Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
This doesn't exactly say the two natures do not mix, Kosta. I don't quite understand what you mean by mixing, but, for example, there is the episode where a woman touches Jesus's garment seeking a cure, and His strength is drained from him. This, in my mind, is mixing in some sense, because His divine nature did not get drained of energy, and His human nature did not effect the healing.
Quite simply. You believe that man is created without the ability to do good. Since God made man as a "sin machine", man can do nothing but sin. Thus, the creator is responsible for his "sin machine" and the actions that it does.
Catholics and Orthodox do not believe that God created man in that fashion.
The only thing I can fathom is my saying that God allows evil to happen. I have already said many times that this "omission" is not causal because God has no DUTY to prevent it. God doesn't OWE us anything.
Yes, you have, but you have also said that man has no free will, and thus, CANNOT be responsible for what they do - thus, the confusion on this end. We merely do what we were "programmed" to do, just like a flower or a tree. We are fulfilling our "sin destiny" since we can do nothing but sin... This stance says - though you try to deny it - that God is the creator and is ultimately responsible for the evil that men do. If you want to take the Calvinist stance, be prepared to follow this train of logic to its conclusion - that God is the cause of evil.
Regards
The key is uniformly accelerating. That wasn't my example at all. A car traveling at constant velocity that undergoes a sudden acceleration is not traveling at uniform acceleration. The coffee just continues at the same velocity in the horizontal direction because the friction forces between it and the dashboard are not great enough to create a differential in the volocity of the cup, i.e. to accelerate it. That is why the cup slides off the dashboard and you have to invent a mysterious fictitious gravity force that emerges out of nowhere because you forgot to notice that the original acceleration was zero.
Non of this changes Einstein's observation of a uniformly accelerating reference frame. You have to meet the condition before the principle applies. If an object in space is undergoing nonconstant rates of change of acceleration with repect to time and you don't know what force is causing the chanes in acceleration and you have no inertial reference frame, then you will be inventing all sorts of fictitious forces to explain these "jerks" in motion.
If the acceleration is not constant, the curvature of the time space is not quadratic but of a higher order, but the same principles apply. Any curvature of timespace can be observed as gravity or acceleration, depending of the frame of reference. It is just that we don't have a supply of massive bodies that loose or gain mass in an observable fashion, hence the textbook comparison is done to a constant acceleration, rather than varying acceleration.
The general theory of relativity is called general because it allows for any frame of reference.
Yes. The Christian God is the same God of the OT and the NT. There is one Godhead composed of three distinct persons. The Pharisees did not believe in this God, and pro-actively REJECTED this God. It was more than just not understanding.
They [Pharisees] trusted in themselves, rather than in God. It was a loveless faith.
I still think the term "loveless faith" is an oxymoron. :)
So Elijah's faith was worthless because it was not in Jesus Christ? Moses? David?
Those of faith in the OT looked forward to the Messiah, whereas we look backward. The OT prophecies of the coming of Jesus were clear and those who had faith believed in them. Moses and David both wrote about Jesus, so how could they not have faith in Him?
FK: "I have acknowledged many times your saying that you believe that we do nothing good on our own, however, I still see that you give man individual credit. Free will demands this."
That's the message of Scripture. We will be judged based on what WE do - in Christ. We won't be judged on making a one-time proclamation.
OK, FINALLY. :) I have been waiting to hear it "officially". You are saying that man deserves some credit for his own salvation. That's all I need to know.
We, like God, have free will. I don't see how this interferes with an all-powerful God's sovereignty. God's WILL is that we freely come to Him.
You make my argument for me. If God's WILL is that we freely come to Him, then by definition man has the power to thwart God's will. THAT interferes with an all-powerful God's sovereignty.
FK: "I don't agree that God pines for us."
WOW! That explains your concept of God... Clearly, you are missing the greatest theme of Scripture - God's love for mankind. Have you read the Song of Songs?
I believe in an omnipotent God. Such a God does not "Hope" we will make a good decision. Such a God makes the decisions Himself. That is why God does love His elect. God leaves nothing to chance. Why do you think God compares us to sheep? Sheep are among the DUMBEST animals God ever created. Left to their own devices, sheep will literally eat themselves to death! What does that tell you? He is showing us that we are helpless on our own and need a Good Shepherd to lead us. Sheep do not use their free will to belong to the flock, the Shepherd chooses them.
