AG: The above statement applies Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle (either/or) to God - and by doing so anthropomorphizes God into a small "god" the puny, mortal mind can comprehend
Well then we cannot comprehend even the Bible, and that holds for all who claim otherwise, and God's revelation was for naught. He chose, however, we believe, to reveal the perfect in the imperfect language of His imperfect creatures. [Note: How can perfect make imperfect is yet another enigma of our imperfect reason...]
If God can be unchanging and yet changing, if He can repent and not repent, then we might as well throw the Bible away and never quote from it. We might as well simply follow the example of Tolstoy's Three Little Hermits: believe and know nothing else. Yet we all, including you, AG, throw in our own anthropomorphisms to help us along.
So, based on your high-priestess teaching I would expect you to be the last person on these threads to quote from the Bible in order to support your own "understanding" of that which cannot be understood. Yet I see just the opposite. You give one-liners of your own thoughts and a pageful of biblical quotes...
If the Bible is incapable of conveying that which we can comprehend (God cannot be both changing and unchanging), then the Bible is inadequate. It has no purpose. It defeats the arguments of all those who say that God is "logical" because they apply human logic to that statement.
It brings us right to the doorsteps of Orthodoxy, which says we can only know what God is not (apophatic thinking). It scraps all the scolasticism and especially those sects that are based more on lawyering skills then spiritual gifts.
Oh, and by the way, the Law of the Excluded Middle does not hold everywhere in the physical creation either. In wave/particle duality - whether we see a particle or a wave depends on the observer/observation
It's not a matter of observation but of human definition.
In the following passage, the people to whom Christ is speaking were physically hearing Him - but they were not, indeed they could not, spiritually hear Him:
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matt 4:4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 1:1-4
His eyes [were] as a flame of fire, and on his head [were] many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. Revelation 19:12-13
But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. I Cor 2:10-16
To God be the glory!
Perhaps we have a way to faithfully read the Holy Scriptures without insisting that they be strictly "logical." That Scripture can be made to conform with reason and logic appeals to the noetically inclined. The thought occurs that this process may have a distorting effect on the proper reception of the message. (For instance, it is well-known in quantum physics that the presence of an observer has a "disturbing" or "distorting" effect on what is being observed.)
But whatever one learns by reading them in this way would not be exhaustive of the Revelation of Holy Scripture (it seems to me), for God's Word is primarily addressed to soul, spirit; only secondarily to mind. Soul is mediated by the Holy Spirit. So let the Spirit lead you, when you read the Holy Scriptures; and just humbly follow along....
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." -- 1 Corinthians 13:12
And every word of God can be understood and reconciled as much as God wants it to be if one is led by the Holy Spirit.
"Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." -- Proverbs 30:5
In temporal time, when it may seem to us God has "changed His mind," it is in order to further teach us how to live according to His precepts. Yet over-riding this perception is the greater fact that God has ordained the end from the beginning and that He is the First Cause for all things, which is the true focal point for all wisdom and understanding.
Kosta, there is so much truth in Scripture none of us has enough time in our lives to know all that is available for us to know. As much as we learn, there's always something more. But everything we learn contributes to the same, perfect truth -- "His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Some cannot understand the bible, as per plan..
Jesus plainly taught this was so, and WHY?..
Jesus didn't Get along well with ambient clergy..
or them with him since they murdered him..