Okay.


I agree.


I agree. What they know instinctively is that it is wrong to have more than one wife. A situation that would require having more than one wife is if there were not enough men capable of procreating.

Often when missionaries go to tribal areas, and explain that polygamy is contrary to Scripture, this is very confusing to them. They certainly don't have the idea, "Oh, right. I always knew this was wrong."

They have to be taught what the Scripture teaches in regards to polygamy every bit as much as being taught in regards to the Sabbath.

Out of curiosity, what reason do you have for asserting this is something known instinctively?

Tom, please comment on post #102822 on this thread. Thank you.

Abraham didn't. He was a heathen.



No, I understood it. Here was your request:



There's nothing difficult to understand about this. Then you came up with a totally new request:



To say you restated it, clarifying precisely what you meant, is like me making asking you, "Cite an example not by Paul" and you do, and then I say, "I meant to say, cite an example that's not by Paul or Mark or John or Luke or Peter."



You ask me to do something without explaining why, and I do so. Then, rather than asknowledging that you were wrong in your assertion, you come up with another one, without explaining why you want this one. You say you have no idea what I believe. I don't see why. I've been very clear. I've stated that God communicates to people through His Spirit and the Bible may or may not be involved.



No, I "debunked" what you wrote. If you claim what you wrote isn't what you believe, then I haven't debunked that. I can only go on the basis of what you write down, not what's in your head.

Are you sure you want to maintain that Abraham was a heathen, that he didn't have the oral Bible? Listen:

"After the dispersion from Babel idolatry again became well-nigh universal, and the Lord finally left the hardened transgressors to follow their evil ways, while He chose Abraham, of the line of Shem, and made him the keeper of His law for future generations. Abraham had grown up in the midst of superstition and heathenism. Even his father's household, by whom the knowledge of God had been preserved, were yielding to the seductive influences surrounding them, and they "served other gods" than Jehovah. But the true faith was not to become extinct. God has ever preserved a remnant to serve Him. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem, in unbroken line, had preserved from age to age the precious revealings of His will. The son of Terah became the inheritor of this holy trust. Idolatry invited him on every side, but in vain. Faithful among the faithless, uncorrupted by the prevailing apostasy, he steadfastly adhered to the worship of the one true God. "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth." Psalm 145:18. He communicated His will to Abraham, and gave him a distinct knowledge of the requirements of His law and of the salvation that would be accomplished through Christ. {PP 125.1}


Are you going to answer my new question? The first one didn't convey what I wanted to ask. Please disregard the first question from now on. It doesn't ask what I want to ask. The new question does.


How does the Holy Spirit communicate to people the truths contained in the first half of the law without using the oral or written Bible or any of the other ways I list in my new question? That's what I really want to know. I'm sorry my previous question caused so much confusion. I did not ask what I wanted to ask. I made a mistake in not clearly asking what I wanted to know.

I should have worded my question more precisely. But I didn't. Hopefully the new question clearly asks what I want to know. I didn't mean to assert that God cannot communicate truth without the written Bible.

I believe God communicates truth to people through the oral Bible, through the written Bible, through religious tracts, pamphlets, and books, through missionaries, through angels, and through visions and dreams.

But I have never heard of a legitimate, bonafide account of people who have had zero contact with Christianity, who have no traditions whose origins can be traced back to biblical times, who arrived at the truths contained in the first half of the law of God. The three examples you cited are not verifiable.


Debunked what I wrote you did! I confess before you and God that my first attempt at asking what I wanted to know failed to convey what I wanted to know. Hopefully you'll be willing to address my new question.

I have never read accounts of missionaries teaching people that polygamy is a sin and it being confusing to them. Do you know of any legitimate reports?

The reason I say people know instinctively it is wrong to have more than one wife when circumstances do not warrant it is because that's how God wired people from the beginning. He writes the law upon every fiber and function.

