Sunday, February 19, 2012
Blog revival
Friday, October 29, 2010
What Matters
Consider two atoms moving back and forth. Does God truly care about the fact that those atoms are moving or how they move? There are two answers, and both are correct. First: Yes, but only inasmuch as the atoms play a role in affecting a person's life. By God's divine control, all of the complications of reality sum up in such a way that every particle plays an important role in affecting choice of the free will of each and every person in the universe. Hence, each particle is significant in that respect. The second answer: No. Particles are only a medium through which God conveys His love and we convey our love to God (via acts directed to please Him, especially such acts of loving neighbor). The motion of these particles is irrelevant. With respect to how I perform an act of love, God does not care if I move particular molecules of air around someone in order to perform the act of hugging or if I move the molecules of air a quarter inch above the other molecules in order to perform the same action. To summarize, in and of themselves, particle motion is meaningless or without significance.
Amongst theists, there are various points of view as to how God created the human race. Did God do things exactly according to a literal, six-24-hour-day interpretation of Genesis, or did it God use a more gradual process, perhaps macro-scale evolution? The answer to this question is hidden within the reason as to why God made the universe in the first place.
See "for-love-of-humanity".
So if God created humanity for their love, why would He watch the world build itself up, even if does seem instantaneous to Him? Why wouldn't God get started on what is significant immediately? Critics have commented that they don't like to put-thoughts-in-God's-mind, so-to-speak, implying that I might be doing so. Honestly, I am in a sense, but this is not because I think I know God inside out, but because we CAN know what God has revealed to us about Himself. It is not putting-a-thought-in-God's head to quote First John and say that God is loving and loving leads to self-sacrifice ("This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 Jn 4:10). Hence, since God is Love, it is not wrong to have certain expectations of that love. For example, love considers the beloved significant. Everything else is not necessarily insignificant, unless it has no meaning to the lover apart from the beloved. Hence, considering all this and the fact that the motion of the particles is meaningless, it is impossible to conclude that anything besides humanity is worth occupying God's attention before humanity's creation. Thus, the ideas of macro-evolution (in which creation progresses towards the point of humanity) or even six-24-hour-day creation are absurd theologically-speaking. It would make more sense for God to do everything instantaneously.
Concerning macro-evolution and six-24-hour-day creation, there are problems with each.
First, macro-evolution relies purely on scientific arguments. Instead of relying on God to instantaneously do His will, the viewpoint attempts to conform religion with science, essentially putting God in a box where the idea of God becomes the well-criticized model of "the god of the gaps". There are also some people who may take a different viewpoint and say that God was taking pleasure in forming creation. However, once again, forming creation is essentially the meaningless motion of particles. How long would God, an eternal being of infinite patience and creativity, "watch" His creation take shape via the meaningless motion of particles? It might be argued that, in this case, the motion of the particles is not meaningless since it is building up for the human race. However, this argument is flawed in that it fails to realize that God, when He instantaneously creates something, can arrange the particles in the exact setup they need to be in and with the exact speeds they need to have in order to fulfill the exact same role as if they had a 60 billion year head start. When "God saw that it was good" (various verses in Genesis 1 say this), it does not necessarily mean that God's creation was now an enjoyable thing to watch for its own sake. On the contrary, it simply points to the fact that God instilled Himself in His work, and He is thus visible in it. Notice that it never says, "God delighted in His creation" in the accounts of creation.
The 24-hour-day creation has similar problems. First is the time delay, which has already been accounted for. Second is the indescriptive nature of the word "day". The original word in Hebrew is "yom", meaning some indeterminate time period: anywhere from a moment to however long you wanted; it does not specifically mean "day". The word is used for "day" occasionally, but remember that the Hebrews only knew of a "day" with respect to the sun. A day for them could just refer to the morning hours (6 AM to 6 PM), and not restricted to 24 hours. Considering that Genesis is written to the Hebrews who would have interpreted "day" in that way, it would seem peculiar that the first "day" of creation would be over before the earth (dry ground) even existed, since light was created first.
In conclusion, there is little or no Biblical evidence to support either the macro-evolution hypothesis or the six-24-hour-day creation. What is most probable is that God instantly created everything.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Theology of the Body - the Love in Holy Communion
Monday, July 12, 2010
10:49 PM
Why did Jesus Christ institute the Eucharist ("Thanksgiving")/Holy Communion? The purpose was not necessarily to fulfill the Old Testament prefigurements since it was their duty only to prefigure the things God had planned, from the beginning, to institute.
