Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Are you kidding? Or are you Catholic?
I am neither kidding nor am I Catholic.
I just think that's it's a bit presumptuous to claim the knowledge that God doesn't have any modern-day Pauls out there.
By the way, I think that your style of worship/fellowship/studying is your perogative. We have only God to answer to.
Commemorating a real event.
And if Moses never went up the mountain and received the Law, if it was a gradual divinely-inspired work, then when did God and the Israelites make their covenant?
Are we using the same definition of "divinely-inspired"? Aside from the original tablets of the Law which Moses broke, everything else was given by God to Moses through revelation. I see no reason to believe that God dictated this word-for-word, and that Moses served only as a scribe. Doesn't the Catholic church understand divine revelation in basically the same way? That the words of scripture are divinely inspired, but are written down by the prophets in their own style?
That is your assumption. I don't see why he would have to be God in order to represent God. Catholic priests are not God simply because they forgive sins in confession. Sins are forgiven when we repent and turn to God for forgiveness. Someone telling you "your sins are forgiven" is stating what God has already done.
Yes. And if your circle of friends becomes too big, you'll need to rent a hall. Keep attractign people because of your teaching and soon you'll find yourself a bona fide Church.
It's a question of scale.
SD
That's okay. I just elaborated further to Dave, so maybe I answered your question.
Most of the snow went north of us (Des Moines). Is it staying south of you?
So far so good. It was supposed to start this morning, and we didn't start getting any snow until about 2:00. Hopefully that means we won't get as much accumulation. We're at 30°. With wind gusting up to 28mph, it feels like its in the teens.
OK. So there is some basis in a miraculous event to this central act of the religion, right? (Which was the original point.)
Are we using the same definition of "divinely-inspired"?
I doubt it. :-)
Aside from the original tablets of the Law which Moses broke, everything else was given by God to Moses through revelation.
I think I was thinking these original tablets was the whole of the Law.
I see no reason to believe that God dictated this word-for-word, and that Moses served only as a scribe. Doesn't the Catholic church understand divine revelation in basically the same way? That the words of scripture are divinely inspired, but are written down by the prophets in their own style?
Yes. I hadn't thought of it like that, tending to see the entire thing given more like a fait accompli, written in stone, as it were.
SD
Well, the priest is only acting in loco Christi, so the analogy does not completely work. The priest speaks for God because he has been ordained with the power to do so.
This power ultimately coming directly from Jesus. The question is where Jesus derived this power from. I don't think he was just "communicating" forgiveness.
SD
Just wishing I could start doing some work in my garden.
Another reply to this one.
Do you visit any gardening forum sites on the web ... like www.gardenweb.com ?
Also ... you can upload photos of your lawncare/landscaping/gardening efforts to ... www.ratemylawnandgarden.com
You can see some my last year's results at ...http://www.ratemylawnandgarden.com/index.php?422
http://www.ratemylawnandgarden.com/index.php?423
http://www.ratemylawnandgarden.com/index.php?424
http://www.ratemylawnandgarden.com/index.php?425
Hey, now. Am I going to have to beat you up too? He's here caz years ago God sent him to me when I asked Him for a boy friend. Know who Alan Jackson is? In one of his songs he sings "I prayed to God last night and He told me to tell you to be patient because I'm a work in progress". :') (aren't we all?)
Shouldn't that be as long as you don't TRY to kiss me? LOL
Well. He might wanna hug me and I don't want to confuse that with an attempt at a kiss. :-)
Not really. I think too much dependency on miracles is an odd objection to Christianity for a Jew to make. That's all. You cited archeological evidence for the reign of David. I mentioned the exodus because there is very little archeological supporting the story - so little that many jews don't believe it really happened.
I just blew out three paragraphs in which I explained why I disagree with the above statement. We've gone over this topic before.
IMO, the important thing is that when we think of God from the standpoint of Being, we agree that He is One. Thus, despite the multiplicity of persons in the triune Godhead, Christians are monotheists. From my perspective, the most logical way to resolve the paradox of three divine persons sharing one divine being is to hold instead that there is only one person in the Godhead, and that Jesus is united to Him in Spirit rather than in Being.
All of which gets too bogged down in the theological definitions, and misses the overall Truth. What does it even mean to talk about "God's Being", anyway? As soon as we try to put it into words, we fail. We cannot understand God as He is. All of our words about Him at best point to the Truth, which cannot be known intellectually, only experienced in relationship with Him.
We agree that God is One. I'll further agree with you that Jesus is One with God. And still further I agree that we can be One with God, too. Say more than this, and we get into intellectual debate and lose sight of knowing, which can only be attained through relationship with Him.
And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.
I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;
And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.
And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. (Hosea 2:18-23)
Okay, I can see why you say this. Now, implicit in this is the belief that only this would be an acceptable sacrifice to God.
Would you agree or disagree that God, being sovereign, could choose to accept whatever sort of sacrifice He wanted? That it was up to God to decide what He found acceptable?
From God, right?
I don't think he was just "communicating" forgiveness.
If his will was perfectly aligned with the Father's, then his saying "your sins are forgiven" would be the same as if the Father were saying this, no?
Two thoughts. Of course God could have created the universe differently, and then justice would not have required an infinite reparation for an infinite gulf.
Second, and more "progressive," God provides Himself a sacrifice not for His own need to be propitiated, but for our human need to make amends. Since we are made in His image and He is Just, we by nature wish to set things right that we have disturbed. We would not feel that we have made amends without dong restitution. So God provides the way to make restitution.
By necessity, this must be infinite.
SD
Nice! I'll have to see if I have any images still around from last year's garden.
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