The Upper Room

2:46 AM

@Piomicron It doesn't say Jesus was with God. It says that the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and lived among us.

@Piomicron At that point Jesus was entering into his final battle with the Devil, AKA the combined force of all evil. No human martyr has ever faced that level and amount of evil.

Lee Woofenden

3:28 PM

@Piomicron See also:

1

A: What is the biblical evidence against a pre-incarnate Jesus?

This question is presumably in reaction to Nicene Christianity, which holds that there is a Trinity of Persons consisting of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each of which is eternal, the Son being eternally begotten from the Father, or born from eternity, and the Holy Spirit...

Piomicron

@Lee Woofenden What makes you think he was doing battle with the devil in any literal (spiritual) way? Also, what makes you think the devil is the combined force of all evil?

Lee Woofenden

3:46 PM

@Piomicron The tempter is not God, but the Devil, who comes into us as our evil desires:

> When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:13-15)

Jesus was earlier tempted by the Devil in the desert after his baptism. And when he roused and spoke to his sleeping disciples in Gethsemane, he told them to pray that they would not fall into temptation. Clearly Jesus was being tempted in Gethsemane also. And temptation, once again, is from the Devil, not from God.

He finished by saying that he would now be handed over to the power of sinful men. Once again, it was humans, not God, who crucified Jesus. Nowhere does the Bible speak of Jesus and the Father being in conflict with one another.

@Piomicron It doesn't take that much imagination or interpretation to see the Devil as the combined force of all evil. He is seen as the prince of the devils (though literally, that referred to Beelzebub), and the king or prince represents everything in his realm. He is also "the father of lies" (John 8:44), meaning all lies, or falsity, comes from him.

Piomicron

4:01 PM

@LeeWoofenden There are three sources of temptation: the devil (includes demons), the flesh, and the world. That James quote never suggests that the devil is the source of all temptation, merely that God isn't. While Jesus was tempted by the devil, the devil is not on par with God by any means. It's not a question of imagination, merely that it doesn't seem to be what the Bible implies. The origin of evil (and deceit)? Yes. The evilest being? Maybe.

@LeeWoofenden However, what he is not, is the tormentor of everyone in the world individually, or the combination of all evil, or even God's opposite.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Not opposite in the sense of being equal and opposite to God. But yes opposite in the sense of opposing everything God does, because the devil is a personification of evil, which opposes the good that is God.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden See, yes he does oppose God, but not usually directly. Not head on. Just look at the book of Job.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron The flesh and the world are used as more pragmatic expressions of evil, or the devil. The devil is considered the prince of the world. When Jesus says that he has overcome the world, it doesn't mean that he has somehow defeated this physical world. It means that he has defeated the power that holds the world in thrall, which is the power of the devil.

@Piomicron He opposed God directly in Jesus' temptation in the desert after his baptism. That is presented as a direct contest of wills between Jesus, who is God with us, and the Devil.

Piomicron

Directly?

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron But yes, the Devil also opposes God in indirect ways, from the shadows.

@Piomicron Read the account of Jesus' temptation by the Devil in the synoptic Gospels. Yes, it is a direct confrontation.

Piomicron

4:10 PM

@LeeWoofenden What do you mean by direct? The devil talks to him directly, yes, however that's not the same thing.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Do they have to have a fistfight for it to be direct?!? They are directly confronting one another in a war of words. The Devil is attempting to entice Jesus off his path, and to entice him to worship the Devil. Jesus resists each time by quoting scripture, and refuses to do what the Devil is tempting him to do. How much more direct could it get?

Piomicron

The key word there is 'entice'.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron He is directly enticing Jesus by directly speaking to him and directly telling him to do particular things that the Devil wants him to do. It is a face-to-face, direct encounter. There is nothing hidden or shadowy about the way the Devil attacks Jesus.

It is a frontal assault.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden It's reminiscent of the Adam and Eve scenario. Yes, he is there in person, yes, he is communicating directly. No, he is not saying "Your God is less worthy than I, join me therefore and leave the God you follow now." he uses something akin to reverse psychology. He says something wrong so that they will contradict it, and he can shift their mode of thinking. That's not frontal assault, this is subtle and strategic.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Those are two different incidents. There is nothing subtle about taking Jesus to a high mountain, showing him all the kingdoms of the world, and telling him he will give it all to him if he bows down and worships him. It is, once again, a frontal assault, in which everything is laid out on the table.

Piomicron

4:30 PM

@LeeWoofenden It is a last ditch attempt, because subtlety isn't working. It's not even a forceful thing; it's a deal. You give me this, I give you that. This isn't an attack, it's a desperate attempt to appeal to some desire, and it doesn't work.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron But you can't seriously argue that it isn't a direct confrontation with Jesus.

Piomicron

Again, it depends what you mean by 'direct'.

(@LeeWoofenden)

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron What do you mean by direct? How can the Devil offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in return for worshiping him not be seen as a direct, frontal temptation of Jesus? And why are you so intent on making the Devil never act in a direct manner?

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Temptation is a vastly different thing to contesting. I have a strong opinion on the subject because many people project their own failures, petty frustrations, own weakness, misery, etc. onto the devil. I would say this is neither healthy nor justified, but it does seem to be everywhere, and propogated by popular media.

Lee Woofenden

4:47 PM

@Piomicron All of these things do come from the Devil. Our culpability is not in their origins, which we can't claim for ourselves, but rather in accepting them from the Devil. God gives us the ability to resist the Devil. If we don't exercise that God-given ability, then we are responsible for the evil in our lives.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Stem from the devil's actions perhaps, but they weren't produced individually by the devil. The devil is not omnipotent, nor omniscient, nor omnipresent.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron But the Devil is the source of, and sum total of, all evil. The error in traditional Christian belief is to think that the Devil is some individual being. That's not what the Devil is. The Devil is a collective being composed of all evil, and more specifically, all human evil, because evil exists only in the human sphere. (There are no separately created angels or devils.)

@Piomicron See:

8

A: What is the source of the belief that the deceased become angels?

