I am trying to understand why if Jesus was one with the Father why He would need to pray, I trust that a God that knows all things and is a good father would not need people to pray but would take care of their needs and not play games like: I will make a child very sick and if 20 people ask me I will cure the child but if only 19 pray I will let it die.
I am also trying to understand how there can be 1 God and 3 person’s but not all seem to have the same power (in some beliefs).
I believe it is a person’s right to believe in a God, Gods etc. if it helps them get through life and make them a better person. Not all people believe as I do and that is fine with me.
OK then. This is my understanding of Biblical & Christian teaching-
When Jesus became human, He limited His Divine privileges & mostly played by “human rules”. God does not NEED humans to pray to determine what He will do, but humans need to pray to maintain relationship with God. Thus, while Jesus was a
mortal human, He needed to pray.
The three Persons of the Triune God don’t really have different powers but do have
real distinctions, so that the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit. Father does Father things; Son does Son things; and Spirit does Spirit things. They can’t decide to change places occasionally.
Now- does God do things because of prayer that He would not have done without people praying? I think so, but how & why that happens, I have no idea.
I find ‘God is one’ a much better way at looking at it and is a accurate translation of Greek text as opposed to (IMHO a mistranslation) there is one God. It is the unity of purpose and action of the trinity each doing what is required for the Father’s plan. As part of this plan it appears that some information had to be withheld from the Son and IIRC the Spirit also. This does not mean that the Son and Spirit are not God.
Part of this I believe is that no one can see the Father and live, so Jesus is ‘as close as one can get’ in a sinful human body - though there are interesting possible exceptions, though those examples may be Jesus too. IIRC only 2 people in scripture has ever seen the throne of God, Ezekiel, who was protected and cleansed with the help of a angel and St. John the Divine (Revelation) who was brought there by Jesus Himself, though it doesn’t mention any specific cleansing of his sins.
God does not play games, there are real reasons for what he does and the way we communicate to Him. Yes this is taken purely on faith, though sometimes the Father, through His Spirit has revealed part of the picture and has given reasons, but this is usually a rare happening.
If you reread my posts you will see that I did provide an answer to the OP.
No one promised consistency, nor would I expect it. My point is that Christian theology has been made up as the development of the faith has gone along. It has been created by multiple people trying earnestly to reconcile what are accepted as facts, but facts which frequently and outrageously contradict one another.
No authority at all is required, and all may choose their particular “authority”–even oneself–which is my point about saying that there is no answer. There are simply an assortment of opinions. I have no way of knowing what each Christian’s understanding is, but the diverse number of mutually contradictory “understandings” is evidence that they are all wrong.
To the point of the OP:
The dilemma of Christianity is that until the arrival of Jesus, the Faith was monotheistic. In fact, that monotheism in Judaism is one of its distinguishing features. The arrival of Jesus and the promise of a Holy Spirit created an unresolvable paradox: Monotheism but three persons. All the same; all different. This is what gave rise to the the theology of the Trinity to “solve” this absolute dilemma. And of course nowhere in Scripture is the term Trinity or an elaboration of the concept. The fact that it is such an obvious oxymoron to have a Monotheistic religion with three godheads is why it is termed a “mystery” since oxymoron would not be an acceptable term.
Fine points, such as where to turn when you pray, and whether or not one godhead is required to intercede with another when they are all the same God, make lovely fodder for discussions around “understandings” but to the outside observer are the equivalent of arguing over how the turtle holds up the world.
While Ezekiel did see the Throne Chariot, there was no “cleansing” episode- perhaps because he was already a priest & thus had been involved in the blood offerings & various priestly cleansings. You are thinking of Isaiah, Ch 6. I’ll also add the tribal elders with Moses in Exodus 24 who beheld the Throne when they
ratified the blood covenant, and Daniel in Ch 7 who saw the Son of Man receiving the Kingdom before the Ancient of Days.
And of course, John didn’t need cleansing because that had already occurred- the Lamb had after all been slain (and risen!)
