***Jesus interacted with men on a personal level, and the God of the OT did the same. Are they different Gods? ***
They are different faces of the same God. Trinitarian theology and so on. God did not appear to men in the OT as Jesus did in the New. Jehovah tended to lights and voices out of the sky and burning bushes and the threat of death to any man who saw Him directly. That is quite a different appearance than what Jesus gave us.
That is also one of the reasons that the Jews rejected Jesus. He didn’t fit their bill of an all powerful King with a sword of flame victorious over all the nations on Earth.
*** How many chances did He give the Jews? Seventy times seven, etc.? :) He disciplined them out of His profound and very personal love for them. The OT God is very personal. ***
He was a distant and angry taskmaster. That approach failed.
***Do you think Job would have remained faithful to an irrational God after being through what he went through? No way.***
Men have the ability to be faithful to just about anything. Look at all those who remained faithful to Hitler right to the end. Chia Dictator Kim and Robert Mugabe also have their virtual worshippers. Job’s actions and demeanour are very commendable, but hardly proof by itself.
***There was a time before creation.***
What time would this be? God existed before the ages according to Paul. If God created time, as He created everything else, then He exists out of time.
***That has nothing to do with the truth or not of whether the one true God is personal and rational or impersonal and irrational.***
The One True God of the OT showed Himself as burning bushes and deadly fire out of the Ark. The One True God of the NT came to us in human form and died and was resurrected for our salvation. Yet, He was then taken up to Heaven. He is not the travelling preacher now that He was during His brief ministry on Earth. We rely on the Holy Spirit guiding His Church and the body of Christians.
***If you are “one” then you are saying you can snatch yourself out of God’s hands. The scripture forbids this. ***
Scripture most definitely says that man can reject God. The whole OT is the Jewish nation variously rejecting God. When Jesus revealed that His followers must eat His body and drink His blood, many of them walked, saying that it was too hard.
Judas rejected Him; Peter rejected Him three times and yet Peter’s repentence brought him back to Jesus. Peter, the prodigal son, returned. Judas, in despair, didn’t. The Jews who walked away from Him, didn’t return either.
***Your Catechism says that God conveyed what He wanted to convey in the Bible. How meaningless the Bible is since it doesn’t include the countless number of exceptions that your tradition adds.***
Are you saying that God didn’t convey what He wanted to in the Bible? Did those nasty Catholics keep some of God’s word back from Him?
A study of the early Church reveals the growing of the faith over the centuries as people started to understand better the teachings of Jesus, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught us to the best of our ability to understand at the time, and left us His Church in order to teach and develop the faith - and to define what it isn’t which are the heresies defined and acted upon.
Scripture is extremely important since it does contain God’s revealed word to us. We thought it important enough to go on the Great Commission and bring it to the heathens.
They are different faces of the same God. Trinitarian theology and so on. God did not appear to men in the OT as Jesus did in the New. Jehovah tended to lights and voices out of the sky and burning bushes and the threat of death to any man who saw Him directly. That is quite a different appearance than what Jesus gave us.
If they are different faces of the same God, then you should agree that the OT God was also personal, even if you do not recognize it. A being is either personal or impersonal. Slot machines are impersonal. Some people thing God is like that, acting randomly. But some of us think the opposite, that God is personal and acts with purpose.
FK: *** How many chances did He give the Jews? Seventy times seven, etc.? :) He disciplined them out of His profound and very personal love for them. The OT God is very personal. ***
He was a distant and angry taskmaster. That approach failed.
Even if that is your personal view, you still agree that it is the same God, right? IOW, I hope you're not saying that personality suddenly "attached" to God at some point. On a side note, do you have a view on how God overcame His failure in the OT? Did He just "wise up", or did someone help Him to understand His error in your view?
FK: ***There was a time before creation.***
What time would this be? God existed before the ages according to Paul. If God created time, as He created everything else, then He exists out of time.
That God exists out of time just means that He is not subject to the rules of time that we experience. Time is just a measure of existence. Some people consider it to be its own dimension, as it were, and I agree with that. My only point is that if we say that God created, then He existed before He created, in human terms. Whatever you want to call that existence before creation, that is the time I am talking about. There was love in the Trinity before there was creation, and love is an action that can be measured with time.
FK: ***If you are “one” then you are saying you can snatch yourself out of God’s hands. The scripture forbids this. ***
Scripture most definitely says that man can reject God. The whole OT is the Jewish nation variously rejecting God. When Jesus revealed that His followers must eat His body and drink His blood, many of them walked, saying that it was too hard.
With all due respect, so what? :) Of course men reject God. In fact, most do. Jesus said that He would not lose THOSE FEW that were given to Him by the Father. That is totally different. You are saying that Jesus DOES lose some who were given to Him by the Father. That simply goes against what scripture teaches.
And being a "follower" who is swept up into a movement (see Obama supporters) does not necessarily make one a true believer (ask an Obama supporter to name one of his accomplishments). We saw that with the rich young man. His "faith" was false and shallow. He did not have true faith. He was not given to Christ by the Father. IOW, those who walked away from Jesus were not actually true followers in the first place. They were posers.
Judas rejected Him; Peter rejected Him three times and yet Peter’s repentance brought him back to Jesus. Peter, the prodigal son, returned. Judas, in despair, didn’t. The Jews who walked away from Him, didn’t return either.
It sounds like you are confusing a temporary lapse with a full rejection of God by someone who claimed true faith, but never had it. If God allows true believers to renounce their faiths permanently, then God is a liar and we can trust Him for nothing.
FK: ***Your Catechism says that God conveyed what He wanted to convey in the Bible. How meaningless the Bible is since it doesn’t include the countless number of exceptions that your tradition adds.***
Are you saying that God didn’t convey what He wanted to in the Bible? Did those nasty Catholics keep some of God’s word back from Him?
No, your hierarchy hasn't accomplished anything in fact along these lines. I meant that logically the Catholic view would have to be that God intended to convey very little in scripture, since your tradition contradicts it so much. God DID convey what He wanted, and some are able to see it.