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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 3/29/2004 11:35 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
It is helpful to keep in mind that to say someone cannot do something does not have to imply moral inability. Scripture makes plain that moral agents could do other than they do, or else their actions cannot be truly moral. For instance, God (metaphysically) COULD say something that is untrue. That is, he has the power of free will. However, he does not and indeed "cannot" lie. This can be easily explained by exalting God's CHARACTER as perfectly righteous, holy, and benevolent, and is no different than saying of someone, "he can't be tempted with that."
All things considered, I think it makes more sense to say that instead of God being some kind of "holy robot" who always acts from a necessitated nature, that the REASON God cannot is that God WILL NOT. This is not unlike saying of myself that it is impossible for me to lust after a man. Not that it would be logically impossible (for I obviously have the physical ability to choose perversion if I want to), but that this sin is absolutely no temptation to me. It is a moral impossibility, given the degree to which my character has already been formed.
This view of God's moral freedom allows us to glory in his wonderful holiness/righteousness, as He always has and always will choose to do that which is righteous (benevolent) towards all. The other view, that God acts from a necessitated nature, completely confuses the concept of morality, righteousness, and love.
Love must be freely chosen to truly be love. When the Bible says "God is love," it is not saying that God is made up of a bunch of stuff called love; it is saying that his character is so perfectly loving that we can metaphorically say that God is the very personification of love.
Yeah, but that still doesn't explain how Jesus could be tempted to sin in ways that are ordinarily disgusting to God. I mean, if indeed Jesus was tempted "in every way" He, unlike you, was tempted toward homosexuality as well as other horrible things like lust, murder theft, rape, pedophilia, envy, slander, gossip, greed, etc. Every single sin that's possible He was tempted to do. Now if God finds sin repulsive and sin cannot stand in God's presence and He cannot be tempted to do those things, how could God in Jesus be tempted towards those things, as well as become sin for us so it could be destroyed on the cross?
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
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di
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 49
| Posted 3/29/2004 12:16 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by John Earp
quote:
Originally posted by di
Thanks John, that makes sense. Now I'm thinking about "none righteous, no not one" but I'll go read that in context as well.
Blessings all,
di
Hi di, 
"None righteous," is in the same context as "all have sinned." (Romans 3). Those of us who deny Original Sin do not deny that all have sinned, just that all CANNOT help but sin. It would be awfully strange for God or Paul to be lamenting something that was inevitable anyway. I.e., "There is none righteous, no not one! (And yet this is the way I designed it--tee hee hee)."
In other contexts [Psalms 14:1-3; Psalms 53:1-3; Ecc 7:20] I'm noticing as in Romans 3 these verses presuppose people mature enough to make moral choices, and the principle of proportionality in "there are none who does good, not even one, not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins." So to the extent you can do good, you can do evil. And inasmuch as an infant is incapable of willingly choosing to sin, they are equally incapable of willingly choosing to do good. 
di
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 3/29/2004 12:36 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
quote:
It is helpful to keep in mind that to say someone cannot do something does not have to imply moral inability. Scripture makes plain that moral agents could do other than they do, or else their actions cannot be truly moral. For instance, God (metaphysically) COULD say something that is untrue. That is, he has the power of free will. However, he does not and indeed "cannot" lie. This can be easily explained by exalting God's CHARACTER as perfectly righteous, holy, and benevolent, and is no different than saying of someone, "he can't be tempted with that."
All things considered, I think it makes more sense to say that instead of God being some kind of "holy robot" who always acts from a necessitated nature, that the REASON God cannot is that God WILL NOT. This is not unlike saying of myself that it is impossible for me to lust after a man. Not that it would be logically impossible (for I obviously have the physical ability to choose perversion if I want to), but that this sin is absolutely no temptation to me. It is a moral impossibility, given the degree to which my character has already been formed.
This view of God's moral freedom allows us to glory in his wonderful holiness/righteousness, as He always has and always will choose to do that which is righteous (benevolent) towards all. The other view, that God acts from a necessitated nature, completely confuses the concept of morality, righteousness, and love.
Love must be freely chosen to truly be love. When the Bible says "God is love," it is not saying that God is made up of a bunch of stuff called love; it is saying that his character is so perfectly loving that we can metaphorically say that God is the very personification of love.
Yeah, but that still doesn't explain how Jesus could be tempted to sin in ways that are ordinarily disgusting to God. I mean, if indeed Jesus was tempted "in every way" He, unlike you, was tempted toward homosexuality as well as other horrible things like lust, murder theft, rape, pedophilia, envy, slander, gossip, greed, etc. Every single sin that's possible He was tempted to do. Now if God finds sin repulsive and sin cannot stand in God's presence and He cannot be tempted to do those things, how could God in Jesus be tempted towards those things, as well as become sin for us so it could be destroyed on the cross?
It seems to be pressing the phrase out of measure to say that Jesus had to actually endure each and every temptation possible to man in order to be "tempted in all ways just like us."
