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zaffiroborant
Guest
I would like to know how God telling someone if they don’t do something He will kill them doesn’t negate “free will choice”?
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ParkerD
Guest
Z,
It would be easier to answer this kind of question if it were known what specific example you have in mind, but generally it makes sense that if such had been the case, then the person having received a commandment must have known of its particular importance and must have known that it was a commandment and that they would be “shut out” from the presence of God (meaning from further communication and from the Holy Ghost–i.e. the “second death”) if they did not obey the commandment, and must have known that their situation was an example to others such that God would be teaching others through what happened to them–that there really is such a thing as the “second death” and being “cast off from the presence of the Lord” forever.
An example of that kind of thing is with Ananias and Sapphira, in Acts 5.
S
SteveVH
Guest
Parker, do you not agree that I can speak directly to one of my children who has disobeyed me and correct that one child while the rest of my children are present. And do you not think that because they witnessed this that they would grasp that they had better not violate whatever principal their sibling had violated or they would be corrected in the same manner? In other words, Christ is speaking of truths that apply to all of us, whether he is only speaking to one person or a group of people. It is the principal behind his words that matters, not in what tense He is speaking. That is why these stories are included in scripture. They are for all of mankind.
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SteveVH
Guest
The fact that God is eternal has nothing to do with whether or not marriage is eternal. The eternal God has created many things that are not eternal. “This world will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” This has nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage on this earth and the fact that no man should divide what God has joined.
Yes I am aware that Paul was using marriage as an analogy, but unless the principal behind the analogy is true (marriage ends upon the death of a spouse) the analogy does not hold up. What he said was "…the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth." He uses marraige as an analogy because the same is true for marriage.
(By the way, the fact that a woman could remarry if her husband had died, says nothing about whether the first marriage was an eternal marriage, particularly under the Jewish law of marriage which looked to “raising up seed” unto the first husband, as the example of Ruth and Boaz shows.)
No, I don’t, because surrender means “caving in” and means the loss of free will choice, and though I earnestly desire to know and do God’s will, and seek that through constant prayer in my heart, I also desire to learn to desire what God desires, so that “my will” is “His will”. That is how happiness is attained, and how keeping the commandments is truly a joyful thing, and never either a drudgery or a sense of “surrender” or forced behavior.
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SteveVH
Guest
Sorry, I had to attend to another issue and my time ran out in order to answer your last point.
Thank you for answering. This puts things in perspective on a number of issues. Your will is paramount and supersedes surrender to God’s will. I just have a question. Why do you believe that surrender to God’s will takes away your free will? Can one not freely choose to surrender?
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soren1
Guest
Steve,
You are quite right to make this argument. The whole point of analogy is that some principle in the first analogate reflects a principle in the second. But I have one thing to add to what you are saying. Analogy is useful for teaching because one of the analogues is presumed to be better known to the student than the other. In this case, Paul uses marriage to explain the different covenants because he assumes that marriage is better known. Hence, we must use what he says about marriage to interprets what he says about the law, not vice versa.
Second, one should point out in Israel all law was understood in terms of covenant obligations. By “covenant,” I mean the extension of kinship relations by oath, one example being a marriage. Because covenants are obliging life-oaths, the legal responsibilities that follow from a covenant are intrinsic to the covenant itself and inseparable from it. Thus, if a woman is freed from the “law of her husband,” it is automatically implied that her covenant obligations have been totally fulfilled. Note also, that to be made “free” in OT legal documents always represented a thorough termination of obligations, as when a slave is freed by his master. Only if ParkerD can show how covenant obligations can end in the context of an eternal marriage, and that a person legally “freed” from some obligation can later have that obligation enjoined on him again, does he have a shot at escaping this passage. I believe both of those points are impossible to defend in their own right, and would each spoil the analogy as well.
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SteveVH
Guest
Thanks, Soren1. The covenant aspect of this argument is all important and I appreciate you adding it to this conversation.
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ParkerD
Guest
SteveVH,
Indeed there is a marked difference between the declaration, “I surrender to God’s will”, and the declaration, “I love to do God’s will and am eternally grateful that there is communication through the Holy Spirit and through our Advocate, the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whereby there is a joint yoke relationship with Him; and that He is molding me into the kind of person He wants me to be, through His loving and guiding Shepherding influence and teaching as well as example.”
If a person “surrenders”, then it means they are holding something back and wish they didn’t have to “surrender”.
I hold nothing back. I go completely willingly, gratefully, joyfully, with praise for His guiding, Shepherding influence and loving counsel.
'Huge, crucial, telling difference.
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zaffiroborant
Guest
Ananias and Sapphira, were not given a commandment so they don’t fit your explanation, nor does you explanation cancel the fact that threatening with death or destruction is a violation of free will choice.
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SteveVH
Guest
Ok, Parker.
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soren1
Guest
I don’t want to insult you by asking this question, but have you ever read a single work of Catholic spirituality? Could you back up your claims about the implications of “surrender” by interacting with actual Catholic teaching? If you want to convince us, try reading this book, and show how the conclusions you are drawing follow from what it says.
If you find this question insulting, let me make clear that it is not any prior bad opinion of you, but the outrageousness of your claims that prompts the question.
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ParkerD
Guest
Soren1,
My response had to do my involvement with Christ having to do with one word, “surrender”–not with whether I agreed with Catholic views about the word “surrender” or its use.
I had earlier been going to add a post using the word “submission,” which fortunately is a word used more in that book than the word “surrender”, as are the words “conformity to the will of God”. Being “submissive, gentle, easy to be entreated, willing to submit…as a child doth submit to his father” are aspects of being a “new creature” or being “born again” and then “being led” and thus “growing up in the Lord”. In short, being shepherded, and going where He wants me to go.
I agree with those latter two word uses of “submission” and “conforming” and many of the expressions of the writer where he used those words (but not in all cases of the points he made).
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soren1
Guest
Ok. Surrender is a perfectly good word. It means giving up to some one, that is, giving upwards. It indicates an act of justice whereby a lower party (man) gives to a higher party (God) what is due to him, namely all. In barely even distinct from “submit,” which means “to send upwards” rather than “to give upwards.”
On this score, “surrender” is perfectly proper to a renewed creature, better even than “conformity.” “Conformity” indicates a likeness in form or behavior, which indeed is part of spiritual renewal (any who surrenders to God, by the same token conforms to him), but the term on its own signifies a bit less than surrender. Conformity, strictly speaking, does not in itself encompass the whole being of man, but only his formal aspect, in all senses of form, whereas “surrender” implicates his entire being, including the material of his body and his very existence. All of these things are owed to God, because he gave them. This is no criticism of “conformity,” but an acknowledgement that its does convey a bit less of the truth than surrender.
Note as well the biblical precedent for “sub-render”: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matt 22:21)
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RebeccaJ
Guest
It appears to me that ParkerD is associating the word “surrender” to war, and the idea that surrender is something done reluctantly.
This is not the meaning of surrender to God. When we surrender to God, we are giving up ourselves to Him.
Romans 12:`
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
This is not the meaning of surrender to God. When we surrender to God, we are giving up ourselves to Him.
Romans 12:`
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
Surrender is done in an attitude of “surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving”. Even, if not especially, in times of sorrow and suffering.
THIRTEENTH STATION
Jesus is taken down from the cross and given to his Mother**
The body of Jesus is embraced by his Mother
Lord Jesus,
placed in the arms of your Mother, the image of our Mother the Church!
As we contemplate the figure of the *Pietà
*we learn devotion to the “yes” of love;
we learn surrender and acceptance,
trust and practical concern,
a tender heart which restores life and awakens joy.
THIRTEENTH STATION
Jesus is taken down from the cross and given to his Mother**
The body of Jesus is embraced by his Mother
Lord Jesus,
placed in the arms of your Mother, the image of our Mother the Church!
As we contemplate the figure of the *Pietà
*we learn devotion to the “yes” of love;
we learn surrender and acceptance,
trust and practical concern,
a tender heart which restores life and awakens joy.
Code:
Come, Holy Spirit,
guide us, as you guided Mary,
by the radiant gratuity of the love
“poured forth from God into our hearts
by the gift of your presence!"
T
TheExorcist
Guest
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soren1
Guest
NB: I made an error in my last post. “Submit” does differ significantly from “Surrender.” Submit means to place beneath, whereas surrender is to give from beneath. Hence, a person places himself under the rule of God by an act of submission, and offers full service to that rule by an act of surrender.
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ParkerD
Guest
Originally Posted by SteveVH
Hi, Soren1 and SteveVH,
I suppose that you may want a response about the marriage analogy Paul used in his epistle to the Romans.
It again is somewhat of a surprise, but perhaps “not very” since you certainly have free will choice to believe that his analogy meant the Jews having been “married” to the old law, were now free from the old law.
I suggest that he wasn’t saying that, at all, as many verses point out. They still needed to view the commandments as needing to be lived and obeyed–so there were still aspects of the old law and covenant that were still in effect under the new covenant and under “grace”.
