Of the moral implications we’re discussing, of their relation to love, of my knowledge of love. There might be more that I could come to understand with further questioning but until I do that perhaps I won’t gain that understanding.
Tell that to the tens of millions executed by God himself or on God’s orders in the Bible
Then why were the children of Adam and Eve not permitted into the Garden? They were kicked out and their children were to remain in exile just like them. Death, misery and suffering awaited everyone outside of the Garden but none of that existed inside the Garden. If that does not mean that we share the curse with Adam and Eve, what does it mean?
Tell that to the Israelites that acted on God’s orders to slaughter ten’s of millions of men, women and children.
That is irrelevant, it is clear that God has no problem using people to kill others and no problem with causing the death of others. I’m not saying he treats everyone or plans to treat everyone this way, the Bible makes it as clear as day that God is fine with causing the death of humans for his own purposes, whatever they may be.
What of the people before Jesus? Did they not have the same privilege? Why not? Why don’t we have the right to share his life in heaven? Why did he create us and animals for that matter without that right?
This clarifies things, some. I still think we have a problem, though. I have no problem saying that “God is good” is a necessary truth. But it is quite a different thing to say that “God is good” is a tautology, because we identify goodness with God. If we say this latter thing, then “God is good” is not an evaluative or normative sentence at all; goodness becomes arbitrarily defined by the character of God. This is just as much voluntarism, so far as I can tell, as the statement that God created good.
Any thing has to be grounded somewhere. But goodness is not a thing. I agree that God is the paradigm of goodness, meaning that we might look to God in order to see what things are and are not good. But “God is good” is a truth about the world, not a truth about how we use words.
Sure, but thats not the point. He can take your life away and he will do so i.e. you are mortal.
No. This is not theologically correct. So unless you want to throw away all these things, I am not sure where you are trying to go with this.
Again, this not proper theology. The result of Adam’s sin was death.
Unless you want to take some biblical passages out, this is incorrect. There are numerous occasions in the story of Moses where God uses others to give justice to Canaanites and even dissident Israelites.
Well I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but we have been talking about an incident of the Old Testament.
Ok, your view above is Pelagianism and is a well known heresy. Please refer to the Council of Carthage and Council of Orange for reasons why no Catholic and hold your position.
Good is not an evaluative or normative sentence.
I am not sure whether this disagrees with what I am saying.
By thing, I do not mean a physical object. If one is to say “Murder is Evil” such a truth must be ontologically grounded. So either you have to say that “Murder is Evil” is just something we arbitrarily decided on or you cannot escape the need to ontologically ground the truth.
Ok I think I understand your position now. At first i thought you were advocating the command theory of morality. This position is a bit different than that and is very similar to William Lane Craigs position on the euthyphro.
You took this from Hebrews at the start of a section which is traditionally called “Faith of the Ancients.” The author is trying to help the reader deal with hardships that may happen in their life and assure them God is still trustworthy. If you read what follows in that section you will see the author explains how the ancients (O.T. figures) had underwent hardships and how God responded to that faith. So their faith (and Gods response) is indeed evidence for of things not seen – God.
I assume you mean the Canaanites??? Although I’m not sure how you arrive at the figure of 10s of millions. But either way.
I didn’t know you interpret the OT literally! Miracles never cease…
That our ancestors chose evil at some point in history.
I didn’t know you interpret the OT literally!
Redemption is not limited by time and space.
I am going to assume you are really sincere and honestly asking. So here is a resource that should get you started
I bolded some sections above which are pretty much 100% match with what you are saying.
The Catholic Church accepts evolution and according to you must also be guilty of Pelagianism! Quote:
False! I believe:
I am sorry Tony, but I thought you were being honest.
I agree and I never planned to give you a definition of faith, you proposed that I misunderstood the Christian concept of faith, so I tried to describe my understanding of it for you. Did the reference to Hebrews clear that up or do you feel that i am mistaken in some way?
The Bible makes it pretty clear, there were approximately 1.5 - 2.5 million Israelites and they polished off over ten civilizations that were reportedly larger and stronger than their own. The nations could have been ten times the size of the Israelites and we could be looking at hundreds of millions but it doesn’t specify beyond the “larger and stronger than” statement.
So you believe that because God gave life he has the right to take it away or treat that life however he wants whenever he wants? And you don’t see this as malevolent? Do you consider it benevolent? The torture before the lives of those that died ended was just OK because God has that right?
There are certainly parts that necessarily have to be taken allegorically, Genesis for one. But as far as I can tell, the majority of the OT is supposed to be considered like history. It certainly is written as if these things literally happened. Now I don’t believe for a second that they did but when I discuss their moral implications, I kind of have to present them as if they happened, if you would like, you could compare it to me discussing Harry Potter, I would tell you what Dumbledore did or didn’t do and I wouldn’t say after every sentence that this is just fiction to me because people would assume that.
And that the consequences of their actions remained with everybody else.
Both of the times you wrote this you dodged my statements. Do you take the OT literally? If you do think that most of the events described in the OT really happened then perhaps you could respond to my original statements.
So Jesus’ sacrifice was true for everybody, even those that died before the ‘sacrifice’? But as you said, people are still not born with the right to share heaven with God, why not?
I’ve never heard this interpretation before. In other words, you’re saying that Abraham misinterpreted G-d’s command? The traditional interpretation is that G-d was testing Abraham’s faith and free will to disobey G-d. This poses a problem in that it would mean that G-d was deceiving Abraham, which in Judaism is supposed to be the dominion of Satan. I don’t want to get into yet another discussion of the Jewish understanding of Satan, but basically Satan is thought of as being commanded by G-d to deceive and tempt mankind, while both Satan and G-d wish mankind to resist the deception. The basic issue still remains, however: is testing our free will and faith by means of deception on the part of Satan (under the command of G-d) or by G-d Himself considered something good?
Your explanation is as good as any, I suppose. One might also recognize the fact that G-d waited for the people (Canaanites and others) who were killed by the Israelites to be as evil as possible; they had reached the nadir of moral culpability. Still, there were also children who were slaughtered and this cannot be explained away so easily. The numbers killed (which in a rational sense should not matter so much) were also probably less than what the Hebrew Bible recounts since it is thought the Bible is purposely being overly dramatic to impress both Hebrews and Gentiles with the power of G-d. It still does not justify the killing entirely FROM A HUMAN PERSPECTIVE. Thus, one can always resort to the mystery and inscrutability of G-d by the human mind; however, since we are given the power of reason and logic, we are not completely satisfied with this response either. To make matters more perplexing, one sees in the Hebrew Bible that G-d Himself does not rejoice in the killing that He commands and enables: “Rejoice not when thine enemy falls” and several other such statements from G-d come to mind. I conclude that certain acts of G-d, Whom we accept as benevolent, are beyond our comprehension.
I am not being dishonest. You are seriously misguided:I am sorry Tony, but I thought you were being honest.
Pelagianism is not only those 6 thesis together. The idea was that each thesis was ERROR.
You my friend in numerous posts before stated that Original sin DOES NOT lead to death but only a spiritual one.
Ex:
Post #108, when I claimed result of Adam’s sin was death, you said** NO it was only spiritual death and death was present before.
**
Post #99, to my claim After all, everyone deserves death as a result of original sin, CORRECT?
You said: No! We are not culpable because our ancestors sinned.
The above amounts to thesis (1), (2), and (4) in the list deemed as heresy which I presented in my previous post.
I could go on and on but you get the point. So please don’t be dishonest. I corrected you not as an insult but because you were in error.
I appreciate some honesty from people I argue, especially when they say they are Catholic.
God Bless
Please explain why these statements are heretical: