1. Donationbbarr
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    26 Dec '07 10:44
    Originally posted by jaywill
    [b] It is clear that you think that sincerely asking for salvation is sufficient for attaining it, since God grants such sincere requests. Do you also think that sincerely asking for salvation is necessary for attaining it? If so, what does "sincerely asking" amount to? Does it require an utterance, a thought, or what?


    The passage I was speakin ...[text shortened]... no heart to split hairs over a debate like that.

    God knows the hearts of all people.[/b]
    Suppose a human being is born without the cognitive capabilities required to possess the concept of God, Christ, sin, forgiveness, salvation, etc. Do you think these psychological deficiencies would preclude salvation, or do you think God would save a person like this despite their being incapable of sincerely asking for it?
  2. Standard memberIron Monkey
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    26 Dec '07 12:44
    give it up, bbarr - you can't reason with these people, because reason and logic have no effect on their dogmatic minds. they'll just keep pointing at the bible and yabbering away, as if anything written in a book could prove the existence of god.
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    26 Dec '07 14:011 edit
    Bbarr,

    Suppose a human being is born without the cognitive capabilities required to possess the concept of God, Christ, sin, forgiveness, salvation, etc. Do you think these psychological deficiencies would preclude salvation, or do you think God would save a person like this despite their being incapable of sincerely asking for it?

    No I do not think such a psychological deficiency will preclude that person from receiving Christ.

    This is an oft repeated subject. Some well meaning Christians labor much to be able to assure themselves and others that God's plan of salvation is concrete with no possibility of unfairness. Thier reasonings sometimes do cause problems.

    After much study of the Bible I am willing to admit that there are some unknowns. And sometimes when people ask me about tough hypothetical questions like this I point out "Whatever that person's situation, that is not your situation. And that is not my situation."

    We must respond according to what our situation is. And then go preach the gospel with our lives and our labors.

    Abraham also questioned God's ways of saving because of his loved ones living in the city of Sodom. I like that Abraham eventually said:

    "Far be it from You! Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justly?" (Genesis 18:25b)


    I believe that we can rest assured that though we may not be able to theologically answer a host of hypothetical questions, the Judge of all the earth will do justly. That's what I believe.
  4. Illinois
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    26 Dec '07 17:23
    Originally posted by vistesd
    Justin was one of the earliest post-apostolic fathers, who was informed not only by the scriptural texts, but also by the oral teachings (“tradition” ) handed down by the apostles. Modern Protestantism sometimes seems to me to be a different religion altogether from the Christianity of the post-apostolic period (circa 100-600/800 C.E.). How it interprets s ...[text shortened]... st 5 to 7 centuries of post-apostolic Christianity—but that often seems to have been the result.
    I'm not arguing with the assertion that all those who live according to the Logos are children of God. How could they not be? God is a just Judge and He judges His creatures according to the knowledge of Christ which they have, not according to the knowledge which they don't have. An individual who has never heard of the incarnate Logos, Jesus, the Jewish carpenter, could only be judged according to how he or she lived, whether by faith in the invisible Logos of God or not. And of course the only qualified Person to judge thusly is God Himself, not any man.

    However, this fact does not discount the value of knowing the incarnate Logos of God. A saving faith in Jesus Christ completely delivers the believer from eternal condemnation quite apart from works, which is definitely a preeminent state to never knowing Jesus Christ personally. Otherwise Christ would never have dispatched His disciples to the ends of the earth carrying His Gospel. Because those without faith in the incarnate Logos are yet living under the law.

    Thus, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:18). "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1-2).
  5. Hmmm . . .
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    26 Dec '07 19:531 edit
    Originally posted by epiphinehas
    I'm not arguing with the assertion that all those who live according to the Logos are children of God. How could they not be? God is a just Judge and He judges His creatures according to the knowledge of Christ which they have, not according to the knowledge which they don't have. An individual who has never heard of the incarnate Logos, Jesus, the Je the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1-2).
    Someday, you and I are each going to take a deep breath and launch into an exploration (via debate, of course!) of Christology, in the same way that we did soteriology. 🙂 I don’t think Justin’s statement can be divorced from his Christology—nor can Gregory of Nyssa’s, but I am still studying Gregory.

