CelticBear’s Musings

Lee Randolph at Debunking Christianity has an interesting post today:
<> Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit
In it he establishes what the general Christian belief in the Holy Spirit entails. What the Holy Spirit is, what its “job” is. And according to scripture, one of its jobs is:

P1a. The Holy Spirit is God
P1b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
P2. The Holy Spirit informs the Unbeliever as to the truth of Jesus when being told about it.
P3a. The Holy Spirit is in every Christian
P3b. Every Christian Accepts Christ
P3c. Every Christian should be favorable to Holy Spirit Influence.
P4. The Holy Spirit helped write the scripture
P5. The Holy Spirit helps interpret the scripture
P6. The Holy Spirit gives understanding (informs).

Lee examines these supposed truisms about the Holy Spirit and applies them to various conditions and situations in reality and comes up with some interesting problems. A couple of the situations include:

Tom Becomes an Apostate:

3a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind. He makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought was rational. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn’t make sense. He becomes an apostate later in life, living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, then if the Holy Spirit was giving him guidance and it didn’t make sense to him then is he culpable when he rejects Christianity on those grounds? On the other hand how do you love something you have doubts about? If he grudgingly keeps professing his faith, gods not going to be fooled and he’s as good as an apostate.
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or the opposite situation happens
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Tom Hangs Onto His Belief Despite Doubts:
3b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind and he makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought made sense. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn’t make sense. He wrestles with these questions for the rest of his life professing his faith and NOT living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, how is it that the Holy Spirit didn’t intervene on behalf of itself to the point that he would not have to make a choice to disregard conflicting information that he honestly believed was valid? Here is a link to a DC article called “Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts” that talks about this.

Now, your average conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christian will rationalize why the Holy Spirit doesn’t stay and change the heart of the person who encounters Christianity and disbelieves, nor calm the fears and doubts of those who do believe but question and examine, by doing what all other cults and believers in supernatural events and pseudoscience do:

Blame the victim.

No, the power of God/Holy Spirit/Krishna/alien angel fairies are unquestionable and all-powerful (even though there is no evidence, proof, or logical reason why it should be believed so). So obviously, if you fail to believe/don’t find the answer/can’t hear the voice/the ritual fails to work, the problem must be in you for not having enough faith.

But Lee goes a step further and takes a look at the bigger picture. Not just in the failings of the individual to come to the “right” conclusions and interpretations, but entire denominations. He makes a list of the many various Christian religions and denominations there are, who all believe in some form of Yahweh and his “son” Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. And he ponders how it can be that is the job of the Holy Spirit is to enter the heart and mind of the believer, and to help in the understanding of God’s/his/its Word, how there can be such huge discrepancy in how the scripture in interpreted and put into practice–all in God’s name.

Since it seems apparent that the Holy Spirit does not help interpret scripture or give understanding, Reasonable Doubt about the Holy Spirit is justified.