The Council of Orange

A Puritan's Mind ^ | 529 AD | Council of Orange

[HarleyD]

For more Creeds of the church please view:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/CreedsAndConfessions.htm

[DoorGunner]

. "The following canons greatly influenced the Reformed doctrine of Total Depravity."

OK....

"We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema."

Maybe you should look up the word "ANATHEMA."

DG

[HarleyD]

I report, you decide. :O)

[Frumanchu]

Maybe you should look up the word "ANATHEMA."

Maybe you should study the nature of the Reformed view of double predestination a little closer.

[ChlorineHair]

Yeah thats a great story, so eating an apple caused the entire human race to be damned for all eternity?

I guess the Earth is flat and the center of God's universe too?

[HarleyD]

"At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, "I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight." Luk 10:21

It does sound silly to a non-believer but so did Copernicus when he said the Earth was round. While those of us on the Religion forum may have our theological differences, we will all testify that God only reveals Himself to those of contrite spirit.

[dsc]

"Yeah thats a great story, so eating an apple caused the entire human race to be damned for all eternity?"

Of course not. Neither Christianity nor Judaism teach any such thing.

C. S. Lewis:

"A child saying a child's prayer looks simple. And if you are content to stop there, well and good. But if you are not - and the modern world usually is not - if you want to go on and ask what is really happening - then you must be prepared for something difficult. If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something more is not simple. Very often, however, this silly procedure is adopted by people who are not silly, but who, consciously or unconsciously, want to destroy Christianity. Such people put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack."

In the allegory of the Garden, the fruit of which Eve and then Adam ate was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not an apple. She did that at the prompting of the serpent (Evil) who told her that it was only forbidden out of God's jealousy of His superior knowledge, and that if she and Adam ate of it they would not die, but rather, "You shall be as gods."

The theological truth in this story is that Evil is always urging us to defy God, and that whenever we set out to do those things that only God is capable of doing, we inevitably tromp on our hooters.

If you want to say there warn't no Adam nor no Eve, and there warn't no snake nor no tree, nor even no garden, that's pretty much okay with me. Nothing important is changed by that. The story serves to communicate the theological truth.

In closing, a bit more C. S. Lewis:

"Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd.

"It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. For instance, when you have grasped that the earth and the other planets all go round the sun, you would naturally expect that all the planets were made to match - all at equal distances from each other, say, or distances that regularly increased, or all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go further from the sun. In fact, you find no rhyme or reason (that we can see) about either the sizes or the distances; and some of them have one moon, one has four, one has two, some have none, and one has a ring.

"Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies - these over-simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either."

[Frumanchu]

ChlorineHair Since Mar 22, 2004

Wow. You went to all the trouble of signing up just to post that?

[DoorGunner]

Maybe you should study the nature of the Reformed view of double predestination a little closer.

Maybe.

I was relying on my increasingly fallible memory. I thought (that some) Calvinists here hold that this verse:

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Teaches that God is the creator of moral evil. It looks like I either misunderstood, or misremembered.

Sorry about that.

DG

[Frumanchu]

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Teaches that God is the creator of moral evil. It looks like I either misunderstood, or misremembered. Sorry about that.

Misunderstood. The verse does not say that God creates moral evil. Look at the form: He forms the light and creates the darkness (opposite of light). He makes peace and creates evil. What is the opposite of peace? War/violence/etc. The OT is full of examples of God bringing about war amongst people.

Agreed?

[DoorGunner]

Agreed?

Not exactly. Nonetheless, I was not saying that I, personally, believed that; rather that I thought that certain FR Calvinists said that THEY did.

I am probably remembering their position (on this verse and the idea that God created evil) incorrectly.

DG

[HarleyD]

A better translation is:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD , do all these things.

[DoorGunner]

A better translation is:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create
disaster; I, the LORD , do all these things.

I agree, that this is a much more accurate translation. My appalling error did not consist of my failure to grasp the concept set forth in this verse. Rather, it was that I somehow imagined that some of the Calvinists here (on FR) held to the belief that this verse indicated, nay proved, that God was/is the author/creator/first cause of moral evil.

Since the verse in question obviously does not carry that meaning, I must have just imagined that some here had so claimed. Therefore, I must apologize to any I have (unintentionally) defamed, by my faulty memory.

DG

 

 

[HarleyD]

Not a problem.

I just heard something on evil the other day. Please consider these verses on Satan:

Ezekial 28:13-17: "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, that they may see you.”

One of the great mysteries of the Bible is, “How could a perfect creature blameless in its creation in a perfect environment become unrighteous?” The Bible doesn’t say but if we could answer this question we would understand why evil exists.

[DoorGunner]

The Bible doesn't say but if we could answer this question we would understand why evil exists.

I believe that you are correct, and I agree with you that these verses are speaking to that old devil, satan.

As with the earlier verse, unfortunately, my obviously defective memory tells me that certain FR Calvinists do not believe that these verses are about satan, rather, they believe that it ONLY describes the human person, "The King of Tyre."

As before, I am probably wrong about this memory, also.

DG

p.s. I think that we might be able to discern, or deduce, from the Bible, a lot more about this "problem of Evil." (But, it wouldn't be easy or quick.)

[HarleyD]

Well, I just heard a Calvinist talk about this topic and he felt it referred to Satan. The key is "was in the Garden of Eden" which the king of Tyre was not.

[DoorGunner]

I agree.

DG

[ChlorineHair]

I'm sorry you missed the sarcasm in response to the Puritan notion of Gods Grace and the Christian belief in original sin.

Yes I understand that the Bible uses metaphors, but that is only a modern viewpoint. For many centuries people held the Bible to be the absolute truth on all matters, religious and scientific.

Humans have existed for only a brief drop in the course of Time and from our earliest ancestors we have been able to prove(disprove) religious "truth" by scientific reason.

Good and Evil are only cultural constructs. If there is a God his language and thus vehicle for communicating his plan is in the language of physics and science not bedtime stories

[dangus]

"One of the great mysteries of the Bible is, “How could a perfect creature blameless in its creation in a perfect environment become unrighteous?”

free will
Ahem.

[HarleyD]

Nice try. :O)

From my understanding angels do not possess free will. They are ministering spirits (Heb 1:14) subject to God's command.