That’s a limit you’ve placed on God. Who says he can’t do the logically impossible? Who says he’s bound by logic (or any other universal law) at all?
Your initial premises is close enough, but there are some points that I would express differently. One thing in direct contradiction is salvation is a free gift, not to be earned, but anyway:
I could ask where did the universe come from. Your concept of beginning and ending is flawed. Our time on earth is not the same as time in the heavens. All our time sort of fits as a moment, a blip, until earth is restored (given immortality as we will be also transfigured). Till then the concept of a beginning, middle end is forced upon us, but it is a abnormal state.
Eternity is the normal state, and creation with a beginning and ending is what God created and that was something different. God has patterned man after Him and we can see from this that God, being ever loving, has a tendency to create children as a outflow of His Love. God desires children to pour out His Love into and His children are actually parts of God Himself.
Our universe is a living child of God, so is the earth, a ‘smaller’ child, sometimes called mother earth and we are her children, children of the universe and children of God. God’s children on all levels are hybrids between God and creation, taken care of (Love poured out) from the Father.
All life is God, always was God and exists without our concept of time. All children are part of a single body, just like each cell on your body is part of your body, and if you can expand that to every person on earth, going about their daily routeen is the body of the child of Mother earth, this child is Lord Jesus.
Life itself never ends, a child is part of the heart of the parents always. It is the parent’s soul that lives in flesh inside the child. As that child grows in Love the parents Love will increase, and that child has children that grow in Love, that child’s Love will grow and so will the parent’s Love and so on.
If you seek God you will find Him, that is a promise of God. It is God’s responsibility. Enoch got taken to heaven before Jesus was born, so the path to heaven as expressed by the ‘rapture’ was always open.
The basically concept is life as we know it is really cycles of death, reincarnation is a cycle of eternal death. A soul will re-live their life over and over, each cycle getting worse (some exceptions), till they cry out for their Father, the one they knew way before they were born to creation, when they were physically connected to God. This is part of every person, every angel and demon. When things get so bad, they will remember the oneness they once had with the Father and will seek Him.
Also believing and being baptized does not guarantee one not going to Hell (Jesus believed and was baptized but spend time in Hell), all it does is eventual salvation which everyone is going to experience anyway.
Also Hell is not eternal (maybe eternal for the Devil), as Jesus has conquered the grave and gave every believer the power to raise people from the dead.
Faith is a gift from God, also God looks at our hearts, not the minds so much. They may go into hell for a time, or more accurately Sheol, which is Hell, but the fire and torment is masked to make it seem like a regular but very sucky life - till they cry out
N/A everyone will come to God, possible exception the devil but I believe God has a plan for him too, much like a black hole can evaporate away due to Hawkins radiation, the devil may evaporate away as he has children and the children (who are part of the heart of the father) are saved.
Good luck, from fundies to liberal Christians you will get many views.
I wouldn’t say that around Catholics like me - that’s at the very least borderline heresy. You have a very Protestant statement there, and maybe only half of them would even agree with that.
I should probably point out, too, that while I’m keeping this civil, kanicbird… uh… isn’t exactly mainstream. Meaning most of his ideas are… “uncommon.”
On God’s omnipotence: Theologians differ on exactly what God can do. There are roughly two views on what omnipotence means.
First, omnipotence means that he can do anything which is not logially contradictory. That is, he can do anything which makes sense - although the sense it makes is to him and not to us.
Second, that ordinary human laws of logic are things he permits for us to get by and that he himself isn’t bound by them. They probably only only exist in this universe.
As a practical matter, it’s not really important here. As with msot things Christians argue about, the differences hardly exist for those who aren’t huge Christianity nerds.
Sorry, I haven’t been back to this thread since my last post. As you’ve seen, Christians are a diverse lot and you’re going to get a lot of variation in your answers.
No, the point it that we are incapable of belief without grace - it comes first. Whether or not be believe is a response to God’s grace, not a trigger for it.
Some Christians are Universalists – they believe all people will eventually come to be saved through Jesus Christ. Probably more widely believed is that people who refuse God’s gift of salvation through Jesus in this life have irreversibly rejected God and will remain separated from Him for eternity.
Here is an imperfect analogy: someone gives you a Christmas present. If you accept it, does that mean you earned it? If you refuse it, do you blame the giver that you didn’t receive it?
- Yes
- Yes
- Not exactly. Jesus was not “created” in the sense that there was ever a time he did not exist. He is co-eternal with the rest of the Trinity. The creeds describe this as “eternally begotten” of the Father. But yes, we believe that this person of the Trinity was incarnated as a human being at a particular place and time in human history, was crucified, died, and buried, and rose again. Through Him, we are saved.
- “Saved” - our sinfulness (things we do contrary to God’s will and character) no longer separate us from God, in this life or the next.