... you would have God a God who happily condemns to eternal hell-fire randomly chosen people or a God who is insecure about giving anyone any sort of credit (though He credits people with righteousness throughout Scriptures).
You place a duty on God that does not exist. You would have the potter having to justify to His creations why He made them as he did. ... Yes, God credits people with righteousness, most notably Abraham. We would disagree on where that faith comes from. I say it comes from God.
Well, then here is something simpler. Does faith include obedience to God's Will?
Yes, true faith includes a new desire to obey God, although a remnant of sin remains so we are not perfect, even though saved. This is the new nature of a regenerated heart. This is the result of being "born again". (As an aside, I still think the term "born again Christian" is redundant.)
At what point does this "faith" become "faith with love", in other words, saving faith? You yourself admit that your initial faith was not 'saving faith', and thus, must not have had a sufficient amount of love. At what point does this faith become "sufficient" to save? Is it at the point of declaration? But if so, how can it have love? It appears to me that love is something acquired through experience, through action, through using the gifts God has given us - not something that is declared.
I don't think I ever said my initial faith was not a saving faith. If anyone asks me today when I was "saved" I would still refer to the Sinner's Prayer I said in high school. I did fall away for a few years, but it wasn't out of a conscious rejection of God, it was out of ignorance. God certainly fixed that when He determined I could handle it. True faith is true faith "plus love" at the beginning. My original love was relatively blind and ignorant, but it was real. It needed to grow and it did. The proof is that I am who I am today. I am sure there are others who said the same prayer I did in high school, and believed they meant it every bit as much as I did, but are now gone forever. God graces, and continues to grace some, but not others.
Does He ask us to obey His commandments, and then not give us the ability to do it? From what I hear, that is exactly your idea of God - to the "un-elect"...
Yes, I can admit that is fair enough. It depends on who the "us" is. I don't think the Bible is meant for the benefit of the non-elect, it is meant for believers, and future believers. God tells us Himself that His word is nonsense to those who do not believe.
Kosta is undoubtedly referring to the language of the decree of the Council of Chalcedon, which says of the two natures of Christ that they are "without mingling, without change, without division, without separation..."
These words, or slight variants thereof, are used frequently in the hymns of the Orthodox Church, especially in the various dogmatic theotokia sung at Vespers.
For the example you use to show any mixing without running contrary to Chalcedon, you would have to posit that the strength that Jesus felt go out from him was proper to his one hypostasis, which doesn't make sense to me.
I'm not sure in any event that the text implies that Christ felt physically drained. Christ simply says that he felt strength go out from him.
Within an Orthodox theological construct, I don't think it would matter, since I think we would say that the strength that healed the woman was proper to the energies of God. Since humans are able to participate directly in and experience these energies, as St. Gregory Palamas taught, Christ in his human nature would certainly do so.
So, participation and experiencing is not the same as mixing?
Very interesting stuff. I may have to learn to play with that...
"Within an Orthodox theological construct, I don't think it would matter, since I think we would say that the strength that healed the woman was proper to the energies of God. Since humans are able to participate directly in and experience these energies, as St. Gregory Palamas taught, Christ in his human nature would certainly do so."
Beat me to it, Farmboy! :)
The energies of God are not His divine nature, let alone his essence.
Theosis does not and cannot involve us mingling our nature with God's nature, let alone our essence with His. It is precisely the misapprehension of Protestants about this point that makes our language of deification off-putting to them (and rightly so -- if it were true.)
"Beat me to it, Farmboy! :)"
Only because I didn't stop to scrape the manure off my boots. I could sense you coming, and knew I it was a race against time. :-)
OK, that makes sense.
From what I understand on your concept of God, He will refuse this to anyone not on His "list". God, from what I can tell, will NOT give gifts to certain people, unlike the evil man who does?????
You're talking about salvation versus someone feeding his kids. I think it's a completely different thing. I have said, and do maintain that God does pass over those of the non-elect and leaves them to choose their eternal destination based on their natures. Of course God has given certain gifts to the evil, who have then misused them. I just don't think we are talking about the same thing here.
This is why your view of God is very strange and foreign to me. It doesn't match with Scriptures.
Well, my view certainly doesn't match with the Roman Catholic Church's interpretation of scripture. Somehow, I can live with that. :)
What do you see?
ÊÜèå åðé÷åßñçóç êáôåäÜöéóçò êñýâåé ìéêñÜ êáé ìåãÜëá áíèñþðéíá äñÜìáôá...