In Heaven: A History (1995: Yale University Press) the authors, Drs. Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, state that Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) had a pivotal role in bringing about a changed view of heaven, including the idea that angels are humans who have died and gone on to heaven, rather ...

@Piomicron and:

6

Q: What is the biblical basis for humans becoming angels after they die?

Many Christians, and many people living in predominantly Christian cultures, believe that people who die become angels. This belief is reflected in numerous popular novels and movies, such as the classic 1946 American movie It's a Wonderful Life, in which a guardian angel named Clarence occasion...

If there are no separately created angels, then there is no separate (non-human) race of angels to fall and become devils, and the Devil. And the idea that angels fell and became devils is not found in the Bible, but in various early extra-biblical writings.

Piomicron

5:04 PM

@Lee Woofenden That last statement is so false, I barely know where to start.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron In your opinion. But there is no sound biblical basis for a separately created race of angels, and there is strong biblical evidence for angels as deceased humans. As covered in the above two answers.

Belief in a separately created race of angels is based on old tradition, not on the Bible.

Lee Woofenden

5:20 PM

@Piomicron There is a reason why the books on which those old traditions are based are not in the Bible.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Take a look at 2 Peter 2:4, Matthew 25:41, Luke 10:18, Revelation 12:7-9, Ezekiel 28:15, and 1 Corinthians 6:2-3.

Lee Woofenden

5:37 PM

@Piomicron If you understand that the original Hebrew and Greek words for "angel" simply mean "messenger," then these passages take on a whole different meaning. Your interpretation assumes that angels are a separately created race of beings. But the Bible passages you quote don't actually say that.

And yes, the Devil's power had mounted up to heaven, necessitating Jesus' battle against and defeat of the Devil. Notice that the passages you quote speak of this as a current event, not something that happened before the world was created, as held to in traditional Christian mythology about angels and the Devil.

Piomicron

That doesn't really work. Do you claim that, for instance, 2 Peter 2:4 reads "For if God did not spare the messengers (earthly messengers) when they sinned, but cast them into hell, delivering them in chains to be held in gloomy darkness until their judgment;

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron The point is, there's no distinction between humans and angels. Human beings can be messengers, and often are described as messengers, using the same word as is usually translated "angels." Really, the word should not be translated "angel" at all, but "messenger." So yes, that's what 2 Peter 2:4 is saying. Judas Iscariot is an example of a human messenger who was cast into hell.

Piomicron

The vast majority of the time, άγγελος is referring to angels. There's no distinction in the word, but that doesn't translate to there not being a distinction made. Why would God cast people out of heaven? It also makes little sense for the devil to not be a distinct being but the summation of all evil, if he existed at a time before evil, was created perfect, and was the origin of evil.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron The "messenger" could be an angel (a human being now living in heaven) or it could be a human (a human being still living on this earth). This is obscured by the fact that translations commonly translate the relevant Hebrew and Greek word as "angel" when the context suggests that this is a heavenly messenger, but as "messenger" when the context suggests that it's an earthly messenger. But the original Hebrew and Greek texts don't make that distinction.

@Piomicron Yes, there's a distinction between humans and angels. Humans are humans still living on earth. Angels are humans now living in heaven. But they're still the same type of being.

Similarly, there is a distinction between a fetus and an infant. One is still in the womb, the other has been born. But they're still the same type of being.

@Piomicron Also, you must understand that concepts of "heaven" were not well-developed in biblical times. There were (and still are) many Jews who did not believe in any afterlife at all, since such a concept is barely present in the Hebrew Bible. This is reflected in the fact that Hebrew and Greek don't even have a separate word for "heaven." They use the word for "sky" for both "sky" and "heaven."

@Piomicron "Heaven" is God's ideal state for human beings. Being "cast out" of it is no longer living in that state. Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden is an example of "angels" being "cast out of heaven."

@Piomicron Further, the Bible never says that the Devil existed before there was evil, nor does the Bible say that the Devil was created perfect. That, once again, is based on human mythology and on old non-Biblical texts, not on the Bible.

Piomicron

5:56 PM

Where does it call Iscariot an angel?

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron He was one of Jesus' disciples. He was supposed to be an "apostle," which is basically another word for a messenger of the Good News.

"Apostle" means "one sent out."

@Piomicron Oh, and notice Matthew 25:41:

> Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels . . .

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Adam and Eve are never referred to as άγγελος, and were in no way messengers, neither is Iscariot is never called άγγελος. If the devil didn't exist before Adam and Eve, who is the serpent? The devil indeed was created perfect, because he fell from God's grace "and the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan".

Lee Woofenden

This is in the context of a statement about what will happen to human beings who do not do good for their neighbor. Jesus as much as says that these evil human beings are "the devil and his angels" for which the eternal fire was prepared. As in other places, he makes evil humans equal to the devil and his angels, and good humans equal to the angels of heaven.

Piomicron

That obviously says depart into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It doesn't call them that.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron The word άγγελος is not applied to Judas Iscariot, no. But once again, you have to understand that the primary meaning of that word is not "angel," but "messenger." And Judas was designated as one of the people who were to be apostles, which is a near synonym to "messenger."

@Piomicron And of course if you read the story of Adam and Eve as a literal story, you will gain all sorts of false nonsense from it. It was never meant to be taken literally, and those who take it as being about literal history are mired in the worst kind of materialistic falsity.

@Piomicron There is no mention of the serpent until something was already pronounced "not good," in Genesis 2:18. The move toward evil had already begun before the serpent appeared. So the serpent isn't the origin of evil. Evil is the origin of the serpent.

@Piomicron Nowhere does the Bible say that the Devil was created perfect. Even in the Christian mythology, the Devil was not the Devil while he was still an angel. He didn't become the Devil until he started opposing God (i.e., became evil), and was therefore cast down.

Piomicron

6:11 PM

@LeeWoofenden Who do you think interbred with humanity to get the nephilim? Who do you think are divided into the cherubim and seraphim? Who do you think are the four creatures? Who do you think we are called to judge? Even who long to look into these things? Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

Lee Woofenden

But really, it is all ancient symbolic stories representing the Fall of Man described in Genesis 3, but foreshadowed in Genesis 2.

