Lds View Of Godhead / Trinity

[Auggybendoggy]

 

The description in the Biblical text is a God that is from "everlasting to everlasting" a term used to describe his eternal nature. In my quick search of the BoM it also uses this phrase:

Moroni 7:22 "For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting,"

 

Daniel,

It sure seem to me that both sides have this issue of having text that is contrary to their position.  Like so many of us, we simply pick and choose which verses are literal, which aren't and which ones are valid for today and which aren't.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Skeptic,

Thanks for the links.  The long one, I'll pass; too long.

 

As for the problem of evil.  I agree, the POE is a bugger for every theist except maybe Satanists LOL

 

I'm not really sure what the POE has to do with the idea that an endless regression of god's seems problematic.  That seems more of an issue of theism that holds God is benevolent and omnipotent.

 

[JLHPROF]

 

I think either is possible, which means the question to my mind is which is taught in scripture? 

 

The description in the Biblical text is a God that is from "everlasting to everlasting" a term used to describe his eternal nature. In my quick search of the BoM it also uses this phrase:

Moroni 7:22 "For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting,"

 

Now, I'm not trying to tell you or any LDS how they believe, I'm only trying to support this idea with LDS scripture. 

 

If God alone is described in this way, in what way could there be an infinite regression of an infinite number of Gods? And what evidence is there for such a situation in scripture? 

 

Your interpretation of the phrase "everlasting to everlasting" is that it denies "an infinite regression of an infinite number of Gods".

Mine is that it actually promotes it.

[Vance]

For a while it beats the alternative, but one can get to the point where even that seems doubtful

I have never heard anyone complain about being dead.  Maybe it isn't as bad as we think it is.

[danielwoods]

Your interpretation of the phrase "everlasting to everlasting" is that it denies "an infinite regression of an infinite number of Gods".

Mine is that it actually promotes it.

Please explain.

[JLHPROF]

Please explain.

 

From everlasting (eternity) to everlasting (a second eternity).

God can be eternal - dwelling within an eternity without always having existed as God.  Each eternity (creation period) can have its own creator/God.

That is how in Mormonism you can have multiple eternities and eternal lives instead of eternal life.

Living in eternity has to do with progression, not a stagnant state.  God can be said to be eternal because he has always existed, will always exist, and continues to create new eternal lives.  He has even been God since this eternity started.

[danielwoods]

From everlasting (eternity) to everlasting (a second eternity).

God can be eternal - dwelling within an eternity without always having existed as God.  Each eternity (creation period) can have its own creator/God.

That is how in Mormonism you can have multiple eternities and eternal lives instead of eternal life.

Living in eternity has to do with progression, not a stagnant state.  God can be said to be eternal because he has always existed, will always exist, and continues to create new eternal lives.  He has even been God since this eternity started.

 

Interesting. I couldn't ever subscribe to a concept of a "second" eternity, because it would deny the existence of the first eternity. 

[JLHPROF]

Interesting. I couldn't ever subscribe to a concept of a "second" eternity, because it would deny the existence of the first eternity. 

 

And I have no problem with that.  Hence "from everlasting to everlasting".

Eternal stagnancy is one principle that creeps into both Christianity and Mormonism that I can never accept.  Change is life, stagnancy is death.

[Auggybendoggy]

Hard to think everlasting comes to an end.

[Vance]

Hard to think everlasting comes to an end.

Yeah.  Those hills and mountains must last forever.

 

Gen 49:26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

 

Hab 3:6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.

[danielwoods]

From everlasting (eternity) to everlasting (a second eternity).

God can be eternal - dwelling within an eternity without always having existed as God.  Each eternity (creation period) can have its own creator/God.

That is how in Mormonism you can have multiple eternities and eternal lives instead of eternal life.

Living in eternity has to do with progression, not a stagnant state.  God can be said to be eternal because he has always existed, will always exist, and continues to create new eternal lives.  He has even been God since this eternity started.

 

 

And I have no problem with that.  Hence "from everlasting to everlasting".

Eternal stagnancy is one principle that creeps into both Christianity and Mormonism that I can never accept.  Change is life, stagnancy is death.

 

The term doesn't indicate two "eternities" however. Let's look at it:

Psalm 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

 

Notice that the phrase "from everlasting to everlasting" is a description of God himself, not other gods or anyone else for that matter. Only God. That's it. He is it, he's the only one who is from everlasting to everlasting. 

 

As for your perceived problem of "eternal stagnancy" I'm not sure where you are getting this concept, because it's not taught in any Christian circles I'm aware of. 

[Auggybendoggy]

• Gen 49:26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

  Vance, good point.  I'm not a literalist so I had to think to myself...why would I read "everlasting" as infinite regarding God and not mountains.  Well it sort of makes sense to me that because hills and other things are called everlasting, doesn't mean that must mean God will come to an end as the hills will.  Do Mormons believe God will die?

  I do think however, that "everlasting" in the OT culture probably has a different understanding than some Hispanic English speaking guy from California  

   

•  

[mfbukowski]

To the Father son and holy spirit would either be a partial revisiting of Arianism or simply a form of polytheism that loosely takes themes from Christian trinitarianism. 

Scripture was the basis of the findings of the Council of Trent which almost unanimously condemned the Arian heresy. To claim that the Athanasian Creed is wrong is to deny the scriptures which proves the belief in a trinity. 

Disagree, but ultimately are the scriptures magic?

 

Do you really think they are perfect in every respect?

[mfbukowski]

Hard to think everlasting comes to an end.

Harder to imagine anything "before" the big bang before there was time.

 

Everlasting to everlasting is not bad poetry for "from one big bang to another" none of which makes much sense anyway. 

[stephenpurdy]

 

 

 

The term doesn't indicate two "eternities" however. Let's look at it:

Psalm 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

 

Notice that the phrase "from everlasting to everlasting" is a description of God himself, not other gods or anyone else for that matter. Only God. That's it. He is it, he's the only one who is from everlasting to everlasting. 

 

As for your perceived problem of "eternal stagnancy" I'm not sure where you are getting this concept, because it's not taught in any Christian circles I'm aware of. 

 

For many LDS, two (or more or infinite) "eternities" is part of our understanding of existence. 

 

Unfortunately, some believing that God is "eternal" somehow gets interpreted as God existing in some kind of simple (no parts), metaphysical, unchanging state from infinite past to infinite future, existing before anything else ever existed, or outside of any kind of time altogether. However, those are huge leaps beyond how the Bible uses “eternal”.

All that can be said of the scriptural usage of these terms (everlasting/eternal) is that whatever is called “eternal” goes beyond our usual sense or scope of existence or beyond our usual experience of time. The ancient authors wrote to an audience according to their understanding, which is limited. Our understanding is limited as well. Time is relative, and anything outside time as we currently know it is beyond the human experience. We think that living 100 years is a long time. Imagine living 100 thousand or 100 million years. It is unthinkable in relation to what we see in our mortality.

Let's say that God is well beyond even billions and billions of years. How can we even fathom that? Having created the Universe and time as we know it, perhaps God transcends time in our Universe, and, if we want to speculate, He may very well have created another Universe or Universes (other "eternities")...

Here are a few Old Testament examples of two terms which are sometimes translated as everlasting/eternal:

עוֹלָם `owlam

Deut 33:15 describes the hills/mountains as "everlasting/eternal". Yet clearly the Bible teaches that the Earth along with the hills and mountains were created.

This is the same term used in the Psalms for God being “from everlasting to everlasting”. Yet most of the time we find this word translated as “ancient”. Other examples include “ancient people” (Isa 44:7), ancient landmark (Prov 22:28), and so forth.

Similarly, we have the Hebrew wordעַד `ad

Job 20:4 "Haven't you known this from ***everlasting/eternal***, since mankind was placed on the earth?

So here, having known since the beginning of the Earth is sufficient to be considered eternal/everlasting. The meaning is "antiquity or of old'. (Interesting also that Isaiah uses this same term in 57:15 to say that God “inhabits eternity.” Almost as if eternity can also be considered a place.)

Keep in mind that this is the same term that is used in Isaiah 9:6 for the “everlasting/eternal Father”.

Lets look at some New Testament words, like Ἀΐδιος aïdios

Jude 1:6 uses the term to describe “everlasting chains” for the angels who “kept not their first estate” which they will have “unto the judgement of the great day.” So, did these chains under darkness exist (in eternal past) before God supposedly created everything Ex Nihilo, including the angels themselves?

Yet this term is the same word used to describe God's “eternal power and Godhead” in Romans 1:20.

