If God became man

[davidv]

Can you please clarify what you mean David?

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See post 79.

 

[hasantas]

LOL. Scripture can be read a variety of ways-to support a variety of beliefs or interpretations. And people will always find a way to support their *preferred *belief as well. But the doctrine of the Trinity is not a preferred belief-it would be much easier to dismiss it-and the Church has had ample opportunity to do so. The “problem” is that the Church is going by her *experience *of Jesus-the revelation as it occurred back at the time-all He said and did, not all of which was even recorded BTW. The faith of the Church simply does not come from the bible first of all-as if one could pick up the bible 500 years, 1500 years, or 2000 years after the fact- and understand with certainty the subject matter it deals with merely by using whatever one considers to be the best exegetic methodology available. Ain’t gonna happen.

Holy tradition!!! Inquisition, crusades, etc

Even Christianity could not hold the true form of self scripture Bible so Church claimed to fiind the more holy way without scripture!

Do you know a major religion without scripture?

If there should not be Bible so there would not be Christianity although there is no exact text of scripture.

Nobody could restrict orher’s comprehension. Qur’an warn to not say such thing we find our ancestors in that manner. Because if they were in a serious mistake!

 

[fhansen]

Holy tradition!!! Inquisition, crusades, etc

Even Christianity could not hold the true form of self scripture Bible so Church claimed to fiind the more holy way without scripture!

Do you know a major religion without scripture?

If there should not be Bible so there would not be Christianity although there is no exact text of scripture.

Nobody could restrict orher’s comprehension. Qur’an warn to not say such thing we find our ancestors in that manner. Because if they were in a serious mistake!

Is there supposed to be some degree of sense here? People often use Scripture, including the Qur’an, to justify whatever behavior they want! And they also *ignore *Scripture to do the same thing. The Church’s teachings, on faith and morals, are what count, whether her people follow them or not! And those teachings were in her possession before a word of the New Testament was written. The NT was *based *on the faith that the Church received, her Tradition, IOW.

 

[fhansen]

If God can suffer so God can die or God can be deaf or God can be blind or God can be powerless etc … But those do not sound as eternal attributes?

God can do whatever He wants-He doesn’t dance to our tune. He can allow human ignorance and sin to hate Him and to express that hatred in real-time, by real acts-if He wants. Then we learn what sin is really all about, if we’re willing to look. Sin is ultimately rebellion against and hatred of God, Who is so good, trustworthy, kind, and loving that he would even suffer humiliation, pain, and death in order to prove that love to us, to prove what’s truly valuable and good and worth living and dying for in this existence, to help us choose rightly, without force, to love as He does. That’s how starkly contrasted the real God is with the God we often conceive of.

God is all mercifull so God wish to save us. But being a man is not the right way. If God suffer and do that work for human so what will human earn? Do not human have to struggle to deserve something?

He didn’t remove our responsibility or obligation for obedience. He forgives, and then beckons us to come His way, and follow Him in the path of truth and righteousness, a path that He, himself, trod before us to demonstrate the way. And He promises to help us to achieve that goal as well. But its our choice in how we live. The Church teaches that it’s a very hard struggle, this path, but a good one as we persevere on it.

 

[Ignatius]

God do not get into anything because God is eternal and infinite. Getting into matter conflict with eternal attributes. So you say if God wish He can do because He can do everything! If God can be man so God can be a car or a tree. Just yes or no?
Ignatius;13041342:

A painting, which is a human creation, unlike the Divine Creation, cannot hold something. Because the painting is a mere human creation it is limited by the power of the one that created it. God can do with His Divine Creation whatever can be done with a Divine Creation, including enter into it.

Because the painting is a mere human creation it is limited by the power of the one that created it.

So do God behave cruelly? But if he wish He can do!
The Christian teaching is that God All Merciful.

Do god can be a tree or a car? If He wish He can!
Those are inanimate objects, God is an Intelligent being and did not say he would become an inanimate object. Since man is made in the very image and likeness of God, it is not a logical contradiction for God to become man, the very image of Himself.

Can God make Himself blind or deaf or powerless? If not but God can do what ever wish!
But he never said he would become blind, deaf or powerless.

Do God can get marry? If He do not marry so isn’t God omnipotent?
That does not remove his omnipotence, He is still omnipotent.

God is all mercifull very true so God never beaheve cruelly. Just like that God is eternal and so God never get into matter or time.

Shape is not an obstacle for God. So do God can be a tree or a car? It is more simple than being a man. God did not say He would be a man but people said God became a man!

Do God can get marry? And do God can create a woman to marry? Just yes or no? It is more like God can be a man or not!

Hello hasantas**. **I apologize for the delay in answering. I work full time and have a wife and family as well, so my time for these discussions is very limited. Additionally, we have had some very pressing matters at work besides. I am only able to steal l few minutes time after work to address these issues.

Now, to the point:
I answered all of those questions in my previous post, to wit:
So do God can be a tree or a car?
Those are inanimate objects, God is an Intelligent being and did not say he would become an inanimate object.

Since man is made in the very image and likeness of God, it is not a logical contradiction for God to become man, the very image of Himself.

Also, the Qur’an no where states that God is not able to enter into time.

Again, I ask for your patients. We are very busy at work and I have some hard deadlines to meet and have very little time to address these issues right now so I will not be able to repeat answers to questions that I have already addressed.

 

[Servant19]

OK, here;

"The blessed in heaven possess an immediate intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence." (De fide)

"God’s Essence is also incomprehensible to the blessed in heaven". (De fide)

The resolution to this apparent contradiction is that no created being can have comprehensive- complete and total- knowledge of God’s essence, due to our limitations vis a vis Him. And yet our knowledge will be beyond imagination and beyond sufficiency for its *purpose. *

Maybe an analogy might be that we can a have very close relationship with another person-we can know them well-even if they’re far superior to us in, say, maturity or intelligence. We won’t be able to know them or identify with them in the way we would if we were on the same level as them. But, from our perspective, we enjoy their fellowship just the same-the difference doesn’t matter.

I’d also like to emphasize the importance of this knowledge, this direct experience. From an eternal perspective especially, to merely know *about *God wouldn’t cut it. If there’s anything that can satisfy the human heart completely, totally, that thing would be critical if one were expected to desire continued existence-forever. There’s a hope-or a sense, I’d submit, innate in the human heart, for something better, that something is or should be better somewhere. That hope, that drive for happiness, does not lack an end-it has a purpose, a goal. And that goal we call “God”. And the testimony of those who’ve “seen” God, if only for a millisecond, is that this Reality is of such ineffable, boundless beauty and glory and love that nothing could possibly be left to be desired as long as one could remain in that Presence. Total peace, beyond understanding- well-being, happiness, joy, elation; Goodness, itself, is in and all around you, engulfing and overwhelming you. Just by knowing God. Grace makes the impossible possible for man.

Thankyou for this clarification.

I assume I am correct in understanding that there is a difference between “knowledge OF” God’s Essence and “comprehending” His Essence.

Our only source of “knowing OF” His Essence is through His attributes, which are present throughout creation, and all of which are potentially present in the human soul.

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[Servant19]

Hello hasantas**. **I apologize for the delay in answering. I work full time and have a wife and family as well, so my time for these discussions is very limited. Additionally, we have had some very pressing matters at work besides. I am only able to steal l few minutes time after work to address these issues.

Now, to the point:
I answered all of those questions in my previous post, to wit:
So do God can be a tree or a car?
Those are inanimate objects, God is an Intelligent being and did not say he would become an inanimate object.

Since man is made in the very image and likeness of God, it is not a logical contradiction for God to become man, the very image of Himself.

Also, the Qur’an no where states that God is not able to enter into time.

Again, I ask for your patients. We are very busy at work and I have some hard deadlines to meet and have very little time to address these issues right now so I will not be able to repeat answers to questions that I have already addressed.

I think the difficulty in understanding arises from an incomplete clarification of the relationship between he TWIN NATURES of Jesus, His human and His Divine conditions.

The Divine condition “MANIFESTS” itself in a human temple, as Peter clarifies clearly:

"Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you…"

1Peter 1:20

When this PROCESS of how Jesus “manifested” Himself on this earthly plane to us, one can discern the reality that there is a clear line between His human and His Divine conditions. The Divine condition that Jesus represented in a human frame on earth is not His full Divine glory, it is a manifestation of His full Divine glory.

There is a subtle difference which if understood can unite Christian and Islamic theology on this subject.

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[fhansen]

Thankyou for this clarification.

I assume I am correct in understanding that there is a difference between “knowledge OF” God’s Essence and “comprehending” His Essence.

Our only source of “knowing OF” His Essence is through His attributes, which are present throughout creation, and all of which are potentially present in the human soul.

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In any case this knowledge has nothing to do with mere knowledge about, as if one could come to it by reading a book, or knowledge that we might be able to garner or deduce with our natural abilities. Rather its to be able-to be enabled- to see God as He is. To comprehend His essence would probably mean one would be able to answer the question, ‘What is God?’, as if we could, with scientific objectivity, be able to define and describe God in totality. To know God with immediate intuition would be to answer the question, ‘Who is God?’, to know Him because you’ve met Him personally-you’ve experienced Him.