@Piomicron As for the last, yes, angels are ministering spirits. And they are the spirits of deceased humans now living in heaven. And they serve, not in some human way, as servants waiting hand and foot on the blessed, but rather as messengers of God gladly serving the spiritual needs of humans, spirits, and angels.

@Piomicron About the rest, once again, if you read all of these ancient stories and prophecies as literal accounts of literal, physical, historical events, your mind will be mired in all sorts of materialistic, fleshly understandings of things. The letter kills, while the spirit gives life. A fleshly, materialistic understanding of the Bible has killed all truth in the traditional Christian church.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden The primary meaning within the Bible is angel, not messenger, even if that's what it literally means. If it's not meant to be taken literally, what does the serpent represent? 'Not good' != evil. Nobody has sinned at this point. What was he before he opposed God?

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron As I said before, "not good" had already been introduced in Genesis 2:18:

> Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden There is a distinction made between the apostles and angels, for all the words being synonyms

Lee Woofenden

Read spiritually rather than materialistically, humanity had already begun to move away from God, hence the "not good" and the need for some other companion besides God.

Piomicron

6:15 PM

@LeeWoofenden I know, and I answered that. Not good does not equal evil. The meaning is more like 'insufficient'

Lee Woofenden

Male and female were already present in the first Creation story, in Genesis 1:26-27. "Adam" (Humanity) encompassed both male and female. The story in the second half of Genesis 2 is of woman being separated from man, so that "Adam" now becomes "man," and "Eve" becomes "woman," whereas before "Adam" (the Hebrew word for humankind) referred to both men and women together.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Also, please don't dismiss me mentioning what the angels are supposed to be like as 'myths and stories'. If they are metaphorical, tell me what they are supposed to mean. All scripture can be used to teach, to discipline, etc.

"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. 9Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels."

Lee Woofenden

The story in the second half of Genesis 2, spiritually understood, is of humanity no longer looking primarily to God, but beginning to look primarily to one another instead, and to the world of nature. Notice that God first created all of the animals and brought them to Adam to see what he would name them. So Adam's (humanity's) mind is turning away from God toward nature.

Piomicron

Adam refers not to human kind, but a specific person, for whom female was created.

Lee Woofenden

And that sets the stage for Eve, then Adam, turning to something desirable to their eyes--a tree--and "tasting" it in preference to what God had commanded them.

The story of the Fall starts in the second have of Genesis 2, and is completed in Genesis 3. So the evil of "the flesh" and "the world" had already entered into the hearts of those early humans before the serpent appeared. And it was that fleshly desire that was represented by the serpent, who was afterwards cursed to go on his belly, an obvious symbol of clinging to physical, earthly thoughts and desires in preference to being lifted up toward God and heaven.

Piomicron

6:20 PM

No it hadn't! It was not because of man's actions that God created Eve, it was that his needs weren't being fulfilled, so he made woman to complete man, as man completes woman. Sin didn't enter the picture, until Eve was tempted by an outside entity.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron No. The Hebrew word adam simply means "humankind." It is the same word used in Genesis 1:26-27:

> Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Piomicron

"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels."

Lee Woofenden

> So God created *humankind* in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
*male and female he created them.*

Clearly adam, or "humankind" includes both male and female human beings.

Piomicron

It can, just like Israel can refer to the tribe or the person

Lee Woofenden

Once again, the translations obscure this, because sometimes they translate adam as "man" or "humankind" in the generic sense, and sometimes as "Adam." But the original Hebrew uses the same word for both.

Piomicron

6:23 PM

@LeeWoofenden Same words, perhaps. But it is clear that the woman was created for the man.

Lee Woofenden

"Adam," or humankind, is present right from the end of Genesis 1. But it starts to be translated as "Adam" in Genesis 2 when the creation of Eve from Adam is the subject.

@Piomicron In Genesis 2, yes. But once again, male and female had already been created as "humankind," or adam, in Genesis 1. So adam explicitly includes male and female in the original use of the word. And there's no reason to assume that this inclusion of both male and female doesn't continue in the second creation story in Genesis 2:4-17.

Piomicron

What are we arguing about, concerning Adam and Eve?

Lee Woofenden

What God really does is separate Eve from Adam. He takes a rib from humankind and makes it into a woman. So really, the story is about the separation of woman from humankind, not about the original creation of woman.

Piomicron

If that is referring to humankind, why does he say he will make a helper for humankind?

@LeeWoofenden A suitable helper, no less. This isn't about the evil separation of women from the rest of humankind, this is God creating another being, to be the companion of the man he has created.

Lee Woofenden

Further, the two creation stories (Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4-25) cannot be read as telling the same story twice, because they flatly contradict one another on the order in which God created the various parts of creation. See my article: "Man, Woman, and the Two Creation Stories of Genesis."

A literal reading of these stories simply doesn't work, because it causes the Bible to contradict itself. They can only be read as metaphor, or as stories with spiritual meanings about spiritual events.

@Piomicron You're ignoring the fact that God has already said that something is "not good" about creation.

Piomicron

6:28 PM

@LeeWoofenden No, this is an argument I have heard so many times, and it is wrong.

Lee Woofenden

I'm not saying that woman is evil. I'm saying that prior to the creation of Eve from Adam's rib, adam included both male and female, as stated explicitly in Genesis 1:26-27.

What was not good was that now, instead of humankind, male and female together, having their primary relationship with God, as was the case right up to Genesis 2:17, now male and female humans started to have their primary relationship with one another, as if they were separate creations, instead of together as one having their primary relationship with God.

Once again, the story of the Fall starts, not in Genesis 3, but in Genesis 2:18, when God first pronounces something "not good."

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Perhams adam means human, but anēr refers to a male person.

Lee Woofenden

When adam (humankind) was "alone" with previously it was "alone with God." But God saw that humans no longer wanted to be "alone with God," i.e., having their primary relationship with God, but wanted to look elsewhere, to one another. And once we start putting our relationships with other human beings before our relationship with God, evil has already entered into our heart. The rest of the story, right through the Flood and beyond, simply continues on the path that started in Genesis 2:18.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden anēr is used to refer to man in Corinthians

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron You first have to read the Hebrew Bible in its own context. The NT uses various Greek words to translate the Hebrew Bible, commonly relying on the Septuagint. But the original Hebrew stands on its own, before later translation.

