"I've never seen you before in my life, but you look to me like a slacker!"
Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
So far, so good.
Therefore the CAUSE of satan and evil is the will of God,thus there would be no need for Him to ordain His own plan.
I don't see how that follows. We exist within time. God executes His plan within time. God does not cause evil Himself, but He does use the evil authored by others in the execution of His plan.
Thus satan could not have acted freely because it would have thwarted the plan of God for the need of evil in the world.
Apparently, for Apostolics, freedom is DEFINED by the ability to thwart God's will. I have never understood that kind of thinking, and obviously disagree with it. God is omnipotent. No one can thwart His will.
I would like to know how you would try preach Christianity to the Jews by telling them that God “planned” for Hitler to kill millions of Jews?
I wouldn't begin to pretend to speak for God's motives, so that's off the table. The Holocaust was certainly not the first genocide to occur on earth, nor has it been the last. God wiped out everybody, save 8, in the Flood. We are His creations and He is free to do with us as He pleases. Of course this is not to say that God injected evil into Hitler to cause him to murder. He allowed it by leaving him alone, for His own reasons.
Reformed theology is very similar to dualism.
There are many kinds of dualism so you would have to be more specific for me to understand what you mean. If you mean that God is the author of both good and evil, then that is not Reformed theology. That is, depending on what duties you place upon God and how you define responsibility.
Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the *children* are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil:
We are told what took place at the conception of Christ, His Soul/Spirit was placed in Mary, even recognized by John in uterus, as is the same with the conception of any child through man and woman. Our Father does not require of us to do anything that HE Himself was not willing to do as well. Big difference is that our Heavenly Father was, is, and will always be perfect, while not so of we children.
Even in the 'sour grapes' proverb of Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth it shall die.
This sure does not sound like a soul factory being described if the Heavenly Father is stating that all souls are His.
So yes each soul has the *free will* to be born of woman and pass through this flesh age. And NO the unborn are very much flesh bodies which is the vessel or body the soul inhabits as that is what gives that body life. (As described of Adam it was not until the breath of life = soul was breathed into his nostrils was Adam a living being.)
IICorinthians 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the LORD:
7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Come on, FK, let's not be silly. :) Everything that has to do with us and God has to do with the "spirit," which has to do with how moral, virtuous, forgiving, merciful, etc. we are. Our bilogical functions (unless we willingly allow them to counter those moral qualities mentioned above) are irrelevant.
You are born because the laws of nature (which we believe God instituted) expell the product. It happens in all mammals after a genstational period specific to each species, not just to humans.
We are born because men and women get together for various reasons and engage in reporudctive activities. Here, again, the intent can be either a blesisng or damnation (leaving it up to us), and the product that results can be the product of love or the product of lust; it can cherrished or it can be rejected; it can be cared for or dumped.
Even natural laws get involved here: spontaneous abortions (because of erroneous genetic conjunction during fertilization result in nonviavble product), as many as one in five prgnancies.
But most of what happens to us is our doing.
What best interest of yours? Who considered your best interests? The Reformed theology teaches that God chooses Tom but refuses Harry. It has nothing to do with you. Some just happen to be cows for pasture; others for slaughter.
That depends on how good the gift is. There are such things as gifts that are so good no one would ever turn them down. Salvational grace is like that.
That depends on how believable the gift is. If I receive an offer saying I won a paid vacation Europe for two, that offers ends up in trash because the "sponsors" are not real, and the whole thing is a scam.
It takes a leap of faith to believe an offer that is to good to be true. To believe and not to have seen. Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself that the gift is genuine and real and to accept it. Otherwise, it is forced, "forced" to be Christians, and therefore it is not our faith, but a "spell."
I will NOT dispute this statement. As the Heavenly Father told Jeremiah that 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." To know someone before birth in this flesh body means the soul has a history, it cannot be a figment of imagination. Same as with what is said about Jacob and Esau before either ever having been born in flesh bodies to do good or evil, Jacob I loved but Esau I hated.
So it stands to reason that who we are in the flesh is a reflection upon who we were in the first heaven/earth age (IIPeter 3: whole chapter), wherein there were no flesh humans. But in that demonstrated transfigured body of Moses and Elijah. Flesh eyes cannot see in that dimension unless an act of the Heavenly Father gives sight. Say like the example given to us when Elisha prayed in response to the servant in fear when he saw the host compassed the city. IIKings 6:14-17. And reason why Paul speaks of predestination before the foundation of this world (age). And for the perfection of all justice and fairness to alll souls all would be required to pass through this flesh age to have opportunity to see the Kingdom of God as Christ so stated.