Here's an interesting link to an online book dealing with "toleration" as it applies to missionaries encountering polygamy. It starts at the bottom of page 10:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XgzexEv...lt#PRA1-PA10,M1

Regarding Abraham, much of what would become the Bible was what God revealed to him. He would have known about creation and the flood, but that's just a few chapters of Genesis.



Are you dealing with how God communicates with men? Are you asking if the list you gave covers everything? If so, it looks like you left off God communicating through nature, and also the Holy Spirit communicating directly without a dream or vision. Actually, think this is how God most commonly communicates with people during the process of conversion. I suppose one could call it a vision though; it depends on how loosely one uses that term.

Another thought that comes to mind are things written which are not Scripture.



You're speaking too strongly here. All you can accurately state is that you haven't been able to verify them so far. I provided more information.

At any rate, Romans 1 tells us this is true for everyone, so that's good enough. Psalm 19 also.

You've suggested in the past that those in Romans 1 (around vs. 20) knew Scripture, but this goes contrary to Paul's argument, which is that all, without exception, are guilty.

TE: Abraham ... was a heathen.

MM: Are you sticking to your story? I ask because she wrote, "Faithful among the faithless, uncorrupted by the prevailing apostasy, he steadfastly adhered to the worship of the one true God." Does this sound like a heathen to you?

...

MM: I believe God communicates truth to people through the oral Bible, through the written Bible, through religious tracts, pamphlets, and books, through missionaries, through angels, and through visions and dreams.

TE: Another thought that comes to mind are things written which are not Scripture.

MM: I already listed that one.

...

TE: If so, it looks like you left off God communicating through nature, and also the Holy Spirit communicating directly without a dream or vision.

MM: Ellen made it clear that people cannot read nature aright without a knowledge of the plan of salvation. They end up worshiping the creature rather than they Creator. Or, do you know of people who arrived at the truths contained in the first half of the law solely through nature without previous knowledge of the plan of salvation?

Also, what is an example of the Holy Spirit communicating directly rather than through dreams and visions? What doe she mean, "Ever since Adam's sin, the human race had been cut off from direct communion with God ..." {DA 116.2}

...

TE: You've suggested in the past that those in Romans 1 (around vs. 20) knew Scripture, but this goes contrary to Paul's argument, which is that all, without exception, are guilty.

MM: Here's what she wrote about the people Paul describes in Romans 1:

The children of Seth went "in the way of Cain" (Jude 11); they fixed their minds upon worldly prosperity and enjoyment and neglected the commandments of the Lord. Men "did not like to retain God in their knowledge;" they "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Romans 1:21. Therefore "God gave them over to a mind void of judgment." Verse 28, margin. Sin spread abroad in the earth like a deadly leprosy. {PP 81.2}

And as men became bolder in sin, the knowledge and the love of God faded from their minds and hearts. "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God," they "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." {5T 738.2}

Solomon had great learning; but his wisdom was foolishness; for he did not know how to stand in moral independence, free from sin, in the strength of a character molded after the divine similitude. Solomon has told us the result of his research, his painstaking efforts, his persevering inquiry. He pronounces his wisdom altogether vanity. . . "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:22, 23). {1SM 249.2}

[Rom 1:25, 21 quoted] So in Israel, man's teaching had been put in the place of God's. Not only the things of nature, but the sacrificial service and the Scriptures themselves--all given to reveal God--were so perverted that they became the means of concealing Him. {COL 18.2}

Cite an example of people arriving at the truths contained in the first half of the law without learning about it 1) through tradition, 2) through the contact with missionaries, 3) through contact with holy angels, 4) through a vision or dream from God, 5) through reading the Bible, or 6) through religious tracts, pamphlets, and books.

The examples you gave, whether verifiable or not, demonstrate God revealing truths through dreams or visions. If the truths contained in the first half of the law can be learned in ways not listed above please cite an example. Thank you.

PS - Ellen made it clear that nature cannot be read aright apart from a saving knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. Thus, it is hard to imagine people arriving at the truths contained in the first half of the law by observing the natural world.