    Gregory’s theological approach is that God’s ousia is absolutely ineffable, and that none of our words or conceptualizations are adequate. He leans heavily on his concept of diastema (which Mar Gregorios, after giving some of its possible meanings, thereafter refuses to translate; but a common translation seems to be “gap” ): my tentative disagreement with Gregory is that he seems to assume that an epistemological diastema requires an ontological diastema (ontological dualism). What Gregory thinks is that God can only be known through his energia. Where his Christology fits with this, I do not know yet.
  6. Unknown Territories
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    26 Dec '07 21:19
    Originally posted by bbarr
    Suppose a human being is born without the cognitive capabilities required to possess the concept of God, Christ, sin, forgiveness, salvation, etc. Do you think these psychological deficiencies would preclude salvation, or do you think God would save a person like this despite their being incapable of sincerely asking for it?
    All are born condemned at birth. Those who are unable to conceive of Him are automatically saved. God's genius in these matters is beyond wonder.
  7. Donationrwingett
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    26 Dec '07 21:24
    Originally posted by FreakyKBH
    All are born condemned at birth. Those who are unable to conceive of Him are automatically saved. God's genius in these matters is beyond wonder.
    How do you know that?
  8. Hmmm . . .
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    27 Dec '07 01:511 edit
    Originally posted by epiphinehas
    I'm not arguing with the assertion that all those who live according to the Logos are children of God. How could they not be? God is a just Judge and He judges His creatures according to the knowledge of Christ which they have, not according to the knowledge which they don't have. An individual who has never heard of the incarnate Logos, Jesus, the Je the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1-2).
    ...because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:18).

    I just wanted to come back and respond a bit to this part.

    “Name” here does not mean the signifier J-e-s-u-s (nor Yeshua, nor Iesou, nor any other combination of letter-sounds). That would be a kind of name-magic. “Name” is a euphemism for the nature of a certain reality. All actual names, words, titles, concepts, are of human construction and application. [This was a point in the debate between St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Arian, Eunomius.]

    Also, “Son” refers to the Logos in relation to the God-head in Trinitarian symbolism. The underlying Trinitarian formula is ground-of-being, manifestation-of-being (or being-itself), and power of being (Paul Tillich; "manifestation" is my word, "being-itself" is his). These hypostases of the single ousia are called, symbolically, Father, Son and Spirit. (The “father” as ground and God-head is in keeping with the original Nicene formula, before the western addition of the filioque to the Nicene Creed.)

    Jesus is the name of the man regarded as the unique (and “sacramental” ) incarnation of the Son. The Son does not come into being with the birth of the man Jesus. Therefore, in strict Nicene/Chalcedonian Christianity, “name” cannot refer to the human nature, but to the fact (within the Christian theological framework, that is) of the confluence of the two natures (human and divine) within one hypostasis (hypostasis here referring to the incarnate “God-man” ).

    However, as I mentioned in my post to Kirksey, some early Christian writers did not use “Jesus” to refer to simply the name of the specific human being, but for the Logos itself—as a kind of code-word, incorporating that particular incarnation into its Trinitarian ground. Others did not. One needs to decipher how a particular writer is using terms. This is true also of the NT texts: I am not sure that the author of the Gospel of Matthew, for example, employs the sarx/soma distinction in the same way as Paul.

    The Chalcedonian formula is nothing if not paradoxical. Even within the context of ontological dualism, the words are pointing to the properly ineffable.

    Whether one is a Christian or a Buddhist, a dualist or a non-dualist, it is the reality behind the word-signs that matter; not the particular word-signs themselves.
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    27 Dec '07 02:24
    Originally posted by FreakyKBH
    All are born condemned at birth. Those who are unable to conceive of Him are automatically saved. God's genius in these matters is beyond wonder.
    So those who ARE able to conceive of Him are obviously CURSED.

    If you can conceive of Him, then you might reject Him and hence go to Hell forever. But if you can't conceive of Him, you get to heaven no matter what?

