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simpleas
Guest
Thanks for that.
So is O.S wiped away at baptism, or are we given the holy spirit to help us not sin?
- Status
So is O.S wiped away at baptism, or are we given the holy spirit to help us not sin?
S
simpleas
Guest
Its not catholic doctrine but the bible the poster was referring to I think?
I could be wrong, but I think he was trying to say that it seems God was described as angry at his children when you read certain parts of the old testament.
The God we know now, to me anyway, doesn’t seem to be the same as the God taught by the jews.
Jesus came to show us how much love God does have for us, the old testament shows how things were and the new how things are and forever will be, is how i can relate to it.
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fhansen
Guest
Yes, we’re forgiven, cleansed; OS is wiped away as we’re infused with sanctifying grace. And then yes, a promise of God’s New Covenant is also that He’ll help us to “go, and sin no more”. But we can cooperate-or not-at any step along the way. Sanctifying grace* is* the life of the Holy Spirit in us.
O
OneSheep
Guest
I agree completely. I don’t introduce “other concepts”. I reinterpret and translate in order to make sense with who I see as an uncondtionally loving creator.
First of all, the priest I am referring to was not addressing the creation story specifically, and I apologize if it appeared that way. As a result of Adam and Eve’s behavior, God said to Adam
Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
He gave Eve more pain in childbirth, and banished them both from the garden. As much as we can say “it was man who did it”, it was God who did the banishing. There are certainly less permanent ways of dealing with people’s behaviors. Like I said, it is a good story, it is an attempt to explain the human condition, but to me it falls far short of depicting a God who loves unconditionally. My Bible commentary says in large letters “DO NOT TAKE EVERYTHING LITERALLY.” I don’t.
This would not be the way I would treat my children if they defied me. The behavior does not reflect forgiveness.
I respect that completely. Please keep these words of the Holy Father in mind though, and I will too:
Yes, in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation.
Please note that when I make statements I take ownership of them. I am not saying “this is the way it is”, I am saying “this is how it makes sense to me.” To me, every one of us is going to have a different view, because we all have different experiences. The great thing is that we are still all one body in Christ.
O
OneSheep
Guest
Yes, I have, even though I only had the slightest feeling of negativity towards them.Oh, you never answered my question…have you forgiven Adam and Eve?
I hope to get to the rest of your post tomorrow.
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simpleas
Guest
Thank you
S
simpleas
Guest
Cool
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grannymh
Guest
What is missing, if I may be so bold to point out, is that so far the spiritual relationship between the Creator and the human has been avoided. We have ground and there is childbirth, but do these items describe the relationship between God and Adam?
How does “banishment” describe the relationship between the Creator and the human? What was it about Adam’s behavior which resulted in banishment? Was banishment total?
You certainly have the right to share what makes sense to you. And I, in turn, have the right to share the Catholic position which makes sense, in my humble opinion.
With that in mind, one of the great teachings of Catholicism is the Mystical Body of Christ.
But, and this should be obvious, we are not the same nature as Christ Who is God.
It should also be obvious that Adam did not have the same nature as God. If Adam were the same nature as God, could God banish him? Can there be more than one God according to Catholicism?
In dismissing Adam as an interesting story, we, unfortunately, have dismissed the basic meaning of our spirituality which is our relationship with God.
Our own spirituality is based on the primary fact that we are in the image of God. (Genesis 1: 26-27) We are not God, but because of our spirituality, i.e., our spiritual soul, we can have a relationship with our Creator. Catholicism does not teach that Adam’s spiritual relationship made him equal to God. Since Adam was not an equal God but rather a human creature, it follows that Adam lives in submission to God. (Genesis 2: 15-17; Genesis 3: 9-11)
As a young student, before Wikipedia, we were taught the Catholic position that Adam’s human nature was not the same nature as God…without ever opening a Bible. Since there was only one God according to Catholicism, in the relationship between God and human, it would be Adam the human who would be submissive to God and not the reverse.
If it is possible to truly understand the difference in status between God and Adam, then it is possible to analyze punishment and banishment in relationship to a God Who loves humans as they are in their own human nature.
Perhaps, we need to go back to the beginning of human history to learn that humans are not Gods (plural intended because of the unity of humankind).
Comments?
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OneSheep
Guest
What I am saying is fully rooted in relationship. The creation story leaves a person with the impression that God is somehow disappointed in us, that He has taken something away from us because of our behaviors.
