There's something i can't understand

[fhansen]

If i want to show people how it works i simply make an instruction manual. Likewise If god wants to show people the path to him, he chooses a man from amongst us his messenger. To guide people to the truth. Why this need to became us? He does not have to because he knows his creation inside out. There is no need to be a man to know we feel!!
Not so that He could know who we are, but so that we could know that He knows and cares enough to actually live as one of us, let alone prove His love by suffering and dying. It’s all for our sake -not His-He certainly doesn’t need or deserve it-He was “the righteous dying for the unrighteous”, “hated without reason.”

It’s easy to say we know that God is love or to say He loves us or we love Him. But most of the time when we say we love Him we don’t even know what that implies. BTW, does Islam put much consideration into the love of God-into love as the supreme virtue? Or is obedience the primary motivation/goal?

In any case, in Christian thought, making an instruction manual is not enough. God can tell us how we should behave but even after that’s been done “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23)-IOWs, man still remains in his sin. So the instruction manual, the Law, was made for one purpose-to teach and prove that man is powerless against sin. When Jesus came, He showed that sin can be overcome and He showed us how-not by subjecting oneself to Gods law first of all, but by subjecting ourselves to Him-by admitting that we cannot win the battle against sin -we cannot remain in continuous obedience- but that He can do so in us by His grace-if we let Him.

God’s not impressed with our holiness-at least not with a holiness that’s a mere external show of obedience in the end-He’s pleased by changed hearts-where we’ve come to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. That, love, is the “fulfillment of the Law” (Rom 13:10). So first Jesus demonstrates God’s love on a grand scale in the passion and crucifixion-experiences He could’ve walked away from at any time-and then He raised His life back up from the dead so we could know eternal life is real. Not just talk or platitudes, but action, something we could identify with -and then follow Him in this death to ourselves and to this world and then on to resurrection to love and ultimately eternal life, if we’re willing.

 

[dzheremi]

In islam There is only one God. There is no one other God. Hence it does not break any law of mathematics. The trinity is a mathematical problem because you cannot have three different distinct divine beings and yet term them as one.

Once again, I say to you that the Trinity is NOT a Math problem. If you continue to look at it only in Mathematical terms, you will never understand it. God is NOT a Math problem in Christianity. He is above all human pursuits like science, math, etc. just like he is above and outside of all the limits that humans face (language, time, space, etc).

I am really intrigued by this statement. The incarnate word or wisdom. Incarnation means taking of flesh. Earlier one of the posters agreed with me when he said that God has no begiinning or end. Well this incarnation breaks that law. When God decided to became an incarnate flesh and was born in the womb of mary he broke that law of no beginning.

No He didn’t. The incarnation is the means or process by which the Son came to dwell among us in the person of Christ Jesus. The incarnation is not God Himself. The Holy Trinity, being God Himself, has always existed. No Christian who is in the least bit orthodox denies this. By this, we can rightly say that there was never a time when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did not exist in the uncreated and undivided Holy Trinity. There was, however, a time when the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, did not dwell among us on Earth, as He had not yet been incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The closest parallel I can think to this situation is the Islamic belief that the Qur’an is pre-existent. From what I can tell, it is a mainstream belief, though I don’t know if you yourself share it. From what Muslims have told me, the Qur’an is considered uncreated and eternal. We say the same about the Trinity. There was a time when we did not know it, just as there was a time when you did not know the Qur’an (because it had yet to be revealed). We say the same about the Persons of the Trinity. The Trinity (God) has no beginning, but our knowledge of it definitely does!

God’s wisdom is his own. Your wisdom is yours and yours alone. It does not exists out of you. When you impart wisdom upon others it comes from you.

Yes! God’s Wisdom is His own (it is not separate from Him), and it comes from Him. When His Wisdom (the “Logos”) was imparted from Him to us in the form of Jesus Christ, it likewise was not separate from Him. Excellent!

It does not assume the form of something else. It does not become something that is distinctive from you.

Here we must be careful with our terms and our comparisons. You are talking about what happens when you or I share our wisdom with someone else. I agree that when we humans do that, it does not become something else. I can not incarnate my wisdom because I am not God (and I don’t have any wisdom anyway). But God certainly can do this, and DID do this. This is what we believe, and this is what Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition affirms.

When you say that God almighty decided to come down to earth and incarnate himself into a body of man and this man is the wisdom of God, then that wisdom is on a totally different wavelength to the father in Heavens.

You yourself wrote earlier in your response: “God’s wisdom is his own. Your wisdom is yours and yours alone. It does not exists out of you. When you impart wisdom upon others it comes from you.” This is right and true. Now you say that God’s wisdom is somehow “on a totally different wavelength to the father in the Heavens.” So…which is it? Either you divorce God from His Wisdom and you worship this Wisdomless, Wordless God in Islam or you acknowledge that His Wisdom is not something other than/outside Himself, and your problem with the Trinity and the incarnation comes from your own limited understanding (which is fine; no one has complete understanding of God but God). You have set it up this way yourself by your quote when you say “it does not exist outside” of Him. We agree, but now you seem to disagree with yourself. I do not understand this about-face.

