Conclusion from Peru and Mexico

email from Randall Easter | 25 January 2008 | Randall Easter

[kosta50]

The “struggle” ended for all practical purposes, in the 2nd century, Kosta. By the 4th century, Christian theology had developed to the point where the Fathers could refer to the horrors of the OT as stories to scare the simple folk. They were right, Kosta. The difference in interpretation of Job found in the West and the East is instructive. The monster “god” of the Book of Job is a theological ancestor of the monster “god” which demanded the bloody slaughter of the only thoroughly innocent man, its own Son, to slake its wrath against creation. That has had “interesting” results in the West, results we have never seen in the East, like the Reformation. I think you are looking at the OT in far too Western a way, Kosta. That leads to people fearing our loving God. The Church employs and explains the OT in a Christian manner as it should be explained

I will ponder on that, Kolo. I's one thing to say that the horror of the OT is used to scare simple folk (which is another issue of contention), and it's an altogether another to actually interpret the OT God as a loving, Christ-like God. (if there is such an OT God, then why use scare tactics?) I have yet to find patristic writings that sound positively convincing.

You know, it is interesting that the early Church Fathers did not fear questioning the OT. For instance, +Augustine wonders what were the Hebrews drinking if all the waters of Egypt turned into blood [Letter 124], or why could Pharaoh's magicians make a serpents but not gnats [The Trinity 3.7.12]!

It was mostly the West that struggled with the OT, as you suggest, as late as the 7th century. The OT is the subject of intense searches by Isidore of Seville (6-7th century), one of the Lats Latin Fathers, and of Paterius (the secretary of +Gregory the Great, 7th century).

+Cyril of Alexandria (4th century) based his entire inbterpretation of the OT on the Gospel of John and The Hebrews. By saying that we observe the Law in the spirit, rather than the flesh, he drew a parallel, although it my opinion it sounds better than it is on closer inspection. It's all not at all about the tyrant God of the OT and how this God supposedly compares to Christ. It is simply understood that the Jews "didn't see it" right because they didn't have the full revelation, so their God was somewhat "misinterpreted."

Bottom line is: the OT had to be incorporated because of the Synoptic Gospels that make reference to it. Otherwise the Gospels, the core scripture of the Church, would be making invalid references. So, a way had to be found to "conflate" the seemingly dissimilar books into one harmonized version. There was even an attempt to conflate all four Gospels into one!

[Kolokotronis]

“You know, it is interesting that the early Church Fathers did not fear questioning the OT. For instance, +Augustine wonders what were the Hebrews drinking if all the waters of Egypt turned into blood [Letter 124], or why could Pharaoh’s magicians make a serpents but not gnats [The Trinity 3.7.12]!”

Bravo, Kosta mou! We are indeed the rational flock, are we not?! Not only did the Fathers question aspects of the OT, it didn’t concern them in the least that they were doing so!

The OT read in a void, that is to say, without the clarifying lens of Christ through The Church, does not as a general proposition lead to theosis; indeed its efficacy in that regard is limited at best as +Athanasius demonstrates in the opening chapters of On the Incarnation.

[kosta50]

Not only did the Fathers question aspects of the OT, it didn’t concern them in the least that they were doing so!

That was my point, Kolo. The Fathers didn't have this idolatrous relationship with the scriptures we see ushered by the sola scriptura superstition of the Reformation.

[Kolokotronis]

“The Fathers didn’t have this idolatrous relationship with the scriptures we see ushered by the sola scriptura superstition of the Reformation.”

Big Balkan smile! :))))))))))))))

[kosta50]

To me "personal" means that which has a personality, distinguishable from others, has the ability to reason and love, and communicates with others

Then animals are "persons" as well.

I was unaware of any relative comparisons being made. I understood your position to be that God is impersonal, irrational, and unknowable, regardless of any other position. Could you restate your correct position without comparing it to anything else?

When did I state that God is irrational? His reasons are not our reasons any more than our reasons are reasons of an ant. To claim that God "makes sense" to us is to claim that we make sense to a flatworm, if that much. In order to reveal Himself fully to us lowly flatworms, He humbled Himself and became a flatworm so we could have a personal relationship with Him and know God through our eyes and ears and minds by seeing Him as one of us. Who can love an ineffable entity?

