The Truth About God

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Carl:
GRYPHON

I like your thinking and writing style.

God bless,
Carl
Thanks! :tiphat:
 
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SpiritualSon:
…**

**But those know nothing about man, that he is just such as his life is, and that his life is such as his love is, both as to the interiors pertaining to his will and understanding and as to the exteriors pertaining to his body.His bodily form is merely the external form in which the interiors exhibit themselves in effect. ******Consequently, that the entire man is his own love. Nor do they know that the body lives not from itself, but from its spirit, and that a man’s spirit is his essential affection, and his spiritual body is nothing else than his affection in human form, such a form it appears after death. **
**… **

Harry
I’m curious, Harry… do you believe in the resurrection of the body?

In one respect, what you’re saying reminds of me of the adage: be careful of your thoughts, they become your actions, which become your habits, which become your character, which becomes your destiny. (Although the actual adage is much smoother!)

But on the other hand, the paragraph above seems to over-emphasize the spiritual aspect, and leave the material aspect of humanity entirely out of it.

How does this fit in with the resurrection of the body?
 
If authority was given to the Catholic Church than how come the Bishops and Priests not doing any miracles in the name of Jesus Christ? Peter and John did them.

All the Lord’s miracles, which were Divine because they signified the various states of those with whom the church was to be set up anew by the Lord.

When the blind received sight, it signified that they who had been in ignorance of truth should receive intelligence. When the deaf received hearing, it signified that they who had previously heard nothing about the Lord and the Word should hearken and obey; When the dead were raised, it signified that they who otherwise would spiritually perish would become living; and so on. This is meant by the Lord’s reply to the disciples of John, who sent them to ask whether He was the one that should come:
Tell John the things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead rise again, and the poor hear the gospel (Matt. 11:3-5).

Moreover, all the miracles related in the Word contain in them such things as belong to the Lord, to heaven, and to the church. This makes these miracles Divine, and distinguishes them from those which are not Divine.

When the disciples could not heal the lunatic, Jesus said unto them, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? and Jesus healed him; and He said to the disciples that they could not heal him by reason of their unbelief (Matt. 17:14).
Jesus came into His own country, and there they were offended in Him; and Jesus said, A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief (Matt.13:57, 58).

The Lord called the disciples “men of little faith” when they were unable to do miracles in His name, and He was unable to do miracles in His own country because of their unbelief, for the reason that while the disciples believed the Lord to be the Messiah or Christ, also the Son of God, and the prophet of whom it was written in the Word, yet they did not believe that He was Jehovah God in the Human, and that Jehovah the Father was in Him,as his soul and yet so far as they believed Him to be a man, and not at the same time the Father, His Divine to which omnipotence belongs could not be present with the disciples by faith,until the Holy Spirit descended upon them,and than they began to understand,because of this they started doing miracles in His name in Acts. The Holy Spirit is none other than the Lord teaching whoever believes Him to be the Divine Trinity.

For faith presents the Lord as present, as has been said above; but faith in Him as a man only does not present His Divine omnipotence as present. For the same reason those in the world at the present day who look to His Human alone and not at the same time to His Divine, as the Socinians and Arians do, cannot be saved.

Harry
 
From you:
No finite mind can comprehend the Infinite.

That is true.That’s why Jehovah God became Man under the name Jesus Christ. He became finite so that men will be able to understand Him. A second person from eternity,before creation was never sent.

**God is Infinite because He is Being and Existence in Himself, and because all things in the universe have their being and existence from Him.

That human reason is able from very many things in the created universe to recognize this will be made clear hereafter. But although the human mind is able from all this to acknowledge that the primal Being or primal Esse is infinite, it is nevertheless unable to comprehend what that Being is, and therefore can only define it as the infinite All and the Self-subsistent, and hence as the very and the only substance; and since nothing can be predicated of substance unless it has form, it is the very and only Form.

But what does this mean? It does not make clear what the infinite is.The human mind itself, even when in the highest degree analytical and exalted, is finite; and its finiteness is inseparable from it; and for this reason the human mind is wholly incapable of seeing the infinity of God as it is in Itself of seeing God. Although it can from behind see God obscurely, as was said to Moses when he prayed to see God:
That he should be placed in a cleft of the rock, and should see His back parts (Exod. 33:20-23);

“the back parts of God” meaning what is visible in the world, and especially what is perceptible in the Word. All this shows how vain it is to wish to comprehend what God is in His Esse, or in His substance; and that it is sufficient to acknowledge Him from finite things, that is, from things created, in which He is infinitely.