(more below)

 

[dzheremi]

In other words that wisdom has assumed a different personality to the one in heavens which in turn is different from the holy spirit. It does not make any sense.

You are right that this doesn’t make any sense – this also is not what we believe about the Holy Trinity. In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the most commonly celebrated liturgy in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, the following hymn is sung to the incarnate Christ:

O only begotten Son and Word of God, 
Who, being immortal, 
deigned for our salvation 
to become incarnate 
of the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, 
and **became man without change**; 
You were also crucified, 
O Christ our God, 
and by death have trampled Death, 
being One of the Holy Trinity, 
glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit— 
Save us!

I have bolded the part you should think about. The Logos was incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ without change – which means that He really isn’t “another God” or what have you. Again, you said it yourself: “. It does not exists out of you. When you impart wisdom upon others it comes from you.” Jesus Christ, the One God who dwelt among us and was called Emmanuel (‘God Among Us’), came from the Father and does not exist outside of Him. This is exactly right. Recognize the truth of your own words.

Your wisdom is a part of your personality. It’s not a wholly different persona. You understand what i am trying to say.

I do, yes. Remember what I said earlier about being careful when we make comparisons between what we can do or how we are and what God can do? That applies here, too. With God, all things are possible. The Holy Scriptures tell us that “for God so loved the world He gave His Only-Begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

In your mind right now when you think of jesus you have a distinct mental image which is different if you think about the father in heavens.

Yes, but this is the result of the history of Christian art, not any sort of proof against the Trinity. You may not know this. but there is some controversy in Orthodox circles about whether or not it is okay to even depict the Father in iconography. Not a lot of icons that I have seen depict the Father. None that I personally own do. Again, this is not proof against the Holy Trinity, but conflicting interpretations about Holy Tradition, which is nothing different than what other monotheistic religions have (e.g., different sects of Islam or Judaism also have their own interpretations of what is right within their religious traditions).

But how can the father be greater than the son when you yourself said the son does not exist seperately from the father and they are both the same God? Unless you are implying that God is greater than his wisdom which does not make sense to poor simpleton like me

No, I am not saying that God is greater than His wisdom (you are apparently saying that, though, when you say that Christ cannot be God). What I am saying is just what I said in the last post: God the Father is the origin.

 

[Reuben_J]

the jews and the muslim believe in the role of the messiah. namely the man who heralds the end of days. The jew believes he’s going to come during the end of the days and the muslim also believes that.

You are wrong about the Jewish belief of Messiah here. As for Muslims belief of it, you have not provided reference and Muslims seems to differ on this.

The concept of the messiah who is god and comes down to earth to expunge the sins of people is strictly a christian concept and not a jewish or a muslim one.

Definitely not a Muslim one and I can say Muslims do not have any concept on the Messiah. You are merely parroting what you thought the Jews thought and which is wrong too.

that’s like saying a student cannot meet the standards required by his teachers to pass his course. Sounds like an unfair God to me

He may be unfair but that’s because it is for our own good and he does that because he loves us so much. That makes him a good and a loving God, not a vengeful and cruel God.

doesn’t ezekiel 18:20 give the standard of God?

The standard of God is perfection. Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. I have not yet known a person who claims that he is perfect.

yes it’s up to God to forgive one’s sins. He chooses who to forgive and who to punish. Which is why there is no need for God to kill himself to redeem us of a sin someone else comitted.

Yes, he chooses, but you don’t say how God does that. How does he carry out this forgiveness? I told you it is up to him how (and perhaps what) he does this forgiveness according to his nature, his principle, his logic and his justice.

In islam, i am responsible for my own actions. If i sin, then it’s my problem If i want to atone for that sin, i must carry out the actions. I must seek forgiveness and beg God to Forgive me. I must do good deeds. I must be sincere in my efforts. And leave the rest to God. I cannot expect someone else to take my place and carry my sins for me.

This is true too in Christianity. An individual is responsible for his own salvation. Jesus is even more blunt about it. Not your father or your brother can do that for you and for the sake of following him even brothers can go against brothers.

For the rest of what you said, it is quite similar in Christianity too. It never says that someone should take my place and my sin. Only God can do that. It makes no sense for God to kill someone else for my sin. That is not Christianity; you err and I am glad you are in this Forum because many Christians here will tell you the truth about Christianity and not what you or others mistakenly think it is.

God bless.