God is not disappointed in us. Not the Abba I know.
As I said above, my relationship with God is not colored by God being disappointed in me. This is a very “basic meaning” to me. Is it against the Catholic view to believe in a God who loves and forgives us unconditionally? A God who is infinitely patient with His creation? Did we ever “fall out of God’s grace?”. Has anyone ever fallen out of your grace? When someone falls out of our grace, our call is to forgive. Sure, punishment has its place. “Falling out of grace” has much more of a begrudging tone.
I think it is much more complex than that. We are nothing without God, but God gives us autonomy. It is a very bizarre mystery. Our individuality in the context of total connectedness is beyond my ability to imagine. God doesn’t want puppets. Words to describe relationship are not limited to submission vs equality.
O
OneSheep
Guest
There is much more to “knowing” than knowing the difference between right and wrong. The crowd that hung Jesus “knew” they were right, and there were leaders there who “knew” the same. Did the crowd know of the value of Jesus? No. Why? Because they were blinded by their angry condemnation.
The people did not grasp the consequence because they did not see Jesus’ value. When we are condemning people, we are blind to their value… even when we think we are doing what is “right”.
Well, I am trying to focus in on what can be attributed to satan. Does our capacity to defy come from Satan? Why does the human defy authority? Where does the defiance come from?
Jesus does forgive all of our sins. If it doesn’t seem that way, then work on weeding out the contradictions. I do this.I’m trying to understand how we know Jesus as the forgiver of all sin’s, yet in the beginning it didn’t seem to be that way, God seem to favorite (if thats the right word) some people as they were more rightous than other’s, but Jesus tells us different. And thank God for him!!
What does this “salvation” look like? Is it the “magic” of a man dying to pay for all the bad stuff we do? Or is a magic of showing the world that God loves us unconditionally, calls for our repentance, and asks us to forgive everyone? Is it the magic that we can see God’s presence in every living person?
The answer is going to depend on relationship. If we are feeling really down about all the bad stuff we have ever done, then the payment idea is going to be salvific. However, if we truly forgive all of our own past behaviors, as well as the behaviors of everyone else, this payment idea no longer makes sense.
So, are you saying the capacity to disobey came from satan? If so, does every decision to disobey come from satan?
Let me provide an alternative: The capacity to defy authority comes from God.
God wants us to be free, and in order to be free, we have to have the capacity to defy. If we don’t, we are puppets. People always intend well, but we have blindness and ignorance, as did Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve meant well, but desire blinded them of God’s “needs”, and from what we know they certainly did not know the ramifications of their behavior. What do you think?
In this case, the “lie” boils down to human blindness to the truth of God’s “need”. Desire blocks our empathy.
Are you starting to see that all of this involves reconciling with what we are as humans? Can we forgive, and accept as gifts, all of our drives and capacities? Can we forgive our own ignorance?
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grannymh
Guest
My apology for taking so long to recognize the faulty assumption in this interesting answer to the question about taking the Bible literally.
A person once asked the priest who conducted our Bible study, “are we to take the Bible literally?” He answered, “yes, we are to take the Bible literally, unless there appears to be a contradiction.”
This faulty assumption is that the appearance of a contradiction is independent of any circumstances.
I have been told, I have never tried it, that when one looks at part of a stick dipped in water that the stick appears to be bent. This is a contradiction to the way the stick appears when totally out of water.
myn-is-me.hubpages.com/question/168096/why-does-a-stick-appear-bent-if-part-of-it-is-immersed-in-water
Water is the circumstance (condition) for the appearance of the bent stick.
If I were presented with an event such as Christ teaching His audience about forgiveness and asked if Christ’s words contradicted God’s reaction to the sin of Adam, it would be absolutely necessary to consider the conditions, circumstances, of both events.
The lesson to be learned from the appearance of a bent stick in water which is a contradiction to the appearance of the stick above water is that we need to go below the surface (pun intended) of Christ’s words and God’s reaction.
Truly,
your personal relationship with God is not part of my response to the question of a contradiction, as posed in the above comment. “yes, we are to take the Bible literally, unless there appears to be a contradiction.”
This is evinced by my example of two appearances of the same stick which appear as a contradiction. Neither you nor I can be considered sticks or even compared to sticks because we are both spiritual and material with the emphasis on our spiritual soul.
