The Assertions of Christianity

Christianity is unique among world's religions in being primarily an assertive belief system as opposed to a revealed system. In a revealed system God gives his message directly to specific humans who are expected to disseminate it to the balance of humanity. Followers are measured by how well they adhere to the message given to them.

Christianity start out as a revealed system. The revelation that is important to the birth of Christianity occurred to someone unconnected to this founding members. This, of course, is the vision Paul experienced on the Damascus road. Unfortunately, the details of this revelation are rather scarce and Paul provides very few clues within his letters. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that Paul used his revelation from God as the basis for his oral ministry; the foundation for his credibility. Therefore; he had little reason to elaborate further in his follow-up letters to his churches.

This conclusion only goes so far, though, because Paul does not mention his revelation when writing to the Roman Church, a church he did not found and had never visited. Paul was either so well known at this point that he did not need to reiterate his credibility or Paul was relying upon others such as his companions to provide the introductory build up so Paul did not have to sound like a braggart.

It is shown in the Acts of the Apostles that when Paul got into trouble he did rely upon his revelation story for credibility but we are left to wonder why so few details are provided. Paul never elaborates on how much information he was given. Followers must speculate on how much of Paul's ministry was based on Paul's own thought processes and how much he was simply repeating from "the words of the Lord." Later Christians were forced to conclude that the part about Christ's imminent second coming was Paul's interpretation rather than part of the vision. The words of the Lord could not be wrong so Paul had to be.

An Assertive Religion Begins

Paul, too, does not put much emphasis on what was revealed to him. Instead, he develops a theology based on assertions. What is significant about these assertions is that there is little basis for accepting them beyond simply wanting to accept them.

In most cases Paul provides no legitimacy for the claims he makes. He simply puts forth his assertions and expects his followers to accept them. This has lead most rabbis to conclude that Paul, if he was a Torah scholar, was not a very good one. No Torah scholar makes assertions without first laying out the foundation for the claims through detailed analysis of Torah. In British and American Common Law it is making one's case based on legal precedence.

With only rare occurrences, Paul does not lay out any foundation. The most significant example where Paul does make attempt for legitimacy is in his letter to the Romans where he states that Abraham was righteous prior to circumcision, meaning that circumcision is not necessary for righteousness. This argument quickly falls apart because Abraham DOES circumcise himself and his children. Obviously, Abraham believed it was necessary. It was the equivalent of signing the contract (covenant) with God. Paul needs to ignore this because he is trying to say that circumcision is unnecessary.

Paul's abrahamic argument is a stretch at best but he has one thing going for him. His audience did not care. Most of his audience had never heard of Abraham. The conclusion that Christians were superior to Jews was already accepted by Paul and his gentile converts. The case for its truth did not have to have plausibility to win support for a conclusion the audience already accepted.

In nearly all other Pauline arguments, there is no foundation, no basis established for the assertions. Paul lays no groundwork before making his claims. This is no more clear than in the Pauline letter to the Ephesians where Paul uses the metaphor of the Temple in Jerusalem to demonstrate artificial boundaries. In the Temple, Jews can pass through courts closer to God than can the Gentiles. Paul asserts that Christ tore down these walls. Gentiles can obtain the same closeness to God as the Jews.

What is the foundation for this assertion? How do we know Christ did this? How do we know it is true? What is the basis for making this proclamation? Certainly, if one already accepts Paul's other assumptions this one is not difficult to also accept. The problem is that Paul's other assumptions also lack foundation.

The major assumption made by Paul is that a universal God would not give his laws exclusively to the Jew. A fair God cannot give his laws to only one segment of his creation. Therefore the Hebrew Laws must not be critical to living faithfully in the Lord. Paul makes, first, an unsupported claim that a universal God would not choose a particular group. He then follows this up by making the same error he has laid upon the Jews. Paul's "universal God" is just as exclusive as the Judaic assertion that they were chosen. Paul's "universal message" could not be heard universally. The world was much bigger than Paul imagined. Of course, Paul expected Christ's return and resulting redemption imminently. This would have excluded the Chinese, and Indians, and North Americans, and all the peoples residing outside of the Mediterranean region from any hope of participating in this redemption.

The question which arises is how anyone could know that Paul's assumptions were correct. The answer is that one or both had to be false. Paul constructed two mutually exclusive assertions within his own theology. Both cannot be true.

There is, in fact, no foundation and this ends up separating Christianity from all other religious belief systems. Theologians make assertions with no foundation, demanding that their followers simply believe them on the basis of faith.

While there is no foundation for accepting any of these assertions beyond faith, there is plenty of foundation for dismissing them. First, and foremost, the primary prediction about Christ's return did not occur. The very heart of Paul's early message proved wrong. This alone provides ample justification for questioning all subsequent theology. Second is the attempt to find legitimacy from the texts of the Hebrew Bible. The prophecy hunt demonstrates the work of amateurs; finding hundreds of places where Jesus is described. Nearly all of these are based on yet another assumption, that Christ or Christianity replace and supersede the references to Israel and Israelites. Without this baseless assumption the Hebrew scriptures revert back to their original meaning, the history of the people in the land of Canaan.

The only way to find legitimate support for Old Testament prophecy is to already believe it is prophecy about Christ. Without this assumption the context of the Hebrew scriptures negate the description of the messiah that is described within Christianity. In the Hebrew Bible the messiah is entirely human, anointed by God, but not God himself. The oppressed and suffering were the people of Israel, not the messiah and followers of the messiah.

The real problem with the Christian interpretation of the "Old Testament" is that any book, from Plato's Republic to Shakespeare's Hamlet can produce the same conclusions. If one assumes the message within the pages is about Christ, the conclusion becomes obvious. This is why assumptions need a foundation. This is why the truth of a claim demands a base for accepting it.

The next major Pauline assumption is can only be held by the most ignorant of modern believers. This is the assumption that Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden stained all mankind with a sinful nature. Because of this every human is born on an escalator heading to Hell. That the Genesis description of the world is negated by every single piece of physical evidence is but one problem, albeit devastating. The major question is why it should be true that the sins of one should carry forward to everyone else? The next, and even more unsupported claim is that belief in Christ wipes away this global transgression. It is well understood that Paul made this assertion. It is simply not clear why this is, in fact, true. Given that the basis for accepting that Christ erases original sin is that original sin exists because of Adam and Eve, the foundation for holding any of these beliefs is mere mythology. The existence of a universe that contains death prior to Adam and Eve disproves the most crucial Christian assertions. The subsequent assertions, based on these originals have even less merit.