Salvation by faith and works : intellectually ridiculous?

i quite agree. we are the ones who have broken our promises. we are the ones who have turned out backs. we are the ones who have committed adultery. but just like isaiah loved his prostitute wife and took her into his arms, so god loves us no matter what and will never say "no, that time was the last straw and i have this secret prenup."

And who, praytell, would be overseeing and running this department? Surely no mere human would have the credentials to take care of Gods kids! (nor to judge God)

Sure would. .. By human standards, the care given to man by god is pretty damn poor.Besides... according to the story of Genesis, God made man in his own image. Man also ate from the tree of Knowlege of Good and Evil. This , IMO, give man the ablity and right to figure otu what is moral. As a matter of fact, it is not just our right, but our DUTY to.

Maybe we could get some of the other gods in the Canaanite pantheon to do it?But, since He isn't doing a very good job, and hasn't done so since He created us, we would be better off left alone. Brian.

Ah but if it is predestined then it doesn't matter if it by grace or by deeds, then God just makes it so he calls you before you die, in the case of grace, or make you do the right amount of good deeds if its a matter of earning your way into heaven.So the one having, 0.1 second less lustfull thoughts did so because he was predestined to do so.So if it is indeed predestined, then it doesn't matter if you say its by grace or by deeds.Then faith and good deeds are equally non important, they are just the marks of put on people who won the lottery. Stamp your saved, stamp your doomed. Faith is not important in itself, just an arbitrary marker.(Actually this saves your god from looking like the most vain entity imaginable, torturing innocents just because they do not worship him, but then, it makes him the most psychopathic entity imaginable, torturing innocents just because he likes it so)In your scenario, nothing we do have any relevance to where we end up, there is no free will, there is no accountability. Life on earth is meaningless, as God could from the start have put the saved in heaven, and started getting his true satisfaction by torturing innocents.Still lunacy by any definition.This message has been edited by kongstad, 21-Apr-2006 08:48 AM

At the end of the day Kong, it comes down to what a mind can process and find reconcilation with. I may have mentioned recently but will do so again.I see no logical problem for God (who exists in a dimension called eternity for which we have no working model - only isolated attributes) to be able to do the following1: Create a being capable of making independant (if open to influence and information from outside parties) free choice.2. Know what the choce is before it is made but without ensuring which choice would be madeHence God foreknew. Adam chose. The flaw in our crying "impossible" is that we do not understand Eternity. Without insight into its mechanisms we are faced with a black box. We might decide work with the signals the black box outputs and in doing so decide to set aside our desire to fully satisfy the intellect. We cannot cry "impossible" only "incomprehensible"A very similar issue arises with God pre-destining vs. mans free choice. Your post was again nicely put together in terms of the conclusions it drew. However it only took into account 1 output from the black box. It failed to take account of the other output which overflows from the pages of the bible in both implicit and explicit terms."God wants that none should perish but that all would come to repentance""For God so loved the world he gave his only son so that whomsoever believed would not die but have eternal life""The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who beleives""But now a righteousness (necessary for salvation) from God is revealed....by faith from first to last"The more one investigates these two strands the better one comes to understand the mechanisms of the whole. The strands however, don't converge on a single, finally comprehensible point. They run in fact parallel the whole way down the line and a black box is the only destination one can arrive at (in this life at least).God puts out a general call to all mankind. I recognise now, his general call on me over all those years I was without him. The call of conscience, a troubled conscience, a satisfied conscience, the denial of conscience, the hardening of heart through that denial.His calling me causing me to respond but in my separatness and self-dependancy, this often meant going off in the wrong direction: reading Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance or trying Transcendatal Meditation or.... And him using that error to show me that "my existance and destination and purpose" were actually more important questions than I had hitertoe considered them to be - that there was more to life than simple blatant (and not so blatant) self-gratification.Then more rebellion. The issues raised by his calling thus and the issues raised by his call through limitless seas, vast star-filled nights and notional (if flexible) agreement with the principle of "Love thy neighbour" caused me to clampdown on that call. I didn't understand what the call was trying to tell me but it made me feel uncomfortable. It told me that there was something amiss with the notion that I was independant and on my own in the world (a fledgling thought but fully manifested regarding unrestrained self-serving behaviour). What was amiss was that being on my own in the world would mean I was in the end of it all - insignificant. But I also knew I wasn't insignificant.Predictably the way of dealing with this discomfort, this Ying/Yang, this Good/Evil this Black/White... was to bury the feeling. One has to do pretty extreme things in an attempt to bury it. And I did them. And he let me do them. And he inserted them all into his formula marked "call Iano" But he persisted in calling: probing at the areas of my heart which my actions hadn't got around to hardening to his call. Like the Prodigals Sons father, he was ever looking out for me, ever wanting me back.The tension rose and rose, the actions to harden more extreme and ludicrous (I read other attempts here all the time). The harder my heart got, the more the soft bits protested at being evermore squeezed and silenced by their closer proximity to the hard.At last I could bear it no more and sought release. I turned and found him standing at the top of the hill, arms outstretched in joy and calling to his servants to slaughter a fatted calf. I remember it as a great party - even if most of it went by in a bit a whirl. Life has settled down now a bit but it still feels great to be homeGod knew I would turn but it always remained my choice whether to bear the pressure or not.Thus one might conclude that if a man is saved then God has done all the work. If he is lost then he will have done it to himself. There will be nobody in hell who doesn't deserve to be there. That would be unjust. Similarily, there will be nobody in heaven who deserves to be there because it was only his ummerited grace that brought them there.I don't know if that clarifies. It is a black box and the above is as far down the tracks as I have gotten. I'll find out one day I'm sure so not knowing now isn't such a big deal to meedit: change god not influencing choice (he did: don't eat) to non ensuring choice.This message has been edited by iano, 21-Apr-2006 11:50 PM

