Literary Framework View & Exodus 20:11

[JAL]

@helmut,

A few more comments on God growing weary. You claim that work needn't imply weariness. I disagree, because there are degrees of weariness. Combing my hair doesn't exhaust my arm unless I do it for a long time - that would be extreme weariness - but the moment I exert any effort, it's a degree of weariness. "Rest" has no meaning without effort/weariness/exertion. Rest from what? Rest from rest?

Secondly, the books of the Bible have different degrees of presumed literalism.
- Epistles are the most literal books.
- History books next.
- Prophecy books next.


You've challenged me based on one verse in a prophecy book (Isaiah). You want to take this one verse oh-so-literally. Notice that I rely on the following verses from history books and epistles:


- In Genesis 1, the steps of His six work days are documented across a whopping 31 verses.
- Genesis 2 states:

"By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

- Exodus 20 adduces God's example of labor (and rest) as an example for Israel to follow:

"Six days you shall labor and do all your work...11For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day."

- Heb 4 states:
"Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his."


Again in Heb 4:

"And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”

- In the gospels, God (aka Jesus) daily grew weary from His work, and rested.

With all this data, was the Bible trying to mislead us about God working and resting? I don't think so.


Taking all that data together, it's a slam dunk exegetically speaking. Every theology has at least one problem passage. The rule is to interpret the problem passage in light of the clear passages.

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

Haven't heard from for a couple of days. You seem to be busy with other things. It's just as well, gives me an excuse to leave this forum for a while. I waste too much time here anyway. I recently was debating with some other members on another thread and it seemed like a waste of time. Their hearts seemed too hard to admit to any weakness in their position. These are the sort of people who won't even admit to the notion of problem passages, much less "apparent" contradictions. And it feels like that's what I run into 99% of the time.

Cheers.

 

[Helmut-WK]

It seems you posted stuff twice, so I only answer your second post. If there is an important point in the first post that is not in the second, you can remind me so I can answer to it.

All that immaterial spirit-stuff came from Plato

Really? Plato was not the first who made a distinction between matter and spiritual things of a different kind. The distinctive feature of Platonism is that the immaterial things are more real than matter.

From a logical point of view, it is evident that the world you live in is within your soul. Whether this world has a counterpart outside your soul is another question (and no, solipsism is not the only alternative to a view which makes the world in our soul just a picture/projection of the real outside world). Plato was by no means the first.

and is strongly challenged by the Hebrew/Greek terms used, in tandem with the word-contexts.

Overlap in meaning of words proves what? Nothing.

Immaterialism is a fairy-tale

Subscribed by Paul in 1.Kor 15:42-44 where he says that the body of the risen ones will not be from our matter.

therefore requires extraordinary corroboration.

I don't think that it needs more corroboration than the thesis that every move in our soul is just material.

Immaterialism is beset with logical problems

… invented by you.

(which probably is of little concern to you, if you accept the Hypostatic Union). For example: Jesus could not have suffered if He had an immaterial/intangible soul because, no matter how much damage is done to the tangible body, it could have no impact upon an intangible soul.

Well, my soul is not »tangible« (at least if I understand the dictionary right), I can't lay it on the table and show it to you. Even the definition of "soul" is not clear. But I, my intangible soul, suffer when my tangible body gets hurt.

An army of 6,000 soldiers doesn't say, "MY name (in the singular) is Legion." At worst they say, "OUR name is Legion."

An army of 6,000 soldiers is not contained in a single body.

Shallow. Dogs get a pass for lack of an active conscience.

I read enough descriptions of how dogs behave to know that they have a sort of conscious, even "bad conscious" when they know they have done something bad.

All of us are sinners under penalty of pain and death. Job at points lost sight of it or felt that the pain was exorbitant. God is wiser and best-qualified to make that call. I don't think the Book of Job supports a difference of ethics, or Calvin's psychopathic view of God.

You deflect from the important point: Why does God not prove he was morally right, but just says things which sound like: "Do not say nonsense, for I am so much stronger than you"?

Take a look at the word "wrath" in Romans 9 . Sinners under wrath have lost the right to complain. See my comments on Job above.

We are all sinners, so we have no right to complain, whatever God does. The consequences of what you say are a sort of vindication of Calvinism! Inconsistent.

Calvinism is in more in balance than my view? Ok.

I don't know which is more out of balance, you or Calvinism. Calvinism gives too much stress on God's sovereignty (Islam does even more, and partly really believes a God which fits your caricature of the God I believe in).

What does God mean by His ways being higher than ours?

Isa 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isa 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I see, you understand the word "way of God" as a contrast to "way of sinners". You are probably right.

Well, there is the way of righteousness (walking within God's commandments) and the way of sin. Indeed, the Greek word for sin (hamartia) denotes a deviation, and it is in the LXX the translation of several words in Hebrew with similar meaning. Etymologically, sin is in Greek (and Hebrew) basically the deviation of God's way, which the sinner refuses to walk on.
So this verses do not tell us something about the way God "walks", but of the ways He wants us to "walk".

God became man and walked the ways of God as a man (Jesus did not sin). So God has the right to command us to walk His ways, for he walked them in Jesus.

Nothing of this tells us that God could suffer, or gives a reason to suppose it.

He's not saying, "You're a piece of worthless crap just because I happened to be lucky enough to be endued with more power than you."

I can't see how this sentence makes any sense when we think of an creator. I can do with the software I write whatever I want (I can keep it, alter it, or delete it), an author can do with the persons in the novel he writes whatever he wants - not because he is "lucky", but because he creates them. The way you picture God shows that you take not in account the notion of a creator.

That would be like an aristocrat saying, "You're a piece of worthless crap just because I am of noble birth and inherited wealth."

An aristocrat can say something like this, but only to persons he created (as an author, or so), but not to fellow-creatures of his own kind.

By analogy God can't say this to others Gods (just theory, for there is only one God), but He can say it to humans (and says something like this to Job).

Right, both arms exhausted. That's exactly the argument I responded to. You seem to feel that three solutions are not enough for one vague passage. Whereas the Hypostatic Union isn't vague in that sense - it is CLEARLY faced with a number of apparent contradictions insoluble.

Same with the Trinity. You said you believe in it - despite the contradiction faced by trinity doctrine.

You cannot attack the Hypostatic Union and not attack the trinity. This is inconsistent.

No, God doesn't say, "I never grew weary, especially not during creation."

He says: I cannot grow weary. But even a creature with a billion (or googol) arms may get weary, given appropriate circumstances.

And if something has literally an infinite number of arms, it can't be material - but you denied God is immaterial, so this solution is closed for you.

I'm not following you. You are aware that today's theologians still consider these problems insoluble, right?

Because they are today's theologians.

I gave you the example of "my friend Mike" who both knows all math and doesn't know any math.

Jesus did not know all things when he was on earth. He had given up the glory. I see no biblical evidence (and no theology) that he knew all things did did not know all things at the same time.

I can cite plenty of other scholars. On the Quadrinity issue, Millard J. Erickson said that God manipulated math itself. You'd think that 3 + 1= 4, Always, right? Not for the Incarnation, according to the Hypostatic Union.

Not just according to the Hypostatic Union, but also according to the Bible.

Please. Immutability isn't dependent on time. It's precisely the claim that something doesn't change, whether time is real or not.

OK, but what do you mean by "change"? Is perception of a change a change or not? You seemed to call things change that I do not consider to be a change …

I fear you did not understand my question, see below. I deleted my first answer to this for this reason.

Look, infinitude is an impossible description of a reality because infinity is not a specific number.

Illogical.
»Infinity is not a specific number« means in plain words: There is more than one infinite number in mathematics - especially in set theory, where you find an enumerable infinite number of infinity numbers (and "enumerable infinite" is the smallest infinity).