That said, I think it is quite clear that the Incarnation involved the voluntary self-limitation of the Son of God to a (temporarily)finite human existence. As such, he was tempted in all ways like we are, yet without sin. And as I don't find it logical, scriptural or helpful to attempt to split up Christ's personality into two (or more) spheres by saying "the God part/side of him" and "the human part/side of him," I prefer to simply affirm what Scripture says, that He was indeed tempted, and to affirm what reason clearly indicates, that His temptations were in fact real.
Doesn't it make our perception of Christ much more wonderful to realize that He really DID overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil?
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 3/29/2004 12:53 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
In His gospel we have death swallowed up in victory and the promise of eternal life with His resurection. Outside of this hope of the work that He accomplished there is only lamenting the inevitable death we have been comdemned to experience. This death is first physical and then the eternal second punishing death in the lake of fire for those who don't trust in what Christ has done. Those that receive the second death in the lake of fire receive it from the hand of a loving God who died for all(Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8).
Amen! I couldn't agree more. I would add another category of death--that is, spiritual death, which is variously termed the state of alienation from God, depravity, sinfulness, being dead in trespasses and sins, and so forth. The wages of sin is death, always.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 3/29/2004 12:54 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I don't see how your comment to my comment follows. In Scripture we find God immeasurably GRIEVED at sin. (Of course death is the consequence of sin). For God to be grieved over that which He himself predetermined to be is quite counterintuitive.
It would seem that God was grieved over the death of His son, Jesus, on the cross. In Matthew 26:37 we see God (Jesus) grieved over the cross to the point of death, praying for another way if it was possible.
quote:
And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said* to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.”
And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”
Jesus, God, knew the cup that was predetermined and willed by His Father was being given to Him and it grieved Him to the point of death. He gives up His any freedom of His will to choose what He desires and obeys the will of the Father. The Father that loved Him consigned His Son to be crucified to death.
Spen Lake
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 3/29/2004 3:27 PM (GMT -6) | | How about these verses on original sin?
1CO 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
RO 3:10-12 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
There's a process, "turned away," "become worthless," but there's also statements about a condition that is true for everyone: "none righteous," "no one who understands," "no one who does good," not young people, not anybody. See also Psalm 58:3:
PS 58:3 Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.
So they are blind, and yet still further blinded (Mt. 13:13-14), deaf, and yet they stop their ears (Ps. 58:4), dead, and yet still perishing (Eph. 2:1, 1 Cor. 1:18). Like people in the second death, who are dead spiritually, and yet they die further.
But about Tigress' original question, why would God punish people for sins they are helpless to stop doing? Paul addresses that very question:
RO 9:19 One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
And Paul doesn't mention that God is just because men freely chose to sin. He doesn't mention this, he says instead, that God is just, because he has a right to make men as he pleases. But he continues from there! And ends up by saying that God may be pleased to choose everyone for mercy:
RO 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Though I believe that we must take the verses that say men may be lost forever in the other hand, too. I'm not sure how to make a neat package of this, but I believe we are allowed to hope that all men may be saved. Even those he describes in Ezekiel 20:
RO 11:26 And so all Israel will be saved.
Paul explains who he means by this a bit further:
RO 11:28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.
They are loved, as far as election is concerned! Those he just said God had passed over...
Blessings,
Lee
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feelinahole
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754
| Posted 3/29/2004 6:03 PM (GMT -6) | | | Lee: so you are taking a universal view in I Cor. 15:22? All made dead by Adam, all made alive by Christ. If all are made dead by Adam (in sin) then all will be saved by Christ. | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 3/30/2004 2:25 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Lee Merrill
How about these verses on original sin?
1CO 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
What feelinahole said, are you a universalist?
If all automatically die in Adam, then all automatically are made alive in Christ. But this hasn't happened, has it?
Or, if all choose death (Romans 5:12 "so death spread to all because all sinned"), then all have the choice of salvation in Christ.
quote:
RO 3:10-12 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
There's a process, "turned away," "become worthless," but there's also statements about a condition that is true for everyone: "none righteous," "no one who understands," "no one who does good," not young people, not anybody.
The process produces the condition. Turn away from God and you will not be righteous. "All have turned away" which supports Romans 5:12 "so death spread to all because all sinned"
quote:
PS 58:3 Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.
Have you heard infants telling lies?
In order to "go astray", you have to start from a 'non-astray' position.
Could the poet be speaking figuratively in Psalms?
Do you really have a staff of God in your hand?
Is your face, right now, facing Jerusalem?
http://www.geocities.com/lee_merrill/leeHomePage/te_poem1.htm
Or are you speaking figuratively? 
quote:
So they are blind, and yet still further blinded (Mt. 13:13-14), deaf, and yet they stop their ears (Ps. 58:4), dead, and yet still perishing (Eph. 2:1, 1 Cor. 1:18).
People stopping their ears and thus they can't hear.
I just don't see any scripture that supports augustine's greek idea of "original sin".
