What did Jesus bring to the world that was not already brought by Moses?

[MartinJordan]

without a perfect vessel it leaves room for arguments such as the above to declare: Therefore jesus was not perfect.

mj

 

[Servant19]

PRmerger, were Adam and Eve believed to be perfect before the fall according to Catholic teaching?

I think the idea of human perfection differs from ultimate perfection. In fact, every species has its own kind of perfection. But ultimate perfection can be found only in G-d.

Nail ---------> Head

Perfection is imperfection when comparing with God.

We are not God, but we are human beings born “in the image of God”…what does that mean?

We have within us, from birth, the capacity to end our lives as an “expressive image of God’s attributes”…

However, while we journey through this imperfect natural world, the “image of God” loses its lustre and we have the free will to increase its lustre…

 

[PRmerger]

Nail ---------> Head

Perfection is imperfection when comparing with God.

We are not God, but we are human beings born “in the image of God”…what does that mean?

We have within us, from birth, the capacity to to end our lives as “expressive images of God’s attributes”…

However, while we journey through this imperfect natural world, the “image of God” loses its lustre and we have the free will to increase its lustre…

Amen! Very Catholic, this!

And sometimes we fail. Why? The catholic answer is…

Original Sin.

 

[Servant19]

And your paradigm is busted.

Come on PR, where is the sincerity?

I asked a very valid question.

Why would a perfect God, Just and the Supreme Planner, allow a silly decision by a man called Adam to stuff up His plans for millenia? Is Adam greater than God?

A true God would introduce a Saviour immediately after Adam’s Fall. Its a legitimate question to ask, to which you are trying to “bust” me???

 

[Servant19]

Amen! Very Catholic, this!

And sometimes we fail. Why? The catholic answer is…

Original Sin.

If “original sin” now means that we are not adhereing to the teachings of a Manifestation of God, then yes, I would agree.

But your definition of original sin is not that at all…

 

[Servant19]

A person is better seen as action verb and not a passive noun.

Very well said Michael

Where does this statement sit with original sin therefore?

 

[Servant19]

A species being perfect is a mental construct

…actually nm, what I am talking about is a spiritual construct. Our souls perfectly reflect Gods attributes from birth. Its nothing mental at all. Our physical aspects are imperfect, simply because we are physically influenced by the decisions of free will of the past.

I personally see the Fall of Adam, the passing on imperfections in the physical realm. Our souls are not created by any influences of physical imperfections…

 

[Servant19]

And that is why the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception is so appropriate for apologia for the divinity of Christ.

Without a perfect vessel it leaves room for arguments such as the above to declare: therefore Jesus was not perfect.

Jesus was absolutely perfect in the realm of the Kingdom.

PR, did you read the passage that I linked for you at all?

 

[Servant19]

G-d is the “real thing.” Judaism does not require Manifestations of G-d.

So where does Moses fit into this picture meltzer?

 

[Servant19]

I read it, and I think it’s baloney. It tries to make out sin and evil as some vague, nebulous thing that afflicts man for Reasons, with no explanation involved, and then also implicitly states that the world is inherently flawed, hence why sin is around at all.

Either way, your interpretation of God screwed up, big-time.

…so the world is not flawed Lochias?

To an animal, the world is perfect, it provides for all of the things it needs. Humans are more than just animals. We are transcendent beings living in a non-transcendent plane of existence we call earth. For our needs the world is full of imperfections.

 

[Michael19682]

I don’t think it’s necessary to go back to the Latin.

Maybe so. But what does perfect mean? An example of something perfect?

One synonym is complere, meaning ‘complete’. Many Jews use the word to describe the OT, or Torah in particular. Another is absolutus, which has as one meaning, unconditional.
If the latter meaning is true, then I think only Christ’s love is perfect. He exhorts us to unconditional love and imposes no conditions for his love.

 

[Michael19682]

Very well said Michael

Where does this statement sit with original sin therefore?

