Given Compatibalism, and Also Given the Existence of God (IE: Calvinism), Would Moral Responsibility Fall on God?
Basically if divine predestination with compatibalism is correct, but God has libertarian free will (which I believe is given based on the claim of omnipotence), and has either ordained or actively ordered your actions, would God have higher moral culpability for those actions?
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
 UFOs Are A Psyop Shirt $21.68 |
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
No because Calvinism makes no sense.
it makes sense moron
I'm not entirely sure what the statement "God has libertarian free will" means: God is love (1 John 4:8), and His Intellect is identical with but formally distinct from His Will. All that He wills is perfectly reasonable and just. He cannot do evil because it is contrary to His nature.
It is Scripturally unjustifiable, sets Scripture against Scripture.
A tale of Calvinist Jesus:
"Lord, what must I do to attain eternal life?"
"Nothing, my son, as I've assigned you to hell lol"
And?
It goes against what is actually written.
Namely...?
Read what Jesus actually said to the rich young man.
?
I can't make myself any clearer.
Are you incapable of following a line of conversation?
So nothing.
My point is that your rude assumptions concerning divine sovereignty are nowhere near as airtight as you seem to think.
Why?
I have already explained why. Either you are now arguing in bad faith or you lack the capacity to really understand what I have written. This pseudo-Socratic line of questioning, wherein you pelt people with endless one word questions, is a tell-tale sign of an online Calvinist. Dealing with you people is exhausting because you refuse to actually engage in a dialogue.
>Creating someone who you have foreseen shall freely choose to do evil does not make you responsible for that evil
This is not an explanation.
>This is not an explanation.
The whole post is the explanation.
It is an empty statement, i.e. "no, you".
Your initial assertion was empty. Saying "God's sovereignty presupposes that man is not in control of his own will and you're moronic if you think otherwise" is an empty statement, delivered in a profoundly unchristian manner.
Logically (as well as Scripturally), man's will is a property akin to man's bones or man's eye color i.e. created and ordained by God just the same.
As I have already pointed out, the idea that God knowing ahead of time what a man shall freely choose to do before he is created necessitates God being responsible for man's will is itself a human supposition. You assume that if God had created man x differently, then man x would have behaved differently. You have yet to demonstrate why this must be the case.
Go ahead.
>is itself a human supposition
More or less of a "human supposition" than any Catholic paganism? Less, I'd wager. Also, here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-without-Paul-Tarsus-Christianity/dp/1501093428
Can you point to a single Church that teaches that Paul and Jesus are opposed?
No. And the question makes little sense, since the Church is a Roman (pagan) institution.
The Church is repeatedly referred to and talked about as an inviolable and real institution within the Gospels.
Yes? Inviolably pagan, that is.
>moronic post
>attaches a drawing by Blake
have a nice day, moron
if you want to think about imaginary logical puzzles why don't you just study math?
Because his IQ is too low.
I'm tired of pretending Calvinism is intellectually or morally defensible. It's not.
Divine sovereignty over the will of man is the only logical conclusion to an omnipotent God, despite what these morons say.
The higher moral culpability does fall on God. He himself defines good/evil, seeing the concept of morality itself was designed by this God. Thus, while it may seem bad to us, it seems necessary to God, and an omniscient being should always be trusted over the whimsies of men.
>Divine sovereignty over the will of man is the only logical conclusion to an omnipotent God
This in itself is an all too human supposition. Just because someone may know of every possible outcome does not mean that they themselves insist upon a certain end (or rather, every facet of that end). Further to this, just because God orders human history does not mean that the hearts of man aren't individually free and thus responsible. A gardener is responsible for the overall workings and beauty of the garden, and he has many tools at his disposal to ensure it goes well, but he does not force the flowers to bloom.
>morons
Unchristian, childish sentiments will get you nowhere.
>but he does not force the flowers to bloom
Of course, since he does not hold Ontological power over them, since he is not God.
So you are being facetious. Creating someone who you have foreseen shall freely choose to do evil does not make you responsible for that evil. That, again, is a human supposition of yours.
What is your point?
