Does God require penance from us?

[Reader_Arsenios]

To you, Arsenios, I again ask, why do we need God’s forgiveness through the priest for something we have done which only injures ourselves or others and NOT God as well?

Good Grief, Lily - Do you really think God is injured by our sins? Do you really think He is offended and then mollified when we say we are sorry? Do you really think He is merely the same as a human parent?

Does not an Orthodox priest, in the sacrament of Confession, forgive you your sins in God’s name? Please clarify this particular point. If I am misunderstanding here I want very much to know.

He releases us from our sins - They are forgiven in the sense of remission, but not in the sense of offering God a hankie and an apology and wiping away His tears of hurt feelings and offended sensibilities…

Forgiveness [remission] of sins is one of the features of repentance, indeed an essential one, for by it, the debt of our sins is released, and we are free to go to work on the eradication of that tendency to sin from our souls…

This idea that God is the same as an angry parent with a misbehaving child who will get a whipping for what he did wrong so mommy and daddy can feel better is nuts… That insanity is no good with kids, and untrue of God…

Forgiveness is healing for us, because it is you and I who need the healing of our souls, and not God… Salvation is the restoration of souls dead in sin, through repentance and forgiveness…

Forgiveness is not to get God off our backs, but to restore our souls back to health from the wounding of sin which gives advent to demonic rulership in our souls…

You guys are WAY to psychological and legalistic in your thinking…

Arsenios

 

[tdgesq]

No. If I were creating other arguments that is not a person. It’s a thing. No wonder you’re having problems here with concepts about God. You think God acts just like any other person.

Well, maybe I am wrong here. So you were the one creating an argument that nobody else made. I see, so you were arguing against yourself. Hmmm . . . . Okay. I’ll retract my argument that you made up an imaginary person to argue with so long as we all understand that you made the argument you are now attacking. Well now, it’s still a fallacious argument - isn’t it?

No, there were two. ‘Fallacious’ and ‘incorrectly’. If you’re in doubt, ask your school teacher next time to explain.
But alas it was as ‘useful’ because you’ve not learnt anything here.

And an argument wouldn’t be complete without you engaging in the fallacy of diversion. Perfect. It would be a little more powerful if you were right. Look up the word “fallacious.” You incorrectly labeled your previous fallacious argument a straw man. If you find that to be an incomprehensible statement, it doesn’t surprise me.

It is your argument - by saying God needs to be reconciled because we’ve injured him.

God doesn’t need to be reconciled with us, we need to be reconciled with Him. That he chooses to be angry, sad, or joyful with our actions doesn’t change that. I can’t make God display any of these emotions. Only His will can. I might as a limited human being be unable to control my emotions, but God is not limited in this way. If God is injured (saddened, angered) by my actions, it is His will, not mine. And that God has chosen to respond with emotion to the actions of man is testified to repeatedly in the New Testament. And not just the response to the unfaithfulness at the death of Lazarus, but the clearing of the temple of the money changers, the agony in the garden, etc. You won’t address these passages, because you can’t explain them in terms of a God that is absolutely non-emotional.

 

[tdgesq]

And here’s you again demanding this key. Starting with the axiom that God is perfect than any language attributing to him personality, akin to human traits is faulty.

Then he must lack will and intelligence too, because these are also human traits. To attribute these human characteristics to God would be anthropomorphisms according to you.

I’ve mentioned this in almost every thread to you since you asked for this ‘key’ to interpretation. If I spell it out any more plainly perhaps you might get it. You don’t have to agree with it, but to claim I’ve not stated this is faulty on your part.

The key to the interpretation is that God is perfect. God displays many emotions according to the witness of the New Testament writers. You do not explain what these passages mean. Since they don’t mean what they literally proclaim, then they must mean something else. It looks like you’re ready to admit that the New Testament writers were mistaken about God displaying emotion.

It’s only a heresy if you say that God is literally angry. If you want to use terms such as that as a way of conveying how WE separate ourselves from God (as opposed to your concept that God separates himself from us), then that’s fine.

Is this your interpretation? Then deal with the passages that attribute these emotions to God and not to those who who sinned. When Jesus’ spirit was greatly troubled and he wept, and when His spirit was greatly troubled and he sweat blood in the garden, when he drove of the money changers with a whip and called them a brood of vipers, explain how it is merely describing us separating ourselves from God. In other words, deal with the arguments that are presented.