Harry
**
 
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SpiritualSon:
If authority was given to the Catholic Church than how come the Bishops and Priests not doing any miracles in the name of Jesus Christ? Peter and John did them.

Harry
They perform the greatest of all miracles, every single day:

Every Catholic priest - from the pope to the local parish - performs the miracle of Transubstantiation every single day of his ministry.

There is no greater miracle than cooperating with God’s grace to give us the Eucharist.
 
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Gryphon:
They perform the greatest of all miracles, every single day:

Every Catholic priest - from the pope to the local parish - performs the miracle of Transubstantiation every single day of his ministry.

There is no greater miracle than cooperating with God’s grace to give us the Eucharist.
The greatest miracle is His Word. Life itself is a miracle. I use to be an alter boy back in the early 50’s,and all I saw was the Priest putting water and wine in a cup and drank it.I tried to stand on my toes to see what went on inside the cup,and I saw nothing but water and wine.They believe themselves to change bread and wine.From the Pope to the Priest none of them knows what bread and wine or flesh and blood of Jesus Christ means in the Word.

**"He who knows nothing of the internal or spiritual sense of the Word, knows no other than that ‘flesh and blood,’ when they are mentioned in the Word, mean flesh and blood.

But in the internal or spiritual sense, it does not treat of the life of the body, but of the life of man’s soul, that is, of his spiritual life, which he is to live to eternity.

This life is described in the literal sense of the Word, by things which belong to the life of the body, that is, by flesh and blood'; and as the spiritual life of man subsists by the good of love and the truth of faith, therefore in the internal sense of the Word the good of love is meant by flesh,’ and the truth of faith by blood.' These are understood by flesh and blood,’ and by bread and wine,' in heaven; for bread’ means altogether the same there as flesh,' and wine’ as `blood.’

They who are not spiritual men, do not apprehend this; let such abide therefore in their own faith, only believing that in the Holy Supper, and in the Word, there is holiness, because they are from the Lord, although they may not know where that holiness resides. On the other hand, let those who are endowed with interior perception, consider whether flesh' means flesh, and blood,’ blood, in the following passages.

In the Apocalypse:
I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a great voice, saying unto all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together to the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of Kings, and the flesh of commanders of thousands, and the flesh of the mighty, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all, free and bond, small and great (19:17,18).

Flesh and bread means love or charity.Blood and wine means truth or faith. When a person from the Lord has charity and faith in them there is a Holy Communion.To eat means to keep to oneself the Lord’s charity and faith,and live accord to the Commandments.

Harry

Harry
**
 
No miracles? “What is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or get up and walk.” Ponder that one.

No trinity? “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” not “this is me” or even “I Am” or “this is my beloved son, listen to him” not “Listen to me.” What about only the Father knows the day and the hour of the end, not I know it but it is not for oyu to know. What about I will send you another, a paraclete as well as I will be with you until then end of time.

Nevermind, you’ll just quote man to answer God.
 
You say you have a Catholic Bible, but obviously it is not the one you are fond of quoting from. My question was, specifically, which version of the Bible are you using. It helps us to know where exactly you are getting your words. Are you using a bible that was written specifically to affirm the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg? Just as the Jehovah’s Witnesses have rewritten the Bible to affirm the teachings of the Watchtower Society, so it seems your religion has done the same with your bible.

My answer: The Catholic Bible I have is a Memorial Edition Catholic Bible. I was my Grandmother’s Bible. She pass away in 1980,two years before my mother pass away. I do not know which Bible Swedenborg used. I also have King James Bible.

Harry
 
** More truth about God:
God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, and these two constitute His Divine Essence. Creation was done out of Divine Love or Divine Good by means of Divine Wisdom or Divine Truth,and not out of nothing. In the earliest ages it was seen that love and wisdom are the two essentials to which all the infinite things that are in God and proceed from God have reference.But succeeding ages, as they withdrew their minds from heaven and immersed them in things worldly and corporeal, gradually became unable to see this, for they gradually ceased to know what love is in its essence,and thus what wisdom is in its essence, not knowing that love abstracted from a form is impossible, and that love operates in a form and through a form,a Human Form, meaning that Jehovah God became finite,and Man under the name Jesus Christ.

