Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
Whatever you are smoking, I suggest you put it out. Read what I posted. Did I say anywhere in there that the Father had hands? The Spirit? All I did was ask you how JESUS picked up the child. You idiotic suggestions as to my reasoning are getting tiresome.
I am through with you.
***Are we Christians or are we Paulines?***
One last time, I believe the whole Bible, not just the gospels are the word of God.Therefore, all of the Bible is worthy of study, and worthy of use. All of the scripture is EQUAL.
Don't those sound like important questions? They certainly would be if a person believed in God and they must please Him with their works. Should they sell their homes and move to Africa? Should they work in the hospitals or care for the infirm? The fact is no one cannot please God with anything they do. They can only be submissive to His will and allow Him to work through them. And even if they rebel like Jonah, God promises to bring us back.
I am sorry but we are not saved by our works. We are saved by grace through faith. This faith is a gift from God. Our works are a manifestation of Christ working through us and for most Christians they may not even recognize how God is working in their lives. Abraham was saved by faith and seventeen years later illustrated this faith by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The sheep and the goats were sorted on the right and the left before the judgment ever came.
As far as "winning" the everlasting lottery, everyone will be placed in heaven or hell exactly as they were designed to be. God loved Jacob and hated Esau. There are some who would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Thanks for your post.
How then do you read this from the Westninster Confession of Faith:
“There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions..”
A different definition of passions?
Did I say anything about Jesus? Your answer was a clumsy way of obfuscating the fact that refreences to "God" in general as having hands and passions are anthropomiorphisms and should be read allegorically and not literally.
Take, for instance Exodus 24:11
Here, in fact, we have a double whamy: refrence to God's "hand" and "seeing" God, neither of which are to be understood literally.
You idiotic suggestions as to my reasoning are getting tiresome
So are your off the wall comments.
I am through with you.
Fine. Go in peace.
Ooops!
No, but we won't hold it against you.
That's what I meant, yes.
No, to be immutable simple means that God's essence is always consistent and in harmony.
Mutor, mutari, mutatus -- I change. First conjugation deponent verb. (One of the about 3 that I remember from 7th grade.)"Mutation" is a modern cognate (See the 3rd principle part, mutatus). So immutable means unchangeable. SO I think we must be looking at the word differently.
Gen 1:31 doesn't say He enjoyed it. The relevant part says .... hummeda hummeda, Berishith, got it right here ...."And Elohim saw all that he had done/made and behold, very good." To say that that verse says He "enjoyed it" is to assume what's to be proved. All the text offers is an assessment of it.
I'm more or less fine with everything you say after the big chunk of my blather,but I"m not entirely sure of the relevance.
UNLESS you're saying that in your view God's passions are not unruly and so do not conflict with His will, which we would also say of Jesus. I would NOT say that the failure to experience a feeling of affection for one's spouse is a sin. It might be a sign of our fallen state, (passion out of sync with will) but it's not itself sinful, anymore than a headache or an itch is sinful in itself.
Look: I know I'm setting myself up for a huge brick wall down the road. Specifically I have no clue about how/whether the Incarnation changes the immutable God. But I'm pretty clear that outside of the period between the Nativity and the Resurrection things didn't "happen to" God.
It's a very fine question, because ti touches on so many very basic questions.
D-fendr already quoted +John of Damascus, but that would mean nothing to you. However, being a Calvinist, D-fendr's other reference may:
That's what I meant, yes.
No, to be immutable simple means that God's essence is always consistent and in harmony. Mutor, mutari, mutatus -- I change. First conjugation deponent verb. (One of the about 3 that I remember from 7th grade.)"Mutation" is a modern cognate (See the 3rd principle part, mutatus). So immutable means unchangeable. SO I think we must be looking at the word differently.
Well, if you look at Websters 1828 you will see that it is also defined as 'the quality that renders change or alteration impossible', alteration is in turn defined as 'the act of making different or of varying in some particular.
So, God is immutable in that He doesn't change, that all of His attributes always act in full accord with one another, never deviating from their own particular perfections which are always absolute and infinite.