This is no reason why "infinite" cannot be a possible description of a reality. According to circumstances (and the mathematical model involved, which defines what kind if infinity is meant) infinite may be the correct description, I already cited relativity theory, where (even within special relativity) something can be finite in one coordinate system and infinite in another - and since we speak of length (spatial length and/or length of time) it is obvious what "infinite" means there. A reality, described with "infinite".

Every author has finite knowledge, and learns something new every moment - at the very least he learns how the current moment feels different than the previous moment.

What does this have to do with the time within the novel? The persons in the novel do not live in our time, they live in the world of the novel.

Take an author that changes his attitude from A to B. After that change, he writes a first chapter, which precedes and pre-dates the other chapters.

Within book's time, this was a change from B to A, while within our time, it was (as said) a change from A to B.

And now consider the possibility that (instead writing a prequel) he takes the whole novel and makes many small changes here and there -. so the change in attitude is permanent in the book's time, from the beginning of the story to the very end. Is this a change in the time of the novel (the time his creatures live in)?

Here's what is relevant.
....An immutably holy God won't become temptible in the wilderness

Often "to tempt" means "to test" in the Bible. The Israelites tested God. But James 2 warns us to take every temptation as a test by God …

....An immutably omniscient God won't become an ignorant fetus in Mary's womb.

An author can decide to appear in one of His novels as a person. That's a sort of "incarnation".

I don't believe in time dilation and some of the other nonsense that Einstein fabricated.

This »nonsense« can be measured, e.g. when atomic clocks travel by airplane. It's real, whether you cal, it nonsense or not. Special relativity is the logical consequence of Galileo's relativity (which is part of Newton's theories) and the fact that there is a universal constant in universe: the velocity of light (Michelson/Morley experiment).

I a sense, things like time dilation arise from the fact that "same time" (simultaneity) is relative, you may even call it "nonreal" and "artifact" of different simultaneities.

Past is, what can't be altered, future is what we can alter. In relativity theory, the "here and now" can be reached from every point in the absolute past, and an (inertial) "traveler" from that point to "here and now" will see this past point on the some place in space ("here"). For the same reason also every point in absolute future is "here" in some coordinate system. And what is never absolute future nor absolute past can be future in one and past in another coordinate system - but there is no coordinate system which locates it "here". In short: absolute past/future can be "here", absolute elsewhere can be "now", but there is only one point in spacetime that is "here" and "now".

Scientists are taking Einstein too literally, as though he modeled reality perfectly.

You lost me. Newton had formulas to compute the motions of objects. They presuppose absolute space and absolute time, but also have a relativity which makes the notion of absolute space next to inconsistent. Einstein showed how we can rid of the notion of absolute space (in special relativity theory), and he had formulas that proved to be more precise that the ones by Newton.

Maybe you can find the notion that Einstein modeled "perfectly" within laymen, but physicists take Einstein as Newton: a mathematical description, which works - and if there is a model which deviates from Einstein, but more precise (measured by reality, i.e. experiments or the like), it is welcome. General relativity was the model which proved superior to special relativity …

I have no idea what point you were making there. I distinguish between qualitative vs quantitative understanding. I understand a computer perfectly in a qualitative sense, not quantitatively.

Modern physics, especially quantum theory, confronts us with paradoxes. Einstein did not like this and tried to refutes parts of quantum theory, but always failed.

Therefore (this was my point) we should not be too much surprised if we meet paradoxes when we try to understand God. Even you accepts the paradoxes of Trinity.

God is a tangible being who loves me. Not much more I need to know.

Hm, looking into a dictionary
tangible

1. a capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch : palpable

1. b substantially real : material
2. capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind
3. capable of being appraised at an actual or approximate value

Do you really mean that you know precisely what God is? Or what meaning of tangible do you use here?

And you presume this based on one verse in Isaiah that was not designed to be a full detailed metaphysics?

This is more than you offered for your case.

How do you know that? I know that you're wrong. No suffering, no real effort, then no accomplishment to boast of.

It is not a matter of boast.

"Praise me for being a lazy sloth."

No. Praise me for being your creator. You were created for that reason.

Again, I don't think you inwardly condone such snotty aristocratic attitudes.

I do not condone what you make out of my words.

You do not even try to understand what I am saying, you always come up with your aristocrat which does not fit as an example. Take that serious, and then try to find out why it does not fit.

 

[Helmut-WK]

"Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his."

I don't dare to delve into Hebrew, but this is Greek.
Rest according to a Strong's dictionary: katapausis {kat-ap'-ow-sis}
1) a putting to rest
1a) calming of the winds
2) a resting place
2a) metaph. the heavenly blessedness in which God dwells, and of which he has promised to make persevering believers in Christ partakers after the toils and trials of life on earth are ended
Anything about being exhausted?
Or take a secular one:
κατά-παυσις , εως, ἡ,
A.stopping: metaph., putting down, deposing, “τυράννων” Hdt.5.38; τῆς βασιληΐης deposition from . . , Id.6.67; “Κολλατίνου” D.C.46.49.
II. rest, calm, LXXIs.66.1, al.; place of rest, ib.Ps.94(95).11, al.; “αἱ κ. τῶν πνευμάτων” Thphr.Vent.18: metaph., allaying, “στάσεως” Phld. Mus.p.86 K.
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You put into the verses from your understanding or English words, despite the facts that generations of commentators said otherwise. Are you that experienced in Greek that you can see all the connotations with that verse (I'm not)?

Again in Heb 4:

"And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”

There we have the related verb, and the secular dictionary does not indicate a rest because of exhaustion. In Hbr 4, the contrast is not between rest and exhaustion/hard work, but between rest and unrest (being under God's wrath). The Israelites who had to walk on for 40 years are the ones that missed the rest. Did they do hard work in the desert before they were denied to enter God's rest? That question is off-topic to this chapter.

- In the gospels, God (aka Jesus) daily grew weary from His work, and rested.

He is human. We already had that - yawn.

With all this data, was the Bible trying to mislead us about God working and resting? I don't think so.

Maybe the translators - but to judge on that I need more Englich skill than I possess.

 

[JAL]

Too many shallow responses. I won't bother to address all of them.

I don't dare to delve into Hebrew, but this is Greek.
Rest according to a Strong's dictionary: katapausis {kat-ap'-ow-sis}
1) a putting to rest
1a) calming of the winds
2) a resting place
2a) metaph. the heavenly blessedness in which God dwells, and of which he has promised to make persevering believers in Christ partakers after the toils and trials of life on earth are ended
Anything about being exhausted?
Or take a secular one:
κατά-παυσις , εως, ἡ,
A.stopping: metaph., putting down, deposing, “τυράννων” Hdt.5.38; τῆς βασιληΐης deposition from . . , Id.6.67; “Κολλατίνου” D.C.46.49.
II. rest, calm, LXXIs.66.1, al.; place of rest, ib.Ps.94(95).11, al.; “αἱ κ. τῶν πνευμάτων” Thphr.Vent.18: metaph., allaying, “στάσεως” Phld. Mus.p.86 K.
-------------
You put into the verses from your understanding or English words, despite the facts that generations of commentators said otherwise. Are you that experienced in Greek that you can see all the connotations with that verse (I'm not)?

There we have the related verb, and the secular dictionary does not indicate a rest because of exhaustion. In Hbr 4, the contrast is not between rest and exhaustion/hard work, but between rest and unrest (being under God's wrath). The Israelites who had to walk on for 40 years are the ones that missed the rest. Did they do hard work in the desert before they were denied to enter God's rest? That question is off-topic to this chapter.

He is human. We already had that - yawn.

Maybe the translators - but to judge on that I need more Englich skill than I possess.

This post is based on the strawman-assumption that the terms "work" and "rest" pertain only to complete exhaustion/collapse of the entire Godhead, precisely what I repudiated explicitly, seems like 5 times now.

the contrast is not between rest and exhaustion/hard work, but between rest and unrest (being under God's wrath).

