how is a perfect God revealed?

well, we can look to the mysteries of the stars, we can look down to the mysteries of quantum physics and subatomic particles, but the big question is: how does he demonstrate perfect love?

this almost came up in a talk at my house the other day. it was leading to and ended up around Galations 2:21 “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” We were talking about salvation at that point and it got me thinking a little.

God cannot learn right, he knows everything. So when he gave us free will, he knew man would sin and thus become separate from him. All in all putting himself in a predicament that nothing less than God taking form as a man, dieing and rasing again could fix.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. John 15:13

I guess that is the nature of perfect love eh. us screwing up and God paying for it.

revelations

a priest:

one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God. (s)

you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I Peter 2:5

through Jesus i am a priest. how exciting.

The Validity of the Bible

This was going to be awesome. But due to the sheer amount of content, i’m going to stick with excerpts and links.

part 1

 for ed.

 [...]

If we put all these factors together—the Bible was written over fifteen hundred years by forty different authors at different places, under various circumstances, and addressing a multitude of issues—how amazing that with such diversity, the Bible proclaims a unified message! That unity is organized around one theme: God’s redemption of man and all of creation. The writers address numerous controversial subjects yet contradictions never appear. The Bible is an incredible document.

 (that is 40 authors, in 3 languages, on 3 continents, over a span of 1,500 years, no contradictions, one message. )

  [...]

 Archaeology does not directly prove the Bible’s inspiration, but it does prove its historical reliability. Middle Eastern archaeological investigations have proven the Bible to be true and unerringly accurate in its historical descriptions. Nelson Glueck, a renowned Jewish archaeologist, states, “No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.

 [...]

At this time, the number of archaeological discoveries that relate to the Bible number in the hundreds of thousands. (1996)

 [...]

^^ reference

 Jesus fulfilled over 60 prophecy’s in his lifetime, including where he was born and his work at the cross and how he would die etc.

 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date from 200 B.C. to A.D. 68, included a copy of every Old Testament book except for one. Comparison with the texts of a thousand years later shows little or no variation and change between them.

^^ reference

notes on accuracy and some notes on prophecy about Israel here.

 

part 2 will be a list of stuff i can find that proves the bible is not accurate or contradictory  (or trys to at least

 

 

the problem of evil.

was having a discussion about the problem of evil last night at blueprint. but i couldnt remember parts. i guess i really need to write stuff down to remember/learn.

 the problem of evil: if God is all powerful and all good and loving, why then is there evil in the world ?

there is a whole bunch of formulations of this argument, but this is the basis of it. ^^

the 4 step response i was trying to remember: (starting from a post-modern position)

“Would you like to see a law prohibiting a person from choosing a morally questionable action? (eg: abortion)”

no.  of course not, for who are they to tell me what is moral or how to act? it is my free choice to make. infact,  even if i agree with the law, it should still by my decision to make.

“so being able to make your own moral choices is a good thing?”

yes

“Would it be fair to say that it’s part of moral freedom to be able to choose either good or evil?”

yes

“Can raw power make it possible to have genuine moral freedom, but no possibility of doing evil?”

no

for moral freedom requires the ability to choose evil. all the power in the universe cannot make a morally free being with only one choice. thus God being all powerful and all loving, must allow the possibility of evil, via moral freedom from freewill.

(read most of this here , in fact it probably edsplains it better than i could ever do.)

—

oh wow, also just found a cool defense.

Alvin Plantinga’s Free Will Defense:

1. 1. Free will is of moral value. That is, a world with free will is better than one without it.
   2. It is a contradiction to say that God brings it about that humans freely will only the good { vs J.S. Findlay who claims that this is possilbe}
   3. God must bring about the best possible world in his capacity.
   4. Therefore, God must create a world with free will.[We believe the word "must" is objectionable here, but the point still stands. Instead read "God is correct to create..." ]
   5. But then God is not responsible for evil (choices), since it is not in his power to bring it about that men freely choose only the good. [note: this assumes that God cannot, and need not, do the logically contradictory. If logic does not apply to God, then there is nothing wrong with asserting the apparent contradiction that God is good and He permits evil to exist. Where there is no logic, there are not any contradictions . . . and anything could be the case!]

Christianity begins in the new testament.

Gruk lets pursue this here and see where we end up. make a statement and lets discuss it and see were we get. lets make this free’er than the sandbocks ed_rant thread, so divergence is allowed