The dangers of In"Doctrine"ation.
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Please excuse the long post! I have trouble leaving things unsaid, even when they're not necessary. Obsessive-compulsive writer alert.
. The observation that we can't deserve forgiveness doesn't require the premise of original sin. It depends on guilt, whatever its origin is (a law typically makes someone who tansgresses it, guilty; one can transgress against love in the same way).
Let's say someone - anyone - makes a mistake. A man gets drunk one night and cheats on his wife for the first time in their 10 year marriage. He's guilty of infidelity and possibly adultery. What must he do to deserve her forgiveness?
Justice is defined as giving everyone what they deserve (their due). When you deserve something, it is due to you, and witholding it would be a crime. That means if the man did all the right things, said the all the right words and went through the proper motions, his wife has to forgive him, because he has done everything to deserve forgiveness. He doesn't even have to be sorry - in fact, he can keep cheating on her - as long as he knows he can deserve her forgiveness whether she likes it or not. Do you understand the problem?
My problem with the kind of acceptance you mention is that it proposes both parties settle for less (your "ego" is a smaller, more selfish will, not a greater more universal one). It's like hot and cold being mixed to make this lukewarm equilibrium - in time, it will just turn cold altogether. (An inverted 'frog in slowly boiling water' scenario). Likewise, some success with spiritual and moral growth can certainly be attained once the bar has been lowered this way. But only if your premise is that all we exist for, is to "grow a little". That leads to the conclusion that as long as we did our best, God (or the "ineffable universal will") must be satisfied with that, must forgive what we couldn't do: We have deserved what could be deserved, and we can't be expected to do more than that. "Things are as they should be." That's quite a statement of faith. Imagine the husband above saying that, after having achieved equilibrium with his ineffible will, and his wife's reaction.
Where acceptance makes more sense is with compromise. There are two independent parties, two definite wills, but while both parties agree that the situation isn't as it should ebe, they commit to do what is necessary to work reconciliation. There, "my will" does take second place to "our will", without creating a new, watered-down version of both. As long as the problem itself remains unaddressed, acceptance and even compromise will only be temporary solutions.
As a matter of fact, the instinctive resistance we have against such an ultimatum is that it supposes our submission has been earned without our consent, and may rightfully be demanded from us, "or else". We don't want to be cheated out of a choice any more than that man's wife wants to be cheated into having to forgive her husband. We instinctively know that love - relationships - require more than just following a set of requirements to satisfaction. So does God. We don't want our very identity compromised by someone else's will, but neither does God. If we, who don't even know who we are half the time, resist being manipulated or dismissed, how much more won't God, who knows exactly who He is?
The Bible is nothing other than a testament of the relationship between the Creator and his creation. He didn't create people to grow into these hyper-spiritual, enlightened beings, that wasn't our purpose. We certainly have immense potential, and many people are banging their heads against a wall trying to achieve "higher" states, but it counts for nothing if God doesn't sustain us. Without Him, we automatically become subject to death and judgement. God warned Israel: "My people are destroyed for their lack of knowledge; they go into exile for their lack of knowledge... Therefore hell has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure" (paraphrase of Hos. 4:6 and Is. 5:13-15).
As the Creator of life, it's not out of malice that life is not possible without Him, or that the life He created inevitably goes into a state of ignorance and self-destruction when it doesn't acknowledge Him. And as the only objective Judge over mankind, it's not out of spite that He will not let sin pass just because people think they've done enough to deserve forgiveness. He wants a relationship with us because that's what He created us for, not having that is missing our purpose, and missing our purpose has consequences. If God wanted robots that only respond as programmed, He would have created us that way.
The compromise God came to - to reconcile the world with himself - was to let his authority serve us on our terms, to suffer on our side, showing clearly that sin was against His will and that our "terms" are actually the problem: sin doesn't have an independent existence. God's love for us suffers under sin, and is often so obscured by it, that only our faith will allow us to see it. Because so many people have faith in themselves and in idols, all they can do is either accept suffering, or try to explain it away (like calling it an illusion). Jesus acknowledged that suffering was a reality, and showed us how God deals with it: by faith. God is dealing with sin, He is going to destroy its effects, but we have to turn away from it before that happens. If we're part of the problem, the solution won't be good for us - there's no point in complaining about it.
