04 Dec 10
Originally posted by John W Booth==============================================
It's not justified. They cite their own religious literature as "proof" and "evidence". But literature isn't proof. I on the other hand make no attempt to offer "proof" or "evidence" that there is a God because there isn't any "proof" or "evidence" as far as I know. I may be wrong... I am only dealing with an unspecific 'sense', after all. How many Chri ...[text shortened]... stories about the resurrection of God's half-human child after being executed?
How many Christians are as open minded and rational as THAT about their convoluted stories about the resurrection of God's half-human child after being executed?
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I never read anything about Christ being "half-human".
By what convolution did you arrive at the thought Jesus was "half human" ?
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by jaywillWell if he wasn't God, then the Christian creed doesn't work. And if he wasn't human too, then the Christian creed doesn't work. So he was both. I am sure it's a very seductive convolution. But it's of no consequence to me.
By what convolution did you arrive at the thought Jesus was "half human" ?
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by John W BoothThe word mingling is a word some use to discribe the union of the Divine and the Human in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Well if he wasn't God, then the Christian creed doesn't work. And if he wasn't human too, then the Christian creed doesn't work. So he was both. I am sure it's a very seductive convolution. But it's of no consequence to me.
To mingle two or more things together is to combine them in such a way that the components remain distiquishable in the combination. God and man are mingled in the Person of Jesus Christ. In this one Person we discern the proper human being and the eternal divine God - mingled, comingled in one life.
If Jesus Christ is the mingling of God and man, then Paul's word that Christ was to be the Firstborn among many brothers tells us that God's eternal plan is this mingling of Himself with humanity - the incorporation of the eternal divine with the created human.
Here is where the Apostle Paul says God wants to enlarge this phenomenon of God mingled with man:
"Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified." (Rom. 8:29,30)
God's acts of predistination, calling, justification, conformation and glorfication are all for His eternal purpose to have many brothers following the Firstborn Son of God.
This means God's eternal purpose is to mass produce sons of God who follow Jesus in being the mingling and blending of God and man.
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by jaywillWell I refer to it as "God's half-human child". But you knew I was talking about Jesus so our different terminologies do not prohibit us from understanding each other.
The word [b]mingling is a word some use to discribe the union of the Divine and the Human in the Person of Jesus Christ. [/b]
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by John W BoothThis makes we wonder whether you believe in God at all.
I think it makes no difference. And I don't have any reason to think that it ought to make any difference.
God hasn't communicated with me. I have seen no evidence that he has communicated with anybody. So there is nothing for me to act upon. And I do not worship nor do I pray.
God hasn't issued me with any instructions. I believe that re ...[text shortened]... on "reality".
Religion is all about impact and action. But I am not religious.
Hear me out: I am not merely being curmudgeonly.
If you believe X exists, then you ought to be able to explicitly specify, to some degree, how things would be different if X existed, relative to how they would be if X did not exist. I am not here referring to the *consequences* of X potentially existing, but simply to the *facts* of X potentially existing.
Otherwise, the belief that X would be devoid of propositional content. As such, I am not sure it would be a belief.
However, I do not doubt that you have a *sense* that God exists.
In fact, I sometimes have the same sense. But I find I can't give it propositional expression. I am not sure I become a theist, or even a deist, when I have the sense.
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by jaywillGod, allegedly, knows everything.
The word [b]mingling is a word some use to discribe the union of the Divine and the Human in the Person of Jesus Christ.
To mingle two or more things together is to combine them in such a way that the components remain distiquishable in the combination. God and man are mingled in the Person of Jesus Christ. In this one Person we discern the proper h ...[text shortened]... ss produce sons of God who follow Jesus in being the mingling and blending of God and man.[/b]
Man, obviously, knowns only some things.
So, if you mingled God and man, how would the omniscience of the former be combined with the limited knowledge of the latter?
04 Dec 10
Originally posted by IshDaGeggWhenever anyone say that they know anything about god - they are wrong. It is not possible to know anything about god.
God, allegedly, knows everything.
Man, obviously, knowns only some things.
So, if you mingled God and man, how would the omniscience of the former be combined with the limited knowledge of the latter?
God isn't a human being with a humans intellect. Can an ant ever understand humans? No, of course not. And this is of exact the same reason that a human cannot understand god.
Whoever says he understand anything about god proves at the exact the same time that he doesn't understand anything about god.
05 Dec 10
Originally posted by IshDaGeggYes. You have a point. And it has been made to me before: variations on "This makes we wonder whether you believe in God at all."
If you believe X exists, then you ought to be able to explicitly specify, to some degree, how things would be different if X existed, relative to how they would be if X did not exist. I am not here referring to the *consequences* of X potentially existing, but simply to the *facts* of X potentially existing.
Someone else referred to me as a deist - as oppose to a theist - too.
you ought to be able to explicitly specify, to some degree, how things would be different if X existed ... I am not here referring to the *consequences* of X potentially existing
Wouldn't differences or 'things being different' be "consequences"?
So, a 'sense' is not a 'belief'? A 'belief' = 'sense + proposition'?
05 Dec 10
2 edits
Originally posted by IshDaGegg================================
God, allegedly, knows everything.
Man, obviously, knowns only some things.
So, if you mingled God and man, how would the omniscience of the former be combined with the limited knowledge of the latter?
God, allegedly, knows everything.
Man, obviously, knowns only some things.
So, if you mingled God and man, how would the omniscience of the former be combined with the limited knowledge of the latter?
==================================
This union of God and man does not include certain non-communicable attributes of God. But it does refer to communicable attributes.
The mingling of God has limits which mean:
1.) Man does not become an object of worship.
2.) Man does not become omnipresent.
3.) Man does not become omnipotent.