How about another term, from which we get aeon. Αἰών Aiōn

Sometimes this one it is not just understood as long periods of time, but as “the worlds” or the Cosmos/Universe, which, as we both know, are created by God, so does not really fit your definition of something that always has been.

Finally, we have χρόνος and Αἰώνιος aiōnios ,

It is used over and over to describe both eternal salvation/redemption/

inheritance as well as eternal judgment/fire/destruction.

It is also used to describe a whole host of other things, like the “eternal weight of glory” to be bestowed upon the faithful. It is used by Paul to describe an “everlasting covenant” between God and man. It is used in conjunction with another Hebrew term to say “since the world began”. It as also used to things that will exist in the future, for example, when comparing our earthly tabernacle, which is temporal, to the tabernacle we will have in the resurrection. (2 Cr 5:1).

So, we should be asking whether or not our definition or meaning of “eternal” is consistent with how these terms were actually used and understood in ancient scripture.

 

-Stephen

Edited July 8, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[danielwoods]

For many LDS, two (or more or infinite) "eternities" is part of our understanding of existence. 

 

Unfortunately, some believing that God is "eternal" somehow gets interpreted as God existing in some kind of simple (no parts), metaphysical, unchanging state from infinite past to infinite future, existing before anything else ever existed, or outside of any kind of time altogether. However, those are huge leaps beyond how the Bible uses “eternal”.

 

Actually it isn't. When the Bible refers to God it is a context of a being that is eternal in nature. And it's not "unfortunate" at all, but accurate. Which represents our different assumptions and faiths. The LDS come to the Bible with a preconceived notions, so based on those, the Bible then is interpreted to fit those conclusions. 

 

All that can be said of the scriptural usage of these terms (everlasting/eternal) is that whatever is called “eternal” goes beyond our usual sense or scope of existence or beyond our usual experience of time. The ancient authors wrote to an audience according to their understanding, which is limited. Our understanding is limited as well. Time is relative, and anything outside time as we currently know it is beyond the human experience. We think that living 100 years is a long time. Imagine living 100 thousand or 100 million years. It is unthinkable in relation to what we see in our mortality.

Let's say that God is well beyond even billions and billions of years. How can we even fathom that? Having created the Universe and time as we know it, perhaps God transcends time in our Universe, and, if we want to speculate, He may very well have created another Universe or Universes (other "eternities")...

Here are a few Old Testament examples of two terms which are sometimes translated as everlasting/eternal:

עוֹלָם `owlam

Deut 33:15 describes the hills/mountains as "everlasting/eternal". Yet clearly the Bible teaches that the Earth along with the hills and mountains were created.

This is the same term used in the Psalms for God being “from everlasting to everlasting”. Yet most of the time we find this word translated as “ancient”. Other examples include “ancient people” (Isa 44:7), ancient landmark (Prov 22:28), and so forth.

Similarly, we have the Hebrew wordעַד `ad

Job 20:4 "Haven't you known this from ***everlasting/eternal***, since mankind was placed on the earth?

So here, having known since the beginning of the Earth is sufficient to be considered eternal/everlasting. The meaning is "antiquity or of old'. (Interesting also that Isaiah uses this same term in 57:15 to say that God “inhabits eternity.” Almost as if eternity can also be considered a place.)

Keep in mind that this is the same term that is used in Isaiah 9:6 for the “everlasting/eternal Father”.

Lets look at some New Testament words, like Ἀΐδιος aïdios

Jude 1:6 uses the term to describe “everlasting chains” for the angels who “kept not their first estate” which they will have “unto the judgement of the great day.” So, did these chains under darkness exist (in eternal past) before God supposedly created everything Ex Nihilo, including the angels themselves?

Yet this term is the same word used to describe God's “eternal power and Godhead” in Romans 1:20.

How about another term, from which we get aeon. Αἰών Aiōn

Sometimes this one it is not just understood as long periods of time, but as “the worlds” or the Cosmos/Universe, which, as we both know, are created by God, so does not really fit your definition of something that always has been.

Finally, we have χρόνος and Αἰώνιος aiōnios ,

It is used over and over to describe both eternal salvation/redemption/

inheritance as well as eternal judgment/fire/destruction.

It is also used to describe a whole host of other things, like the “eternal weight of glory” to be bestowed upon the faithful. It is used by Paul to describe an “everlasting covenant” between God and man. It is used in conjunction with another Hebrew term to say “since the world began”. It as also used to things that will exist in the future, for example, when comparing our earthly tabernacle, which is temporal, to the tabernacle we will have in the resurrection. (2 Cr 5:1).

