Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
I agree. Without God, all we have is our own nature, which always leads away from God. Animals will only ever have their own natures. Therefore, neither have free will without God.
Protestants, on the other hand, have no sacraments to receive from valid clergy, so why do they even go to church? To glorify God, we all say. But is it?
Take out salvation and count the number of people who come to church on the fingers of one hand. No one goes to church to glorify God, but to seek favor, to assure salvation, life everlasting.
Judging our motives for going to church, eh? Not very Biblical, is it? :) Actually, none of us go to assure salvation because, from our perception, salvation occurs in a single moment in time. Our new, regenerated hearts tell us to obey God's will and go to church to worship God. We don't earn any God points for going, we go because we want to obey God, and yes, it is good for us. It is a primary means of sanctification, and we who have regenerated hearts all seek after it because we have a new nature.
But I doubt that you would ever honestly raise a sword to kill your children in good faith without questioning God (and thereby committing sin).
And I pray I never have to find out! :) But in today's modern world who could ever know with certainty how he would react. In Abraham's time God spoke directly to him in real words, a kind of a "burning bush" moment. I don't think that happens much today, and I know it has never happened to me. It's very hard to make a comparison. Of course, if I did agree to do it, it would not be because of the faith in me, it would be from strong enough faith given to me by God. We all honor Abraham for his faith, but it really came from God, not from himself.
No, we have our nature and our intellect. It is the intellect which is capable of free will, not your nature (flesh). Animals don't have the intellect. That's why they choose by necessity, and not by intellect.
And what if it was your insanity?
And I will repeat what I said earlier: if our will is only the extension of God's will, then by necessity, there can be not evil, Harley D.
Your interpretations lead to false conclusions.
Hebrew Bible (OT) is not Christian OT, HD. The Christian OT is Septuagint (LXX).
Excuse me, but your tagline says something (out of context) that our steps are "ordained" and yet you say that we have a choice? Make up your mind. It is our choice or is it an extension of God's choice? A choice, in order to be a choice, must be free. Otherwise it's not a choice. If you deny free choice, then you deny evil, because then our choice is really God's choice.
Thanks for the great passage, Dr. E.! You are right, only God is worthy of our prayers. To me, prayers to saints are a missed opportunity to communicate with our Savior and Lord.
The only discomfort I feel is your refusal to ack acknowledge what stripes1776 reminded you of: the Council of Orange was a local council, like the Council of Toledo (filioque). Cassian was never anathematized by the Church.
Catholics and other Protestants follow +Augustine's teachings. Blessed Augustine is also a saint in the Orthodox Church. So, when I say that you side with some suporters of Augustine I was telling you the truth. It is only a relatively small number of those who side with +Augustine to the exclusion of other Fathers, as Calvinists do.
If salvation was impossible for everyone in the OT, until Christ came, where did they go for all that time after they died?
OK, that answers the question I just asked Kosta in 3489. Assuming that the idea of hades is not in the Bible, is this an Apostolic teaching? I'm sure many people equate hades and hell. I admit I don't know the difference.
Thanks for the link. I read the chapter on Christ's death and most of the introduction by C.S. Lewis. The former seemed to concentrate a lot on the manner of Christ's death as opposed to how else it "could" have happened. That was pretty interesting.
"What I hope for you to consider is that man was created in "Angel time" and with the fall he descended into temporal time or cosmic time."
I'm really not sure that I can think of anything in Scripture that would support the idea that man did not experience "temporal time” prior to the fall. That is to say, even though "evening and morning were the first day" is indicated even before the creation of a greater light to rule by day and a lesser to rule by night, there is nothing to indicate that the sun did not rise and set before the creation of man.
The rising and setting of the sun is a way of marking the passage of time, although as St. John of Damascus indicates, this does not mean that there was not a movement of time prior to the creation of the sun and moon, and setting the heavenly bodies into motion.