No. We were all creatures of god, (abe: procreated from Adam.) Jesus said in order to get into God's kindom one must be born of the spirit of God. See John 3:3. So children of God are born of the Holy Spirit, God's spirit.Then this: John 1:12 "As many as received him (Jesus), to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." So you do two things to have God become your father. You believe on Jesus and receive him as you lord (master) and savior.And this: In the OT God's people did not pray calling him father This was a new thing with Jesus. He taught his desciples to call him father. This was a first ever way of praying. Check our in your concordance how many times God was referred to father of all. There's likely less than five, and these are in a loose sense as creator and not as in a paternal sense of birth/geneology. In the NT God is referred to as father throughout it applying it to Christians.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 04-21-2006 09:14 PM

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

"in to the fight and to the rescue came"Night Buzz. Nice makin' your aquaintence

So you lump us in with all the other creatures, do you? My cousins the chimps will be glad to hear that. I'll do better than see it - I'll show it:

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Joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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Born again.Remember the parable of the prodigal son (which I tried without much success to explain to iano)? The son turned his back on the father. The father never turned his back on the son.When the son returned to his father, he was effectively "born again" - i.e. his life with his father began again, from scratch.But in the father's eyes, his son was always his son.Similarly, We are born the children of God. We are always His children, even if we turn our backs on Him. If we turn toward Him again, we are "born again" - our lives with Him begin again, as if we had never done wrong.

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Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

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We are all "born of the Holy Spirit" when we are created (born). We all have God's spirit/life breathed into us. The only difference is in how we choose to use it - squander it like the prodigal son, or use it as it was intended. Once again, I refer you to the prodigal son. By turning back to the Father, we accept the priviledges of being His sons. We were his sons all along, even if we repudiated Him. It is our responsibility to act like the sons of God.As I tried to explain to iano (without much success), God is not a dead-beat dad. He would never turn His back on His own children. And Jesus came to tell the Old Testament folk that they were doing it wrong. The parable of the prodigal son (where have I heard that before?) shows that the fundamental relationship between God and man is a Father/son relationship. And it's not a Father/adopted-son relationship, either. It's a Father/natural-born-son-who-will-always-be-my-son-no-matter-what-bone-headed-thing-he-does relationship.All we have to do to enjoy that inherent relationship is go back home.

