sculleywr
Orthodox Colitis Survivor
- Jul 23, 2011
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God is the Creator of Adam, but that doesn't automatically make Him Adam's Father. When a potter makes a pot, is he the pot's father, or merely its creator? It seems obvious to me that making a pot does not necessarily entail any parental bonds to it. So, too, with God and Adam. God made Adam but that by itself does not make Adam His child. God also made dinosaurs, and insects, and fish. Are they, too, children of God? I don't think so.
One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Father of ALL. Now, last I checked, "all" includes all people. Right?
If you mean by "come to our senses" that we were unsaved and come to realize it, then I don't agree. Not being saved is not parallel to being a prodigal son. The Prodigal Son is not a picture of the non-believer. As you say, there was a relationship of father to son in the parable that pre-existed the prodigal's choice to live independently of his father. No matter how awfully the son lived, he was always his father's son. Can the unbeliever say the same? I don't think so. Consider the following verses:
Romans 8:9-15
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors--not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Ephesians 1:4-6
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
All of these passages clearly indicate two states in which a person may exist: An adopted state, or an un-adopted one. A person has either been redeemed, and adopted by God, and indwelt by His Spirit, or they have not. Not all people that live, then, are adopted into God's family. And those that aren't are not His children and have no part in His kingdom.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Again, two states of the human person are described: An unrighteous state outside of God's kingdom, or a washed, sanctified and justified state inside of God's kingdom. It seems pretty plain to me that the Bible does not teach a universal family of God.
Only one problem with your use of adoption: if a person is adopted, he doesn't automatically receive the benefits of adoption. He must come into the family. When the prodigal left the family, he forfeited ALL of the benefits of being in the family. We were always God's children, as we are ALL made in the image of God. The only way a person could bear the image of God is by being His children. God is the Father of all. Whether they choose to accept that or not is the only choice they have
You make my case for me here. It is because our sin is against an infinite God that our unconfessed and unrepented-of sin never ceases to be a violation of His will. So long as God exists our sin against Him continues to exist.
The other eternal problem with our sin is that we can't, in and of ourselves, make perfect restitution for it, which is the only kind of restitution that will fully expunge our sin. We must atone for our sin until the atonement is fully and perfectly made. But we are flawed, sin-corrupted creatures incapable of such atonement. This is why Jesus, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, was sent to "take away the sin of the world." If we do not avail ourselves of his gift of salvation, then we must atone for our sin ourselves, which, because of our own imperfection, results in an endless process of restitution.
So God Himself is the ultimate contributor to our sins. He is the one who makes the sin infinite, even though He is able to choose not to. Good to know that God created the concept of infinite sin just so that He could establish something that only He can fix.
You do know that this makes God responsible for the infinite nature, since He could choose NOT to magnify the sin and instead treat it for what it was before He altered it, right?
Quite right. But you stipulated in your last post to me that "infinite begets infinite" and "finite begets finite." As I pointed out, this is obviously not the case. The Infinite has begotten the finite.
Semantics...
Let me clarify terms, then: instead of infinite, which describes something without beginning or end, without boundaries, our sin is eternal, which means that it may have had a beginning a finite time in the past but goes on from that point without end. For the reasons I have outlined above, our sin is better described as eternal in its consequences than infinite.
Our sin has a clear beginning and end. Only things created by the eternal God can be eternal. So yet again, you end up with mankind doing something it isn't capable of doing. However, when we make it the consequences, which is what Orthodoxy does, it doesn't become something that man is incapable of doing and it doesn't necessitate God torturing men for eternity. Remember, my argument as to the pain of hell isn't that it doesn't exist, but that God is not intentionally causing it as a punishment that isn't really a punishment. Instead the cause of the pain is the same reason that loving a person who hates you is like piling lit coals on top of his head.
grazie.I'm very sorry to hear it! I have my own physical problems, too. I'll keep praying for you.
You've skirted the point I made about pain. Whether or not it is related to our love of a thing, pain is necessary. Without it - as leprosy horribly illustrates - deformity and death result. Pain protects us. It warns us of our limits and provokes us to change our behaviour when it is pain-producing. Enduring a modicum of pain is also necessary to high achievement. Not all pain, then, is bad.
In any case, the pain of Hell is not supposed to be anything but penal suffering. It is not intended to be the same sort of pain our love for something may produce.
Except there is nothing that the pain of hell has in it of redeeming quality. If God is causing it intentionally, then He is naught but a sadistic torturer, which is why I'm not addressing the next segment, because it doesn't negate the fact that:
1. God could choose not to inflict the pain
2. God chooses to inflict the pain, anyways
3. The pain has no redeeming value or purpose
If God truly willed that none should perish, under this line of thinking, then all He would have to do is forgive them. God is not limited to punishing them because He is without limit. However, if it is the sinner who is incapable of receiving that forgiveness, and the forgiveness is, itself, the cause of his pain, then it is no longer God essentially standing around whipping them with a cat of nine tails, but men made of straw coming in contact with the all consuming fire that is the nature of God.
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