Could you elaborate on that?
Yes, what I meant by that is that when Jesus said on the cross "it is finished", it was a statement of finality. A declaration wherein there is no "if", "maybe", "let's see what happens", "one day.." etc, but in those words is an absolute declaration of certain authority.
Modern Christianity scarcely reflects that certain authority, where there is lots of democracy, compromises, "if's", "perhaps's" and "one day's". There is lots of fighting, hypocrisy, folly and downright evil amongt it too. Whereas your attitude has escaped all of that, so that you are just parting the seas and going wherever it seems right to go.. but you're also fairly accurate in your judgements - which means that your basically zen with the truth. But, what you think Christianity is doesn't match who you are, and what I just described of you seems to describe exactly what a Christian should be. This is why I have said that you seem to be suffering from a perspective of scripture that doesn't so well reflect the attitude that Jesus brought, and I gave an example of the attitude that I have seen in you, as Matthew 21:43-44 states:
"I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. Anyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces and it will crush anyone it falls on".
Again, it is one of those statements of finality, a declaration of certain authority, the type of speech that belongs to the noble calling of the one who is zen with the truth.
I don't see how those verses imply that there's an age of accountability though.
Luke 12:47-48 shows that the punishment is relative to the responsibility, and seeing as children have not learned or matured enough to be responsible for their errors, there is much more mercy naturally available to them in judgement. There is an age where this changes though, as the responsibility for error becomes more grave.
John 15:22 shows the same concept, is all. That there is no excuse for error once a person is sufficiently responsible.
James 4:17 shows that the definition of sin is directly relative to the knowledge of what is good and bad, and again, there is an age that a child attains this knowledge. Babies aren't born with a knowledge of good and bad, so that they can be blamed for doing sin.
Ecclesiastes 7:29 shows that God does not make mankind crooked, but it is over time that we invent ways to be less upright.
I guess it would be wrong to call them depraved, but a sinner is a sinner because he is born a sinner. Maybe we can talk about more sin or less sin, but the as far as I can tell, the bible (Romans 7:25) doesn't say we become sinners, but that we are born that way. It's in man's very nature to sin. As should be apparent since there is indeed no one righteous.
This phrase "sinner" is describing someone who does not reflect the perfect intention of the human, that is to love. As a result of the sin, they do things that produce regret or resentment, whereas wrong things can be done by a person who is acting of love, that doesn't righteously cause resentment or regret as sin does. What I find as a result of this, is that children have no condemnation for the wrong they do, because it is not of sin that they do those things. As soon as they are made aware of the wrong that they have done, in love, they repent. But grown-ups don't have the same knowledge of love, and being sinners themselves, they judge the child by the standard that is aplicable to their own sense of conscience. It is unrighteous to do that, but that is, by and large, what grown-ups are these days (Matthew 24:12).
I don't understand what you mean by "cannot happen unless it has actually happened".
It's a bit of a play on words. Where you said "It seems to me that we are sinners by birth, not by actions", I picked on the word "act" where you said "action", by saying that unless a thing "act"ually happens, then it cannot cause offence, and by logical conclusion seeing sin is an offence, a person can only be proven to be a sinner as a result of their actions.
I don't think your assumptions about my (former) doctrine. But maybe we're talking past each other. I don't mean that a newborn has guilt per se. I don't see what he could be judged for. But since the newborn is a sinner, there's simply no way he will not go on to commit sin.
But I am saying that it isn't the fact that a person is capable of doing sin that makes them the sinner, but that the world teaches and forms it's fallen, sinful ways into them long before they have learned to have the authority to make their own decisions.
Again I don't see how those verses say that it's the sinner who can't endure the righteous presence.
Do you know why? It only seems too clear to me. You'll actually have to explain yourself to me for this!
Well, yes. But maybe a better way to put it would be: I can't offer God anything unless he gives it to me first. I can't even believe in him unless he chooses to give me faith.
But seeing as you did once believe and that you were impervious to doubt at that time, then the more realistic reasoning is to address the source of the disbelief.
Nobody told me, I figured it out all on my own
But how to reconcile those verses with what Paul says in Romans about God making one vessel for glory and one for destruction and so forth? I don't see how anything can ultimately happen apart from God's will. Even Paul quotes the objection that "why have you made me so?" and it's interesting that he doesn't invalidate the objection, but just dismisses it with "who do you think you are to question God?" God did indeed make us all sinners, apparently in order to prove a point (his own righteousness or our inability to save ourselves, as far as I can tell).
It seems another example as with Pharaoh below.. where you have presented the cause as a mutually exclusive choice between our will and God's, whereas in reality it needn't be mutually exclusive, and I would argue that it indeed isn't.
This is because it is necessarily true that God does choose to "make/let" us become sinners, but it is ultimately our own choice to do the sin. Being wise as He is (Proverbs 21:30), He is always able to justify His righteousness in comparison.. and yet, is it not true that a sinner has failed to be holy because of his own choice? Is it not true also that God has allowed the sinner to do so while remaining beyond reproach in judgement?
These are not rhetorical questions but an absolute crux, because it is the basis for the truth in Philippians 3:21, that God has a remarkable power to put all things into subjection to Himself.
