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Why would a perfect being make an imperfect world?
RE: Why would a perfect being make an imperfect world?
(February 16, 2017 at 12:18 pm)Asmodee Wrote:
(February 16, 2017 at 2:57 am)Godschild Wrote:


No, I'm thinking it's your inability to understand the difference between Jesus the god and Jesus the man.  It is a difficult concept.  I'll give you that. 

I understand very well who Christ, Jesus and the Messiah "is" and no it's not difficult.

Asmodee Wrote:I'm not sure if you believe in the trinity, three distinct persons made of a single being (it sounds as if you do) or no trinity, they are all just manifestations of the same single being.  Regardless, you have Jesus the god and Jesus the man.  I can't believe I'm about to give you a Sunday School lesson, but here goes.

The trinity consists of three distinct beings who are the one Godhead. I can't believe you would ask that from a Southern Baptist and I thought my statement was quite clear.

Asmodee Wrote:God is perfect.  God it not subject to weaknesses of the flesh such as temptation.  Yet Jesus was tempted for 40 days.  Why would the devil bother to tempt a God he knew full well was beyond temptation?  Because Jesus was more than simply a piece of God, Jesus was also a man and it was Jesus, specifically, NOT just "God the son", who was the Christ.

God the Son has always been Jesus, Christ and Messiah, all four names belong to the same person of the Godhead. God is omnipresent and in that has always existed all the time in all times. You're trying to separate them and that's not possible, Jesus, the Christ and the Messiah are all the same person in the trinity. You should read John 10:22-30, in verses 30 Jesus himself said, "I and the Father are one." Meaning that He is as much God as the Father is. Now that we have this established let's see why Jesus was able to be tempted. When Jesus left His place in heaven to come and fulfill the plan of salvation He had to suffer as a man and in that He had to suffer temptation. The only way this was possible was for Him to lay down His powers in heaven and not take them up again until He returned. (If you're wondering, this is in the scriptures, l do not remember which book at this time but l could find it if it were not so late.) All of the power Jesus had on earth came from the Father that's why He could do the miracles. Jesus was the sacrificial lamb and to be the perfect lamb He had to be able to overcome sin without His power. It was God and man who died on that cross.

Asmodee Wrote:  Only as a man was he subject to tribulation, temptation and pain.  God is beyond all these things.  So while the argument can be made, and rightly so, that the three bits have always existed, the one bit WAS NOT "the Christ" until AFTER being born in flesh.

As I stated above God is omnipresent and for Him He has existed all the time in all of time, so yes He has always been the Christ.

Asmodee Wrote:Your claim was that free will consisted solely of your ability to choose to accept or deny, specifically, Christ.  NOBODY in the twelve tribes of Israel accepted Christ because God the Christ had not yet been born.  While "God the son" may have existed, "God the Christ" did not. 

I have already established that God the Son, the Christ, the Messiah and Jesus are one in the same and have always been because of God's omnipresence. Genesis 3:15 God says to. The serpent (Satan), "l will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring (Jesus), He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise.His heel. Here is the time Jesus the Savior is introduced in scripture, this is long before God established the nation of Israel. The Messiah was prophesied in the OT long before He ever came to earth and the Israelites knew this and the ones who believed it were redeemed. This is why the animal sacrifices had to take place all the time, they were the substitution for Jesus the perfect sacrifice for mankind.

Asmodee Wrote:As I said, I know it's a difficult concept.  But "the Christ" is also known as JESUS Christ because he's not "the Christ" until you add the fleshy bits.  So yes, before the birth of Jesus people worshiped the same God, but they did not "accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior".  Jesus was "the Christ".  PART of him was God the son.  The other part was man.  Until you put the two together you don't have a Christ.  People don't seem to understand that Christ is a title, not a name, and I think that might be where you are getting confused.

Please don't think l'm trying to treat you like a child it's not my intention, my intention is to be consistent.
As l said before, it's not difficult to understand one has to understand who God is and to many leave out the omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of God when trying to understand Him.
I hear the word title around here all the time and I've explained it like this. A title is something many people can acquire, through birth, work, election or ect. God the Son was never born, never elected to nor had to work for the name Christ, He has for all time been Christ. A title is something many can have but, only One will ever bare the name Christ.
Look at it this way, throughout the OT God has been called by many names after man had observed the attributes of that name, that in no way means God just developed those attributes. God is unchanging He has always been all those things long before the creation. God is the only one who can be called by those names in a perfect sense because He is the only one who is perfect in those attributes. So God the Son, the Christ, the Messiah and Jesus are one and the same and have been forever.

(February 16, 2017 at 2:57 am)Godschild Wrote:


Asmodee Wrote:I think you do know what free will is.  And I think you know very well you're not using it correctly.  If you didn't know what free will was and you did think you were using it correctly then you would say simply, "God gives us free will."  That's the entirety of what you have to say when you know what it is and believe that you are using it correctly.  But that's not what you say.  You add a definition afterward.  You say, "God gives us free will and that means, specifically, the ability to freely choose to accept or reject Christ." 

I clarify my statement of God given free will by saying God will not use His providence to interfere in our decision to accept Jesus or to reject Him. We are free to choose to obey God or not to obey, unless God sees it necessary to insert His providence for His will to be done. When I say will I mean His ultimate will, that which is necessary for His eternal plan.

Asmodee Wrote:When you add a definition after a common word or phrase it tells me that you do know what it means and you do know that you're not using it correctly, which is why you feel the need to add the definition you are using, one which you know that no reasonable person would infer on his or her own.

I do not need the definition for myself, l understand what God has given us and why. I give the definition to clarify to others what our free will is, so others can understand that in one area it's so important to God that He refuses to interfere in a choice, but in the rest of our lives our free will is contingent on God's providence over His eternal plan. It is His creation and His plan so He has the right to step in when it becomes necessary. It's not like God does things to mess with your life, He has seen every day of your life every day of eternity and knows what you will do and could just as well altered your life long ago to suit His plan. He didn't though for a very good reason, He was giving you a chance (even though He knew what you would choose to do) to make the right choice. Why, because in the end, that is the time of judgment, you nor Satan can say to God you did not give me the chance to choose you just altered my life to be as you wanted it. However that want happen because you do have the choice of how your life goes.

Asmodee Wrote:So perhaps you could save some confusion in the future and just stop using the term "free will", using just your definition for it instead.  Because you are not saying we have free will, you are saying we are free to make a single, binary choice.  I know you would really like to shoehorn the concept of free will into what you're saying, but you and I both know very well that it doesn't fit. 

It's you that is having trouble with understanding and I never said that free will was extended to one choice only. I said that is a choice God will never interfere in. I went on to say that most of your life is free choice (will), if not all of it.

GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Why would a perfect being make an imperfect world? - by Godschild - February 17, 2017 at 2:39 am

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