True
functionally useless post
You are Seemingly blind
Anyone can claim this of their theological opponents. It's arbitrary at this point. Of course the Calvinist is going to smugly assume that only his thoughts and his feelings are valid, that only they can truly see.
you are not my theological opponent
only God dictates what is right and what is wrong
>only God dictates what is right and what is wrong
I agree. And I think you are wrong in this instance. The fact that you can't support your suppositions, or even begin to refute mine without resorting to ad hominem, reinforces this.
Your assumption here is that God's moral laws are arbitrary and not intrinsically good independently of God's making them binding: as St Paul says, we know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels (1 Timothy 1:9). God's voluntaristic imposition of a law upon us merely introduces incentives for us to submit to the pursuit of the telos and final cause of Creation: contemplation of God's essence and our eternally exalting and praising His glory.
Everything in the Pauline epistles is supported by what is said in the Gospels. One of them was literally written by a disciple of Paul's. Seethe.
>Everything in the Pauline epistles is supported by what is said in the Gospels.
This is chutzpah. It may be the case that, indeed, the Gospels are read in a position of total prostration before Paul, but needs not be the case any more than them being read in a position of total prostration before the Vatican itself.
What the actual frick does the Vatican have to do with the validity of St Paul's claims to divine guidance? You're not making any sense.
Said claims are sanctioned by the Vatican.
Just as they are by the Orthodox East and the bulk of the Protestant tradition. Your point?
Indeed. See:
>it's le pagan... because I said so
If this is the defense then...yes.
You've provided no actual Biblical citation for a gulf between the Pauline epistles and the teachings of the Gospels. There is nothing to debunk in the first place.
The whole doctrine of the Atonement is a Paulism, for example.
How precisely is the atonement at odds with the Gospels?
It is never stated by Jesus.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
You have not read the Bible, Ishmaelite.
In the first excerpt, "ransom" is not synonymous with "sacrifice" or "atonement". In the second excerpt, it is John who making a statement, not Jesus. In the third excerpt, "gave" does not even imply sacrifice or atonement. In the fourth excerpt, it is John who is making a statement. In the fifth excerpt, it is John again. In the sixth excerpt, it is Peter. In the seventh excerpt, it is Peter again.
>In the first excerpt, "ransom" is not synonymous with "sacrifice" or "atonement".
>10:45 καὶ γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἦλθεν διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν
>λύτρον // lytron
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CF%8D%CF%84%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BD
>3. atonement, expiation
Frick off.
Hmmm. Why is it not translated as such then (by the Vatican, no less)?
Do you actually believe the NIV Bible translation was made by the Vatican lmao?
Who was it made by?
>In the first excerpt, "ransom" is not synonymous with "sacrifice" or "atonement".
Penal substitutionary atonement and ransom atonement are both models meant to explain the nature of salvific nature of Christ's death on the cross. There are differences of opinion whether or not they can be reconciled, but the implication of all the passages is clear -- Christ's death on the cross saved us from sin.
>In the second excerpt, it is John who making a statement, not Jesus.
>In the fourth excerpt, it is John who is making a statement. In the fifth excerpt, it is John again. In the sixth excerpt, it is Peter. In the seventh excerpt, it is Peter again.
You mean an author of one of the Gospels and the primary source for another one? All of Jesus' statements are relayed to us through them. If you reject their theological statements, you reject all of Jesus' as well.
>In the third excerpt, "gave" does not even imply sacrifice or atonement.
Yes it does, actually. Who did God give His Son? For what purpose? The implication of the statement is very obvious.
Your first point does not address that "ransom" means neither of those things. On your second point, by this Logic, one could easily say that the Pharisees who accuse Jesus of blasphemy in the Gospel of John are right since Pharisees, or their Theological precursors, wrote the Old Testament (Paul himself was a Pharisee, incidentally). Your third point is a perfect example of the prostration I mentioned here:
A ransom is an atonement. You are eisegeting the meaning of the term atonement on the basis of modern connotations influenced by Protestant culture. The passage I adduced clearly shows that the crucifixion *had a salvific component*. Jesus predicts His crucifixion three times and berates Peter for trying to dissuade Him from dying, saying he is tempting Him. The point of the prayer at Gethsemane is that the Father preordained that Christ had to die, and Christ's human nature induced Him to feel fear and trepidation over the prospect; but being God Who had assumed flesh, Christ's human will submits to the divine will in a free act of volition by the Word. But to the point -- Jesus was foreordained to die. That is the essence of the Gospel narratives.
