Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
I think eternity will show . . .
that
DISEMBODIED
was not what it was cracked up to be.
No, but I think you are. Who tempted Satan? God doesn't tempt.
If Satan "could not be tempted" how did Satan fall?
Pride.
Is not disobedience a "temptation" to assert one's own will over God?
Disobedience is an act of free will, a refusal to comply.
That's not what I said. I said: "It's like having to take continuing education courses to keep your license current, even though you can't lose your license if you don't!"
If this were true, very few people would attend those courses. In othwer words, compliance is forced.
There is a reasonable comparison to salvation here. The difference is in who is in charge of getting those credits turned in on time.
Not in your book, FK. :) In the Reformed theology the CLEs mean nothing! You get a "certificate" of salvation at the beginning, and from there on nothing you do or don't do will cause you to lose it.
The Church will tell you that it is essential. Some Orthodox churches will threaten you with excommunication if you don't fast. The Church holds that fasting is "grace-bestowing and life-giving ascetic practice."
Church fasting was inherited form the Judaic worship. In Judaism it is one of those six hundred-plus mitzvot which are pleasing to God.
Early Christians fasted as the Jews did, twice a week, on high holidays and individually as the occasion arose. Fasting is an adjunct to prayer.
In the Orthodox tradition, monastic fasting and laity fasting were different. Later on, the Church regulated fasting requirements to apply to all: this includes fasting every Wednesday and Friday and on specially designated periods (there are three 40-day fasts in an ecclesial year and some minor ones scattered along, varying in intensity and duration, between a few days to two weeks).
The Church prohibited animal products during fasts; it also restricted the use of olive oil as shortening. In some instances, fish is allowed; at others wine is. The Lenten fast is the strictest. Basically, no anmal products or olive oil for 40 days, period.
The purpose of the fast is to control your passions, to be able to say no to evil or to things that might lead you to evil. It is part of the process we call theosis. The food consumed during fasts is bland and not something you will eat with passion, or tend to overeat. You should have one large meal a day and never eat until satiety.
It is portrayed as "healthy" but that's a gross micharacteization vis-avis many metabolic health problems of an average parish population. The fasting rules do not apply to the sick, the travelers and those who are otherwise prevented from complying. Obviously, these can be "stretched" a little.
St. Symeon the Theologian teaches us that humility is more important than self sacrificial fasts and vigils.
To me, the most important fast is the spiritual fast; in other words, fasting from sin and passions otherwise known to lead to evil. If you can attain that kind of a fast, then the physical fast is merely an outward expression of the same.
Your spiritual state greatly affects your ability to fast. In those periods when you are spiritually strong, desires and cravings miraculously disappear and a 40-day period goes by without a hitch. You are neve hungry and you eat minimally. In that state the end of fatsing period is not manifested by gorging yourself on all the foods you missed and hated not having!
However, if you are spiritually weak and troubled, fasts become an endless torture. You constantly long for the foods you cannot have, and often people become bitter and look for any excuse to cheat or avoid it altogether. I confess that I know this from both third party and personal experience.
I guess you could say that fasts are like self-testing. It's like a diabetic pricking his finger to check his blood sugar. It's somewhat painful but it is necessary to know where you are.
Unfortunately, this is not something the Church taught and believed from the beginning and everywhere. In addition, the NT is clear that no food restriction should exist and tat one is not to judge another for what he eats.
Fating rules in its regimented form are a latter-day development in the Church; not something the Church practiced form the beginning. Moreover, what is "passionate" food for some is something others will not touch with a ten-foot pole. To this day I don't know the reaosn animal products are shunned.
I would say there is also another reason for fasting and that is in memory of our Lord Jesus Christ, commiserating, even if only to a symbolic degree, with His immense suffering and sacrifice. He said that His disciples will fast when He is no longer with them.
I believe this is where the Wednesday and Friday fasts come in (the practice of fasting twice weekly is Jewish, except the Jews fast Tuesdays and Thursdays). Some monastics fast on Mondays, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays, in order to "exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees." I find that somewhat Pharisiacal myself! I thin it is relevant to say also that the monastics do not eat any meat throughout the year.
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It's not the law, but the nature of God that prevents Him from murdering children, just as His nature prevents Him from lying, or sinning.
He can do whatever He wants with us within all bounds of morality/I>
God is Virtue, and God doesn't change. So at no time is God a vice. As Virtue, what He does with us is always virtuous.
Well, ONE point is that tests and temptations do NOT determine salvation, grace through faith does
Then the tests are unnecessary, and temptations are tortures.