 

[rand_al_thor_1]

So, as a Muslim, do you believe that God created us imperfect? How do you account for sin? Maybe your difficulty here is not with Christianity per se? You sound like an atheist, not a Muslim.
**
yes, we have been created imperfectly. A perfect man would never sin or even be tempted into sin. But we have imperfections in us. The desires, the needs, passions which is all inherent in man.**

I am not sure what you mean by laying the blame on the apple - it is an inanimate object? The blame, or the cause, of the difficulty felt by Adam and Eve is as a result of them rejecting truth, and being subject to lies and nothingness. This isn’t meant to excuse us when we do wrong, or to say we cannot discern right and wrong. Our wrong-doings are almost always our own responsibility. But very often people have the experience of not being able to easily discern right and wrong, or not being able to do it, or not being able to keep relative goods in the proper perspective. If you do not feel this applies to you, have you considered that you are unusual? It sounds like the comment of a rather young person to me.

sorry but a person can easily tell the difference between right and wrong. Assuming they are not insane clinically. We humans have the ability to think. We have the free will. To disobey God or obey him. It’s what makes us humans unique amongst God’s creation.

There is some disagreement among Christians about whether it is possible for us to remain sinless or not through our “own” efforts. (That is, our own aided by God.) Catholics generally would say no - we are in such a state that we will all inevitably sin. Some Eastern Christians might say that it is theoretically possible for a person not to ever sin.

There are of course probably occasions when people are not fully responsible. Children, the insane, people who have never been taught or are somehow damaged. And there are small things too. Gluttony is a sin - but how many of us can tell the one bite of food that takes us from nourishing our bodies to gluttony? Even our own actions and their motivations can be unclear to us. The story of the Fall is attempting to tell us why that it. If we were moral beings in the way God intended us to be, according to the story, we would not have these kinds of problems. Do you feel that all people are always completely capable of knowing and doing the right thing in all situations?

**Firstly there are people who cannot think for themselves and those who cannot distinguish between right and wrong. Children being one and insane or brain damaged people. For these people they shall not be judged like you and me. i know what is right and what is wrong. So do you. But i am also imperfect. And that’s the important thing here. Man will always sin. he’s imperfect. God created us that way. So God almighty in his infinte wisdom never shuts the door of forgiveness on his creation. God knows that man will always be tempted to act on his desires. After all he created us! If God didnt forgive his creation we humans would be doomed.
**

Do you feel that when someone who is not very bright cannot see the correct action, he is completely culpable?

by not very bright if you mean those who cannot who cannot distinguish between right and wrong, then no. Not someone who merely flunked his calculus classes

Who told you that if today you do not believe in Christ as your Savior you will be in Hell? That is a view found within Christianity, but it is by no means the Christian view. I don’t believe that, and many Christian groups don’t teach it. Many Catholics don’t, and the Anglicans don’t, and the East doesn’t teach that either.

The whole premise of christianity is jesus dying to redeem our sins. If you don’t accept jesus as your saviour then what’s the basis of christianity?

It is true that in some ways we feel the consequences of the actions of our fore-bearers. We see that in every-day life. But as Christians we believe that God has accounted for that on our behalf.

**What did God account on our behalf? **

I do not expect us to be held accountable for the guilt of someone else’s sin. But if you carefully read what I wrote, you will see that idea is not there. You seem to be importing it because someone told you that Christianity teaches that all non-Christians go to Hell. And yet even in a law court with a judge rendering only perfect judgments, we know the evil effects of the law-breaker have impacted the other people in the community.

well if non christians are not destined to hell, then what was the point of God taking human flesh and coming down to earth?

 

[rand_al_thor_1]

If i want to show people how it works i simply make an instruction manual. Likewise If god wants to show people the path to him, he chooses a man from amongst us his messenger. To guide people to the truth. Why this need to became us? He does not have to because he knows his creation inside out. There is no need to be a man to know we feel!!

Not so that He could know who we are, but so that we could know that He knows and cares enough to actually live as one of us, let alone prove His love by suffering and dying. It’s all for our sake -not His-He certainly doesn’t need or deserve it-He was “the righteous dying for the unrighteous”, “hated without reason.”

**live as one of us? is that the reason for God coming down to earth? to show he cares? God more than cares. He loves us and showers his mercy upon us!! There are millions of people in the world who live luxurious lives and yet mock and ridicule him. The children of israel received so many sustanance and blessings from God. He bestowed upon them protection when they were hunted down by the pharoah. i could right a project on God’s mercy and benvelonce on his creation. The fact that he forgives man for his sins shows his mercy alone. so to claim that God needs to prove his love by coming down from the heavens is frankly absurd. **

It’s easy to say we know that God is love or to say He loves us or we love Him. But most of the time when we say we love Him we don’t even know what that implies. BTW, does Islam put much consideration into the love of God-into love as the supreme virtue? Or is obedience the primary motivation/goal?
**
How can you love God if you do not obey him? If i as muslim decide never to follow his commandments and at the same time shout i love God, then it becames meaningless. A person who truly loves God with his heart will follow his commandments. That is true Love. **

In any case, in Christian thought, making an instruction manual is not enough. God can tell us how we should behave but even after that’s been done “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23)-IOWs, man still remains in his sin. So the instruction manual, the Law, was made for one purpose-to teach and prove that man is powerless against sin.