[Kolokotronis]

"When God the Almighty was making mankind through His own Word, He perceived that they, owing to the limitation of their nature, could not of themselves have any knowledge of their Artificer, the Incorporeal and Uncreated. He took pity on them, therefore, and did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of Himself, lest their very existence should prove purposeless. For of what use is existence to the creature if it cannot know its Maker? How could men be reasonable beings if they had no knowledge of the Word and Reason of the Father, through Whom they had received their being? They would be no better than the beasts, had they no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him? But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after the same Image and Likeness. Why? Simply in order that through this gift of Godlikeness in themselves they may be able to perceive the Image Absolute, that is the Word Himself, and through Him to apprehend the Father; which knowledge of their Maker is for men the only really happy and blessed life."

+Athanasius the Great "On the Incarnation". FK, here's a link to chap. II of On the Incarnation:

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_2

Then read chapter III:

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_3

[Forest Keeper]

Time is perpendicular to the other three, as are each of them to the others. This can't be visualized but it can sure be worked with mathematically.

Thanks for bringing back the horrors of multi-variable calculus. So much for my plans of being a math major. :)

And thanks for the tip on Haddon's novel. I have a book which I've never finished called "About Time" by Paul Davies. I have to keep re-reading over the same sections, so I've never finished it. :) But I like it anyway.

[Forest Keeper]

Thank you my friend. I feel the same way. :)

[Forest Keeper]

Chairs change. They wear out. They break -- as when the 250 lb farm manger (all muscle) of the place next door comes over to give us all the latest gossip, and I can almost hear my chair crying out in fear and pain.

Justice, though imperfectly enacted, is always what it is. (We'll skip wondering if there is an unchanging "chairness" of which my chair is an imperfect 'enactment".) So (work with me here) our thinking about eternity "has" to have changelessness included.

When I thought of the "chairness" of your chair I thought of God's throne in Heaven (whatever that literally is). I presume that it is changeless, but that it was also created since it is a part of Heaven. I would presume that the "rooms" that are also being (have been) prepared for us will also never decay. However, when we receive our glorified bodies will our "rooms" be changeless? That would mean never being able to pick up anything, etc., etc. I'm not sure if it really works like that. Throw in the human soul as a kicker. :)

So, we have created things that will exist from the time of their creation to eternity forward, some of which even in Heaven might change (and some maybe not), and then we have God Himself, never created and never changing, but I would say not static either. So yes, if we mean "eternal" eternity then changelessness is definitely noteworthy and part of the mix, but I don't think it ends there.

But the Revelation about "one" [concerning, God is one and a Trinity at the same time] may provide us with kind of a clue, at which we can only marvel: that as oneness seems to have "room" for plurality, so changeless eternity may have room for something kinda sorta like Dynamism. That's all I can do right now.

OK, that's cool. You're obviously willing to think about it, so what more can anyone ask? :)

[kosta50]

I think both of you (Forest Keeper and Mad Dawg) need to define your terms before jumping head-first into these discussions on eternity and changlessness.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: “” However, if He wanted you to prevent a mugging at the nudie bar, then you're going. The point is whether it is a part of God's plan. But regardless of whether it is a part of God's plan or not, you are still responsible (answerable) for your own sin.””

Dear FK, What you are saying here is that God planned sin in all 3 people in this scenario in order for one person to do good. That is not a God of love, Dear Brother.

Not at all. I would never presume to know the extent of God's plan for any one event. As you know, almost (if not all of) everything that happens can have significant consequences directly resulting from it. Those consequences lead to other consequences. What if Mark witnessed to the mugging victim, who then became a Christian, who then went on to evangelize hundreds more in her lifetime. Would it be worth it then? Would THAT be a God of love? The point is that it happened because God wanted it to happen. We can't judge the results since we can't possibly know.

First, even the thought of going to the nudie bar is a sin,adding to more sin by actually going there.

Of course it's sin, but so is nailing Jesus to a cross. I don't think that was an accident or by random chance. Otherwise, we should be thanking the god of luck rather than a sovereign God.

Second, the mugger is sinning, and that could not be planned by God either.

It can't be CAUSED by God in the sense of God "zapping" the mugger to force him to mug, but it can certainly be a part of God's plan. The Bible is full of examples, unless it was all by chance.

