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And theology is logically self-contradictory if it isn't based in our own human definitions, as I demonstrated at post 12. Does anyone care to directly address the basis for that charge of contradiction outlined in the post? Or will everyone continue to dance around it?
Whose sin does a fetus suffer for? His own? I'm not getting you.
Or are you saying that Adam's sin demanded such consequences? Sorry there is nothing in the innate nature of true justice and kindness that demands the visitation of one man's sin upon the as-yet unborn innocent. Clearly.
Ultimately I define sin as disobedience to conscience. If God has put it in the heart/conscience of men to be fruitful and multiply, I can't insist on abstinence.You claim that "love minimalises suffering". By YOUR definition of such, than a parent that truly loves their child, should NOT allow that child to be born, because in that childs life, there will be pain and suffering, trials and growth.
Not at all. For example, once Adam and Eve had sinned, He could have produced a new Garden and started over. He didn't have to let everyone pay for their sin, as the church has insinuated.By your definition of love, you want to remove choice from humanity, equivalent to a parent chaining their child in the basement, so that this world cant cause them any pain... but locked in a cellar, they are "safe" from any pain this world may inflict on them.... that is what YOUR definition of love looks like in reality.
That argument doesn't hold for an omnipotent God. If human parents are the only ones in the picture, the argument carries some weight because parents aren't always available to protect their children. Therefore a little pain can serve as a beneficial warning which,in the long run, minimizes the child's suffering.A child never learns what it is to burn their hand, do they understand WHY you dont touch the top of the sto e? No, they simply know they are told not to.... but, IF they fail to heed tge warning of their parent... the pain they feel after disobedience, makes them understand far more, why their parent told them not to.... and MAYBE just MAYBE that pain causes growth in that child, to be more willing to obey, next time.
So we are to forgive God of a horrible and evil miscarriage of justice because later on He apologized for it by executing the atonement? That's like thanking a stabber for removing the dagger from your back, "Oh what a kind man you are!" Sorry, that's not a viable theodicy.Can you point me to any fetus, apart from Christ, who has been born and did not eventually sin?
Nevertheless, the fetus suffers because his nature is corrupted, not because of any personal sin he did. He has inherited this nature.
But you will say “what kind of God would allow such a thing?!”, and the answer is, the kind of God Who would watch His Son suffer and die to redeem the world, the kind of God Who allowed Himself to be beaten, mocked, and killed on a cross to reverse the stain upon us, the kind of God Who would send His Spirit to bring us to where He has always wished us to be, near Him, with Him, in eternal peace and paradise.
Huh?Owing to the fact God is wrong and you are right.
For example Protestants claim that we all inherited a sinful nature from Adam - even before birth. Also such innocent fetuses suffer disease, starvation, etc.Tell me just what are these supposed consequences we suffer unjustly?
This kind of response is proof that you can't refute the arguments.There is no denial. Your ideas are kooky
Not at all. For example, once Adam and Eve had sinned, He could have produced a new Garden and started over. He didn't have to let everyone pay for their sin, as the church has insinuated.
That argument doesn't hold for an omnipotent God. If human parents are the only ones in the picture, the argument carries some weight because parents aren't always available to protect their children. Therefore a little pain can serve as a beneficial warning which,in the long run, minimizes the child's suffering.
That argument doesn't hold for an omnipotent God. If human parents are the only ones in the picture, the argument carries some weight because parents aren't always available to protect their children. Therefore a little pain can serve as a beneficial warning which,in the long run, minimizes the child's suffering.If I hid my child in a castle, kept her from every bad image or word, allowed no one to visit her lest they injure her or brake her heart, gave her an endless supply of food and drink and whatever else she wanted to consume, gave no rules or commands, never punishing her or chastising her, never exposing her to any of the sad aspects of life, namely sickness, corruption, and death. Tell me, how do you think she would fare in the world?
Not me being sure. You. You wouldn't treat your own kids that way, visiting upon them the sins of an ancestor or uncle or grandparent. You'd try to shield them.Here you go again, claiming to know better than God what is best and needful. What makes you so sure that producing a new Garden again would have been a better plan?
Again, you wouldn't treat your kids that way.Would have He destroyed Adam and Eve to do so? And if not, what would they have learned knowing that the consequence of their sin would be God scratching everything and starting from the beginning again? Would that have made them grow in wisdom and in love? Would they afterwards be less tempted by the snake had God just hit re-do?
Aha? How does what I said support your conclusions. I don't think you read my words carefully enough.Aha! There it is! Perhaps you are now getting closer to the truth! Praise the Lord Who created us, allowed to grow, so that we might be made full!
All Christians including myself believe that God is good and proclaim His goodness.
But what if our doctrines inadvertently extrapolate otherwise? The church clings to two views of Adam:
(1) Adam was our representative. ( Catholics and Protestants)
(2) Adam's sin didn't incriminate us but did have horribly painful consequences for our world. (Orthodox).
I suppose a third view exists.
(3) Adam never literally existed. Biologically we evolved into this horrible world.
All three views unacceptably extrapolate to a God who is hardly the epitome of kindness and thus is either comparatively evil or totally evil. After all, given the power to create a world, any of us would have exercised more kindness than 1,2, and 3.
2,000 years of investigation have demonstrated that only one solution is possible. And the church is well aware of it but has rejected it because it flatly contradicts their dogmatic assumption of an immaterial soul indivisible into parts.
The obvious solution is that God only made one material soul named Adam (even Eve was a physical subsection extracted from Adam's ribs). After Adam sinned, God removed most of that material soul from his body unto a place of suspended animation. When each of us was later conceived, God mated a separate microscopic portion of that sin-stained soul to each of our bodies. In other words, YOU are 100% Adam (not a mixture). YOU are the one who freely chose to eat of the forbidden fruit (although none of us currently remember doing so).
