3 Theological Mysteries

leftrightleftrightleft said:

I do think that if you have grudges or leave things left unsaid they ultimately bring you down and make you more and more bitter. If you forgive those who do you wrong, you will ultimately lead a happier, more selfless, more loving life. However, if someone forgives you (which is what I think you're getting at), I don't know if this causes the receiver of forgiveness any benefit. I can forgive someone and never tell them and they have no idea, they might not even know they had wronged me. So I guess, if I am forgiven much, I don't think it has any bearing on how much I will love others

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This shows “forgiveness” is not a one sided transaction and scripture supports that concept. If you are asking for “more time to pay the debt off” or feel you “deserve the forgiveness” than you are not accepting “charity” and the transaction of charity did not occur. You are right “the need for charity” has to be understood and even desired by the receiver. Jesus taught us “…he that is forgiven much (this has to be truly realized) will Love much…”, so if the forgiveness is given unconditionally and is accepted as charity and is a huge act of forgiveness, would the person Love at least the forgiver much?

I'm not sure if loving much is part of man's objective. I also don't really think being forgiven will change how much I love. It might make me happy, but only if I was aware of it. For example, if tomorrow a random person on the street came up to me and said, "Everyday for the last ten years, you, and only you, have just barely cut across my lawn's far corner and trampled and killed the grass in that corner and every year I've had to buy grass seed in order to fix that corner and, over ten years, this has cost me over $300. But I forgive you for it and won't ask you for the $300 payment." I would probably say, "Ok, thanks, I guess. But to be honest, I had no idea this whole time I was causing so much grief to you!"

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The concept is a huge debt (like a whole nation’s debt but one you owe personally). This is something you truly understand the full implications of this debt.

I have previously tried to explain the objective, so do I need further explaining?

I have no idea how God could show that. Perhaps he could write me an essay and leave it on my bedside table detailing how and why sin is not insignificant? I'm not sure how one creates a debt though. He could alter my account balance so that I owe 19 trillion dollars to my local bank and every penny I make will just go to paying the interest

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How much do you make that it would pay the “interest” on 19 trillion dollars?
Would you even read such this essay?
To owe that amount would it not be, as you say “God altering my account” making it not my fault?

You are actually doing a good job of presenting the problem.

So would the only individuals that could feel they had been forgiven of a great deal, be forgiven mass murders? (I have worked with men in prison that did feel right away they had been forgiven a huge amount when they turned to God [the problem was convincing them of God’s Love to forgive them]).

Would sacrificing a mosquito for your sins show how significant your sins are?

Remember having you feel/realize you have been forgiven of a huge offence is for your sake, to help you Love much to a new level (Godly type Love) and not because God has a problem forgiving sins.

Not only is God’s ability to forgive not the problem, but “sin” itself is not the problem. The problem is your realizing how significant your sins are to the point of really wanting to be forgiven of them, feeling overwhelmed by sin (not able to trust yourself to handle them), thus being left with trusting (faith) in God’s Love, seeking God’s forgiveness to the point of humbly accepting His forgiveness, so you will Love much.

Not sure of what the objective and universal "correct" way of doing this is. Also not sure why I need to accept it in the way prescribed by any particular sect. Also not sure if that will ultimately cause me or anyone else to love any more of less.

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People try to pay God back (like they were just given an extension on the loan [debt]), people try to be worthy or better than the next guy (earning or being deserving of God’s forgiveness), something they always deserved since they were chosen from the beginning of time to be a Child of God, or think they can slide past God someway.


The “correct” way is truly being humble, truly swallowing your pride, realizing this is something even the lowliest mature adult on earth can do, truly desiring the gift, and taking possession of the gift. There is nothing really magical or difficult about it, since God is making it as easy as possible. (some people complain since it is too easy, but that is because they want pride in accepting it).

It is more giving up than doing, you are giving up on figuring out or working out another way and just breaking down and accepting.

Jesus is not helping with God’s “forgiveness” action (since God does not have a problem), but is helping us to realize we have been forgiven much, helping us see we and everyone’s are being treated fairly and just, and helping us realize God and Jesus truly Love us more than any human could Love us.

Not sure what you're getting at here.I agree that God's love is great and that God wants to forgive us and that a good way of showing that forgiveness would be to love us in a way that is way beyond human love. I agree with you up to there.

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That is most of it! Great!!

But I'm not sure why sending his son to be tortured and crucified in a standard Roman crucifixation 2000 years ago in the backwaters of Palestine knowing that 3 days later the son he sent would rise and continue living out eternity at God's right hand shows this love. Doesn't sound like much of a sacrifice especially if the physical, wordly pain that Jesus suffered was completely trumped by the glories that Jesus has got to experience for all eternity since the beginning of time with God. I mean, Jesus was on the cross for what, like 6 hours? 6 hours of physical, worldly pain with the promise of an eternity of spiritual, divine bliss afterwards? Seems like a decent tradeoff. Also, no one really knows what exactly Jesus did for those 3 days. Reminds me of a song by the emo band Brand New from their album The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me from the single titled "Jesus":

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First off Jesus left his throne and returned to it, so it is not like he had this big “step up”. Jesus stepped down and went back up.
Also since deity can have nothing to do with sin, God cannot participate with Christ for the first time they are separated.
The real seeming impossible act going on is deity baring sin, do we know how hard that is?