And the New Testament must be interpreted in the context of the Old Testament, not the reverse.

It is the Old Testament that gives meaning to many, if not most, of the words and phrases used in the New Testament, via the Septuagint. So even the Greek NT has to be interpreted as an extension and expansion of the meanings of the words and phrases used in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament. A failure to do this has led to much doctrinal error in the traditional Christian Church.

Such as a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of "atonement," "propitiation," "sacrifice" and so on in Protestant (mis)interpretation of the letters of Paul.

Keep in mind that in the NT, "the scriptures" refers to what we now call the Old Testament. You simply can't understand the New Testament without a proper understanding of the Old Testament in its own context, before the books of the New Testament were even written.

@Piomicron What specific passage in Corinthians are you referring to?

Piomicron

6:42 PM

@LeeWoofenden Anēr is indeed an expansion on adam, because adam is more syntactically ambiguous. The way you describe the account in Genesis is not how it was meant to be read, metaphorically or otherwise, and though that is an opinion, I feel that you have to alter the Hebrew account considerably before you get the desired meaning.

"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. 9Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels."

@LeeWoofenden In Corinthians, the former Adam is directly attributed to a single male, and Eve to a single female, which he uses as justification for head coverings.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron You are ignoring key aspects of the story, such as the fact that if taken literally, Genesis 2 flatly contradicts Gesesis 1 in the order of creation. And you're downplaying the "not good" in Genesis 2:18, when in Genesis 1:31, God had pronounced everything he made "very good." Something being "not good" now is a major turning point, not a minor aside.

Your interpretation requires all sorts of twisting and ignoring of key aspects of the stories. Mine harmonizes them all as a continuous story of the early spiritual history of humankind--which is what these stories are really all about, and not about some physical event.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden No it doesn't, Genesis 1:1–2:3 is a chronological account, whereas Genesis 2:4–25 focuses on day 6.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Paul was speaking to a fallen humanity, that was far from the original ideal of God's first creation in Genesis 1, and its continuation in the first half of Genesis 2. By the time Paul gave his teachings, humanity had fallen, and relations between man and woman had fallen along with it. So Paul had to give people instructions according to humanity's fallen state, and the fallen state of the relationship between man and woman.

@Piomicron Sorry, that simply doesn't work. Genesis 2:4-25 gives an entirely distinct account of the creation of the world, and it does so in a different order. The idea that Genesis 2:4-25 is an expansion of day 6 ignores the fact that Genesis 2:4-25 narrates the creation of most of the things created on all six days of creation, only in a different order.

It is a mere grasping at straws to try to avoid the obvious fact that these are two entirely distinct Creation stories that have been arranged one after another.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden You put the word 'very' in there, don't change what it says to prove a point. I'm not downplaying the fact that it was 'not good'. God didn't judge Adam to have sinned for yearning for something to complete him, indeed it was a designed aspect. The creation of the world is very much a physical event.

Lee Woofenden

The original storytellers and compilers of the Bible were not so stupid as not to notice that in the first Creation story, plants (Hebrew 'esev) are created first, and humans later, whereas the second Creation story explicitly says that humans were created before there was any plant (Hebrew 'esev) of the field.

Piomicron

6:49 PM

yatsar is in its pluperfect form, so it reads 'had formed'

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron No, "very" is in the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:31. Previously, after every day of creation, God pronounces it "good." But after the sixth day, he pronounces everything "very good."

@Piomicron No. It's not. It's just an ordinary imperfect, which is part of the ordinary storytelling form of Hebrew.

Piomicron

In Exposition of Genesis, H.C. Leupold stated:

Without any emphasis on the sequence of acts the account here records the making of the various creatures and the bringing of them to man. That in reality they had been made prior to the creation of man is so entirely apparent from chapter one as not to require explanation. But the reminder that God had “molded” them makes obvious His power to bring them to man and so is quite appropriately mentioned here. It would not, in our estimation, be wrong to translate yatsar as a pluperfect in this instance: “He had molded.” The insistence of the crit…

Lee Woofenden

There is no justification in the Hebrew for adding "had" in that place.

@Piomicron Haha! That's funny! It's Leupold who is trying to twist the Hebrew into grammatical forms that aren't in the original in order to justify his physical-minded interpretation of the text.

There is no reason whatsoever in the Hebrew to interpret that word as a pluperfect. It is in the ordinary qal verb form.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Citation needed

Lee Woofenden

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/gen/2/1/t_conc_2008. Click on "parse" next to the relevant word ("planted") and you can see for yourself. It's a standard Qal imperfect.

Piomicron

7:07 PM

@LeeWoofenden yatsar also has the root 'Qal', and it also means 'he had formed'

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron There is no reason in the Hebrew text to read it that way. The whole story is a series of standard Qal imperfect forms, which is the ordinary, sequential story-telling from in Hebrew. The only reason to add a "had" in there is to satisfy a particular (wrong) interpretation of the text. There is no other reason to put a "had" in there.

So if you want to ignore ordinary Hebrew syntax and impose a strange reading on the Hebrew in order to satisfy your doctrinal errors, be my guest.

But don't go claiming that you're basing your beliefs on the Bible. You're basing it on wishful thinking and misinterpretation in an attempt to justify a whole doctrinal system that the Bible simply doesn't teach, but in fact flatly contradicts.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden You have me at a disadvantage with the Hebrew, however it is fairly ambiguous about the order, from what I can tell. Every plant before it was in the earth, no man to till the ground, a mist watered the face of the ground, God formed man from the dust, God planted a garden east in Eden, there he put the man whom he formed, from the ground God grew every pleasant plant.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron It is only ambiguous if you're attempting to make it ambiguous to avoid the plain reading of the text.

A plain reading of the text makes a literal interpretation of the two Creation stories impossible. Reading the stories as literal history requires a strained reading of the text that twists it beyond the ordinary literary forms of Hebrew. Literalists of every stripe are twisting the words and story of the Bible in order to justify their false doctrine.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden I'm not attempting to make it ambiguous. From what I can tell, 'And the Lord' is derived from the word Yĕhovah. There's no clear ordering the second time around.

