Posted on 01/23/2010 4:09:32 PM PST by NYer
I am humbled.
Genuine thanks.
Teaching day . . . will likely be more out of your hair today. LOL.
Have a blessed Tuesday.
A dear friend of mine knew the Sandfords and had nothing but nice things to say about them...I never met them, though.
See ya’,
Ed
By comparison, the spiritual man sees in three dimensions, the natural man sees in two.
The spiritual man sees all that the natural man sees and much, much more.
LOLOL!
How can we have a thoughtful discussion and exploration if we cannot agree on objective truth?
It sounds like a cult. I mean if I don’t see what you (RM: general you in English) see (you being the spiritually initiated) I am spiritually blind.
If all spiritual understanding has to occur under some divine trance or otherliness why are we trapped in reality? Why have a Bible that is so inconsistent and confusing vis a vis the stated Doctrines of Christianity?
What makes one a Christian? Is it designed to be confusing? You cannot know God even after becoming a full heir with Christ?
Do people just pick a doctrine and go with it regardless of the consequences, inconsistencies or illogic of it?
You are right. The Bible says it's either God or demons. How informative, how "illuminating!"
However, it is only satan & crew who come to steal, kill and destroy
The Bible says otherwise. God kills an awful lot of people in the Old Testament. Just think of all the firstborn Egyptians.
For that reason, you and I can never agree on objective truth.
Likewise, people who say they are Christian but deny the indwelling Holy Spirit often call those who testify of the indwelling Spirit "gnostic." Again, no big deal.
And no, the spiritual man cannot convey spiritual matters to the natural man. It is futile to try.
God. As Jesus said, you MUST be born again. Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. We die to the world and become alive with Christ in God.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. - John 3:5-8
And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as [he did] unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? Acts 11:15-17
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 15:5
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Romans 8:9
Actually it is designed by God to be unattainable by reasoning alone.
Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25
We Christians "know" God as in recognize Him, are aware of Him and receive all that He reveals of Himself to each of us, individually.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Matthew 16:15
Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and [that] no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. I Cor 12:3
Evidently that happens a lot. Man tends to pile up his own thoughts on top of the words of God.
But the words of God - whether Genesis, the Gospel of John, the book of Revelation - all of them are spiritual. They cannot be received by the natural man, e.g. via a scholar's historical/critical methods or the scientific method.
"Ears to hear" are a gift of God. There is no substitute.
So do psychotics.
Yes and no. We can objectively state that we go around the sun, because we can see "all there is" to know in that regard. Our ability to grasp objective truth is limited by the objective world, which is simply too large for us to see or comprehend.
Once we exceed out limit of objective knowledge, we resort to "metaphysics" mathematical abstractions to "explain" the unknowable, so we make up stories, logical maybe, but still stories. Just as Aristotle logically "explained" gravity, which we now obejctively know is false.
We can not arrive at unknowable truth through logic, so we apparently invented spiritual revelation which is, conveniently, not subject to objective or logical scrutiny.
In order to recognize something you must know what it is. How do you know it's God if you can't tell me what God/divine is? Just curious.
He reveals of Himself to each of us, individually...
Your selected Bible quotes beautifully demonstrate blatantly Gnostic elements of the New Testament.
"Ears to hear" are a gift of God.
Yet those who are deprived of the gift are condemned.
What makes you think you can do that?
Likewise the perception of the human spirit via faith is also readily reported in Scripture by multiple witnesses of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.
Right and it's blatantly Gnostic and elitist.
This isnt heretical, rather it is doctrinal, learned from faithful study of Scripture through faith in Christ in fellowship with Him, remaining humble to His work in us.
Gnosticism in any form is contrary to Church teachings; that makes it a heresy by the definition of the word.
All of this information has been gleaned independent of any reference to Gnosticism, which is heretical for it fails to attribute all things to Christ.
Gnostics considered Jesus to be the Demiurge who created the world, just as Paul teaches. Marcion wasn't crazy about Paul, and only Paul, for no reason whatsoever! :)
I only met them once—when they were on Sabbatical and my housemate worked with them and took me along. I was awash in the midst of one of my long dark nights of the soul. They were very disciplined and did not disobey the Lord about venturing out of their Sabbatical to minister to me. I was hurting so much I was slightly annoyed but respected their authenticity and obedience to The Lord.
Well put.
