Supernatural: Catholic and Non-Catholic

[Servant19]

The wolves that you claim infested Christianity from the outset also claimed the same thing…basically as your…Baha’u’llah…so how does one distinguish which of the wolves speaks the truth?

By their fruits…

Maybe also looking at the full context of the 1John 4 passage you quoted will also assist you in answering your question

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[Servant19]

Servant19;12538970:

Servant19, it would take the Vatican 5 seconds to determine that He and Jesus are not one, but that Baha’u’llah was not even close to being a Saint.

Lol

These statements make me pray for you harder than ever before.

Would you mind showing me what act of Baha’u’llah was unsaintly?

Actually you can start another thread. That would be way off topic…

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[Gary_Sheldrake]

From PRmerger;

With this imagery, Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone. The man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can understand and accept God’s commands. And he possesses an extremely far-reaching freedom, since he can eat “of every tree of the garden”. But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt before the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, for it is called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in the acceptance of that law. God, who alone is good, knows perfectly what is good for man, and by virtue of his very love proposes this good to man in the commandments.

Good Evening PR Merger: This sounds rater counterintuitive to me, because to accept the moral laws as given by God, one would have to know that to accept them is good and not to accept them is evil, and in so doing, humankind would have to have the knowledge imparted by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Otherwise it seems there would be no way of knowing that to disobey is evil.

Essentially: the human person does not get to declare “this is good!” and “this is evil!” The job of the human person is to discern what already is good and evil.

I don’t think that good can be known except by contrast with evil, nor can evil be known except in contrast to good. Good and evil seem to be existential imperatives to one another. While a fish may be in water its whole life, it probably knows nothing of the concept of water because it has never been out of the water. Can wet be known without knowing dry?

Thank you,
Gary

 

[PRmerger]

Good Evening PR Merger: This sounds rater counterintuitive to me, because to accept the moral laws as given by God, one would have to know that to accept them is good and not to accept them is evil, and in so doing, humankind would have to have the knowledge imparted by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why must the knowledge be imparted from the tree? confused

Isn’t the knowledge already written in our hearts…by God?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

While some miracles are intended to serve as signs, this should not be taken to mean that there is no other reason for why a particular miracle occurred. God flipping the pyramids upside down would indeed be a “sign”, but this sort of event is not at all likely to occur for the simple reason that there is no love in such an ostentatious display. There are many Saints of whom little or none is written who experienced private supernatural phenomena. A miracle can serve as a sign, but that is not necessarily the primary reason why it happens. When a mystic survives on solely the Eucharist for years on end, it isn’t because God decided, “Okay, I’ll let her survive without food or water for several decades, that’ll make the rest of them faithful.” No, there is first and foremost a divine principal behind the phenomena. If a holy person can live on communion, it is because the Eucharist is actually nourishing them. They are receiving its full benefits, more than any of us receive, and thus they can both spiritually and physically live on the Body of Christ. In this case, the miracle does not depend on whether they are observed or not. Similarly, if a holy person levitates, it isn’t primarily because God wants to impress us. Even demons can make people levitate. If a holy person levitates, it is because their spiritual longing for Heaven is* actually* drawing up “towards” Heaven. There is love but there is also a logical underpinning to every miracle.

I hope all is well with you today. I have had some exposure to non-Christian thought, and can attest that other religions (Hindus in particular) commonly have saints who go decades without eating, and they have no knowledge of the Eucharist. Hindus also have saints who don’t rot. One was documented by the mortuary in Los Angeles where his body was taken. He sat up straight for over a month and didn’t decay until he was finally put in a glass coffin of some sort from what I understand. I cannot explain why such things happen, but they seem to happen independently of Christianity, and some of these religions have been at it for many thousands of years before Christianity or even Judaism. My conclusion is that there is a good deal of flux in human metabolisms in regard to eating, and such things as decomposition have a lot to do with conditions pre and post mortem.

If the bodies of certain Saints are Incorruptible and others are not, we can be reasonably confident that this means some are meant to serve as signs, but that regardless of whether a Saint is preserved or not, that there is a logical principle behind Incorruptibility itself. For example, when a Eucharistic miracle occurs, the accidents of the Host will transform into heart tissue and blood. This does not mean that “normal” consecrated Hosts are not the actual Body, Blood and Divinity of Christ. The same miracle occurs, whether it is visible to us or not. But sometimes, it can be used as a sign, thus increasing its glory as it becomes a conduit of God’s love. I believe we can apply this logic to Incorruptibility and other miracles as well. In other words, if a Saint’s body rots instantly that does not preclude him from having attained great sanctity during his life. If someone is Incorruptible, it means God chose to reveal an aspect of reality that is ordinarily hidden to us, but not to Him. The miracle, rather than being thought of the byproduct of God arbitrarily and whimsically changing the laws of nature, is to be interpreted as a revelation of nature.

I am still not convinced that a supreme being would chose such ambiguous means of making itself known. Bodies rot at different rates based on a lot of factors and naturally mummification is known to occur across all cultures regardless of such things as religion.

So to go back to your initial queries, I’d suggest it’s a bit of both. It seems reasonable to believe that there exists a divine law or principle which perfectly explains the miraculous but which lies beyond our mortal comprehension, and also that God determines which of these occurrences are suitable to serve as signs, and thus chooses whether to make them visible to us or not.

There is a good deal of uncertainty in this world. One of the most desperate of uncertainties for many people is God itself if we are honest, and I like to be honest. Knowing this, why would God play at such things as partial miracles where some saints rot a little less than others. I wonder if such things are perhaps overblown by we humans out of desperation.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t think that good can be known except by contrast with evil, nor can evil be known except in contrast to good. Good and evil seem to be existential imperatives to one another. While a fish may be in water its whole life, it probably knows nothing of the concept of water because it has never been out of the water. Can wet be known without knowing dry?