He seemed to be writing about a problem among the Roman converts, that they were thinking they could sin, break the commandments, and still have grace apply because of the new covenant.
He refuted that belief, while using the analogy of Jewish marriage under the law, which said a woman could remarry after her husband had died; Paul was writing that elements of the “old marriage” were still in effect with the “new marriage”–so the “old marriage” to the law wasn’t completely dead, and wasn’t completely gone away. (Some aspects were, such as circumcision–but not the entire “marriage”.) The Ten Commandments are as eternal as God.
So to say that the old covenant was “dead” seems to me to be an incorrect understanding of the analogy and certainly of the doctrine. They still needed to look at the Ten Commandments and the great commandments which had been given under the “law”, as still in full effect, and that they should not “sin, that grace abound.”
So we have completely different views and perspectives, and never the twain shall meet.
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Scriptorian
Guest
I like the word “submit” better than “surrender.” It is more scriptural.
But why are all of you arguing semantics? Seems fruitless.
But why are all of you arguing semantics? Seems fruitless.
S
Scriptorian
Guest
Can I comment on a few scriptures that have been bantered about? Maybe another perspective, huh?
How about this one:
It appears we also will keep principles of intelligence when we are resurrected. I don’t think anyone should have a problem with that either. Is the question whether “the resurrection” and “the world to come” are the same? Wouldn’t the world to come refer to the Spirit World? I personally don’t know of any scripture or LDS teaching that explains how or when progression occurs “in the world to come.” We just know that it does.
I give it as my opinion that any progress must be made before one is resurrected. One of the scriptural reasons I believe that is because of the other disputed scripture that says:
For discussion’s sake, let’s say these names are unimportant. Perhaps you don’t like the idea of named “glories”. Okay. You cannot argue, though, that Paul was not trying to identify different body types that are resurrected. In the resurrection, you cannot trade in your body for a different model. There are no upgrades. If you are raised up with a celestial body, that is your state forever. You likewise cannot fall once you are resurrected. There are no downgrades, either. Paul says that resurrected bodies are incorruptible:
There must needs be a place prepared for those who cannot dwell in the presence of God. Is it too much of a stretch to believe that there might be places with the glory of the moon, places with the glory of the stars, and perhaps a dark place for Satan and his angels to reside for eternity?
How about this one:
First off, I don’t see any problems with this as stated. There is obviously some sort of progression after we die. That much is clear. The “advantage” would certainly be in the amount of progress one has made in attaining eternal life. If you have applied the grace of Christ more frequently and more fully in your mortal life, then you would be closer to attaining eternal life when you die. Isn’t that the goal?
It appears we also will keep principles of intelligence when we are resurrected. I don’t think anyone should have a problem with that either. Is the question whether “the resurrection” and “the world to come” are the same? Wouldn’t the world to come refer to the Spirit World? I personally don’t know of any scripture or LDS teaching that explains how or when progression occurs “in the world to come.” We just know that it does.
I give it as my opinion that any progress must be made before one is resurrected. One of the scriptural reasons I believe that is because of the other disputed scripture that says:
While the scripture is sufficiently clear to an LDS scholar, others may want to remember the question Paul was trying to answer:
Coupling these two passages, it is a stretch to argue that Paul has suddenly digressed into some random discussion about astronomy. He is clearly saying that resurrected bodies come in varying “degrees” of glory. Only celestial and terrestrial degrees are mentioned in this rendering, but then he adds a third type of glory when he compares these bodies to the sun, moon, and stars.
For discussion’s sake, let’s say these names are unimportant. Perhaps you don’t like the idea of named “glories”. Okay. You cannot argue, though, that Paul was not trying to identify different body types that are resurrected. In the resurrection, you cannot trade in your body for a different model. There are no upgrades. If you are raised up with a celestial body, that is your state forever. You likewise cannot fall once you are resurrected. There are no downgrades, either. Paul says that resurrected bodies are incorruptible:
The resurrection is sort of the judgment before the judgment. If we know that our star-like body pales in comparison to the glory of the sun, then how humiliated and embarrassed will we be to stand before the glory of God? We will shrink before his brightness and cower before his light. Would we feel comfortable in the presence of celestial beings if we had an unchangeable and permanent reminder of our unworthiness to be there?
There must needs be a place prepared for those who cannot dwell in the presence of God. Is it too much of a stretch to believe that there might be places with the glory of the moon, places with the glory of the stars, and perhaps a dark place for Satan and his angels to reside for eternity?
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