In the New Testament it states that Mary concieved of the Holy Spirit that would make the Holy Spirit Jesus’s earthly father.
I do not pray and I just trust that what I need wil be given to me, and what I do not have is not necessary for my well being. But if Jesus prayed as a human he was praying to the God part himself?
We discussed all that in another thread you started a while back- I gave the best response I could to that. Re-read it if necessary.
No, Jesus the earthly man was praying to His Father God (distinct from the Holy Spirit). When He became man, He set aside His Divine Privileges- Jesus praying to God was not just Jesus talking to Himself.
Do you identify with any particular faith or religion, Monavis?
Perhaps Moses and the elders, though it doesn’t sound like the throne, and yes Daniel did see it as well thanks I should have remembered that one. Adding Jesus also has seen it and has His own seat there.
If the Holy Spirit stayed in a Spirit form, instead of taking on a form of flesh the earthly ‘father’ is not necessarily Holy Spirit, by more like a method of insemination, or even embryo implantation. Though anything is possible with God, and back then the people did not understand how babies are made on a medical level, so that information is lost to humanity.
In Christian Demonology there are spirits that have sexual relations with humans (incubi/sucubi), but a spirit/human union is not known to produce offspring, and it is generally though of as impossible. One theory though is that a spirit could have sex with a man, stealing his seed, then transforming itself into a man spirit to impregnate a woman.
The Holy Spirit, being God could ‘violate the rules’ I suppose but it seems more likely that the Holy Spirit was used as a carrier of Jesus’ seed.
There is a theory that the seed was actually Joseph’s but that the implantation was miraculous. I see no compelling reason for or against that possibility.
Which is, at best, a paradox; at worst, it is nonsense. The only way God can have foreknowledge of an event is if that event is predetermined to occur.
This is a theory I do like, though Mary was not married to Joseph at the time that Jesus was conceived and it appears that the marriage was not consummated until after the birth of Jesus, so it’s not without issues.
I do not belong to any organized religion. I believe a persons’s religion is based on how one has experienced life,what one was taught, what one has studied.
Perhaps because there are so many divisions in the Christian church and so many different translations (even in some people’s own denomination) that I find it impossible to accept. Even the definition of God is different.
I believe God is the Father of all. I believe there is a Son. I believe there is a Holy Spirit. I believe God is love. I believe God is life. I believe God is light, etc.
I believe, because the Bible says, God is all and in all. I believe, according to the Bible, all things are in God and God is in all things.
I know the “Trinity” is a doctrine devised by man.
The Bible tells me to not believe the doctrines of men.
The Bible is the work of men so if you believe it than you are believing in men who wrote it, and men also translated it, and called it the word of God,or said it was inspired by God. It is a matter of believing these men.
DT, women who wear red? Also, mixed fabric was not a capital crime, any more than eating non-kosher was. In fact, it wasn’t a crime, but a ritual prohibition.
Start by reading the book of Joshua and defending a conquest by one group over every pre-existing group in their way which involved, at God’s direction, slaughtering every man, woman and child.
Joshua 10:28ff e.g. (Living Bible translation):
“On that same day Joshua destroyed the city of Makkedah and killed its king and everyone in it. Not one person in the entire city was left alive. The the Israelis went to Libnah. There, too, the Lord gave them the city and its king. Every last person was slaughtered, just as at Jericho. From Libnah they went to lachish and attacked it. And the Lord gave it to them on the second day; here, too, the entire population was slaughtered, just as at Libnah…they destroyed everyone in the land… (11:20ff) For the Lord made the enemy kings want to fight the Israelis instead of asking for peace; so they were mercilessly killed, as the Lord had commanded Moses.”
and lots, lots more…
It’s easy to gloss over the ugly stuff and cull out the sweet things, but then you aren’t talking about the Bible; you are talking about your personal paradigm, parts of which are supported by parts of the Bible.
:rolleyes:?