This is the part that cannot be well explained, however, because people naturally try to relate it to knowledge or experience they already have-or the normal earthly means of obtaining it-and it simply isn’t that way. The knowledge is given; God makes Himself known. We can come know other people pretty much directly, through our senses: their natures, personalities, peculiarities; their individualism and all that implies stays with us after we’ve met them. We can come to know God in similar fashion, and yet it’s more akin to an ant being empowered to know a human in terms of the vastness of difference between the knower and the object of the knowledge.

 

[hasantas]

Hasantas, Jesus AND Muhammad are human Manifestations of an ETERNAL BEING called the WORD OF GOD.

To focus on JUST the human aspect of Jesus and Muhammad (and Baha’u’llah) and to deny their eternal Divine aspect is a clear theological mistake.

Muhammad Himself refers to His eternal, Divine aspect…

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Neither Muhammed nor Jesus or other is manifestations of eternal being. Muhammad and Jesus are creatures of God. Creatures could be a mirror for manifestations of God but the creatures themselves are not manifestations of God.

Jesus could not have an eternal soul beside a mortal soul.

 

[hasantas]

=fhansen;13045678]God can do whatever He wants-He doesn’t dance to our tune. He can allow human ignorance and sin to hate Him and to express that hatred in real-time, by real acts-if He wants. Then we learn what sin is really all about, if we’re willing to look. Sin is ultimately rebellion against and hatred of God, Who is so good, trustworthy, kind, and loving that he would even suffer humiliation, pain, and death in order to prove that love to us, to prove what’s truly valuable and good and worth living and dying for in this existence, to help us choose rightly, without force, to love as He does. That’s how starkly contrasted the real God is with the God we often conceive of.

My point is that if God suffer and die so how could He remain a God? Suffering and death is humanely but not divine? The issue is not if God wish or not but is it possible for God to have humane attributes or not? If God is kind of a man then all human is God!

He didn’t remove our responsibility or obligation for obedience. He forgives, and then beckons us to come His way, and follow Him in the path of truth and righteousness, a path that He, himself, trod before us to demonstrate the way. And He promises to help us to achieve that goal as well. But its our choice in how we live. The Church teaches that it’s a very hard struggle, this path, but a good one as we persevere on it.

God forgives but for being forgiven we human should pay but not God! Isn’t that sound weird if obligor do not pay but demander do?

 

[fhansen]

My point is that if God suffer and die so how could He remain a God? Suffering and death is humanely but not divine? The issue is not if God wish or not but is it possible for God to have humane attributes or not? If God is kind of a man then all human is God!

God already has human attributes in one sense, because humans are made in His image-we’re simply inferior In every way. And He can certainly lower Himself, if He wills, to our level, for His purposes.

God forgives but for being forgiven we human should pay but not God! Isn’t that sound weird if obligor do not pay but demander do?

That’s love. And it still comes with an obligation; we must now conform to His will- we must become just, as He personally showed us how to be, and He helps us even in this, as He, alone, is the very source of man’s justice, our being a handiwork of His to begin with.

 

[hasantas]

=fhansen;13061900]God already has human attributes in one sense, because humans are made in His image-we’re simply inferior In every way. And He can certainly lower Himself, if He wills, to our level, for His purposes.

I gave some examples to demonstrate that God is infinite with all attributes. But you claim God can be lower which is impossible. Just with maths:

∞ - ∞ = ? or ∞ - x = ∞

So nothing can dissolve from God or that do not make God lower. And God do not take something from Himself as eternaly which is uncertain for human to grasp.

That’s love. And it still comes with an obligation; we must now conform to His will- we must become just, as He personally showed us how to be, and He helps us even in this, as He, alone, is the very source of man’s justice, our being a handiwork of His to begin with.

If that is the only way so all were the useless to send prophets before Jesus! All people before Jesus should go hell?

 

[fhansen]

I gave some examples to demonstrate that God is infinite with all attributes. But you claim God can be lower which is impossible. Just with maths:

∞ - ∞ = ? or ∞ - x = ∞

So nothing can dissolve from God or that do not make God lower. And God do not take something from Himself as eternaly which is uncertain for human to grasp.

Any of us can stoop down to another’s level. An inferior person, whether inferior in terms of maturity or power or intellect or whatever, cannot raise himself to the superior’s level.

If that is the only way so all were the useless to send prophets before Jesus! All people before Jesus should go hell?

No, all who are saved are saved by Jesus’s act of love, past, present, future. The prophets prepared the way for Christ, Who arrived on the scene when the time was ripe, as Scripture tells us. The whole plan of salvation, the use of God’s chosen people, was for that end, at a time when humanity as a whole was ready.