God Originally imposed one mysterious condition on the pair. You’ll read they were not to eat from the tree in the middle of the Garden. If they had been fully passive, they would not have done so? But their sinful nature was activated by the serpent. Their actions were the sin, not themselves. Read, …and God saw it was good. (interestingly, in one of the creations stories we learn that God condemned Adam’s solitude and so he created Eve : first putting him under anesthesia, quite mercifully…That was a kind of condition, that Adam be mated to Eve, but one that might not have needed a command to bear fruit.)

 

[Servant19]

You’ll read they were not to eat from the tree in the middle of the Garden.

Yes, this is synonymous to God guiding mankind to a certain code of conduct. It is also synonymous to obedience and adherence to God’s Will. It also implies that God will never impose His Will upon our free will.

If they had been fully passive, they would not have done so?

Yes, because passivity means that we do not act contrary to how we are in our inner being. Our inner self is the true self and is an expressive medium for our souls. When we are in trouble, it is the inner, spiritual instinct that takes over and hearkens the call of our Beloved with the words “O God!”

But their sinful nature was activated by the serpent. Their actions were the sin, not themselves.

Yes, this serpent is a representation of our animalistic, physical nature. This is represented by our ego. Our animalistic nature is not who we truly are. We shed that nature upon death.

Yes, their action was the sin. Of course, we are not sinful by our true inner nature. We perform sinful acts, which is contrary to the exhortations of God. These actions can dull the inherent lustre of our souls. Upon returning our nature towards God, that lustre can be returned upon the soul…

 

[meltzerboy]

So where does Moses fit into this picture meltzer?

Moses is the greatest prophet but still not a Manifestation of G-d, if I correctly understand what is meant by manifestation. There is a sharp division between all humans and G-d in Judaism, no matter how holy they are. Moses is no exception.

 

[Servant19]

Moses is the greatest prophet but still not a Manifestation of G-d, if I correctly understand what is meant by manifestation. There is a sharp division between all humans and G-d in Judaism, no matter how holy they are. Moses is no exception.

No we are definitely on the same page meltzer

There is no way God can be contained in a human form. A Painter cannot be contained in His painting.

Even though Baha’u’llah says that He was the One who gave the Revelations to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and was in fact the One who sent them, He still gives clear distinction between Himself and the Essence of God…

I think we have interchangeability in defining the Godhead. You use the word Prophet, Baha’is also refer to them as Manifestations of God

 

[Michael19682]

Yes, this is synonymous to God guiding mankind to a certain code of conduct. It is also synonymous to obedience and adherence to God’s Will. It also implies that God will never impose His Will upon our free will.

Yes, because passivity means that we do not act contrary to how we are in our inner being. Our inner self is the true self and is an expressive medium for our souls. When we are in trouble, it is the inner, spiritual instinct that takes over and hearkens the call of our Beloved with the words “O God!”

Yes, this serpent is a representation of our animalistic, physical nature. This is represented by our ego. Our animalistic nature is not who we truly are. We shed that nature upon death.

Yes, their action was the sin. Of course, we are not sinful by our true inner nature. We perform sinful acts, which is contrary to the exhortations of God. These actions can dull the inherent lustre of our souls. Upon returning our nature towards God, that lustre can be returned upon the soul…

Your answers are interesting, but not strictly supported by the story of Creation and the history of the Jews and the prophets that I can tell, nor by the words of Jesus in strict regards to that matter of what I think must be metaphysics. Apparently what you broadly offer is a method of keeping free from sin (…in your words to remain “pure”?). But to avoid sin we must have God’s grace. It comes from outside of us, from God. The spirit of God consecrates our communion and we receive Him.
(Un)fortunately there is the same “from without” situation with regard to sin, which still lingers in the world from the specific lie of the serpent, a dark mystery. This isn’t to say that you can’t arm yourself for battle against sin, but that to do so you need ‘the armor of Christ’. It’s figurative language.
Later, Paul writes about another lingering aroma as leading either to death or life, depending on whether or not you have faith in or accept Christ Jesus. He effectively ties in the original sin into the plan of salvation in a way that is accessible to everyone’s intellect.
I, for example, understand the aroma verses by thinking of the actual unpleasantness of being around an ill, possibly vomiting person. But when it is someone loved dearly, we don’t see the putrefaction as something to run from. I am too concerned for that persons health to be scared or put off like I would be if it happened at a glamorous party. So really, the sin of A. is said to be necessary, because it kicked off the chain of events that will bring back God at a time only he knows.

