Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Wow, we’re even closer than I dared to hope.
A couple of teeeeeeeeeny little points. If it is man’s responsibility to glorify God, then he must do it out of his own volition. A mother cannot cause a child to love her. But I think it might be interesting to explore the idea of the amount or extent of control that would be analogous to the Reformed view of God’s control of humanity.
If you’re ever up this way, I’ll buy you a large Guinness.
The context of giving a ‘reward’ is as a result of deserving that reward. But the Reformed will say that nobody deserves Heaven...
But I am somewhat puzzled that you have a "church" that you follow, as an organization. This really flies in the face of all the criticisms leveled by your fellow churehc members and other Protestants at Orthodox and Catholic members here that we follow "trandistions of men."
Well, no Reformer would say that the first were setting up a new religion. That only comes from critics. So, Reformers are not responsible for that. No Reformer ever encouraged anyone to set up his own religion. We just encouraged everyone to come to Christianity. But from what you go on to say, we may be using the word "religion" differently. How would you distinguish "a faith" from "a religion"?
As for who is responsible for the Reformation, I suppose the Apostolics would blame the Reformers, and the Reformers would praise God.
EOs and RCs definitely yes. Protestants, some appear to, but some defnitely do not.
This scenario is why Jesus came to make ALL religion on this planet obsolete
Where does it say that?
And WHY he said, "Where ever two or three meet together in my name there am I in their midst"..
He meant real Christians. Not people with bizarre beliefs, members of one-man "churches" and what not.
I am not sure of what other worth you are referring to. I only know that my prayers do not change God's mind, since I do not have power to compel or convince God. I see Him as being above that.
What does the communication consist of?
Usually, improvised prayer from the heart. I like to think that I have the type of relationship with God such that I can tell Him anything, so I do.
Do you not participate in prayer chains? Do you not ask God to do this, to help you with that, or to alleviate the other?
Sure I do, all the time. But this is no waste of time. These prayers themselves were just as ordained as the thing sought for being granted, or not. I don't know what God's plan is going to be on a given future matter, so I should pray about everything. The Bible says to. The Bible says that prayer is efficacious, and it is, since it is all part of the process of God's plan being implemented. God changed my heart to want to follow Him. The Bible says that to follow Him is to pray, so I want to pray.
Give us this day our daily bread: a little asking - now what use is that?
It reminds us of our dependence on Him ahead of anyone or anything else.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us - a promise to do, to act, and further asking Him to grant us something - of what use is that?
Again, it is a reminder to us what He does for us, and what He wants us to do.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. - more asking. This is not communication only, this is worship and asking Him to help us. I don’t believe that this sits very comfortably with Calvin’s beliefs.
Why in the world would Calvin have any problem with worship and asking God for things? It's all through the Bible. God wants us to worship and ask Him for things. We believe that all prayer pleasing to God GLORIFIES God. It is our purpose, as you said so well earlier. Therefore, it is useful regardless of the fact that we are not changing God's mind.
The greatest fathers of the Church (+Greogry of Nyssa comes to mind; a student of Origen, for while he taught universal salvation!). What the fathers did was to express their religious opinions (in Greek theologoumenna), or hypothesis in western parlance.
These did not become Church "doctrine" until they were accepted by the whole Church in Ecumenical Councils. There as a reason for those blessed Councils: men tend to speculate, even when they believe they are being objective.
Thus, checks and balances had to exist, lest even the greatest minds of the church succumb to heresy.
That's why we defer to the Church, never assuming that we are better or smarter than 2,000 years of collective wisdom, spirituality and knowledge of the Church.
Absolutely, but I am a purist in that I like the unaltered version rather than opinions. Just my style of learning, I guess.
But I am somewhat puzzled that you have a "church" that you follow, as an organization.
I don't follow a just-me-and-my-bible religion. I am a church member and took an oath. As a member of the OPC, I find comfort that other saints have come before me; I don't need to blaze new trails. I am a member of a church that has creeds, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Large and Small Catechism, the Book of Church Order, and theological books written by scholars much smarter than I am. However, the source of all OPC "tradition" is the written word of God and the doctrines are biblically referenced. There is no oral tradition and the doctrines are not in flux.
I am Orthodox, kosta. ;)
You keep using this “Robot/Slave” phrase. Let me see if i can dispell that for you.
The only people to truly have free will are those whom God has chosen for his own. In this I mean that ONLY a child of God can choose to please God. Therefore, a child of God has the choice to please God by being obedient or displeasing him by being disobedient.
The man who is not a child of God cannot please God. His choices are limited to 1. sin, or 2. not sin. He does not have the will to please God by being obedient. He doesn’t have the ABILITY to please God, because he does not have God in him.
So, the only ones who have free will are the ones you cal robots and slaves.
LOL!
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known —I Cor 13:12
Can you describe love Dr. E? Can you color it? Can you weigh it? Does it have a shape? Can you buy it? How does one get it? How do you know what love is when you do get it?
We cannot define any of this. We can only give our own 'experience" and opinion about it. Invariably, it will be different from the person next to you. So, don't tell me that goodness and truth are black-and-white or clear-cut biblical concepts that everyone knows when you know darn well that they are not and that any attempt to prove it by words would invariably prove that each and every human beings has a different definition of these "clear-cut" and "black-and-white" sweeping generalizations!
Dear kosta, with all respect, that is for Him to judge, not you. The Lord infallibly knows His own.
Peace be with you, dear brother in Christ!
There is no access to the "Father"(therefore God) except through Jesus the Christ or Messiah.. and the limitations He(jesus) requires.. "You MUST be born again"<<-Jesus.. and other limitations..
[.. And WHY he said, "Where ever two or three meet together in my name there am I in their midst".. / He meant real Christians. Not people with bizarre beliefs, members of one-man "churches" and what not. ..]
What is a "real" christian?...
Does the RCC or EO have any bizarre beliefs?...
What about two man churchs?..
Unaltered? You have originals?
I don't follow a just-me-and-my-bible religion. I am a church member and took an oath
Sounds Catholic to me! :)
As a member of the OPC, I find comfort that other saints have come before me; I don't need to blaze new trails
Now you are sounding patristic! :)
I am a member of a church that has creeds, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Large and Small Catechism, the Book of Church Order, and theological books written by scholars much smarter than I am
I will give you a little secret: the Church had the Creed centuries before your "saints" blazed new trails...and they had books written by people who walked with the apostles and were much smarter than all of us, including the Calvinist scholars.
However, the source of all OPC "tradition" is the written word of God and the doctrines are biblically referenced
Am I supposed to understand that as a veiled affront on the Church as somehow "not" being biblically referenced? If so, you are embarrassing yourself.
There is no oral tradition and the doctrines are not in flux
There is no flux. Eastern Orthodoxy is a living fossil of the early church. Our Divine liturgy used most of the year is 1,600 years old. It is a shorter version of the liturgical service served on fourteen special occasions during the year, which predates this one by at least another 100 years. And both are but slight variation of the earliest liturgy of St. James (the Just) of Jerusalem.
What the Patristic wrote, and how we celebrated the Eucharist at the end of the 1st and beginning of the second centuries, is what is still taught and practiced to this date in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Where is the flux?
I am Orthodox, kosta. ;)
LOL! <
That would be 2/3 church?
You are parseing the point.. i.e. prevaricating..
Am I supposed to understand that as a veiled affront on the Church as somehow "not" being biblically referenced? If so, you are embarrassing yourself.
I'm not embarassed. :)
I have a copy of the RCC catechism and some of the doctrines are not biblically referenced.
a living fossil
You mean you don't sing new choruses and jingles?
And one possible answer is that no one who has been given that freedom ever actually does turn away from God. So the "choice" exists in principle but is never actually made. But there would seem to be some Pauline passages which would suggest that it's a real possibility, since he seems to expend some rhetorical energy urging people NOT to make that choice.
To parse used to mean to explain the syntax and form of a word in a sentence. When in Latin class a million years ago I was told to parse a word I had to say what form it was and how its role in the sentence related to the from.
If I was told to parse "him" in "Give him the ball," I would say it was the objective form, third person singular pronoun, masculine, and objective because it is the indirect object of the verb "give". Similarly, told to parse "nobis" in "Dona nobis pacem", I'd say it was the first person pronoun, plural, dative, dative because it's the indirect object of the imperative verb "dona".
Parsing is all about what words mean in their form and context and how they function in a sentence.
To prevaricate is to equivocate, to straddle with words so that what one says can be taken one way or another, so to suggest the false, to lie. But it's really a kind of lying. Parsing is the way we pierce through and expose prevarication.
This may be playing games, but to the extent that it is, it is not parsing.
/pedantic rant off.
The meaning of words change.. i.e. progressive politics is regressive.. Capitalism creates wealth, socialism uses it up..
LoL..... ( am watching Colts vs Saints..)
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