So, to be immutable for God is not to be immobile since Love is always active.
Gen 1:31 doesn't say He enjoyed it. The relevant part says .... hummeda hummeda, Berishith, got it right here ...."And Elohim saw all that he had done/made and behold, very good." To say that that verse says He "enjoyed it" is to assume what's to be proved. All the text offers is an assessment of it.
God gave an assessment of it and called it good.
God thus, was pleased with it.
God took pleasure in His Son (Mat.17:5).
He says that without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb.11:6), so He is pleased by faith, as indicated by the listing of those names in that chapter.
I'm more or less fine with everything you say after the big chunk of my blather,but I"m not entirely sure of the relevance. UNLESS you're saying that in your view God's passions are not unruly and so do not conflict with His will, which we would also say of Jesus. I would NOT say that the failure to experience a feeling of affection for one's spouse is a sin. It might be a sign of our fallen state, (passion out of sync with will) but it's not itself sinful, anymore than a headache or an itch is sinful in itself.
Anytime a Christian is not bearing the fruits of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23), he is sinning.
One is either in the Spirit or in the Flesh. (Rom.6)
Look: I know I'm setting myself up for a huge brick wall down the road. Specifically I have no clue about how/whether the Incarnation changes the immutable God. But I'm pretty clear that outside of the period between the Nativity and the Resurrection things didn't "happen to" God. It's a very fine question, because ti touches on so many very basic questions.
Nothing ever happens to God, God allows certain things to occur, but He always knows the end from the beginning and is always acting to complete His Plan, which is a perfect Universe without sin and death.
I disagree. What we know may be from God, but we don't know. We may think we know, but none has God's caller ID that he or she can show.
saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them
But we also know that we don't know from the heart, do we? It's a figure of speech as much as writing is. The "heart" in the bible is a concept associated with feelings, notions, hunches, etc. Somehow we intrinsically "know" that mercy is good (because we want mercy for ourselves); even the animals know what "feels good" without understanding why.
What have the Greeks produced but a lot of question marks and an erroneous belief in a dispassionate, distant God?
God is distant but He is not impersonal. God is a mystery. We can think of Him as passionate, and physical, and emotional, but even your own Westminster Confession expresses the ancient Christian truth that He is simple, indivisible, unchanging, complete, lacking in nothing, and passionless.
That's not my mistake; I never said God changes; to the contrary! That which is perfect (i.e. complete) does not change.
Likewise, God's wrath is immutable regarding the chaff. He does not love the condemned
God gives equally to the righteous and the unrighteous. He is impartial. He loves the saved and the condemned equally. It is our spiritual state (of accepting or rejecting God) that is experienced either as His love or His wrath.
Those who love God experience it as blessings and those who hate Him as burning fire. Love is fire; some are warmed by it, others are burned; but the fire remains the same.
All men are sinners. Some men are acquitted of their sins by Christ on the cross, and some men remain condemned by them
That doesn't fit your double predestination theology, Dr. E, according to which mankind was either "acquitted" or "condemned" before mankind existed! And not only that, but since salvation or damnation is not work-based, or has anything to do with our free will, acquittal and condemnation become oxymorons.
Love, anger, and affection are all emotions AND decisions. For example, let's say that I wrote something very personal and offensive to you. One legitimate reaction by you would be anger, but just as legitimate would be to ignore it. It would be your choice. Three different posters could send me the exact same comment and I might legitimately have three completely different reactions, depending on the person. That's my choice. Therefore, emotion and decision can both be true at the same time.
Thanx for the ping.
I will look forward to your thoughtful posts in the future.
Oh yea, also, thanks for the Katrina help, it was appreciated, and all of those that came down to provide that help are still warmly talked about here.
Thank you ... it keeps me writing, for what it’s worth. Thankful that you enjoyed the little ‘exegesis’ on ‘faithe’.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. - Gal 5:22-23
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:1-5
I love it when they say "don't rely on your feelings; let God lead you..." The woman who drowned her five children also claimed God led her. It's a dangerous path, and all too often fraught with pathology.
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