| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
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| 953.1 | | POWDML::FLANAGAN | Resident Alien | Thu Jul 28 1994 12:57 | 13 |
| <<< LGP30::DKA300:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN-PERSPECTIVE.NOTE;2 >>>
-< Discussions from a Christian Perspective >-
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Note 9.1451 The Processing Topic 1451 of 1456
COVERT::COVERT "John R. Covert" 6 lines 27-JUL-1994 17:25
-< You reject the whole concept of punishment for wrong >-
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Patricia,
What you seem to reject is the concept that there is a penalty for wrong
behaviour.
/john
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| 953.2 | | POWDML::FLANAGAN | Resident Alien | Thu Jul 28 1994 13:02 | 15 |
| What I struggle with is
1. The arbitrariness of the penalty.
2. How people are motivated toward right behavoir.
3. Extreme punishment i.e. eternal torture.
4. contradiction between there is none capable of obeying the law,
thus we are all sinners, but some will be saved and some will be
tortured.
I struggle with the concept that grace is a gift. But some will get it
and some won't.
If grace is a gift, and the only way we can accept God is through this
gift of grace, why is grace not available to all people? Is it? If it
is, then how are all people encouraged to accept grace?
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| 953.3 | | POWDML::FLANAGAN | Resident Alien | Thu Jul 28 1994 13:06 | 22 |
| I struggle with the idea of collective responsibility.
I accept the idea of collective responsibility. The mess that we are
in as a people right now is the responsibility of each of us.
If we are destroying the earth, each one of us is responsible.
If we are wasting generations of youth in Roxbury, each of us is
responsible.
If we have a society the oppresses groups of people, each of us is
responsible.
If an innocent person drives into Dorchester and is killed by gang
warfare, each of us is collectively responsible.
that is a message in the prophets.(I think).
The problem is we cannot do anything as a entire group. We can only
act individually and in small voluntary associations. How do we impact
the collective problem so that we as an entire people are not subject
to anihilation and damnation for our misdeeds.
Patricia
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| 953.4 | | AIMHI::JMARTIN | | Thu Jul 28 1994 13:40 | 11 |
| I believe the key question was asked me last year when I joined my
church. "Jack, are your teeth marks in the fruit?"
This to me is in my minds, collective responsibility. As a race, we
are all ultimately responsible for our downfall, otherwise, we wouldn't
continue to sin.
I also believe that we are collectively responsible for driving the
nails into Jesus hands. Our sin forced him into that position.
-Jack
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| 953.5 | The _Unarbitrariness_ of the Penalty (Part 1 of 2) | STRATA::BARBIERI | | Thu Jul 28 1994 13:57 | 57 |
| Hi Pat,
I have come to believe that there is a reality that God cannot
circumvent and this reality is the reason for some eventually
being lost and for all the pain that there is.
God is love (unconditionally) I agree with you on this.
Because God is love, he created.
Also, because He is love, He created His intelligent creation
in such a way that they can discern variation in right and wrong.
So what happens if someone sins?
If someone has sin in his heart and beholds the unveiled love of
God, they will behold a full revelation of their sinfulness. Extreme
alienation will result. Without perfect faith that is an appreciation
of God's love, they will believe God could never accept them as they
are. Thus, their response to this alienation will be despair. The
psychic destructive force will be so great that they will physically
die. I believe of heart attacks, aneurisms, strokes. This is an
eternal death.
Please note that the cause of this death is ultimately God's character
of love. Please also note that I have just outlined a reality that
is 100% UNARBITRARY. There is no need for God to punish. He never came
to condemn, only to save. Sin punishes, but its latent destructive
force is manifested by God's love unveiled.
Ephesians says somewhere:
"But whatever is revealed is made manifest by the light, for whatever
makes manifest is light. Therefore He says, 'Awake, you who sleep.
Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light."
I now want to add a wrench. I cannot explain the why of this, but it
is entirely scriptural. When man sinned, his flesh went from unfallen
to fallen. With fallen flesh, he is tempted to sin. "The lust of the
flesh."
There is a strange dynamic that is a result of sinful flesh. That is that
if one has sinful flesh EVEN WERE HE TO BE SINLESS, as he sees God's love
more and more, his conscioussness is aroused with a deeper sense of what
sinfulness is. And he FEELS to be that sinner.
Job 9:20,21 (KJV) is illuminating. Part of it says: "Though I were
_perfect_, I would not know my soul. I would despise my life!"
I suggest that even should one be sinless, if they have sinful flesh and
behold the love of God unveiled, THEY WILL FEEL to be every bit as sinful
as a sinner would. This is how Christ was our sacrifice. He took sinful
flesh (that is He entered the hereditary/genetic stream of fallen humanity)
and he grew in beholding His Father's love. He grew in wisdom and stature
and as He grew in wisdom and stature, He grew in "knowing what is in man."
I'll continue...
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| 953.6 | The _Unarbitrariness_ of the Penalty (Part 2 of 2) | STRATA::BARBIERI | | Thu Jul 28 1994 13:57 | 57 |
| Continuing on...
The physical event of the cross coincided with a spiritual event where He
saw His Father ALL THE WAY - unveiled. Thus, He saw the "what is in man"
all the way and He felt to be that sinner. He felt all the alienation the
unsaved will feel. BUT, His faith was perfect. His character spotless.