**Hold on a second. So all those who followed Moses. have they fallen short? Moses, has he falled short? what about abraham, noah, jacob, joseph and the rest of messengers? Those people who believed in the message of God from this mighty messengers, have they all failed?
**

When Jesus came, He showed that sin can be overcome and He showed us how-not by subjecting oneself to Gods law first of all, but by subjecting ourselves to Him-by admitting that we cannot win the battle against sin -we cannot remain in continuous obedience- but that He can do so in us by His grace-if we let Him.

I am sorry but i am confused by this idea of overcoming sin. what do you by that?

 

[rand_al_thor_1]

Once again, I say to you that the Trinity is NOT a Math problem. If you continue to look at it only in Mathematical terms, you will never understand it. God is NOT a Math problem in Christianity. He is above all human pursuits like science, math, etc. just like he is above and outside of all the limits that humans face (language, time, space, etc).

No He didn’t. The incarnation is the means or process by which the Son came to dwell among us in the person of Christ Jesus. The incarnation is not God Himself. The Holy Trinity, being God Himself, has always existed. No Christian who is in the least bit orthodox denies this. By this, we can rightly say that there was never a time when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did not exist in the uncreated and undivided Holy Trinity. There was, however, a time when the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, did not dwell among us on Earth, as He had not yet been incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The closest parallel I can think to this situation is the Islamic belief that the Qur’an is pre-existent. From what I can tell, it is a mainstream belief, though I don’t know if you yourself share it. From what Muslims have told me, the Qur’an is considered uncreated and eternal. We say the same about the Trinity. There was a time when we did not know it, just as there was a time when you did not know the Qur’an (because it had yet to be revealed). We say the same about the Persons of the Trinity. The Trinity (God) has no beginning, but our knowledge of it definitely does!

Yes! God’s Wisdom is His own (it is not separate from Him), and it comes from Him. When His Wisdom (the “Logos”) was imparted from Him to us in the form of Jesus Christ, it likewise was not separate from Him. Excellent!

Here we must be careful with our terms and our comparisons. You are talking about what happens when you or I share our wisdom with someone else. I agree that when we humans do that, it does not become something else. I can not incarnate my wisdom because I am not God (and I don’t have any wisdom anyway). But God certainly can do this, and DID do this. This is what we believe, and this is what Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition affirms.

You yourself wrote earlier in your response: “God’s wisdom is his own. Your wisdom is yours and yours alone. It does not exists out of you. When you impart wisdom upon others it comes from you.” This is right and true. Now you say that God’s wisdom is somehow “on a totally different wavelength to the father in the Heavens.” So…which is it? Either you divorce God from His Wisdom and you worship this Wisdomless, Wordless God in Islam or you acknowledge that His Wisdom is not something other than/outside Himself, and your problem with the Trinity and the incarnation comes from your own limited understanding (which is fine; no one has complete understanding of God but God). You have set it up this way yourself by your quote when you say “it does not exist outside” of Him. We agree, but now you seem to disagree with yourself. I do not understand this about-face.

(more below)

Bingo! you see where i am going with this. You keep telling me that jesus and the father are the same thing. That jesus is the wisdom of god made flesh. then how come jesus and the father are two distinct persons? my wisdom is clearly my own. you agree with me on that point. So God’s wisdom is his own. But father is a totally different person to the son. is that not right? the son is totally different to the holy spirit. correct? someone’s wisdom cannot assume a totally different persona like jesus.

jesus has a totally different personality to that of the father. so going by your logic, the wisdom of God assumed a totally different personality to God himself. This just does not make any sense. further more, the wisdom of God said that my father is greater than i. the wisdom of God prayed to the father. the wisdom of God didnt even know when the world was going to end. Only the father knows. Not even the holy spirit knows.

There seems to a conflict of interest with this triune God

 

[rand_al_thor_1]

You are wrong about the Jewish belief of Messiah here. As for Muslims belief of it, you have not provided reference and Muslims seems to differ on this.

Please. all muslims believe jesus is coming back and going to rule for a period of time and slay the anti christ. He is the annointed one. The messiah. We don’t need the jews or the christians to tell us what the messiah is. Every muslim on earth believes that jesus is the messiah on the authority of the quran alone. The christians seem to think that this special status of jesus proves that he was god who was meant to die for us and be our saviour. even the jews don’t believe in the concept of a God dying for us.

He may be unfair but that’s because it is for our own good and he does that because he loves us so much. That makes him a good and a loving God, not a vengeful and cruel God.
**
How can you reconcile a fair God with Love? If i want to show you love i forgive you. I don’t extract a pound of flesh from someone else.**

The standard of God is perfection. Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. I have not yet known a person who claims that he is perfect.

