.30Carbine: Pray … and get out of the way
LOL! That is perfect. Thank you!
Or to put it yet another way, every time we lay a burden (whether a person or a thing) at the Cross and then pick it up again, He lets us. And then we have to lay it down all over again, all the while wondering why God didn’t answer our prayer. LOL!
Conversely, when we lay it at the Cross and trust Him with it, never picking it up again – we have the peace that passes all understanding, and He deals with the burden for us according to His will – and His will is our first priority. We trust Him.
BTW, this sometimes puts me in an awkward position with my brothers and sisters in Christ on this forum who keep pleading for additional prayers for the same, specific thing. My solution is once I have joined in lifting up the burden to Christ for healing, I thank God right then - and then thankfully receive all updates from the poster. But as far as additional prayers are concerned, I lift the person himself up to God generally and try very hard not to pick up what I have already laid down.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. – Matt 6: 9-15
Indeed, but sadly man cannot seem to resist superimposing his own reasoning or rules of logic on God, e.g. Aristotle’s Law of the Excluded Middle or Law of Identity – or causality, time, space and other such creature-as-the-observer concepts which cannot be applied to the Creator.
When he does this, he anthropomorphizes God into a small “god” he can comprehend or else creates a convoluted, bulky attempt to explain or justify God via commentary, doctrines and traditions.
Truth, on the other hand, is elegant – so much so, it is spoken in parables, written and yet hidden in plain view.
Mad Dawg: I expect Reports on each from each of you by the end of next week
LOL! Actually that would be fun if time permits.
Aquinasfan: : This idea [that faith can contradict reason] is self-contradictory, because all faith propositions (all truth claims) are logical formulations or formulations based in reason. If reason is not absolutely trustworthy, then faith propositions must be untrustworthy.
Our positions cannot be reconciled. I aver that faith and reason are complementary but that reason cannot substitute for faith. That was the futile hope of the Greeks:
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. – I Cor 1:18-25
In what way does the Trinity not contradict Aristotle’s Law of Identity? The law (A=A) is that an object is always the same as itself:
Ditto for Aristotle’s law of the Excluded Middle, i.e. either/or. Even when man realizes that law doesn’t even apply consistently in nature (wave/particle duality) he still tries to apply it to God. And thus even more doctrines and traditions stem from the never-ending debate of predestination v free will, do not kill v kill, do not judge v. judge righteous judgment, contend v. don't strive and so on.
If man were capable of figuring it, he would have by now. Indeed, Plato would have.
Aquinasfan: How do miracles contradict reason? A miracle is not a contradiction. We can know the existence of God through reason, and that he is the Creator of all things. As the Creator of all things, he can suspend the laws of nature as He sees fit.
You and Greg F are both making the same point, namely that the existence of God is reasonable and thus miracles and such are also reasonable. That is fine but when the Christian is an empiricist, he is separating himself from the knowledge of God Himself, i.e. the power of God.
To the empiricist, all knowledge comes from sensory perception and reasoning. If he holds a concept of God, and even if he has received that definitive divine revelation that Jesus Christ is Lord, he will nevertheless insist that God must comply with his own ability to comprehend Him. On principle, whether he realizes it or not, He rejects the Spiritual insight that God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. He always anthropomorphizes God.
Aquinasfan: Faith is superior to reason, but dependent on reason.
We Christians believe that God was enfleshed in the body of a virgin, died on a Cross for our sins, was resurrected and now sits at the right hand of God and will return again. We also believe that while He was enfleshed, He made water into wine, made the blind to see, the lame to walk, the dead to rise, walked on water and so on.
This is all “reasonable” to us Christians. And yet many who see the vision of Fatima as likewise reasonable, reject the testimony of God the Creator that He made all that there is in six days. Or perhaps they find unreasonable the Noah flood, the ages of the patriarchs, Jonah and the Whale and so on.
If a Christian truly holds faith as superior to reason but dependent upon reason, he would not mitigate any of these revelations of God. But people are disingenuous – believing what they want to believe and rejecting what they do not want to believe or consider to be an embarrassment.
Aquinasfan: A true revelation may be superior to knowledge derived naturally. But false spiritual discernment and false supernatural (demonic) revelations will contradict right reason.
Why go beyond the revelations of God in discerning the spirits by adding “right reason” to the test?!
God the Father has revealed Himself in four ways: through Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, through Scripture and through the Creation, both physical and spiritual.
And the Father has given us these tests of the Spirit, which apply in the same order and hierarchy to His own revelations:
The messenger must display all of the fruits of the Spirit (good tree/good fruit Matt 7, Gal 5): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
The message must agree with the whole of Scripture (Berean test, Acts 17)
betty boop: But truth is often smothered by dogma. Where God wants us to live in direct communion with Himself and His truth (for which we are equipped to be responsive partners in the divine-human dialogue), a dogma is a reduction or "hypostatization" of truth, not the living truth itself.
Oh so very true, dearest sister in Christ!
So many have missed the point that Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God (John 1, Revelation 19)
betty boop: Without faith, reason itself becomes unreasonable -- as you have pointed out before, my dearest sister in Christ!
So very well said, my dearest sister in Christ – and a much better way of making the point than to say that faith never contradicts reason.
hosepipe: Angels seem to have a different or no bodies like humans bodies since they can be invisible to men.. they are spirits.. It is possible that "what humans ARE" can be some of the angels that bought the lie(but repented) getting a second chance..
The revelation of God in Jude contradicts that conclusion (as do a number of pseudepigraphral texts):
So very true! Only a childlike faith in God will do:
Woe beget the rebellious toddler who thinks himself a man and challenges the father toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye (Job 38-42).
DaveMSmith Living faith is true faith -- if out heart is rooted in charity to the neighbor and performing useful endeavors, and we shun evils as sin, the Lord will open our spiritual eyes so we can see heaven.
Actually I must quibble with you just a little bit. If anyone could be good enough to get to heaven, then Christ died for nothing:
1. Often to read and meditate on the Word of God.
2. To submit everthing to the will of Divine Providence.
3. To observe in everything a propriety of behaviour, and to keep the conscience clear.
4. To discharge with fidelity the functions of my employments, and to make myself in all things useful to society.
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matt 22:37-40
What a magnificent essay/post, my dearest sister in Christ! His Spirit has certainly been with you!
WRT the above italics, I agree with your conclusion: If reason alone were sufficient, Plato probably would have figured it all out. The point is he didn't and so it's not. Without Christ Jesus, reason has no truth. The Logos is the Ratio by which reason and reasoning can be proved. There is no other basis. My two cents' worth....
Thank you so very much for this superb essay/post!
To the empiricist, all knowledge comes from sensory perception and reasoning. If he holds a concept of God, and even if he has received that definitive divine revelation that Jesus Christ is Lord, he will nevertheless insist that God must comply with his own ability to comprehend Him. On principle, whether he realizes it or not, He rejects the Spiritual insight that God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. He always anthropomorphizes God.
You don't have to be a tool to use a tool!
I purposely do not use the word 'works' because of it's connection with 'the law'. A different concept -- giving of yourself in a selfless manner, letting the Lord work through us as if from ourselves. We do not do this for merit. Being of use through all our endeavors does open our spiritual eyes because the Lord is flowing through us by influx. It doesn't matter how menial the task, it's how we approach it.
This doesn't have anything to do with the traditional Christian belief of vicarious atonement.
We do believe in the 10 Commandments and when I said shunning evils as sin, that meant keep all of the Commandments both on a spiritual and natural level.
Very edifying, as usual.