Though He felt the alienation, faith which sees, overcame the temptation
to despair and believed His Father had not forsaken Him. Faith is the
victory.
Again...please note the unarbitrariness of it. And this is the reality:
Where death in the spiritual equates to that alienation. And the full
death equates to that full alienation experienced as a result of beholding
God unveiled with sinful flesh, reality is this...
Sin is death. (If sin is also in the heart, eternal death is UNARBITRARILY
the result.)
Righteoussness is life even in the midst of the self-same death (again...
UNARBITRARILY).
OK. One last thing. On what basis am I justified? It would seem to
follow that true justification can only be if one is of perfect character.
The word says that God accounts one righteouss who first comes to faith.
The life of Abraham reveals that the basis is that God honors our first
steps and partial basis for this is that provided enough oppurtunity, He
can fully perfect us.
One last thing...why all the pain??? Without being able to detail, God
is seeking the finishing of atonement which is a reconciliation of His
entire universe to Him that is so complete that they will never touch sin
again. What must (and will) happen is a last generation must go all the
way as Christ did. Their faith pierces the veil (they see God unveiled).
That generation shows to the universe how good God is when he is known
for who He is and how bad sin is. And when the universe sees that, those
that have chosen God's way will be eternally safeguarded from sin, though
the choice to sin is not denied them.
The need for the cross is that we need a Forerunner who pierced the veil
before us. We could never walk those steps without His having first walked
them. That is the efficacy of the sacrifice. The cross is of course also
the penultimate example of the love of God manifested which evokes our
response of faith. (Gal. 5:5,6 - i.e. faith working through love.) It is
a revelation of God lifted up that draws our hearts to Him and makes us
willing to let Him mold it after His own.
God Himself had to be the sacrifice because perfect love would have no
created being do so. Also, His being the sacrifice is demonstration that
the spiritual reality explained above is one that even He must submit to.
Patricia, please note how unarbitrary this is.
God Bless,
Tony
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| 953.7 | Schoolmasters and The Reality They Point To | STRATA::BARBIERI | | Thu Jul 28 1994 14:08 | 24 |
| One last thing...
I mentioned the physical event of the cross coinciding with a
spiritual event of seeing His Father unveiled.
I suggest that Christ's physcical death and resurrection are
schoolmasters pointing to a previous death and resurrection which
is entirely within the spiritual.
The real death was the full experiencing of all that alienation that
took place in His mind as a result of taking sinful flesh and seeing
the Father unveiled (fully unveiled light making fully manifest).
The real resurrection was through perfect faith, not submitting to
this alienation by despair, but rather believing that God loved Him
and accepted Him all the time (see Psalm 22 and 23 and see Psalm 24
which speaks of Jacob as that generation which seeks God's face, i.e.
a euphemism for seeing Him unveiled).
When Jesus cried "It is finished!!!", it was a cry of victory and it
commemorated a finished work. He commended His life to His Father
after the sacrifice (death and resurrection) was complete.
Tony
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| 953.8 | Trying To Be Patient | STRATA::BARBIERI | | Fri Jul 29 1994 13:31 | 7 |
| Hi Pat,
After rereading .2, I feel that I have covered all 4 things
you struggle with though points 2-4 not directly. I am
eagerly awaiting your thoughts!
Tony
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| 953.9 | | POWDML::FLANAGAN | Resident Alien | Mon Aug 01 1994 12:09 | 14 |
| Tony,
I reread your responses and I can intellectually relate to many
of your points. I am ready Rudolph Otto's book, The Idea of the Holy
and it is similiar to your line of reasoning. The idea of the
simultaneous terror and excitement in the presence of the Holy. I am
rereading Second Isaiah from that perpective and it makes a little more
sense.
I appreciate reading your response and how you have worked out your
answers to these questions. Your answers don't quite work for me
though. I suspect I will continue to struggle with these questions.
Patricia
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| 953.10 | Would Like To Continue | LUDWIG::BARBIERI | | Mon Aug 01 1994 18:03 | 28 |
| Hi Patricia,
Thanks for replying. I would like to expound on Points 2 to 4
because I just touched on them in my replies.
I am 'essentially' comfortable with the views I have come to
believe because I believe they are according to scripture and
because I can see how the overall underlying basis for all the
pain is God's character of love. Somehow, even infinite love
can be rejected and God (thus) in some respects relinquished
the sovereignty of His will. He did so when He created free
will.
As you can see, though a Christian, I am in a decided minority
camp. I do not believe in eternal consciouss torment, rather the
ultimate anihilation of those who have rejected God fully and who
someday will see His unveiling. I do not believe the atonement
is finished and indeed cannot be until any who choose to follow
God are eternally safeguarded from ever sinning again. That is,
atonement is a reconciliation of man to God and most of Christianity
views it as (at least in part) a reconciliation of God to man.
And finally...I do not believe in a God who must punish for sin
at least not in the ultimate sense. I simply see a God who must
restore the heart because of the reality that even He must submit
to. Which reality is that anyone in who's heart is sin would be
destroyed by His unveiled Presence of infinite love.
Tony
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