    So, it's seems clear that being intelligent is a curse.
  10. Donationbbarr
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    27 Dec '07 02:56
    Originally posted by FreakyKBH
    All are born condemned at birth. Those who are unable to conceive of Him are automatically saved. God's genius in these matters is beyond wonder.
    Good, so sincerely asking for salvation is not a necessary condition for being saved. God employs norms of justice and mercy when determining who gets saved. If so, then it is an open question whether sincere and virtuous people with the conceptual repertoire required to conceive of God can be saved despite failing to sincerely ask. It is an open question, for example, whether Socrates was saved.
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    27 Dec '07 03:345 edits
    Originally posted by bbarr
    Good, so sincerely asking for salvation is not a necessary condition for being saved. God employs norms of justice and mercy when determining who gets saved. If so, then it is an open question whether sincere and virtuous people with the conceptual repertoire required to conceive of God can be saved despite failing to sincerely ask. It is an open question, for example, whether Socrates was saved.
    What I am about to tell you you probably have never heard from any other evangelical Christian. But I am convinced of it. And here I will only very briefly state the matter and add a caveat.

    There will be some people who will live everlastingly who will not be born again.

    Again, there will be some people who will have an everlasting life who will not have been born again.

    Briely, my basis for this is mainly Revelation 14:6,7, the preaching of "an eternal gospel" by an angelic being from the air during the great tribulation:

    "And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to announce to those dwelling on the earth, even to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,

    Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who has made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of waters."


    1.) This eternal gospel is not preached by man but announced supernaturally by an angelic being.

    2.) This eternal gospel does not mention any of the things related to the redemption of Christ and the gift of grace.

    3.) This eternal gospel is to fear God the Creator, to worship God the Creator.

    4.) This eternal gospel nullifies the threat of the Antichrist to worship him as at that time he will demand to be worshipped as God.

    5.) This eternal gospel is accompanied by God's supernatural demonstrations in the universe that could only be attributed to the Creator.

    Both in the millennial kingdom and in the eternal age the Bible says that the saints of God will reign. I do not believe that it means that the sons of God who are regenerated will reign over one another. There must be some peoples there in eternity for God's saved sons to reign over as nations.

    Those who respond to the eternal gospel of fearing God the Creator are the sheep on the right hand of the Lord Jesus when He comes to judge the nations remaining alive before "the throne of His glory" (See Matt. 25:32-46). The goats are on the left hand and are condemned to eternal punishment. The sheep on the right hand are blessed to "inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world."

    There are therefore three groups of people in that teaching.

    1.) The saved sheep on the right hand of Christ
    2.) The condemned goats on the left hand of Christ
    3.) "[T]hese the least of my brothers," who are also saved.

    I believe that the saved sheep come out of the people who respond to the eternal gospel to fear God the Creator. They are restored by God's healing to be in the state that Adam was in before he sinned and caused the fall of man.

    These people, I believe, will not be born again as sons of God, but will be as Adam was before his fall. The kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world is the good earth which God created for man's existence and His glory.

    That is a brief explanation and with many problems of interpretation no doubt will remain. However here is, I believe, a class of humans who will be healed and maintained to live forever over whom the regenerated sons of God will be priests and kings, reigining over them in eternity. (Rev.22:5)

    Now the important CAVEAT. Probably no one reading this post will qualify to be one of these people. If you want to reject Christ the Savior in order to TRY to be "saved" through this manner, it will not work.

    Probably no one who is able to discuss the Gospel of Christ and is able to decide for or against receiving Christ as the Savior will ever be included in this special catagory. I would warn anyone who has read this understanding not to try to consider themelves one of these sheep.

    Each of us today has to respond to God's command that we believe in His Son and receive the Son as Lord and Savior. I want to respond positively not just because it meets MY need to be saved. But even more that it meets God's need to fulfill His eternal purpose to dispense His life and nature into a group of people for His corporate expression of God mingled with man.
  12. Hmmm . . .
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    27 Dec '07 04:04
    Originally posted by jaywill
    What I am about to tell you you probably have never heard from any other evangelical Christian. But I am convinced of it. And here I will only very briefly state the matter and add a caveat.

    There will be some people who will live everlastingly who will not be born again.

    Again, there will be some people who will have an everlasting life who wi ...[text shortened]... e into a group of people for His corporate expression of God mingled with man.
    If you want to reject Christ the Savior in order to TRY to be "saved" through this manner, it will not work.

    I truly cannot imagine anyone coming at it from such a mindset.
  13. Illinois
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    27 Dec '07 06:453 edits
    Originally posted by vistesd
    [b]...because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:18).

    I just wanted to come back and respond a bit to this part.

