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A.K.A "Old Testament God vs. New Testament God"
I'll leave this to the more religious minded posters. Hopefully they'll take a break from their Catholic thread to notice.
Reading Anselm has only made me more curious. He attempts to explain how God can be all merciful, and yet at the same time just, but his argument is hardly persuasive on that point, so I will beg this question to some real intellectual heavy-weights...
So, the question is, how can the Christian conception of God maintain the characteristics of being both all merciful and completely just?
Just means that you give people what they truly deserve, regardless of how you feel; justice.
Mercy means that you occasionally spare people from feeling the wrath of your justice, regardless of their guilt.
Help me out here!
A.K.A "Old Testament God vs. New Testament God"
I'll leave this to the more religious minded posters. Hopefully they'll take a break from their Catholic thread to notice.
I do not know enough about religion to know if your claim that it is old testament God vs. new testament God is valid or not....but I do even have a problem with that while we are at it.
How can a perfect being change? If God is perfect, that means that it would not be possible to be any better. If this is the case, God can't change without becoming less than perfect, or more than perfect and proving that the old perfection was b.s.
Based on this, how do we have a different God in different stages of the Bible.
A strange concept indeed.
The idea that perfection = un-changing is interesting considering we live in a constantly changing universe (even the speed of light was recently discovered to vary in speed over time).
Anyway, I would say the we create God in our image and the changes in His character parallel our own throughout history, but that's my agnostic view. I'll leave the heavy lifting needed to resolve this theological issue to the believers.
No, the idea that perfection=unchanging does not, to me, seem to be in the least bit strange.
The speed of light is not perfect. Our universe is not perfect. All un-perfect things are capable of change. Something that is perfect cannot change.
If God is perfect, that means it is impossible to be any better, at all. If it is impossible to be any better than perfect, and God is perfect, God must always be the best possible attribute. Now, you may say that perfect changes...well, to finite beings it does. However, if God supposedly knows the future, then God knew that he/she/it would be something different later, and God would have, if perfect, chosen to become this better quality from the start.
The notion that we create God in our image, while undoubtedly true to everybody (seeing as we all have different views, we all think somebody is wrong, and the wrong people made up their God, in their image), it cannot answer a theological question based on the premises of Christianity.
In order to answer a question involving Christianity, you must assume all things of their belief to be true, at least in the argument, and so you must answer based on said beliefs. Christians believe God is real, and that God created us, so man cannot create God.
Maybe this is not the real intellectual heavy-weight phd answer you are looking for however this little story/joke may do the trick.
A Old Master Sergeant was attending some college courses between assignments. He was a young kid in Nam and an Old Man in Gulf War I.
One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a Card Carrying member of the ACLU.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in.
He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated "GOD if you are real than I want you to knock me off this platform, I'll give you exactly 15 minutes.
The lecture room fell silent, You could hear a pin drop.
13 minutes went by and the professor proclamed. Here I am GOD. I'm
still waiting. With less than a minute left the old Sergeant got out of
his chair, went up to the professor, and cold- ed him, knocking him out and off the platform.
The Sergeant returned to his seat and set there silently. The Other
students were shocked, and stunned, but looked on in silence.
The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Sergeant and asked. "What in the name of is the matter with you?
Why did you do that?"
The Sergeant calmly replied, "GOD was too busy protecting American Soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid crap and act like that, and he could not appear.
He wants you to believe so he asked me to take his place and try to convince you. I was just trying to get your attention.
My apologies, but you answer has completely confused me....
It's just another one of those cutesy "Noble Christian gets over on the evil athiest professor" stories that circulates via email.My apologies, but you answer has completely confused me....
lol, that it surely is, but I just don't see how it is relevant to my question....
Interesting discussion. In the old testament God was much more vengeful, especially toward idol worshippers and those who he wanted to test, but by the new testament, God had 'grown' much more merciful.
So, the question is, how can the Christian conception of God maintain the characteristics of being both all merciful and completely just?
The Sergeant was merciful, because he didn't kill the man.
Just means that you give people what they truly deserve, regardless of how you feel; justice.
The sergeant gave the man what he truly believe god wanted him to recieve.
justice for mocking GOD
Mercy means that you occasionally spare people from feeling the wrath of your justice, regardless of their guilt.
The professor was not killed and did not recieve the full wrath.
Best that i can explain it.
Also for non-believers
athiests are never found in foxholes.
ehhhhhh....
Justice would not have been served with the professors murder. We have freedom of speech.