@LeeWoofenden You could also argue that while the first account describes the chronological and physical order, the second account describes the purposes of the creation. We have no reason to believe God is temporally linear.

Lee Woofenden

> In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground--then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, (Genesis 2:4-7, emphasis added)

I don't see how the text could make it any clearer that God created humans before creating any plants. It says so explicitly right here. But Genesis 1 says that plants were on the third day, and humans on the sixth.

@Piomicron Already, then, you're admitting that a literal reading of the text is probably wrong.

@Piomicron But yes, the fact that Genesis 1:1-2:3 uses only the word elohim, "God," and not YHVH, "Lord," which is used in Genesis 2:4-25 is one reason that even secular scholars commonly view these as two separate Creation stories, from two different sources, compiled together one after another. It is a stylistic (and significant) difference between the two stories that shows they are not just the same story told twice.

Piomicron

7:23 PM

@LeeWoofenden It says man was created after the point where there is no plant nor animal, but it does not say the plants weren't created inbetween, technically.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron No, it says man/humanity was created when there was not yet any plant of the field or herb of the field.

@Piomicron Really, the efforts by literalists to twist the plain sense of the text is nothing short of astounding. And all for a doctrine that the Bible never states.

They have shredded and destroyed the Bible in order to justify their physical-minded, human-invented doctrines.

They have placed as the cornerstone of their doctrine a whole host of dogmas that the Bible never says or teaches, and used them to avoid and ignore what the Bible actually does say and teach.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden The second time, it really reads as looking at the same events, but from a different point of view. That said, this is more like (and I don't like to use the term) a devil's advocate perspective: 'Then' doesn't seem to appear in the Hebrew, there is no indication the man was created when there was no bush on the earth, but that he was then created.

@LeeWoofenden Please stop ranting.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron I will rant as much as I want, because Protestant doctrine, especially, is based on the traditions of men, and not on the Word of God. Justification by faith alone? The Bible explicitly rejects it in the one and only place where it actually mentions faith alone. Christ paying the penalty for our sins? The Bible simply never says that.

Human doctrine has been put ahead of the Word of God, and has replaced the Word of God and shredded it to bits.

@Piomicron Yes, it is the Devil advocating for the destruction of what the Bible plainly says and teaches.

@Piomicron You're simply ignoring the plain order and sequence of the text. You're trying to make Genesis 2 say something that it simply doesn't say, in contradiction to what it plainly does say: that God created humankind "when no plant of the field was yet on the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up." How much plainer could it be? Yet you keep arguing against it.

Why do you feel the need to make the Hebrew say something that it doesn't say, and to avoid what it plainly does say?

Piomicron

Neither does the Bible explicitly say which parts are metaphorical, however you speak with the same self-assurance that Protestants do about the price Jesus paid, and about faith alone. They see it as self evident that since the thief on the cross did no works and had only faith, and yet went to heaven while people who casted out demons in the Lord's name went to Hell, that it is by faith and not by works we are saved.

Lee Woofenden

Where does the Bible ever say, "Everything in Genesis must be taken literally, as talking about the literal, physical creation of the world and of everything in it?" Why are you defending a doctrine that human beings invented, that is never stated anywhere in the Bible?

@Piomicron The difference is that the things I believe to be fundamental Christian doctrine are stated plainly, in the Bible's own words, whereas the things Protestants believe to be fundamental Christian doctrine are never stated in the Bible, and in fact are flatly contradicted in the plain words of the Bible.

See: “Christian Beliefs” that the Bible Doesn’t Teach

and: Christian Beliefs that the Bible Does Teach

I'm well aware that I believe many things that aren't stated plainly in the Bible. But when it comes to the fundamentals of Christian doctrine--that which is necessary for our eternal salvation--everything I believe is stated in the Bible's own plain words.

Piomicron

7:34 PM

"when no plant of the field was yet on the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up." after this, it says "but then a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground—then the Lord God formed the man"

Lee Woofenden

Meanwhile, justification by faith alone is explicitly rejected in James 2:24. And the principle behind penal substitution is rejected multiple times in the Bible:

> Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. (Exodus 23:7)

> And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Exodus 34:6–7)

> The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (Numbers 14:18)

> When people have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty. (Deuteronomy 25:1)

> Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent—the Lord detests them both. (Proverbs 17:15, emphasis added)

> Whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent,” will be cursed by peoples and denounced by nations. (Proverbs 24:24)

And yet, this is precisely what the dogma of penal substitution does: acquits the guilty (humans) and condemns the innocent (Jesus). Penal substitution states that the Lord does what the Lord detests. It is blasphemy against God.

Piomicron

The difference is, Jesus is God. It's more like jumping in front of a bullet than firing one.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Jumping in front of a bullet is not paying the penalty for someone else's sin. It is protecting someone from the evil intentions of someone else. That, in fact, is what Jesus did, protecting humanity from inevitable, eternal destruction by the Devil by standing in between the Devil and humanity, and "taking a bullet" for us. This has nothing to do with "paying the penalty for our sins."

That is the doctrine of Christus Victor, which existed long before the early Protestant theologians invented penal substitution.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Similar to, if a mother had a child who bought drugs they were unable to pay for, and the child was in its path, jumping in front of that bullet is an altruistic act.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Sure. But that is not paying the judicial penalty for another's sin, as penal substitution holds. Penal substitution is at its heart a legalistic doctrine--entirely contrary to Paul's lifting of salvation above the Law and legalism. It is so contrary to the entire spirit of Paul's letters that it is utterly ridiculous to claim that this is what Paul meant.

It violates everything stated in the Old Testament, everything stated in the Gospels, and everything stated in Paul's letters about how Christ saved us.

@Piomicron A better example would be a parent whose child was arrested for dealing drugs, but the parent went to jail instead. That would be considered a miscarriage of justice. And what would it teach the child? That he or she is not responsible for his or her own actions, but that someone else will take the rap for what he or she does. It is absolutely the wrong message to send.