Recognizing, then, that God is Love, the Eucharist is a manifestation of God's love. The Eucharist, Holy Communion, is called a sacrament because it is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. From "Theology of the Body - the Resurrection" (by Nicolaus Anderson, 12 July 2010):
"Notice that the actions in the physical universe are, in fact, meaningless were it not for the meaning given to them by the spiritual realities. Thus, all of the sacraments have meaning, but not in meaning merely in relation to human free will. What is meant by 'in relation to human free will' is this: That the spiritual meaning of something is a direct consequence of human choice. The Mosaic Law is of this sort. (In Romans 7:4-25) Paul emphasizes how sin gained power through the Law. Before the Law, how could man be accountable for unrighteousness save because of the Law written on his own heart? If man did not have the Law written on his heart, nor had he received the Law in writing, man would not be accountable for his physical actions as to the breaking of the Law. It is not the physical actions that matter, but it is the heart...
"Nevertheless, God has chosen to give the physical meaning through the spiritual. He does this in a variety of ways: through the Mosaic Law, through the human body, and through the sacraments."
It is logical that God, who gives spiritual meaning to the physical, would be willing to continue to apply meaning to it. There are several reasons why it is good that God does this. All that God does concerning the application of spiritual meaning to the physical is for people. This medium (that is, the physical) is used by people in order to communicate their love or hatred of God and to receive or reject the love that God gives to them freely. The physical is a medium that is perfect in every way for allowing communication between people and God. Communication can occur via a variety of physical actions. Such actions include prayer, which indicates trust in God, and sin, which indicates rejection of God in various degrees (i.e. rejecting the presence of God, distrust in God, hatred of the commands of God, or forgetfulness of God).
Most of the physical actions of communication are done with the movement of body in forms other than speech. In fact, much more can be communicated through the body than through speech. By identifying the posture or stance of a person's body, it is possible to identify if a person is in a state of reclusiveness versus gentle surrender, undisclosed anger versus composure, and so forth. God instilled in human beings such nature to reveal themselves in this way so that they might better communicate with each other and Him. When God came down as Jesus, He used a great deal of body language that is only described to a certain extent by the writers of the Gospels. The writers did not have to record such body language in great detail because Jesus either told them what He had on His mind or He revealed it in His actions, such as His acts of love. (For example, the Gospel writers say that Jesus felt compassion for people, a compassion He revealed in His many miracles of healing, not necessarily verbally.)
The Eucharist, Holy Communion, is a device of the continuation of the communication of God, as well as a device of surrender. It is a device because it is a tool used by God in the same way that the hand is a tool to a human. On the night He was betrayed, "Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, 'Take it; this is my body.' Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,' He said to them." (Mark 14:22-24)
In each sacrament, there is something being surrendered: In baptism, it is surrender of the right to seek one's own way in life. In marriage, it is the right to one's personal control of their own body and soul. In the Eucharist, it is God's surrender of His own Body and Blood.
God, in order that we might be more in Him and He in us, offers Himself to us out of love. The Eucharist is a direct consequence of God's love for us. It is, in itself, not a demand to humans, as baptism is. On the contrary, the Eucharist is an offering of God to generate a Holy Communion between His people and Himself. He, as a lover, is surrendering Himself to His people, just as any spouse does. The Eucharist, as the words of Jesus declare, is Jesus Himself in physical form, body in blood. The flesh and blood are not as we ordinarily think of as flesh and blood, but that begs the question, "What is flesh and blood?"
To demonstrate this point, consider your hand. Your hand is part of you. The most important criteria for something to be your body are these: it must be attached to you or your body, it must be interacting with the rest of your body in the functions of life to produce life, and it must be alive. Slugs are alive, but whether or not they are attached to your body is irrelevant since they do not interact with your body in the functions of life. Perhaps that which is closest to interacting with the functions of life in your body, and yet is not part of your body, is a pathogen. It, too, is alive, but it is not attached your body nor is it producing life. Finally, dirt may be attached to your body, and though it may be ingested into your digestive system, it nevertheless will find its way back out, and it is not alive. To be part of your body, something must be attached to you or your body, interacting with your body to generate life, and must be alive. Skin fulfills these criteria easily.
Thus, God, who is all powerful and all wise, is capable of making grape juice and crackers part of His Body (making them the Eucharist) every Sunday. Yet the question remains: Why?
Consider the attributes of bread and grape juice. Both are edible. Yet God did not pick carrots and dip. The color of the bread and wine seem more like human flesh and blood, but God could have picked a variety of foods if that was the case. Perhaps because these are symbolic in ways other foods are not, God decided that these were the perfect consumables. However, that does not explain His intention of having food in the first place, and perhaps examining God's purposes for it will reveal exactly why these specific foods were chosen.
By offering Himself as food, allows for the greatest and most widespread communication between Himself and people. Through the Eucharist, God can be given to everyone wherever they are at. No longer do people have to seek the man body of Jesus in order to see and communicate with Jesus physically. People, each in his own time, can meet with Jesus and worship Him in the body and blood, or they can desecrate His Body in the most horrid ways. Bread and wine allow for certain methods of physical manipulation that allow humans to show a great (though not total) extent of their love or hatred for him in ways that would otherwise be impossible if Jesus came down only as a human being.
The most important way that humans communicate their love for God via the Eucharist is by eating it. By eating the Body of Christ and drinking His blood, they allow God to offer Himself to them physically, in a world they understand. They accept God's surrendering of His Body at the same time they offer the Eucharist back to God as a holy and living sacrifice in themselves and for themselves (as for payment for their sins). In the Eucharist, then, God's people can truly say "Thank you" to God for His offering of Himself to them. Because this is an offering of love by God to His people, it would be considered an insult to God to not accept Him into one's body, as if God's physical body was not good enough or one is not willing to surrender one's uniqueness apart from Christ (to become more intimate with him). By accepting the Eucharist into one's own body, the person has taken God into their physical body and they become every bit more a part of the Body of Christ.
"...my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one load, we, who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." (1 Cor 10:14-17)
The Eucharist is the ultimate offering of God's love to His children: He offers His body to them and for them. They may do with it as they wish, just as they may do with the free gift of salvation as they wish since the two are directly related. The Eucharist, being the ultimate offering of God's love to His people, is a manifestation of the crucifixion of Christ. Indeed, it is the crucified body of the risen Lord, since the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord transcends time and space, extended throughout all time and cleansing the world of all sins in the past, present, and future. The Son of God, present in the Eucharist, is the ultimate offering of God to His people to offer back to Himself for the payment of sins. As such, God is both the Just Judge and the Ever Provider for His people.
Now because the Eucharist is the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, consequences can arise from taking it in an unworthy manner. If a person is aware of their sin and seeks no forgiveness and yet tries to eat the Eucharist, they disrespect God by not cleansing their self for, as a member of the Church, they are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
"For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself." (1 Cor 11:26-29)
Yet it must be asked, what is necessary? For if a man dies without taking the Eucharist, can he still be saved? - Of course! Remember always that God looks at the heart of the man and not at his physical accomplishments. It is reasonable to assume that a man seeking God would be willing to partake of the Eucharist if he had known of the necessity of doing so as well as the meaning behind it. Furthermore, it is not necessary that both species (that is, the Body and Blood) be taken, since both are equally part of God. Of course, what if a person finds their self in the bizarre scenario where they are allergic to both wheat and grapes? In such a case, it may be quite likely that God will not require them to eat the Eucharist. Why should He put their health in danger in order to be accepted by them? If He did, He might be a very selfish god.
In conclusion, the Eucharist is a wonderful gift of love from God to His church. By accepting it, we accept more of God into our lives. Our eating of it communicates to God our acceptance of Him in a physical way, even better than if we had confessed to God with sincere hearts that we love Him more than anything else in the world. And that is what He wants: our love in return for His.
Theology of the Body - the Resurrection
Monday, July 12, 2010
8:41 PM
A sacrament is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. Notice that the actions in the physical universe are, in fact, meaningless were it not for the meaning given to them by the spiritual realities. Thus, all of the sacraments have meaning, but not in meaning merely in relation to human free will. What is meant by "in relation to human free will" is this: That the spiritual meaning of something is a direct consequence of human choice. The Mosaic Law is of this sort. (In Romans 7:4-25) Paul emphasizes how sin gained power through the Law. Before the Law, how could man be accountable for unrighteousness save because of the Law written on his own heart? If man did not have the Law written on his heart, nor had he received the Law in writing, man would not be accountable for his physical actions as to the breaking of the Law. It is not the physical actions that matter, but it is the heart.