So, we should be asking whether or not our definition or meaning of “eternal” is consistent with how these terms were actually used and understood in ancient scripture.

 

-Stephen

 

All of which is accurate if you assume the LDS teachings are correct. 

 

If one assumes that the traditional/historical view is correct, then the definition of the words change slightly when talking about God specifically because the context changed. God is a unique being. 

Edited July 8, 2015 by danielwoods

[stephenpurdy]

 

For many LDS, two (or more or infinite) "eternities" is part of our understanding of existence. 

 

Unfortunately, some believing that God is "eternal" somehow gets interpreted as God existing in some kind of simple (no parts), metaphysical, unchanging state from infinite past to infinite future, existing before anything else ever existed, or outside of any kind of time altogether. However, those are huge leaps beyond how the Bible uses “eternal”.

 

Daniel Wrote:  Actually it isn't. When the Bible refers to God it is a context of a being that is eternal in nature. And it's not "unfortunate" at all, but accurate. Which represents our different assumptions and faiths. The LDS come to the Bible with a preconceived notions, so based on those, the Bible then is interpreted to fit those conclusions. 

 

Daniel wrote:  All of which is accurate if you assume the LDS teachings are correct.  If one assumes that the traditional/historical view is correct, then the definition of the words change slightly when talking about God specifically because the context changed. God is a unique being. 

 

I see.  So, rather to paying attention to how the words are used elsewhere in the text; you just say that the word MUST mean something entirely different when referring to God; because God is "unique" or "entirely other" , just like the extrabiblical creeds claim.

 

Again Daniel, that is NOT "sola scriptura".  You claim it, but don't live up to it.

 

All that can be said of the scriptural usage of these terms (everlasting/eternal) is that whatever is called “eternal” goes beyond our usual sense or scope of existence or beyond our usual experience of time. The ancient authors wrote to an audience according to their understanding, which is limited. Our understanding is limited as well. Time is relative, and anything outside time as we currently know it is beyond the human experience. We think that living 100 years is a long time. Imagine living 100 thousand or 100 million years. It is unthinkable in relation to what we see in our mortality.

Let's say that God is well beyond even billions and billions of years. How can we even fathom that? Having created the Universe and time as we know it, perhaps God transcends time in our Universe, and, if we want to speculate, He may very well have created another Universe or Universes (other "eternities")...

Here are a few Old Testament examples of two terms which are sometimes translated as everlasting/eternal:

עוֹלָם `owlam

Deut 33:15 describes the hills/mountains as "everlasting/eternal". Yet clearly the Bible teaches that the Earth along with the hills and mountains were created.

This is the same term used in the Psalms for God being “from everlasting to everlasting”. Yet most of the time we find this word translated as “ancient”. Other examples include “ancient people” (Isa 44:7), ancient landmark (Prov 22:28), and so forth.

Similarly, we have the Hebrew wordעַד `ad

Job 20:4 "Haven't you known this from ***everlasting/eternal***, since mankind was placed on the earth?

So here, having known since the beginning of the Earth is sufficient to be considered eternal/everlasting. The meaning is "antiquity or of old'. (Interesting also that Isaiah uses this same term in 57:15 to say that God “inhabits eternity.” Almost as if eternity can also be considered a place.)

Keep in mind that this is the same term that is used in Isaiah 9:6 for the “everlasting/eternal Father”.

Lets look at some New Testament words, like Ἀΐδιος aïdios

Jude 1:6 uses the term to describe “everlasting chains” for the angels who “kept not their first estate” which they will have “unto the judgement of the great day.” So, did these chains under darkness exist (in eternal past) before God supposedly created everything Ex Nihilo, including the angels themselves?

Yet this term is the same word used to describe God's “eternal power and Godhead” in Romans 1:20.

How about another term, from which we get aeon. Αἰών Aiōn

Sometimes this one it is not just understood as long periods of time, but as “the worlds” or the Cosmos/Universe, which, as we both know, are created by God, so does not really fit your definition of something that always has been.

Finally, we have χρόνος and Αἰώνιος aiōnios ,

It is used over and over to describe both eternal salvation/redemption/

inheritance as well as eternal judgment/fire/destruction.