FK- “”So far, so good.””
Than hitler and satan followed the will of God according to the reformed.Every abortion ,murder etc must be the will of God than.
God cannot Will evil,FK, or God would be in error and opposed with Himself,thus making God dualistic in His essence.
From Saint Aquinas(again)
That God cannot will Evil
EVERY act of God is an act of virtue, since His virtue is His essence
2. The will cannot will evil except by some error coming to be in the reason, at least in the matter of the particular choice there and then made. For as the object of the will is good, apprehended as such, the will cannot tend to evil unless evil be somehow proposed to it as good; and that cannot be without error.* But in the divine cognition there can be no error 3. God is the sovereign good, admitting no intermixture of evil 4. Evil cannot befall the will except by its being turned away from its end. But the divine will cannot be turned away from its end, being unable to will except by willing itself It cannot therefore will evil; and thus free will in it is naturally established in good. This is the meaning of the texts: God is faithful and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii, 4); Thine eyes are clean, O Lord, and thou canst not look upon iniquity (Hab. i, 13).
FK- “”Apparently, for Apostolics, freedom is DEFINED by the ability to thwart God's will. I have never understood that kind of thinking, and obviously disagree with it. God is omnipotent. No one can thwart His will.”
Freedom is DEFINED as obedience to the will of God that applies to each one of us individually. God is also just,FK. This means that the FREE choices we make between choosing good or evil have consequences of heaven and hell.
Stfassisi to FK-””I would like to know how you would try preach Christianity to the Jews by telling them that God “planned” for Hitler to kill millions of Jews?””
FK,””I wouldn't begin to pretend to speak for God's motives, so that's off the table.””
Perhaps this might help?
From Saint Aquinas
That there is not any Sovereign Evil, acting as the Principle of All Evils
A sovereign evil should be without participation in any good, as that is the sovereign good which is wholly removed from evil. But there cannot be any evil wholly removed from good, since evil is founded on good (Chap. XI).
2. If anything is sovereignly evil, it must be evil by its very essence, as that is sovereignly good which is good by its essence. But evil has no essence (Chap. VII).
3. That which is a first principle is not caused by anything. But all evil is caused by good (Chap. X). There is therefore no evil first principle.
5. The incidental must be posterior to the ordinary. But evil happens only incidentally and beside the intention (Chap. IV). Therefore it is impossible for evil to be a first principle.
Hereby is excluded the error of the Manicheans.
If you are going to comment, then provide examples. Explain how can 'elohyim mean two different things. Likewise provide the example of word used to mean "the women who departed" and show that it is the same as the word for "women" (gunaikwn) as you seem to imply.
Or what Jesus referred to as "heaven" was something else and doesn't have anything to do with Enoch's "translation".
Oh, please spare me these childish rationalization! Well, you will need to elaborate on this too. Otherwise it's meaningless.
2 Kings 2:11 states "And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." This contradicts John 3:13 "No man hath ascended up to heaven."
No problems. Telescoping of generations is common as is referring to an ancestor more than once removed as a father.
Are you joking? The two genealogies don't even match. They don't even agree who Joseph's father was; one goes back to Adam, calling him the Son of God.
I noticed that you decided to ignore my comment regarding the discrepancy in the 6ht/7th generation that Enoch belonged to as stated in Jude/Genesis. I guess that is "telescoping" too. This is some real "fuzzy math" I must admit. I really don't think the Holy Spirit would be making such discrepancies.
And yet Paul says that not everyone will die but that we will all be changed
All of us? Really? What news is that? Christians believe that souls cannot die (even though the OT says "the soul that sinneth shall die," hmmmmm), but will live in eternity either in bliss or in torment.
And Hebrews doesn't say that everyone "must" die.
No it doesn't, it says that man is appointed apokeimai to die once. That means that man (every man) is designated to die once. It must mean physically, because being baptized is being reborn spiritually.
Unless Enoch is to come back and die, the author of Hebrews contradicts himself in the same book. And as far as I know the Bible says nothing about Enoch coming back.
I guess by what you're saying Lazarus and others that Jesus raised from the dead must either have not "really" died, or must still be alive today and leading sinless immortal lives, or that the stories are just incorrect because Romans 5:12 and Hebrews say "that everyone must die."
Yup, that's exactly what I am saying. There is no plausible explanation for these contradictions. If Lazarus did really die then he would have been judged. If he was brought back to life and then died again, then Hebrews is wrong. Take your pick: Gospels or Hebrews.
And Paul quoted Greek poets and his writings are considered scripture but the works by those poets are not. Need I point out what you are doing or failing to do?