When are you going to realize that God would not want there to be a nudie bar in the first place?

It always comes back to what God "wants" and what He decrees. The weak God truly wants these things (or their absence), but He does not have the power or inclination or care to do anything about it. This weak God lets man do whatever he wants, and gives control over to man to determine the most important things to man. You would call this a God of love? Not me. To me this is a God who doesn't care one way or the other. If His children kill themselves, so what, it was their choice, etc. That's not love, that's negligence. :)

Don't you see that in your model all men must be presumed to be able to know and act in their own best interest, on their own, with their unaffected free wills? Do you think that is really true? I know it is not. I have asked before how under your model some come to believe and some don't. I have asked : "is it because some are smarter, more talented, or what?" Is it because some love more? Where did that love come from, was it self-generated? If not, why didn't God give everyone enough love to believe? I can go on and on. The logic of all of this falls apart right away. :)

In any event, I also wish you a Blessed day! :)

[Forest Keeper]

FK: “”However, if He wanted you to prevent a mugging at the nudie bar, then you're going.””

This is my GUESS of how John Calvin might have rationalized this scenario..... An elect man is predestined by God to go to a nudie bar,so God puts a non elect mugger in the nudie bar so the elect man can do something good even though the elect man is currently sinning by being in the nudie bar in the first place. Thus, all of this sin had to happen in order for God to accomplish His plan.

A noble effort my good man, but there are a couple of things here that need to be addressed. First, concerning the "good guy" it makes no difference whether he is elect or not, and if he is elect then it further makes no difference if he is a believer or not. Second, likewise the mugger could be an elect or not, or a believer or not. It makes no difference, and I'm sure that every possible combination has happened in real life at one time or another. It could easily be God's plan that a reprobate rescues a victim from an elect attacker. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is that God ordained it to happen SO it happened, for His reasons which we may or may not have a clue at explaining. Finally, you are right that all of these sins would be in accordance with God's plan, just as the sins leading up to Jesus' crucifixion were a part of God's plan. He didn't leave the salvation of all His elect to chance.

Problem is,that in this analogy,God would be responsible for the sin if He planned and predestined it to happen this way.

I understand that you all see it that way. But it goes back to whether God has a duty to protect people from sinning under their adamic nature, OR is God free to let people sin without God taking the blame. Your side believes the former and mine the latter.

For example, let's say I was an average reprobate (meaning that God hadn't made much to me in the way of "positive" promises). Now, let's say He completely withdrew His protection from me such that I became a raving murderer. I could easily become that if I was sufficiently without God. Now let's say that He decided to do that on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday. Is God responsible for anyone I kill on Thursday? I think your side would say "YES", it's all God's fault, He caused the evil by removing His protection. We don't see it that way.

[Forest Keeper]

Romans 6:2 meshes in nicely with 2 Peter 1:2-10. It’s a process of sanctification, and eventually, “you shall not sin at any time”.

While I doubt we would agree on the interpretation of verse 10, I fully agree that sanctification is a lifelong process. That's exactly how we see it. :)

[kosta50]

stfassisi: Problem is,that in this analogy,God would be responsible for the sin if He planned and predestined it to happen this way.

FK: I understand that you all see it that way. But it goes back to whether God has a duty to protect people from sinning under their adamic nature, OR is God free to let people sin without God taking the blame. Your side believes the former and mine the latter.

No, it has to do with what God "assigned" to each individual before foundation of the world according to the Reformed theology.

For example, let's say I was an average reprobate (meaning that God hadn't made much to me in the way of "positive" promises). Now, let's say He completely withdrew His protection from me such that I became a raving murderer.

According to the Reformed theology, God decided to withdraw His protection in that moment before the hypothetical you , indeed before the world even existed. God decided from eternity that you will go to hell, that you will be a murder,  and He even assigned the day and the hour when this will happen, and nothing can change that.

I could easily become that if I was sufficiently without God

Sure, because the Reformed God doesn't want (the hypothetical) you, never did and never will. He only wants you in hell—and you will go to hell not because you are a murderer but because the Reformed God created you specfically to go to hell!

To complete the picture, this Reformed God wants to punish you because He wants you to become a murder! He decided before you existed that you shall commit murder on a given day and a given hour, and it's somehow all your "fault!" You are a goat, not because you want to be a goat, but because God made you a goat and it's somehow all your "fault." And no amount of prayer will change you into a sheep.

