Hi Clete,
Thanks for reading and responding. Sorry you were so confused..
My point of view as a child is that I wanted to be saved from the consequences of my sins, saved from hell.
Interesting verses, thanks for that. I was taught as a child that children needed saving too. The earlier the better. Certainly when I was old enough to worry about hell, I did have a knowledge of good and evil, my parents made sure of that! If you are saying that children do not need [to be] saved, I guess you mean that if a young child dies, it's sins are not imputed and it goes to heaven. Then later on, when the child is older and gains the knowledge of good and evil, then they inevitably sin and are unsaved and must believe and do the items on your list to be saved. I am assuming that you believe that that salvation happens the instance they believe and do the list. Let me know if I'm wrong.
Okay, first of all, let me just tell you that I am not going to try to respond to every point in your post. Not that I don't want to but simply that it makes for an incredibly long post that no one would want to read. If I skip over something that you want me to address specifically, just point it out and I'll do so.
So....
Yes, I do believe that salvation happens the moment your put your faith in Christ. It isn't a process, its an event at which time you are sealed by the Holy Spirit as an earnest payment against your safe delivery to the Day of Redemption. This term "earnest" is the biblical term, not mine. Do you understand how earnest payments work?
Also, "the knowledge of good and evil" is a euphemism that refers to the law. It isn't simply having some understanding of right and wrong. My dog has that as does any human being old enough to understand language. The law and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are very closely tied together. So much so that the it isn't wrong to consider the law to be the fruit of that tree.
The average Christian isn't taught this but its easy enough to look up and confirm the following if you're so inclined....
Circumcision is a physical cutting off of the flesh. Following the law is a cutting off the the "flesh" (i.e. in the spiritual sense of the term "flesh") thus circumcision has always been a symbol of the law. Israel, during their time in the desert did not circumcise their children and it was these children of Israel that were permitted entrance into the Promise Land. They had not been circumcised and thus had not been placed under the law and therefore did not have "the knowledge of good and evil".
I never meant to imply that the above was necessarily a Christian doctrine. My church did not teach it as written above. I think I need to clarify a paragraph that I wrote by adding a few brackets[]:
I wrote: "I have a question about the meaning of the word, "just" as in God is just. In your Christian point of view, is it impossible for God to not be just? As you say in the fourth sentence, "Jesus, being the Creator God Himself and therefore innocent of any sin". [Given this belief,] a [hypothetical] Creator God could make sentient beings who have the capacity to suffer, and the Creator God just makes them suffer, not in reaction to anything the sentient beings have done, He does it for no reason at all. Is such a [hypothetical] Creator God just in your view?"
The italicized (by me) word in the sentence above: "Jesus, being the Creator God Himself and therefore innocent of any sin" would seem to imply that you do believe that such a hypothetical, seemingly cruel, Creator God would be considered just (using a rather meaningless definition of the word, "just"). However, I understand further down your note that you believe that the Creator God has to be just (using the conventional meaning of the word) and the hypothetical Creator God mentioned above would not be just.
Indeed, I believe proposing such a hypothetical gets within a hair's breadth of being blasphemy.
You might as well have asked me, "If a god did unjust things, would he be just?" The question answers itself.
I wrote: "God cannot help but be just"
Here we have a misunderstanding because my sentence is taken out of context. In context, I am not making a general statement about God, but just stating a conclusion that would follow from a hypothetical situation. This is actually part of a question, not a statement. I know that the idea is to examine every sentence that a writer is writing carefully, but please don't lose sight of the context!
Its true that my pastor, when I was maybe 11 or 12, told me that God can do whatever he wants with His creation. He was citing Romans 9:18-21. Just as a potter has the right to do whatever he wants with the clay, so God can do whatever he wants with His creation. The clay cannot object, regardless of the clay's sense of justice or its suffering!
It would seem that your pastor also need to not lose sight of the context! The clay isn't God's creation, it is specifically the nation of Israel.
This is fully established in post #4 here...
After this, I go on to consider the alternative belief. Remember the first alternative is that you believe that Creator Gods are necessarily just. The second possibility, is no, you don't believe any hypothetical Creator Gods are just by definition, but if they are just, they will have to conform to just acts, using he usual definition of "just". Then, of course, the word "just" is not superfluous in describing a Creator God because there is the possibility that a Creator God might not be just. It becomes clear that, you take the position that our Creator God is just in the usual sense, which means His actions must conform to justice. Of course, our Creator God doesn't want to do anything unjust.