And yes, you do make that argument by saying that God changes in his relationship with us and becomes angry.

Not if it is part of God’s personality to express emotion, just as he expresses His will and intellect through miracles and disasters throughout the Bible. All of these decisions made outside of time before the creation of the universe because God is timeless. You will have to point out the contradiction. I see a way to keep God’s personality intact as well as his immutability.

In fact, so angry that he demands we accept all manner of punishments (under the banner ‘penance’)

Don’t create a fictitious person to argue against again. I never made this argument. If God chooses to become angry, he can and will. Penance is not there to appease an angry God. It is there for the good of the person receiving the penance. Maybe returning a stolen item as penance isn’t necessary in the Orthodox view of things. It’s good enough to just say you are sorry in front of the priest.

When I point out that anthropomorphism were used, you want to know how to tell what verses are to be interpreted what way. I answer. You ask again. I answer. You ask again. I answer.

No, you haven’t dealt with a single specific passage except to say they all aren’t to be taken literally. Your anthropomorphisms would leave us a God without emotions (even joy), without will, and without intellect. A completely impersonal God who is nothing like us - even though we are created in His image. An entirely unscriptural God. An understanding of God that your own Orthodox resources reject. A God that literally can’t answer our prayers or interact with us because it would change Him according to you.

 

[Montalban]

Then he must lack will and intelligence too, because these are also human traits. To attribute these human characteristics to God would be anthropomorphisms according to you.

:yawn: this would be true, only if he literally did that… that is, if he thought that God did have emotions. If he simply chose to use this as a lesson in describing how we separate from God then I don’t have a problem.

The problem is when they use this, as an analogy and people like you think it’s literally true.

It’d be akin to where Jesus says “Pluck out your eye” and we understand this as a lesson in severity, but you’d be in the audience taking it as a complete literal lesson, go home and stab out your eye.

 

[Montalban]

Well, maybe I am wrong here. So you were the one creating an argument that nobody else made. I see, so you were arguing against yourself. Hmmm . . . . Okay. I’ll retract my argument that you made up an imaginary person to argue with so long as we all understand that you made the argument you are now attacking. Well now, it’s still a fallacious argument - isn’t it?

It might be fallacious but you said it was falsely fallacious, or rather that I made fallacious arguments incorrectly - which would be a double negative

I don’t want to dwell on these minor points too much. But when you accuse me of something, it should be ‘correct’ insofar as something I’ve actually done.

Creating a ‘straw-man’ even if I argue against myself is not to create another person, but another argument. Argument and person are two very different things.

And an argument wouldn’t be complete without you engaging in the fallacy of diversion.

And there you go again with another false attack. It’s not a fallacy if I point out where you falsely accuse me of something,

Perfect. It would be a little more powerful if you were right. Look up the word “fallacious.” You incorrectly labeled your previous fallacious argument a straw man. If you find that to be an incomprehensible statement, it doesn’t surprise me.

And there you go making the same kind of attack you just accused me of! It’s okay for you, but not for me?

God doesn’t need to be reconciled with us, we need to be reconciled with Him.

Exactly!

That he chooses to be angry, sad, or joyful with our actions doesn’t change that.

If God chose to do these, that would indeed be up to God. That would mean however that God changes.

But worse the Catholic Church, and Catholics here argue that they make God angry - causing him to change.

 

[Montalban]

Good Grief, Lily - Do you really think God is injured by our sins? Do you really think He is offended and then mollified when we say we are sorry? Do you really think He is merely the same as a human parent?

I would accept that they use teachings where they liken God to a parent - for the purposes of teaching children (not just children, but people who are spiritually immature). But to really believe that God is at the level of someone who is flawed - a person, is to my mind a major blasphemy against God.

It’s like saying “God’s no better than you or I. Sure, he’s much more powerful, but he’s just as prone to mood swings as my drunken step-dad”

You guys are WAY to psychological and legalistic in your thinking…

Arsenios

That’s why they’ve been able to invent/construct a whole series of devices in dealing with God - and other things such as limbo and purgatory

Luke 11: 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[a] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

If you die, and you seek forgiveness from God, God would forgive you. But for Catholics you’ve still got debts you’ve got to pay off so you go to purgatory… 'cause God’s still angry with you and he’s got a ledger where he’s marked down and remembered every slight you’ve made against him.