Committing to God means we acknowledge the problem - and our own part in it - and are asking him to help us get rid of sin. This will obviously involve sacrifice, obedience, spiritual growth and moral responsibility. So these things aren't arbitrary requirements, ends in themselves, they are necessary means to an end: a relationship that promises us a meaningful and purposeful passage through life as it is, whatever it is, even through suffering and death. Since equilibrium has already been restored by God, through Jesus, acceptance of Him leaves us free to give attention to other people. Without God, we are left to strive for perfection ourselves, with all the performance anxiety and doubt inherent to it, or to set the bar lower and "accept" that there is no such thing (i.e. everything is perfect and we just don't realize it, or nothing is perfect and our attempts at perfection, moral or otherwise, is irrational - and unreasonable to expect from anyone).
I think you're stretching my argument a bit too far here, stretchedstretched said:
. The observation that we can't deserve forgiveness doesn't require the premise of original sin. It depends on guilt, whatever its origin is (a law typically makes someone who tansgresses it, guilty; one can transgress against love in the same way).Let's say someone - anyone - makes a mistake. A man gets drunk one night and cheats on his wife for the first time in their 10 year marriage. He's guilty of infidelity and possibly adultery. What must he do to deserve her forgiveness?
Justice is defined as giving everyone what they deserve (their due). When you deserve something, it is due to you, and witholding it would be a crime. That means if the man did all the right things, said the all the right words and went through the proper motions, his wife has to forgive him, because he has done everything to deserve forgiveness. He doesn't even have to be sorry - in fact, he can keep cheating on her - as long as he knows he can deserve her forgiveness whether she likes it or not. Do you understand the problem?
And you should doubt that - anyone with a sense of fairness would. But it is a gross injustice to think of God's commandments that way.
My problem with the kind of acceptance you mention is that it proposes both parties settle for less (your "ego" is a smaller, more selfish will, not a greater more universal one). It's like hot and cold being mixed to make this lukewarm equilibrium - in time, it will just turn cold altogether. (An inverted 'frog in slowly boiling water' scenario). Likewise, some success with spiritual and moral growth can certainly be attained once the bar has been lowered this way. But only if your premise is that all we exist for, is to "grow a little". That leads to the conclusion that as long as we did our best, God (or the "ineffable universal will") must be satisfied with that, must forgive what we couldn't do: We have deserved what could be deserved, and we can't be expected to do more than that. "Things are as they should be." That's quite a statement of faith. Imagine the husband above saying that, after having achieved equilibrium with his ineffible will, and his wife's reaction.
Where acceptance makes more sense is with compromise. There are two independent parties, two definite wills, but while both parties agree that the situation isn't as it should ebe, they commit to do what is necessary to work reconciliation. There, "my will" does take second place to "our will", without creating a new, watered-down version of both. As long as the problem itself remains unaddressed, acceptance and even compromise will only be temporary solutions.
As a matter of fact, the instinctive resistance we have against such an ultimatum is that it supposes our submission has been earned without our consent, and may rightfully be demanded from us, "or else". We don't want to be cheated out of a choice any more than that man's wife wants to be cheated into having to forgive her husband. We instinctively know that love - relationships - require more than just following a set of requirements to satisfaction. So does God. We don't want our very identity compromised by someone else's will, but neither does God. If we, who don't even know who we are half the time, resist being manipulated or dismissed, how much more won't God, who knows exactly who He is?
The Bible is nothing other than a testament of the relationship between the Creator and his creation. He didn't create people to grow into these hyper-spiritual, enlightened beings, that wasn't our purpose. We certainly have immense potential, and many people are banging their heads against a wall trying to achieve "higher" states, but it counts for nothing if God doesn't sustain us. Without Him, we automatically become subject to death and judgement. God warned Israel: "My people are destroyed for their lack of knowledge; they go into exile for their lack of knowledge... Therefore hell has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure" (paraphrase of Hos. 4:6 and Is. 5:13-15).