Peace.

 

[Servant19]

But to avoid sin we must have God’s grace. It comes from outside of us, from God.

Peace.

Thanks Michael, I appreciate and can relate to the aroma analogy…

Reminds me of this verse from Baha’u’llah:

"From My laws the sweet-smelling savour of My garment can be smelled, and by their aid the standards of Victory will be planted upon the highest peaks. The Tongue of My power hath, from the heaven of My omnipotent glory, addressed to My creation these words: “Observe My commandments, for the love of My beauty.” Happy is the lover that hath inhaled the divine fragrance of his Best-Beloved from these words, laden with the perfume of a grace which no tongue can describe. By My life! He who hath drunk the choice wine of fairness from the hands of My bountiful favour will circle around My commandments that shine above the Dayspring of My creation."

reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/KA/ka-4.html

My question is, do think that God’s grace was not there before Jesus was born into this world?

 

[Lochias]

…so the world is not flawed Lochias?

I don’t think the world is flawed, I think people are imperfect and often choose that which harms themselves others.

For our needs the world is full of imperfections.

Flatly disagree, because I am here. God knew me before I was in the womb, and knows exactly what I need.

If you want to believe that whatever god you worship (because your descriptions make him sound very unlike the loving, merciful God that we have) made a world intentionally designed just to trip you up, or somehow did it on accident, that’s your call. I have no faith in such a god as that.

 

[meltzerboy]

I don’t think the world is flawed, I think people are imperfect and often choose that which harms themselves others.

Flatly disagree, because I am here. God knew me before I was in the womb, and knows exactly what I need.

If you want to believe that whatever god you worship (because your descriptions make him sound very unlike the loving, merciful God that we have) made a world intentionally designed just to trip you up, or somehow did it on accident, that’s your call. I have no faith in such a god as that.

Judaism believes that G-d created everything including free will and even evil. It also believes that G-d intentionally created the world incomplete so that humans can participate in “repairing” it. This incomplete world is perfect because G-d has given us what we need to complete it despite our imperfections. In this sense, a so-called “perfect” or complete creation would in fact have been imperfect. Another way of looking at this is that we share with G-d in the creation of a better world.

 

[SteveVH]

No we are definitely on the same page meltzer

There is no way God can be contained in a human form.

Are you saying that this is impossible for God to accomplish?

A Painter cannot be contained in His painting.

You assume that Jesus was created. That is a fatal error. Jesus is the eternal God who chose to assume human flesh. Why would this be impossible for God, unless you believe in a very limited God?

Even though Baha’u’llah says that He was the One who gave the Revelations to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and was in fact the One who sent them, He still gives clear distinction between Himself and the Essence of God…

And there is the difference. We believe God himself came and dwelt among men; not a manifestation, but God, complete and entire, essence and all.

I think we have interchangeability in defining the Godhead. You use the word Prophet, Baha’is also refer to them as Manifestations of God

Prophets are men, pure and simple. They were inspired by God to reveal his messages to his people and did so, revealing certain divine truths, in parts, over several thousand years. That is, until God himself came. We are no longer in need of “prophets” in that sense of the word because the fullness of truth has been revealed in Jesus Christ. There is nothing to add and nothing to be taken away.

So Servant, it would be helpful if you could define exactly what you mean by the term “Manifestation of God” before anyone can agree that we are talking about the same thing as a “Prophet”. God is divine. Prophets are not. We do not worship a prophet. We only worship God. So maybe that is the real question. Do you worship Baha’u’llah?

Thanks.

Steve