Apologies for not seeing your reply:
Not so. Just because one's conscience has a limited understanding of God is not the same as saying that one has the same connection with God as one has in the Holy Spirit. Far from it.
I'm talking about the concept of the Tao- of a universal law of morals which everyone has some knowledge of, even if their understanding is faulty or flawed. I'm talking do not cheat, do not lie, do not steal, do not kill, much of what was in the Ten Commandments.
There is significant overlap - but the New Covenant goes further even though it says much less - love the Lord your God, and love your neighbour as yourself. Are you telling me that even those who do not know God - that they do not have an understanding of the Golden Rule? I can't say that - I had that before I became a Christian. When you come to Christ - what the New Covenant gives you is God's side of things through the Holy Spirit. You are better able to understand several questions - "who is my neighbor", and "if a neighbor sins against you," etc - these are all questions that come up in the Gospel.
No sir. I'm saying that the passages that you are citing do not say what you are saying they say. I am saying that they confirm what I am saying about Romans 2:15.
Proverbs 3:3
"Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the table of your heart"
Referring to what the Jews would do with the Old Testament - they would write the words down and put them close to their heart to show the significance to the Law that is already written on their hearts - before the new testament.
Proverbs 7:3, same thing. I've already told you about the other ones and why they are not referring to the New Testament, but to the law already written on their hearts.
I did not say that. I said that Jeremiah is speaking to the Jews and what the New Covenant will mean to them. Jeremiah does not refer to the Gentiles. He does not prophesy that the Gentiles will be included into salvation, that God will be making a plan for the Gentiles alongside the Jews. He does not say this.
Instead, what he actually says, from the NIV:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
He will take the Law that has already been written on their hearts and write it again - so that this time they will keep the Law.
I would be if I had said this - but that is not what I said. I said that Jeremiah does not refer to the Gentiles, as Romans 2 does, only to the Jews, and what will happen to them with the New Covenant. As I said you can't get to where you're going from what you are using. Jeremiah prophesies many things that were true - it doesn't help your case to claim he prophesied that which he did not. Jeremiah speaks only of the Jews.
The first person to speak of the New Covenant with respect to the Gentiles - is Paul. And this is recorded first in Scripture in Acts - in reality - revealed first to the Jews + Gentiles in Romans 2. That is the first time that anyone, and I mean anyone, preached that salvation was not limited to the Jews, but was open to all, Gentile and Jew. Acts was compiled later than Romans was written, as acts refers to things that happened to Paul that hadn't happened when he wrote Romans.
Which covenant are you talking about? The Old or the New?
Absolutely, they cannot be included in the Old. Matthew 15:21-8
"Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
1, Jesus states very clear that he was sent only to the Jews and not to the Gentiles.
2, Jesus does not say, "you are not the dogs" - no, she clearly states that there is a place even for the dogs at their Master's table.
We have to accept this - salvation was not made for us. God is still the God of the Jews - not of the Gentiles - he has made a covenant with Israel that he has not made with us.
Christ himself suffered and died for our sins, for all of our sins, so that we could be saved - that was the cost of 'opening up the table' with the New covenant. And we have been - grafted in, as Paul speaks of in Romans.
But let us not forget the fact - salvation was designed for the Jews.
Nonsense, there are two covenants, and you are conflating the two. The new is not the old - and claiming that the New makes the same promises as the Old, conflates your own position. If that were true, we would still be in our sins and without the Holy Spirit. We would still be waiting for the Elijah who has not came.
Where did I claim otherwise? All I asserted is that Jeremiah does not refer to the Gentiles, or prophesy that the Gentiles will be included. He says nothing of the sort.
But they are not native to it as the Jews are by virtue of the Old Covenant.
But it does not preclude God doing so more than once.
What you are asserting is that because God writes his words on the hearts of his believers, that those words were not already there from before.
If what you say is true - then what Jeremiah states makes no sense. He is saying that the laws are already written on their hearts (as in Proverbs), through the Old Covenant. Then he's writing his laws again - in the New Covernant promised.
The laws were already there prior to them being written again on their hearts in the New Testament.
Then that should indicate there is something wrong with your argument on point three, rather than you arguing that I am arguing with you on points 1 and 2.
Just sayin'. If the dudes I'm quoting agree with you in part and disagree with you in part then perhaps that's why I'm quoting them - to show both the agreement and the disagreement?
I agree with you on points 1 and 2 wholeheartedly. Where we disagree on is point three - that the Law was not already written on the hearts prior to the establishment of the new covenant.
I'm going to stop you here. Do you sincerely believe that if what was already written was not 'sticking', that the correct response isn't to rewrite it?
I would argue that if you are arguing that these theologians, who are Peter Kreeft and CS Lewis, are 'grasping at straws', then you have lost the argument here.
I'm sorry - you've probably failed to understand theirs, and my argument when you've made the assertion that we are out of step with 99 percent of what Christians believe. You've yet to cite anyone who shares your own opinion.
They can be saved. Romans 2:15 insists that this is how it works. You do not need to be a Christian in order to be saved. There are theologians who agree with you - I know their names, but I suspect that you do not. They are Catholic, btw. Extra Ecclesium Nulla Salus? Fr. Feeny and his fellows? They were wrong then, just as I suspect you will be quick to proclaim them wrong.
Where does Jesus say that you have to be a Christian in order to be saved? What are the requirements for salvation? What did that fellow ask Jesus - and what was his answer?
"Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and the second is like it - love your neighbor as yourself."
Do you even have to have set foot in a church in order to do both of these?
