Comment on Adventist Review: Pastors Who Don’t Believe by Sean Pitman.
Is Ignorance Sin?
When we understand that sin is both rebellion and ignorance, we take both of these factors into account and judge situations as we consider both factors. – Bill Sorensen
Sin is not based on ignorance at all. That’s my whole point. If this were true we would all be living in a constant state of sin because we are all ignorant of something. Even the angels in Heaven do not know everything. Are they therefore in a state of sin? – just because of their ignorance? Only God is all-knowing you know.
You simply cannot rebel against that which you do no know or conscientiously understand. And, since you do not know what a person really does comprehend, you cannot know for sure if your moral judgment of that person is indeed accurate. If anything, ignorance is a valid excuse before God. Even Jesus pointed this out the truth of this concept:
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ – John 15:22-25 NIV
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin”… – John 9:41 NIV
So, it is an error on your part to equate honest ignorance with sin of any kind. Of course, there is such a thing as deliberate ignorance; an ignorance that is the result of a deliberate choice not to investigate that which one suspects might be true. Such deliberate ignorance is indeed sin – a type of rebellion against known truth. This isn’t the type of ignorance that I’m talking about. I’m talking about truly honest ignorance. Such ignorance is not sin at all…
This, I think, is the basis of our disagreement. You think that if you can show a person to be wrong on any particular issue, you must assume that they are at the very least ignorant of the truth. You then equate this ignorance with sin, while I do not. For me sin is defined as deliberate rebellion against what one consciously knows and understands to be true. Otherwise, there is no sin… as Jesus explained.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Adventist Review: Pastors Who Don’t Believe
In any case, any further comments concerning the morality or lack thereof of those involved with the LSU situation will no longer be posted here on Educate Truth. However, You are free to send me a personal E-mail if you wish (my E-mail can be obtained by visiting my website listed below).
Sincerely,
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Adventist Review: Pastors Who Don’t Believe
@Ron Stone M.D.:
Well, Sean, atheists have written books explaining what, why, and how they have rejected God’s Truth. Those at LSU have explained what they believe and why they have accepted Man’s word and rejected God’s Truth. You say we can never know anything about this, and they must not really “understand†what they are doing.
I don’t know if they do or do not really understand what they are doing; and neither do you. Only God knows for sure…
Not only would I and others here disagree with you, but I believe the atheists would disagree. The idea that church members cannot be “judged†by their words and actions is simply not biblical.
And the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross would have claimed at the time that they knew exactly what they were doing too… but did they really? Jesus prayed for them saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” – Luke 23:34 NIV
It is quite possible that even if a person is very adamant that he/she knows exactly what he/she is doing, that this person may not really know. This is a possibility that only God knows for sure. You simply cannot make this particular type of moral judgment with complete accuracy. You and I can judge the rightness or wrongness of the word or act (specifically regarding a doctrine like the literal 6-day creation week), but we cannot judge the rightness or wrongness of the heart; the motive.
There is a difference between being mistaken and sinning. Sinning requires a deliberate rebellion against known truth – something that you cannot tell for sure in cases of doctrinal disagreements on such things as the literal creation week or the true origin of the Sabbath or any other such commandment that deals specifically with man’s relationship with his or her God and God alone.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Adventist Review: Pastors Who Don’t Believe
@Ron Stone M.D.:
Sean says Moses and the Prophets are “empirical†evidence then says they are not!
Moses and the prophets are only “empirical evidence” in support of the Bible’s credibility if they actually say something true regarding the real world in which we all live (which I think they clearly do).
However, if Moses and the prophets did in fact clearly contradicted the real world (i.e., real history), the hypothesis that the Bible’s credibility is supported by them would be effectively falsified (as is the case for the Book of Mormon, for example) in such a situation.
It is in this sense that things like biblical prophecy must be held up for testing before biblical prophecy can be rationally accepted as credible (at least any more credible than the Book of Mormon).
In other words, biblical credibility is dependent upon the empirical evidence. Without the empirical evidence, there would simply be no greater rational reason to believe the Bible as any more credible than some moral fable that someone simply made up as a “cleverly invented story”. – 2 Peter 1:16 NIV
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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