Jesus was a Pharisee too, anon. A Pharisee was a theological tradition that espoused a belief in spirits, an afterlife and a worldly resurrection. Jesus' vituperative and vociferous fulminations against the Pharisees as opposed to the Sadducees (with whom He had greater disagreements) is precisely because of their similarities. The Pharisees had the support of the people despite not controlling elite institutions, like the Sanhendrin and the Temple, and Jesus held them to a higher standard.
You have yet to demonstrate any cleavage between Paul and the Gospels.
Of course he was ordained to die, neither I nor any Calvinists deny this. My point being that the Atonement is bolted on. As far as the second point, I think that Matthew 23 makes it pretty clear that that is not the case.
Are you alleging that you're a Calvinist... who rejects the Pauline epistles...? What...?
Yes.
How the frick does that make any fricking sense?
The point of the story is that Jesus accessed the part of him that is divine when he decided to act out of love instead of out of fear despite feeling it
And then you also access the divine when you do this because you are also a son of God
He was afraid to die but knew that someone had to stand up for what is right in full view of all who had lost faith. To heal a weary, materialistic, cruel and broken world
So he stuck to the Truth and did what he thought expressed love toward everyone and toward God in the most genuine way, instead of being a coward, and running away or turning evil.
And you and I can do this too. That's what it's about.
So Jesus wasn't God because of his lineage but because he conducted himself in a manner that allowed God to work through him
He told us to do it too
But hey you know or we can just keep telling everyone it's about God doing a magical voodoo ritual where he inseminated a woman with his divine seed (the frick?) And had a half magical love child that had to be slaughtered so his magical blood could be slurpped up by God so that God could stop sending people to Hell as long as they say sorry before they die.
>So Jesus wasn't God because of his lineage but because he conducted himself in a manner that allowed God to work through him
>Christians have killed others for simply denying the demigod status of Jesus instead of focusing on what the message of Jesus was
Unitarian moment
Idc what it's called I just think it's true
God isn't a man. He can't "become a man," God is in all things
If God sent a man who embodied the Universal Law and in that sense he was special and was "his son," OK, I can buy that, but he still wouldn't be "God as a man." God is too big of a concept to be embodied as a man. Thats a crazy projection of human egocentrism on to God imo.
But even if this is the case right, Jesus is only special there bc the LAW IS SPECIAL. And don't get me wrong, I love Jesus but I love him bc he embodied the Commandments which means he embodied love itself.
I guess UU's believe something similar but I see -isms as counterproductive
John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:9-14
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 5:16-18
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the israeli leaders began to persecute him.
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John 5:19-23
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,
23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
Philippians 2:5-11
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Colossians 1:15-20
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
1 Corinthians 8:6
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Proverbs 8:22-31
22 “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
23 I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
30 Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.
Wisdom 7:22-30
22 for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
The Nature of Wisdom
There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
23 irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
24 For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
25 For she is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
26 For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
27 Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets,
28 for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
29 She is more beautiful than the sun
and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be more radiant,
30 for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail.
Wisdom 10:1-21
1 Wisdom protected the father of the world, the first man that was ever formed, when he alone had been created. She saved him from his own sinful act
2 and gave him the strength to master everything on earth.
Cain Abandoned Wisdom
3 But there was an unrighteous man who abandoned Wisdom; he destroyed himself by killing his brother in a fit of anger.
Wisdom Protected Noah
4 Because of that sin, the earth was flooded, but Wisdom saved it again. She guided a righteous man in his flimsy wooden boat.
Wisdom Helped Abraham
5 Once when the nations were frustrated in their wicked plans, Wisdom recognized a righteous man and kept him innocent in God's sight. She gave him strength to obey God's command in spite of his love for his son.