Crimes are punished for a reason. Taking away the punishment for people's crime results, not in salvation, but in the destruction of society.

It is an evil, pernicious doctrine. And once again: The Bible never says that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. It is a pure human invention.

A church that makes fundamental doctrine out of something that the Bible never teaches is neither biblical nor Christian. It's just a false human tradition.

What saves us is not paying the penalty for our sins. The Bible is very plain in its teachings about what we must do to be saved. And it starts with repentance from sin, and obeying the Lord's commandments instead. This is preached everywhere in the Bible, from beginning to end.

My beliefs about salvation are stated plainly in the Bible, in its own plain words. Protestant beliefs about salvation are not only not stated in the Bible, but are contradicted over and over again in the Bible's own plain words.

> You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)

Piomicron

8:20 PM

@LeeWoofenden To be justified in that case means “to show justice, to do justice, to render a favorable verdict, to vindicate, or to demonstrate to be morally right.”

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron The fact remains that James 2:24 is the only place in the Bible that mentions faith alone, and it explicitly rejects faith alone as justifying a person.

The doctrine of faith alone is based on the statements of a human being--Martin Luther. It is stated nowhere in the Bible. And it has almost become a sporting event for me to watch Protestants fancily explain away the one and only place in the Bible that mentions justification by faith alone--and rejects it.

@Piomicron You cannot quote to me a single place where the Bible says that we are justified by faith alone. And yet according to Luther, justification by faith alone is the article on which the Church stands or falls. So Protestantism is based on a doctrine that is never stated in the Bible. That itself is a damning testimony against Protestant doctrine.

You also cannot quote me a single place in the Bible where it says that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. And yet, that is the basis of the entirety of the Protestant doctrine of atonement. Once again, a damning testimony against Protestant doctrine.

The entirety of Protestant doctrine is based on human formulations that are never stated in the Bible.

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Not explicitly, no. But I have provided a couple of places where such things are implicit.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So you're content to rest your entire doctrine on something that is (in your mind) merely implied in the Bible, but not actually stated there?

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden Rest my entire doctrine? What makes you think this is what my faith hinges on?

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Are you ready to say that justification by faith alone and Christ paying the penalty for our sin really aren't very important to believe in?

Piomicron

8:31 PM

@LeeWoofenden If you do not pursue your relationship with God, it will die. If you ignore the plight of people on earth, you are not acting as Jesus would. Just because you're not doing good acts to save yourself, doesn't mean you shouldn't absolutely do them anyway.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron That doesn't answer the question. Are justification by faith alone and penal substitution something you consider important or essential to believe? Or are they just incidental side doctrines that you could take or leave?

Piomicron

@LeeWoofenden It is enough to know that Christ, a perfect being suffered and died to pain beyond what you can fathom because of his love for us, and that we need only repent and accept his gift to be free from our sin.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So justification by faith alone and penal substitution really aren't very important to you? You could reject them, and your faith would still be intact?

Piomicron

@LeeWoofende What God wants for you and your life is more important than the mechanism by which you are saved. You do not need to fully understand God to love him, or fully understand his sacrifice to accept it.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So it's not at all important to believe in justification by faith alone, or in penal substitution? They're just side issues?

Piomicron

8:35 PM

I won't say not at all, but I will say vital.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron ??

Piomicron

And the way you are framing them is definitely not the way I nor anyone I have met who actually believes them believes them.

It's also not as black and white as you make it appear.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Really, they are utterly irrelevant doctrines. Not only does the Bible never state them, but they have nothing to do with our salvation, or with anything we must do in order to be saved.

@Piomicron They're just plain false because the Bible flatly rejects them. And they have no effectiveness whatsoever in salvation. They are useless, false doctrines.

@Piomicron There is no reason whatsoever to believe in them. They were invented by human beings 1,500 years after the Bible was written.

Piomicron

'Flatly rejects them'?

Lee Woofenden

> You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)

Yes.

And all of the quotes above rejecting the punishing of the innocent and the acquitting of the guilty.

Piomicron

8:39 PM

And I pointed out that 'justified' doesn't mean 'made pure by', but 'vindicated by'.

Lee Woofenden

The Bible not only never says that we are justified by faith alone or that Christ paid the penalty for our sins, it explicitly rejects justification by faith alone (which is why Luther tried to get James removed from the Bible), and explicitly rejects the principle of penal substitution, calling it something that "the Lord detests."

Piomicron

We are justified by faith. Alone, it is dead.

No

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Mere wordplay. The fact of the matter is that the Bible only mentions justification by faith alone once, and in that one place it flatly rejects it. You can weasel all you want, but that is the fact of the matter.

Luther was at least honest enough to understand that James rejected his doctrine.

Piomicron

That's not what I meant, we are saved through repentance and accepting of the gift of grace.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron And faith as the Bible uses it means something entirely different than faith as Protestants think of it.

@Piomicron What do you mean by "repentance"?

Piomicron

8:41 PM

And again, we get into the same loop

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Do you actually have to stop sinning in order to be saved?

Piomicron

I'd say no.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Then why do you say we are saved through repentance?

Piomicron

But you should become separate from your sin, and fight against sin, making it your enemy.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron But in your doctrine, even though you should stop sinning, you actually can keep sinning and still be saved as long as you believe that Christ paid the penalty for your sin. So repentance is not critical or essential to salvation. It is at best a pleasant side-effect of salvation.

Piomicron

8:43 PM

If we're counting repentence and acceptance as works, then yes, they are necessary

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So you can't be saved without repenting from your sins? I'm really not even sure what you're saying here. You seem to be saying opposite things at once.

Is or isn't repentance necessary for salvation?

Piomicron

You cannot be saved without repentance.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So salvation is not by faith alone, but also requires repentance?

Piomicron

But what 'repentance' means is not always clear. If I turn back to the same sin again, did I repent in the first place?

@LeeWoofenden I have said this all the way through

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron There is such a thing as backsliding. "Once saved, always saved" is and always has been false.