**so now we have a teacher who sets a standard of passing so high no student can pass. which begs the question. why the test in the first place?
**

Yes, he chooses, but you don’t say how God does that. How does he carry out this forgiveness? I told you it is up to him how (and perhaps what) he does this forgiveness according to his nature, his principle, his logic and his justice.

Ezekiel 18:20-21 shows how God carries out his forgivness.

This is true too in Christianity. An individual is responsible for his own salvation. Jesus is even more blunt about it. Not your father or your brother can do that for you and for the sake of following him even brothers can go against brothers.

For the rest of what you said, it is quite similar in Christianity too. It never says that someone should take my place and my sin. Only God can do that. It makes no sense for God to kill someone else for my sin. That is not Christianity; you err and I am glad you are in this Forum because many Christians here will tell you the truth about Christianity and not what you or others mistakenly think it is.

God bless.

What sin have you committed that was so big that made it important for God to take human form and die as a result?

 

[rinnie]

As a muslim i find the christian concept of God a bit strange with all due respect. Now the jew and the muslim viewpoint of God is strict monotheism. The only difference between the jew and the muslim is that the jew rejects christ as the messiah whereas the muslim does not.

so this is what bothers me. we are told that christians worship one God. I say i have no problem with that. So i then proceed to dig a bit deeper Now he creates adam and eve. Adam and eve sin by eating the apple. Result sin entered into the world. All of adam’s descendants have this mysterious illness whether they are child or a 80 year old.

So then God then decides the only way to remove this sin is basically go down to earth in a human form, in womb of a woman for 9 months, and undergo the trials and tribulations of normal human being. whether it be eating, drinking or getting circumscied. And then get crucified to remove the sin of adam.

This is really something i can’t get my head around.

When God put Adam and Eve in this world the world was to be perfect. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God sin entered into the world and with sin came death.

When Jesus came into the world he took away sin and by doing so he took away death. There is no longer death, now there is eternal life in Christ.

What Jesus did was by being perfect he died for all sin. All we have to do is repent and quit the sin. It was all made possible by Christ.

 

[rinnie]

Bingo! you see where i am going with this. You keep telling me that jesus and the father are the same thing. That jesus is the wisdom of god made flesh. then how come jesus and the father are two distinct persons? my wisdom is clearly my own. you agree with me on that point. So God’s wisdom is his own. But father is a totally different person to the son. is that not right? the son is totally different to the holy spirit. correct? someone’s wisdom cannot assume a totally different persona like jesus.

jesus has a totally different personality to that of the father. so going by your logic, the wisdom of God assumed a totally different personality to God himself. This just does not make any sense. further more, the wisdom of God said that my father is greater than i. the wisdom of God prayed to the father. the wisdom of God didnt even know when the world was going to end. Only the father knows. Not even the holy spirit knows.

There seems to a conflict of interest with this triune God

God is 3 persons ONE in BEING. I can understand that is very hard to understand.

God is God, but he revealed himself thru the Son and thru the Holy Spirit.

The only way that the Son is different from the Holy Spirit is in the way God reveals himself.

We know that God revealed himself to Abraham as the Father, he revealed himself as the Son to the Apostles and to us as the Holy Spirit.

To make it more simple, I am sure you agree God can do anything he wants when he wants, So in a sense he could make himself a car is he wanted (not that he would but he could see what I mean?)

So that is why the Church teaches that the Trinity is 3 persons but one in Being which is God.

 

[rinnie]

What sin have you committed that was so big that made it important for God to take human form and die as a result?

The sin that Adam and Eve commited that was so wrong is they refused to repent and ask God to forgive them for their sin. The same goes for us, it is not what are sin is so much as being sorry for it.

Now because of Jesus there is NO sin possible that we can do and not ask Jesus to forgive us for that won’t be forgiven. Because of him, we can have enternal life.

 

[rinnie]

well if non christians are not destined to hell, then what was the point of God taking human flesh and coming down to earth?

We are all destined to hell if we do not accept Jesus as our Savior and turn from our sins. IT does not matter Christian or non-christian.

 

[dzheremi]

Bingo! you see where i am going with this. You keep telling me that jesus and the father are the same thing.

Um…no, I’m pretty sure I never said that. It is too vague. The same “thing”?

That jesus is the wisdom of god made flesh

Yes!

then how come jesus and the father are two distinct persons?

Once again, the Father is the origin. Think again about what I wrote when I compared this to the Muslim belief in the preexistence of the Qur’an. Similar to that belief, we say that the Son was preexistent as the Logos, so there was never a time when He was not. There was, however, a time when He was not incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ (like there was time before the Qur’an was received; the time of “jahiliya”), such as in the Old Testament times. In both cases, our respective communities believe the event (the incarnation in the case of the Christians; the revelation of the Qur’an in the case of the Muslims) to be by the action and will of God. In the case of the Christians, we say that the incarnate Christ that came to us by the will and action of the Father through the Holy Spirit is God. I doubt any Muslims would say that the Qur’an is likewise God, but I will leave it up to you guys to figure out how something can be preexistent like God, eternal like God, and holy, inimitable, unchanging, and inviolable like God and yet not God. In Christianity, we call the One who is all of those things and more God.

my wisdom is clearly my own. you agree with me on that point. So God’s wisdom is his own. But father is a totally different person to the son. is that not right? the son is totally different to the holy spirit. correct? someone’s wisdom cannot assume a totally different persona like jesus.