P.S. This remedy isn't a complete solution to the problem of evil. The larger issue is, why would a perfectly kind God allow temptation in the first place? Historically the church has made a pretense of providing satisfactory answers but has patently failed. Problem is I can't discuss this aspect on the current forum as my solution falls under Controversial Theology.
Why should He take away Adams choice? It takes away actually having a choice IF the results of that choice are negated.Ultimately I define sin as disobedience to conscience. If God has put it in the heart/conscience of men to be fruitful and multiply, I can't insist on abstinence.
There's also a biological element impacting all this. 1Cor 7 says that is better for a man to go ahead and marry to quench his sexual appetites, lest they get the better of him.
Furthermore since we all sinned in Adam, it is likely that there is no salvation for most of the unborn (those parts of Adam's soul remaining in suspended animation). In that case, having a child is possibly the best way to afford him an opportunity for minimal suffering.
Not at all. For example, once Adam and Eve had sinned, He could have produced a new Garden and started over. He didn't have to let everyone pay for their sin, as the church has insinuated.
That argument doesn't hold for an omnipotent God. If human parents are the only ones in the picture, the argument carries some weight because parents aren't always available to protect their children. Therefore a little pain can serve as a beneficial warning which,in the long run, minimizes the child's suffering.
(Sigh) It's because knowing what happened determines the outcome.
1) Was Adams sin merely a violation of his conscience, NO.
2) Was Adams sin rebellion against Gods' Law, NO.
3) Was Adams sin the natural outcome of his use of choice, Yes.
I say this because God gave Adam (Dominion) over all the earth, over all His Creation and Dominion translates into (Omnipotence) remember God Created Adam in His likeness.
Gen. 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
OMNIPOTENCE:
G3841
παντοκράτωρ
pantokratōr
pan-tok-rat'-ore
From G3956 and G2904; the all ruling, that is, God (as absolute and universal sovereign): - Almighty, Omnipotent.
G3956
πᾶς
pas
pas
Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole: - all (manner of, means) alway (-s), any (one), X daily, + ever, every (one, way), as many as, + no (-thing), X throughly, whatsoever, whole, whosoever.
G2904
κράτος
kratos
krat'-os
Perhaps a primary word; vigor [“great”], (literally or figuratively): - dominion, might [-ily], power, strength.
Adam therefore was in the legal position to do whatever he wanted to do with the Serpent because the Serpent fell under his Dominion as the Omnititant ruler of the earth and everything in it.
Adam did not rebuke the Serpent, he also did not rebuke Eve, he just took the fruit she gave him and he did eat.
Therefore as one Omnipotent being to another, God commanded Adam, you can eat of ever tree in the Garden, except ONE, because that tree will kill you.
Adam had been given Dominion which made him Omnipotent, but he was not Deity, he did not have LIFE in himself as God did, he was human, a lesser being that could die.
There were many levels of Adams Sin (Disobedience) if you really want to investigate them, because it must be understood, it wasn't for eating the fruit.
1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
Rom 5:12-14
12) Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
13) (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Again, convince me of the relevance of your angle, and then I will delve into it.
It seems to me that you have an axe to grind
What I have said has relevance to the issue, because it is something which you have not considered in your hypothesis and should give you something to chew on for awhile.
The only axe I care about is clarity of subject.
Ok what's option 4?IMO all (1) , (2) and (3) are wrong .
Also the You =/= Adam
That argument doesn't hold for an omnipotent God. If human parents are the only ones in the picture, the argument carries some weight because parents aren't always available to protect their children. Therefore a little pain can serve as a beneficial warning which,in the long run, minimizes the child's suffering.
And you're not capturing the full force of the object. When you sin, do you WANT all your children to suffer for it? Do you try to visit upon them any painful consequences or shield them to the extent possible? Because that's what the Adam-issue is largely about.
So it's impossible for your body to be imbibed with an air-like material substance called soul? I mean, Gen 2:7 strongly suggests that God's nostrils physically insufflated Adam's soul into his body, doesn't it? How does that not support my position?I know that our living being (nephesh) aspect came through His Breath.
*Not Adam's flesh.
You seem to be equivocating. You start off with talk of Adam's deliberate sin but then you seem to misconstrue it as 'our' deliberate sin. You seem to be confusing your own position with mine.But Adam’s sin was separation from God. So, although God is omnipotent, our deliberate separation from Him is akin to our parents always being available. Adam was much closer in relation to God prior to his sin. God then started the plan to bring him back again, but in an eternal way.
But you try to shield them from it,right? So how is this a valid response.When I sin, my children suffer, either directly or indirectly. Why? Because when I am sinning, I am less of a good father, and when I am less of a good father, my children suffer.
So it's not deliberate on our part, then. We just suffer for what Adam did. That contradicts Ezekiel 18 which says that a child shall not pay for the sins of the father.But I sense your point is more genetic. But the reality is that this is the nature we have inherited. It is not our fault that we were born that way.
You'll convince me of the relevance when you show me that your definition of maximal kindness is a framework where kids pay for the sins of their parents. For example, whenever you sin, I take it you make a sincere effort to punish your kids for it.
Not me being sure. You. You wouldn't treat your own kids that way, visiting upon them the sins of an ancestor or uncle or grandparent. You'd try to shield them.
When I debate with people, I generally argue against them based on THEIR assumptions. In fact, whether I myself hold to the same assumptions is sometimes irrelevant.
Again, you wouldn't treat your kids that way.
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