Though I think sometimes The Lord limits the vision of the spiritual man to what he can make constructive use of.
LOL.
I suspect, sometimes . . . to trade hyperbole . . .
that if an exception to a general rule were buried in the deepest trench in the ocean, kosta’s . . . obsessive-exception-finder would seek it out. LOL.
Sometimes, it seems like reality leaves you more tied in knots than . . . informed.
Another clear, fitting and wells stated exposition.
Thx.
However, I think you need to find a little blond headed girl in pig-tails
to go before you spreading petals of ears to hear and eyes to see before such fine treatises.
It’s sad to see them fall on deaf ears so often.
Thankfully, there are lurkers!
Ahhhhh psychotics . . .
now that’s something I know something about . . .
I didn’t realize you classed St Paul as a psychotic.
My Creed holds the Father is unbegotten and without cause: He is absolutely in se, as His Name I Am That I Am testifies. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father; He is Logos of Heaven and Earth, from the Beginning He is the Father's Very Word of Creation, and eternal executor of the Father's Will for His Creation. He is the Sword of God, yet simultaneously preserves His immaculate character as Lamb of God, Who freely sacrificed Himself for our salvation. He is Final Judge of souls: And all souls come under His Judgment in the End, regardless of their religious commitment or lack thereof. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is at once the context of and the expression of the eternal mutual Love and Light of the Three Persons, the divine community; for us men, the Holy Spirit is particularly connected with facilitation of divine communications with the world of men.
Your conception of the Three Persons as discrete, separable hypostases, with "ridged edges" so to speak, that can distinguish one from the other does not ring true to me. The mystery remains: The divine Persons are One expressing as Three....
IMHO, the Orthodox teaching is right about this: "God is always and forever unknowable and incomprehensible to creatures. Even in the eternal life of the Kingdom of God heaven, as we say men will never know the essence of God, that is, what God really is in Himself."
Which is understandable, easily enough: How much can a pot know, or tell you about, the potter who made it? It's what we might call a "categorical problem."
Notwithstanding, what we humans can understand is this: The Holy Trinity is a community of and in eternal Love.... And it forever reaches out to man, in proffered loving embrace....
I think our inability to reach any agreement on such matters proceeds from the fact that you, dear kosta, and I come at these problems from diametrically opposed directions. You want to follow the Baconian approach to the ascertainment of truth, which is to proceed from effects to causes inductive reasoning. On the other hand I start with an axiom, which is "self-evident" to me, and reason from that deductive reasoning.
My axiom is that all of God's four revelations the Incarnation, the Holy Scriptures, the natural world, and the Holy Spirit with us are all true. This assertion is testable. The best way to test it, it seems to me, is to see how well it actually holds up as an explanation of Reality, and of our own human experience. The real acid test here: No part of any of God's revelations can contradict any other, either internally or with respect to the other "partners" in Revelation.
And so you see where this axiom "bottoms out": God is Truth. No further analysis is possible at this point. For an axiom, by definition, is not separable into lesser parts, of which it can be said to be "composed." So there's nothing more primitive to find and analyze; i.e., by which to "prove" the axiom.
That's why axioms are said to possess the quality of self-evidence, at least in mathematical/logical terms. Evidently axioms "impredicativities" as he called them drove Bertrand Russell nutz.... He declared them to be prime examples of "circular reasoning."
Maybe so; but still they are to be found at the very basis of human thought, at all times and places....
And I do not find any contradiction between Holy Scripture and the natural world, the world of Creation there is nothing in modern science that contradicts anything God said, as "recorded" in the Holy Bible, that I have ever seen. So far.
Just some thoughts, FWTW dear kosta.
So . . .
how did all this
KNOWABLE
about the
UNKNOWABLE
arise within you?
Friholes and gas?
Magic mushrooms?
Visions in the night?
A special visitation by Darwin in your dreams?
Marx got a special pass from hell to pay you an exclusive visit?
I mean . . . such fantasies about what’s
KNOWABLE
about the
UNKNOWN and associated facets and factors . . .
MUST have come from something QUITE SUBSTANTIAL.
I can’t imagine that kosta is blowing up balloons with his own methane about such serious issues.
Yet those who are deprived of the gift are condemned.
########
Ahhhh more of that condeming God because he’s not made in kosta’s image that I’ve alluded to.
Impressive.
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