I think the message is conflicting enough to allow for a number of interpretations. This is the Bible, after all.
When the young man claims that he has observed the commandments since he was a child, Jesus does not challenge him. He tells him that he lacks only one thing- to sell his possessions and "follow" him. This becomes the man's stumbling block, and Jesus laments that "it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god." The case seems open-and-shut, but when someone wonders aloud if anyone may be saved, Jesus replies "what is impossible with men is possible with God."
So does this mean that salvation is impossible without god? Or is it a direct reference to his claim that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god? Is Jesus saying that it is possible for a rich man to enter heaven due to god's grace? Or is he saying that salvation in general is only possible through god's grace, unless you are a rich man?
The answer, of course, is whatever you happen to want it to be.
When the young man claims that he has observed the commandments since he was a child, Jesus does not challenge him. He tells him that he lacks only one thing- to sell his possessions and "follow" him. This becomes the man's stumbling block, and Jesus laments that "it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god." The case seems open-and-shut, but when someone wonders aloud if anyone may be saved, Jesus replies "what is impossible with men is possible with God."
So does this mean that salvation is impossible without god? Or is it a direct reference to his claim that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god? Is Jesus saying that it is possible for a rich man to enter heaven due to god's grace? Or is he saying that salvation in general is only possible through god's grace, unless you are a rich man?
The answer, of course, is whatever you happen to want it to be.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