I will certainly grant for the sake of argument that man was created in "angel time," as you put it, but will await further explanation before being convinced that I understand and agree.
I think that it is evident that at creation, God intended for man to live on immortally. And again, as I indicated earlier, immortality does not mean that there is no temporal movement (using temporal movement/motion, for want of a better term.) I cannot think of evidence that would indicate that angels themselves do not experience a temporal motion. Christ spoke of the fall of Lucifer in the past tense, and if angels were outside temporal time, they would know the future, which Scripture clearly indicates that they do not, since the angels in heaven do not know the time for the end of the world. Christ would also seem to indicate that in his human nature he made himself subject to time by saying that only the Father knows that time of his return – his divine nature was what allowed Christ to see the future: it was not a natural function of the human nature which he assumed.
I think I understand somewhat of what you are getting at in your temporal/supratemporal distinction, but I think that Orthodoxy makes a different kind of distinction. At the very least, it describes the same distinction in different ways.
St. John of D. indicates that Adam and Eve were in the body in Paradise and simultaneously in the spirit with the angels praising and glorifying God. As you probably know, one of the big differences between Orthodox views of Adam and Eve in Paradise and those commonly held in the West is our view of their innocence. That is to say, we view Adam and Eve as having been created in innocency almost in the sense of a child-like state, rather than as some sort of superman and superwoman. The point here is that God's intention was for man to grow in every way, not least in closeness to Him and likeness to him.
There was something temporal in their existence, though, since Scripture indicates that God at times walked with man in the Garden of Eden and at other times did not, and that Eve was alone when she was tempted by Satan. There is a temporal movement here that I can’t see getting around unless one wants to make all of these stories *solely* allegorical and metaphorical, which Orthodoxy does not. (As a general rule, we look on most Scripture as being some simultaneous combination of literal, allegorical, metaphorical, typological, prophetic, and/or recapitulational. It is uncommon for Orthodoxy to not include the literal meaning in the combination of interpretations for any given part of Scripture.)
In any event, when Adam and Eve fell, their sin introduced corruption and death into the world. Their natural state was no longer one of being capable of being in the spirit with the angels in heaven praising God. I’ve never encountered it being discussed in exactly this way, but I would imagine that since all of creation fell with its master, man, then all of creation, including man, began to experience time in a very different way.
How could we help but experience time very differently if its passage is marked not just by the rising and setting of the sun and moon and the motion of the heavenly bodies, but by living things growing old and dying? Man was not intended to experience this. It is part of corruption, and I don’t think that only living things were affected by this corruption. Even inanimate things show turmoil, destruction, and tendency to chaos that was came about as a result of corruption and death entering into the world.
But if you are implying that there was a created temporal time that man was outside of in some sense prior to his fall, and that after the fall, he had to enter into it, I think I would have a little trouble with seeing that.
You mention the word “heart” with relation to man. “Spiritual anthropology,” as it were, is very complex, nuanced, and difficult to describe with precision based on the information in Scripture. Even with the added wisdom and writings of the Fathers, there are many unanswered questions and mysteries. The various words used to describe the heart, mind, intellect, etc… are many, and are often used interchangeably on the one hand, and with multiple meanings, on the other, both in Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers, so that will have to be kept in view. Part of this is because something rather inexpressible is being expressed, and another part of this is that the fundamental purpose of the writings of Scripture and the Fathers is a therapeutic one, not a didactic one.
There is certainly a potentially higher part of man, that is, the soul or heart (again, there are different words used – often interchangeably, but with reference to the same general aspect of man), but the Orthodox teaching is that it, too, has been sickened, deadened, and darkened by sin. I can't think of any way in which Orthodoxy would consider this part of man not to be subject to temporal motion of some sort. It was the spiritual death that came through disobedience that led to physical corruption and death because of the intrinsic connection between body and soul.