"I would not have known what sin was except through the Law... For apart from the Law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful." (Rom 7:7-13)
"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law." (Rom 15:56)
"But sin is not taken into account when there is no law." (Rom 5:13)
Thus, it is the spiritual reality that is important. Nevertheless, God has chosen to give the physical meaning through the spiritual. He does this in a variety of ways: through the Mosaic Law, through the human body, and through the sacraments.
God deemed it necessary to give humans a physical form so that they might interact with a world and each other and recognize themselves as distinct individuals. Yet more than that, God gave humans a particular physical form that He could raise from the dead as He did with His Son. The physical body allows the death and resurrection of all of the faithful, including the Son of God, making it possible for God the Son to complete His mission of love through the crucifixion. The resurrection of the dead is of great importance to Christianity, as the Apostle Paul emphasizes, because it plays a major role in the meaning of the human body and the purification from sin (and escape from the law). If God did not give spiritual value to the physical body of the individual, there would be no purpose for Him to resurrect it or even provide it to human beings at all. For God, who is all powerful, could have made human beings in such manner without the need of a physical body and still would be capable of conveying to humanity His great love through some sort of death and resurrection of His Son. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, discusses the importance of the Resurrection, especially with respect to salvation and eternal life.
"If there has been no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man." (Rom 15:13,14,17-21)
"But some may ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as He has determined... So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
"If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being"; the last man Adam [(Jesus)], a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as if the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. List, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'
" 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' "
(Rom 15:35,38,42-55)
We see in the last passage that the new man will be different than what he was before. It seems at first that Paul is suggesting that humans' spiritual body will not include their physical body, but then he sums his message by saying "For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality." Before that, in verses 39-41, he says that not all flesh is the same, that "men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another", and he further speaks of the differences in the splendor of the heavenly bodies. Notice that all of these "fleshes" are different, yet all of them are physical.
Recall two important things: First, recall that when Jesus rose from the dead, His physical body was resurrected, but, different from before, His body was now IMPERISHABLE!!
"...Jesus himself stood among them [(the disciples)] and said to them, 'Peace be with you... Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." (Luke 24:36,39)
The second thing to recall is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Their bodies were imperishable, for their was no death, but "sin entered the world though one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned - for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command as did Adam." (Rom 5:12-14)
One fascinating aspect of the resurrection is the unity of the physical. Considering the interrelationships between the matter and energy in the physical, as well it the transcendence of time of the existence of particles, it may be possible to better understand the meaning of the physical body as a member of the Church via partly by the unity of the physical universe. That is, at the resurrection of the dead, the righteous may be ever more unified to each other and Jesus because of the unity of the physical. In this way, God fills all things, and in this way, Jesus becomes the first born of many brethren. "For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also GLORIFIED" (emphasis mine) (Rom 8:29-30)
Note that Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren in many respects. (cf. Rom 14:8-9) In Rom 8:29-30, the primary two respects are the glorification after the resurrection ("...He also glorified") and possibly the change in character, both of which can be seen in "conformed to the likeness of His Son" (for the resurrection, this means a new, glorified body and immortality; for character, this means righteousness). The surrounding context of the passage is encouragement of the saints ("we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8:23)), which seems to suggest Paul is referring to the former idea (glorified body via resurrection).
One of the sacraments that Jesus instituted is baptism. This sacrament is a physical act of being immersed in water, and it is symbolic of the dying and rising again with Christ as well as purification of the soul. In the Jordan River, Jesus, before He is baptized by John, says, "It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt 3:15) Part of the spiritual meaning in baptism is found in the purification of the soul that occurs when the person is baptized. ALL sin is removed from the person (cf. Acts 2:38), and thus the sins are "washed away", not by the water itself (since the physical is meaningless without the spiritual), but by God reacting to the consent of the baptized who are willing to follow Him. The sacrament of baptism unifies a person with Christ, and they are thus unified with Him in His death and resurrection, as the Apostle Paul declares:
"...don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just a Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once and for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God." (Rom 6:3-10) (cf. Col 2:12)
The unity with Christ results in unity in Christ with all of God's sons and daughters. Thus we become part of the Body of Christ, the Church, with Christ as its head.