6 Wisdom rescued a righteous man while ungodly people were dying. He escaped the flames that destroyed the Five Cities.
7 You can still see the evidence of their wickedness. The land there is barren and smoking. The plants bear fruit that never ripens, and a pillar of salt stands as a monument to one who did not believe. 8 The people of those cities ignored Wisdom and could not tell right from wrong. Not only that, but the remains of their cities still remind us of the foolish way they lived, so that their failure can never be forgotten.
9 But Wisdom rescued her servants from the danger.
Wisdom Protected Jacob
10 A righteous man once had to escape from his brother's anger, and Wisdom guided him in the right way. She showed him God's kingdom and allowed him to know about holy things. She made him prosperous and successful in his work.
11 When others were greedy for what he had, and wanted to take it away from him, Wisdom stood by him and made him rich.
12 She protected him from his enemies who were waiting for a chance to attack him. She gave him victory in a hard fight, so that he might realize that nothing can make a person stronger than serving God.
Wisdom Rescued Joseph
13 Once a righteous man was sold into slavery, but Wisdom did not abandon him. She kept him safe from sin. She went to prison with him
14 and never left him until she had given him power over an empire and made him the ruler of people who had once oppressed him. She let it be known that a false accusation had been made against him, and she gave him eternal honor.
Wisdom Led the Israelites Out of Egypt
15 Wisdom once rescued an innocent and holy people from a nation of oppressors.
16 She entered the soul of one of God's servants and[b:lit] stood up to dreaded kings by performing miracles.
17 She rewarded God's people for their hardships. She guided them along a miraculous journey. She gave them shade during the day and brilliant starlight at night.
18 She led them through the deep waters of the Red Sea,
19 but she drowned their enemies and washed their bodies up on the shore.
20 And so the righteous looted the ungodly. They sang hymns to your holy name, O Lord; together they praised you for defending them.
21 Wisdom gave speech to those who could not speak; she even caused babies to speak clearly.
1 Corinthians 1:24
but to those whom God has called, both israelites and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1 Corinthians 10:1-5
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.
2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
3 They all ate the same spiritual food
4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
Psalm 18:2
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Psalm 18:46
The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior!
John 17:1-5
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.
2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.
3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
John 13:31-32
31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him.
32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
John 16:13-15
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Mark 12:28-37
The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.
33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
Whose Son Is the Messiah?
35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David?
36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’
37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”
Luke 4:9-12
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.
10 For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Titus 2:11-14
11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.
12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,
13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
This whole dialogue was interesting to read. I'll give my two cents.
I think people are a little harsh on Paul and make him into some kind of conniving mastermind, when I don't think it's quite that simple; but there is clearly a banal emphasis put on Jesus as a magical figure who's magical sacrifice broke a magical curse and saved humanity from Hell through magic. As in, the message is largely lost, and the message IS the sacrifice.
Jesus Christ was the perfectly moral man. He was the least deserving of any punishment. He was a perfect exemplar of the ten Commandments and the spirit of the sermon on the mount. This world killed him off and then went on to worship the values of abuse, and he knew they would do it; his dying act was to tell them he forgave them all right before they murdered him.
And that was God's son.
So the point of the Gospels is a message aimed squarely at humanity: you, are the problem. Not one of you, not the worst among you, ALL of you. The way you think and feel and perceive life; the rules you've constructed for your societies. Your whole system of valuation is off. These rules are not His rules, our values are not His values. It isn't enough to follow the Commandments out of blind duty (which no one does fully anyway). Your average person thinks that because they avoid the mortal sins and confess their venal ones, they're pretty much in the clear and have been a good person.
Nonsense. We are all saved solely through the mercy of God's grace and NONE of us deserve it, lol. If we repent we can clear spiritual repercussions on our souls; but our world still decays and suffers. To fix the world, most people would need to emulate Jesus. Christians understand this and that's why they try to follow the Commandments.
But to really emulate Jesus, if people were really doing that, we wouldn't have militaries. Lmao. We wouldn't have giant luxurious buildings and much excess money. People would be sentenced to prison far less often. Humanity would orient itself in a way so different from how we are now, an observer would think it were a new species.
It stems from valuation, and perception. For an individual the best thing is to try not to sin, that is true. But there's a lot of focus on that, on personal salvation, in the Christian tradition. Its why people are so obsessive about saying "DO YOU ADMIT HE DIED FOR US?" Did he now? Blood sacrifice for sin transfer? Literal pagan ritual Magick????
It was all about love and forgiveness, unconditional and radical, even at the risk of condemnation and death, it was about OUR salvation, not yours or mine.
I dont mean to be cryptic or unclear, its just my way, to ramble. But it's crazy bc Jesus even said this directly: he whoever is concerned about his life will surely lose it
St Paul's teachings are perfectly in line with the Gospels and the epistles of the Apostles as they both present a communitarian vision of the Church as an icon of the inner life of the Trinity. For God and through Him and for Him are all things (Romans 11:36) and if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord (Romans 14:8); the first and greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and second is like it, to love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39), for to love your neighbour is the same as to love the Lord your God, as whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar, for whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen (1 John 4:20); as the story of the anointment at Bethany teaches us (Matthew 26:6-13), when there is an irreconcilable between serving the Lord and serving our brethren, it is better to please the Lord.
The Son came to give us the glory that God gave Him, that we may be one as the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit are one (John 17:22; 1 John 5:7), so that with one mind and one voice we may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 15:6), for in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others (Romans 12:5), with different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them (1 Corinthians 12:6), for God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be (1 Corinthians 12:18), so that each of us should use whatever gift we have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms (1 Peter 4:10), for to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it (Ephesians 4:7); Christ is the head of the body, the church (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18), just as the head of Christ is God (1 Corinthians 11:3). The unity of will and activity in mankind the Church is an image of the unity of will and activity in the Godhead, wherein the Son can do nothing by Himself, doing only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does, for the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does (John 5:19-20), the deeds in which the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him, and as God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once (John 13:31-32), glorifying Him in His presence with the glory He had with Him before the world began (John 17:5).
By living and participating in a community, we come to comprehend the glory of the inner life of the Godhead, for only God is good (Matthew 19:17), but everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4), as those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, and those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified (Romans 8:29-30); for they are co-workers in God’s service (1 Corinthians 3:9; Hebrews 3:14), having been set free from sin and become slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:18). Although Christ demands that we be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48), He clearly states that although it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven and that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-24), with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first (Matthew 19:30); the point of the parable of the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) is that men of different merits shall all make it into heaven, just as Christ declares the wealthy Zacchaeus saved (Luke 19:9), despite his not selling all his possessions and giving them to the poor (Matthew 19:21), as the point of the parable of the talents or ten minas (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27) is that men are judged according to the gifts they have been apportioned. The lazy servant is not chastised for earning less than his more competent co-workers, but for having failed to try whatsoever, for each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them (1 Corinthians 7:17); Matthew situates the parable of the vineyard immediately after the tale of wealthy youth to exhort those more virtuous to not feel envious of those with lesser gifts awarded with eternal life, whereas Luke situates the story of Zacchaeus and the parable of the ten minas to exhort those with lesser gifts to nonetheless to do their best despite their inability to attain perfection. It is thus why it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, but since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband (1 Corinthians 7:1-2), and why there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:12), even if it is not mandatory.
For Paul, of faith, hope and love, the greatest is love (1 Corinthians 13:13), for man is justified in Christ by faith working through love (Galatians 5:6), if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2), as whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:8). Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me (Romans 7:21), a slave to the law of sin (Romans 7:25); thus, we are not justified or condemned by the works that witness our fallen nature, but by the works that witness our faith.
Luther was right that Calvinists are morons who damn themselves with man-made logic that is unscriptural and unnecessary.
how someone can unironically be a Calvinist in this day and age and not hate themselves is beyond me
Calvinists tend to either be hopeless neurotics who are implicitly convinced of their own damnation or self assured borderline sociopaths who feel justified in everything they do, regardless of the damage it leads to, because they're convinced they are chosen. Aside from Gavin Ortlund, I have yet to come across a Calvinist who doesn't fall into one of these two categories. Given the premium Christianity places on kindness, gentleness, patience and humility, it makes it difficult to see them as truly fruitful.
>Given the premium Christianity places on kindness, gentleness, patience and humility
???
>Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12)
>Given the premium Christianity places on kindness, gentleness, patience and humility
>Christianity
>posts a Paul excerpt
Clockwork.
Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament. Every single Christian regards Paul as authoritative.
>Every single Christian regards Paul as authoritative.
Demonstrably false. Moreover, absurd.
>Demonstrably false.
Go on then.
Paul is a figure of the Vatican Pantheon, along with Mary, the Pope, John the Baptist, Satan, etc. It is trivially easy to find Christian literature opposing Paul in general.
well said
Look at Scotland and their rampant alcohol abuse.
No because what is moral comes from what you have been commanded to do. It makes no sense to judge the authority issuing the command by the command.
So unless one believes there is a higher authority than God (for example, if he is bound by laws of logic), in which case surely a Christian would have to concede such higher power in fact IS God, then a Christian cannot really apply moral categories like that to God. I guess we could apply one moral category, that God is good, to God, but that's basically tautology since we can only say something is good in the first place with reference to God.
God enters into covenants and holds Himself to them despite being omnipotent. It is within His nature to act in accordance with His own laws.
Being able to break an agreement doesn't mean He would want to. I don't think what you've said is incompatible with what I have.
>Paulism
Frick off, cryptomuslim.
Also, the accusation of Islamism is very ironic. Would the Islamic turn not be absolutely congruent with Catholicism? Taking Catholicism seriously, Muhammad is just another brush stroke of the natural revelation, why not put him next to Paul, Mary, the Pope, etc.?
Calvinism is essentially a negation of Christianity itself.
The core principle behind Christianity is redemption. Whether it's Jesus redeeming mankind on the cross or a human being being redeemed by God's grace and forgiveness of sins, the entire religion hinges upon the concept of free will. The sins themselves are only sins because they're chosen by a will which could choose differently. The further decision to either repent or forgo repentance of sin is subject to the same conditions. Hell is only justifiable as a debt for sin because a will which can choose, exists. Heaven is only meaningful because one can choose it.
Redemption is core to Christianity and choice is core to redemption. To throw out either one through a doctrine of predestination, simply isn't a form of Christianity. It's a fringe, alternate religion with Christian aesthetics tossed over it, what dogmatists or zealots would call heresy.
But idrc about that, I just think it's stupid.
For your OP: if that were indeed the case, if we were scripted proxies for God's direct will, bots essentially, then yeah obviously God would be the moral bearer, but in another sense no, because God is alone, therefore morality wouldn't even meaningfully exist. If we were all scripted bots controlled by the only actual will in existence, then there'd be no morality to speak of. How is God to be held responsible for evil if he's literally alone sitting in his room playing with toys? There's no evil or good there's just God fricking off in his room. Once we come about, there's good and evil.
Pardon? First, the play (ludic, perverse) between "free will" and the will of God(s) is the very foundation of paganism. Second, Catholicism always adds the clause of Epistemological blindness to the clause of free will, such that everyone is free, indeed, to indefinitely damn themselves.
Well, no, this is actually the core break between monotheism and polytheistic paganism.
In the paganisms, the Gods were just supermen. Immortal, powerful, magical beings with all the characteristics, otherwise, of men. Or chimeras or animals or what have you. The point being, they were by necessity projections of some element of Creation; even if they represented something more metaphysical, like a "force" of nature or the psyche, they were still LIMITED and that's my point.
The will of the God's vs free will, in paganism, was a picture where men are the hapless victims of the machinations of these supermen, and it is their duty to smite these attempts to control their will by asserting it. Here, man is a victim heroically striving against the forces of nature and desire, of which he is just caught in between. The God's are the cause of the problems.
In monotheism, God is almighty and all powerful as well as not reducible to anthropomorphization, and doesn't really "play games" with anyone or force anyone to do anything. He sets up Creation, and then we make choices. The Devil (or similar figures) act as tempters, to whom we either give consent or walk away from. God admits to us that it is in our nature to give in to temptation, but that we've also been endowed with the capacity to resist.
In the first scheme, man is an innocent child caught between forces with their own motivations and a large power differential, man is a victim of cosmic ambivalence to his own desires, and uses his will to combat this, "stolen thunder from the gods." The God's may aid or hinder him, but it is always him using his will to either transact with, or defeat, the gods.