You say that because you don't understand grace. Regeneration is humanly passive. It doesn't require labor because God efficaciously enacts it. It is therefore a state of rest. And it is holiness - but not all of you is holy/regenerated/resting (as there would be no sinful nature remaining). Sanctification is the entrance of more (sinful) fragments of you into the holiness/regeneration/resting. Until it begins to feel like you are no longer working/laboring. This is also called "revival". Jesus desribed it like this:

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

the contrast is not between rest and exhaustion/hard work, but between rest and unrest (being under God's wrath).

You're dead wrong. Read those words of Jesus carefully.

 

[JAL]

Really? Plato was not the first who made a distinction between matter and spiritual things of a different kind. The distinctive feature of Platonism is that the immaterial things are more real than matter.

Take any Philosophy 101 course. I'd be surprised if you can find a course that credits immateriality to anyone but Plato.

Well, my soul is not »tangible« (at least if I understand the dictionary right), I can't lay it on the table and show it to you. Even the definition of "soul" is not clear. But I, my intangible soul, suffer when my tangible body gets hurt.

Which is a logical contradiction. A tangible body would not be able to impact an intangible soul. You completely ignored the contradiction.

An army of 6,000 soldiers is not contained in a single body.

How is that relevant?
Shallow responses.

We are all sinners, so we have no right to complain, whatever God does. The consequences of what you say are a sort of vindication of Calvinism! Inconsistent.

Hyperbolic misextrapolation. We deserve hell. Job had no right to complain because God didn't punish him to the extent deserved.

Why so many strawmen?

Subscribed by Paul in 1.Kor 15:42-44 where he says that the body of the risen ones will not be from our matter.

That's not what Paul says. A pneumatic tool is a matter-powered tool. It's not powered by immaterial "spirits".

Nothing of this tells us that God could suffer, or gives a reason to suppose it.

Yes it does. Only a jerk would watch us do all the suffering while He gobbles up all the praise.

I can't see how this sentence makes any sense when we think of an creator.

Again, has creator-power by luck of the draw. That justifies a snotty aristocratic attitude? Please. And you accuse ME of being Calvinistic? You're putting God in His own moral relativism - He gets a pass on real virtue/morality just because He is creator. This is precisely what Calvinism does.

Same with the Trinity. You said you believe in it - despite the contradiction faced by trinity doctrine.

Millard J. Erickson admitted that the mainstream doctrine of the Trinity is logically "absurd from the human standpoint."

There is no such contradictions in my version.

You cannot attack the Hypostatic Union and not attack the trinity. This is inconsistent.

Baloney. The Trinity existed before the (hypothetical) Hypostatic Union.

He says: I cannot grow weary. But even a creature with a billion (or googol) arms may get weary, given appropriate circumstances.

Meaning, "I cannot succumb to complete exhaustion/collapse." Meaning He will always fulfill His responsibilities to us.

Strawman. Hyperbolic extrapolation.

Because they are today's theologians.

Huh? I'm pretty sure that no professional theologian has ever claimed the Hypostatic Union to be humanly comprehensible/coherent.

Jesus did not know all things when he was on earth. He had given up the glory. I see no biblical evidence (and no theology) that he knew all things did did not know all things at the same time.

Exactly. Yet that's precisely the implication of the two-natured theory. I cited Lewis Sperry Chafer on this point.

My solution never faces this problem.

Not just according to the Hypostatic Union, but also according to the Bible.

OK, but what do you mean by "change"? Is perception of a change a change or not? You seemed to call things change that I do not consider to be a change …

What a silly question. Perception of change, obviously, is not necessarily a change. A change is - well - an actual change.

Why do you keep deflecting on immutability? Isn't it for the obvious reason that it causes problems for traditional theology?

Illogical.
»Infinity is not a specific number« means in plain words: There is more than one infinite number in mathematics - especially in set theory, where you find an enumerable infinite number of infinity numbers (and "enumerable infinite" is the smallest infinity).

This is no reason why "infinite" cannot be a possible description of a reality. According to circumstances (and the mathematical model involved, which defines what kind if infinity is meant) infinite may be the correct description, I already cited relativity theory, where (even within special relativity) something can be finite in one coordinate system and infinite in another - and since we speak of length (spatial length and/or length of time) it is obvious what "infinite" means there. A reality, described with "infinite".

Einstein had some calculational success. That's not the same as metaphysical accuracy. Please don't cite his bogus, illogical metaphysical claims as a "rebuttal" of my claims. Gibberish such as time dilation doesn't count as a rebuttal of anything.

There is no specific number called infinity. The term infinity is useful in integral calculus for projecting a pattern of calculation, not for designating a discrete number.

What does this have to do with the time within the novel? The persons in the novel do not live in our time, they live in the world of the novel.

Take an author that changes his attitude from A to B. After that change, he writes a first chapter, which precedes and pre-dates the other chapters.

Within book's time, this was a change from B to A, while within our time, it was (as said) a change from A to B.

And now consider the possibility that (instead writing a prequel) he takes the whole novel and makes many small changes here and there -. so the change in attitude is permanent in the book's time, from the beginning of the story to the very end. Is this a change in the time of the novel (the time his creatures live in)?

I have no idea how some fictional story narrated in a book could possibly establish facts about time, change, immutability, infinity.

Often "to tempt" means "to test" in the Bible. The Israelites tested God. But James 2 warns us to take every temptation as a test by God …

He was tempted in the wilderness, tempted to behave sinfully.

An author can decide to appear in one of His novels as a person. That's a sort of "incarnation".

No it's not. Trying to conflate a fictional novel with reality is your "resolution" of the apparent contradictions of the Hypostatic Union?

This »nonsense« can be measured, e.g. when atomic clocks travel by airplane. It's real, whether you cal, it nonsense or not. Special relativity is the logical consequence of Galileo's relativity (which is part of Newton's theories) and the fact that there is a universal constant in universe: the velocity of light (Michelson/Morley experiment).

Special relativity has been disproven by a noted physicist. As if I needed that proof to figure out how nonsensical the claim is.

Hm, looking into a dictionary
tangible

1. a capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch : palpable
2. b substantially real : material
3. capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind
4. capable of being appraised at an actual or approximate value

By matter I mean tangible substance - a substance susceptible to collisions and fragmentations.

Do you really mean that you know precisely what God is? Or what meaning of tangible do you use here?

Again, I distinguish between the qualitative and quantitative.

This is more than you offered for your case.

Intellectual dishonesty. Not only did I supply multiple verses for the concept of God working and resting, I based it on a merit-concept implicit from Genesis to Revelation, and reasonably explicit in the cross. Frankly, I adduce the whole Bible in support of my position.

No. Praise me for being your creator. You were created for that reason.

Again, praising God for innate creative powers is like praising an aristocrat for his inherited wealth. It's a nice thing to do but ultimately doesn't grant him any real credit. I happen to think that God deserves a lot of credit.

I do not condone what you make out of my words.

You do not even try to understand what I am saying, you always come up with your aristocrat which does not fit as an example. Take that serious, and then try to find out why it does not fit.

Because, like the Calvinist, you try to draw arbitrary, bogus distinctions between human virtue and divine virtue.

 

[Helmut-WK]

BTW: I measure you by the way you measure me vice versa: i.e. my judgements on your opinions are based on my opinions, just like your judgements are based on your opinions.

This post is based on the strawman-assumption that the terms "work" and "rest" pertain only to complete exhaustion/collapse of the entire Godhead, precisely what I repudiated explicitly, seems like 5 times now.

No, it is your straw-man argument that praise can only be for merit, so that any praise out of other grounds is snotty or so.

Jesus desribed it like this:

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The yoke was a metaphor for the obligation of the law, resp. the burdens that scribes (especially pharisaic ones) laid on the people.

You're dead wrong. Read those words of Jesus carefully.

Please understand the meaning a first-century reader attributed to them.

Take any Philosophy 101 course. I'd be surprised if you can find a course that credits immateriality to anyone but Plato.

Because they only mention philosophers, not religion?

A tangible body would not be able to impact an intangible soul.

Why not? The experience tells the contrary. There is no logical reason why this should be so.

How is that relevant?
Shallow responses.

It explains the singular answering.

Hyperbolic misextrapolation. We deserve hell. Job had no right to complain because God didn't punish him to the extent deserved.

An argument put forward by Eliphaz the Temanite in Job 15. But in the end, God said to him and his friends: Ask Job to pray for you.

That's not what Paul says. A pneumatic tool is a matter-powered tool. It's not powered by immaterial "spirits".

Not our matter, this is immaterial from a physicist point of view. Do you restrict "immateriality" strictly to Plato? And what do you mean by "tool" in this context?

Yes it does. Only a jerk would watch us do all the suffering while He gobbles up all the praise.

The suffering is no merit, it is a just punishment (Gen 3). So why mention it in context of "God is to be praised"? Fully off-topic.

God is no jerk, this showed He in Jesus.

Again, has creator-power by luck of the draw.

No luck. He decided to be a creator. The persons in the novel had "luck of the draw" that he decided to create them.

Shallow argument.

You're putting God in His own moral relativism - He gets a pass on real virtue/morality just because He is creator.

Straw argument. Praise can be for other reasons than morality.

Millard J. Erickson admitted that the mainstream doctrine of the Trinity is logically "absurd from the human standpoint."

There is no such contradictions in my version.

You called yourself a staunch trinitarian, so the dictum of Erickson applies also to what you think.

Baloney. The Trinity existed before the (hypothetical) Hypostatic Union.

You take advantage of my short formula. You can attack hypostatic union with different arguments, but the argument "it is not logical" hits also an the trinity doctrine (see Erickson), you cannot make a distinction there.

Even that the cross is an achievement which shows the power of God is "absurd from the human standpoint" - Hellenists called it foolishness, the Jews saw a blasphemy there.

Huh? I'm pretty sure that no professional theologian has ever claimed the Hypostatic Union to be humanly comprehensible/coherent.

One consequence of the notion that our mind is limited is: There are things we cannot comprehend. And it is quite reasonable that God falls in this category, and not only elementary (sub-atomar) matter and the like.

Exactly. Yet that's precisely the implication of the two-natured theory. I cited Lewis Sperry Chafer on this point.

My solution never faces this problem.

Which solution?

Einstein had some calculational success. That's not the same as metaphysical accuracy.

I don't perceive that "metaphysical accuracy" has any relevance for physicists. You projected this attitude into them.

Indeed, one of the features of special relativist theory was the total disregard questions about metaphysical accuracy, and to concentrate of what can be measured, and build the theory on that.

Simultaneity cannot be measured for events at different places, therefore absolute simultaneity is no concept in relativity theory, only simultaneity relative to an inert motion (including motion at velocity 0).

There is no specific number called infinity. The term infinity is useful in integral calculus for projecting a pattern of calculation, not for designating a discrete number.

Never heard of aleph-0 and aleph-1 in set theory? Two specific infinite numbers.

And (when I look on the context within our discussion): Do you really want to say that there is no infinity in nature? So there is no infinite time, the universe will come to an end?

I have no idea how some fictional story narrated in a book could possibly establish facts about time, change, immutability, infinity.

Shallow argument.

For the persons in the book (which are a picture of us created beings) the story is the only reality they know. So their perspective of what the author is is a picture of our view to God.

Therefore, I ask how they perceive the author: Mutable or immutable. Does this distinction make any sense in their perspective?

He was tempted in the wilderness, tempted to behave sinfully.

What does this have to do with James 2? You jump to a sentence from me and put it out of context. The very point of you was already mentioned by me in an earlier post.

No it's not. Trying to conflate a fictional novel with reality is your "resolution" of the apparent contradictions of the Hypostatic Union?

It is not conflation, it is comparison.

• God created this world, an author creates a fictional word by writing a novel
• We have an own will (whether free or not), some authors report that their figures have an own will the author has to respect to some degree.
• God incarnated into the world as Jesus, an author may decide to appear in a world he created by writing a novel with him as one agent.

There are differences, but there are similarities: God is to us as the author is to the persons in his novel. There are differences (the author is not a God, the world he creates is not real), but the relation is the same. So we can draw conclusion by analogy from the novel to our real world.

 

[JAL]

No, it is your straw-man argument that praise can only be for merit, so that any praise out of other grounds is snotty or so.

Well, the way I put it is, only a jerk expects praise - particularly superlative praise - for innate traits.

Should an aristocrat expect praise for being wealthy, if he was born into riches? Oh that's right. You won't admit your own values. You'll tell me, "There was a group of ancients I heard of, who had different values."

The yoke was a metaphor for the obligation of the law, resp. the burdens that scribes (especially pharisaic ones) laid on the people.

Again, you don't understand grace. Regeneration is humanly passive and is, therefore, rest.

Therefore, you labor/suffer only to the extent that you are not in revival/rest.

Please understand the meaning a first-century reader attributed to them.

Like Nicodemus? He did not understand regeneration/rest. He should have but did not.

Because they only mention philosophers, not religion?

Apparently you've never heard of Fredrick Copleston. You've never read any of his Philosophy 101 textbooks, for example, not to mention his other volumes. Nor have you heard of Thomas Aquinas, nor the generations of Scholastics. For 2,000 years both Jews, Christians, and atheistic scholars have recognized that Plato introduced immaterialism. Scripture has no clear support for it.

Why not? The experience tells the contrary. There is no logical reason why this should be so.

Said the guy who believes 3 + 1 = 4 only when God wants this to be so, and thus not at the Hypostatic Union.

The experience tells us to the contrary? What the experience (the facticity of impact) proves is that the soul is tangible enough for the body to collide with it and thus impact it. Can you push a rock with intangible hands? That makes no sense.

Two tangible objects can impact each other. An intangible body cannot impact an intangible soul.

There is no logical reason why this should be so.

You obviously don't care about logic. You're not even sure if 3 + 1 = 4. But for those who do care about logic, the definitions of tangible versus intangible dictate my conclusion.

It explains the singular answering.

No it doesn't. Put 6,000 people in any container ("body") you want, with only one mouth or microphone, and they will never say, My name is Legion.

Doesn't matter. You're facing logical contradictions. I'm tired of debatable nuances in verses whose language allows for more than one possible interpretation. Logical contradictions aren't so flexible. One strike and you're out.

Not our matter, this is immaterial from a physicist point of view. Do you restrict "immateriality" strictly to Plato? And what do you mean by "tool" in this context?

I have no idea what you just said. Physics deals with tangible objects. Any object subject to collisions (and fragmentations at least up till the smallest particle). That would include anything classified as energy.

The suffering is no merit, it is a just punishment (Gen 3). So why mention it in context of "God is to be praised"? Fully off-topic.

Voluntary suffering for a righteous cause is the very definition of merit. Christ didn't sin. He wasn't being "punished" for bad behavior. Rather He volunteered to undergo our punishment. That's a meritorious, praiseworthy act. If you can't see that, you're in a complete fog.

God is no jerk, this showed He in Jesus.

Non-sequitur. You could argue the same of the Calvinist God. Problem is, God is supposed to be above reproach in ALL His acts. He is not supposed to do bad things and then make up for it later on the cross. That's where Calvinism fails. The Calvinistic God is basically a parent who rapes his kids and then says, "That's okay, because I will give them ice cream and candy later."

No luck. He decided to be a creator.

And what did that cost him, in your version of God? Nothing. He expects praise for nothing? That's a jerk.

Oh wait a minute. It gets worse. You forgot the Problem of Evil. Praise God for bringing them into a world where it is possible for everyone to suffer and billions to end up in hell? I wouldn't praise a jerk like that. I'd only curse him. My system completely eliminates the Problem of Evil.

You keep asking, "What system?" Why should I tell you? To get more strawman-attacks? All you've shown me is your determination to persist in logical contradictions born of indoctrination. If you aren't intellectually honest enough to admit to the gravity of the logical problems in traditional thinking, you certainly won't evaluate my solutions with honesty. This means you only want to strawman-attack them.

Praise can be for other reasons than morality.

Intellectual dishonesty. I acknowledged that point a million times. That strawman was not my objection. My objection was, "Only a jerk expects praise for innate traits."

You called yourself a staunch trinitarian, so the dictum of Erickson applies also to what you think.

Um...e...Erickson doesn't know my view. He was describing the mainstream view.

You take advantage of my short formula. You can attack hypostatic union with different arguments, but the argument "it is not logical" hits also an the trinity doctrine (see Erickson), you cannot make a distinction there.

Again, the Trinity precedes the Hypostatic Union.

Even that the cross is an achievement which shows the power of God is "absurd from the human standpoint" - Hellenists called it foolishness, the Jews saw a blasphemy there.

The mainstream Trinity is incoherent due to logical contradictions separate from those of the Hypostatic Union. Maybe a couple of examples would help?
....(1) Immaterial substance is non-fragmentable (indivisible into parts). How do you get three parts from an indivisible One?
....(2) Immaterial hands (intangible hands) cannot grasp matter. How then does God manage the universe? What if He WANTED to grasp a piece of matter? He can't do it?

And there are more.

One consequence of the notion that our mind is limited is: There are things we cannot comprehend. And it is quite reasonable that God falls in this category, and not only elementary (sub-atomar) matter and the like.

So it's best to vote for any system rife with logical contradictions?

I don't perceive that "metaphysical accuracy" has any relevance for physicists. You projected this attitude into them.

Science and philosophy did not become separate disciplines until the 19th century.

It's not a projection. It's a fact of life. Newton's theory of gravity postulates an immaterial force pushing matter. If you take it literally, you've now drawn a metaphysical conclusion. Newton couldn't take it literally because he realized it is nonsense for an intangible reality to push a tangible one, especially at a distance. He hoped to find another solution but failed, he speculated gravity was the hand of God, which is MY view. It is His physical hands pushing on matter to create desired effects that we term "gravity".

Never heard of aleph-0 and aleph-1 in set theory? Two specific infinite numbers.

You're funny. Odd you didn't tell me the exact numbers indicated.

And (when I look on the context within our discussion): Do you really want to say that there is no infinity in nature? So there is no infinite time, the universe will come to an end?

That's similar to arguing for an infinite past, as if there were no starting point.

Correct. There is no infinity in nature. I don't care how many years we've been in heaven, there will never be a moment we can say, "Finally, we've arrived at year infinity!"

Same thing with counting. You can count as high as you want and you'll never reach a number called infinity.

So there is no infinite time, the universe will come to an end?

The fact that you can't count to infinity doesn't prove that the set of "all possible numbers" comes to an end. Basically, you're confusing (endlessly) incremental sequences with an actual arrival at infinity. Since there is no such number, we cannot arrive at such a number. Therefore an infinite God is a logical impossibility. Ergo He is finite.

This isn't rocket science.

For the persons in the book (which are a picture of us created beings) the story is the only reality they know. So their perspective of what the author is is a picture of our view to God.

Again, "perspective" doesn't necessarily tell us the facts about reality. I might think something changed in some respect even if there was no change at all.

What does this have to do with James 2? You jump to a sentence from me and put it out of context. The very point of you was already mentioned by me in an earlier post.

I think you deflected on the logic of my original argument, then I responded to your deflection, and now you've lost sight of things. It doesn't matter. It was a logical argument, and you've pretty much established that you don't much care about logic.

It is not conflation, it is comparison.

• God created this world, an author creates a fictional word by writing a novel
• We have an own will (whether free or not), some authors report that their figures have an own will the author has to respect to some degree.
• God incarnated into the world as Jesus, an author may decide to appear in a world he created by writing a novel with him as one agent.

There are differences, but there are similarities: God is to us as the author is to the persons in his novel. There are differences (the author is not a God, the world he creates is not real), but the relation is the same. So we can draw conclusion by analogy from the novel to our real world.

Again, objective change isn't a matter of perspective. The all-knowing Son of God (and I don't mean infinite knowledge) became an ignorant zygote in Mary's womb. That's objective change - the veracity of which doesn't 'vary with perspective'.

 

[Helmut-WK]

Instead reacting to what You said, I now try to lay ground for a real rational discussion.

Well, the way I put it is, only a jerk expects praise - particularly superlative praise - for innate traits.

This is a point which I never understood - why should "worthy of praise" connected to "merit" or the like? I suppose it has to do with language - you interpret sentence according your English background, from German language background I get at different conclusions.

But neither English nor German is important to understand what the Bible says (they are only important for translations into these languages). So I went to the original languages of OT and NT.

NT is of not much help. Apart from false positives ("worthy" and "praise" in the same verse, but not directly related, 2.Cor 9:13), there are verses where some versions write "worthy of praise", but "worthy" is not in the Greek text, only praise (Ph 4:8) or grace (1Pt 2:19), so the next to "worthy of praise" is Rev 5:9.

In the OT, there is only one Hebrew word which is rendered "worthy of praise" (apart from Ps 78:4, where the NIRV, but no other English version on the European BibleServer uses this term): this is halal in the Pu'al. My Bible program says this (expressed in Strong's numbers) occurs in:
* 08791 | 08792 | 08793 | 08794 | 08795 & 01984 # 2Sa 22:4 * = 1 # 1Ch 16:25 * = 1 # Ezr 3:10 * = 1 # Ps 18:3 48:1 78:63 96:4 113:3 145:3 * = 6 # Pr 12:8 * = 1 # Eze 26:17 * = 1 * = 11
Ezr 3:10 is a false positive (the pu'al of labaš, i.e. "fully clothed" together with the Pi'el of halal, i.e. "praise" without mention of worthy).

Now the interesting point is: When this term is used not for God, but of daughters, a man, or a city, it is rendered differently. Here the English deviates from Hebrew. As a first step, lets look what (beside God) is said to be worthy of praise in the OT:

Ps 78:63 - maiden which are not worthy of praise. I return to this later.

Pr 12:8 - a man which has prudence (or good sense, wisdom, the word can also mean "cunning" in another context). Well: Did he acquire it or is this an "innate trait"? Better leave this open, but I notice there is no mention of hard labor, suffering or the like.

Ez 26:17 - a city that was wealthy and strong, so so enemy dared to attack it. It did accumulate this wealth not by hard labor - the Tyrians (or Phoenicians in general) did not work harder than surrounding people, the used trade, i.e. the rules of market economy which makes rich ones richer, poor ones poorer.

So two examples are a matter of speculation resp. interpretation, you have no clear evidence of any connection between "worthy of praise" to "merit", "hard labor" and so on.

Now lets return to Ps 78:63. Translations and comments link this to marriage, or more precisely: marriage songs - no one will sing a marriage song to the maiden, they will never be brides (part of punishment to Israel).

We can see such Songs in the SongsOfSongs, eg.

So 6:4 You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as troops with banners. 5 Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead. 6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is missing. 7 Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. 8 Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number; 9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her. Friends

That (↑↑↑) is an description of a maiden worthy of praise.

If your notion of "worthy of praise" is incompatible to this, you are deviating from what the Bible tells. You are free to suggest a new term, more suitable to your thoughts, of "worthy of praise", if you think this is helpful.

Your notion is always connected to a verdict from above: A father praising his son, and employer praising the man working for him. But this is the wrong perspective, we are not superior to God as your examples presuppose (you were not aware of this, I suppose), He is superior to us. You tend to think of Him in equal terms with us, which is next to blasphemy.

Before I started this post, I thought about "worthy of praise" and cleared my (partly sub-conscious) notion of that term. I arrived at this:

If someone praises something/someone else, the praised item can be worthy of praise, which means it is OK to praise it/him, or it can be not worthy of praise, which means the praise is no good thing.

Then I became aware that you will not accept this conclusion, so it was no good idea to build further arguments on it. So I decided to look after "worthy of praise" in the original languages, and saw that my reasoning in the foregoing paragraph seems to be quite compatible with the biblical use of that term …

I stop here, lest there will be again a mess of interwoven arguments that lead into arguing in circles (and the quarrel who of us completes the circles). I laid a foundation, you can broaden it and step into the verses where God is said to be worthy of praise (You have a complete list, unless my old Bible program has some defect in the Strong's encoding of KJV). I hope we can proceed from one step to another in a logical way.

 

[Helmut-WK]

Said the guy who believes 3 + 1 = 4 only when God wants this to be so, and thus not at the Hypostatic Union.

Nonsense. The traditional teaching speaks of 3 hypostases and two natures. Depending on the way you want to apply mathematics to that, you may arrive at 2, 3, or 5, but by no means at 4.

Jesus having two natures "inseparable, but unmixed" is a problem on the same logical level as Father, Son, and Spirit being three hypostases, but only one God.

I don't want to discuss it with someone who twists what I believe until it makes a straw-man argument.

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

Instead reacting to what You said, I now try to lay ground for a real rational discussion.

This is a point which I never understood - why should "worthy of praise" connected to "merit" or the like? I suppose it has to do with language - you interpret sentence according your English background, from German language background I get at different conclusions.

With language? My definition of merit underlies every sermon preached in the last 2,000 years. No pastor preaches like this, "On judgment day, I hope you have good looks, good DNA, and much inherited wealth." God will not commend you for unsuffered/unlaboured traits. Pastors preach like this, "Be sure to put forth some time and effort for the Kingdom."

Do you complain about these 2,000 years of sermons? No. You only complain when I make the same point on this thread, just to win a debate.

The dominant theme OF THE ENTIRE NEW TESTAMENT is the cross predicated on labor/suffering as an act of merit.

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation....“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Rev 5)

This text is affirming that there is a reason He deserves/merits praise. What do most people praise Jesus for, regarding His incarnation? His DNA? His good looks? Inherited wealth? Get real.

You have no clear evidence of any connection between "worthy of praise" to "merit", "hard labor" and so on.

Except the entire New Testament, plus 2000 years of sermons, plus EXPLICIT TEACHING that God labored/worked in Creation, and then rested. And the text didn't even need to tell us that God labored in Creation. It's IMPLIED for reasons already stated.

Now lets return to Ps 78:63. Translations and comments link this to marriage, or more precisely: marriage songs - no one will sing a marriage song to the maiden, they will never be brides (part of punishment to Israel).

We can see such Songs in the SongsOfSongs, eg.

So 6:4 You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as troops with banners. 5 Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead. 6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is missing. 7 Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. 8 Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number; 9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her. Friends

That (↑↑↑) is an description of a maiden worthy of praise.

Strawman. First of all, this text does not proclaim her worthy of praise. And even if it did, logic takes precedence over linguistic nuances (because every position has problem passages, as discussed earlier). For example I can regard a beautiful woman, in a loose sense, as "worthy" of praise, but I don't really mean it in the meritorious sense. If anything, I'm really marveling at her Creator and implicitly praising Him.

Secondly, you're trying to build a doctrine on a poetry passage. That's not terribly safe. As I said, books have presumed degrees of literalism:
....epistles are the most literal.
....history books.
...prophecy
....poetry

You want to go with poetry? Fine. Let's take a look at Proverbs 31:10-31. The entire passage follows my definition of merit. Notable is the summary at the end:

30Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

You see that adversative word "but"? Did you catch the adversarial tone? In other words it is clearly intimating, "Charm and beauty are NOT worthy of praise, obviously because they lack any clear compliance with works of merit."

If your notion of "worthy of praise" is incompatible to this, you are deviating from what the Bible tells. You are free to suggest a new term, more suitable to your thoughts, of "worthy of praise", if you think this is helpful.

See above.

Your notion is always connected to a verdict from above: A father praising his son, and employer praising the man working for him. But this is the wrong perspective, we are not superior to God as your examples presuppose (you were not aware of this, I suppose),

Huh? I included Christ - and the Father Himself - as meritorious/worthy of praise. We are below them, not above them. I clearly implied there are no exceptions. Take for instance my Dad. Had he been a lazy sloth who always succumbed to the lusts of the flesh (never once labored against the agony of temptation), I could not possibly esteem him.

He is superior to us. You tend to think of Him in equal terms with us, which is next to blasphemy.

Blasphemy is to imply that God is a jerk who watches us labor/suffer achieving all the virtue while He gobbles up all the praise for doing nothing.

(And don't tell me about the cross because He expected praise before the cross).

Morals/ethics/virtue is the same for all PERSONs. God is a person (you were not aware of this, I suppose).

 

[JAL]

Nonsense. The traditional teaching speaks of 3 hypostases and two natures. Depending on the way you want to apply mathematics to that, you may arrive at 2, 3, or 5, but by no means at 4.

Jesus having two natures "inseparable, but unmixed" is a problem on the same logical level as Father, Son, and Spirit being three hypostases, but only one God.

I don't want to discuss it with someone who twists what I believe until it makes a straw-man argument.

You seemed to vacillate on immutability. I pretty much gave up on getting a straight answer from you on that issue. Now you seem to be doing the same thing on the Quadrinity issue. Earlier I wrote:

JAL: "On the Quadrinity issue, Millard J. Erickson said that God manipulated math itself. You'd think that 3 + 1= 4, Always, right? Not for the Incarnation, according to the Hypostatic Union."

Your reply seems to be in agreement with Erickson that God violated ordinary math:

"Not just according to the Hypostatic Union, but also according to the Bible."

And yet here you seem to deny that there is any math issue. You seem to be a moving target, vacillating once again.

At one point your excuse for all the "apparent" contradictions in the Hypostatic Union was, "There may be things about God that we just cannot understand." Here's the problem with that excuse:
....(1) Why didn't theologians simply admit they don't know how to explain the Incarnation? Why spew out a bunch of mumbo jumbo that makes no sense to the human mind and call it an "established doctrine"? And then, if a leader disagrees with their so-called "doctrine", he loses his job, is ostracized from the church and, in many cases, is burned at the stake?
...(2) It leads to a false sense of security. If people think a problem has already been solved by the experts, they desist looking for a better answer. The end result is 1700 years of Christians indoctrinated into mumbo jumbo. How are we much better than a cult?

 

[JAL]

Nonsense. The traditional teaching speaks of 3 hypostases and two natures. Depending on the way you want to apply mathematics to that, you may arrive at 2, 3, or 5, but by no means at 4.

Jesus having two natures "inseparable, but unmixed" is a problem on the same logical level as Father, Son, and Spirit being three hypostases, but only one God.

I don't want to discuss it with someone who twists what I believe until it makes a straw-man argument.

Strawman? Do you believe, or don't you, that God could have selected your soul for the Hypostatic Union? In which case we'd be worshipping your soul as a member of the Trinity?

Because that's what the doctrine affirms. It's hardly a strawman and it DOES raise real questions about an implied Quadrinity (even though it is explicitly denied).