It is also used to describe a whole host of other things, like the “eternal weight of glory” to be bestowed upon the faithful. It is used by Paul to describe an “everlasting covenant” between God and man. It is used in conjunction with another Hebrew term to say “since the world began”. It as also used to things that will exist in the future, for example, when comparing our earthly tabernacle, which is temporal, to the tabernacle we will have in the resurrection. (2 Cr 5:1).

So, we should be asking whether or not our definition or meaning of “eternal” is consistent with how these terms were actually used and understood in ancient scripture.

 

-Stephen

 

 

At the beginning of the other thread, I provided two articles by Cherbonnier (not LDS by the way), the first article being from the Harvard theological review. 

 

It is sometimes held that this biblical anthropomorphism is only a manner of speaking, a mere symbol for the hidden, "wholly other" God who defies all attempts to describe him. A few standard passages are regularly adduced as evidence that the Bible "at its best" abandons anthropomorphism. Modern scholarship, howver, by restoring these passages to their context and so recovering their original meaning, reverses such an interpretation. Several examples will be considered below. For present purposes it suffices to mention Hosea 11:9 : "For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst." Here, apparently, God is contrasted with man; anthropomorphism is repudiated. The context, however, establishes the contrary. Indeed, Hosea is one of the most daringly anthropomorphic authors of the Bible. He attributes to God Himself the feelings and emotions of the husband whose wife has "played the harlot." The contrast between God and man concerns their respective ways of dealing with the situation. Instead of destroying Israel for her faithlessness, as might be expected of man, God is not vindictive. He has resources of mercy and forgiveness for the softening of Israel's heart. This difference between God and man is not a difference "in principle." It is merely de facto - a difference which God means eventually to overcome.

 

In other words, scholarship has moved away from the idea of the Biblical God as being a metaphysically different kind of being, as was the theological underpinning of Plato's "Being" or Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" , (which then evolved into the uncreated creator creating everything ex nihilo).

 

Then Cherbonnier goes into answer the following questions from the Biblical perspective:

 

1) In what sense is God infinite?

 

2) In what sense is God unlimited?

 

3) In what sense is God "one"?

 

4) In what sense is God unknowable?

 

5) In what sense is God invisible?

 

6) In what sense is God timeless or changeless?

 

7) In what sense is God transcendent and/or immanent?

 

 

I don't expect Daniel or Saemo to address how scholars have looked at the Biblical context of these issues.  They just continue to post the phrases from the Bible (out of context) that they feel supports their views.  They didn't address the context of those verses the first time and I doubt they are willing to do it now, because it contradicts how the extra-Biblical creeds incorporate Greek philosophical monotheism into their interpretations of the Biblical text.  But in case anybody else is interested, here are the links:

 

 

In the Harvard Theological Review (Vol. 55, 1962)

http://www.philosoph...logic-bible.htm

 

 

This was followed up by another article, also written by Cherbonnier: 

In Defense of Anthropomorphism

http://rsc.byu.edu/a...nthropomorphism

 

-Stephen

Edited July 12, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[danielwoods]

At the beginning of the other thread, I provided two articles by Cherbonnier (not LDS by the way), the first article being from the Harvard theological review. 

 

It is sometimes held that this biblical anthropomorphism is only a manner of speaking, a mere symbol for the hidden, "wholly other" God who defies all attempts to describe him. A few standard passages are regularly adduced as evidence that the Bible "at its best" abandons anthropomorphism. Modern scholarship, howver, by restoring these passages to their context and so recovering their original meaning, reverses such an interpretation. Several examples will be considered below. For present purposes it suffices to mention Hosea 11:9 : "For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst." Here, apparently, God is contrasted with man; anthropomorphism is repudiated. The context, however, establishes the contrary. Indeed, Hosea is one of the most daringly anthropomorphic authors of the Bible. He attributes to God Himself the feelings and emotions of the husband whose wife has "played the harlot." The contrast between God and man concerns their respective ways of dealing with the situation. Instead of destroying Israel for her faithlessness, as might be expected of man, God is not vindictive. He has resources of mercy and forgiveness for the softening of Israel's heart. This difference between God and man is not a difference "in principle." It is merely de facto - a difference which God means eventually to overcome.

 

In other words, scholarship has moved away from the idea of the Biblical God as being a metaphysically different kind of being, as was the theological underpinning of Plato's "Being" or Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" , (which then evolved into the uncreated creator creating everything ex nihilo).

