Your God does not merit praise!

[JAL]

Well after the church fathers that I quoted!

I give up. Can anyone make sense of his timeline?

 

[d taylor]

I think God can take any form he wants to. But God, like us, is first of all spirit and soul. We have bodies, but we are souls. We will be given new bodies for our souls. The body is just a place for our souls to take on physical form.

But it is not really about what form God can take, but the question is can nothing exist.

If a person believes that God has no beginning and has always existed, then nothing can not exist. because God is not nothing. Now a person can believe that dirt or rocks etc.. did not exist at one time but to believe that nothing once existed does not geehaw with God always existing.

 

[renniks]

Um....er...eh...the divine Wind/Breath is not a metaphor. Metaphors are not real winds that blow apart the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 15:8-10).

So what I've gotten from all this is that God is whatever material he wants to be at the time? Fire, cloud, human, bird, etc. How would this Foster idolatry less than God being a spirit, who took on those forms? God sent a wind doesn't equal God being the wind, anymore then God sending frogs to the Egyptians makes God the frog.

 

[renniks]

I give up. Can anyone make sense of his timeline?

What is hard to understand? Iranius and others believed in an immaterial God long before Plato came along. It wasn't an invention of Plato.

 

[renniks]

But it is not really about what form God can take, but the question is can nothing exist.

If a person believes that God has no beginning and has always existed, then nothing can not exist. because God is not nothing. Now a person can believe that dirt or rocks etc.. did not exist at one time but to believe that nothing once existed does not geehaw with God always existing.

Of course. I'm talking about nothing material existing.

 

[DamianWarS]

The only possible definition of merit is this:

Merit is a status achieved by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause over an extended period of time.

Innate traits do not merit praise! (Sorry to have to point this out). Holiness is the sum total of Yahweh's perfections, hence God alone is holy (Rev 15:4). Since you fully orthodox Christians define Him as innately holy, your God merits no praise for the following perfections:
(1) Perfect character (kindness, patience, integrity, purity)
(2) Perfect knowledge
(3) Perfect dexterity/skills (e.g. surgically healing sick people, shaping the earth, forming the species, managing the earth, protecting individuals, etc.)

You can click here for MY definition of God.

You MIGHT could argue that your God merits praise for 1 day on the cross, but that claim is dubious for a couple of reasons:
(A) If His innate holiness moved Him to atone, does He really merit praise for it?
(B) Does 1 day of labor/suffering really merit ineffably superlative praise? After all, the rest of us already labor/suffer for 50 years (approximately 12,000 days).

In any case, I probably won't focus on the cross. The main issue for this thread is that your God merits no praise for items 1, 2, and 3 above.

God's traits don't merit anything since they do no strive for a goal because they are innately perfect already. However his traits demand priase and is fully worhty of them because they are innately perfect.

 

[JAL]

What is hard to understand? Iranius and others believed in an immaterial God long before Plato came along. It wasn't an invention of Plato.

Irenaeus was born around 130 AD. Plato lived around 500 B.C. and thus preceded him by 600 years. Do you not understand what B.C. signifies?

Anyone. Everyone. Could you please explain renniks timeline to me? I don't understand what he is saying.

 

[JAL]

God's traits don't merit anything since they do no strive for a goal because they are innately perfect already. However his traits demand priase and is fully worhty of them because they are innately perfect.

On your assumptions, God is thus a hypocrite and a copout who holds to a double standard, because He certainly isn't going to award any of US any accolades, on judgement day, for innate traits.

 

[DamianWarS]

I give up. Can anyone make sense of his timeline?

Perhaps he is confusing BC and AD and thinking Plato came 500 AD. It's the only way his timeline could make sense. For clarification Plato was born about 520 years before Irenaeus.

 

[DamianWarS]

On your assumptions, God is thus a hypocrite and a copout who holds to a double standard, because He certainly isn't going to award any of US any accolades, on judgement day, for innate traits.

Why would he? Whatever innate traits we have he gave them to us. And they are also not innately perfect. Is it such a surprise we are created to give glory to God?

 

[JulieB67]

YHVH is worthy of praise period. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. It's kind of an offensive title because my God, YHVH of the Bible is definitely worthy of praise. And you can't possibly know everyone's personal journey with the Father and the Word.

Yes, there are different denominations, different interpretations of scripture but that shouldn't factor in the fact that the God of the Bible is worthy of our praise. He can't help it if some have different beliefs about what the Bible, might or might not say. His Word is never going to change to suit anyone's beliefs, misguided or not.

My God created the Heavens and Earth period. After that fact and the downfall of Satan, he decided to not make a complete end to this world and started again by making man in "our" image (there's a whole other story there as well if someone really wants to dig deeper as well as the fact of how he knew Jacob, Esau, Jeremiah before they were even born and so on, so many truths not being taught) I could go on for ages but I won't. But I just wanted to say you have not proven to me that the Heavenly Father "I know" from the Bible is not worthy of praise.

ETA, For the record My Father does not condemn anyone to an "eternal lake of fire" But that's not for debate in this thread.

 

[renniks]

Irenaeus was born around 130 AD. Plato lived around 500 B.C. and thus preceded him by 600 years. Do you not understand what B.C. signifies?

Anyone. Everyone. Could you please explain renniks timeline to me? I don't understand what he is saying.

You think that the Church father's who lived directly after Jesus borrowed from pagan philosophers? Yes they knew of them maybe but they were not pagans. Irenaius and the others were influenced by Jesus of Nazareth, first and foremost.