First of all, Douay version of the Bible included the Book of Enoch, just as 4th century Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete Cristian Bible, contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, both now considered non-scriptural.
Obviosuly for hundreds of years, the Church believed they were. It just shows that what's in the Bible is decided by human beings and their beliefs and not the Holy Spirit, because it's imperfect.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church to this day not only has a copy of the Book of Enoch but uses is as canon.
Second, Jude (14-15) is quoting a prophesy from the Book of Enoch (1:9)
Obviously, Jude is using the Book of Enoch as a valid scriptural source of a prophesy. Only a fool can deny this. Otherwise, we can start quoting form the Koran or the Panishads!
Third, your comparison to Paul quoting from Greek poets is comparing apples and oranges. Paul is not quoting prophesies or anything really not universally believed.
He quotes Aratus (Acts 17:28): "For in him we live and move and have our being"; he also quotes Menander (1 Corinthians 15:33), hardly a prophesy: "Do not be misled: 'Bad company corrupts good character.'" He also quotes from Epimenides (Titus 1:12): "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."
Night and day when compared to how Jude quotes the Book of Enoch.
You really need to provide some substance instead of sweeping generalizations.
Well, the standard pre-fab answer to this is that God is transcendental and therefore knows and sees everything as "present" (that "eternal [aoristic] present").
The other answer is historic and factual: pagans, Jews and Gnostics believed in the pre-existence of the souls. The Church doesn't. This was one of those points of departure of Christianity with these groups. Now, some cults, such as LDS, spout pre-existence of the souls, but that just makes them members of the same non-Christian club mentioned above.
So it stands to reason that who we are in the flesh is a reflection upon who we were in the first heaven/earth age (IIPeter 3: whole chapter), wherein there were no flesh humans
2 Peter is a 2nd century fraud in my opinion, but it was very useful to the early Church, and now it would be difficult to go back and toss it away. It took the Church a long time to accept is as "inspired." I can see why.
That being said, your particular references has some important, even essential 2nd century Christian material: one is the fact that the expected second coming "before this generation will taste death" had to be redefined to an unspecified time in the future.
It is well known that early Chritsians did expect the second coming of the Messiah within their lifetime as the New Testament suggests.
Dispelling these beliefs and leaving the door open was crucial to the survival of the the Christan sect, so I can see why some in the Church found 2 Peter necessary.
The book was also necessary because of its reconciliatory tone with Paul. The Pauline and Petrine factions of the Church were still at odds with each other despite claims to the contrary in Acts. So the sect took on Pauline garments but remained Petrine inside.
Likewise, 2 Pet is asking people to be patient, to live righteous lives and trust that God will spare the righteous, etc. He reinforces this appeal with threats and imagery of a catastrophic end of the world.
All this was needed to keep the faith going despite some setbacks.
But I certainly cannot find any evidence of "pre-existing" bodiless souls in 2 Pet 3.
FK: Nothing, officially.
Kosta: Is the silence simply convenient or too hot of a potato to handle? What about the Neanderthal bones?
I assume it is for the same reason that the Orthodox Church does not have an official position on everything. For one thing, the Confession would be thousands of pages long and for another, on matters not absolutely explicit in the Bible good Christians may disagree. So, to my knowledge the Southern Baptist Convention has no policy concerning bones of any kind.
lol. Slackards. The RCC is ahead of us in terms of bones and such...
Other relics include Joseph's carpenter tools, bones of the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the cup used at the Last Supper, the empty purse of Judas, Pilate's basin, the coat of purple thrown over Jesus by the mocking soldiers, the sponge lifted up to Him on the Cross, nails from the Cross, specimens of the hair of the Virgin Mary (some brown, some blond, some red, and some black), her skirts, wedding ring, slippers, veil, and even a bottle of the milk on which Jesus had been suckled. [Wilder, p. 53] According to Romanist belief, Mary's body was miraculously taken up to Heaven; but several different churches in Europe did claim to have the body of Mary's mother, even though we know nothing about her and she was not even credited with the name "St. Ann" until a few centuries ago! Even more laughable is the story about Mary's house. Roman Catholics believe that the house in which Mary lived at Nazareth is now in the little town of Loreto, Italy, having been transported there by angels! The Catholic Encyclopaedia says: "Since the fifteenth century, and possibly even earlier, the 'Holy House' of Loreto has been numbered among the most famous shrines of Italy [...]. The interior measures only thirty-one feet by thirteen. An altar stands at one end beneath a statue, blackened with age, of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Infant, [...] venerable throughout the world on account of the Divine mysteries accomplished in it. [...] It is here that most holy Mary, Mother of God, was born; here that she was saluted by the Angel; here that the eternal Word was made Flesh. Angels conveyed this House from Palestine to the town Tersato in Illyria in the year of salvation 1291 in the pontificate of Nicholas IV. Three years later, in the beginning of the pontificate of Boniface VIII, it was carried again by the ministry of angels and placed in a wood [...], where, having changed its station thrice in the course of a year, at length, by the will of God, it took up its permanent position on this spot... The gross superstition and idolatry that have accompanied the use of relics reveal the deception and inconsistency with which Romanism has been plagued for centuries...