Now let's say that He decided to do that on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday. Is God responsible for anyone I kill on Thursday? I think your side would say "YES", it's all God's fault, He caused the evil by removing His protection. We don't see it that way.

You talk as if God is intervening in His rigidly preordained "plan." In fact this plan is so rigid that even God can't change it! You seem to oscillate between two incompatible visions of God: one who preordained the world in which everything happens exactly as He "planned," and one in which God intervenes and makes fine adjustments.

I got bad news for you, FK: if (the hypothetical) you commits a murder on a given day, it's because the Reformed God, and not you, decided that eons ago.  

And "my" side will most definitely say "Yes," because you neither decide the day, nor is it really your will that leads you to commit murder but the Reformed God's will! Otherwise your side calls it a "weak" God.

[Kolokotronis]

Pretty astonishing, and discouraging, theology, FK. No wonder atheism is a product of the post-Reformation West.

[kosta50]

Pretty astonishing, and discouraging, theology, FK. No wonder atheism is a product of the post-Reformation West

I think it ca be safely said that the Reformed theology is a knee-jerk cause of atheism in the West.

[stfassisi]

“”What if Mark witnessed to the mugging victim, who then became a Christian, who then went on to evangelize hundreds more in her lifetime.Would it be worth it then?””

The mistake you're making in all of this is giving credit to the sin for the reason that Mark witnessed to the mugging victim,thus further giving credit to sin for mugging victim witnessing to others.

One would think that in the mind of the reformed that the all powerful God would be capable of having Mark witness to the mugging victim WITHOUT a mugging even taking place? Yet somehow this is what you call weakness!

You have thoroughly convinced me that reformed theology takes temptation out of the hands of the devil,thus taking personal sin out of the hands of man in order for God to ordain sin for the good of the elect.

In reformed theology goodness cannot be goodness unless its mugged, raped, murdered, aborted etc...

And you call this a God of love,God of goodness?

Lord have Mercy ,Dear Brother.

I pray you open your eyes!

[Forest Keeper]

If God ordained some people with the specific purpose for them to go to hell eternally, it is difficult to argue that He made them in imago dei (image of God)! God did not make them in His image so they can be evil! For it is precisely imago dei that sets humans apart from other living beings, i.e. being higher—"above the rest."

Once again, God does not create the reprobate FOR THE PURPOSE of sending them to hell. He creates them for the purpose of bringing glory to Himself. He graces them with all things that are unique and common to all humans. The reprobate, whoever they are, ARE above the animals. While it is difficult for a presumably saved person to imagine, IF you somehow found out that you were not among the elect, would you trade your humanity in favor of the existence of a wild animal? Of course not.

[Going by the Reformed logic] If the reprobate are creatures rejected by God before they even existed, the ones He predestined to be evil, they could not possibly be anything even remotely similar to those God considers His children! For they are even lower than animals, for animals are not evil.

The reprobate are different from God's children in where they're going. That's just definitional. But they are not lower than the animals. The Bible does NOT say that God created the elect in His image. It says that God created MAN (all men) in His image. Does Jesus teach us to love only fellow believers? NO, He teaches that we should love and have compassion for ALL PEOPLE, even the reprobate. There is no such teaching for animals.

The horrible conclusion we come to, based on Reformed theology, is that God predestined Hitler for salvation before the foundations of the world knowing the evil he would commit (because God predestined it!!!) , and He did that for some "greater good." (what "greater good" came out of Hitler? Did it stop wars and suffering and hunger; did it give us "faith?").

Your conclusion is pure speculation based on something EXTREMELY unlikely. Possible, yes, but likely, no way. I don't see how this helps your point. I have some memory of attempting to answer your Hitler question before, and I was very uncomfortable because I didn't want it to appear that I was defending Hitler. :) So, I don't want to go there again. The answer is I don't know what purpose of God the Holocaust served, I only know there WAS some purpose. It did not happen outside of God's control.

And this brings us to Abraham. Love doesn't use Russian roulette as a teaching tool for appreciation of love. Abraham was predestined according to Reformed theology to believe and to appreciate his faith. Why does it matter if we know or don't know. Our knowledge, as our prayers, as our good works, matter not to God according to this theology...they are made to look like they do, but in reality all this is pre-choregraphed and cannot change, and it's not done for us but for God's glory alone.