 

[LilyM]

So you equate God with someone who gets angry - as a person does

In precisely the same way that you equate God with someone who loves - as a person does

I rather think the relationship between His anger and ours is the same as that between His love and ours.

His is the fullness-and-beyond of all the righteous human emotions, including righteous anger at sin, of the kind Jesus exhibited in the Temple.

But what we do to each other can separate ourselves from God

So you’re saying I need to apologise to my father and require his forgiveness for hurting my sister? No sir - I apologise to my sister alone and require my sister’s forgiveness alone. My father doesn’t enter into it.

 

[LilyM]

I would accept that they use teachings where they liken God to a parent - for the purposes of teaching children (not just children, but people who are spiritually immature). But to really believe that God is at the level of someone who is flawed - a person, is to my mind a major blasphemy against God.

It’s like saying “God’s no better than you or I. Sure, he’s much more powerful, but he’s just as prone to mood swings as my drunken step-dad”

Emotions are not flaws. None of them, in proper perspective, is a flaw, not even anger - Jesus exhibited that in the Temple.

What gave you the idea that they are? Is not love itself an emotion? Why would that emotion alone NOT be a flaw, as opposed to, say, righteous anger at sin as above.

And God Himself was the one who taught us ALL, spiritually immature or not, to call Him father - as you do yourself and as Christ Himself called the Father.

He doesn’t deceive nor mislead us in telling us that this is His relationship to us.

 

[Montalban]

In precisely the same way that you equate God with someone who loves - as a person does

No I don’t. I said God *is *love. I didn’t say God loves - certainly I don’t equate him with a person who loves.

I don’t say “God loves you like my mum loves me”.

Although my mum loves me a lot, she is a flawed human being (perhaps because she loves me ) and so her love is not boundless like Gods is.

I very well could say “God loves you like my mum loves me”. But that would only serve to explain that God loves me. It is a true statement insofar as God loves me. But it is limited for a describer for the reasons I just stated above.

That’s the problem for how you guys keep talking about the all-powerful, loving God. You continually can’t get past talking about him like he’s your kind uncle Chuck whom you see once a year at Christmas and who once gave you a shiny new bike.

 

[Montalban]

Emotions are not flaws. None of them, in proper perspective, is a flaw, not even anger - Jesus exhibited that in the Temple.

I was waiting for that one since last night. You’re heading back to confusion over God who is Man - as is Jesus (and it doesn’t say he was angry, anyway - I checked:
New International Version
King James Version
New Living Translation
just to be sure)

Emotions are flaws, when they’re negative. We have emotions, but we should try to be with God who is.

What gave you the idea that they are? Is not love itself an emotion? Why would that emotion alone NOT be a flaw, as opposed to, say, righteous anger at sin as above.

And God Himself was the one who taught us ALL, spiritually immature or not, to call Him father - as you do yourself and as Christ Himself called the Father.

He doesn’t deceive nor mislead us in telling us that this is His relationship to us.

Indeed, that’s the point of the limitations of language. I accept him as Father for it best describes our relationship to him.

For you, he’s like your actual father, and if your father was occasionally angry, God must be like that.

 

[dolphinlove]

Emotions are not flaws. None of them, in proper perspective, is a flaw, not even anger - Jesus exhibited that in the Temple.

What gave you the idea that they are? Is not love itself an emotion? Why would that emotion alone NOT be a flaw, as opposed to, say, righteous anger at sin as above.

And God Himself was the one who taught us ALL, spiritually immature or not, to call Him father - as you do yourself and as Christ Himself called the Father.

He doesn’t deceive nor mislead us in telling us that this is His relationship to us.

Ok im going to finally stick my head in on this and get it chopped off by Monty

I agree with everything Lily is saying here.