In the second scheme, God can't be transacted with or defeated, the world was made perfect and grows corrupted through sin, we are made with a propensity toward temptation, an ability to resist it and a will to make a choice, thus every single issue in our reality is our --humanitys-- fault.
A world of difference.
This is starting to sound like Peterson.
No. The problem with Peterson is that he doesn't believe in God. These are all metaphors, for him. At most they might be "echoes of unconscious archetypes."
I believe in God. I even believe in Jesus. I don't believe the point of the Gospels is Jesus had special blood because God shot his junk into some lady and that that blood had to be spilled because God is hungry for magical blood and now we get to say sorry.
I think it cheapens it, is neurotic, and has lead to a ton of harm that ironically undermines the Commandments. Christians have killed others for simply denying the demigod status of Jesus instead of focusing on what the message of Jesus was, because that is the part of him that was divine anyway. Not his blood.
And now we don't have crusades but every time I see a Christian online arguing about the actual blood divinity of Christ, I laugh so that I can stop from crying. It's like arguing about what color hat God wears.
Jesus was black btw
No. The world that exists is just one possibility out of many (and the best possible one at that) that God chose to actualize.
New developments in atheist anti-metaphysics courtesy of Ayer, Carnap et al.
Nobody reads anything. Someone will drop a nasty turd baby of philosophical dog shit in a thread, and if you quote the source material they didn't read, they still won't read it. And then they'll continue to think they won, because if you were right you would have been able to clean up the diarrheal outpouring with a post shorter than the Reddit TIL posts that they use as their exclusive source of information.
Yeah thats almost true. Idk tho. It's not even the length here, I'm pretty verbose myself. It's just like, rude, dismissive, treating me like an idiot. I give my take on Jesus and the teachings, in my own words, and this dudes response is to literally quote scripture for like 6 replies in a row. Basically shows me he didn't really engage with what I said at all, saw I have a different view, gasped in horror at heresy and then spastically started quoting the Bible.
Which would be OK if it were quotes to support an original response to my reply that shows me he's thought about it and wants to have a conversation.
Instead of you know
Spamming me with verses like it's gonna suddenly change my whole world
Yeah, I agree. I didn't know the context of your post and critiqued it like I do most tl;dr ingrates. In this instance he could have formulated a written refutation backed by the literature, because the quotes here aren't necessarily a refutation of your argument.
>like I do most tl;dr ingrates
-_-
Thanks BRO
I already wrote an extensive essay on the topic of the Pauline epistles earlier in the thread and no-one replied.
I don't really see the point in lucubrating some sedulous explication of what each and every verse entails. In my experience, Unitarians like to massively distort and decontextualize any Scripture adduced against them, but the convergence of all the evidence taken together makes the truth readily apparent.
That's because we're reading the same words and where you read them and say "ok this is about a magical love child's blood sacrifice and how he was actually God and now I get to say sorry so I can not go to Hell when I die" I look at it and say "this is about following the Commandments so the world can heal and I can maintain the integrity of my soul"
I just posted a lot of Scriptural evidence Jesus is God, but sure. Your inability to comprehend how the Incarnation works is truly incredible.
To me he seems to be just spouting off Tolstoy's theology. Christ is our saviour and the son of God because he is the one to introduce the laws (way of being) which will truly redeem us. A focus on the imitation of Christ well kind of ignoring the rest of the bible because of the absolute paradox of God becoming man. I understand where he is coming from; there is appeal to an interpretation of the gospels in that way (I think its easy to accept and live out, well feeling good about yourself and actually being virtuous). I for one cannot understand the transcendental One becoming Man so I like the Tolstoyian gospel reading but also see that ut requires a selective reading of the bible.
But Christ could certainly not have established the Church. That is, the institution we now call by that name, for nothing resembling our present conception of the Church-with its sacraments, its hierarchy, and especially its claim to infallibility-is to be found in Christ's words or in the conception of the men of his time.
For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
- Uncle Leo
Your inability to comprehend how God works is equally incredible
Alright then, how does God work, Mr Exegesis?
Why cant both of you be right.
>IQfy
Nobody cares about your shitty made up magic man in the sky. Sage goes in all fields.
Longing for God.