Posted on 12/03/2022 3:44:57 AM PST by RoosterRedux
This is an excellent response to the question. One of the best and most concise I have ever heard (and fast...because Shapiro is a very fast speaker).
"Angels" like Satan and the Sons of God in Genesis 6 can and did sin.
The latter were not angels.
And thanks for reminding me why I don’t watch Ben Shapiro.
What were they?
Care to share what you mean?
God is love. To be fully realized, love must be freely given, freely received, and freely returned. Freedom and love are inseparable. Freedom means that we have the capacity to reject God’s love, to reject God’s plan, to worship false gods, to choose evil. That’s the shorthand gist of the matter.
Later
They were just humans; angels were not given the power of reproduction, otherwise they would outbreed humans quite rapidly and the line of Adam, or even that of Abraham and Israel, would cease to exist. Not to mention, the word “nephilim” has the literal definition of being a tree-feller.
The “sons of God” in Job 38:7 appear to be figuratively named; the context I’m thinking of is Hebrews 1:5.
The problem is, when people are the victims of cruelty, it damages their faith. So it sounds like God is not only giving people the choice not to believe, but giving them the opportunity to damage other, innocent people (like children), and make it harder for THEM to believe. It doesn’t really answer the question.
In the entire Old Testament, the word "bene elohim" meant one thing and one thing only: Angels or, more accurately, spiritual beings.
I won't go into too much detail because my experience is that once people want to believe that the Sons of God are humans (be it the sons of Seth baloney or powerful rulers crap), they cannot be dissuaded.
That said, consider this:
Job 1:6
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.Job 2:1
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.Job 38:7
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
In addition to the Old Testament there is a massive amount of extra-Biblical literature that tells us who the Sons of God are...and they ain't human.
That is exactly what God does when he gives people free will. They can and do damage innocent people. They always have and they always will.
Tell me one place where such damage does not occur...even to children.
God obviously permits it or it wouldn't occur.
In defense of God, it is man who brought this evil into the world, not God.
That said, if man didn't have free choice, we would be no better than robots. And God didn't want robots or he would have made us thusly to be robots.
Proof by assertion.
Angels do not reproduce, or else the universe would be overfilled with them.
If you are interested in digging into the actual language and context of this matter, I suggest you read Michael Heiser or watch some of his videos. As a PhD (Univ of Wisconsin, Madison) in ancient Semitic and Hebrew languages and an Old Testament scholar, he is one of the most authoritative voices on this subject.
BTW, I'm not saying angels do or do not reproduce.
The Bible says they don't marry. That's all.
Is that the basis for your position? That angels (about which you know nothing) cannot reproduce?
Yes, I know it's not in the Bible.
It was, however, found among the documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
And for that matter you might want to read what's in the ancient Jewish literature (extra-Biblical) and Sumerian/Mesopotamian literature. Such literature is filled to the brim with discussions of beings similar to the bene Elohim of Genesis 6 and fallen angels of Jude 1:6, 2 Peter 2.
Simple inference. Angels continuing to reproduce and create more fallen versions of their kind means that the universe gets filled with miserable beings endlessly, and God would never allow such a chaotic universe to exist. There’s a reason why mankind reproduces, by contrast, as well as a reason why he’s subject to death in the physical form.
The Flood. Or haven’t your heard?
Angels made their choice once when created ...to follow God or not .... they do not grow in intellectual but completely know the created reality. They knew a human below them would rule above them. Seems this caused the rebellion.
Shapiro made an interesting point that God obscures Himself. And then there is the issue of free will, which includes the problem of bad people harming innocent people (I know someone will reply that no one is innocent and everyone is a sinner, etc. but I don’t think that is the point). It seems like everyone is hung up on how Shapiro used the word “angels” and everyone is ignoring everything else he said. I don’t know why people pick apart a minor detail and miss the whole point.
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