You do bring up an issue that takes a lot of explaining. Jesus tells us “Everything He teaches about the Kingdom with outsider’s present is said in “parables”. Well, Jesus himself is in the Kingdom teaching about the Kingdom, so he himself is a “parable” in the since there is this worldly earthly presentation of the man Jesus walking around and then there is the spiritual parallel meaning to Jesus. The cross is the same way: We have what we or others could see: the torture, humiliation, and murder of Christ and this is a earthly presentation of what is Spiritually happening. Jesus is part of that spiritual realm while on earth, so spiritually he is baring sin for a spiritual amount of time (how long is 6 earthly hours in God’s time?) We might see Jesus on the cross from heaven (time is relative)??

leftrightleftrightleft said:

I always thought one of the qualities of God was that he was Just.

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God above all else is righteous. This means He is "just" beyond our/your interpretation of the word. Being just, one must yield to popular cultures understanding of Justice or mans rule of law. Righteousness is an absolute standard that pop culture has no bearing on. So God can be considered Just, but Beyond that, God is Righteous above all else.

Because he's GOD. I am a sinful human being. And it is physically and spiritually impossible for me to love completely unconditionally. I do not believe, like Taoism and Buddhism, that humans are perfectible by any process. I think that to love selflessly and unconditionally is an ideal to strive to wards as a human being; despite knowing it can never be fully realized. I think it is better to strive to wards the infinite rather than re-label the end point and make the race finite.

I hold God to a high standard because he is supposed to be the Perfect. He is the ideal. He is the ideal perfection. If he is not the ideal, objective, perfect being then he is not even worth receiving worship from anyone because he's just like you and me: not-ideal, subjective, imperfect.

So I hold God to a high standard because, by definition, God IS the standard.

Why would you worship anything less than this?

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In the end it is YOUR Standard, YOUR shifting interpretations of justice and righteousness, and Your Hypocrisy that binds God or Judges God to a Standard in which you do not care to achieve or fully define or live up to yourself. To be a judge of another aren't you required to be above what it is you are judging? (How many unrepentant/untried murders do we elect to Perseid over other murders?) You want mercy from God then as his judge are you not required to show mercy? You want understanding then as God's judge Show us understanding.

Otherwise accept that God from the seat of authority and Power has decided to Judge you in the same fashion that you would judge all others if you were in a position of authority. The only issue you seem to have with the way God is doing things is that you are at the business end of the judgment or your the one being judged.. Obviously it is not to the standards in which God is using, because again when given the opportunity you employ the exact same standard God does, in that you expect all that you have judged to meet your standards in the way you have prescribed, and you have little acceptance or tolerance for those who do not. (In this case it includes God)

Just know we are told it is to the standard that we judge others that we ourselves are judged. You might want to start bring down that bar a little bit, because hypocrisy is not a good judgment day strategy for your defense.

Why do I worship to His standard rather than yours? Because I do not to presume to be the judge of God. Rather than judging God to my standard, I have changed my standards to fit His.

I said that to unconditionally love is the ideal to strive to wards. It is utter selflessness that you would forgive and the love the murderer of your entire family. That is an impressive type of love. I have high standards for people (including myself) to live up to: SELFLESS LOVE.

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If you think that woman forgave those men because she loved them, then you do not understand what forgiveness is, nor who she loves. Unconditional love is never unconditional. Love is a decision and as such is based on condition and or fact. Eliminate the facts or conditions of love and what you have left is affectionate detachment. If one lived on the surface of emotion and human understand I suppose one could mistake affectionate detachment as "love."

Why would you want to strive for any lower standard?

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Because one would want to seek a reality based Love.

Why?

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Because it has been established by the standard of God that righteousness demands it.

If you ask why again, simply know it is because God said so.

I'm still searching (I hope you are too).

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Once the Holy Spirit reveals it to you then you need no longer search. If you truly want to know then ask Him.

I'm not entirely sure of why a sinless sacrifice is required in order to pay the sin debt of the world. If a non-sinless sacrifice was required, then anyone could meet the requirements. Was Jesus sinless?

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Yes He was.

Hahaha. Nice
I think my conception of the soul is that it is a "part of God" within us, the "image" stamped on ourselves to make us human and unique. So I think that, within all of us, we have some sort of piece of the "conscientiousness" of God.

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We are a finite copy of one aspect of His conscientiousness. That is why we are told that we are made in His image. However do not fool yourself into thinking this is a measure of deity. It is not. Being made in the image of God means that one has the opportunity to provide a place for the Spirit of God to reside IF you turn your life over to Him.

This is not something you can manifest on your own. That is why I pointed out that if you were asking if God was apart of you. your answer was no.
You are a shell that The Holy Spirit of God can fill. This does not mean you are any part of God.

Do you think Jesus thought like us while he was in a physical body?

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Yes we are told He was 100% man.