 

[JAL]

So what I've gotten from all this is that God is whatever material he wants to be at the time? Fire, cloud, human, bird, etc. How would this Foster idolatry less than God being a spirit, who took on those forms? God sent a wind doesn't equal God being the wind, anymore then God sending frogs to the Egyptians makes God the frog.

You're talking about an immaterial being who NEEDLESSLY fosters idolatry. I'm talking about a material being who simply shows us what He is. When He manifests as Fire, the beauty of that fire is far beyond that of ordinary fire. That's why He explicitly prohibits the fashioning of pictures and idols representing Him. And when we read about Him in the Bible, we are supposed to be reading it under divine illumination (Direct Revelation), such that He mentally shows us HIS Fire, to avoid conceptual idolatry.

The failure of the church to recognize the preeminence of Direct Revelation is yet ANOTHER bad theological trend in the church. But that's a topic I've covered in other threads.

God sent a wind doesn't equal God being the wind, anymore then God sending frogs to the Egyptians makes God the frog.

So Ex 15:8-10 needlessly conjures up a conceptually idolatrous picture of a solid figure with a mouth and nostrils? The Bible is full of misleading disinformation? Anthropomorphisms that should be dismissed out of hand?

You're entitled to dismiss the biblical data if you want to. Just be candid about the fact that, in that case, your God is not based on Scripture but on the immaterialism of pagan philosophers.

 

[JAL]

You think that the Church father's who lived directly after Jesus borrowed from pagan philosophers? Yes they knew of them maybe but they were not pagans. Irenaius and the others were influenced by Jesus of Nazareth, first and foremost.

Except Jesus never said anything that remotely provides strong grounds for immaterialism. It's not based on Scripture.

 

[JAL]

You think that the Church father's who lived directly after Jesus borrowed from pagan philosophers?

What I think? I alone? Phillip Schaff stated, "The prevailing philosophy of the [church] fathers was the Platonic." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (section on scholasticism), the early church fathers considered Plato and his concomitants as having doctrinal authority equal to Scripture! Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia states:

"Christian thinkers, from the beginning, were confronted with the question: How are we to reconcile reason with revelation, science with faith, philosophy with theology?...They advanced the explanation that all the wisdom of Plato and the other Greeks was due to the inspiration of the Logos; that it was God's truth, and, therefore, could not be in contradiction with the supernatural revelation contained in the Gospels."

They ASSUMED that pagan philosophy was essentially the Word of God! This was in DIRECT contradiction to Paul's admonition:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces a of this world rather than on Christ" (Col 2:8).

 

[BNR32FAN]

The only possible definition of merit is this:

Merit is a status achieved by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause over an extended period of time.

Innate traits do not merit praise! (Sorry to have to point this out). Holiness is the sum total of Yahweh's perfections, hence God alone is holy (Rev 15:4). Since you fully orthodox Christians define Him as innately holy, your God merits no praise for the following perfections:
(1) Perfect character (kindness, patience, integrity, purity)
(2) Perfect knowledge
(3) Perfect dexterity/skills (e.g. surgically healing sick people, shaping the earth, forming the species, managing the earth, protecting individuals, etc.)

You can click here for MY definition of God.

You MIGHT could argue that your God merits praise for 1 day on the cross, but that claim is dubious for a couple of reasons:
(A) If His innate holiness moved Him to atone, does He really merit praise for it?
(B) Does 1 day of labor/suffering really merit ineffably superlative praise? After all, the rest of us already labor/suffer for 50 years (approximately 12,000 days).

In any case, I probably won't focus on the cross. The main issue for this thread is that your God merits no praise for items 1, 2, and 3 above.

God does merit praise

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25:21 ‭NASB1995‬‬

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25:23 ‭NASB1995‬‬

“Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭3:12-15‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

 

[BNR32FAN]

You think that the Church father's who lived directly after Jesus borrowed from pagan philosophers? Yes they knew of them maybe but they were not pagans. Irenaius and the others were influenced by Jesus of Nazareth, first and foremost.

While I do have a great deal of respect for Iranaeus and his writings, he was just a child during the last days of the apostles. His biggest influence was Polycarp who was a disciple of John. So I do believe that does give some weight to his testimony.

 

[renniks]

So Ex 15:8-10 needlessly conjures up a conceptually idolatrous picture of a solid figure with a mouth and nostrils? The Bible is full of misleading disinformation? Anthropomorphisms that should be dismissed out of hand?

Well of course it's allegory. Is Jesus really a door? Or a gate? You claim he has a mouth and nose and at the same time claim he's fire. Or wind or a Bird. Obviously these are word pictures.

 

[renniks]

Except Jesus never said anything that remotely provides strong grounds for immaterialism. It's not based on Scripture.

Yes he did. He described the spirit as being LIKE the wind. Not literally wind.

 

[renniks]

What I think? I alone? Phillip Schaff stated, "The prevailing philosophy of the [church] fathers was the Platonic." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (section on scholasticism), the early church fathers considered Plato and his concomitants as having doctrinal authority equal to Scripture! Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia states:

"Christian thinkers, from the beginning, were confronted with the question: How are we to reconcile reason with revelation, science with faith, philosophy with theology?...They advanced the explanation that all the wisdom of Plato and the other Greeks was due to the inspiration of the Logos; that it was God's truth, and, therefore, could not be in contradiction with the supernatural revelation contained in the Gospels."

They ASSUMED that pagan philosophy was essentially the Word of God! This was in DIRECT contradiction to Paul's admonition:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces a of this world rather than on Christ" (Col 2:8).

So you are claiming that the very early church was essentially a cult?