 

[Miserissima]

Then your idea of God is that he’s imperfect, because he needs

something God doesn’t need us. He wants us to a) act out of filial respect for Him, not out of fear or obligation. He respects the free will He gave us. b) cooperate in His plan for salvation for our lives, for our salvation is ongoing. (1 Cor 1:18, 2Cor 2:15, Phil. 2:12, 1 Pet 1:9)

Penance, atonement, and mortification for our sins is necessary because:

1. Although our Original Sin was washed away in Baptism, we still have concupiscence. We have to make up for the mortal sins we choose to commit.
2. It can also mean mortification or other penances to increase humility, express contrition, and build up the Body of Christ. (This goes further into redemptive suffering for the whole body of Christ. More here, from which this point was taken.) So, our sin affects the body of Christ as much as our redemptive suffering, and collectively our actions reflect the state of His church.

Love thy neighbor, keep the sabbath holy, Love your God, No need to apply.

Perhaps in recounting specific commandments we are looking to adhere to the letter of the law, not its spirit. The Golden Rules trump every commandment: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” are umbrella commandments that contain all others.

What makes God sad? Whatever God allows to make Him sad. What makes God angry? Idolatry. We don’t make God feel anything, though parts of the nature of God is revealed in Scripture: Ps 103:8: mercy, graciousness, patience; Ps 86:15: compassion; Deut 6:15: jealousy. God’s nature is a paradox, defined by what we attribute to Him.

But if we haven’t injured God then we don’t need to pay any sort of satisfaction to him - we don’t need to apologise to Him…[or] offer a sin sacrifice…Yet He clearly required and requires all of those things of us when we sin!

We hurt ourselves, not God, and we still need to say, “My bad!” because in sin, a person has put a barrier between himself and His grace. A person can separate himself and obstruct the grace that can work in our lives and refine us for the next life. This doesn’t hurt God, but it blocks His will for us, and that’s why we have to atone. When we sin, we are consciously falling short of his standards of behavior towards Him and others. We need to open that channel of grace between Him and us. It may or may not hurt God, though it impedes His work.

How does saying an act of Contrition to God heal the inury to myself?

We say we’re sorry for our choices to separate ourselves from Him and His free grace. Making amends and apologizing is accepting the consequences of our actions and repairs the conditions of our immortal souls. It puts us back in the position to cooperate in God’s plan of salvation and purification so we may come before Him. Sin does not injure God. It injures our relationship with Him. It damages our chances of the beatific vision, for nothing unclean can enter Heaven.

So you’re saying I need to apologise to my father and require his forgiveness for hurting my sister? No sir - I apologise to my sister alone and require my sister’s forgiveness alone. My father doesn’t enter into it.

Sin not only affects God, but affects the whole body of Christ. First, we are the emissaries of His church, and our behavior must reflect that. Second, regarding your hypothetical situation, Christ said that, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” That goes for corporal and spiritual works of mercy as much as a snide remark or a knuckle sammitch. Third, in the weekly Confiteor at Mass, we “confess…to you my brothers and sisters…” You are apologizing to the Church, the Bride of Christ, for hurting another member of the body. Sin affects everyone, for as you are cut off from God’s grace by it, you are also separated from the communion with His church.

 

[Montalban]

Ok im going to finally stick my head in on this and get it chopped off by Monty

I agree with everything Lily is saying here.

Then you don’t believe God is all powerful.

I take that as my start point.

If God is all-powerful, he’s certainly entitled to change his mind or do what ever he wants to, but to say that a lowly created being such as myself can CAUSE him to be angered, or to be injured is to deny God is all-powerful.

How do you account for God being all-powerful yet continually affected by his creation?

 

[Montalban]

God doesn’t need us. He wants us to a) act out of filial respect for Him, not out of fear or obligation. He respects the free will He gave us. b) cooperate in His plan for salvation for our lives, for our salvation is ongoing.

To co-operate, all we need to is seek to be reunited with God.
The RCC has a few blocks in the way, such as purgatory. Instead of God forgiving you, he’s got to put you through a bit of punishment first. (see below the bit of your post I’ve put in Italics.

Penance, atonement, and mortification for our sins is necessary because

1. Although our Original Sin was washed away in Baptism, we still have concupiscence. We have to make up for the mortal sins we choose to commit.

This makes for a God who isn’t ready to instantly forgive as he promised us.

We hurt ourselves, not God

Unfortunately this is how RCC sources put it…

We need not dwell upon the possibility of the salvation of mankind or upon
its appropriateness. Nor need we remind the reader that after God had
freely determined to save the human race, He might have done so by
pardoning man’s sins without having recourse to the Incarnation of the
Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Still, the Incarnation of the Word
was the most fitting means for the salvation of man, and was even
necessary, in case God claimed full satisfaction for the injury done to him
by sin (see INCARNATION).
newadvent.org/cathen/13407a.htm

 

[dolphinlove]

Then you don’t believe God is all powerful.

