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Author Topic:   Would you give up your place in heaven...
iano
Member (Idle past 1940 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 60 of 113 (475246)
07-14-2008 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by rueh
07-14-2008 8:19 AM


Iano I am really enjoying our discussion however I fear we have strayed off topic. maybe we ought to start a new thread on the authority of righteousness?
I'm not quite sure what the "authority of righteousness" means but if you'd like to, then by all means..
Any reply to the second part of my message in regards to hoping that God would not be uncallous and could see a self sacrifice as a means to liberate other condemed souls and your own?
There was no second part of your message that I could see.
That said (and assuming you meant "God would not be callous"), I don't suppose that there is any way open to God for the liberation of souls - other than the self-sacrifce supplied by God himself. If it were possible for my (or anothers self-sacrifice) to liberate souls then I'm sure God would have been pleased not to pour out his wrath on own beloved son.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by rueh, posted 07-14-2008 8:19 AM rueh has not replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1940 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 62 of 113 (475269)
07-14-2008 1:21 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Itachi Uchiha
07-14-2008 12:45 PM


Re: Sounds like a bargain but....
iano writes:
My reason for not doing so involves my respecting their hearts desire - just as God will have done in consigning them to Hell. There will be no one in Hell who didn’t choose (in effect) to go there.
Itachi writes:
What??? If hell is real, it is gonna be filled with people who like me simply don't believe in hell for different reasons like lack of evidence (for starters). It cannot be said that these people are there because they chose to be there.
I said choose (in effect). You don't have to chose based on evidence in order to chose (in effect) to go to Hell. One biblical way it is put is that people will perish "because they refused to love the truth".
Suppose for a moment that God is actively trying to persuade you - not of his existance - but of something for which you have tangible evidence, then it is possible for you to act in such a way as to refuse to be persuaded by that evidence. By ducking and weaving and preventing the evidence building up to to extent of an iron-clad case you will have chosen not to be persuaded.
iano writes:
According to God’s standard, all people are steeped to the neck in the filth of sin - from the most “moral” to the least.
Itachi writes:
if this is true, so what? It's his resposability anyways for creating us like this. He supposedly can see the future and still proceeded with his plans. All I'm saying is; Is it really our fault or are we caught in some madman's matrix with everything to lose. I can only wonder
The responsibility for man being in the state he is in, is mans, not God's. God is responsible for creating a being with the potential for being responsible for the state he got and gets himself into.
Whatever about the rights and wrongs of Adam sin-infection transmitted down, the problem remains: we're sinners before a holy God who is wrath against sin. Ducking that major issue in order to concentrate on the legalitic minutae is the kind of thinking that will only get you into Hell.
Should you persist with it to the bitter end
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 07-14-2008 12:45 PM Itachi Uchiha has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 07-14-2008 6:05 PM iano has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1940 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 64 of 113 (475320)
07-15-2008 5:30 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by Itachi Uchiha
07-14-2008 6:05 PM


