The Neverending Story (The Christian Chronicles)

Associated Press ^ | 3/24/01

[malakhi]

The Neverending Story
An ongoing debate on Scripture, Tradition, History and Interpretation.

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

Previous Thread

[OLD REGGIE]

At least you guys are consistent. I am wondering how you look at a newborn baby and see a sinner, but you don't do that do you?

Instead you look in the Bible and that's that. Experience and sense play no part.

Right here!

SoothingDave 1:
1 All, except Mary, are stained with "Original Sin".

[SoothingDave]

Please continue in your rantings, they only further serve to delineate those who can discuss things reasonably and those who think they are an oracle of the Almighty.

SD

[SoothingDave]

Reggie, what sin has a newborn baby committed?

SD

[RobbyS]

Christianity in his time was a large amalgum of sects - not a single large sect surrounded by smaller sects. Did you guys dig up a 312 edition of the World Almanac? If we may believe Mani, you are wrong, because he deliberately copied his church after the Christian Church, and his church was highly centralized. As to exact numbers, if the Catholic Church at that time had no larger proportion of the Christian population that it has in the United States today, then it would have a huge advantage. Furthermore, it had an energy that the present CCUSA lacks, being more like Spellman's Church which scared the bejeebers out the Protestant Establishment. (But then I suppose you have never read P aul Blanshard)

[IMRight]

Anabaptist theology does tend to break down when dealing with young children. They pay lip service to this mess when they have "baby dedications" & "christenings" that are certainly un-(not anti-)scriptural, but they must have a cultural "need" there.

Of course, ours can too unless you think that unbaptized newborn babies go to Hell when they die. Not something I'm particulary interested in defending.

[newgeezer]

I don't know. My thoughts aren't God's thoughts. My ways aren't His ways. I do know His justice is perfect.

[OLD REGGIE]

Mary is an exceptional case. God is not bound by time. It is funny that you are so limited by your human thoughts, which you claim to be the mind of God.

And your thoughts are based on what? Scripture or _________?

Please go away again and stop wasting everyone's time with your rantings. (The surest sign Havoc is rattling Dave.)

[malakhi]

and I'm virtually honor-bound then to throw the Gospel out, aren't I?

I don't think I'm the right person of whom to ask that question. ;o)

Also, isn't the Septuagint that version of what Christians call the Old Testament which has all those books in it which Catholics added to the Bible?

I don't think there is a definitive answer to this. It really isn't accurate to speak of "the Septuagint" as one, bound, definitive text.

[SoothingDave]

I don't know. My thoughts aren't God's thoughts. My ways aren't His ways. I do know His justice is perfect.

Well, then. Seeing as how you can not explain how every single person, including the freshly born "has sinned" and that all you can do is plead the exhaustion of human reasoning, isn't it possible that the puzzle can be solved by recognizing that the statement you are making an idol of is, in fact, a general statement and not an absolute statement?

How do you know when to take Scripture as deadly literal as you are this passage and not some other passages?

SD

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

OK. How long does this "pass" last?

Until they know that they know.

What is your definition of "sin"

The fallen condition of man.

and what does one have to do to be "guilty" of it?

Be born.

Why can't you answer?

I did.

I think the difference here, going on what little you gave me, is that you think small children "sin" but are not held accountable for it.

You got it.

BigMack

[malakhi]

She had to have an offering because she was a sinner; she was not sinless.

This is precisely the point our lurker friend was trying to make. Based upon my reading of the passage from Leviticus, I don't think it even applies to the infant. It says "one burnt offering and one sin offering ... for her" -- meaning the mother.

[OLD REGGIE]

How about $450?

BigMack

How about if he gives you $.50 for every dollar you get for him above $350,000?

[SoothingDave]

Of course, ours can too unless you think that unbaptized newborn babies go to Hell when they die. Not something I'm particulary interested in defending.

We have no revelation of the salvation of such children, only the enduring hope in God's mercy.

But we recognize that their peril lies in their unregenrated, damaged humanity and not in any personal sin they may have committed.