He not only doesn't want to do anything unjust but actively wills to be just. Given that, along with the fact that it is fundamentally impossible for God to be forced to act against His will, and the conclusion is obvious.
I wrote: "So how is it just to torture people in the lake of fire or furnaces for all eternity for whatever they did in a finite lifetime on earth?"
No, but the furnace of hell is in the Bible. As I quoted in not#19 above: "Matthew 13: 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!" Also, the Lake of Fire is referenced several times in Revelation.
The use of an analogy of fire should be understood as just that, an analogy.
Here's the bottom line. We do not really know with any detail or precision what Hell is going to be like. We know that it will be unpleasant and permanent. Going beyond that is speculation to one degree or another. There's some evidence that it will be hot (e.g. "the Lake of Fire", etc), there's also some evidence that its in the core of the Earth and there's even some evidence that some have used to argue that those who are thrown into the Lake of Fire are destroyed out of existence, yada, yada, yada.
What we know for a fact is that God is just. There is no amount of speculation about disputable things that should be accepted as valid if it violates such basic principles such as the idea that God is just! Thus, whatever Hell turns out to actually be, then I don't really care what your opinion of it is, it's justice! You can disagree but no one will be around to hear your objections. My advice is to avoid the issue and submit yourself to your Creator while you can.
Doesn't really apply to my point. A serial killer or a tyrant responsible for the death of millions still has a finite number of sins and is not deserving of eternal torture or torment (an infinite punishment).
Says who, you?
Besides, as I have already said, Hell isn't a punishment related to criminal justice!
However, I can assure you that as I child I attempted to impress upon myself how horribly evil I was. It did not lead to a healthy sense of self-worth.
It isn't relevant. I don't expect you to understand why. You're still thinking that Hell is the outcome of some sort of criminal justice system.
You don't believe that in Matthew 13:42, when Jesus talks about the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, that he's talking about hell?
Which Hell?
Look Gary, I'm trying really hard to keep from going to far into the weeds on this issue. You do not have a proper foundation for a discussion about the nature of Hell to be of any profit to either of us. Suffice it to say that whatever it is that you think is unjust about Hell amounts to just one more false doctrine that you were taught as a child.
I mentioned that there are sections of the Bible that seem to contradict the idea that the list presented by Clete is sufficient for salvation.
More than half the bible contradicts it! The entire Old Testament, the Gospels and every book of the New Testament from Hebrews through Revelation all contradict my list.
Your mouth should be hanging open about now!
That going to sound like I've contradicted my previous statement but its a matter of context. There's no question that you would read any of the above mentioned sections of the bible and find no end to passages that contradict my list precisely because you fail to understand the context. That's definitely a topic of another thread.
These posts are getting kind of long, so I won't respond to this.
Gee, I thought it was a discussion board! It would seem that expressing one's opinion would be part of it.
Don't misunderstand. I have no problem with you having or expressing an opinion about matters of opinion. The point is, however, that the definition of justice, whether or not God is just, and whether or not sin is a rebellion against God are not a matters of opinion. Justice is what it is, God is either just or He isn't, Sin is a rebellion against God by definition and your personal opinions are completely irrelevant in such matters.
My point is that you can't rebel against something you're not aware even exists or think he is something other than the Christian God.
There is no such thing as a human being who is beyond the age of accountability, who does not know that God exists.
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
Everyone knows that God exists.
The word "Muslim" means submitted (to God) and they believe they are submitting to the Creator God, the God of Abraham.
So what?
Speaking of Abraham, God tells him to sacrifice his son. Abraham does not say to God, now God, you can't ask me to do that because you are just. No, Abraham is prepared to sacrifice his son because God said to do it, it didn't matter to Abraham whether it was just or not.
You should read your bible more carefully.
First of all, you should understand that you have directly accused God of injustice. You will give an account for it. You really should be more careful what you say.
Secondly, it is not unjust for God to end your physical life. All life proceeds from God and He didn't ask your permission when He created you and He does not owe you one single breath more than you've already taken.
Third, Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.
Fourth, God never had any intention of having Abraham actually go through with the killing in the first place. It was a test. Not only was it a test but it was a real test that God DID NOT know the outcome of in advance, in contradiction to probably half a dozen or more things your pastor undoubtedly taught you as a child.
