God can't do alot of things, being all powerful does not mean He can contradict Himself. For instance He cannot create a square circle, or a round square. God cannot create a rock so big He cannot pick it up. It's not a value of power, it's a value of contradiction, in creating a rock that he can't pick up you are nullifying his power and limiting it. So it self defeats in all occasions. Again it's not about power, and it's not about logic but it's about contradicting premises.
Then why even use the term ominpotence at all if what you really mean is God cannot contradict itself, which is just saying it is absolutely consistent? God's power has limitations based on its nature, it means God is not the absolute ontologically perfect being one would conceive of
The Bible says in romans that HE "predestined us according to foreknowledge." For example He picks the best players for his game. He knows that they had practiced, that they are naturally gifted to play the sport, and He has seen their track record, and He also sees how they will play in the future, so He picks those team members. Say time is linear, and it's like a parade. Being outside of time, you can see which float will come around the corner before it happens. Simply by nature of being outside of the time line of the parade (above it in the air). God is outside of time all together. So He sees that we will have an aptitude to either accept or reject Him. He chooses those who do choose Him. That is what the verse says in romans, He foreknows us. He knows before hand what we will choose, and He chooses those people who won't change their mind when it gets tough, but those who overcome in faith.
Outside of time is incoherent, we only understand things cogently as they proceed in some measure of time, God not existing in ANY time is vastly different than trying to argue God exists in, say, meta-time, which would at least be reasonable
So unconditional election, then? Seems even worse if the situation is such that God literally predestined most people to fail utterly and just show off its own glory. Less a contradiction and more an indication of a morally bankrupt deity
I see merciful judges all the time. For example if you have no criminal record they will have a lesser time in prison. That does not mean they are a bad Judge, if anything it means that they are wiser for taking into consideration weakness of a situation versus inherent evil in a person. If a human Judge can be more just by exhibiting mercy, then God would be the supreme example of this.
Like I pointed out, mercy is the suspension of justice, it is not enforcing it impartially. Human jurisprudence can argue this point and it makes sense, but God is meant to be morally perfect, so God should not, if we're going with the idea of its nature being good, be able to remotely tolerate injustice and thus could not reasonably exercise mercy without contradicting its essence of being just.
Perfect justice is not the same as justice in a human context, you're trying to suggest mercy applies to God in even a rough parallel to human mercy, but the notion that forgiveness is divine seems strongly to contradict the idea that the divine cannot countenance evil and thus cannot forgive it (unless they make loopholes with scapegoating themselves or whatever other soteriological mental gymnastics).
Analogical examples don't work when you're rendering the example of "God" as such that it has to be perfect and thus cannot be applied in terms of human thinking (making it so you don't really have to address it, but just apply circular logic to deflect)
The context on the verse that says He is not the "author of confusion" involves speaking in tongues in church, with no interpreter and/or having everyone speak in tongues in an un organized way. That would just be confusing bable. So again that does not mean God cannot allow us to be confused. That is stretching the passage. God has allowed at least a hundred variants of christianity, mormons, jehovah's witnesses, seventh day adventist, Churches of God, you name it. God has also allowed thousands of other religions to exist. So I don't think that that verse means that God does not allow us to be confused. I believe the context was inside a church setting, it should be in order and not confusing regarding speaking in tongues and doing gifts like prophetic words.
Ah, so God can be an author of confusion otherwise, which seems to suggest God is able to be handwaved away as to consistency in any way because you can just say we don't understand it (ignotum per ignotius)
You're effectively proving my point in claiming your perfect deity intentionally let the world be confusing and then expects people to find one particular truth in all that by "revelations" that are demonstrably unreliable in what they say as being unique in any sense. Ascribing perfection to anything inevitably leads to contradictions in following through
See we are a trinity, we are spirit, soul, and body. When adam and eve sinned, the spirit part died, and we only had a soul and a body after that. So part of that trinity died. When we are born again, that spirit side is brought to life again. It is that spirit side that allows us to live eternally, without it, we cannot possibly get heaven. When you are born into this world you become your father and mothers child, when you are born again you become God's child.
Could swear the spirit is the animating force (breath of God, essentially), not the essence of us that is intertwined to a degree with our body
Assuming heaven is desirable isn't helping your case, you have to demonstrate that separately for the idea of your god helping towards that as being beneficial or compelling. Not sure why I'd want to be the child of an entity you've still failed to demonstrate beyond your particular revelatory scripture's claims and your conviction that they are true.
yes half of it predated christianity, so again saying it leeched from Jewish tradition is not a bad thing. But yes there are two testaments, and two religions. In the millenium Jews will rule and reign from the royal land grand given them in Jerusalem with the acreage attached to each of the tribes. Christians will rule and reign from the New Jerusalem. Jews that become messianic will also be glorified and become part of the Bride of Christ and become co heirs in Christ. I can't see the possibility of Jews however not accepting Christ, as He will literally be sitting on the throne of David right before them. So again they will all be grafted into the church body. After a 1000 year millenium, where we have a theocracy, with Christ as the head and as Christians as presidents, governors and mayors. Many will come to Christ. Many will not like the fact that abortion is outlawed as well as homosexuality, and most likely athiesm will be outlawed at that time. I can't imagine saying, there is no God but Jesus is an alien, and the christians who are now glorified are also aliens invading the planet. At the end of the millenium no doubt satan will be released and promote a similiar conspiracy theory to collect followers who will stand against Christ in a last stand. Armeggedon. After that the millenium will conclude and Jew and Christian alike will enjoy eternity with Christ in heaven and the marriage of the church to Christ. The father will also be there on the throne and the Spirit. At that point death (sheol) and HEll (Hades) will be tossed into the lake of fire (gehennah). And all the wicked dead will be resurrected and be given immortality at that point, to be able to endure the furnace without being consumed. That will be their fate
Wow, so Jews are effectively forced by circumstances to be Christian or suffer, that's awfully convenient for a Christian to say will be the case in their eschatology.
But apparently proper grammar will be optional, not even consistently capitalizing or spelling things right. You can go on this ramble, that doesn't demonstrate a thing, it's your assertions against the assertion that you're parasitizing from Judaism, which you regard as just an initial stage, a means to an end, which is abhorrent in how much it trivializes the religion that you NEED to make sense of anything in your own.[/QUOTE]