Bible Questions? III

Is it immoral to recognize, nothing real can be threatened?

 

God loves us all and when u are sent to hell it’s like sending a child to time out after a while everyone gets into heaven it might take u longer but soon since he loves u god will forgive u.

 

The problem arises when we seek to deify ourselves over God. Whether that be our freewill or our own corporeal bodies.

 

It is enough that you are like the father, a holy creation of likeness, but you cannot be less than that either.

You will preform works even greater than these. There is a kind of false humility, arrogance, that claims that gods creations can be unlike their creator.

Many organized churches use this vanity to assert control over their constituents, claiming that they need the churches guidance to make up for their fundamental unworthiness.

There is not one of gods creations that are not indelibly equal to any virtue.

 

Rather then punishment, look at Hell as a self-imposed position. Those who choose to reject and hate God in this life surely stand to reject and hate God after it as well.

 

Someone accepts because they have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit they reject things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to them. (1 Cor 2:14) No one is naturally williing to submit to the gospel (Rom 3:11)

Can you give scriptures that back the idea that people have a free will to accept God?

 

I think your question is either flawed or loaded (though not a statement on yourself).

The two verses you quote are not against free will, but against Pelagianism. Pelagius put forth the view that man, of his own free will, could choose good or evil without special divine aid. He also did not believe in original sin tainting the human soul in any way. Sinners are not victims, they are criminals who need pardon.

This is contrasted by Semipelagianism and Depravity (the latter being most extreme in Calvinism where the divine man is obliterated, not merely obscured).

Paul is writing about how someone who is in the state of complete sin cannot under his/her own volition let the Truth in. Semipelagianism says that we can make the first step in faith, but that God will safeguard and increase his faith. This was declared Heresy during the second Council of Orange. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches say that the initiative must be Gods, but the response is completely man's and requires free will and collaboration with God.

 

I disagree that the response is completely man's. That would mean that our response is partially what saves us. It's the Holy Spirit and entirely the work of God and creates in us a new heart that is willing to submit to God as and opposed to sin. Did Jesus ask Lazarus if he wanted to be raised from the dead? Was it Lararus's response that determined whether he was freed from the tomb? No, Jesus commanded him to come out and he did. Salvation is entirely the work of God not man.

 

In that case yes, but think about:
1) Peter and Andrew. They were fishing, Jesus called them and the decided to leave their nets and follow him.

2) Those that left when Jesus gave them the hard teaching commanding us to eat his flesh. These people decided, after hearing the message to leave because after being called. This reflects the rocky ground in...

3) the Parable of the sower. The word of God can fall upon those who have no spirit in them (and the Evil One takes it away immediately), those who are "rocky" (receive with gladness via the Spiritbut it takes no root and fall away upon persecution or difficult teachings). It can fall and grow but get choked out by the thorns and temptaitons of the world (greed, lust, etc) or can fall upon good soil and bring forth thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. The last requires work, that is human action and cooperation, but it is still the Spirit that is working in us that allows us to be fertile soil for the Word.

 

We are hard wired to find god or good.

Only the time we take to do so is optional.

 

Although the disciples had the correct response even they eventually fell away. Peter himself ended up being rocky ground by disowning Jesus. In the end it all comes back to what Jesus did and does.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself John 12:32

We are hard wired to be found.

 

Is that because as a matter of fact we are all needing to be responsible, OR because we make excuses for wicked refusal in taking on our threats of original Sin For Not looking for the issued Responsibility: by definition of "hard wired"?

 

My point with Peter was that he chose to follow Christ, chose to disown him, and chose to "feed his sheep"

I can quote Scripture right back at you.
Sirach (Ecclisiasticus) 15:14-17
[14] It was he who created man in the beginning, and he left him in the power of his own inclination. [15] If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. [16] He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. [17] Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.

In the beginning, middle, and end it matters what Christ did and does (namely his Eternal Sacrifice), but we have responsibilities inbetween as well

 

Jesus chose Peter and told Peter he would disown him before it happened and then Jesus decided to reinstate Peter like a shepherd to the sheep. Jesus was and is the one in control.

I've never read those verses.

May main point is I believe God has a plan and is in control. Did we choose to be born? Did we choose to have Jesus die for us and have the Holy Spirit sent? I agree that we have duties and responsiblilities, but I don't believe it is those duties/works that save us.

 

Sirach, by the Jewish scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, also known as Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, or Ecclesiasticus, is a work from the early 2nd century BC.

 

Thanks.

 

Directly, no, a work apart from God and faith has no salvific effects, but the Eucharist (or more properly its pious consumption) removes venial sins (though not their effects). This act has saving power, but it is nothing without god or faith (in fact it is a grave sin to receive the Eucharist when outside the Church or in a state of grave sin, or irreverently).

 

This doesn't make sense to me. If a person is in a state of grave sin aren't they in even more need of the Eucharist's saving power? It's a sinner's meal given freely by God. Who are we to deny it?

 

I sure understand the sentiment behind reformation. The churches dogma is self serving, antithetical to love. Love does not seek it's own.

It is mean spirited to say that devotion to god outside the church is irreverent.

 

My question: Is there a pre-historical relationship to God; the God of History is the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Before that there was the Fall and the relationship might have been about shaking your fist at the sky; would that mean some kind of Hope concerning Progress?

God causes Progress, and man begins to discern that, because He fails so much. The flood was supposed to be Progress for Noah. Yaah; that's only because the seventh day brought Man that unfortunate Situation of Dominion over the life and Animals (and Plants) of the World.