I take that as my start point.

If God is all-powerful, he’s certainly entitled to change his mind or do what ever he wants to, but to say that a lowly created being such as myself can CAUSE him to be angered, or to be injured is to deny God is all-powerful.

How do you account for God being all-powerful yet continually affected by his creation?

'You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God"
This shows God being affected by his creation, but it does not make him weak.
I believe God can be all powerful and I also believe it can hurt him to see each and everyone of us sin.
Yes we are lowly creatures compared to God, but that doesnt mean he still doesnt love each and everyone of us, which in turn would hurt him to see us doing harm to ourselves and not following the laws he created for us.

 

[Montalban]

'You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God"

I don’t think God literally becomes jealous, because that’s making him sound as whimsical as Al-lah.

’
This shows God being affected by his creation, but it does not make him weak.

If he is affected by his creation then, by virtue of that fact, he is weak.

'I believe God can be all powerful and I also believe it can hurt him to see each and everyone of us sin.
Yes we are lowly creatures compared to God, but that doesnt mean he still doesnt love each and everyone of us, which in turn would hurt him to see us doing harm to ourselves and not following the laws he created for us.

I agree he loves us. It’s one thing to say this quite another to say that we are so powerful as to affect God.

Anyway, I’m out of this thread.

 

[LilyM]

No I don’t. I said God *is *love. I didn’t say God loves - certainly I don’t equate him with a person who loves.

I don’t say “God loves you like my mum loves me”.

Although my mum loves me a lot, she is a flawed human being (perhaps because she loves me ) and so her love is not boundless like Gods is.

I very well could say “God loves you like my mum loves me”. But that would only serve to explain that God loves me. It is a true statement insofar as God loves me. But it is limited for a describer for the reasons I just stated above.

That’s the problem for how you guys keep talking about the all-powerful, loving God. You continually can’t get past talking about him like he’s your kind uncle Chuck whom you see once a year at Christmas and who once gave you a shiny new bike.

You fail to understand what we’re saying. We don’t seriously equate God with a person either. Certainly never, as you put it, with some benign Uncle. What benign uncle accepts a blood sacrifice in reparation for sin? We do know the difference

I agree with you in that I would never honestly think that ‘God loves as a human does’. Neither would I say ‘God gets offended by us like a human gets offended by us’ - nor ‘God is merciful like a human is merciful’ or ‘God is just like a human is just’ either, for that matter.

It doesn’t follow that it’s wrong to say He loves. It isn’t. It’s also not wrong to say that He is just or merciful. It’s ALSO not wrong to say He is offended by sin.

It’s a right and positive as well as fitting and necessary characteristic of the Almighty that He finds sin offensive. It’s part and parcel of His justice and certainly no flaw. Just as much as His love and mercy are positive as well as fitting and necessary attributes.

To say otherwise - well, if you do, you’re in fact the one making Him out to be the kindly indulgent uncle who only ever wants to see all of the kiddies playing along together nicely - to whom you can do anything, even the most vile things, and it never matters to Him because he’s just one big ball of gooey marshmallow inside.

God’s love, mercy and justice are causes, sources, motives - whatever the appropriate term is - of His action and His deeds. Of creation, redemption and so on. Just as much so is His righteous (antipathy? anger? repulsion? hatred? I’ll leave Him to fill in the blank appropriately) vis a vis sin. It too is part and parcel of the reason the Passion and Ressurection had to happen.

 

[clmowry]

It’s all in the terminology.

God continually loves us. For us to be with God all we have to do is to accept God’s love.

He’s not requiring us to do anything because he doesn’t need nor require us to do anything in the sense of need, yes that’s correct.

However getting back to the OP Catholics say that God needs to be satisfied. I’ve already cited the encylopedia that talks of him being injured.

So God ‘requires’ you or ‘needs’ you to accept His love? I thought He didn’t ‘need’ anything?

Chuck

 

[Hellisreal]

Tell Noah he was not required to build an Ark.

 

[jmcrae]

Tell Noah he was not required to build an Ark.