Piomicron

8:45 PM

"The love of most will grow cold"

I have known many to turn away from the Church, and years later, found themselves forced back, however.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Repentance means no longer sinning. It doesn't mean we have to be perfectly sinless. The Bible never says that. But it means that as we see and recognize our sins, especially our major sins--meaning things forbidden in the Ten Commandments--we must repent from them. If we neglect to do so, we cannot be saved. That is the plain teaching of the Bible.

Piomicron

I'm not sure to what extent sin can be major or minor.

For all we want them to be

My point is, if you strive to do the bare minimum to be saved, then you have not truly accepted what it does mean to be saved.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Another fallacy and falsity of Protestantism is that it attempts to paint everything black and white. To ordinary people, obviously some evil actions are worse than others. If I gun down a whole family in cold blood, that is obviously worse than eating too much food so that I get fat.

Piomicron

Now you're using instinctive value

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron I agree.

@Piomicron So you think that eating myself fat is equally as evil and sinful as murdering an entire innocent family?

"Thou shalt not eat too much" is not one of the Ten Commandments.

Piomicron

8:49 PM

I would argue that 'Eating yourself fat' is not in itself, exactly a sin.

Also, murder in cold blood suggests lack of repentence

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Okay, then do you think that punching a random person on the street is just as bad as murdering an entire family in cold blood?

@Piomicron Do you really think that no evil is worse than any other evil?

Piomicron

Can we replace that with, say, fornication?

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Sure. Do you think that fornication (sex in which neither of the people is married) is just as evil as adultery?

Piomicron

That's not what I meant. Fornication and adultery can easily be seen as different degrees of the same sin, so comparing them feels easier

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Sure. Now answer the question.

Piomicron

8:52 PM

Let the example be 'Is fornication worse than murdering a family in cold blood'

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Okay, then answer that question, please.

Keeping in mind that fornication and adultery are not the same thing.

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden I'd highlight there is a difference between the severity of direct consequence and the severity in terms of making someone sinful. Ultimately both have the same just penalty even if one causes more direct harm

Piomicron

The consequences are almost objectively worse. But... on any scale, it's enough to separate you from God, and not enough to separate you from the possibility of salvation. So, I'd say 'no'. I don't get as much anger from the former, because it's not an issue between me and them, but them and God.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron In more basic terms, one directly violates the Ten Commandments. The other does not.

AJ Henderson

just as Jesus paying the penalty for sin did not immediately take away all pain caused by it

there's a difference between result and consequence

Lee Woofenden

8:55 PM

@AJHenderson And that is where you are just plain wrong. Jesus himself speaks of differing punishments for differing sins, and differing awareness of whether or not it is sinful.

Piomicron

The Ten Commandments is a standard to keep the Israelites in line, among other things.

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron So you think the Ten Commandments do not apply to Christians?

Piomicron

I didn't say that

It's the ideal law for maintaining any society, really

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Well then, are the Ten Commandments still in force for us today, or are they only a "standard to keep the Israelites in line"?

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden sorry, I'm having a hard time placing that claim, do you happen to have a verse to back it up that I could reference?

Lee Woofenden

8:56 PM

@Piomicron So they're purely social laws? Breaking them does not involve sinning against God? Just disturbing the order of society?

Piomicron

Also, each law is very close to the core of individual sins, so that avoiding committing each of the laws in spirit guides you away from sin

Breaking them does go against God, but they are not the boundaries of sin

Lee Woofenden

> That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. (Luke 12:47-48)

Piomicron

That's not based on the severity of the crime, but severity of the responsibility

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson Even our knowledge of whether or not a thing is sinful causes a greater or lesser punishment. And those who have been entrusted much (knowledge) will be held more responsible than those who have been entrusted little, and the punishment will vary accordingly if they violate what they know to be against the commandments of God.

@AJHenderson Result and consequence are synonyms.

@AJHenderson The main point is that it's simply not true that every sin has "the same just penalty." Jesus here speaks even of the same sin having a different just penalty, based on the awareness or lack of awareness that it is a sin.

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden not in the sense I'm talking about. Christians are forgiven, but their sins still cause bad things to happen, even if they are forgiven and they may still personally have bad things happen to them as a result that aren't directly punishment but rather a result of their actions

Lee Woofenden

9:01 PM

If even the same sin has a different penalty for different people, depending upon their individual conscience, then it would be ridiculous to claim that different sins both severe and mild, all have the same penalty. And in fact, the Bible nowhere says any such thing.

Piomicron

Does that beget the assumption that different sins with the same understanding have different levels of sin?

AJ Henderson

a result is something that happens because you do something, a consequence in can be further something that is done to you due to an action you take

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson I would argue that that's a distinction without a difference. When we sin, bad things happen. Some of those bad things are temporal ones here on earth. Others of those bad things are things in our spirit, which become eternal if we do not cease sinning. Either way, they are all consequences or results of the sin.

AJ Henderson

also, how do you square that with James 2:10. If you stumble in any point of the law, you are guilty of all. Similarly, the entirety of the law comes down to loving God and others. All variety of sin violates one of those two things in a variety of different ways

Lee Woofenden

@Piomicron Spiritually, yes:

> Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains." (John 9:41)

Our knowledge that something is sin is an essential part of it being sin. If we're not aware that something is evil, then if we engage in it, it's still evil and harmful, but we are not committing a sin because we are "blind," and have no intention of engaging in an evil and sinful thing.

AJ Henderson

9:05 PM

@LeeWoofenden ok, but at that point we're talking semantic differences. My point is that without forgiveness, both actions have a similar cost (namely eternal separation from God), but even when that is forgiven, then we enter a more unclear realm of how the harm is cleared up and repaired

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson The examples James gives immediately following that verse show that when he speaks of "points of the law" he is speaking of the various Ten Commandments. If we break one of them, it's just as if we broke all of them because we are thumbing our nose at the Ten Commandments, and at God's law generally, of which the Ten Commandments are the heart.

I.e., James did not mean that every least little sin means that we're utterly and irrevocably sinful. He meant that if we willfully break one of the Ten Commandments, it's just as bad as if we break all of them.

