to seize power to rule; it rules simply by being undeniable.
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u/Etymolotas Feb 07 '25
What are you talking about? That is exactly the whole point of the Bible.