Genesis 22:12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for
now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only
son, from Me.”
In which case, we're back to the hypothetical God who is just by definition, or maybe it's that the word "just" doesn't apply to him. That God can do whatever he wants regardless of our sense of justice. The God of Abraham is "the Creator God and therefore sinless"
No! God is just because He acts justly. God is righteous because He does rightly.
You're right on the edge of one of the most important theological/philosophical questions ever asked in the history of philosophy, by the way. It's what I've been expecting you to spring on me this whole time but you haven't done it. It's called Euthyphro's Dilemma. Ever heard of it? Christianity is the only religion in the world that has a rational answer for it. If you're interested check out the following debate where the issue is specifically addressed....
Does God Exist? - Battle Royale VII - Bob Enyart vs. Zakath
The whole debate is worth your time but posts 36 and 39 are the posts that specifically deal with Euthyphro's dilemma.
At any rate, I don't ever remember being handed a set of rules by God (in the Bible or otherwise) that I'm supposed to follow.
What?
Ever heard of the Ten Commandments?
Not that you needed them!
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
You might try to plead ignorance but it will fail.
You say that I have to follow the rules, but where are they delineated? Of course, there are a set of rules carefully delineated in great detail in the Old Testament, but most Christians do not believe themselves to be subject to those rules (a very few Christians believe they are.) So what exactly are the rules of behavior for Christians? Some Christians believe the 10 commandments are binding on Christians. Some Christians believe there are no rules, you simply do what Jesus leads you to do. If He wants you to sacrifice your son, you do it. What do you believe?
Okay, wow!
I'm trying super hard not to be insulting to you and so please don't take offense where none is intended but you are so totally confused that it's genuinely hard to know where to even begin to respond to this.
Do you think it was moral to murder before the law said "Thou shalt not murder."?
Do you suppose that it was okay to take things that didn't belong to you before Moses came down the mountain with tablets that read "Thou shalt not steal."?
Was there ever a time when it was permissible to rape any random woman you came across simply because
Deuteronomy 22:23–29 hadn't been written yet?
Just because you aren't under the law doesn't mean its okay to harm your neighbor or yourself or to rebel against the God who is Life itself.
Well, as I said, I did try to impress on myself how horribly evil I was (as a child). It was hard to imagine that I was rebelling against God since God wasn't telling me to do anything.
Impressing a lie upon yourself doesn't work, Gary. You were not evil as a child. That's why it didn't sink in. You knew intuitively that it false.
Of course, I got a lot of rules to follow from adults in authority, and I took those to be what God wanted me to do. And stuff like loving your neighbor as yourself, loving God with all your mind and heart.
Yeah, the adults in your life fed you your portion of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Had it been done properly and consistently, which it clearly wasn't, when you grew up, you'd have understood more clearly and your childhood beliefs would have matured into a saving faith.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.
1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Galatians 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor
to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
I wrote: A baby doesn't even have a concept of God.
But this was no ordinary baby! It was John the Baptist.
John the Baptist wasn't divine, Gary. John was just a man like you and I.
I don't know if you believe much in science, but according to scientific research, the theory of mind doesn't develop until the child is several years old.
LOL!
Science doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the mind, Gary! Your mind, so says science, is just an illusion created by a vast array of bio-electric and bio-mechanical processes that occur inside your brain.
To be clear, it isn't real science that denies the existence of the mind, its atheistic, materialism masquerading as science that does so. Real, actual science, doesn't have to be "believed" in because it is nothing at all other than the application of sound reason to the understanding of both nature and of reality. It, like any other sort of rational endeavor is only as good as the premises from which it proceeds.
Without a theory of mind, the baby or toddler doesn't even know that other people are thinking and feeling, much less know about such an abstract notion as God: Omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent person.
This is speculation at best.