But the bible also says Judas did it in order that the scriptures be fulfilled.
Could he have freely chosen to love?
That is a question that only he is entitled to ask, and that I certainly have no right to answer. But it doesn't mean that I am not willing to dialogue with you further about it, just, that is all that seems appropriate for me to say at this stage.
There seems to be more verses saying that God hardened his heart than those saying he hardened his own heart:
Exodus 4:21
The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
Exodus 7:3
But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt
Exodus 9:12
But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.
Exodus 10:1
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them
Exodus 10:20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.
Exodus 10:27
But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go.
Exodus 11:10
Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.
Exodus 14:4
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this.
Exodus 14:8
The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly.
Exodus 14:17
I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them.
But since the bible seems to be saying both that he hardened his own heart and that God did it, what do we make of that?
I ask to establish the method by which God hardened Pharaoh's heart .. whether there is any indication that it was not Pharaoh's own decision that is to blame. The hardening of a heart when it is unrighteous to do so, can only be attributed to sin, that is pride, greed or envy, all of which are present factors in Pharaoh's plight. Then the important question in my view becomes not whether God has the necessary wisdom to cause Pharaoh to choose to harden his heart (because what match can reasonably be expected between the wisdom of a human compared to the wisdom of God?), but it is important to establish whether God was somehow responsible not only for His own decisions, but for Pharaoh's decision in each case, to the extent that Pharaoh cannot be rightfully blamed for the decision - in other words, did Pharaoh have a fair chance to choose to let Israel go, or was God ultimately to blame in some way for what culminated in the blood of Egypt's firstborn.
Romans 7:25
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful naturea]">[a] a slave to the law of sin.
Paul wrote a lot about being slaves to sin, the sinful nature, how it can not please God, being destined for destruction and so forth. As far as I can tell, his point is that people are sinners by nature. Put another way, a sinner can't really choose not to sin. Which is evident anyway - if we could, then presumably we could find some sinner who actually didn't sin.
This comes right after he has said in verse 9 that he was alive once, but after the commandment came then sin came to life and he died.. so I am inclined to wonder, what about a baby? I'll suggest that a newborn doesn't "actually sin" .. (unless you might give some examples!). In fact, what is the first sin a child ever commits? It would be interesting to study the case and see the factors that contributed to it, because it is never without cause (iow, I posit that it would not have happened in an ideal world, therefore the fallen world provokes and teaches a person to become a sinner).
Without a perfect world to use as an example, all we can reasonably do is study specific examples. What I hate though, is the ignorance of the antichrist community that already has it's beliefs and doesn't bother to look at the reality. Those are the real provocative ones (Proverbs 29:27).
When it appears to be so unclear on pretty weighty matters like whether or not God loves everyone, and every denomination feels like their interpretation is obviously the right one, maybe it's time to ask the question: what if none of them is right? It could be that God gave us the bible and is ok with nobody understanding it fully, or that one denomination or one Christian somewhere is getting it right, but it seems to me a much more reasonable conclusion that the bible isn't in fact the word of God.
It is important to know that the bible itself isn't the Word of God, but we believe that
what the bible says is the Word of God. This means that the translation into English has an inescapable impact upon the message - where the English language cannot convey the fulness of the original meaning, and even the translator themselves are making decisions about what meaning should be conveyed through it.
This article is a bit of an eye-opener about that, if you are interested. It explains how the YEC crowd have come about, and that so much of the value of Genesis is lost in translation.
Good questions. I don't think my thought appear literally out of nowhere. But there are certain things I have come to think without having read or heard about them elsewhere. For instance, not too long ago I realized a serious problem with saying God is the author of morality: are things good because God says so, or does he say so because they are good. Of course I soon found out that I'm not exactly the first one to come up with that. But my point is I didn't merely repeat somebody else's argument. Same with free will. I've been thinking a LOT (probably too much, heh) about free will, and then sometimes I'll see that, for example, Sam Harris has come to the exact same conclusion (which made me feel kind of smart
).
I'm not sure what you mean about knowledge distinct from spirit. Are you talking about the holy spirit revealing things?
I say rather that knowledge describes an understanding that includes an element of information, whereas the spirit is an intention, or mood, that manifests attitude - affecting willingness to cooperate and expression through behaviour - so where we might talk about revelation by holy spirit, it means to me that a person does not have any sinful tendency (that is, a self-centred interest) that would prevent the truth from prevailing through the spirit's management of the resource of the mind - that is, to use the existing knowledge and character of the person, without any impairment that comes through the unwillingness of the individual to go there (which might be, for example, a fear of finding out that they were wrong, or their bitterness toward the one that they are conversing with etc).
In that way, if you have understood the previous paragraph, we see that the scriptures get twisted by people who are not willing to gain from them the new knowledge that The Holy Spirit is trying to convey through them. So instead of reading the scripture accurately for the given context in order to find agreement in truth that leads to growth (Ephesians 4:14-25), they begin reading the words as saying something different than what the words actually say, commonly called "confirmation bias". Those people have been tempted and lured to follow a deceiving spirit instead of The Holy Spirit, in the way that Jesus warned through John 15:3-6.