 

If the author of your reference is making the leap that since God has emotions and feelings, and felt like he was married to a harlot, as described in Hosea, then God must not be completely different from man. This leap to this conclusion is completely unwarranted. Because, nothing in the text or context indicates that because of his feelings and emotions, he is less eternal and we are equally eternal. Neither leap can be made using the Biblical text. 

 

The example, that God has emotions, isn't new or just in Hosea, but rather is seen all through the Biblical text. Indeed it is apart of his image that he imparted to us, so that we share the ability to feel emotions. That this somehow makes God less eternally God, and less completely other and different from us is a leap that isn't justified by the text, in my opinion. 

[Vance]

 

  Do Mormons believe God will die?

Did Jesus' death negate His "everlasting" nature?

[stephenpurdy]

If the author of your reference is making the leap that since God has emotions and feelings, and felt like he was married to a harlot, as described in Hosea, then God must not be completely different from man. This leap to this conclusion is completely unwarranted. Because, nothing in the text or context indicates that because of his feelings and emotions, he is less eternal and we are equally eternal. Neither leap can be made using the Biblical text. 

 

The example, that God has emotions, isn't new or just in Hosea, but rather is seen all through the Biblical text. Indeed it is apart of his image that he imparted to us, so that we share the ability to feel emotions. That this somehow makes God less eternally God, and less completely other and different from us is a leap that isn't justified by the text, in my opinion. 

 

You are missing the point.  The point is that every time that God says he is not man, God is referring to the idea that God does not act like sinful men (ie. God does not lie, God is full of forgiveness and grace, etc.)  God is different than fallen man in a moral sense.

 

The point is that the text does not teach that God is somehow a different kind of being in a metaphysical sense. 

 

-Stephen

Edited July 14, 2015 by stephenpurdy

[Vance]

If the author of your reference is making the leap that since God has emotions and feelings, and felt like he was married to a harlot, as described in Hosea, then God must not be completely different from man. This leap to this conclusion is completely unwarranted. Because, nothing in the text or context indicates that because of his feelings and emotions, he is less eternal and we are equally eternal. Neither leap can be made using the Biblical text.

 

By the same token, NOTHING in the text or context indicates that He is completely different from man, or even significantly different from man.

 

 

 

 

The example, that God has emotions, isn't new or just in Hosea, but rather is seen all through the Biblical text. Indeed it is apart of his image that he imparted to us, so that we share the ability to feel emotions. That this somehow makes God less eternally God, and less completely other and different from us is a leap that isn't justified by the text, in my opinion.

 

 

Nor does it make God more "completely other and different from us", and for you to make that "leap" is TOTALLY unjustified by the text.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Vance

[Vance]

You are missing the point.  The point is that every time that God says he is not man, God is referring to the idea that God does not act like sinful men (ie. God does not lie, God is full of forgiveness and grace, etc.)  God is different than fallen man in a moral sense.

 

The point is that the text does not teach that God is somehow a different kind of being in a metaphysical sense. 

 

-Stephen

Daniel is won't give an inch, not even on something obvious, because he is afraid that he that if he gives an inch, he will slip a mile.

 

The truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ was and is:

 

1) a human.

 

2) a God.

 

To maintain the mutually exclusive false dichotomy between the state of being human and the state of being divine is just so ridiculous that it is laughable.

[stephenpurdy]

Daniel is won't give an inch, not even on something obvious, because he is afraid that he that if he gives an inch, he will slip a mile.

 

The truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ was and is:

 

1) a human.

 

2) a God.

 

To maintain the mutually exclusive false dichotomy between the state of being human and the state of being divine is just so ridiculous that it is laughable.

 

 

Agreed.  To assert that God is "wholly other" undermines the very core of Christianity.

 

 

-Stephen

[Spammer]

Agreed. To assert that God is "wholly other" undermines the very core of Christianity.

-Stephen

Not necessarily. Using a different interpretive framework, the same ancient texts can yield a different conclusion.

[stephenpurdy]

Not necessarily. Using a different interpretive framework, the same ancient texts can yield a different conclusion.

 

Sure.  With some considerable "mental gymnastics" and ignoring the context of certain passages, I am sure you could try to twist things a certain way ... but it will definitely be a mess.

 

-Stephen

Edited July 15, 2015 by stephenpurdy