This is at the heart of Orthodox spiritual praxis. One modern Orthodox hierarch has put it this way: “The whole tradition of the Orthodox Church consists in healing and bringing to life the soul which is dead from sin. All the sacraments and the whole ascetic life of the Church contribute to this healing. Anyone who is not aware of this fact is unable to sense the atmosphere of the Orthodox Tradition.”
With regard to your sidebar, I’m afraid that you are neither missing an Orthodox nuance nor have you caught Orthodoxy in a Neoplatonic philosophy of The One (as I have said before, we Orthodox believe that the only Church Father who was heavily influenced in his speculative theological writings by Neoplatonism was St. Augustine.)
You rather caught me in a rather prosaic typo that I didn’t notice prior to posting. What I meant to say (and what St. John of Damascus unequivocally states) was this: “because angels are immortal by grace, and not by nature, then without that grace, they would come to a natural end.” The same applies to man, and I think we would agree on all of that.
The same writer I mention above says the following: “In church we often speak of the fall of man and the death which came as a result of the fall. Spiritual death came first, and bodily death followed. The soul lost the uncreated grace of God…”
Nowhere in Orthodox theology is there the idea that at any point, even in the eschaton, that man will ever become immortal by nature, or self-existing in any way. We are certainly taught that the age to come will be unending, since “of His kingdom there shall be no end.” This unending and immortality of man will never, however, cease to be a result of the uncreated grace of God. The idea of the intrinsic immortality of the soul is a pagan Greek concept, and you will find that Orthodox writers go out of their way to avoid and even condemn phrases like “your immortal soul.”
Well, that is more that enough for now.
Hades is the word the LXX uses to translate the Hebrew word "Sheol," which is sometimes clearly in the OT a place of the dead that one can be delivered from, and at other times a place of everlasting punishment in the classic sense of hell.
The term has multiple meanings in Scripture.
Thus, I believe it is not accurate to say that the idea of hades in the sense of a "place of the dead" is not in the Bible.
WOW. Re:97, excellent post!
Yes, if you change "couldn't" to "doesn't", that is the clear message I have gotten so far. I see your belief on salvation as that God does some of it, but then it is up to people to "co-operate" (do things) and finish their own salvation themselves (How can free will be free will if God interferes?). Both parties "operate" by being responsible for different things, and both are necessary. This is the normal sense of "Co-". I see "cooperate" and "participate" as being very different.
Does the loving mother scold her child when she proudly tells her father "Daddy, look what me and mommy did"... In your view of God, the mother would yell at the top of her lungs "HOW DARE YOU TAKE CREDIT FOR MAKING THE COOKIES! I AM THE COOKIE MAKER. YOU MUST NOW BE PUNISHED!!! ARRGGHHH!"
LOL! Of course not. The mother would do what any loving parent would do. She would humor the daughter and smile at her and agree, with a wink to her husband. That's what God does with us. He let's us feel good as if anything has come from us on our own merit, when in reality it is God who does it all.
If you are prompted by the Spirit to speak about Christ to an unbeliever, but you refuse out of some shyness or whatever, your power of speech has been inhibited, and the Word of God does not go out to that person. Is this a trick question?
I was trying to imply that under no circumstances of any kind could we be considered co-redeemers with Christ. God uses us and we participate, but only God does the redeeming. In this context, a co-redeemer is one who helps to pay for the redemption. How do you help pay for the sins of those you witness to?
When you witness to someone and they seem to heed what you say, don't you feel a sense of joy? That you were part of the equation of God coming to that person? Doesn't the daughter making the cookies also feel this joy, of being part of the equation of doing something with her mother?
Sure, that is how I feel, and I think I am just like the cookie daughter. It is a true blessing when that happens. And, it is only God who does the actual redeeming, it is only God who makes anyone of the elect, and it is only God who saves.
FK: "I think if one could have done a DNA sample on the man Jesus back then, it would have shown that Mary was His mother. Nothing wrong with that..."
Whew! Wonderful... Doesn't Scripture tell us this also?