"...for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:27-28)
"For we were all baptized by (by/with/in) one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." (1 Cor 12:13)
Baptism is a necessary part of salvation (cf. John 3:5), especially since it is a uniting with Christ in His death and resurrection. From time to time, however, some people may die without having received baptism. Yet God does not judge according to physical accomplishments (recalling that the physical is meaningless without the spiritual) but judges men by their hearts. Thus, those in pursuit of God who die without baptism can be supposed as having a willingness of heart to have partaken in the sacrament should they have known of its necessity. To show that it is only the heart that matters, God chose to poor out the Holy Spirit upon those in Cornelius' house who believed even though they had not yet been baptized (see Acts 10, esp. Acts 11:16).
Finally, the Lord Jesus commands His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19).
In conclusion to the matter, baptism is a spiritual uniting with Christ. All of the sacraments lead a person closer to being united with Christ and thus more with the Church. The sacraments are not just symbols, but they actually do things spiritually. Nevertheless, they all require the physical, and through them, God gives the physical more meaning. In baptism, water maybe symbolic of life, yet, in order to be baptized, a person must be baptized in water, indicating that the physical form/molecules of water are significant, that is, have meaning to all that baptism does.
The result of baptism is a new creation, one that is freed from sin. Nevertheless, temptation still reigns in the body, though it cannot harm the person unless they submit to it. It is still possible for a person to sin, and death still reigns in the members of one's physical body. At the resurrection, such will change. The freedom from slavery to sin will be accompanied by the freedom from death, and death shall be the last enemy to be defeated. From the grave shall spring forth new life in the glorified bodies of the righteous. And the faithful will ascend to God in their glorified physical bodies, now clothed in immortality for all eternity.
The Necessity of Love
11:05 PM
Suppose your memory were entirely wiped. Where would your faith in God be much less your concept of Him? Would you, on Judgment Day, still be held accountable for not having faith in God? Quite the opposite is true! You are required to love God. How can you? Innately in every man there is some idea of God, regardless of whether man can express that idea in words or symbols or not express it. Furthermore, there is innate in every man the knowledge of the moral law that tells a man what is good and right. Can a man forget such things? Is it not true that God has ingrained in man's mind such truths? Or rather, is it not true that if a man's soul is headed towards the Lord, then the Lord will lead the man back to truth. Since it is possible that a man whose memory is lost may never hear of God again or even learn a language again, God will surely be just and not count it against that man for having lack of knowledge. thus, knowledge from the outset is clearly not what God is seeking from man.
What is God seeking from humans? It must be that which man can offer God at every moment: the choice of his free will. How can a man choose God if he has forgotten who God is? - By loving his neighbor. If you love your neighbor, you are indeed loving God because God is love. Only those who have knowledge are required to do more because they have been given the capability of doing more. Thus, these extra acts, as they could be termed, are ways that gifted (or blessed) people can deepen in their relationship with God and love Him. Having faith in God; being baptized; partaking of the Eucharist; all of these are acts of loving God. Loving your neighbor is an act of loving God; that is why God did not put us in a universe alone. We are not on a planet full of people merely as a consequence of human reproduction, for if it were necessary, God could have created a new universe for every human soul that came into existence. On the contrary, God placed us an a planet with other people in order that we could love and be loved by other people, and in so doing, love and be loved by God.
The Justice of God
When God created Adam, He made man a person, a being with a free will. A person has the ability to choose. Whatever is set before the soul for the free will to pick and choose is a subject for a different discussion. What only matters here is the fact that man can choose to love God or not love Him. Ultimately, this is the only aspect of man's choices that God actually cares about. God does not care if the choice of a man will make him rich and famous or poor and unknown, though out of love for the man, God may manipulate the situation of a man for his own benefit. God cares for every single person He has made, and He wants everyone to love Him and every other human being. Everything that happens in a man's life will ultimately be to guide man towards a loving relationship with God. How the man views it and responds to it is entirely determined by the free will of the man. Though God knows the future, He nevertheless allows people to die outside of a state of grace, that is, in sin and on the road to hell. The question as to why He allows them to die at this point can be answered by the idea that the spiritual growth of the person (or their increase or decrease in love towards God) had stopped. At that point in their life, the person was not going to be any different. Maybe they might fluctuate over the course of their life should they have lived longer, but ultimately, they would not have changed. Those whom God allows to live some time longer than this point are probably being kept for a special purpose or purposes. Thus, it is reasonable to see why God allows people to die outside of grace. However, why God sends people to hell is an entirely different question.