Again, I say to you: Relating our own human wisdom and our human limitations and our human creative powers to the Holy Wisdom and creative powers of the One who has no limitations (God) is foolish, as it will result in the flawed thinking that you continue to torture yourself with. God has indeed done what you wrongly say He cannot do. God can do anything, including those things that you and I both openly admit we cannot do. God is greater than any of us. Indeed he is greatest. Allahu akbar and all that. Yes.

jesus has a totally different personality to that of the father. so going by your logic, the wisdom of God assumed a totally different personality to God himself.

I do not like this term “personality”. I don’t think I have used it in this conversation, and I wouldn’t use it. We say “person” instead, for many complex reasons that would take threads of their own (the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches have remained separate for over 1500 years because of these problems of terminology). But anyway, Jesus is not the Father, yes. As I have said many times, the Father is the origin. It was by the Father’s action and will that the Logos was incarnate through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is orthodox theology without having to get into semantic arguments with someone who is looking to deny the uncreated and undivided Holy Trinity. This is what the scriptures and Holy Tradition teach us, and this is what I believe. Take it as you will, but please don’t twist it to try to fit your Islamic epistemology. It never will.

This just does not make any sense. further more, the wisdom of God said that my father is greater than i. the wisdom of God prayed to the father. the wisdom of God didnt even know when the world was going to end. Only the father knows. Not even the holy spirit knows.

And? We do not see these things as the problem that you and other non-Christians see them as. There are many good books that deal with the questions that come up because of these scenarios. I recommend Daniel Fanous’ “Taught by God: Making Sense of the Difficult Sayings of Jesus” (here) for an Orthodox perspective on some of them. No doubt Catholics also have their own recommendations.

There seems to a conflict of interest with this triune God

Not at all! As I wrote earlier, the Persons of the Holy Trinity are never in disunity. They are one as the Trinity is one, because the Trinity is God, and there is only one God.

 

[fhansen]

How can you love God if you do not obey him?

You can’t. But it’s possible to obey God (at least outwardly) without loving Him. St Basil put it this way:
**If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children. **

Hold on a second. So all those who followed Moses. have they fallen short? Moses, has he falled short? what about abraham, noah, jacob, joseph and the rest of messengers? Those people who believed in the message of God from this mighty messengers, have they all failed?

Yes, ultimately God wants more from us and more for us. The love of God and the love He wants from us-that which makes a man* just-* when we’re told we must love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves is unattainable by our own efforts. This is a supernatural virtue which only He can give when we see our need for it and turn as children back to Him, Abba, our Father. This is the purpose of grace.

I am sorry but i am confused by this idea of overcoming sin. what do you by that?

All sin results in some way from a lack of love for God and/or neighbor. Since love and sin are mutually exclusive and the wages of sin is death, it’s necessary that it be overcome in us to enter heaven.

 

[fhansen]

Firstly the idea of man created by God was perfect and then subsequently corrupted by an apple indicates that God’s creation is flawed. man was never perfect because if he was he wouldnt have sufferred the consequences according to you of eating that apple. Nor would he have disobeyed God in the first place. At least that’s my understanding of something that is perfect.

That’s the point. If man were perfect now, why would we sin? The idea that man became corrupt should be obvious by all the sin we witness in this world-and may participate in. Adam had faith in God but let that faith die and began to mistrust Him. This is the situation we’re born into in this world. We don’t start out with faith, let alone hope in God, let alone love for Him-our world is different than Adam’s-we’re born in exile from the Father.

Also you cannot lay the blame of man’s ills on him being corrupted by the apple. God has given us the ability to think between what is right and what is wrong. You tell God i am unable to control myself and that was because my father adam ate from that tree and keep a staright face. You are responsible for your actions.

Yes, and God holds us responsible-responsible for reversing Adams decision to reject His authority and in so doing turn back to Him.

 

[rinnie]

As a muslim i find the christian concept of God a bit strange with all due respect. Now the jew and the muslim viewpoint of God is strict monotheism. The only difference between the jew and the muslim is that the jew rejects christ as the messiah whereas the muslim does not.

so this is what bothers me. we are told that christians worship one God. I say i have no problem with that. So i then proceed to dig a bit deeper Now he creates adam and eve. Adam and eve sin by eating the apple. Result sin entered into the world. All of adam’s descendants have this mysterious illness whether they are child or a 80 year old.

So then God then decides the only way to remove this sin is basically go down to earth in a human form, in womb of a woman for 9 months, and undergo the trials and tribulations of normal human being. whether it be eating, drinking or getting circumscied. And then get crucified to remove the sin of adam.

This is really something i can’t get my head around.

Now its my turn.

Here is something you need to explain to me.

Many have claimed to be gods or had messages from God your Mohammed included.

But there are 2 human tests. Reason and History.

Reason shows if one of these men came from God, God would at least be able to support his claim and pre-annouonce his comming. Because even one without faith has reason.

The second is History, God had to give us proof to see from an imposter. If not all could claim to come from God.

Now why is it the only Person in this world that you deny as the Son of God has both and you cannot see this proof. But yet you try to validate Mohammed?

The only way you can prove my Jesus as the God made man is to deny him. And you can’t do it. The Old Testament is full of what would happen and what did happen.

Because of the O.T. prophecies his comming was expected, predicted.

Show me your prediction!!.Any faith,!!! show me where your faith in the word of God had a baby born to a virgin to become Jesus the Savior of the world!!

You will only find this in the Christian faith! If you have proof SHOW IT.

We can show it, you HAVE IT!! It is the O.T. But for some reason you can’t see it, but yet it is repeated over and over and over.

Search the writings of the Jewish people, and the related history of the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and the Romans, you will find it ALL right there.

Did God not tell us to test all Spirits to make sure they were from God. Well Jesus Christ Done ACED IT!!

It is all there in the true WORD OF GOD. Show me where any other leader is there. You can’t. If you can please show me.

Genesis 22:7 GOD will provide HIMSELF with a young beast for a sacrifice, MY SON!!

 

[Timothy17]

if you say a particular person is the son of God literally then it creates a whole lot of problems and questions. If it’s a metaphor to show the close relationship between that person and God himself then i have no problems with that. If unity of purpose means that one becames a son of God then abraham, noah, jacob are sons of God. I have no problem with that. The moment You say that someone is literally the Son of God then it becames an issue.

Your human father is both literally a father and literally a son. But he is one man, and a creature of God. Now if humans can be two persons (a father and a son) then how is it God cannot be three persons and one God ? Are humans more than God ? No, humans are not more than God, but we are made in His image, and when we follow Christ and become His disciple, then we are also in His likeness, because Christ, the Son of the Living God, is the very and perfect likeness of God His Father, and Our Father.

Pax,
Tim

 

[Osho]

The spirit of GOD is that of Unity, not that of division!!!

www.mindreality.com/archive.html
www.rainbowbody.net

pattern is information,
information is knowledge,
knowledge is power,
wisdom is compassionate!!!

                Love Regardless,
		Osho Allaha AUM

 

[Osho]

Here’s an example Love,

Khabira: It is a Sufi name, a name of God. Literally it means: one who sees all, the cognizant one, the seer of all. And that is hidden in everybody – the witness. What we see may be true, may not be true, but the seer is always true. The seen may be, may not be. In the night you see a dream, in the morning you find it was not true, but the one who saw the dream is still true. In the morning, in the night, all the time he is true. You see a rope and you think, in the darkness of the evening, that it is a snake. But when you come close you know that it is false, it is not so. But the seer was not false. Even in seeing something hallucinatory, the seer remains true; the seer is never false.
‘Khabira’ means: the one who sees, the witness inside. Sufis have beautiful names for God; in all they have ninety-nine names for God. One wonders why not one hundred? It looks so incomplete. For a certain, subtle reason, the hundredth name has been kept silent. That is the true name of God which cannot be uttered. The tao that can be uttered is not the true tao and the God that can be spoken of is not the true God, because the word ‘God’ falsifies the reality of God. So the hundredth name is the true name – what Hindus call ‘satnam’, the true name – but it can’t be uttered. It will lose its beauty if it is uttered. It remains unuttered, at the deepest core of the heart. But ninety-nine names can be uttered just as a help to reach the hundredth. The hundredth name is almost a nothingness – what buddhas have called ‘nirvana’, nothingness.
So I call these the ninety-nine names of nothingness; one of them is ‘khabira’. Get into the idea of it and become more and more of a seer. Change the gestalt from the seen to the seer. Looking at the tree, remember the one who is looking; eating, remember the one who is eating; walking, remember the one who is walking. Rather than emphasising the outer, emphasise the inner, and slowly slowly it becomes clear who this seen is. That is our true reality and that is what God is.
Jalal: Another name for God. It means: the majestic one. All that is beautiful in existence, all that has splendour and majesty, is part of God. Whenever you see beauty it is divine. Wherever you see it, bow down to it. It is the manifestation of God. It may be in a flower, it may be in a human face, it may be in a star or anywhere, but wherever you feel the awe and the presence of the majestic, bow down! Make it a point, make it your meditation. And you will be surprised: the more you recognise beauty, the closer you start coming to God, the more you can see splendour hidden everywhere. And it is everywhere. In the stone it is lying there – one just needs to discover it. In the ugliest rock there is a splendour – the eyes are just needed to find it.