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

You ignored an important logical argument. I argued that God cannot be an infinity because infinity is not a specific quantity. No such quantity does exist, nor can exist. Ergo God is finite.

And let me ramify that a bit. God has finite knowledge. Of all the infinite possible subsets of information, He has one particular tiny subset. That's all. (Admittedly not tiny by human standards, but certainly tiny with respect to infinitude). Where did He get this tiny subset? Meaning why does He happen to possess this particular subset, as opposed to one of the infinite possible alternatives?

Random chance? He just "happens" to know English? French? German? Out of all the infinite possible languages? Unlikely it is by random chance. More likely He had to put forth some effort/labor/suffering in learning. What He knows is what He strived to learn. As for the languages He does not know, this is because He has not put forth the effort.

That hard work is why He merits praise for His vast knowledge. Ecclesiastes seems pretty clear that learning is hard work:
"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body" (Eccl 12:12).

 

[JAL]

Jesus having two natures "inseparable, but unmixed" is a problem on the same logical level as Father, Son, and Spirit being three hypostases, but only one God.

Two conflicting natures raises questions about the law of non-contradiction. It's like saying:
"Yesterday I sat on my material chair. Today I couldn't sit on it because it has an immaterial nature as well. It has both natures simultaneously."

Three Persons is not a problem for a material monism. God is fragmented (to use that term loosely) into three major parts/persons/volitions exhaustive of His substance
....(1) The Father is a physical figure/person seated on a throne.
....(2) The Son is a physical figure/person seated at His right hand.
....(3) The Holy Spirit/Ghost - actually it is The Holy Wind/Breath - refer to the rest of the divine substance/persona, especially to the spoken Word/Breath from His mouth and nostrils (Isa 55:11; Psalms 33:6; John 20:22; etc).

You yourself are a multiplicity but don't realize it because the parts cooperate so smoothly. Which cell in your brain is the real you? All of them. If you could identity the three most dominant subsections of your material soul, this analogy would resemble the Trinity.

 

[Helmut-WK]

@helmut,

With language?

"Worthy of praise" has a meaning which depends on the meaning of "worthy", "praise" and the "of"-construction. Same with "wert zu preisen" or so in German. The Pual of "halal" has a meaning which you can find in a Hebrew dictionary. It is naïve to assume all three have exactly the same meaning.

My definition of merit underlies every sermon preached in the last 2,000 years.

We don't speak about merit, we speak about "worthy of praise". It is your notion that "worthy of praise" refers to merit. You did not give proof for it.

Strawman. First of all, this text does not proclaim her worthy of praise.

But Ps 78,63 does say exactly this. Not in your translation, but in Hebrew. To sing such a song means the maiden praised is worthy of praise.

And even if it did, logic takes precedence over linguistic nuances

I still wait for the logical proof that worthy of praise is connected to merit, not to worth.

Secondly, you're trying to build a doctrine on a poetry passage. That's not terribly safe. As I said, books have presumed degrees of literalism:

It is not about literalism. Ps 78 has a passage which tells a history. And it uses a phrase which shows an aspect on language usage of "worthy of praise". A usage which shows that your concept, which links "worthy of praise" to merit, is not the ancient Hebrew concept of the term thus translated.

This is not a doctrine, this is a fact of language, which then has implications for doctrine. Whether the verse is literal or not is unimportant (or do you really suggest the maiden in that verse are not yo ng virgin women?).

You see that adversative word "but"? Did you catch the adversarial tone? In other words it is clearly intimating, "Charm and beauty are NOT worthy of praise, obviously because they lack any clear compliance with works of merit."

Now you cite verses where there is no "worthy of praise". Instead the Pual of halal, we have the Hitpael, which means "boast, glorify".

You do what you said we should not do: Use the "praise/boast" term as an example of "worthy of praise" where there is no "worthy".

BTW: One reason why something is worthy of praise does not exclude another reason.

Huh? I included Christ - and the Father Himself - as meritorious/worthy of praise. We are below them, not above them.

But you argued with examples (a father praises the merits of his son, an employer his employee) which speak of praising someone underneath one's own status. I protested they were the wrong examples, but you ignored it.

Blasphemy is to imply that God is a jerk who watches us labor/suffer achieving all the virtue while He gobbles up all the praise for doing nothing.

I never said God wanted praise for doing nothing. You totally wipe out the reasons I speak about, in order to arrive at a jerk picture.

Morals/ethics/virtue is the same for all PERSONs. God is a person (you were not aware of this, I suppose).

It is the same for all men, not for all persons. Foe example, we are not allowed to take revenge, for it is God who will take revenge, Rom 12:19. If the moral is the same for God as for us, this verse would simply be nonsense.

JAL: "On the Quadrinity issue, Millard J. Erickson said that God manipulated math itself. You'd think that 3 + 1= 4, Always, right? Not for the Incarnation, according to the Hypostatic Union."

An Anti-Trinitarian might say (many in fact do): "trinitarians believe that 1+1+1=1". One might say the hypostatic union it is about 1+1=2 in the same manner.

To an Anti-Trinjitarian I would address the manner and explain why Trinity is not a 1+1+1=1 matter. But you do accept the "1+1+1=1" thing (and I suppose you have an explanation to this), and attack the 1+1=2 matter. This is double standard and hypocrisy. Not worthy for discussion.

When you become honest we can speak about that. But how you could mix natures and hypostases, which are two completely different categories, I still cannot understand.

You ignored an important logical argument. I argued that God cannot be an infinity because infinity is not a specific quantity.

It is a quantity that is no real number, but infinity can be very specific. Especially in set theory, where there are infinite different infinities. Not specific? LOL.

The term "infinite" does not specify which sort of infinity or which infinite number is meant. Same with "finite". So your argument is as consistent as "because »finite number« is not a specific quantitiy, no such quantity does exist, nor can exist. Ergo there is no finite quantity."

Loose logic, made out of ignorance of math. You heard something about infinities which is true, but because you were not aware that there is more than one infinity, you concluded that "the" infinity cannot be a real quantitiy.

 

[JAL]

"Worthy of praise" has a meaning which depends on the meaning of "worthy", "praise" and the "of"-construction. Same with "wert zu preisen" or so in German. The Pual of "halal" has a meaning which you can find in a Hebrew dictionary. It is naïve to assume all three have exactly the same meaning.

Funny how you ignored the citation from Revelation 5:9-11. You're saying that I have to find my definition of merit explicitly in Scripture. Despite what I told you at the outset of debate that a logical construct is enough. The word "Trinity" is nowhere in Scripture. It is IMPLIED. God's values (His sense of virtue) are IMPLIED from Genesis to Revelation, beginning with His documented labor/work in Creation. Show me where God condones laziness. for example.

You're in denial, you're being obstinate.

We don't speak about merit, we speak about "worthy of praise". It is your notion that "worthy of praise" refers to merit. You did not give proof for it.

But Ps 78,63 does say exactly this. Not in your translation, but in Hebrew. To sing such a song means the maiden praised is worthy of praise.

I still wait for the logical proof that worthy of praise is connected to merit, not to worth.

Ridiculous strawman. As already noted a million times, being praised isn't the same thing as meriting praise in the virtuous sense. You also ignored my comment that praising any of God's creatures can be understood as praise to the Creator. Take me for example. I've had a cat for several years. I totally adore her. Almost as far back as I can recall, I have inwardly referred to my time spent with her as cat worship. Does this make her "worthy" of praise? Yes of course, if we are using the term "worthy" in a kind of loose sense. But it doesn't grant her any real credit. She didn't do anything to deserve/merit more praise than another creature.

If poetry is allowed to speak here, God's values are clearly articulated at Proverbs 31:10-31.

You conveniently ignored 2000 years of sermons that you never complained about, with respect to God's values.

Amazingly, you want to make much ado about Ps 78:63 while minimizing my adducing of Christ - and thus the whole NT - as the premier example of merit. Here's what one commentary says of that verse:

"And their maidens were not given to marriage; literally, were not praised in song; i.e. in the bridal song"

The context is about judgment on the nation for their bad behavior. This is documented across a whopping 50 verses. This in itself is deafening scream of God's sense of virtue/value and thus screams MY definition of merit for 50 verses. He wasn't angry at them for lack of beauty, fine DNA, or innate traits. Your ignore all that data (which can be found dozens of times repeated in Scripture) and tunnel-vision on one verse (verse 63).

The verse is simply saying that, as a result of divine wrath upon the bad behavior, many virgins lost the opportunity to get married, that is, lost the opportunity to participate in the bridal song. Regurgitating a traditional song at a wedding is hardly proof that a bride deserves praise in the sense that really matters to God - a virtuous sense. Indeed, she might be the most evil wife on the planet.

It is not about literalism. Ps 78 has a passage which tells a history. And it uses a phrase which shows an aspect on language usage of "worthy of praise". A usage which shows that your concept, which links "worthy of praise" to merit, is not the ancient Hebrew concept of the term thus translated.

No, for 10 millionth time, a loose usage of these terms such as "cat worship" doesn't contradict God's real values. For the 10 millionth time, I can praise my wife for her beauty as an act of kindness. True as my words might be, God won't be commending her for innate traits on judgment day.

BTW: One reason why something is worthy of praise does not exclude another reason.

Agreed. A million times agreed already. Strawman. But we all know what God's real values are. Take a look at Christ. Take a look at 2,000 years of sermons.

I never said God wanted praise for doing nothing. You totally wipe out the reasons I speak about, in order to arrive at a jerk picture.

First of all, that's exactly what you implied. You claimed that innate traits were sufficient in His eyes, to merit praise.

Secondly, if you admit that His values - when the terms are used in a strict sense - DO ascribe praise mostly to acts of labor/suffering, NOW you've got a problem, right? Because you said there was never a time when He grew weary. Never worked Himself to exhaustion like we do. Who then deserves more praise?

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

It is the same for all men, not for all persons. Foe example, we are not allowed to take revenge, for it is God who will take revenge, Rom 12:19. If the moral is the same for God as for us, this verse would simply be nonsense.

That's just conscience, not proof of moral relativism. Generally God has not endued our conscience with vigilantism. But if the Spirit should ever convict our conscience to take revenge, we are then obligated to do so. For example God told Samuel and Saul to slay all the Amalekites.

An Anti-Trinitarian might say (many in fact do): "trinitarians believe that 1+1+1=1". One might say the hypostatic union it is about 1+1=2 in the same manner.

To an Anti-Trinjitarian I would address the manner and explain why Trinity is not a 1+1+1=1 matter. But you do accept the "1+1+1=1" thing (and I suppose you have an explanation to this), and attack the 1+1=2 matter. This is double standard and hypocrisy. Not worthy for discussion.

Don't shove your mathematical nonsense down my throat. I defined the Trinity as three subsections of one piece of matter:
1/3
1/3
1/3
Total = 1

AND I never incremented nor decremented the original substances. By way of contrast, the Hypostatic Union adds a created human soul (could have been yours), to the Trinity, and then all the people worship that soul.

As you said, let's be honest for a change. Well said.

When you become honest we can speak about that. But how you could mix natures and hypostases, which are two completely different categories, I still cannot understand.

Mumbo jumbo. No one can understand the Hypostatic union. That's my whole point. It can only be "understood" in terms of logical contradictions. And I can cite scholars on this point - seminary professors who ACCEPT the doctrine. At most we can "vaguely" understand some of the terms.

You said I confused natures with hypostases, as if I don't know the difference. Quite mistaken. And a strawman because it misses the point. The point is that, per the HU, a created soul was placed in Christ's body and thus added to the Trinity.

It is a quantity that is no real number, but infinity can be very specific. Especially in set theory, where there are infinite different infinities. Not specific? LOL.

Yes, not specific by your own words. From Wikipedia:

"In mathematics, the cardinality of a set is a measure of the number of elements of the set. For example, the set {2, 3, 4} contains 3 elements, and therefore has a cardinality of 3....In mathematics, particularly in set theory, the aleph numbers are a sequence of numbers used to represent the cardinality (or size) of infinite sets that can be well-ordered. "

So a set of three elements has a cardinality of 3. An infinite set, then, has a cardinality of infinity, represented as aleph-0. How do we get a specific number out of this? If aleph-0 is a real number, then why don't you just tell me the number?

The term "infinite" does not specify which sort of infinity or which infinite number is meant. Same with "finite". So your argument is as consistent as "because »finite number« is not a specific quantitiy, no such quantity does exist, nor can exist. Ergo there is no finite quantity."

Loose logic, made out of ignorance of math. You heard something about infinities which is true, but because you were not aware that there is more than one infinity, you concluded that "the" infinity cannot be a real quantitiy.

This insult is unwarranted because:
...(1) I never denied potential infinities (e.g. the number of years in heaven will steadily approach infinity). Never reaches actual infinity.
...(2) I never denied the usefulness of infinity in math - I noted the usefulness in integral calculus to anticipate, and thus estimate, the numeric outcome of a projected pattern. I have no objection to the concept of infinite sets utilized for such purpose.

Why do you suppose they call it an infinite set? Why not call it a finite set? Oh that's right. A finite site is specific, but an infinite set is not specific. That's why we need two different words. Aren't you the one being ignorant and dishonest here? Since when is infinity specific just like finitude is?

I concluded rightly. Infinity is a theoretical projection. It cannot be a real existing quantity. Take a ruler for example. Divide it into pieces. The result is a finite set. Make the pieces smaller and do it again. Still a finite set. You will ALWAYS end up with a finite set. Potentially, you are approaching infinity. But in actual practice you will never arrive there.

I'm not convinced you understand simple math. You read something foggy about infinity which you don't understand, and then tried to use it against me in a debate.

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

Suppose an angel came to me and said, "As of this moment, God knows exactly 255,752 languages."

I would reply, "Interesting piece of trivia. Thanks for the info."

But if that angel had said to me, "As of this moment, God knows exactly one infinity of languages."

I would then feel pressed to reply, "That makes no sense. That's a logical impossibility because there is no such number."

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

Let's envision you as a pastor over a few thousand members. You'd probably call for a vote to determine the 20 most beautiful women in the congregation. And then, every service, you'd have them standup and be recognized, saying, "I just want to give special honor, thanks, and recognition to the 20 most beautiful women of this congregation." Meanwhile you ignore all the women who, all week long, labor/suffer for the Kingdom.

You wouldn't be a pastor for long, because both the men and women would be outraged at your values.

Don't you get it? Such outrageous values constitute the exact opposite of God's values. And as the divine leader, He's supposed to be the primary exemplar of His own values. Genesis tells us that He labored/worked to create the earth and its species. Scientists tell us that the earth is 4 billion years old. This makes Him the principal exemplar of His own values. He labored 4 billion years (absolute minimum) without complaining about it. Yes, I'd say His ways are higher than ours, as high as the heavens above the earth.

You don't want to give Him credit for it. You'd rather construe Him as a lazy sloth and a jerk who expects superlative praise for essentially unsacrificial deeds. Nice. I'm sure He's happy to hear that.

 

[JAL]

@helmut,

BTW there are possibly any number of reasons why God doesn't normally authorize our conscience to take revenge.
...(1) Improper focus. We are prone to hatred and violence, and God is trying to reorient us toward love.
...(2) We lack His qualifications as Judge. I can't read the minds and hearts of men. Even if I managed to identify the correct perpetrator (which is often unlikely), I could not accurately gauge the appropriate punishment deserved.
...(3) God's personal preference. Perhaps he prefers to vindicate Himself, in most cases.