[Tfug] was:The NET NOW: Why could not the constitution be Holy?

[keith smith]

Interesting reply.  I personally believe God can, has, and does inspire many things that are not and will not be part of the Bible.

Maybe blessing is more accurate.  An argument can be made that those who wrote the constitution, because of their believes and motivation, caused our nation to be blessed.

Keith  


Matthew Patenaude <mnglfiddle at gmail.com> wrote: Hmmm. I should have read the next message.

To believe a document is inspired by God and to believe God blessed a 
documents beginnings are two different things. The Bible states 
explicitly that God's Word has been finished and is the end of God's 
written revelation.

To state that God inspired the Constitution would be to state it is part 
of God's written revelation, which would be quite wrong, to say the 
least. For one thing, there were guidelines for deciding what was to be 
included in the scriptural cannon itself. The Constitution would not 
meet any of those guidelines, and does not itself deal with spiritual 
matters.

I do believe that it does stand alone however, in being written by men 
who at least had a respect for the Bible and God Himself. That fact 
would account for the blessings of God upon it, but does not make it 
inspired.

Matthew Patenaude

keith smith wrote:
> I usually do not get involved in this type of discussion because it usually leads to a disaster.... 
>
> Why could not the constitution be Holy?
>
> If one believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God and if one believes our forefathers were God fearing men and they as God fearing men wrote a document inspired by God, would it not be Holy?
>
> I believe the constitution was inspired by God and is as relevant today as it was 211 years ago.  I also believe the Bible was inspired by God and is as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
>
> Please do not get irate.  I am not telling you must believe this.  All I am doing is sharing what I believe.
>
>
> Keith
>
>
> Stephen Hooper  wrote: On 10/5/06, Judd Pickell 
>  wrote:
>   
>> I don't know, some would argue that the American Constitution has had as
>> much of an effect on the world as the Bible. Both are very influential world
>> wide, although for vary different reasons. The Bible gave the catholic
>> church the power it wanted, and the Constituation gave people the freedom
>> that they didn't/couldn't have until then. :)
>>
>>     
>
> You could then argue that the light-bulb has had as much effect on the
> world as the Bible, or that toothpaste has had as much effect on the
> world as the U.S. Constitution.
>
> They look like reasonable arguments as there are absolutely no good
> measurement systems to argue them in.  It is very qualitative.
>
> That said, I think you missed the main point of my thought, which was
> that the Bible being a religious document,  is not in the same genus
> of documents as the U.S. Constitution.
>
> To imply that the Constitution, and the Bible are therefore somewhat
> equivalent, and at the same time hold them up as examples of a
> specific set of documents referred to by a previous author as "social
> documents", while arbitrarily excluding all other documents that would
> also serve as an example of this kind of document was  what I was
> endeavouring to make a point about.
>
> As an aside, it also left quite a bad taste in my mouth as it seemed
> to me to diminish both the Bible, and the Constitution.
>
> If you believe in the Bible (as being holy), then to imply that the
> Constitution is holy would seem to me to be slightly arrogant.
>
> And from the opposite point of view, I like the U.S. Constitution just
> as it is:   written by *normal  people* as something akin to a
> governmental RFC document.  I think the U.S. is great, but we don't
> need a  "we are descendants of  gods" mentality.
>
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