I thought so. It is a copy and paste from Kathimerini.
Nya nya nya nya na.
" ÊÜèå åðé÷åßñçóç êáôåäÜöéóçò êñýâåé ìéêñÜ êáé ìåãÜëá áíèñþðéíá äñÜìáôá...
I thought so. It is a copy and paste from Kathimerini.
Nya nya nya nya na."
Don't you just hate it when someone tries to write sublime Greek in English! :)
" In our faith, God is doing everything for us; in theirs, God is doing everything for Himself and His own Glory. In ours we are His children; in theirs, we are His tools and toys, like little lead soldiers.
Everying hinges on the phronema or mindset."
Indeed it does, my Balkan brother, indeed it does. "Do this and you will become like God" vs. "Do this or you will go to hell".
FK, you'd best read the declarations and canons of the Council of Chalcedon, which, as I understand it, all Trinitarian Protestants accept. Here's a link: http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum04.htm
And here's a relevant snip:
"But there are those who are trying to ruin the proclamation of the truth, and through their private heresies they have spawned novel formulas:
* some by daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord's economy on our behalf, and refusing to apply the word "God-bearer" to the Virgin; and
* others by introducing a confusion and mixture, and mindlessly imagining that there is a single nature of the flesh and the divinity, and fantastically supposing that in the confusion the divine nature of the Only-begotten is passible.
Therefore this sacred and great and universal synod, now in session, in its desire to exclude all their tricks against the truth, and teaching what has been unshakeable in the proclamation from the beginning,
* decrees that the creed of the 318 fathers is, above all else, to remain inviolate. And because of those who oppose the holy Spirit, it
* ratifies the teaching about the being of the holy Spirit handed down by the 150 saintly fathers who met some time later in the imperial city
o -- the teaching they made known to all,
* not introducing anything left out by their predecessors, but clarifying their ideas about the holy Spirit by the use of scriptural testimonies against those who were trying to do away with his sovereignty.
And because of those who are attempting to corrupt the mystery of the economy and are shamelessly and foolishly asserting that he who was born of the holy virgin Mary was a mere man, it has accepted
# the synodical letters of the blessed Cyril, [already accepted by the Council of Ephesus]
pastor of the church in Alexandria, to Nestorius and to the Orientals, as being well-suited to refuting Nestorius's mad folly and to providing an interpretation for those who in their religious zeal might desire understanding of the saving creed.
To these it has suitably added, against false believers and for the establishment of orthodox doctrines
# the letter of the primate of greatest and older Rome,
the most blessed and most saintly Archbishop Leo, written to the sainted Archbishop Flavian to put down Eutyches's evil-mindedness, because it is in agreement with great Peter's confession and represents a support we have in common.
It is opposed to those who attempt to tear apart the mystery of the economy into a duality of sons; and
* it expels from the assembly of the priests those who dare to say that the divinity of the Only-begotten is passible, and
* it stands opposed to those who imagine a mixture or confusion between the two natures of Christ; and
* it expels those who have the mad idea that the servant-form he took from us is of a heavenly or some other kind of being; and
* it anathematises those who concoct two natures of the Lord before the union but imagine a single one after the union.
So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us."
Merab had five children (2 Sam 21:8). Michal had none. (2 Sam 6:23).
Thanks, Harley, that's great support. I need it :), and I know that when/if I ever say anything that is true, it will be there.
I am glad to learn that massive objects don't disappear into empty space. But I think we should probably prepare ourselves. Art Bell may have a guest soon that tells us that is exactly what will happen when that asteroid hiding behind the moon crashes into earth next month.
It isn't necessary to postulate disappearing mass to see that a reference frame traveling in the space-time continuum of general relativity, represented by smooth curved space, will undergo varying rates of acceleration. But every object in that reference frame undergoes the same varying rate. If the car is in outer space, the cup of coffee on the dash board doesn't slide.
Not all accelerations are due to gravity modeled as smooth curved space. For the car traveling down a road on earth, the acceleration is due to the friction force between the tires and the road. The frame of the car undergoes acceleration, but not the coffee. So the coffee slides. The same would be true of a car in outer space being tossed around by thrusters firing erratically on the outside of the car. The frame of the care would accelerate, but not free objects in the car until they bump into something.
We are talking about two different scenarios. There is no need to invent mysteriously created fictional forces for the car on earth.
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