Posted on 07/06/2007 6:51:34 AM PDT by xzins
Ohh.....(shoot)...yes and no. (We do have free will.)
Wish you'd quit that, though. Read 1 Ki 22....fascinating story.
:>)
Read Isaiah 53 -- "...Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him..."
Not only did God create Satan, he chose to not destroy him utterly after Satan tried to kill God and take his job and gave Satan enormous power over his perfect creation and over 1/3 of God’s created angels and gave him his own kingdom as “punishment.”
And I agree.
But, their emissary to the king (wasn’t it Franklin?) wasn’t rude to George at all. On the contrary, he was very respectful....just in disagreement.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
A tyrant and a despot? That’s insulting language.
Yes, that is why I believe everything that happens, is caused/planned by God...especially if one believes He has a plan for each of us.
I don’t think so. Those are descriptive words.
lol. Quit what?
"Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God." -- Martin Luther, "Bondage of the Will" -- (xviii) Of the comfort of knowing that salvation does not depend on free-will' (783)"I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want 'free-will' to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities, and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground and hold fast my 'free-will' (for one devil is stronger than all men, and on these terms no man could be saved) ; but because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God, Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt' as to whether it pleased God, or whether He required something more. The experience of all who seek righteousness by works proves that; and I learned it well enough myself over a period of many years, to my own great hurt. But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfort¬able certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. `No one,´ He says, `shall pluck them out of my hand, because my Father which gave them me is greater than all´ (John 10.28-29). Thus it is that, if not all, yet some, indeed many, are saved; whereas, by the power of ´free-will´ none at all could be saved, but every one of us would perish.
Call Hillary a despot and tyrant and see if she’s insulted (and make sure your FBI files are clean).
Different time; different place.
If I recall correctly, weren’t there both legal and illegal tyrants from the Greek era. And I think Cincinnatus was a dictator, and that legally. My memory’s fuzzy on my history here, but I believe that training in the classics in Revolutionary Days involved in depth review of Greek & Roman eras. In fact, Washington was seen as the “new Cincinnatus” because he reliquished his power. I’m a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and I know the Washington story well, and the reason Cincinnati, originally Fort Washington, got its name.
Ping to #31
God does not “know” the way we do. We know by perceiving the truth that is presented to us by the senses. In our faith, only Jesus knew things both humanly and divinely. Even human knowledge is a kind of mystery; divine knowledge is totally so.
I cannot speak on why God does things, or how He knows things.
Precisely.
Then why did you say God does not “know” the way we do? How do you KNOW this?
“The injury indeed is the same, but it becomes greater by the excellence of the person. And if he who insults a king receives intolerable punishment, on account of the superiority of the person”
Not the excellence or the superiority of the person; it’s the office that commands respect.
How can the dead insult the Living One? You first have to have a relationship with someone in order to insult them.
See Belshazzar and Ahaziah.
Granted that God cannot be insulted, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t miffed at those who try.
Because that is a negative. We, whatever we are, are NOT God. He is infinite, not finite. We take in discrete pits of information and process them. He certainly does not. To give a very imperfect analogy, Beethoven “knew” his compositions before he played them or set them on paper. Only Beethoven really knew his music. To the extent that we create, we are using a God-like power. We ourselves are his creation, but we are not notes on the page, we are the music itself.
“See Belshazzar and Ahaziah.”
Ahaziah was a king of Judah. He had a relationship with God because of his lineage and office. Belshazzar did not not insult but violated the cherem and blasphemed, Dan. 5:4, “They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone”, much like the Pharisees did in ascribing to Satan the healing and deliverance of the Holy Spirit.
What is interesting in the 10 Commandments only God and parents are commanded to be honored.
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