Eternal salvation is an incredibly valuable thing required holiness on the part of the individual receiving it. Only the holy can be with God. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, believers are made holy, and thus are able to receive eternal salvation. It is free in the sense that it has been paid for by someone else and what I have to do receive it is so far out of line with the value received.
Say I buy cars for all my family, but say they have to come pick them up at my house. After my brother gets home with his car he tells his neighbor he got a free car from me. Would the neighbor say. “It is not really free if you have to go all the way to Puddleglum’s house to get it”?
I took on one set of Q’s but not this set~
1.) Yes.
2.) Yes.
3.) Eh- I would prefere to say The Creator became part of the Creation as the man Jesus who lived, died & rose immortal for our salvation.
4.) Being spiritually reborn through trust in God/Jesus, living faithfully as possible to Him, and being raised into Eternal Life in harmony with God/Jesus either at physical death or the Day of Resurrection.
Bad analogy all around. Let me fix it for you:
You hear from a friend of a friend of a friend that if you come over to my place I’ll give you a new car. The problem is that no one has ever returned from my place, and no one has actually seen any of these new cars.
Two things:
- If you say that God is not bound by logic, you are essentially saying that God is illogical, which provides a reason not to believe in God.
- If you say that God can do the logically impossible or that he isn’t bound by logic, what are you saying, precisely? In my mind you are saying that God is engaged in something that is simply incoherent or that God itself is incoherent. So, God is a ‘square circle’ - which is an entity that does not make sense and cannot be conceptualized. If this is true, then it make utterly no sense to say that such an entity exists. You can’t even express what this entity is supposed to be, let alone if such an entity could exist. Could one of God’s characteristics be that he both exists and doesn’t exist? If so, then what does that mean? How can you express positive belief in something that is incoherent?
It isn’t imperfect, it’s entirely useless. If someone gives me a Christmas present that I cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch or in any way whatsoever perceive, how can I possibly say I DID receive it? I can politely say thank you while making note to find out if they are on their meds, but as far as I’m concerned I haven’t received anything.
So that’s my point of view…and since it IS my point of view, does the giver then accept my polite thank you which is the best I can do or recognize that I’m not seeing-hearing-smelling-tasting-touching-perceiving anything at all, get offended that I’m failing to perceive the gift, and take it back?
Yes, this is the issue I have about equating acceptance with belief, as though they are the same. They are not. I will joyfully accept any salvation I am offered and be grateful to receive it. But I cannot will myself to believe that any of this stuff is true to begin with, so that salvation is being withheld from me as a result of my inability to believe it exists. (according to some, not all) Belief is not a choice I can make, so to hang the salvation of my eternal soul on something I have no control over seems grossly unfair.
And now that I review all this, it seems to me that rather than impose some (mildly twisted, actually) test on everyone, demanding they have faith, the loving, fair, reasonable approach would be for God to check in with us AFTER we die and are capable of perceiving all this, presenting the option at that time: accept JC as your personal savior? Okee doke! But to damn me for all time because my fancypants brain that he made finds the idea of all this completely unbelievable is, and I mean no disrespect to those who do believe, cruel and narcissistic to a degree I would hope no genuine God would be subject.
That’s not the question you asked nor the point of the analogy. I was illustrating the idea that salvation is not something you earn or deserve.
I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to have a discussion of what “true believing Christians” believe. If you just want to bash Christianity, I’ll bow out.
It’s not a bash, and I’m sorry you perceive thus, but I said I want to CHALLENGE the beliefs. To me, bashing is belittleing the believer for their belief, which I do not do, nor do I FEEL - but I do, as I"ve said, question how that belief can exist in the kind of curious minds I have always seen the Straight Dope attract.
This pool of people is the best shot I’ll ever have I think at inquiring of intelligent, educated people who generally embrace and accept logic, reason and science, how they manage to hold the idea of a jealous, testing God and all that it can include in the same mind that seeks and values accurate information. I’ve only ever encountered the sort of people who deeply believe without having any particular attachment to logic, reason, science, accuracy, etc, and I actually understand that sort of belief much more easily, it makes plenty of sense to me.
But I know there are well-respected, even Nobel prize-winning scientists who are simultaneously religious, and in MY OWN understanding of Christianity, which comes frmo people telling me they are Christian and what it means, that’s hard to fathom. Because, as I’ve been saying, there’s things about it that just don’t make sense to me, and I am NOT referring to the fact that it’s supernatural. I don’t reject the supernatural out of hand, I don’t adhere to the idea that nothing beyond what we know through science and direct observation is possible. But the things people tell me about Christianity don’t make sense to me even within a supernatural context, starting with the most fundamental things as I’ve outlined.
The thread has had an unanticipated focus on the earned/gift question, and the continued debate over it puzzles me as well, and I have yet to see a satisfying explanation from anyone who who in any way has said anything like: “You receive your freely given gift of salvation IF/AFTER/WHEN you RECOGNIZE/ACCEPT/BELIEVE that it is being “freely given” to you” of how there can be so much as a single string attached to anything that is being described as “freely given”. I had not imagined that this was going to be an issue, I’d always heard that you are saved after you believe you are saved, and in my understanding of English words, “freely given” means there are no strings involved.