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
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spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 3/30/2004 4:55 AM (GMT -6) | |
quote:
John 8:44
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
This passage states that the children of the devil "want" to do the desires of their father. The desire to want to do is the measure and not the external deeds. They are sinful are already sinful by their internal wantings before they act. However, they will of course act according to their desires if they have the opportunity.
quote:
1 John2:15
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Again, the issue is internal love of the world, not just external actions.
quote:
1 John 2:18
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
The antichrists were never a part of them and the fact that they went out merely manifested what was already inside. Paul's example of coveting in Romans 7 is a sin that is internal. Simply telling myself, "don't covet" doesn't fix it. I might be able to control an action, but my desires come from my nature. I want because I want to want.
People practice sin because they are sinners. A sinner wants according to his nature. He may not act because of fear of getting punished or caught, but he desires according to his wants.
Spen Lake
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 3/30/2004 5:00 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
People practice sin because they are sinners. A sinner wants according to his nature. He may not act because of fear of getting punished or caught, but he desires according to his wants.
A sinner is someone who sins. A skier is someone who skies. If someone NEVER skies, would they be a skier? No. So someone who never sinned would not be a sinner.
Jesus was not a sinner because He never sinned.
He wasn't a skier, either.
Your nature, your character are all developed through your choices over time.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Paul traces the devolution of their character and nature through their choices and actions.
Show me an infant, skiing from their mother's womb, and I'll accept "original sin".
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 3/30/2004 5:50 AM (GMT -6) | | To clarify, I don't believe God punishes individuals for something they couldn't help doing, but I'm simply looking for evidence to be sure that that's indeed true. It seems to me that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were capable of not sinning, but once they did sin and were expelled from the Garden, their children and descendents couldn't help but to sin because they were born after the Fall into a decaying creation. It was sort of a downward spiral. It's a lot easier not to sin in a perfect place, than it is in an imperfect one. Had they been born in the Garden, they would have not been as prone to sin, right? Plus, as I said before, but no one responded to, we all still die physically as a result of Adam's sin. Do Open Theists believe that if one doesn't sin, he would never physically die? Physical death seems to me to be evidence of original sin. So if a person never sins, but still dies physically, that proves there is original sin, right?
Tigress
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 3/30/2004 5:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
To clarify, I don't believe God punishes individuals for something they couldn't help doing, but I'm simply looking for evidence to be sure that that's indeed true. It seems to me that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were capable of not sinning, but once they did sin and were expelled from the Garden, their children and descendents couldn't help but to sin because they were born after the Fall into a decaying creation. It was sort of a downward spiral. It's a lot easier not to sin in a perfect place, than it is in an imperfect one. Had they been born in the Garden, they would have not been as prone to sin, right? Plus, as I said before, but no one responded to, we all still die physically as a result of Adam's sin. Do Open Theists believe that if one doesn't sin, he would never physically die? Physical death seems to me to be evidence of original sin. So if a person never sins, but still dies physically, that proves there is original sin, right?
And if a tree dies, that's proof that the tree had "original sin" as well?
Physical death and spiritual death are two different things, else Jesus could not have physically died.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
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Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 3/30/2004 6:23 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
How is an infant disobedient to God?
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the rumor has it that those little suckers  have been known to bite there nursing Mothers. Ouch!
But that really wouldn’t be a sin against God now would it. In fact, it maybe just God’s wrath being felt by the mother, we know the birth was. Ouch again!
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 3/30/2004 6:37 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
To clarify, I don't believe God punishes individuals for something they couldn't help doing, but I'm simply looking for evidence to be sure that that's indeed true. It seems to me that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were capable of not sinning, but once they did sin and were expelled from the Garden, their children and descendents couldn't help but to sin because they were born after the Fall into a decaying creation. It was sort of a downward spiral. It's a lot easier not to sin in a perfect place, than it is in an imperfect one. Had they been born in the Garden, they would have not been as prone to sin, right? Plus, as I said before, but no one responded to, we all still die physically as a result of Adam's sin. Do Open Theists believe that if one doesn't sin, he would never physically die? Physical death seems to me to be evidence of original sin. So if a person never sins, but still dies physically, that proves there is original sin, right?
And if a tree dies, that's proof that the tree had "original sin" as well?
Physical death and spiritual death are two different things, else Jesus could not have physically died.
Jesus died both a spiritual and a physical death on the cross as is evidenced by His utterance of, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" He was crying out for His Father, since because He became sin for us He experienced complete, albeit temporary, separation from the Father as part of the punishment we would have had to endure had He not come to save us. So I don't make a distinction between physical and spiritual death according to your understanding of it. There must be something inside humans, after the Fall, that convicts us all of sin even before we actually commit one. It's the internal sin of a corrupted heart, by virtue (what an ironic word to use here) of having been a child of Adam. To say that it's possible for a human to not commit sin and therefore is actually able to get into heaven without Jesus' help, is blasphemous and totally goes against what Scripture teaches about humanity's need of a Savior.
Tigress
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
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