SD

[SoothingDave]

Is there a difference between the "sin" we are born in and the sin we commit by our actions?

SD

[SoothingDave]

Based upon my reading of the passage from Leviticus, I don't think it even applies to the infant. It says "one burnt offering and one sin offering ... for her" -- meaning the mother.

What is the sin?

SD

[RobbyS]

You don't know much about village life in any age/place do you? In the town of Ramstein in Germany,a town of about 6,000, I guess, the phone book had large numbers of people with the same family names. Their ancesteries could easily betraced back back at least five hundred years. I bet half the town was related by blood. Furthermore, a German from another village who married into a family was often still treated like a stranger thirty years later. Roots.

[AlguyA]

'It really isn't accurate to speak of "the Septuagint" as one, bound, definitive text."

Indeed. However, doesn't the Septuagint roughly parallel what scholars call 'the Alexandrian canon?' Also, would it be fair to state that if one accepts as canonical the Palestinian canon upon which the Protestant Bible is based then one is forced to admit Matthew's emphasis on the Virgin-Birth of Jesus lacks support from Isaiah? Put simply, wouldn't there be a discrepency between the way Matthew qoutes the verse and the way the verse itself appears in Isaiah?

[Havoc]

Like I said, you are the one with the faulty logic. you don't udnerstand pre-emptive salvation and you think that confession can somehow work like that. your analogy is as faulty as your razor thin knowledge.

Oh, no. I understand alright. I understand you are running away from something that you have run into a paradox with at high speed. When you regain your composure, you just let us know. There is no such thing as pre-emptive salvation. God cannot circumvent my free will or yours in making our own choices. It is not allowed - not now and not then. He operates within the same rules he applies to us.

Mary is an exceptional case. God is not bound by time. It is funny that you are so limited by your human thoughts, which you claim to be the mind of God.

Crapola. Mary is not an exceptional case. "God is no respector of persons". Ring a bell? It should. It means no man is better or worse than any other in the eyes of God. If he does it for one, he must do it for all else he is unjust. The problem is to do for one is not possible. I've not claimed to be the mind of God. I know scripture. One wonders why you know so little of it that it keeps biting you on the aft quarters yet you sit and proclaim paradoxes and wish to pretend you're so intelligent that no one can understand but you.

I seriously question your sanity. Why do you continue to make these thigns up? What is the supposed comparison between someone, by the grace of Christ, being prevented from sinning and someone who lies in confession with the intention of sinnning in the future?

Well lets see, what is the comparison indeed. Hmm. Could it be that the Apostles actually back me up while you have to make your's up out of whole cloth and then make statements like you did with regard to all these other scriptures in which you've contested the apostles and want to say that All actually means something else because you know better than them. Pride goeth before the fall.

If you can't tell the difference between past, present, and future and between being forgiven and having nothing to be forgiven for, then I can't help you.

When exactly is it that you presume she got forgiven and never sinned again? Hmm? After Christ died? Until he passed and rose again, the sacrifice was not complete. Do you intend to tell us Mary was sin free and therefore offered a turtle dove for her sins? Care to tell us why God can somehow make Mary Sin free from birth to death and can't just do it for all of us by caveat? This should be good. Ignore the rest and just deal with this. Hint, every direction you can possibly turn with this will turn back on you as a paradox.

Mary could not be forgiven of sin before there was a sacrifice for it. This is not possible. And God is bound to time where we are concerned because we are bound to it. He cannot act on things we have yet to do. If he says believe and confess and we've done neither, then he cannot follow through until we move. Your wish to change the laws of the universe to make your philosophy work shows the level of desperation. Incredible. Who do you think believes you now? Do you honestly think people are this dumb?

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Is there a difference between the "sin" we are born in and the sin we commit by our actions?

No.

BigMack

[RobbyS]

Why can we not read the Scripture to say that John was simply the type of Elijah? Where does Jesus say, as my prophet Havoc will say , John IS that Prophet returned?