Jesus was constantly amazed and frustrated at lack of faith throughout the gospels. He loves us anyway.
Faith is also a gift of God, as such Jesus might have though it would been easier then it was (Note Jesus as man did not know everything, but followed the Holy Spirit, exactly as we are to do), in some ways it was a learning process for Jesus the man, and understanding what we must go through when God calls us.
So, it sounds like Jesus was willing to show the other apostles proof that he had risen, but was not willing to show Thomas. Seems very inconsistant for the “son of god” to prove it to some but not to others.
Well, duh. He means The King James Gazette. You’d know that if you had any critical thinking skulls.
John 20: Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side.
Doesn’t seem unwilling to me.
Oops. My mistake. I should have looked it up rather than try to go from memory.
Ordinarily I mock your opinions as mercilessly as Ming, but I’ll actually give you this one. But not what follows:
Wait. So if faith is a gift of God, it follows as night from day that persnos who lack it – say Victor Stenger, or Richard Dawkins – have been denied it by God, and then condemned for what they lack because of God’s action, right?
Sorry, kanicbird, but that does not follow with the notion of God being omnibenevolent and just. Odin might do that, but he ADMITS he’s sometimes malevolent. (One of the All-Father’s many pseudonyms was “Evil-Worker.”) What’s Yahweh’s excuse?
What is offered does not have to be accepted. Salvation is offered to all, it’s up to the person to accept the offer.
No. What is freely given must also be freely accepted. If Joe Billionaire decides one day to stand on the tallest building in my town and empty a big sack of $100 bills onto main street, his generosity does me no good whatsoever if I refuse to bend down and pick up the money. All that free government money that Matthew Lesko is always shrieking about does me no good if I don’t ask for it.
I don’t have the chapter and verse handy, but there is specific precedent in the Gospels where, after one of Jesus’ “O ye of little faith…” remarks, one of the disciples (Peter, I think) directly asks Him, “Lord, give me more faith!”
Jesus says elsewhere, “You have not because you ask not.”
Sure it does. It’s that old “free will” thing again, though. He isn’t going to force any of His good stuff on you if you don’t want it. Also, that word “just” … I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Actually … there’s a verse in Isaiah that specifically says God is the creator of both good and evil.
So, what if you ask and he still doesn’t give it? I’d really like a reasonable anser to this. And please, don’t say that its because it wasn’t asked sincerley.
A common prayer of mine, from the book of Mark (9:24), is “Lord I believe but help thou my unbelief.”
Not everything is easy & instantaneous - for many of us faith isn’t simply easy.
…but this is getting close to evangelizing so I’ll stop here.
Well, people who believe in predestination believe that God chose who is saved and who isn’t, so yes.
Anyway, Victor Stenger and Richard Dawkins might be picked to have faith before they die. We won’t know until they become Christians or die.
If you mean double predestination, that’s true. Of course, double predestination plus the doctrine of eternal torment in hell require that God be pure, unblinking evil, his only motivation for not damning everyone being the putting of his sadism in sharper relief.
For you example to work, Joe Billionaire would have to be the only employer in town as well, and, moreover, to own the mortagages on everyone’s house, and ot be in the habit of arbitrarily changing the terms of everyone’s loan and of punishing delinquencies by ordering the executions of the debtors.
I always thought it was unfair for Thomas to get stuck with just the one incident, when there was that other one that put him in a much more favorable light. “Well, then we’ll go with him and if we die, we die.” Cool guy, really.
I have heard that many of the writings that were supposed to have been written by the Bible writers were not really written by the Apostle who wrote them. It is said that Peter couldn’t write, and many of Pauls letters were not written by him. There is no writing that can be shown to be positively writen by the author. Just a presumption.
So, as I understand this argument, the God who created people and called them His children, knew ahead of time that many were going to suffer for all eternity, or do evil things, and He decided to create them any how,was He just playing some kind of game? Believe the person’s who wrote about Me even if it may not be true, or suffer for all eternity?
I am only a human but I would not even concieve a child who would meet such a fate. I do not see such a God as a loving being, but a cruel master. What kind of human would have a child just so they could have some one serve them, or love them, and allow a monster to destroy them. Or hide from the child or never let them know they existed for sure, just had to take the word of some other human who could well be wrong about Him, then punish them because they didn’t know. It would be like punishing a child that was blind because they couldn’t see the stars.
Why create a child or product you know for sure will be faulty then blame the Child…doesn’t make sense to me.
I never would have figured you for a Christian. :dubious:
If you’re speaking of predestination as referenced earlier, that isn’t what all Christians believe. Predestination is a Calvinist thing.
If you’re talking about the “problem of evil,” GD might be a better place for that long and involved discussion. People have been arguing about that one for a long time now.
I am not referring to predestination, I am referring to an all knowing being who (according to the Bible) knows all things, even eons before they would happen, knows His product or child is bad, but blames the product or child He created, knows that a Hitler or some monster(like Satan) will destroy His child and lets the monster harm His child. An example would be when Jesus is said to destroy the Fig tree because it didn’t bear fruit, even though it wasn’t the season.
Ah - predestiny. I knew you were gonna bring this up.
Try this, “God knows all things knowable” according to one theologian’s thinking.
Me? I take a quantum mechanical approach - God can see down the paths of choice and see where all paths lead. When you make a choice, the other paths become unavailable (collapsing the wave function) but you still had free will to make the choice and he knew the result of that choice before it happened.
Beside, if you have no spirit, if you’re just a biomechanical machine, then you are no more than a software-driven, wetware computer. You’re a complicated state machine and every “choice” you make could be predicted, too, with an accurate enough silicon-based emulation of your software.
To me, to deny the spirit’s existence, denies free will.