Robert G. Ingersoll(1833-1899), was called, The Great Agnostic. A veteran of Lincoln's War, his experiences led him to label religions as superstitions needing to be replaced by science and reason. He defined agnosticism as not just admitting that he did not know God but that you, me, cannot know God. He believed, "Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man...All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith. This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.” He based his beliefs upon the perversion of Christianity in history. Christendom is the distortion of God's grace into the tyranny of legalism in order to establish one's systematic belief system over others. This concentration of attention on sinful men's twisting of God's grace is then conflated with God rather than viewed as separate from God. It becomes a Straw Man logical fallacy used to reject the Bible, turning the graciousness of God into the tyranny which is naturally the province of sin and Satan (Jo 8:44).
The number two in the Bible is used to compare or contrast to illustrate concepts that cannot be succinctly defined; for instance, light and dark. These two contrasting elements run throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. "In the beginning...darkness...and there was Light" (Ge 1:1-3). Christ taught that if your eye were single, focused on God then you would be full of His Light; but, if your eye were evil, concentrated on sin, then your light would be dark light; not darkness which is the absent of light but the energy of sin seeking to overcome God's Light, glory (Mt 6:22-23). Finally, in the new heaven and earth, all the saved would live in the Light of God's glory in Christ; no sun, moon or stars would be necessary (Re 21:1-3, 22-27). However, those who rejected Christ would live in outer darkness as Seraphim continually searched them for any speck of Christ's grace to release them; but, they wanted nothing to do with Christ and thus spend eternity without Him (Mt 8:10-12; Re 21:8).
Paul uses this dichotomy of two explaining how people do and should think. Think {φρονέω phroneō} means to be changed or conformed to that which has your attention (1Pe 1:14-16). This applies to everyone. Paul gives two types of thinking that are opposites; wrong thinking, fundamentally prideful {ὑ&p i;&ep silon ;&rho ;&phi ;&rho ;&omi cron; νέ &omeg a; hyperphroneō}, and right thinking, humility {σωφρονέω}. Lost people fundamentally reject God and His truth including His Word (Ro 1:18-25); this is the ungodliness {ἀσέβεια asebeia} at the heart of one's sin nature which all receive at conception (Ps 51:5; Ro 3:23). When did sin begin and is there a change in thinking?
Adam, Hebrew man, was made in the nature of God but in the flesh though without sin and walked with God (Ge 1:26-27; 2:7). When God made woman from man and brought her to Adam, he gives one of the finest examples of right thinking possible for a fleshly person (Ge 2:21-24). Notice the acceptance, the unity, the love that flowed not from the flesh but from unity with God as the foundation for their relationship. However, the flesh was soon not content and agitated for hidden knowledge (1Co 1:29).
God gave man dominion over everything except one little tree which He called the Tree of Knowledge and warned Adam that if he ate of this tree, he would die (Ge 2:16-17). God clearly warns that if man chose to disobey the consequences would be severe - death! Was God being a tyrant? The tree had no inherent capacity to impart knowledge; that was never the issue! The flesh will not long submit to God and the implication is that Adam secretly longs for knowledge that he believes God has not given (Ro 8:5-8). By giving this command, God was bringing to the fore Adam's inner thoughts (Ro 7:7-9). Adam shared his thoughts with woman and Satan used this growing disunity, resentment with God, to provide man the means to obtain this hidden knowledge (Ge 3:1-7). Woman was deceived and ate while Adam knowingly disobeyed God to obtain this knowledge (1Ti 2:14). When God came for man, though man hid from God, Adam immediately blamed God for giving him the woman that caused him to sin (Ge 3:8-12). Adam's quest for knowledge apart from God broke his unity with God and then with woman. Wanting to be gods, the sin of Satan to be god (Is 14:14-17), man and woman chose not to pray to God for knowledge or for help during this temptation; i.e., they wanted this knowledge apart from God. This prideful wrong thinking mentality chose death over life (Ez 28:12-19). From this choice to follow one's own reasoning over the reasoning of God flowed the violence and degradation that has plagued man ever since.
Churches are no different than the people they contain. The churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia were humble and weak by the world's standards but were strong in Christ's grace (Re 2:8-11; 3:7-13). However, the church of Ephesus, like Adam, had left its first love, Christ, to follow self; i.e., begin the long walk into the darkness of sin and pride of life (1Jo 2:15-17; Re 2:1-7). The end point of chasing knowledge apart from God is the Laodicean church (Re 3:14-22). Just as Satan deceived woman who was wrongly taught by Adam, this church believed they were rich, wise and strong; in fact, before Christ they were poor, weak and blind! Churches make the transition from Light to Darkness and no longer be Christ's churches (Re 2:5-6).
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