    “Name” here does not mean the signifier J-e-s-u-s (nor Yeshua, nor Iesou, nor any other combination of letter-sounds). That would be a kind of name-magic. “Name” is a euphemism for the nature of a certai the reality behind the word-signs that matter; not the particular word-signs themselves.[/b]
    Hold your horses, vistesd. 🙂

    Jesus Christ, the six-foot-tall Jewish carpenter from Bethlehem, is inseparable from the divine Logos of God. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). As the Chalcedonian creed puts it, Jesus Christ is "inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably" both God and a man. Nowhere else in history has the Logos become incarnate as any other human being. No other, except Jesus, could be correctly called the incarnate Word. Therefore, the significance of His name, Jesus, the name by which we know the ineffable, cannot be overstated.

    "Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men* by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:10-12).

    Undoubtedly the Logos of God can be obscurely known without having knowledge of the incarnate Logos, as Paul points out in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." And as John points out in John 1:9, the Logos is "the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world." But this fact does not lessen the significance of coming to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, the Logos incarnate. God made it very clear that rejecting Jesus, the man, is the same as rejecting Him.

    In this case, the "reality" behind the word-sign, J-e-s-u-s, is a Person. Furthermore, He is a Person whom one can become more intimately acquainted with; ineffable, yes, yet mercifully accessible. *The name which the apostles refer to, the only name by which we may be saved, is not the obscure and unspeakable, rather it is a name "given among men," realizable by ordinary folks. Christ came to reveal God and put us in touch with God, not to preserve the ineffable and keep us at arms length. To downplay the importance of Jesus, the man, "the exact likeness of the unseen God" (Colossians 1:15), is to miss the most significant revelation of Christ's ministry, i.e. that God has made it possible for us to be His intimate friends.

    It is simply not possible to become an intimate friend of God by any other means except via Jesus.
  14. Donationbbarr
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    27 Dec '07 07:13
    Originally posted by epiphinehas
    Hold your horses, vistesd. 🙂

    Jesus Christ, the six-foot-tall Jewish carpenter from Bethlehem, is inseparable from the divine Logos of God. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). As the Chalcedonian creed puts it, Jesus Christ is "inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably" both God and a man. Nowhere else in ...[text shortened]... ssible to become an intimate friend of God by any other means except via Jesus.
    Out of curiosity, why do you think that God chose this particular way to make himself accessible? Would it have been possible for God to have set up the world such that one could be spiritually transformed by dedicating oneself to a particular set of practices? Would it have been possible for God to have set up the world such that one could be spiritually transformed by cultivating a virtuous character? Would it have been possible for God to set up the world such that He periodically manifested himself in avatars? Is there any explanation for why God chose to manifest himself in the way he did, and why the rules for transformation and salvation are the way they are?
  15. Illinois
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    27 Dec '07 08:42
    Originally posted by bbarr
    Out of curiosity, why do you think that God chose this particular way to make himself accessible? Would it have been possible for God to have set up the world such that one could be spiritually transformed by dedicating oneself to a particular set of practices? Would it have been possible for God to have set up the world such that one could be spiritually tr ...[text shortened]... self in the way he did, and why the rules for transformation and salvation are the way they are?
    With God anything is possible. Why he chose this particular Way to make himself accessible is beyond me. Of course there are explanations for why Christ had to be born into the world and die for mankind, but I doubt that's the kind of answer you're looking for.

    For my part, I am glad that I was able to know exactly what was required of me. God is not a God of confusion, but of order. If there were many ways to Him, then I would be confused. Christ stated unequivocally that he was the only Way. If Christ is the only Way, then obviously no one else can rightfully claim the same. Confusion averted.

    Knowing God through Christ has shown me the wisdom of the Gospel first-hand, that is, through the irreplaceable medium of friendship. Since a man can no more befriend the unapproachably holy and transcendent Godhead than he can the Horsehead nebula, the urgent need of man is not more confusion about God. The urgent need of man is to be met exactly where he is, as a suffering man. A man cannot approach God, therefore God must approach man. Because of this, I have found no trouble comprehending the grace of God in Christ Jesus whom God sent to suffer with and for us. It was the perception of this which convinced me of the wisdom of the Gospel in the first place.

    Christ means to me the Lord's provision for every possible need I may have as a man. Most highly of all, the need to intimately know and serve my Creator.
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