Yes, I think it does. That is, unless of course "mother" doesn't mean "mother", the way "brother" doesn't mean "brother". :)
But from God's point of view, His choosing and our choosing happen simultaneously - there is no passage of time that intervenes between His view of His choice and our choice (which is based on His grace that He gives us).
Which decision is dependent upon the other? To say they are independent and happened simultaneously avoids the issue. Did God choose us because He foresaw that we would chose Him, OR, did we choose Him because God had already ordained it to be so? Another way to frame the question is to ask: "On what did God base His decision to choose His elect"? Did He base it on His independent will or did He base it on our choices which He foresaw?
Of course - and yet, God chose to raise this girl THROUGH Peter. Wow. Peter baked some delicious cookies, Daddy would say...
Daddy would say "Way to go Peter, you did a wonderful job!", all the while knowing that it was all the real work of Christ. Is this how you see priests forgiving sins and binding and loosening? That would surprise me. :)
Thanks for your comments on theologians.
FK: "How can ALL prophecy have multiple meanings? When Jesus said the temple would be destroyed and then rebuilt in three days, what was the double meaning?"
The hearers of this thought Jesus was speaking about the actual Temple - while Jesus was speaking of His own Body. Thus, multiple meanings.
But the hearers were clearly wrong in their interpretation. Every verse has multitudes and multitudes of meanings if you include all the false ones. :) There was only ever one correct meaning. The claim in Gen. 3 was that there were 2 very different, but both correct meanings.
I found multiple sources saying that it was invented by the Persians between 300-400 B.C. I also found this link to a friendly website which says the following:
When did Crucifixion start? Crucifixion probably started first with the Persians (what is modern day Iran). Initially, the victim was suspended to keep their feet from touching holy ground. The Phoenicians, traders to many lands, seem to have also acquired the practice and probably spread it to other cultures, including the Greeks.
Alexander the Great (a Greek) introduced the practice to Carthage, where it was picked up by the Romans. The Romans started using it around the time Jesus was born.
Here is another website (with excerpt) that cites Britannica, putting the first known crucifixion circa 519 B.C., still well after the Psalms were written:
History of crucifixion and archaeological proof of the cross, as opposed to a stake.
History of crucifixion:
Britannica reports that the first historical record of Crucifixion was about 519 BC when "Darius I, king of Persia, crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon" (Encyclopedia Britannica, crucifixion)
Some further detail is given in "The Eerdman's Bible Dictionary", Rev. Ed., 1975: CROSS ... Crucifixion is first attested among the Persians (cf. Herodotus, Hist. i.128.2; iii.132.2, 159.1), perhaps derived from the Assyrian impalement. It was later employed by the Greeks, especially Alexander the Great, and by the Carthaginians, from whom the Romans adapted the practice as a punishment for slaves and non-citizens, and occasionally for citizens guilty of treason. Although in the Old Testament the corpses of blasphemers or idolaters punished by stoning might be hanged "on a tree" as further humiliation (Deut. 21:23), actual crucifixion was not introduced in Palestine until Hellenistic times. The Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes crucified those Jews who would not accept hellenization (Josephus Ant. xii.240-41; cf 1 Macc. 1:44-50).
Hello AlbionGirl -
I gather from your post that you grew up in Catholic schooling. I thought I had been taught by Catholics on this thread that priests had the full and literal authority to forgive sins, that such power had been delegated to them, through successors, all the way back to the Apostles. (I have been arguing with them about this throughout this thread. :) I just wanted to ask you if you are referring to what you were taught then, or what you believe now? Thanks, and nice to meet you. :)
Of course. As I have metioned here last week, Catholics believe it was God's singular grace given to Mary that allowed her (saved her) from committing sin. Mary certainly did not come to God by herself, but by utilizing God's gifts and promptings of the Spirit. Her "yes", though, was one of free will.
Regards
Your interpretations lead to false conclusions.
There is no other interpretation.
Why go to a copy that has it's own issues when we can go directly to the Hebrew?
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