I'm afraid you're wrong on almost every count. :) Of course all of those things matter. They absolutely matter to us, therefore they matter to God who loves us. We KNOW that God gives good gifts and works for the good of those who love Him:

Matt 7:7-11 : 7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Rom 8:28 : And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

All those things you listed, a [personal] relationship with God as a believer, our prayers, and our good works, are all gifts from God. We benefit from them.

Reformed theology implies that we are actually deceived by God into believing that our prayers are real, when in fact they cannot change anything. So, one must conclude that the Reformed God is a deceiver. Please show me that this is not so.

Prayers do not change GOD, but they certainly DO change things for us. When we pray in accordance with God's will we ALWAYS get the thing we are praying for (see above passage). Change for us definitely happens as a result of prayer. But God doesn't change. Therefore, God is not a deceiver, prayer works exactly as it is explained in the Bible.

[Forest Keeper]

As far as what makes sense to me, isn't that what you Protestants/Baptists preach and promote? If it is not you that is a measure of your faith, than what is? The Baptist Church? The Reformed "Magisterium?" The official truth? The most popular view? Or is it that which "makes sense" to you regardless how many others agree with you?

When I first came to faith, I didn't know enough to know whether the whole Bible made sense. It didn't matter to me at the time, I had faith. All I knew then was that there was a loving God out there and that Christ did love me and wanted to save me. That made sense. But then, as I became more sanctified in the word of God I saw that everything in God's word DID make sense. The only measure of my faith is God Himself. I am not a believer because another man, men, or institution says so. I have a personal relationship with God, so such things are between Him and me.

You consider yourself a Reformed Baptist. The Reformed in the Baptist community represent only 10% of the members of this community. What makes you a Reformed Baptist if not because Reformed theology for some reason makes sense to you? Do you have a certificate of authenticity somewhere posted in the sky that says "Reformed theology is true?" No, of course not. You are Reformed and Baptist because it makes sense to you.

I've never seen a survey on Baptist membership. I did see that FR article about 10% of Baptist pastors saying they were Calvinist. However, the SBC accepts Reformed theology as tolerable. I happen to think that a lot more Baptists are actually Reformers in their thinking, but just don't know it yet. That was exactly the case with me. :) Becoming Reformed was no great leap for me at all.

Now, as to "how" it happened, God leads His sheep, and He led me. When my wife and I got married and moved into our house we visited several local churches to find one we liked. The Baptist church was the one that was most interested in preaching the word of God, so that's where we went and are now. It was that simple, and I know it wasn't an accident.

Oh, I am guilty, as charged, that if something makes no sense to me I will question it. John 6:57 makes no sense to me at all! But neither do official commentaries on it; neither the verse itself, given who Jesus is, nor with respect to the context of the whole chapter. Christ says: "I live because of the Father"

Well, obviously the verse does not refer to Christ's divine nature, since the Bible is clear it was uncreated. It "could" refer to Christ's appointment as Mediator. That He was appointed is no reflection on His nature. As Barnes says, George Washington was not in any way inferior in talents or abilities to those who commissioned him. Alternatively, I like the explanation from the Geneva notes:

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

In that Christ is man, he receives that power which quickens and gives life to those that are his, from his Father: and he adds this word "the" to make a distinction between his Father and all other fathers.

Christ means that although he is man, yet his flesh can give life, not by its own nature, but because his flesh lives by the Father, that is to say, sucks and draws out of the Father that power which it has to give life.

This comment also appears to address your later concern about the flesh of Jesus giving life.

Wow! This is the same Word who was with God in the "beginning" (what beginning?), the same Word who was God?

Presumably, the beginning refers to the beginning of creation, but we both know that they were together with the Spirit "before" that. The statement is still true, just not exhaustive.

[stfassisi]

FK-””Once again, God does not create the reprobate FOR THE PURPOSE of sending them to hell. He creates them for the purpose of bringing glory to Himself””

Sounds like something the devil would say to convince someone that God cannot use goodness to bring Glory to Himself without using evil to do so.

No wonder the reformed show such lack of Devotion to Our Blessed Mother