Clete,
The keeping of time is a man made construct to record history. If God created all things then he too created time as we know it.
Time is an idea, not a thing. An idea, as you suggest, used to reference history. Or to put it more formally; Time is a convention of language used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events. Time does not exist outside of the mind and as such is not a created thing.
Further, there is NOTHING in the bible that teaches that God exists outside of time. In fact, the very notion is a self-defeating "stolen concept" fallacy. A stolen concept fallacy happens when a person makes an argument that denies one concept while making use of a concept which is predicated upon the concept being denied. The accepted concept is in effect "stolen" from a "parent" concept. In this case to say that something exists implies duration. Existence has not meaning if duration is denied. Duration is what time is! Thus to accept 'existence' and deny 'time' is to "steal" the concept of existence and thus to contradict yourself.
I know nothing of Augustine and little of Aristotle.
I did not intend to imply that you learned these ideas directly from them but simply that these are the people responsible for anyone believing this stuff. Ideas have histories of their own and if you follow the history of ideas like the immutability of God you find out that the doctrine found its way into Christianity through Augustine and that Augustine learned it from reading the Classics (i.e. Aristotle and Plato).
To be clear; I have had no preformed assumptions regarding religion as I was atheistic in nature for over 20 years until I was literally saved by God. I am unique in that what I have been shown prior to reading any scripture has been verified by said scripture.
I caution you on this sort of idea. David Koresh made almost the exact same claim as do virtually all cult leaders many of whom started out quite sincere.
No, I'm not accusing you of being a cultist! I'm just saying that you are on VERY shaky ground here.
I do not understand how or why you insist that God is mutable in order for your understanding.
In that case you either do not understand the doctrine of immutability or you do not understand what it means to have a relationship. The two are quite mutually exclusive.
The Torah and New covenant go together with one another without contradiction to me personally.
Contradictions are not a matter of opinion.
And I never ever suggested that the Old and New Testaments were in any sort of contradiction to one another.
In what way do you equate God's immutability with the Old Testament?
To me over thought and rationale are the cause of confusion for some.
Well, you can't fix stupid, if that's what you mean. But if you don't mean that and instead are suggesting that too much logic leads to confusion then you couldn't be more wrong. It is the lack of reason that creates confusion not the other way around. That isn't to say that lots of people aren't lazy or just simply make a mistake in their thought process but you can't blame logic for certain people's lack of skill in using it. Logic is THE ONLY tool your mind can use to understand anything. God made it that way when He created us in His image. Any attempt you might make to refute the voracity of logic is going to make use of the very logic you're attempting to refute. Logic is absolutely irrefragable!
READ THIS!
I listened to a pastor not long ago who insisted that to think and make up ideas was the work of God. He also repeatedly praised himself and his accomplishments and dreams. This seemed to me very misleading as for me all praise is to God alone. Any things that we attain are the will of God. I, as politely as possible, while still conveying my point attested that him telling his congregation that thought and ideas in general were all good and from God was misleading in that we must be able to tell truth from lie, or good from bad, especially when looking introspectively. All I was saying is that we shouldn't be lead astray by our own selfish desires. Needless to say, this arragant self righteous, miss guiding individual was immidiatly infuriated to the point of putting his hand in my face and repeatedly stating that he would not heed my message. This in itself was negative and a testament to his thoughts of selfrightiousness. Upon his stubborn acts and words I stated once again that his message was good yet misleading to those that may not know better. I stated again that no disrespect was meant or appreciated, turned and calmly left the building. Some of his service was related to backbiting and gossip. He accused me of such as I spoke privately and face to face with him alone. Quite clouded. I'd I were closer to whom I was in the past I may have put my hands on him. I am thankful to God that I did not.
I have found that it is nearly impossible to convince a pastor that he is wrong about anything. Especially if he's ever uttered a word about it in a sermon. Pastors are way too entrenched in their doctrine. Think about all the time and money and effort they've invested into their particular doctrinal positions and what it would cost them to make any substantive change in those beliefs. They'd have to toss a whole life time's worth of learning and teaching out the window in many cases, which is much too much to reasonably expect an average person to do. It's almost always a waste of energy to even make the attempt to change the mind of a pastor.
I agree that we cannot misconstrue the teaching of Christ, and to do such is misleading. I also find that the scriptures often hold within them double and triple entendres and that a singular meaning that is extracted from such is often but one part of a meaning that may well have two or three meanings.
No argument at all on this point.
I too look forward to speaking with you further. A leveled, mutually respectful conversation is much preferred over the irate passing of thoughts. Thanks, really.
All praise and thanks is to God.
:up:
Resting in Him,
Clete