And under the heading of "you learn something new every day here," I didn't realize it was the infamous Council of Trent who declared the supernatural importance of such relics and cursed all of us who do not believe in them...
The veneration of dead bodies of martyrs was ordered by the Council of Trent, the Council which also condemned those who did not believe in relics: "The holy bodies of holy martyrs [...] are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these bodies many benefits are bestowed by God on men, so that they who affirm that veneration and honour are not due to the relics of the saints [...] are wholly to be condemned, as the Church has already long since condemned, and also now condemns them." [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 12, p. 737] Of course, because it was believed that "many benefits" could come through the bones of dead men, the sale of bodies and bones became big business for the Church of Rome!
Certainly, the article sums up these errors perfectly...
In the old legends, when Nimrod, the false "saviour" of Babylon, died, his body was torn limb from limb – part being buried one place, and part in another. When he was "resurrected", becoming the sun-god, it was taught that he was now in a different body, the members of the old body being left behind. This is in stark contrast to the death of the true Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom it was prophesied: "A bone of him shall not be broken" (John 19:36), and Who was resurrected in the true sense of the word. The resurrection of Christ resulted in an empty tomb, no parts of His body being left behind for relics! Were these ideas taken from the Bible or from paganism?
The cross is empty! Praise God! We have no need of earthly relics. Our only need is Christ risen.
Forgetful ping to 5,431.
Oh,my. It’s worse than I thought—LOL.
Kinda makes you wish your pancakes Saturday morning will have a funny face so you can make some money on E-Bay selling breakfast to Catholics. I can have it vacuum wrapped in no time.
Egad Brain, er - good grief. I sooner would be a disciple of Carl Sagan than any pope. Which means I would rather my brain be pulled out my nose than submit to the RCC.
Their manifesto is to be found in the document Le radici cristiane dell 'Europa dall'est all'ovest ('The Christian roots of Europe from the East to the West'). Its cover shows an old map of Europe in the hey day of papal temporal power. This document was widely promoted when Rome hosted the signing of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which nevertheless proved to be a disaster... But all this is a smokescreen behind which Benedict is launching an ecumenical crusade against the Eastern Orthodox church and its leader, His All Holiness the Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is 'first among equals' in the Eastern Orthodox Church...A powerful body of intellectuals are dedicated to the idea of Europe as a venerable Holy Roman [Catholic] Empire. Pope Benedict XVI is their front man and deeply committed to the cause.
LOL. When we actually read about this stuff from their own writings and pronouncements, it sure looks that way.
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." -- Matthew 12:37
(((shudder))))
Never mind.
"I've never seen you before in my life, but you look to me like a slacker!"
No, I always go with the totality of scriptures. Sometimes that encompasses many verses and sometimes it doesn't.
Shall I remind you that we had a little discussion about Enoch (#5296), where I asked where does it say in OT that he died and you quote Heb 11:5.
Not true. I quoted Heb. 11:5 in RESPONSE to this part of your statement:
Kosta: It is only in Luke's Gospel that we see inference that he never "saw" death. This is based on Talmudic myth, not on Christian scriptures, unless the Reformed consider Talmud as scripture as well.
You brought the NT into it, not me. Gen. 5 allows a reasonable inference, and Hebrews confirms it. Totality of scripture.
Well, John 14:28 is also scripture, standalone and is plain and easy to understand, and you don't believe it. Double standards? Pick and choose?
Of course I believe it. Jesus was obviously speaking in the same way that He prayed to the Father. The totality of scripture is clear that the Father and the Son are co-equal Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is when one says that one interpretation of one verse trumps 10 other verses that one gets into trouble.
Where does the Bible say that Jesus is equal to the Father?
Here are a few:
John 10:30 : "I and the Father are one."
John 17:11 : I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name — the name you gave me — so that they may be one as we are one.
John 17:20-22 : 20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ...
John 5:17-18 : 17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Phil 2:5-11 : 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
This last one explains all the verses like John 14:28. While Jesus Himself IS God, He humbled Himself to take human form and save us and teach us how to relate to God.
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