As the Creator of life, it's not out of malice that life is not possible without Him, or that the life He created inevitably goes into a state of ignorance and self-destruction when it doesn't acknowledge Him. And as the only objective Judge over mankind, it's not out of spite that He will not let sin pass just because people think they've done enough to deserve forgiveness. He wants a relationship with us because that's what He created us for, not having that is missing our purpose, and missing our purpose has consequences. If God wanted robots that only respond as programmed, He would have created us that way.
The compromise God came to - to reconcile the world with himself - was to let his authority serve us on our terms, to suffer on our side, showing clearly that sin was against His will and that our "terms" are actually the problem: sin doesn't have an independent existence. God's love for us suffers under sin, and is often so obscured by it, that only our faith will allow us to see it. Because so many people have faith in themselves and in idols, all they can do is either accept suffering, or try to explain it away (like calling it an illusion). Jesus acknowledged that suffering was a reality, and showed us how God deals with it: by faith. God is dealing with sin, He is going to destroy its effects, but we have to turn away from it before that happens. If we're part of the problem, the solution won't be good for us - there's no point in complaining about it.
Committing to God means we acknowledge the problem - and our own part in it - and are asking him to help us get rid of sin. This will obviously involve sacrifice, obedience, spiritual growth and moral responsibility. So these things aren't arbitrary requirements, ends in themselves, they are necessary means to an end: a relationship that promises us a meaningful and purposeful passage through life as it is, whatever it is, even through suffering and death. Since equilibrium has already been restored by God, through Jesus, acceptance of Him leaves us free to give attention to other people. Without God, we are left to strive for perfection ourselves, with all the performance anxiety and doubt inherent to it, or to set the bar lower and "accept" that there is no such thing (i.e. everything is perfect and we just don't realize it, or nothing is perfect and our attempts at perfection, moral or otherwise, is irrational - and unreasonable to expect from anyone).
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Adstar,
* This below, is the deity who the Pope worships. Do you not worship this deity? If not, where do you differ?
"We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.
* This below, is the deity who the Pope worships. Do you not worship this deity? If not, where do you differ?
"We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.
stretched said:
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ"
What’s the point of proclaiming that one believes in one Lord, Jesus Christ if one does not believe in what He said?
Words are cheap, very cheap. The actual doctrines of the catholic church when they are placed beside the Words of Jesus make the statement "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ" as hollow as it sounds every Sunday morning when the parishioners recite these words in their emotionless monotone manner. I should know i went to a catholic church for 17 years straight. It is an insult to God to say you believe in Jesus but at the same time don't believe Jesus.
2 corrinthians 11
3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!
Isaiah 29
13 Therefore the Lord said:
“ Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me with their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,
14 Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work
Among this people,
A marvelous work and a wonder;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
My memory is also quite good. I found the [post=809316]post[/post] where you asked that question. I [post=809460]answered[/post] that no war was justifiable, and I told you why. It had nothing to do with the "Catholic line" as you call it. You called me a "Catholic Apologist" [post=807478]long before that[/post], and even then you had no better reason than that you thought I quoted "catholic saints and theologians". You will have to explain who you regard as Catholic saints and theologians, since no specifically "Catholic" (in the modern sense of the word) Christian even existed until the church split in 1054AD.Adstar said:Well i am not going to find the actual post because your post count is huge. But remember when we in a discussion and i said i only needed to ask one question to show that you where not a follower of Jesus. Remember i asked if you believed in justifiable war? And of course you followed the catholic line in opposition to the teaching of the Messiah Jesus. A few posts after that you expressed that the catholic church was the most correct church on earth to another poster. My memory is good on this one.
Good luck with supporting your second allegation. The only time I ever hear the phrase "most correct" is from the Mormons on this site. I've never used it, and certainly not when referring to a church. There wasn't even a "most correct church" among the seven churches in Asia, when John delivered his revelation to them. Yet Jesus abandoned none of them. He is the only truth that can make a person or church "true" in any sense, and his gospel is followed by sinners and saints alike.