@AJHenderson Once again, I would argue that this is a distinction without a difference. All consequences of sin are also a result of sin. Even if you believe that God is the one doing the punishment (which I don't), God is not arbitrary in that punishment, but punishes directly as a result of the specific sin. God is a just judge, not an arbitrary one.

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden I've always taken this as being relevant to the level of knowledge people have and the whole thing about general revelation

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson So do you think that when a teenager sleeps with his girlfriend, that has the very same eternal consequence as when a married man sleeps with the wife of another man? That God makes no distinction between them, but that if the two were to die the next day, both would receive an identical punishment?

AJ Henderson

your responsibility is tied to your knowledge. If you know of Christ, you are responsible for what you know. If you don't know of Christ, you are only responsible in the general sense

@LeeWoofenden I think at a deeper level, if you are honest with yourself, it isn't hard to realize that every man wants to be his own God and have things his own way. We act out of that and that is the foundation of our sin

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson I generally agree with that. Except even people who don't know Christ commonly have a religion which tells them that God forbids certain things and commands certain things. And they are held responsible for living according to the knowledge of God's will that they do have, however sound or faulty it may be. Paul teaches this in the first half of Romans 2.

AJ Henderson

9:10 PM

our sin stems from rebellion against God

it doesn't really matter what form the particular rebellion takes

whether it's murdering 3000 people crashing a plane in to a building or eating an apple

@LeeWoofenden yes, I agree with that

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson I would agree with that also. So when your average Western teenagers sleeps with his girlfriend, is he (or she) rebelling against God? Is he (or she) thumbing his nose at God and saying, "I don't give a @#$% what you command, I'm going to do it anyway?" No. Most of them are just letting their hormones run away with them.

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden I suppose it depends if they know the good they should do

Lee Woofenden

But if a man or woman has accepted Christ and has thus committed him or herself to living according to God's commandments, and sleeps with someone else's husband or wife anyway, then that can legitimately be seen as thumbing their nose at God, or rebelling against God, because they know it's wrong and against God's commandments, and they are doing it anyway.

That man or woman will receive far worse "stripes" than the stupid teenager who sleeps with his girlfriend or boyfriend.

AJ Henderson

if they genuinely don't in that act, it wouldn't be a sin for them, but nobody can get through life without doing something in willful disobedience, so it is ultimately a somewhat pointless distinction

if I'm completely honest, I doubt many of us can get through a few hours

again, if we're completely honest with ourselves

we may live lives that harm ourselves and others less directly, but as we do that we become more aware of the smaller things that are issues

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson It does depend upon the intentions, when assigning spiritual credit or blame. The people who committed the 9/11 attacks may have thought they were doing what God commanded them to do. Eve knew very well that she was doing something God had commanded her not to do.

If our intention is to violate God's will and God's commandments, then we are sinning, and we are culpable spiritually for our actions.

AJ Henderson

9:15 PM

@LeeWoofenden that's a good point

I would challenge I find it unlikely they could honestly not have realized they were in the wrong if they reflected truthfully though

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson You'd be amazed at some people's concept of right and wrong . . . .

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden indeed, but there's also a distinction between the concept of right and wrong and what we justify to be our concept of right and wrong

ie, what we want it to be vs what we feel deep down

the two are rarely, if ever, in the same place

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson They've been taught that they are under attack by the United States. And the fact of the matter really isn't much different, is it? They are under attack by the United States. And they most likely believe that retaliating against the evil infidels is commendable to God. (That's not to say though, that I don't think they are engaging in horrendously evil things.)

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden yeah, and they did start out attacking military targets rather than civilian ones

but it doesn't take much of a look at many of their internal behaviors to realize something should have keyed them on to the fact that something wasn't right within the spectrum of general revelation

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson That's why our being reborn in Christ is not an instantaneous event, but a lifelong process. It takes a long time--for most of us, a lifetime--to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling."

AJ Henderson

9:19 PM

such as the lack of value to other people that they frequently have, even within their own people

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson I think they'll have a lot to answer for. But it's God's job, not mine, to sort out their ultimate culpability and their ultimate fate.

AJ Henderson

@LeeWoofenden agreed

which is again a completely different point from whether or not we should drop a drone strike on their head to stop them too

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson Sure. But don't get me going on the politics and the military stuff. Then you'll really get a rant. And an off-topic one for this forum. ;-)

AJ Henderson

ok, I have to go for now. Have a good one

Lee Woofenden

@AJHenderson Back to the previous thread, I simply don't think it's true, nor biblical, that every smallest sin is just as bad as wholesale violation of the Ten Commandments, and leads to the same consequence: eternal death and damnation in hell. That would not be just on God's part. And I don't see the Bible saying that anywhere. Different evils receive different punishments in the Bible, more severe ones receiving more severe punishments, and less severe ones receiving less severe punishments.

I don't see how God's justice would be any different than what is portrayed throughout the Bible.

@AJHenderson Later, then. You too.

KorvinStarmast

9:26 PM

@piomicron If one views sin as turning away from God, and repentance as turning back toward God, one can accept that in the course of living, which is a continual path toward betterment of perfection (I am borrowing a bit from Greek Orthodox here, but am actually Catholic) even when one stumbles and temporarily turns away from God to one degree or another. It's not a digital step function.

This is a comment on this back and forth you two were having.

Lee Woofenden

@KorvinStarmast I agree entirely.

KorvinStarmast

@LeeWoofenden Sorry to dig up the previous conversation, but the issue of repentance and sin is one I've delved into quite a bit, being a sinner. :)

One of our nice Greek Orthodox members last year answered one of my questions very nicely in trying to describe the larger philosophy, in terms of the never ending efforts to be better.

With sin as the never ending obstacle to that objective.

Anyway, hope all is well with you, and now I must return to RL. Best wishes.

Lee Woofenden

@KorvinStarmast If God were to hold a gun to my head and say, "Pick one: Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox," I'd say "Orthodox." :-D

@KorvinStarmast All joking aside, to me the rebirth that Christ talked about is a lifelong process, not an instantaneous event. That's why we're given a lifetime in which to accomplish it. And for those who do not get their full three score and ten years, I believe God bends more toward mercy than toward severity.

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