And the God of the bible is neither Omnipresent, Omniscient nor Omnipotent in the Classical sense of those terms. Biblically, God is able to be anywhere and everywhere He wants to be but cannot be in a place that does not exist and is not required to be anywhere He doesn't wish to be. God knows what He wants to know of that information which is knowable. Any information that is knowable that He doesn't have He is able to discover at will. And finally, God is the fountainhead of all power but has chosen at His own discretion to delegate a portion of that power to others and is both able and within His rights to recall that power at will and thus is utterly invincible. However, just as God cannot go to a place that does not exist nor know the unknowable, God cannot do the any other undoable thing. God cannot do things that are rationally absurd like making a perfect sphere with sharp corners or whatever other absurdity might come to mind. The "Omni" doctrines do not come from scripture but from Plato and Aristotle (i.e. the Classics). The doctrine were imported into Christian dogma by folks like Augustine.
I wrote: "A hungry child stealing an apple is hardly thinking about God at all, nor is he deserving of Death."
It's not hard to follow the logic: Stealing is a sin. People go to hell because they have sinned. The hungry child stealing an apple is rebelling against God! Your list clearly indicates he deserves death! (The fact you didn't get this, shows that maybe you only believe abstractly that one who commits a sin or sins is deserving of death).
It isn't me who doesn't get it, it's you. Hell is NOT the end game of some sort of criminal justice system!
A hungry child taking an apple may not even count as a sin, whether its a crime or not, and so lets use something real like an adult breaking into their neighbor's house, taking their television set and trading it for the drugs they use to get high on. Now that's a whole series of sins that everyone can agree on and I'm here to tell you that it isn't the burglary, the theft or the getting high that will send them to Hell. It's their rebellion against God that leads to both their acts of evil and their eternal residence of the "fires" of Hell.
Sin is volitional, as are ALL moral acts.
I never said Satan runs the place, that's not in the Bible. I never said anything about criminal justice to be able to conflate it with something else.
You are imagining that I'm saying things I haven't said.
I'm not imagining anything. Your post is still there for the whole world to read and you are, in fact, conflating criminal justice with what happens on judgment day and it doesn't work for the exact reasons you are implying! God does not punish someone for eternity because they committed a crime but because they have committed a sin. You very clearly do not understand the difference and thus conflate the two, however unintentional that may be.
Good question! I did accept this idea as something all Christians should do, without much thought about how it is stated in the Bible. What is in the Bible is that we are to love our neighbors. But Jesus extends the meaning of the word "neighbor" to mean anyone we come across, as the God Samaritan cares for a perfect stranger he comes across. So it seems we are to love everyone we come across. (Love involving action not just positive feeling.) Also Christians are to go out into all the world to preach the Gospel. So the admonition for Christians to love extends beyond just strangers we might come across, Christians are to actively seek out people to love. Finally, God loves the entire world, and Jesus tells Christians to be perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. Considering all that, I would say that the Bible comes extremely close to saying that Christians are to love everyone else, a solid argument could be made.
Once again, your ignorance (i.e. not stupidity - not trying to insult you here) is making it difficult to respond here. I was hoping to make this post way more brief than it's turning out to be but it can't be helped without just ignoring major errors you're making.
Love and hate are not the mutually exclusive ideas that your comments would seem to imply. We are not, for example, compelled by Christ or anyone else, to evangelize the serial killers of the world. Nor are we taught to tolerate perverts, rapists or even those non criminals who hate God for that matter. The normal average Christian is very very much nicer than God and they sin by doing so. They do harm both to themselves and their neighbors. They cheapen love to the point of making it meaningless and they undermine justice to the point that it is turned into a matter of opinion.
Want to know how to love a murderer? Having him swiftly and painfully executed upon conviction of his crime. Same goes for all other capital crimes, including rape, child molestation, sodomy, adultery as well as advocating, planning or the attempting of such crimes.
Want to know how to love a thief? Force him return what he stole and pay restitution to his victim, whether by monetary means or by labor.
In short, it isn't about being nice and it isn't about being likable or accepting. The most loving thing a Christian can do for his neighbor is to hate evil and to advocate justice (i.e. criminal justice).
Psalm 139:19 Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!
Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
20 For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
No, but God loved them. And Jesus said, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The implication seems to be there.
God loves the whole world, of course, but as I said, the concepts of love and hate are not the mutually exclusive ideas you seem to think they are. If a person is evil, the most loving thing you could do might well be to dispise them and make sure they know that you despise them. It's a matter of how distant your view is. Short term pain for long term gain, if you will.
Too many questions arise here for one post.
I agree. I really was going to try to pair this down. Maybe on the next iteration we can focus the discussion onto one or two specific things.
I wrote that perhaps I didn't feel anything after accepting Christ as my Savior, except often feeling worried, because I didn't appreciate what a worthless scumbag I was.
Sheesh, you really had some deplorable teaching. Please just try to forget everything you were taught. What in the world could there be to be worried about if you accept that the God who created you has already taken the punishment that you deserve!
Well, I'm coming to understand your position that children who do not know good from evil do not need to be saved as mentioned above. However, I was certainly old enough to know good from evil (maybe better than some adults!) when I was struggling to become a Christian.
This is a fundamental misunderstand on your part. It isn't about what a child knows, its about what a child is subject too. No child under the age of accountability has any need of salvation because there is no sin imputed against their account because where there is no law, sin is not imputed. Again, "the knowledge of good and evil" is a euphemism for "the law".
I was certainly old enough to sin, for example, occasionally annoying my parents. Therefore, according to you and the Bible, I was old enough to be deserving of death.
No.
Now anyone that has done such evil things that they deserve to die is definitely a "worthless scumbag".
No.
Unless, of course, when you declare that a person that has sinned "deserves to die", you are only thinking that in an abstract, theological way. For example, you would never act on the idea. This is my objection to that part of the list, that we are to believe that everyone deserves to die: It is only an abstract idea, not something that has any bearing at all on our relations with people or how we feel about people.
Once again, you just simply don't know what you're talking about here.
Have you ever considered the question, "What is death?" What does it mean to die?
The short answer is that death is a separation. If your spirit is separated from your physical body, this is physical death. Likewise, spiritual death is also a separation. If you are separated (i.e. relationally) from God, who is Life itself, then that is spiritual death.
It is this spiritual death that we need saved from. When Jesus died and rose from the dead, He fixed the broken relationship between God and man that was broken by Adam. Thus, Paul can rightly say that "I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." (Romans 7:9) and thus children who do not have the knowledge of good and evil (the law) are alive to God and have no need of salvation and the death that one might suffer on judgment day isn't about the crimes you've committed but about your spiritual enmity against God, which you HAVE chosen for yourself.
I'm afraid I don't follow this analogy well enough to make much sense of it.
Well, read it again...
If you throw one of those do-nut shaped life preservers to a person sitting on your living room couch and he, "with urgency" thanked you so much for saving his life, is he grateful or was he tricked by a lie you told him?
Don't think of it as an analogy, just answer the question? What should a rational person think if while sitting in your living room, you throw a life preserver in his lap and plead with him to grasp hold lest he drown?
Shouldn't he look at you like you're nuts?
It's no different than your pastor trying to tell you needed to be saved as a child. It's just nuts.
I'm not sure that you have a good sense of what I was taught, given the misinterpretations pointed out above. You may have a much more palatable sense of hell than I had, but my sense of it does seem biblical, note the references above. (I note that Calvinists seem to be anathema on this board.)
Calvinists (i.e. the ones that actually know what Calvinism teaches and embrace it intentionally) are not Christians in the biblical sense of the word. You cannot worship an unjust god, more akin to Zeus than anything in the bible, and expect to find yourself in the real God's heaven.
My church, Conservative Baptist, certainly thought they were teaching biblical Christianity.
I have no doubt that this is true. "Conservative Baptists" are very definitely Calvinists though which confirms most of what I've infered about what you were taught. Most of the people in your church, however, probably have no idea where they doctrine comes from. They believe it because they were taught to believe it and it usually doesn't go much farther than that, even for most pastors. Pastors are just regular people who grew up in their church and believed what their pastor told them to believe and then grew up and went to a school where are whole bunch of other regular people further taught him the stuff that they too were taught by similar people in another school. And so it goes.
Understandable to be sure but it won't save them from having to give an account to the God of Righteousness why they taught their congregation that God was unjust, just as you were taught.
Will, do, as soon as I answer all the other threads here! (I didn't have much time this weekend.) Thanks for the effort, Clete!
Gary
You have no idea how hungry I've been for someone who is both willing an able to have a substantive exchange on an important topic. Such folks are very few and far between. I had almost forgotten how much patience I have with people who try to be substantive. It's easy for me to sit and spend three or more hours writing a post in response to such people. Thank you!
Clete
P.S. I'm not going to go through the hassle of proof reading this post. It's too long for me to even expect you to read it all and certainly do not feel obliged to respond to all of it.