Since, then, God is the Itself and the Only, and thus the first substance and form, the essence of which is love and wisdom, and since from Him were made all things that were made, it follows that He created the universe with each thing and all things of it from love by means of wisdom; consequently the Divine love, together with the Divine wisdom, is in each and all created subjects. Love, moreover, is not merely the essence that forms all things, it is also that which unites and conjoins them,and when they are formed, holds them in connection.

Harry

**
 
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hawkeye:
Saint Patrick bent down to pick up a little 3 leafed Shamrock to explain the Trinity to the Druids, they used to pray to the moon :whacky: 3 leaves one stem.
But have you ever asked yourself how could God remain in Heaven and still be on earth ?
When Jesus was on earth he prayed to the Father who was in Heaven, so obviously there had to be a second person.
But wait :hmmm: where is the third person, remember when the Holy Spirit decended on Jesus as a dove, and was heard from the Father, " This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased"
So in this scene we have 3 different persons, Jesus on the ground, God the Father speaking, and the Holy Spirit represented as a dove. So there we have it, staring me in the face all the time.
I rest my case :amen:
I have to say that I’m with you on this. I don’t see how anyone can conflict this, with all 3 personas being show right in scripture.
 
John 14 ( Vatican, New American Bible )
9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? **Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.**How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
**
11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.
**
12 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.
13 And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.
**
15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (8) to be with you always,
17 the Spirit of truth,** (9) which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.
DIVINUM ILLUD MUNUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON
THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Catholic Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity
  1. Before We enter upon this subject, it will be both desirable and useful to say a few words about the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity. This dogma is called by the doctors of the Church “the substance of the New Testament,” that is to say, the greatest of all mysteries, since it is the fountain and origin of them all. In order to know and contemplate this mystery, the angels were created in Heaven and men upon earth. In order to teach more fully this mystery, which was but foreshadowed in the Old Testament, God Himself came down from the angels unto men: “No man bath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He bath declared Him” (John i., 18). Whosoever then writes or speaks of the Trinity must keep before His eyes the prudent warning of the Angelic Doctor: “When we speak of the Trinity, we must do so with caution and modesty, for, as St. Augustine saith, nowhere else are more dangerous errors made, or is research more difficult, or discovery more fruitful” (Summ. Th. la., q. xxxi. De Trin. 1 L, c. 3). The danger that arises is lest the Divine Persons be confounded one with the other in faith or worship, or lest the one Nature in them be separated: for “This is the Catholic Faith, that we should adore one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.”

    "For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory for ever" (Rom. xi., 36), thereby signifying both the Trinity of Persons and the Unity of Nature: for as this is one and the same in each of the Persons, so to each is equally owing supreme glory, as to one and the same God. St. Augustine commenting upon this testimony writes: “The words of the Apostle, of Him, and by Him, and in Him are not to be taken indiscriminately; of Him refers to the Father, by Him to the Son, in Him to the Holy Ghost” (De Trin. 1. vi., c. 10; 1. i., c. 6).
www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_09051897_divinum-illud-munus_en.html
 
Frank Sheed explains the Trinity philosophically and expertly in “A Map of Life:” (Paraphrasing…)
The omnipotence of God, who is one, timeless, being is such that His idea is already objective reality.
The Father’s knowledge of Himself is perfect and complete.
His self-image, His idea of Himself IS the second Person, the Son, who proceeds from the Father.
The Father and the Son love each other perfectly, completely and in equal measure. The love shared between the Father and Son, that perfect, complete, unchanging, eternal idea IS the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father AND the Son.
It is the nature of God to be three persons.
 
Mike Rainville:
The Father loves the Son is the same as the Divine Soul of Jesus Christ loves the Divine Human in Him. The Divine and Human in Jesus Christ are one Person.

Harry
 
**The Lord made His Human Divine from the Divine in Himself called the Father, is evident from many passages of the Word, of which those shall be here adduced which confirm:

That this was done by successive steps:

Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit and in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him (Luke 2:40).

Jesus increased in wisdom, in age, and in grace with God and men (verse 52).