Another point is what we ultimately take out of the experience
What purpose does that have vis-avis your predetermined salvation? None. You are already certain of your salvation and it makes no difference what you do or don't do.
I can think of many temptations I have succumbed to that now are an anchor of strength for the experience
I agree, but what does that anchor of strength do as for your salvation is concerned? If you are saved, that means God sees you as "just" in His eyes and nothing you do will change that. So, if you are just in God's eyes, why doe sit matter to you if you don't think you are; doesn't God tale precedence?
Thanks. :)
Jesus told Peter what Peter was going to do before he did it.
That’s what makes him ‘know better’.
You actually believe, in a Universe (perhaps Universes) created by God, that the natural state of all things is EVIL?
Your verses are off-point here. You still have a choice to make - do you accept Christ, or don’t you.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t indwell until you make this choice. That simple.
Judas chose. Peter Chose. Cain chose. Eve chose.
You choose, unless you can’t choose, and then I don’t have a clue what happens.
You can’t wish it away - Free Will Exists.
This is DEFINITELY your view of salvation, in that this is the way you’ve chosen to read it from the Bible. I read it differently, and obviously so do many others, including the Pope, and the entire Lutheran Church.
Those churches even have CONFIRMATION. Baptism was done when you had NO CHOICE. Confirmation affirms the choice made for you, and literally ‘seals’ the deal - with oil even. On the forehead.
Your verses aren’t evidence. Satan can quote scripture too.
Unless you are telling me that your interpretation is the ONLY interpretation of the Bible that can be permitted, you are going to have to come to grips with the fact that OTHERS can, and have, interpreted it a different way.
In the end, I think it’s better to teach that the God made the Universe good, and that He loves you, and wants you to succeed, and that none of us have been dealt the Ace of Spades somehow before we were born.
We come to God because we see Christ sacrifice for what it is, and are eternally grateful for it, and that’s it.
We literally live happily ever after.
You want to teach somebody that the true nature of man is evil, and that only those predestined to be saved actually have a shot at it, and in that number, only a smaller fraction there in actually make it to being saved - that’s on you.
***Is not disobedience a “temptation” to assert one’s own will over God?
Disobedience is an act of free will, a refusal to comply.***
So Satan has FREE WILL????????
Angels are noëtic beings with free will. The more I get such questions the more I wonder if some Protestant sects are really not some kind of a Manichean offishoots (nothing personal).
Thanks for your post on fasting.
Your theology suggests that she had no will of her own. Even if she did say "Yes Sir," as you read it, it was still her decision. Otherwise what happened to her was rape. It seems, I am afraid, the Reformed theology would find that agreeable.
You are welcome. Good to see you back.
before I was a Christian I washed many stupid decisions through my "conscience".
Got ya beat, I've made stupid ones after my conversion.
But I don't think it is my conscience that's at fault, more a lack of properly formed conscience. Conscience isn't an on/off, either/or thing. It is more like a seed (or sometimes like a pebble in our shoe). But, if we are following Satan's voice, it's definitely not our conscience, more likely it is pride.
I was taught that the key to proper formation of conscience is love. If conscience is lacking, love is lacking. Perhaps this is what you and I experienced in our stupid decisions that we attributed to "conscience" before we came closer to Christ; the absence of love that comes through us, if we refrain from pride and allow it, love the ultimate source of which is God. As soon as we try to possess it or control it, it is lost; like trying to grab water.
So conscience is from love, not Satan, we know this since even before Shakespeare ("Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?")
And when we are completely lacking in love, or worse filled with hate, or trapped in remorse without forgiveness, we lose our consciousness of the presence of God and cast ourselves out of Paradise - how do we know?: "O Conscience, into what abyss of fears and horrors hast thou driven me, out of which I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged."
It's pure Hell - the absence of love.
God predestines everything that is a part of His plan. In some cases, that has included sin. God does not approve of sin as a general principle.
Was it not the purpose of the reformed God's creation of Adam and Eve that they sin?
No, none on my side have ever said that. Only your side says that. :)
Did they have a choice (according to the Reformed theology)?
Yes, but the conditions were such that it was inevitable that they would sin. God did not "move" them to sin. He set the conditions. We do not "blame" God for planting the tree, making its fruit pleasing to the eye, and letting the serpent in the Garden. God did all this, knowing ahead of time what would happen.
FK: "My DESIRE is not to do anything without God, i.e., on my own."
How do you know that is your desire when you and all the Reformed claim that God changed your heart (without your consent), and the Holy Spirit hijacked your mind and soul?
I know for sure that it was the desire of my new heart, and also for sure that it was not the desire of my old heart. God took the old away and replaced it with the new (2 Cor. 5:17). I'm sure that many Christians would feel violated at such a prospect, believing they were plenty good and righteous enough all by themselves, but we thank Him for it everyday. :)
Well, then does man come to God on his own based on his innocence, even after he has sinned? Or, does man become good on his own (or is that what the Church does?), and then comes to God on his own, even after he has sinned?
If we believed man was essentially good, the Apostolic Church would have no reason to exist. The Church exists for sinners, not saints.
We don't even have to go to "essentially good", just "good enough" to come to God on his own. I think your side believes that (after the work of Christ made it possible for you to show that goodness you were born with or acquired through merit).
It is your side that considers all believers as "saints." It is your side that thinks once he accepts Christ man is good!
HA! :) Which of our sides believes in infused righteousness and which believes in imputed righteousness? There's your answer to that! :)
With Protestants, Paul and Christ are one and the same thing. We don't worship Paul. Your side does.
LOL! No, no. We honor Paul. We don't worship him, and we especially do not venerate him. :)
No, there is no evil in Heaven. Reformed theology says that all people wind up wherever God predestined them to be, either by inclusion or the logical resultant exclusion. Since the Bible does not appear to be CRYSTAL clear on how it works with babies, or the severely mentally challenged, etc., who have never committed sin nor believed in a way we understand, it is simply up to God. Sovereign God will save whomever He wants. I do not proclaim the names of who those people are.
By contrast, I could say that you must also believe that all abortion victims must wind up in hell because they were never baptized. I'm hoping that you are not a follower of the limbo idea, and would similarly say that God can make what appear to us to be "exceptions" to the "normal rules" that are preached in the scriptures.
Do you look at a new born baby and say to yourself... “look at that evil child”? This sounds ridiculous ,but this is in fact what reformed theology teaches.
No, when I look at a conceived embryo I say to myself, there is one who is under original sin and needs the grace of God to be saved. If God somehow imparts true faith to all of them who are destined to never reach the age of maturity, that is great with me. Or, if God waves His hand and grants an "exception" under the doctrine of common sense, that is fine with me too. Or, if some are saved and some are lost, then again, that is God's business, not mine. The point is whether a person is conceived with enough "inner goodness" to come to God on his own. AND, whether a person can somehow amass enough goodness on his own if he was not conceived with it. We say "no". We say that the Fall REALLY mattered. :)
I honestly think that preaching we are born evil could lead someone to justify abortion by thinking they are killing something evil. Did that thought ever cross your mind,Dear brother?
LOL! No, I can honestly say that thought never crossed my mind. :) One proof to show it doesn't happen is that the folks that hold to that belief are Bible-believing Christians. The true among that group also understand what the Bible teaches about the sanctity of life. While Catholics do great and wonderful work for the Lord on pro-life issues, so do we. I have never known or even heard of a Reformer who wasn't solidly pro-life.
No kidding.
I thought the whole concept of the doctrine of Election was discredited a long time ago.
That's like saying "I hate sin, but sometimes it comes in handy...I don't like to steal, but I send my kids to steal for me." How virtuous is that? We don't believe in the same God.
Kosta: Was it not the purpose of the reformed God's creation of Adam and Eve that they sin?
FK: No, none on my side have ever said that. Only your side says that
Really? So, for what reason, if not God's desire to fulfill His "plan," did they fall, a ccording to the reformed theology? Were they not predestined to fall for the glory of God as your side says? In other words, the sin of the world was introduced, predestined, created, for the gory of God? God "needed" sin in order to be glorified?
Kosta: Did they have a choice (according to the Reformed theology)?
Yes, but the conditions were such that it was inevitable that they would sin.
The sin was a consequence of their limited freedom; it was their choice to disobey.
God did not "move" them to sin.
No, He didn't. They chose to sin.
He set the conditions. We do not "blame" God for planting the tree, making its fruit pleasing to the eye, and letting the serpent in the Garden. God did all this, knowing ahead of time what would happen.
If God planted the tree in order for Eeve in and for the serpent to desieve her, then God's <>intent was to make sure they sin and He succeeded. This is like me setting up conditions for my child to fail in shcool and then kick him out of the house for failing.
Where is Christ in this? Where is Virtue?
I know for sure that it was the desire of my new heart, and also for sure that it was not the desire of my old heart.
But you make it sound like the heart is not really yours. It's either devil's or God's but not yours.
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