And so that unexpected focus turned out to be a powerful example of the internal lack of logic that confounds me.
And I was illustrating the idea that if the only way I get it is if I believe I get it, then I have to “earn” it by believing in it.
Hi Stoid. I’m sorry that it took me so long to arrive at this thread. I’ve been away from the internet for almost four days due to a complicated set of circumstances that involved a busy schedule, a blown circuit breaker, and winter weather. If not for that, I would have responded much sooner. But nonetheless, here I am.
So first of all I have many of the same quibbles with your statement of Christian beliefs that others have had, but see no need to repeat them all here. But if you ever need to post a basic statement of Christian beliefs again, why not use the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed? We already have statements of belief, so why bother writing us a new one? But I’m willing to let that point go and get on to answering the questions you asked.
So first of all, in the paragraph I quoted above, you appear to be saying that if I “place a high value on things being logical”, then I must answer the question of where God came from with some response other than “He has always existed.” Well, I think this begs the question: what system of logic are you using? I’m not a well-trained logician and my only class on the subject in college was Logic for Computer Scientists, which is largely irrelevant here, but I have studied a bit of the subject outside of academia and I’m familiar with the most important logical systems. I can’t think of any logical system that supports what you’re claiming. In other words, I know of no logical system in which it is asserted that all things must come from something else.
Now as for an actual answer to the question, it is given by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica (available here:
So that’s the best answer I’ve seen. If you feel it that’s not satisfactory I’d be happy to hear why but would urge you to make sure you can define all the terms as they are used in the philosophical sense first.
On the more broad issue of whether I “generally embrace and accept logic, reason and science,” I do, but accept them in the proper place. Logic is an intellectual tool for reaching from premises to conclusions. I accept the tool, but I don’t believe it to be the only tool. And I value the tool, but not above the things tools are used for. Elevating logic above morality and mental health makes no more sense to me than elevating a hammer above a house. In both cases the tool should be properly used to create the later, not valued in itself. The point being put best by Chesterton (and I mention as an aside that if you’re truly interested in encountering an intelligent person who was a true Christian believer, you should read Chesterton, starting with Orthodoxy, which is available free here).
Just curious about something:
Do you believe that TA came up with this reasoning himself OR do you believe he was divinely inspired. I ask because I’m aware of some Christians who believe the latter (ie, that man cannot autonomously reason).
Belief is a choice you can make. All of our beliefs are made on the basis of incomplete information. As MLK said"Faith is taking the first step when you do not see the whole staircase". It is an unalterable part of the human condition that we can not have complete and total knowledge of all of the mysteries of God. I am OK with the fact that a being that can create the entire universe out of nothing can not be fully comprehended by someone with my limited intelligence. I doubt that a God that can be totally understood could actually be called God. The amount I can comprehend is enough for me to trust him about what I can not. It is like following a GPS. I have never seen the satellite, the people who program the computers, nor the people who drew the maps. Yet everytime I have used it I have arrived at my destination. Thus I have faith the next time I use it. Christianity has promised that if I gave my life to Christ, I would receive peace, love, and joy. I did and the promise was true. It promised that if I lived my life in accordance with its teachings I would have a better life and I have. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who have had the same experience. I have no idea what will happen to people who lived without hearing the gospel directly, but my experiences with God lead me to have faith that whatever happens will be right. Perhaps your massive intellect is unable to cope with unanswered questions, but incomplete information is a part of life for the rest of us.
There are some schools of theology that believe that all people will be saved through Jesus, eventually, whether they believe in Jesus or not. It’s called Universalism. I’m actually on the fence about that myself. It’s certainly an appealing doctrine.
Its turtle all the way down.
The late Madeleine L’Engle explained it essentially like this: as Triskadecamus said earlier, “I believe He shall save every soul that will be saved, because of His nature, and His love can only be thwarted by refusing it, and denying it.” L’Engle agrees with that, but notes that if God so chooses (and she couldn’t believe anything less of him), God has all of eternity to work with, to keep on loving those who would refuse and deny - and that since God is God, his capacity for loving is greater than anyone’s capacity for refusal and denial.
Consequently, totally consonant with the free will of every mortal person to refuse God’s love in this world and in whatever lies beyond, everyone will ultimately come to willingly and gladly reside in God’s love.
To me, this logic resonates with truth and gladness. It’s like a merging of the joy of coming to know the Lord with that of first understanding the principles of the convergence of infinite sequences.
Hmmm…who said it was like that? It certainly wasn’t like that for me. EVERYTHING changed.
Imagine that you’d been color-blind, seeing the entire world in black-and-white, and then suddenly one day you could see the full spectrum of color in everything.
It was like that. Only way better.