4.) Man does not become omniscient.
5.) Man does not become a creator of universes.
But in love, light, purity, righteousness, holiness, glory, justice, mercy, wisdom etc man becomes a corporate expression of God to match God.
So certain non-cummunicable attributes forever belong to God alone.
3.)
05 Dec 10
1 edit
Wouldn't differences or 'things being different' be "consequences"?
Suppose I say green grass exists, or doesn't. That simply means it is there or it isn't. Certainly, this has consequences. For cows, artists, and picnickers, for example.
But the existence of the green grass is not itself a consequence (at least, not of itself), even though it has consequences. You could describe the shape and greenness of the grass without describing its consequences.
Of course, come logical consequences are very quickly entailed, I agree. Perhaps some of these, to do with space occupancy for example, are very hard to disentangle for later empirical consequences. But I think the distinction is generally viable.
So, a 'sense' is not a 'belief'? A 'belief' = 'sense + proposition'?
Well, thinking about it further, I find I have changed my mind. (How often do you hear that in this forum?) I now think a sense definitely qualifies as a sort of belief.
If I sense that X, I think I must, in some way, believe X. Indeed, I think I must believe X more strongly than, say, if I merely had a feeling or a hunch that X. For example, if I sense that people are plotting against me, I do not merely mean I am considering believing this proposition. I think they really are plotting against me.
However: a sense that X can be--and perhaps must be--vague; as such, it lacks a clear explicit specification; as a result, it lacks justificatory reasons, because they could only attach themselves to such a specification; and finally, a sense is perhaps informed or shaped by obscure sensory inputs, as its name suggests.
For these reasons, a sense is often, but not always, to be distrusted. It entails a strong, if ill-defined, belief, but with only slender grounds for believing it, and perhaps a dubious causal provenance.
Still, on reflection, I think you *do* deserve to be called a theist/deist. It just that, since you have a sense that God exists, it's not clear what that sense means. It is inchoate.
I also would like to advance an hypothesis. I hypothesize that most religious belief is in fact rooted in a firm if inchaote sense that God exists, and lot of theology is merely an after-the-fact effort to justify this sense, or to express how it feels.
05 Dec 10
Originally posted by jaywillOkay. So only a bit of God is merged with man.
[b]================================
God, allegedly, knows everything.
Man, obviously, knowns only some things.
So, if you mingled God and man, how would the omniscience of the former be combined with the limited knowledge of the latter?
==================================
This union of God and man does not include certain non-commun ...[text shortened]... d to match God.
So certain non-cummunicable attributes forever belong to God alone.
3.)[/b]
So, was Jesus omniscient or not? Lucifershammer once declared he was in a thread long ago. You think he had only limited knowledge?
05 Dec 10
1 edit
Originally posted by John W Booth========================================
Having read this thread, and despite me not sharing your exact terminology, do you acknowledge me as a fellow theist?
Having read this thread, and despite me not sharing your exact terminology, do you acknowledge me as a fellow theist?
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Sure. According to your first post in this thread you said that you believed there was a God.
Wouldn't that make you a theist ?
05 Dec 10
5 edits
Originally posted by IshDaGegg==================================
Okay. So only a bit of God is merged with man.
So, was Jesus omniscient or not? Lucifershammer once declared he was in a thread long ago. You think he had only limited knowledge?
Okay. So only a bit of God is merged with man.
So, was Jesus omniscient or not? Lucifershammer once declared he was in a thread long ago. You think he had only limited knowledge?
====================================
Well, the word picture we are left with in the book of Revelation is a river of water of life" flowing through a city.
I think the thought communicated is the eternal God as a river continually flowing and passing through the sons of God.
This is a dynamic current of an eternally rich Person with unsearchable and endless life continually flowing forever.
Is this a "bit" of God or not. I would not argue about that too much. But Paul says:
" ... the perfecting of the saints unto work of ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ, Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the meausre of the stature of the fullness of Christ " (Eph. 4:12,13)
I see an arrival at a "fullgrown man" fully expressing the mingling of God and man in a corporate way, maturity. And in this the living Triune God is continually flowing through His children as a river of water of life.
Jesus Christ spoke of this as His redeemed people being where He is:
"Father, concerning that which You have given Me, I desire that they also may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24)
I take to be with Him where He is is to be in the full expression of the incorporation of the Divine with the created human.
And Christ is said to be "leading many sons into glory" (Hebrews 2:10)[/b]
Jesus Christ is not only the Savior and Lord but the Leader growing in His believers and leading them into the splendid expression of the Divine Being.
And the Apostle Johns says that we shall be like Him:
"Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is." (1 John 3:1)
This entire matter of God becoming man so that man might become God, in life and nature but not in the Godhead, is the purpose planned by God before He laid the foundation of the world according to Ephesians. This strongly implies that this was the purpose for which God created the universe, to have sons who share His life and nature yet not His position as Father and Godhead:
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ,
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love,
Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." (EPh. 1:3-5)
So to flow through men and women made sons of God, expressing "sonship" is the reason for God's laying the foundation of the world. He created the universe to mass produce humans like Jesus Christ - the universal mingling of God and man.
05 Dec 10
Originally posted by jaywillWouldn't that make you a theist?
[b]========================================
Having read this thread, and despite me not sharing your exact terminology, do you acknowledge me as a fellow theist?
========================================
Sure. According to your first post in this thread you said that you believed there was a God.
Wouldn't that make you a theist ?[/b]
I would describe Mr Booth as a deist.
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists. In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe. Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism
Deism in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that a supreme being created the universe. Further the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect"😉 has a plan for the universe that is not to be altered by intervention in the affairs of human life. Deists believe in the existence of God, in a secular sense, without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism