Meaning of Luke 12:10

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geocajun

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TheMilkman said:
Calling it a war has always bothered me. That implies that God has limits and has to war with Satan to retain his flock. It says in the bible that God created evil, so I guess it just means that God gave Satan the power to tempt us away from him to make the believers stronger in their faith.
Where does it say in the bible that God created evil?
 
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Deb7777

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TheMilkman said:
Yeah it makes perfect sense. Unfortunatly, it brings up another issue. I was once a Christian until I was about 18 years old. I am now almost 22 and just recently returned to Christianity. That means that I did know and still rejected.
I did not read through the whole thread so someone might have already covered the point I'm going to address. This topic has come up so many times in the non-christian section with people close to accepting Christ but afraid they have committed the unforgivable sin so what's the point? First of all, I believe the unforgivable sin is extremely rare, you have to remember Christ was directing this statement to Pharisees who just saw him perform miracles and told the crowd its by the devil he does such things, undermining Christ teaching and signs, doing great harm in that day and time. Christ was letting the Pharisees know to persist in this accusations against him will result in damnation. Did some of the Pharisees keep their mouth shut on the devil being inside Jesus after this warning, who knows, maybe some did but Christ let them know the seriousness of their accusations. Fast forward to our day and time with all kinds of people coming back to Christ from devil worshippers to murders to harden hearts, etc. If someone is guilty of the unforgivable sin they would not be able to repent and ask forgiveness, their hearts will have been set in that sin to oppose God regardless, very rare I believe though people through sin and refusing God's grace time after time can get a harden heart making coming back to God harder but not impossible. Jesus wants all to come to him and will refuse none who ask for forgiveness and healing. If a person ask the Lord to come into his/her life the Lord will not walk away but enter that person's heart and life. Put the unforgivable sin far from thought, there is enough sin that separates one from God that we need to resist and conquer so as not to be separated from our Lord and Savior, God bless.
 
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WarriorAngel

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Shelb5 said:
It is what it is, a war for our soul. After a man has made peace with God through baptism, he is summoned to spiritual battle. This is a reality than none of the baptized can escape. The devil will not give you up that easily to grace. He is prince of this world and as ruler he will seek to devour you.

;) Indeed....Milky the war is real.

Not knowing this will only let you succumb to it.

Michael the ArchAngel is our protector in battle.
If there was no war, there would be no Arch Angels. :wave:

God didnt create evil BTW... free will is free will. God created satan as the most beautiful angel, but his pride caused him to fall. Not God's pushing him to do so.
 
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WarriorAngel

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TheMilkman said:
Isaiah 45:7

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

There ya go.

Foot Note; The evils of affliction and punishments, but not the evil of sins.:wave:
 
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geocajun

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TheMilkman said:
Isaiah 45:7

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

There ya go.
Thats a terrible translation, in the KJV which obviously does not square with the rest of scripture. Try again Milkman.
There are something like 8 different words for the Hebrew Rah, and since the idea of God creating evil is ruled out in the rest of scripture, we know that the translation the KJV uses is incorrect.
 
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TheMilkman

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geocajun said:
Thats a terrible translation, in the KJV which obviously does not square with the rest of scripture. Try again Milkman.
There are something like 8 different words for the Hebrew Rah, and since the idea of God creating evil is ruled out in the rest of scripture, we know that the translation the KJV uses is incorrect.

And I am suppose to know this how? It is right there in the bible I also heard Rah means several different things in Hebrew, one of which is what the KJV says.

Also, the DRB says:
Isa 45:7I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.

Here is the ASV:
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.

and... here is Young's Literal Translation with a little difference but still the same thing:
Isa 45:7 Forming light, and preparing darkness, Making peace, and preparing evil, I [am] Jehovah, doing all these things.

I have an NAB right next to me but appears to be special pleading to nitpick this verse so much.

I suppose all the translators were inept. I'm not trying to argue, but it seems pretty clear that God did create evil. If God created everything then why wouldn't he create evil? Evil is something, even if it is an untangible concept. The only one I could find that didn't say evil was the NIV and it said "disaster".



 
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Benedicta00

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TheMilkman said:
Anyway, lets not let this thread skew. It is about what blasphemy means and how can one blaspheme themselves onto a train headed to hell, ha.
It indirectly ties into that. He did not create evil, sin did. What he created was free will that would reject him and chose sin that brings evil to the soul. Once the soul is enveloped in evil it responds to God less and less to the point God has hardens our hearts against him, he has given us over to the evil we cling to through our sins.

This is a state of spiritual ruins and if we die in this state we will be lost because we wanted nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who calls us to repent and when we do it is the Holy Spirit that brings the grace that the cross won to us that gives us the divine life.
 
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SolomonVII

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The authoritative version(NAB) I usual refer to when it comes to the 'nitpcking' is located online at:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/isaiah/isaiah45.htm#foot4

4 I form the light, and create the darkness, I make well-being and create woe; I, the LORD, do all these things.

It often contains a commentary at the bottom to help us understand these more difficult passages. ie

4 [7] Create woe: God permits evil for the sake of a greater good.


Of course as a cradle Catholic, for myself, the teaching of an omni-benevolent God comes before any scriptural interpretion, and forms the backdrop for any further understanding, and helps to limit any misunderstanding as well.

For it was Jesus himself that calls God all-good, and it is Genesis which reveals how evil enters into the world.

The sovereignty of God of course places God in control, forever at the helm, perpetually turning man's evil into good, such as he did by not holding the hand of the Saduccees as they fulfilled his pupose in the sacrafice of his beloved Son.

Through the evil of the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or the Baylonians, or Greeks, or the Romans, and so on, God is forever using the evil of others as a chastisement against our own, to both teach us and to reveal his own glory.

But it would be a mistake< I think to make God into the author of our own evil, for that may just make evil itself an eternal attribute of our existence.

And that is contrary to the Gospel in which evil is eternally destroyed in the Lake of Fire.
 
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TheMilkman

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Shelb5 said:
It indirectly ties into that. He did not create evil, sin did. What he created was free will that would reject him and chose sin that brings evil to the soul. Once the soul is enveloped in evil it responds to God less and less to the point God has hardens our hearts against him, he has given us over to the evil we cling to through our sins.

This is a state of spiritual ruins and if we die in this state we will be lost because we wanted nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who calls us to repent and when we do it is the Holy Spirit that brings the grace that the cross won to us that gives us the divine life.

I still feel it is off topic, but lets harp on this if you wish.

Please show me a site that has translations of Hebrew word Rah as anything besides evil? I have been trying to find one and I can't. However, here is one article I found with Jewish people disgusted about Christians who translated the NIV grossly mistranslating Rah as disaster instead of evil http://www.outreachjudaism.org/satan.html (don't dare throw the poised well fallacy at me either, ha).

Also, give me some biblical evidence that he didn't create evil? I have given you all my evidence, so I would like a little in return. The beauty of atheism is that most atheists don't just hear someone with power (pastor, rabbi, etc.) say something and automatically believe it. Most atheists also go where the proof is at. That is one good quality I have taken away from my experience as an atheist. If you all can prove me wrong I will GLADLY admit that I am wrong and agree that God didn't create evil. It isn't about holding on the hear-say ideas, it's about knowing the truth.
 
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TheMilkman

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solomon said:
The authoritative version(NAB) I usual refer to when it comes to the 'nitpcking' is located online at:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/isaiah/isaiah45.htm#foot4

4 I form the light, and create the darkness, I make well-being and create woe; I, the LORD, do all these things.

It often contains a commentary at the bottom to help us understand these more difficult passages. ie

4 [7] Create woe: God permits evil for the sake of a greater good.


Of course as a cradle Catholic, for myself, the teaching of an omni-benevolent God comes before any scriptural interpretion, and forms the backdrop for any further understanding, and helps to limit any misunderstanding as well.

For it was Jesus himself that calls God all-good, and it is Genesis which reveals how evil enters into the world.

The sovereignty of God of course places God in control, forever at the helm, perpetually turning man's evil into good, such as he did by not holding the hand of the Saduccees as they fulfilled his pupose in the sacrafice of his beloved Son.

Through the evil of the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or the Baylonians, or Greeks, or the Romans, and so on, God is forever using the evil of others as a chastisement against our own, to both teach us and to reveal his own glory.

But it would be a mistake< I think to make God into the author of our own evil, for that may just make evil itself an eternal attribute of our existence.

And that is contrary to the Gospel in which evil is eternally destroyed in the Lake of Fire.

Ha, well I have taken a lot of flack lately from Catholics on this forum for buying an NAB because they say it is a bad translation and has liberal footnotes. I'm not sure if it's true and it really doesn't matter all that much in the end if it gets all the core messages correct IMO.

I somewhat agree with you. It is fairly clear to me and to a lot of others that God created evil (based on the evidences I have shown), but that is not to say God also created all the things we do with evil; i.e. murder, infidelity, fornication, etc.
 
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Benedicta00

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MilkMan,

There is no proof to present. It is in how you interpret the words.

God permitting evil is not the same as God actively creating it. He created it in so much he allows us to choose it. How we chose it is we chose against good. Evil is the absence of good.
 
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SolomonVII

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There is a certain horror in the idea of Jesus's own people making the political decision to have him sacraficed so that others may life.
In terms of social stature, he was really just a peasant nobody, a ragged man in ragged clothes, with not a coin to his name, the friend of lepers, and harlots, and all things unclean and impure in a society that valued purity above all else.

He was a trouble-maker too, calling the Pharisees liars and snakes, and his actions in the Temple could very much have had the effect of disrupting the social order, resulting in a riot and the crucifixions of thousands instead of one.

So however cold and calculated it may have been, the decision of the Sanhedrin did have a certain logic of compassion to it nevertheless, for is there not really a certain compassion in letting the one die to save the many?

Of course it is a total blashemy agaisnt an innocent man, it is horrendous, cold-blooded logic that any Jew could throw out an actual family manner, to the Roman dogs for any reason.
But it is a logic with a certain compassion nevertheless, and a sin that Jesus could forgive- and did forgive- even in his agony on the cross.

The Holy Spirit, however, is the Spirit of Christ. It is our own personal experience of God. He is the undeniable experience of grace, and beauty, and love, and truth in our own personal lives.

To reject this inner truth, and beauty, and forgivness, and grace; to reject the revelation of God fully, knowingly and hatefully, as certain of the Jewish leadership were on the verge of doing in the passages quoted in this thread-
is to reject the role of compassion at all.

No, to the extent that even athiests still value the truth, still believe that their lives have meaning and purpose, still possess compassion, then even they do not blasheme the Holy Spirit; the spirit of truth and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, the spirit of reveerence-the Spirit of Christ.

Pray that you never meet anyone with the blackness of heart, with the total absense of soul, the absolute disdian for truth, and contempt for love, and total lack of the milk of compassion, that they may described as being beyond hope.

Pray that none such as they exist.

Yet, does not the darkness of sin in our own lives keep us at least open to the possibility that some such as these may exist?

Isaiah 112 The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,
 
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TheMilkman

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Shelb5 said:
MilkMan,

There is no proof to present. It is in how you interpret the words.

God permitting evil is not the same as God actively creating it. He created it in so much he allows us to choose it. How we chose it is we chose against good. Evil is the absence of good.

How can you possibly say that? Someone else said that Rah was mistranslated then I gave evidence that it wasn't. That is not a matter of opinion, it is what it is.

Despite what you say this has went grossly off topic. All I wanted to know was what the verses I stated meant and if I was going to hell for once being an atheist. It was a simple question that got grossly skewed. I have now learned that Marcus Borg is right. If you say anything that a traditionalist doesn't like then you are out of the clubhouse.

I guess there is no reason to continue posting on here since there topic has been mucked so much.
 
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Benedicta00

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TheMilkman said:
How can you possibly say that? Someone else said that Rah was mistranslated then I gave evidence that it wasn't. That is not a matter of opinion, it is what it is.

Despite what you say this has went grossly off topic. All I wanted to know was what the verses I stated meant and if I was going to hell for once being an atheist. It was a simple question that got grossly skewed. I have now learned that Marcus Borg is right. If you say anything that a traditionalist doesn't like then you are out of the clubhouse.

I guess there is no reason to continue posting on here since there topic has been mucked so much.
No one is mad at you, calm down.

I was not referring to any particular translation, I was referring to how one personally interprets what they read.

We have what the Church teaches us and when you interpret something that contradicts that then you are not interpreting it correctly.

God did not make evil, he allowed it as he allowed humans to chose sin and fall from His grace. Evil is the absence of good. The absence of God in you. That is what 'creates' evil.
 
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BrotherKnight

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Shelb5 said:
No one is mad at you, calm down.

I was not referring to any particular translation, I was referring to how one personally interprets what they read.

We have what the Church teaches us and when you interpret something that contradicts that then you are not interpreting it correctly.

God did not make evil, he allowed it as he allowed humans to chose sin and fall from His grace. Evil is the absence of good. The absence of God in you. That is what 'creates' evil.
Also, you cannot truly choose good if you cannot just as truly and freely choose evil. If the only option available was to choose to do good, then there is not in actuality any free will or any real glory to God.
 
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SolomonVII

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TheMilkman said:
.....

Also, give me some biblical evidence that he didn't create evil? I have given you all my evidence, so I would like a little in return. The beauty of atheism is that most atheists don't just hear someone with power (pastor, rabbi, etc.) say something and automatically believe it. Most atheists also go where the proof is at. That is one good quality I have taken away from my experience as an atheist. If you all can prove me wrong I will GLADLY admit that I am wrong and agree that God didn't create evil. It isn't about holding on the hear-say ideas, it's about knowing the truth.
For Christians, all roads lead to Jesus Christ. The proof of our faith, and the justification for our faith lies in Christ.

On questions of the attributes of God, who out of necessity must transcend all human proofs, and reasoning, logic and experience, we rely on Jesus to reveal the Father to us.

And the Father revealed to us by the Son is not only merciful, and loving, and infintely generous with his free gift of grace, but in the very words of Jesus, is 'good'.

The testimony of most athiests that I have debated with is that they are unwilling to worship a god that is the author of evil.
By and large, I owuld say that Catholics share that sentiment with athiests. We too would be unwilling to worhsip a god that was in any way evil.
The testimony of modern Jewry too, as heterodox as it is, by and large does not consider evil as originiating in God. Even if thier understanding of Satan does not contain the same nuances developed in the New Testament and the Second Temple period, their rabbis too teach the role of free will as the genesis of evil in this world.

With the bible, as ancient as it is, and so much the product of a different culture, time and mindset, there exist nuances to words that change over time, and can even be lost. 'Cool', for example is not just the temperature that it once was a century ago, and as far as computers go, being labelled a geek is just no longer so 'uncool' as it was even twenty years ago.

The question hence becomes, given what 'evil' means in today's lexicon, could you- do you?- worship a God that you consider to be the author of evil?

For if your understanding of such passages is holding you back in your acceptance of God, then rest assured that Catholicism doesn't much believe in a God so described either.
For the teaching is that evil has come into this world through Adam.
 
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SolomonVII

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John 10The Jews again picked up rocks to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?" 33 The Jews answered him, "We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God." 34 15 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"'? 35 If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be set aside, 36 can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated 16 and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? 37 If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me; 38 but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father".
 
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