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Of course. We and them were created beings, procreated from the originals. So were the animals, and for that matter the highest angels in God's kingdom are creatures of God. Problem: The word "again" is in none of the Greek manuscripts from which the NT was translated. Rather the correct wording is "born from above," as literally translated. 1. Not so with God. We were never sons of God. We were his creatures. The prodical was born of his father at his beginning. Not so with creatures of God who need to be "born from above by his spirit to become sons.2. You're not factoring in other scripture we've shown you where it says you need to receive and believe to become sons/children.3. You're not factoring in the context of John 3:3. Read the next verses where Jesus says that which is flesh is flesh and that which is spirit is spirit. He's clarifying to Nicodemus that one needs more than a fleshly birth. He needs that spiritual birth to get into God's kingdom. He says nobody will even see the kingdom without it, let alone be his children in the kingdom. In Psalms 104:30, in the context of the things God made this: "He sends forth his spirt and they are created." Both in Genesis one and here, we see that God's Holy Spirit is the agent he uses to create. So in creating Adam, it was the Holy Spirit who both did the creating and breathing in the life. God resides on his throne in Heaven. Not so with the HS. The HS is that multi-present member of the trinity that is sent in numerous areas of the universe simultaneouly to effect what God wants done. This includes both breating life breath into man and entering man at the "newbirth." This rebirth means God's Spirit actually enters into our bodies by this experience. "No you not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit?" says Paul (It's a direct quote, but forgot where it's found. I believe somewhere I Corinthians. 1. Not so, as I've explained. You can show no scripture documenting that we were sons of God at creation and by procreation.2. John 1:12 does not say we "turn back to the Father." It says, by specific implication to Jesus, that we must believe and receive the Father's son Jesus in order to become the sons of God. No he wasn't. Why? Because he never ever instructed the OT folks to call him Father. He was referred over 6000 times in the original texts by his proper name Jehovah because that is what his name was. In the original manuscripts, reference to him and prayers to him were either that name or Elohim/god as to his status. Not so in the NT. In fact because he wanted Christians to refer to him as "father," he never inspired the writer of the NT to use the name Jehovah even once, though his status as "God" was allowed in reference to him in both OT and NT. That's what he is, i.e. a/the god.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

As much as I hesitate to step onto this Biblical battlefield, Buz, may I take this to mean that you do not consider the Bible to be inerrant? Or do you consider the Greek manuscripts and earlier to be inerrant but our English versions flawed?

(The phrase "born again" is not my invention, by the way. )I don't see that it makes any difference. Rebirth, reawakening, realization.... You're asserting that, and...?What do you suppose the parable means then? Is it not the parable of the prodigal son after all? Is it really the parable of the complete-stranger-who-became-like-a-son? "Receive and believe" = go home to the relationship that is waiting there for you. I don't see why you think those other scriptures negate the Father/son relationship so clearly spelled out in the parable. Exactly. We have already had the fleshly birth. The rebirth/reawakening that we need is the (spiritual) realization that the Father is waiting at home for our return. Let's look at the previous verse:

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Psa 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

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Here again, God's spirit is associated with the breath of life, as I said. But the holy-spirit/breath-of-life is already in us, from our physical birth. The rebirth is a symbolic re-entering of the holy-spirit/breath-of-life as well as a spiritual (and even physical) return to the Father's house. How does that negate the fundamental Father/son relationship? It's still once a son, always a son. Are you thinking of this?

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1Co 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid.

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I don't see how that changes our lifelong Father/son relationship with God. The parable of the prodigal son indicates a natural-born son. Once a son, always a son. If you contend otherwise, you'd better have an "alternate ending" for that parable, because you've rendered it meaningless as written. I'm not even going down that road. I know that our Hebrew scholars have already tried to set you straight on that.In any case, "Father" is not a name, it's a title. It describes our realtionship with God.No, it was not used in the Old testament, but Jesus came and told us that we should use it because that is what our relationship to God is - a Father/son relationship.The father/son relationship that He described in the parable is that of a natural-born son, who is accepted by his father, no matter what. It is not a case of the son having to jump through hoops, wave a chicken over his head and shout "I be-LIEV-ah!"All the son has to do is go home.

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Eloquent, and well said, Ringo! In another thread, I recently outlined my conversion experience.
Philosophically, I have considered the conflicting ideologies of whether God is merely with us until we ask Him in, or whether God is and has always been within all of us and we need only become aware of His loving presence!I have concluded that your view is probably more plausible in that God would not place special conditions on His love.I believe that He draws all men towards Him...(John 12:32)I also think that many well meaning Christians cause people to reject the Gospel by their verbose and lengthy diatribes exhorting people to change.I will say, after reading Buzsaws rebuttals, that there may have been a different approach in teaching Jews about salvation than there would be for teaching Gentiles about salvation.What difference does it make, in conclusion, if God needs to come into our heart or whether we need to discover Him alive already in our heart? Methinks we should be concentrating on the fact that He loves all of us and desires that none perish!

Jesus gave us another picture of our relationship with God: Shepherd/sheep. (And that one goes all the way back to the psalms, in case anybody is tempted to suggest that it was invented for the New Testament.)The shepherd leaves his warm home, leaves the ninety-and-nine in the fold, and goes out on a dark and stormy night to find the one lost sheep.All of those sheep, of course, were born into the flock. They didn't have to "believe" in order to "become" members of the flock.If we are prodigal, our Father will always welcome us home. And even if we don't turn toward home on our own, our Shepherd will come looking for us. Amen.

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Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing how this latest volley on "Our Father" and understanding the spirit ties in with the topic of whether Salvation by faith and works is intellectually ridiculous or not.

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Please circle back to the topic.

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Thanks