Did his neurons still fire in the same way? If you gave Jesus a brain-scan, would the machine blow up?

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I don't know the relationship between body and soul or in His case body and deity.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

And, I would say one of the goals is to strive to be part of this or live out this type of Love.

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Love and faith both can grow and seem to grow together with use. If you take what little faith and what little Love you have into the market place of life they will grow automatically.

Love cannot grow unless it has been accepted as a gift from God.

But what about “accepting” God’s Love from Him as it was given unconditionally, undeserving, selflessly, and freely. Everyone accepts life and the air we breathe, but do they accept it as a free, undeserving, unconditional, and selfless gift from God?

Since God created me, as a creator He would have certain responsibilities toward what He created, similar to parents bringing a child into the world (we hold them responsible). So when does God’s responsibility toward man cease and when does what He gives become a pure charitable gift?

When would it be perceived by anyone and everyone that a parent has gone way beyond their “responsibilities” and what they are now doing for their child is pure charity? Read Luke 15: 11-32 the prodigal son. The prodigal son is really telling the father: “I wish you were dead so I could get my inheritance.” And he goes down from there.

Would it help for you to accept God’s Love as pure charity if you believed:

1. You have really screwed up and are not in any way deserving of forgiveness?

2. In some way it will be hugely “sacrificial” on God’s part to forgive you?

3. If you understood who God is and what He is really like?

4. What all comes with accepting God’s Charity (in the form of accepting His forgiveness)?

Yes.



I agree.



I also agree.



I agree.



I agree with most of this. Not sure if there's a "correct" way to accept a gift of charity though. I'm not even sure what you mean by that. If someone is offering a gift to you and you take it, then you have accepted it. It doesn't matter if you spun around 6 times, whistled a quick tune and then accepted it or if you sat down, stood up and then barked like a dog and then accepted it. The method of accepting the gift seems inconsequential as long as you accept it.

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It is true, if you complete the transaction by “accepting” the charity then it was accepted. The problem is if you perceive the “charity”: as payment for something you have done or as a loan that you will be paying back or even as something you get because of whom you are (deserving of it because you are a child) or something you are doing to help the giver out, than you are not accepting charity and the transaction does not occur.

I have tried to extend “charity” to people in need and they have said “if I even get back on my feet I’ll pay you back.” Or “I’ll pay this forward”. I have been manipulated into giving to people that really might have needed it, but they told a much bigger tail of woes and achieved their goal of getting money from me. Does everyone except “welfare” as charity?

Correctly is “humbly” for the most part, but some people will accept “charity” from the very rich, because they think the rich will feel better about themselves so by accepting charity you are helping the rich, you are doing it for the sake of the rich. Some could feel that about God (does this not make Him happy to take care of you, for God to forgive you)?

If you perceive God allowing His innocent son to be tortured, humiliated, murdered and having to bare sins (deity taking on sin somehow for some spiritual length of time) as the result of your sins and to allow God to forgive you than God’s forgiveness (charity) is huge.

I agree with this. It is an ideal to strive towards. But I think its unattainable because humans aren't perfectible. It is simply an idea, conceptualized and actualized by God alone; think Thomas Aquinas.

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I'm not sure how this paragraph relates to anything else you've said thus far. Also, the only reason we need to accept charity in first place, according to Christian theology, is because God allowed us to sin in the first place. So God allows us to sin, then asks that we accept his forgiveness in charity, but only if we accept it in the "correct" way?

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Again we are going back to the objective “obtaining Godly type Love” which is a gift (Charity) from God accepted in the form of accepting forgiveness. The “reason” we have to accept charity is not because of “sin”, but because it is accepting God’s Love and we can thus have this Love and grow this Love. The “sin” just helps us to accept forgiveness “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…” and thus accept God’s Love and we begin to Love.

Yes, God could take our freedom to sin away, but that does not provide us with Love (fulfilling our objective) and the story of Adam and Eve shows us there is no other way to obtain this Love without sinning first?
God hates sin and will need to really hate sin a lot (to increase the amount we will be forgiven of), so we will love not just a little but a lot (in proportion to how much we perceive we have been forgiven).
God is not just “asking” us to accept His forgiveness, but is doing all He can to help those that are just willing to accept His help, accept His forgiveness. Charity is not being accepted if it is not being perceived as charity and to truly accept charity you have to be humble about it.


If the story of what Christ did on the cross is true, would it humble you somewhat, since it was done for you and way beyond what you would do for your enemy?

leftrightleftrightleft said:

IHahaha. Nice
I think my conception of the soul is that it is a "part of God" within us, the "image" stamped on ourselves to make us human and unique. So I think that, within all of us, we have some sort of piece of the "conscientiousness" of God. I think this manifests itself with guilt for doing wrong and elation for doing right and various other facets (such as music bringing about powerful emotions). So I think we all have a piece of this conscientiousness of God within us.

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I tend to agree with view except I believe we can be so unloving to others that we elimanate or kill our soul. If we will then turn from being unloving to being loving, God will return and our soul will be reborn. This is, I think what Jesus referred to as having to be born again. Paul talked about it in terms of being a new Creation in Jesus.