If one starts looking for it, one comes across it more and more. The ugly slowly slowly disappears, because nothing really can be ugly. Because all is God – how can there be ugliness ? The ugliness exists because we have not understood. It is a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation; it needs more sympathy so that it can open its heart. See it in the lightning, in the clouds, in the rain, in the sounds, in the silence. Just be in search of the majestic and then you will not need to go to any church, to any temple, to any mosque, because then the whole existence becomes His temple. It is!
A sannyasin, leaving, says he feels a block around his third eye. It’s been there for the past year and has become more pronounced over the last six months. It’s always there when he meditates.Osho checks his energy.

 

[Osho]

It is something that has to be accepted very lovingly. It is not anything bad, just the meditative energy is trying to penetrate the higher planes. It hits the third eye centre, that’s why the pain arises. Any day there will be a breakthrough. Before that breakthrough the energy has to go on knocking at the door. And nobody knows at what knock the door will open. It may open at the second or the third or the fourth – any knock and it can open – but it is very close by. And before the door opens the pain will become even more severe.
But don’t be worried about it and don’t take any medicine for it. Just enjoy it. If it becomes too much, too unbearable, then just take a shower; it will help. But no medicine, because any medicine will be a hindrance.
Yes, you have to accept it. And whenever you need me just put this (the little box) on your third eye, mm ? Keep it with you. And come back!
The sannyasin adds: I’d like to be with a woman. I just sit and just wait and nothing happens, you know.

Just hang a small signboard: I am waiting for a woman and nothing is happening.
Many women are waiting for a man and nothing is happening – they will start turning towards you! Just let it be known, that’s all. Tomorrow just have a signboard and see: many women will start enquiring.
It is not a problem, not at all. Try a signboard!
Asima: another sufi name for God. It simply means ‘the great.’ All is great, the small exists not. The small cannot exist because all is interlinked, all is part of an infinity. Even the smallest particle is part of the whole. The particle cannot exist without the whole and vice versa too: the whole cannot exist without the particle. The whole will not be whole without the particle – something will be missing, there will be a gap. So even the smallest blade of grass is as great as any sun.
Once you start looking for the great you will find it everywhere. You will not find a place where the great is not. That is one of the greatest insights of modern physics. Searching for the smallest they have stumbled upon the greatest source of energy. Looking for the atom they have discovered atomic energy. The small only appears small, it is an appearance. It contains the great.
And you cannot find the great directly. Whenever you search you will find the small: the small is the way of the great to express itself. You cannot see the ocean – you always see this wave or that wave. Only waves are seen; the ocean remains unseen. The ocean has to be inferred because the waves cannot exist without it. So we see the small parts – the man, the woman, the tree, the mountain, the particle of dust, a drop of water; but these are just forms. Penetrate deeply into them and they become doors, doors to the infinite.
That infinity is called ‘Asima’, ‘the great’. Look deeply, within and without, and you will find Him.

Hafiza: a name of God. It means ‘one who preserves.’ And we remain unnecessarily worried. All worries are futile because that which is going to happen is going to happen. And that which is going to happen is the only thing that is going to happen. There is no way of shirking it, no way of avoiding it, no way to do something else than it. Seeing this, one starts living in a kind of let-go. Realising this – that God preserves – we are no more worried about our securities, safeties. Then whatsoever is, is good, has to be good, because it is from God. Sometimes the mind even says ‘How can it be good ? You are suffering so much, there is so much pain and agony and anguish – how can it be beautiful, how can it be good?’ But sometimes suffering is needed and is good, because people grow through suffering. Sometimes pain is a blessing because it becomes a challenge – one integrates only because of pain. Sometimes agony is a provocation for prayer.
So all blessings are not blessings and all curses are not curses either, but for a man who trusts and who thinks God preserves, all is good. If it is a curse, he accepts it in total gratitude. If it is a blessing he accepts it with the same attitude. He makes no choice – he does not say ‘This should be and that should not be.’ He withdraws himself. He simply becomes a recipient, and in that receptivity is transformation. That receptivity is trust, that receptivity is initiation into sannyas.
So from this moment forget that you have to worry about yourself. Forget that you have to carry your burden on your own shoulders. God is doing that already and doing it perfectly; there cannot be a more perfect world than there is.
This I call the religious consciousness. It has nothing to do with Christianity or with Hinduism or Islam. It is just pure religious consciousness and immense trust in the goodness of God, immense trust in existence, that it mothers us all, that we are part of it, its progenies; how can it be antagonistic to us ? Then not only does life become a benediction, even death becomes a benediction…
A sannyasin, leaving, says: Since I’ve been here I feel as if I’m dreaming… everything seems blurry around me. It’s as if something in me is asleep.