Re: Sounds like a bargain but....
Itachi writes:
1) I don't have to persuaded for anything to which tangible evidence is available. No divine being has to go through the trouble of convincing me that water is real for example.
Tangible evidence of water would be warm liquid running from a tap over your hand. But on opening your eyes you could find out that it is in fact warm oil ands not warm water. Surgically put, you cease to need to persuaded of something only when the level of evidence (tangible or otherwise) passes a certain threshold. Until then, you occupy a position whereby you are in need of further evidence - in order that you be persuaded.
You can refuse to open your eyes to the truth of oil and persist in the notion that that warm liquid is water. You would be doing what the Bible says those who will perish do: they refuse to love (or to put it another way; suppress arrival at) the truth.
The Bible says that you are blind and cannot see that you are a sinner - even though there is tangible evidence that you are a sinner: you do all of the things that sinners do. Of course, that case isn't compelling to you, just as a persons with eyes clamped shut eyes isn't compelled to admit it's water and not oil
-
I don't find in me the ability to refuse to be persuaded over things that are real. As much as I hate it, I can't deny the existence of oatmeal.
Thoughts are real, are they not? They are not tangible in the sense that oatmeal is though. So much for empiricism as a full and final means to arrive at what's true.
-
Before this can be taken any further, I need to know if you believe in predestination in the same sense that Paul puts it the book of Ephesians(if im not mistaken) when he says that we were chosen before the foundation of the world.
Different folk have different takes on Paul means. He speaks elsewhere (in Romans 8) about predestining being something God does to people that he foreknows. If God foreknows you then he predestines you. If he predestines you he calls you. If called, you'll be justfied and glorified. Foreknowing is first in the queue - with all else happening automatically once that first domino is tipped over.
"Before the creation of the world" there was no time (let's suppose). In which case God chose me in the eternal realm. But the eternal realm also exists after the world, and time, has been wrapped up. We might thus consider this world and this time as a realm contained within a 'bubble' around which exists the greater timeless eternal realm.
All of which means he chose me in the same realm that exist after the world will come to an end. Meaning he can chose me on the basis of my response to him in this world. And thus predestine me to be transferred to his kingdom before the world began
To sum up: my own view is that everyone gets to chose (in effect) their eternal destination. God knows their choices eternally, that is: before they've made it - because he is simultaneously present after they've made it. And he predestines those who (effectively) choose for him to be subjected to the process of salvation that transfers them from the kingdom of darkeness into the kingdom of light. Foreknown (because they are known afterwards), predestined to be called, called as a result, justified (made righteous in Gods eyes), glorified.
Q.E.D.
Edited by iano, : a bit of a re-write

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 07-14-2008 6:05 PM Itachi Uchiha has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 07-16-2008 7:34 PM iano has replied

  
iano
Member (Idle past 1940 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 66 of 113 (475629)
07-17-2008 5:13 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by Itachi Uchiha
07-16-2008 7:34 PM


Re: Sounds like a bargain but....
Itachi writes:
In theory and in paper, this sounds like a good analogy. Now, can you give me a good practical, everyday example of situations when we feel it's water but it is in fact oil?
Sure.
Many people wouldn't see any problem with homosexual acts. The basis for their supposing so would be that they suppose homosexuality to be as naturally occurring as hetrosexuality. In a water-sense they might well be right: sexual orientation could be a genetic affair. In an oil-sense they would be wrong: fallen humanity is something that gets expressed (through sinful acts) in all manner of means - for everyone sins. Homosexual acts - due to homosexual orientation is but one manifestation of falleness.
-
This analogy can be used against you. What if it is you the one who is because of your faith (blinding you), feeling oil when the true liquid is water?
Of course. I know God exists but that doesn't mean he does. It's a bit like this point of yours ...
-
Thoughts are real when they are looked at for what they are; chemical reactions in your brain. If you imagine a chair for example, the thought that provides your brain with an image of the chair through the different processes in your brain is real, not the chair you are imagining. A line must be drawn between what is real and what is imaginary.
...the chair you are looking at exists as chemical reactions in your brain just as thoughts do. You know the difference between the chair and the thought of the chair. But that doesn't mean the real chair is real.
Even though you know it is. If your able to presume that what you reckon you know to be the case is the case then so can I.
-
So... Can i take this as a yes, that you believe in predestination?
Absolutely. Predestined based on what we chose afterwards..
-
Hmm. I respect your opinion/faith but I find this to be speculation. And speculation, cannot be debated. Theres no evidence that can possibly take you to this kind of theory. You can pull out the "bible says it so it must be true" card but that will only make me conclude that the author was speculating as well.
My response on predestination wasn't intended to operate along lines of arguing for Gods existance or anything that might flow from that. It arose out of my responding to this query of yours below:
quote:
if this is true, so what? It's his responsability anyways for creating us like this. He supposedly can see the future and still proceeded with his plans. All I'm saying is; Is it really our fault or are we caught in some madman's matrix with everything to lose. I can only wonder
You were supposing, for the purposes of making the points above, that God exists. "If it is true ..."
You've now switched to supposing he doesn't exist in order to make a quite different point. My responses, based on your supposing he does exist can't be expected to fit the switch you've made.
You've run off the discussion rails. It's easily done.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Itachi Uchiha, posted 07-16-2008 7:34 PM Itachi Uchiha has not replied

  
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