Mercy would have been finding a clever, rational way of doing things rather that spreading the message of Christ through punching and violence. Jesus didn't fight too many people.
Now, if you are perfectly just, then you give them exactly what they deserve when they deserve it.
If you are merciful, then you occasionally do not give people what they deserve, when they deserve it, and the true justice is not served.
God is supposed to be perfect, if this is so, then he has the perfect conception of justice. This conception of justice is not capable of being altered. If God's understanding of justice can't be altered, then God cannot be merciful because mercy is not giving justice, and being perfectly just, God could not either abandon Justice for a moment, and God could not decide that it is more just to be unjust!
Also, the Seargent was not a Christian. To be a Christian means to be like-Christ. To be "like-Christ" means that you try to act like Jesus Christ, and follow his teachings.
The teachers of Jesus consist of turning the other cheek, being meek, and showing through love what others would through force. For the guy to punch someone for not believing in God, and better yet, for being merciful for not killing him for having opposing views, shows that he is not a Christian at all. Especially since he did this in the name of God.
That is why the post can't make sense. You have an athiest and a non-christian who pretends to be a christian fighting over God. This isn't about mercy and justice, it is about division and hatred.
Just a rebutt
The bible forbids loosing your temper yet Jesus did it in the temple and he whipped people.This cannot be righteous anger if he is harming someone with a whip
Mark 11:15-17 says, "And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold ...
I'm sure JC didn't do it with anger, but with ZEAL.
I am not about to argue about religion, two many of them.
Can't argue the bible, too many different versions.
I believe in GOD, but will not try to force my beliefs on you.
I also believe in the morning after pill , on demand. the death penalty,
owning as many guns as you want, and your right to chose the opposite position as long as you don't try to take away my rights.
you are not about to change my beliefs unless you kidnap me and
waterboard me, and for the moment the FBI frowns on this.
From an old man, originally from Wva, to someone down river in Tenn.
i dont know what it is, but hegamboa is the highest authority on all matters relating to god:
Another widely circulated myth. Some soldiers have found the experience of war utterly destroys their faith; other have it confirmed. It depends on the predisposition of the soldier involved.
Last edited by PixelPusher; 10-28-2006 at 02:54 PM.
I don't know what it is but you must be really obsessed with me.
I didn't realize Oscar DeLa was still bitter.
The simple is answer is: We can avoid paying the "wages of sin - i.e. the Just Wrath of GOD" via Christ's atoning sacrifice.
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. --John 3:16-21
And can be summarized with another of GOD's attributes... LOVE.
A no win situtation when it comes to religion. just look at this as a difference of opinion. I can not convince you and niether you me, so why get all bent out of shape over an issue that has no resolution.
If Jesus Christ (assuming you believe in Him) were to walk the ground again, who would be the ones to crucify Him this time around? The Catholics ? The Christians ? The Musulims ? The Baptist ? But being the good people that we are, would we subject Him to ours courts ?
Who has the answers ?????
The God of the Old Testament, the Jewish Yaweh, was actually the greatest of a few gods that some sects of Judaism worshipped - it was not condoned by all Jews and developed into monotheism eventually, but that is the reason that God is sometimes referred to a "jealous God", etc, in the OT.
I absolutely ing love this question and enjoy it almost as much as talking NFL football. What if Jesus came back already? In my opinion, he would perform miracle after miracle, our scientists would come out and disprove all of them and the ones they couldn't disprove, then those would be likened to the street magic we watch on TV. Eventually, he'd get a group of followers and be shunned to the woods of Northern Idaho or Montana and have to take up arms only to be defeated with a smart bomb being dropped from an unmanned Predator drone. Just my opinion though. My point, we're all talk, and all too cynical to have him come back again.
Christians (and other theists) have the ultimate trump card to play: "God works in mysterious ways" and it is the inevitable conclusion to this conversation. Any time the traits assigned to God or his people appear to be in conflict with logic, it's because you lack the ability to understand his position. A convenient ace up the sleeve.
Funny you say this. You said you studied religion in college. You mean you
didn't hear the theory about all the fakirs of Jesus time that would pretend to
be dead and then rise from the dead. They were the street magicians of the
time, so say those who try to write off Jesus as a fakir. And he could have
possibly been one of those.
Just to comment on what was said way above...
A changing god could be perfect if you claim that he's adapting. However, if god had to adapt then the environment god is in is more powerful than god and thereby would mean god was not all powerful.
Good point Manny, not to mention all those other Gods he has to contend with. I guess all the struggles are not limited to the surface of the earth, unless your a Jesus drone that insist their God is the only God.
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