God, being a just God, will send people to hell. He will judge them according to what they have done. To those who sought Him and His will in life, He will grant eternal life. Those who sought their own way in life He will send to hell for all of eternity. Why would God not forgive the sins of other people after a finite amount of time in the same way that men do? The answer can be found in examining justice in light of the love of God from the beginning of time. When God planned to create man, He did so because He wanted someone to love and someone to love Him. He did not need man, but He wanted him. However, love demands that it be free. Love cannot be forced from someone. It must be an act of a free will. That is why God gives each person a free will. If a person does not want to be with God, then God, in accordance with the rules of love, will not force that person to be with Him. However, the only thing remaining for the person to have when God allows them to leave is whatever is contrary to God, more specifically, the absence of Love. Since love is the ultimate source of the pleasure humanity so desires, and since God is love, then those who reject God are ultimately rejecting the sole source of happiness their souls are longing for. Thus, the justice of God is the assigning to each person a status based on, not what his or her soul longs for, but what their free will actually choose to pursue. The judgment of God is thus the examination of the life of a person to see if they choose to pursue a loving relationship with God. It is also the enactment of the justice of God. That is, it is the giving of each person what they want.
Monday, October 26, 2009
The flower of Calvinism - still a weed
Here are the five tenants of Calvinism, as given by:
http://www.apuritansmind.com/TULIP/TULIP.htm
1. Total Depravity
2. Unconditional Election
3. Limited Atonement
4. Irresistible Grace
5. Perseverance of the saints
These five tenants (called "TULIP") form the basis of Calvinism and can be described as follows:
1. Total Depravity
gist: Fallen man is completely incapable of thinking good thoughts, thinking of good itself, and wanting to do good. Essentially, man is not good to begin with.
2. Unconditional Election
gist: Predestination - Those who would go to heaven were chosen before the beginning by God, and the rest are doomed for hell. As one Catholic priest jokingly expressed Calvin's belief of the doomed: "God is God and He can do whatever He darn well pleases and He decided to make you a miserable sinner, just like Adam and Eve and if you think it’s bad now you’re going to Hell so what you’re current suffering is a picnic by comparison and who are you to criticize God anyway, you sniveling little worm. Amen."
3. Limited Atonement
gist: God decided not to extend the offer of salvation to anyone. He could have, but He didn't for His own reasons.
4. Irresistible Grace
gist: If you are chosen by God before time to be one of the saved, you cannot resist His grace when He decides it is time to change your heart.
5. Perseverance of the Saints
gist: Once you are saved, you "always reflect that you are saved" so-to-speak. In other words, it is impossible for you to sin.
It is from these that people mistakenly attribute the doctrine of "once saved always saved" (or "OSAS", for short ) to Calvinism. (A better description of the tenants of Calvinism would be: "predestined to be saved, and always saved thereafter".) However, the doctrine of OSAS is nevertheless a doctrine of Protestantism. The errors in this doctrine need to be discussed, but on another post.
meus respondeo ( "my response" )
[ NOTE: A more in-depth explanation of meus respondeo has been excluded for sake of brevity. ]
1. Clearly, there are very good people in the word, including Catholics, whom Calvin would reject. The main difference between these people? - belief. Note that Calvin specifically does not mention a rule that people have to believe in his "gospel" to go to heaven, hence people could believe just about anything in that sense, but undoubtedly, Calvin would say just about all of these people, except the handful of Calvinists (if there are any in that group), are going to hell because they are ideological enemies. How are these people then capable of doing good? Calvin's argument is defeated by real evidence.
2. There is no point in preaching the gospel (or propagating Calvinism for that matter) if this is true, because the elect few (who were chosen to go to heaven) will get the message somehow and go to heaven anyways. So let us simply let Calvinism do its thing, and we will let that silly religion die out.
3. So who is saved? Can people be deceived into thinking they are saved? Calvin would say yes. Why? - because people could decide to go be part of another religion instead of Calvinism. What if they did all kinds of good though? - Oops, Calvin, back to argument 1.
4. It's true that you cannot resist God's grace IF He decides to change your heart, but in reality, He lets you decide if you want His grace or not.
5. There must not be more than 1 person going to heaven ( Calvin himself ) if this were true. I do not know of any sinless people, even those who call themselves Calvinist. Calvin's argument has been defeated by real evidence.
Summary: Calvinism is for those who consider themselves the spiritually elite. Calvin did, hence, he created this religion. As a leader moves about the philosophical realms freely, he is joined by those who think like him.