The point of the “bent stick” example is that regardless of which Scripture verses are being examined, there comes a time when we need to examine the circumstances or conditions which give the appearance of a contradiction.
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grannymh
Guest
What I am hearing in so many of your posts is that you are encountering Jesus on a personal spiritual basis. That should be the goal for all of us.
What concerns me is beyond personal relationships with God, mine as well as yours.
What concerns me is that a faulty understanding of Original Sin can hamper some peoples’ conceptions of their own spirituality. Faulty perceptions about Original Sin can lead to an attack on the goodness of God. For example. This question from post 1. “Why are we held accountable for something someone did 1000s of years ago?” I cannot speak for the OP; however there have been enough posts in other forums which imply or assume that God must be a very bad God.
Can doubts about God’s goodness affect spirituality by clouding the understanding of God? Personally, I consider that yes is a possible answer. One possibility is that the concept of coercion or whatever lessons the Catholic doctrine of free will. We use our free will to love God. Our natural “appetite” is to share in the goodness of God. It is a fact of wounded human nature that “appetites” can also lead to bad choices. Our spiritual, rational intellect and will need to be recognized and put into action.
Yes, free will, along with rational thought, is a capacity of our spiritual soul. But free will is a lot more than the capacity to defy. Free will either affirms or carries out the choice made by our intellect in regard to three different types of actions. Do we 1. do the desired act or do we 2. not do the desired act or do we 3. wait for additional information before choosing a specific action.
Life can be a constant battle. (CCC 407-409 under the title “A hard battle…”)
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fhansen
Guest
But is He disappointed by human sin? Does He want His will to be done-or does He prefer that the rapist’s will be done instead? Does He not have the right to ultimately require righteousness from His creation-for it to be the way He created it to be?
He’s incomparably patient-and loves us unconditionally-but at some point light has no place with darkness and the wheat will be separated from the chaff.
S
simpleas
Guest
QUOTE=OneSheep;11220390]There is much more to “knowing” than knowing the difference between right and wrong. The crowd that hung Jesus “knew” they were right, and there were leaders there who “knew” the same. Did the crowd know of the value of Jesus? No. Why? Because they were blinded by their angry condemnation.
The people did not grasp the consequence because they did not see Jesus’ value. When we are condemning people, we are blind to their value… even when we think we are doing what is “right”.
Well, I am trying to focus in on what can be attributed to satan. Does our capacity to defy come from Satan? Why does the human defy authority? Where does the defiance come from?
Jesus does forgive all of our sins. If it doesn’t seem that way, then work on weeding out the contradictions. I do this.
What does this “salvation” look like? Is it the “magic” of a man dying to pay for all the bad stuff we do? Or is a magic of showing the world that God loves us unconditionally, calls for our repentance, and asks us to forgive everyone? Is it the magic that we can see God’s presence in every living person?
The answer is going to depend on relationship. If we are feeling really down about all the bad stuff we have ever done, then the payment idea is going to be salvific. However, if we truly forgive all of our own past behaviors, as well as the behaviors of everyone else, this payment idea no longer makes sense.
So, are you saying the capacity to disobey came from satan? If so, does every decision to disobey come from satan?
Let me provide an alternative: The capacity to defy authority comes from God.
God wants us to be free, and in order to be free, we have to have the capacity to defy. If we don’t, we are puppets. People always intend well, but we have blindness and ignorance, as did Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve meant well, but desire blinded them of God’s “needs”, and from what we know they certainly did not know the ramifications of their behavior. What do you think?
In this case, the “lie” boils down to human blindness to the truth of God’s “need”. Desire blocks our empathy.
Are you starting to see that all of this involves reconciling with what we are as humans? Can we forgive, and accept as gifts, all of our drives and capacities? Can we forgive our own ignorance?
We have a capacity to defy. To defy an authority would depend on who’s authority it is.
If say a government authority instructs the people to only have one child per family and abort any other children, we would defy that authority out of the goodness that we know comes from God that all life is precious.
To agree with that authority would be going against God and siding with what is evil (satan).
Do you believe that there is such a person/angel called satan?
I believe there is because of how the bible and our catholic teaching tells us. I mean if Adam and Eve were blinded by their desire to be like God without satan tempting them, then they were defient from the very start, which doesn’t make sense to me, because how i see the story, they were the perfect human’s, in mind, body and spirit. Satan destroyed their relationship with God by tricking them into believing him.
So in some case’s I say yes God gave us defience to be able to do Good, but Satan can use our defience to do evil also, in some case’s, not all.
I understand that Jesus forgives our sin’s. What i am trying to understand, is how the writer’s in the O.T show God to be angry at people who did not live by the law etc and he saw fit to wipe them out. On the other hand Jesus shows us a more loving God, who will not only love us, but free us of the sin we inherited, and raise us up on the last day.
I need to work on this more so I will someday understand the O.T with the N.T.
Can we forgive ourselves? I don’t know, you say all our desire’s are good, but we’re told our desire’s that not routed in God’s word are bad. So depending on how much we desire something/one we are separating ourselves from God.
How many of us ignore our desire for something? Do we feel separate from God even if we believe what we desire is good.
Free will comes into play, like you say we are not puppets, we have heard the word of God from O.T to N.T so we have to make our own minds up to what is for good and what is for evil.
hope what i’ve written makes some kind of sense to you, as i’m rambling and tried out…
:yawn:
The people did not grasp the consequence because they did not see Jesus’ value. When we are condemning people, we are blind to their value… even when we think we are doing what is “right”.
Well, I am trying to focus in on what can be attributed to satan. Does our capacity to defy come from Satan? Why does the human defy authority? Where does the defiance come from?
Jesus does forgive all of our sins. If it doesn’t seem that way, then work on weeding out the contradictions. I do this.
What does this “salvation” look like? Is it the “magic” of a man dying to pay for all the bad stuff we do? Or is a magic of showing the world that God loves us unconditionally, calls for our repentance, and asks us to forgive everyone? Is it the magic that we can see God’s presence in every living person?
The answer is going to depend on relationship. If we are feeling really down about all the bad stuff we have ever done, then the payment idea is going to be salvific. However, if we truly forgive all of our own past behaviors, as well as the behaviors of everyone else, this payment idea no longer makes sense.
So, are you saying the capacity to disobey came from satan? If so, does every decision to disobey come from satan?
Let me provide an alternative: The capacity to defy authority comes from God.
God wants us to be free, and in order to be free, we have to have the capacity to defy. If we don’t, we are puppets. People always intend well, but we have blindness and ignorance, as did Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve meant well, but desire blinded them of God’s “needs”, and from what we know they certainly did not know the ramifications of their behavior. What do you think?
In this case, the “lie” boils down to human blindness to the truth of God’s “need”. Desire blocks our empathy.
Are you starting to see that all of this involves reconciling with what we are as humans? Can we forgive, and accept as gifts, all of our drives and capacities? Can we forgive our own ignorance?
We have a capacity to defy. To defy an authority would depend on who’s authority it is.
If say a government authority instructs the people to only have one child per family and abort any other children, we would defy that authority out of the goodness that we know comes from God that all life is precious.
To agree with that authority would be going against God and siding with what is evil (satan).
Do you believe that there is such a person/angel called satan?
I believe there is because of how the bible and our catholic teaching tells us. I mean if Adam and Eve were blinded by their desire to be like God without satan tempting them, then they were defient from the very start, which doesn’t make sense to me, because how i see the story, they were the perfect human’s, in mind, body and spirit. Satan destroyed their relationship with God by tricking them into believing him.
So in some case’s I say yes God gave us defience to be able to do Good, but Satan can use our defience to do evil also, in some case’s, not all.
I understand that Jesus forgives our sin’s. What i am trying to understand, is how the writer’s in the O.T show God to be angry at people who did not live by the law etc and he saw fit to wipe them out. On the other hand Jesus shows us a more loving God, who will not only love us, but free us of the sin we inherited, and raise us up on the last day.
I need to work on this more so I will someday understand the O.T with the N.T.
Can we forgive ourselves? I don’t know, you say all our desire’s are good, but we’re told our desire’s that not routed in God’s word are bad. So depending on how much we desire something/one we are separating ourselves from God.
How many of us ignore our desire for something? Do we feel separate from God even if we believe what we desire is good.
Free will comes into play, like you say we are not puppets, we have heard the word of God from O.T to N.T so we have to make our own minds up to what is for good and what is for evil.
hope what i’ve written makes some kind of sense to you, as i’m rambling and tried out…
:yawn:
G
grannymh
Guest
My apology for taking so long to recognize the faulty assumption in this interesting answer to the question about taking the Bible literally.