Thank you,
Gary

Maybe not in our fallen state. But knowledge of good and evil could have been “seen” without experiencing evil in the Garden before the fall.

Do you think that angels who have the beatific vision have no knowledge of good and evil, even without experiencing evil?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

From: PRmerger

Maybe not in our fallen state. But knowledge of good and evil could have been “seen” without experiencing evil in the Garden before the fall.

Then why would there be a need to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in order to know evil if the ability to know good and evil existed before eating from the tree?

Do you think that angels who have the beatific vision have no knowledge of good and evil, even without experiencing evil?

If they have no evil, why would they need to know it?

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Why must the knowledge be imparted from the tree? confused

Isn’t the knowledge already written in our hearts…by God?

You had mentioned the tree being the source of that knowledge in your post that I was replying to. I replied following that line of reasoning because it was the line of reasoning you had offered. In my opinion, there never was such a tree. I think it’s the lore of an ancient culture, but since you mentioned it, I replied about it as if it were so.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[pablope]

Quote:
Originally Posted by pablope View Post
The wolves that you claim infested Christianity from the outset also claimed the same thing…basically as your…Baha’u’llah…so how does one distinguish which of the wolves speaks the truth?

 

[PRmerger]

You had mentioned the tree being the source of that knowledge in your post that I was replying to.

No. God is that source.

The act of eating from the tree was an act of attempted usurpation of that source.

But the tree is not the source of knowledge of good and evil anymore than the Bible is.

 

[PRmerger]

Then why would there be a need to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in order to know evil if the ability to know good and evil existed before eating from the tree?

It was an act of usurpation. Attempted and futile, but an act nonetheless.

If they have no evil, why would they need to know it?

Thank you,
Gary

I don’t understand the question. Evil exists, and has existed since the beginning of creation.

Why would the angels be ignorant of it?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

No. God is that source.

The act of eating from the tree was an act of attempted usurpation of that source.

QUOTE]

Good Evening PR Merger: Can you explain why the post you originally shared referred to the tree as the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” if it wasn’t at least a conduit of such knowledge?

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

It was an act of usurpation. Attempted and futile, but an act nonetheless.

Good Evening PR Merger: It sounds as though you are saying that eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was an act of usurpation. An act of usurpation against God is ostensibly evil by nature I would think. How would someone who had not eaten from Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil have know what was evil and what was not before they had eaten from the fabled tree? How should we suppose that they would be accountable for doing wrong without knowing what was wrong and what was not? Earnest question.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Servant19]

Fruit…what fruits? There are many that bring good fruits…that does not mean they are the true ones coming from the one Divine Trinity.

 

[PRmerger]

Good Evening PR Merger: Can you explain why the post you originally shared referred to the tree as the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” if it wasn’t at least a conduit of such knowledge?

Thank you,
Gary

Right. A conduit. Not the source.

I think that almost every example we can conjure of conduits points to them NOT being a source.

They are merely…er…conduits.

 

[PRmerger]

Good Evening PR Merger: It sounds as though you are saying that eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was an act of usurpation. An act of usurpation against God is ostensibly evil by nature I would think. How would someone who had not eaten from Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil have know what was evil and what was not before they had eaten from the fabled tree?

I think your error lies in thinking that this Tree is the source of knowledge of good and evil.

It was not.

As stated earlier, (ad nauseum by now, I think): the Tree is not the source of knowledge of good and evil.

No more than the Bible is the source of God’s revelation.

We already had infused in our hearts the knowledge of Good and Evil.

By trying to eat from this Tree, something A and E already knew was wrong and immoral, they were attempting to say: we don’t have to discern what’s good and evil. We get to *determine *what’s good and evil.

 

[pablope]

Common…you view only one God…and you spend time in your posts defending Bahaullah as a manifestation of God…in this Satan has succeeded.

I totally affirm that Jesus is the Son of God, so I have no idea what you are talking about giving me sayings about Satan etc…

But you do not acknowledge Jesus as God…as part of the Trinity. As I said, the main aim of Satan is to deny Jesus as God…in this regard, with your beliefs…Satan has succeeded.

By fruits, we are talking about the fruits of the Person. What were the fruits of Jesus? Then compare that with Baha’u’llah’s fruits.

As I said, Satan can give you good fruits and one bad fruit…that you are espousing the one bad fruit desire by Satan…look at your statement…you are questioning the fruits of Jesus and comparing that with Bahaullan…in this, Satan has succeeded.

 

[Servant19]

I acknowledge that Jesus was the second Person in the Trinity, but I do not see the Trinity as God. I see the God as God, just like Judaism, just like Hinduism, just like Islam and just like the Baha’i Faith. I see Jesus as His Son. Nowhere does Jesus say He is God and worthy of worship…

You are saying therefore that Judaism is inspired by Satan?

Wow…

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[SAVINGRACE]

Guys this thread has been derailed. If you want to discuss/debate faiths please open another thread.

 

[Techno2000]

pablope;12545025:

I acknowledge that Jesus was the second Person in the Trinity, but I do not see the Trinity as God. I see the God as God, just like Judaism, just like Hinduism, just like Islam and just like the Baha’i Faith. I see Jesus as His Son. Nowhere does Jesus say He is God and worthy of worship…

Douay-Rheims Bible
Book Of Genesis
Chapter 3

Servant19… have you seen this before: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.