 

[hasantas]

=fhansen;13066459]Any of us can stoop down to another’s level. An inferior person, whether inferior in terms of maturity or power or intellect or whatever, cannot raise himself to the superior’s level.

God is not an object to stoop down. God do not consist of atoms as human. God is beyond of time and space.

If God make Himself lower so He is an inferior person anymore. And an inferior person could not raise himself to the superior level as you mentioned. So how could Jesus raise?

No, all who are saved are saved by Jesus’s act of love, past, present, future. The prophets prepared the way for Christ, Who arrived on the scene when the time was ripe, as Scripture tells us. The whole plan of salvation, the use of God’s chosen people, was for that end, at a time when humanity as a whole was ready.

And you accept the works of prophets. Well good. Even Jesus just lived like a prophet. So wasn’t Jesus merely a prophet! We can comment the scripture in different ways.

 

[DCNBILL]

If there should not be Bible so there would not be Christianity although there is no exact text of scripture.

That is interesting because I have 7 of them on the shelf in front of me and though the exact words may not be the same in each one they all say the same thing. They all express the exact same inerrant Word of God.

 

[fhansen]

God is not an object to stoop down. God do not consist of atoms as human. God is beyond of time and space.

God is beyond everything. If He can create you, and endow you with a spirit, He, Who is Spirit, can certainly take on the form of man Himself-unless you’re superior to Him for some reason.

If God make Himself lower so He is an inferior person anymore. And an inferior person could not raise himself to the superior level as you mentioned. So how could Jesus raise?

If a superior being lowers himself in order to relate to and help an inferior being, the superior being doesn’t change, as if they’re now inferior also in essence; they simply condescend.

And you accept the works of prophets. Well good. Even Jesus just lived like a prophet. So wasn’t Jesus merely a prophet! We can comment the scripture in different ways.

Jesus was a prophet-plus!- not *merely *one.

 

[clem456]

God is not an object to stoop down. God do not consist of atoms as human. God is beyond of time and space.

If God make Himself lower so He is an inferior person anymore. And an inferior person could not raise himself to the superior level as you mentioned. So how could Jesus raise?

As the previous poster pointed out, God can do as he wills, since as you admit he is an all powerful being. If he desires to become one with his creatures, then he can do it, as it pleases him.

If you believe that God is a loving being, maybe the more important question is whether a loving being can be a distant being? Doesn’t a loving being pour himself out in compassion? (I am using compassion in a classic sense, meaing “to suffer with”). Pouring one’s self out means to come out of one’s self and extend one’s self beyond the distance between beings.

It is the nature of love to pour one’s self out, not to stand apart in distance and domination. Christianity makes (or should make) a huge difference in how we treat others.

 

[hasantas]

That is interesting because I have 7 of them on the shelf in front of me and though the exact words may not be the same in each one they all say the same thing. They all express the exact same inerrant Word of God.

As much I know there are different copies of Gospels and there are no original texts.

 

[hasantas]

=fhansen;13067195]God is beyond everything. If He can create you, and endow you with a spirit, He, Who is Spirit, can certainly take on the form of man Himself-unless you’re superior to Him for some reason.

So an eternal being can be limited? Or God as an eternal essence could make Himself mortal essence? Just explain how it can be possible the transition between eternal and mortal. But it is not enough to say that if God wish he can.

If a superior being lowers himself in order to relate to and help an inferior being, the superior being doesn’t change, as if they’re now inferior also in essence; they simply condescend.

If God lower Himself but the eternal or divine essence do not change so why to say God gets lower?

Jesus was a prophet-plus!- not *merely *one.

That is the most deadlock. A divine nature and a human nature unite into complex one nature! How can it be possible? Firstly three natures become one nature and one of them become two and so how about others? How many gods do we have? I prefer to have one.

Did God create a soul for human nature of Jesus or did God dwell himself into body of Jesus?

If God created a human mortal soul for Jesus so how could the divine nature contact the human nature? How it can be possible? Why do not God contact other human souls as he did with Jesus’?

Do a man can have divine attributes? If that is possible so I want to be a god! (If God turn into man so man should turn into a god!)

If God do not lose divine attributes so why do we say God became man? God can feel and understand every situations and feelings of man without being man. Can God not feel human without being human but He can do everything?

Did Jesus have two different personalities? Which one do we should respect?

God has not essence as human have. So God has not a kind of soul which we assume to dwell into a body. God’s essence is eternal with all attributes. And an eternal being do not dwell into matter and time. That is so obvious. But if you go on to trust mysteries you could not see the facts.

 

[fhansen]

As much I know there are different copies of Gospels and there are no original texts.

The Church existed-and preached the gospel-before a word of the New Testament was written.