This means the Lord’s Divine Soul,which is the Father was teaching Him as He grew up.
That the Divine operated through the Human, as the soul does through the body:

The Son can do nothing from Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing (John 5:19).

Meaning the Human in the Lord connot operate with the Divine in Him called the Father.
I do nothing of Myself, but as My Father hath taught Me, I speak these things and He that hath sent Me is with Me He hath not left Me alone (John 8:28, 29; 5:30).

The Human of the Lord cannot do nothing of itself without the Divine in Him called the Father.

The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works (John 14:10).

The Divine Human in the Lord can’t do nothing of itself without the Divine Soul in Him called the Father

I am not alone, because the Father is with Me (John 16:32).

The Divine Human and the Divine Soul in the Lord called the Father are one Person.

That the Divine and Human operated unanimously:
What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise (John 5:19).

Whatever the Divine Human does the Divine Soul in the Lord called the Father does also.

As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will (John 5:21).

The Divine Soul in the Lord called the Father and the Divine Human as one raise up the dead.

As the Father hath life in Himself so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26).

The Divine Soul in the Lord called the Father gave life also to the Lord Divine Human.

Harry:thumbsup:
**
 
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hawkeye:
Saint Patrick bent down to pick up a little 3 leafed Shamrock to explain the Trinity to the Druids,…

So in this scene we have 3 different persons, Jesus on the ground, God the Father speaking, and the Holy Spirit represented as a dove. So there we have it, staring me in the face all the time.
I rest my case :amen:
I always liked the story of St. Patrick’s explanation. I’m pretty sure God put the shamrocks there on purpose to help Patrick make his case! 😃 Here’s how Sr. Marguerite in high school explained the Trinity to us:

God the Father, the Uncreated, is Spirit. Two of the primary things that spirits do (and the Uncreated One most of all) are: to Know and to Love.

God the Son is the Person who was begotten by God the Father’s omniscient, omnipotent Knowledge of Himself. Or, put another way, God the Son is God the Father’s Idea of Himself.

Because God is omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything… His Idea of Himself must perfectly reflect all those aspects of Himself - including an independent Personhood… thus the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, “proceeds from the Father.” And this Second Person of the Holy Trinity loves His Father eternally and infinitely…* God the Holy Spirit is the omniscient, omnipotent expression of the Love* between God the Father and God the Son. This Love is so perfect, so immense, that it is *perfectly unifying *so that the Three Persons are One God.

She finished up with: this is why there are three Persons in One God, sharing the same substance, infinitely and eternally united by the principle of Love.

Pretty deep for a freshmen religion class. But it made a lot of sense to me, since it explained how God could be “Love,” which requires relationship. There they all were: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from before the creation of the universe: co-eternal, co-equal, One God… Who is Love.

**I’d like to point out that this Trinity is not wholly reflected in the individual human person, as Harry would have us believe.

Humanity reflects the Divine Trinity in a different way. Remember that when God made Man in His image, “male and female He created them.

God needed both males and females to adequately reflect His image. The mystery of the male and female sexes, united by the unifying principle of love, is what it takes for humanity to reflect an image of the Trinitarian God.

Humanity thus demonstrates independent personhood (male and female) sharing the same substance (human dignity) united by committed love.

The other place where I have trouble with Harry’s theology is, his position is that there was no “God the Son” before the creation of the universe, and a humanity that needed redemption. I’m paraphrasing loosely here, but I think the argument goes: "Who needs God the Son to become human and redeem humanity, if humanity doesn’t exist yet?"

I’m not clear on all the details in my own mind… but it strikes me that saying God the Son wasn’t around until God came across a problem which required the Son, sets up a situation in which God’s Divinity developed through His Incarnation as man… a totally new aspect of Divinity called “the Son,” created just on purpose for redemption. This just seems to violate the basic definitive concept of God as an Entity Who is eternal and changeless, and not requiring humanity at all to add to His glory. God doesn’t develop. He just IS.

With the Holy Trinity… God the Son is *always *around - before time and the universe were created - and His entrance into time and space is for our development… not His.
 
um dude, if u are trying to “Spread the Truth” and get converts, i would just like to say, you seem to be losing.

