What kind of God do you believe in?

[Andrewn]

Still an expression of maleness... it's not wrong or out of turn therefore, to call God: Father or Him, instead of "it" or "she".

Jesus to pray, "Our Father in heaven." So, I certainly do not advocate calling Him anything else. But I think of God as a Spirit, as Love, beyond the concepts of male and female.

 

[Radagast]

In that case, why even involve Mary?

Because Jesus went through the life that we do, starting in the same way, as a single cell.

The Incarnation is the non-biological God getting 100% biological.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Jesus to pray, "Our Father in heaven." So, I certainly do not advocate calling Him anything else. But I think of God as a Spirit, as Love, beyond the concepts of male and female.

I think of God as Spirit, but since I see Him as Father I don't think beyond the concept of what Fathers are and should be...

In other words, I see God less like a nurturer/caregiver... more I see Him in much the same way I see my "dad's" role. My dad was my very best freind, (which he really was in many ways) but also provider. I also strove to make him happy and proud of me and tried never to let him down even though I had my rebellious moments. My relationship with God is much the same. There's just something dad-like about God all the way around that's not like mothers.

 

[Paidiske]

Who can say for sure?
I'm looking at what the text says. "You will conceive and give birth to a son..." - vs 31
What does that mean?
"The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." - vs 35
What does that mean?

We cannot know what exactly was happening at a molecular level. But to be incredibly blunt, we know that the Holy Spirit doesn't have sperm.

In that case, why even involve Mary?

Because Christ is fully human (as well as fully divine), and living a fully human life required that that life start in the womb.

 

[Radagast]

Sex isn't evil, but it is biological, and God is not.

I'm still finding it strange that a handful of people on CF believe that He is biological.

 

[Hazelelponi]

..

 

[JAL]

Pope Theophilus of Alexandria (385 - 412 AD) also believed in the anthropomorphic view of God.
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The question is not whether spirits are material or not. They very well could be. The question is whether God is omnipresent or not. This is what Mormons cannot assert bec they believe God the Father is corporeal.

In harmony with DDS, you are caught up in a philosophically idealistic view of God that doesn't necessarily represent the real world. For example, God need not be omnipresent in the absolute sense to be an effective ruler and administer justice perfectly. Rather, He merely needs to have His hand on every particle of matter in the universe as to monitor and supervise it closely.

DDS evolved because most of the church fathers felt that God had to conform to THEIR philosophical ideals. They never stopped to ask themselves whether such a God isn't a contradiction in terms or contradicts the biblical data.

Let's take for example the topic you raised here - omnipresence. According to Charles Hodge, the orthodox view, which he accepted, is that God fills all space repletely/plenally. Thus the fullness of God is fully present at every point in space (as opposed to being more or less sparsely distributed, volumetrically, throughout space). This assumption flatly contradicts the biblical data. How so? It contradicts the notion of an outpouring of the Third Person. If God is already fully present everywhere, there is no meaningful sense in which He can translocate. In fact Jesus foretold Pentecost as trading places. Meaning, the Son would return to the throne and, in His stead, the Third person would descend down here. And that's precisely what happened. First we have the translocation of the Son - and it's a wholly physical event...

"After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1)

...followed by the translocation of the Third Person, just one chapter later:

"They saw what seemed to be tongues of Fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy [Wind]" (Acts 2).

Outpourings also contradict a 2nd facet of DDS - the claim that God is indivisible into parts. The concept of trading places indicates that God is divisible into parts. For example 120 separate tongues of Fire descended.

Again, 100% of the biblical data favors a material God. And indeed, if He is material, then your objection to Mormonism seems blunted, since two material objects cannot fully occupy the same space - thus something less than replete/plenal omnipresence is only to be expected.

 

[Carl Emerson]

We cannot know what exactly was happening at a molecular level. But to be incredibly blunt, we know that the Holy Spirit doesn't have sperm.

But we do know that He can create anything out of nothing.

 

[Radagast]

But we do know that He can create anything out of nothing.

I think that is @Paidiske's point. It came from God's ability to create biology, not from God being biological.

 

[Radagast]

"After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1)

That's because the physical body of Jesus is not omnipresent.

And indeed, if He is material, then your objection to Mormonism seems blunted

Are you a Mormon, then?

 

[Salvadore]

In that case, why even involve Mary?

So prophecy could be fulfilled?

 

[JAL]

Are you a Mormon, then?

No of course not. I was only debating his objection to corporeal omnipresence. Look, all religions have things in common. For example Islam holds to DDS. Are you therefore a Muslim?

 

[Saint Steven]

Because Jesus went through the life that we do, starting in the same way, as a single cell.

The Incarnation is the non-biological God getting 100% biological.

Right. That helps to prove my point.

 

[JAL]

That's because the physical body of Jesus is not omnipresent.

So His soul didn't ascend too? He did not in fact trade places? That's funny, because according to my Bible, the soul resides within the body.

 

[Saint Steven]

We cannot know what exactly was happening at a molecular level. But to be incredibly blunt, we know that the Holy Spirit doesn't have sperm.



Because Christ is fully human (as well as fully divine), and living a fully human life required that that life start in the womb.

Your post seems contradictory. Furthermore...

Matthew 1:18
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

 

[Saint Steven]

So prophecy could be fulfilled?

The point was that God didn't need to use human means. I asked...

Saint Steven said: ↑
In that case, why even involve Mary?

 

[Paidiske]

Your post seems contradictory.

Not at all.

Christ was fully human. For that to be a real, authentic human experience, he had to go through all that we do; including growing in the womb and being born. (As an aside, this is part of why I have a problem with speculation that Mary didn't give birth in the normal, messy, painful way; because it would undermine Jesus' humanity).

We don't know exactly how that began. We don't know whether God created from nothing a fully-formed single cell which grew into Jesus. We don't know whether God use one of Mary's ova, or refashioned a somatic cell, or... whatever. That is beyond our ability to reconstruct based on what's in the text.

But what we can be absolutely clear on, is that there was no act akin to sex, there was no contribution akin to divine sperm, and Jesus didn't have half his DNA contributed from a pre-existing divine strand. And we know those things because we know God - either the Father or the Spirit - doesn't have DNA, or cells, or any organs with which to have sex. Because apart from the incarnation, God is not a material, biological being.

 

[Radagast]

So His soul didn't ascend too? He did not in fact trade places? That's funny, because according to my Bible, the soul resides within the body.

Now this is the true faith:

That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.

He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.

Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.

As man, Jesus occupies a specific place, like we do. As God, Jesus is omnipresent. God the Son did not lose his divinity by becoming man.

 

[JAL]

Now this is the true faith:

That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.

He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.

Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.

As man, Jesus occupies a specific place, like we do. As God, Jesus is omnipresent. God the Son did not lose his divinity by becoming man.

Who said He did? Nor did you rebut my reply. Strawman.

 

[Radagast]

Matthew 1:18
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

In translating ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου, I would prefer:

CSB: The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.

ESV: Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

NLT: This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.