Are you following Jesus when you distance yourself from "sinners"?
But you conform to his rabid "sola scriptura" rants?
The Eastern Orthodox church just doesn't call their patriarch "the pope", but they do have one. There was quite a few of these patriarchs originally, among whom the apostle Peter was called "the first among equals". Would you have called Peter's church in Rome, and John's church in Ephesus, and James' church in Jerusalem, all "state sponsored servile religions"?
*edit*
If you're interested in my position on churches and denominations, see my post [post=818177]here[/post]. A few posts later I say this, and I still believe it:
...our message and our testimony is not the successes of mankind in general, or the church in specific, but God himself. In the first place, we admit His success in bringing our failures to light, and in the second place, we admit His success in forgiving those failures and reconciling people with Him. He has made it possible to focus on His kingdom rather than the kingdoms of earth - including the various churches.
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Lets look at the exchange to reveal your lie.
My question was thus.
Your answer was this.
My reply to your answer
You did answer No but then you went on to say that you did support the concept of a justifiable war, when it is waged to defeat a greater evil. So therefore you real answer was Yes.
I could not find your catholic supporting statement so i suppose i cannot prove it, but your support of justifiable war is enough for me to disqualify you are a follower of the Messiah Jesus. Let me tell you saints are sinners also or are you going to start preaching sinlessness in the flesh? Do you support the catholic lie that mary was born without sin to be a perfect vessel for Jesus? Is that where this sinless saints thinking comes from?
No i am not distancing myself from sinners. i am distancing myself form false doctrines that say that sinners are not sinning.
Yes believing in and preaching the Word of God does send religionists like you into much frustration. You think it is Better to adhere to the sweet doctrines of men who do not want to follow the Words of Jesus.
No I called false what i called false. Peter John and James where not false. And don't tell me that Peter founded the catholic church.
And the sooner you see your failings in supporting the lies of the various churches the better things will be for you.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
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Quote Adstar:
“"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ"
What’s the point of proclaiming that one believes in one Lord, Jesus Christ if one does not believe in what He said?
Words are cheap, very cheap. The actual doctrines of the catholic church when they are placed beside the Words of Jesus make the statement "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ" as hollow as it sounds every Sunday morning when the parishioners recite these words in their emotionless monotone manner. I should know i went to a catholic church for 17 years straight. It is an insult to God to say you believe in Jesus but at the same time don't believe Jesus.”
* This is not really an answer to my question. Who are you to proclaim what the Pope or any other Christian believes when saying “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ". How do you weight the value and sincerity of their words? Is your “discernment” of such a holy spirit infested godly nature that you can make huge blanket statements like:
“It is an insult to God to say you believe in Jesus but at the same time don't believe Jesus.”
You find yourself worthy to stand in gross judgement over your fellow Christians. Where do you get this authority? Is it not an insult to god to stand in judgement?
Can you point out where exactly you differ in the creed in my above post? For example can you not say that :
“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.”
* If you cannot say these words in acknowledgement of your God, can you explain why?
“"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ"
What’s the point of proclaiming that one believes in one Lord, Jesus Christ if one does not believe in what He said?
Words are cheap, very cheap. The actual doctrines of the catholic church when they are placed beside the Words of Jesus make the statement "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ" as hollow as it sounds every Sunday morning when the parishioners recite these words in their emotionless monotone manner. I should know i went to a catholic church for 17 years straight. It is an insult to God to say you believe in Jesus but at the same time don't believe Jesus.”
* This is not really an answer to my question. Who are you to proclaim what the Pope or any other Christian believes when saying “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ". How do you weight the value and sincerity of their words? Is your “discernment” of such a holy spirit infested godly nature that you can make huge blanket statements like:
“It is an insult to God to say you believe in Jesus but at the same time don't believe Jesus.”
You find yourself worthy to stand in gross judgement over your fellow Christians. Where do you get this authority? Is it not an insult to god to stand in judgement?
Can you point out where exactly you differ in the creed in my above post? For example can you not say that :
“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.”
* If you cannot say these words in acknowledgement of your God, can you explain why?