YAHWEH bless, Bye! 🙂
 
The other place where I have trouble with Harry’s theology is, his position is that there was no “God the Son” before the creation of the universe, and a humanity that needed redemption. I’m paraphrasing loosely here, but I think the argument goes: "Who needs God the Son to become human and redeem humanity, if humanity doesn’t exist yet?"

All the bishops were summoning in 325 AD by the emperor Constantine the Great, in order that Arius and his followers, who denied the Divinity of Our Lord God the Saviour born of the Virgin Mary, should be convicted and condemned on the authority of scripture.

This they succeeded in doing, but in avoiding the wolf they ran into the lion. As the proverb has it, the man who seeks to avoid Charybdis runs into Scylla.

They devised the fiction of a Son of God from eternity, who came down and took upon Himself a human form, believing that they were claiming back and restoring His Divinity to the Lord.

The early church fathers did not know that Jehovah God the Father,the Creator of the universe came down Himself,under the name Jesus Christ, and was made Man, in order to do the works of redemption.

It is clearly stated in the Old Testament:

Am I not Jehovah, and there is no God beside Me? There is no righteous God and Saviour beside Me. Isa. 45:21, 22.

I am Jehovah, and there is no Saviour beside Me. Isa. 43:11.

I am Jehovah your God, and you are not to acknowledge any God beside Me, and there is no Saviour beside Me. Hosea 13:4.

The Human,which Jehovah God the Father sent Himself into the world is the Son of God. He put on a Human Form.

That’s why the Lord said, My Father and I are one." This means the Lord’s Divine Soul,which is the Father and the Human are one in the Lord.

In John 14 ,“He who sees Me sees the Father.” The Lord commanded us to take up the cross and follow Him. We are to look to the Lord,not the Father, because the Lord is the Father in the Human.

The Lord is the Father in the finite state.In that state,which is finite, man is able to understabd God. Man cannot understand God in the infinite.

This is being done by the church,as they look to the Father for the sake of the Son. That is the reason why the church is unable to understand the Divine Trinity.

The church saids,“We go to the Father because of the Lord’s Prayer, which saids,“Our Father” That prayer was meant that the Father’s Human should be acknowledge as the Son of God,which is meant by the words” Hollow be thy Name"

The Lord had asked the Father to glorify His name,which means the Lord had asked the Divine Soul in Himself,called the Father, to glorifiy the whole Human Form of Jesus Christ.

Harry
 
I know why statues of the virgin Mary bleed in the eyes.

The virgin Mary is a woman.According to the writings of Swedenborg the word woman in the Word means church.

The woman in Rev.12
A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet," signifies the Lord’s New Church in the heavens, which is the New Heaven, and the Lord’s New Church about to be upon earth, which is the New Jerusalem.

The bleeding statues of Mary means the Holy Word was made false by the church fathers today.Since your church believes Mary to be the mother of the church,therefore same statues of Mary bleed from the eye. The eyes bleeding mean the understanding is false.

Swedenborg saw a vision of a whore stand next to a dead horse,which means the falsification of truth practised by many people at the present time, which destroys all understanding of truth.The whore is meant by the falsification of the Holy Word, the dead horse the understanding of truth reduced to nothing. A whore,which is a woman, is a church that is false. Rev 17

Harry
 
This has been a fascinating discussion to read----wow, if there was ever a need to defend the necessity of an infallible teaching authority, this thread provides the evidence of just what odd sorts of ideas spring up when that authority is rejected.

But Harry, you haven’t really answered the question: just what is your authority to say that this interpretation is correct? Are you infallible? Was Swedenborg infallible? If so, how do you know? And if Swedenborg was infallible, how do I know that you are infallibly interpretating him? Are you capable of making mistakes of interepretation? Unless I can be assured that you have infallibiliy, wouldn’t I be very foolish to trade thousands of years of thought for concepts that are relatively in their infancy?
 
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SpiritualSon:
Swedenborg was the first to be taught by the Lord…
actually, if we’re going to think that J came down, spent 3 years teaching the apostles, sent the Holy Spirit to complete their instruction but that they messed it up anyway, mr swedenborg would not have been the first to be taught by the Lord. Daddy taught mohammed how the chruch had screwed up His teaching around 500 ad, long before swedenbord was born. you, spiritualson, may find the koran an interesting read. (i’m not recommending it for everyone.)
thanks for listening, love and peace, terry
 
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