A person once asked the priest who conducted our Bible study, “are we to take the Bible literally?” He answered, "yes, we are to take the Bible literally, unless there appears to be a contradiction.
The faulty assumption here is similar to other versions of the “contradiction” ploy which attempts to eliminate awkward doctrines like the ones on Original Sin.
This faulty assumption is that the appearance of a contradiction is totally independent of any circumstances or context.
I have been told, I have never tried it, that when one looks at part of a stick dipped in water that the stick appears to be bent. This is a direct contradiction to the way the stick appears when totally out of water.
http://myn-is-me.hubpages.com/quest...ppear-bent-if-part-of-it-is-immersed-in-water
Water is the circumstance (condition or context) for the appearance of the bent stick. Dry land is the circumstance (condition or context) for the straight appearance of the same stick. Once we look for circumstances and find the appropriate ones, we can then evaluate whether or not a single stick can have a contradiction with itself.
If I were presented with an event such as Christ teaching His audience about forgiveness and subsequently asked if Christ’s words contradicted God’s reaction to the sin of Adam, it would be absolutely necessary to consider the conditions, circumstances, context of both events.
The lesson to be learned from the appearance of a bent stick in water which is a contradiction to the appearance of the stick above water is that we need to go below the surface (pun intended) of Christ’s words and God’s reaction to Original Sin. We should not choose a quote from Jesus’ teaching and simply declare that His words present a contradiction to God’s response to Adam’s Original Sin. Like the presence of water or land, we have to look at the circumstances of both events, the words of Jesus and the banishment of Adam from the Garden of Eden.
A person once asked the priest who conducted our Bible study, “are we to take the Bible literally?” He answered, "yes, we are to take the Bible literally, unless there appears to be a contradiction.
The faulty assumption here is similar to other versions of the “contradiction” ploy which attempts to eliminate awkward doctrines like the ones on Original Sin.
This faulty assumption is that the appearance of a contradiction is totally independent of any circumstances or context.
I have been told, I have never tried it, that when one looks at part of a stick dipped in water that the stick appears to be bent. This is a direct contradiction to the way the stick appears when totally out of water.
http://myn-is-me.hubpages.com/quest...ppear-bent-if-part-of-it-is-immersed-in-water
Water is the circumstance (condition or context) for the appearance of the bent stick. Dry land is the circumstance (condition or context) for the straight appearance of the same stick. Once we look for circumstances and find the appropriate ones, we can then evaluate whether or not a single stick can have a contradiction with itself.
If I were presented with an event such as Christ teaching His audience about forgiveness and subsequently asked if Christ’s words contradicted God’s reaction to the sin of Adam, it would be absolutely necessary to consider the conditions, circumstances, context of both events.
The lesson to be learned from the appearance of a bent stick in water which is a contradiction to the appearance of the stick above water is that we need to go below the surface (pun intended) of Christ’s words and God’s reaction to Original Sin. We should not choose a quote from Jesus’ teaching and simply declare that His words present a contradiction to God’s response to Adam’s Original Sin. Like the presence of water or land, we have to look at the circumstances of both events, the words of Jesus and the banishment of Adam from the Garden of Eden.
O
OneSheep
Guest
I am reminded again of something the priest told us in Bible class, which I will paraphrase. He said that if a person’s concept of Jesus was that Jesus was, for example, cruel or bigoted, that the person would be better off not believing in Jesus. What the priest said, to me, obviously referred to the God that was being presented by so many televangelists.
All we can do is continue to promote God’s love as we know it, and continue in prayer.
I agree, free will is much more than the capacity to defy. The problem with the intellect is #3. How does one know what one doesn’t know? How does one know when one has gathered all the information possible? The answer is, we don’t. We have no way of knowing when we have overcome our blindness and ignorance.
What we can do is always remember to forgive. Forgiveness defeats all condemnation-induced blindness. Prayer, guidance by the spirit, will defeat all blindness induced by desire. But the ignorance… well, ignorance takes patience. We are, for some reason, born ignorant. I think God has a lot of patience with our ignorance.
Repentance can truly be a battle. Ultimately, though, peace can be found through reconciling within. Jesus said, “Peace be with you”. This peace is within reach.
O
OneSheep
Guest
All very personal. Is God disappointed with my sin? I have forgiven my own sins. In doing so, my own guilt has been sometimes replaced with a sadness, but the image I have of a disappointed or condemning God disappears.
I agree, there is a creation that God wants-for-it-to-be. My eyes tell me that we are headed there. It takes a lot of patience. It is a lot of two steps forward and one step back. I totally agree with the Holy Father on this matter. God has worked through the civil rights movement, through erasing xenophobia and racism. It is happening.
When we die, I truly believe that our eyes are opened. People who rape and murder are blind.
O
OneSheep
Guest
Let’s ask the question: If a person decides to abort a child when the government says that they have to, why do they do so? They do not do so in order to side with satan, unless they believe that their own government is evil, and evil is to be followed. No, they submit to authority because they believe that the authority is right for all the reasons the law is there in the first place. The other option is that they do indeed see their government as evil and abort because of fear of their government. So, you can see that in either case there is no bad intent. In both cases, they are not siding with what they see as “evil”.
This would take a very long answer. Let’s put it this way: I agree with St. Augustine who said that whatsoever exists in any way is good.
So, you are seeing defiance as an imperfection? The capacity to defy is in itself a gift. Were Adam and Eve “defiant from the start”? We have no evidence of that. We can certainly say that they were created with the capacity to defy, I see no reason to believe that they wanted to defy God from the beginning, though.
So, God creates man with the capacity to defy, and knows that man will defy him. Afterwards, God banishes man from Eden for doing exactly what He knew man was going to do. In this case, God wants us to collectively feel guilty for being human.
Here is the other option: The creation story is an attempt to explain the difference between humans and other animals. First of all, humans have a conscience. How? It has happened because we have eaten from the tree of knowledge. Now God says “man has become like one of us”. Never mind the polytheistic implication, but now we have the ability to judge good and evil. Inherent with the capacity to judge good vs evil is that man has the capacity to condemn himself and condemn others, which leads to guilt and a multitude of other problems that other species do not ordinarily experience. Is having a conscience worth it? Absolutely, it is our capacity to judge and desire to punish wrongdoing that has helped moderate our behaviors. Did we get “tricked” into getting a conscience? Does that make sense? No, the story simply reflects that in getting a conscience, we have other problems to deal with, and we can understandably resent our own conscience. We judge our capacity to judge.
It is a fascinating story, really. There is so much packed into it.
Many ancient cultures had superstitions about angry gods. Here in America, people were sacrificed to appease angry gods. When things go wrong for us, it is very easy to conclude that God is angry with us. We are always seeking cause and effect.I understand that Jesus forgives our sin’s. What i am trying to understand, is how the writer’s in the O.T show God to be angry at people who did not live by the law etc and he saw fit to wipe them out. On the other hand Jesus shows us a more loving God, who will not only love us, but free us of the sin we inherited, and raise us up on the last day.
I need to work on this more so I will someday understand the O.T with the N.T.
It sounds like you are sorting it out. Prayer helps a lot. If we follow Jesus’ commandments, to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, all of the law falls into place.
O
OneSheep
Guest
Absolutely, everything has to be read in context. However, sometimes even in context there are contradictions. When there are enough people who find the same contradiction, then those concerns need to be addressed. As you have said before, we don’t want to present anything that leads us to doubt God’s love.
For example, there is such a contradiction situated in a single chapter in the gospel. Jesus tells us that we are to forgive our neighbor an infinite number of times, and then tells a story about how a master only forgives his servant once, and then sends the servant off for torture and prison when he doesn’t forgive a fellow servant. So, God wants us to forgive people an infinite number of times, but only forgives us once?
The story of the master and the servant needs a lot of explanation, and the priest who led our Bible study did just that. The bottom line is that even though God forgives us an infinite number of times, our conscience will continue to torture us. And, in context, the people Jesus was addressing believed that if they felt guilty, God was mad at them. Jesus emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, because as long as we do not forgive everyone, including ourselves, we will never know that God forgives us infinitely. If we do not forgive, we will continue to be imprisoned by the perception that God doesn’t forgive some of our sins, because we psychologically project on God what we ourselves do. Belief in a conditionally loving God leads to scrupulosity and general guilt, which is torture. Unconditional forgiveness is extremely important.
Do you see how this relates to the whole theme here? God has given us a conscience, but God is not to be equated with our conscience. Our consciences condemn and condone, but God always loves us, unconditionally. The creation story, I believe, is partly an attempt to explain the origin of human conscience.
F
fhansen
Guest
So do you believe that salvation is universal-no reason, on man’s part, to change or cooperate in his being changed?
- Status