A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

Heck yeah. I have no more reason to think I alone am right than anyone else does. But we can’t let a little thing like uncertainty make us quit what we hold on faith.

Truth is knowable, Personally, and I don’t think I alone am right – there are and have been plenty of others.

Indeed. The hard part is determining which are and which aren’t. Consensus is preferable, but it is always possible for the fullest bus to be the one that goes off the rails. I guess at least if you’re in the wrong car with many you’ll have plenty of company.

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Um, truth is not democratic? :slightly_smiling_face: (I did not vote on who my father was, or who my Father is.)

No but it does seem you and others work pretty hard to apply scripture to arrive at theistic understandings. Nothing at all wrong with that of course. It is just that your results can’t be better than your working assumptions. By comparison I’m working a great deal less hard. So kudos for the effort but it is the caring that drives it which I admire most.

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Right … but I’m not claiming your concensus was rigged. :wink:

Not so much. Some biases are correct.

But they should be proven, too, right? Or at least, subject to the same rigorous evaluation for truth that any tenets should get. Thanks.

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Do you prove a worldview? It is a matter of what kind or kinds of evidence we have allowed or disallowed, for valid reasons or not. Tenets get evaluated, sure, but it is largely a matter of faith when that is what we are talking about. Once you are committed to a worldview, correct or otherwise, however, a habitual bias and habits of thinking become inherent. If it is not well founded or grounded, a jolt may knock you out of it. (That could be a good thing.)

When you are driving, hopefully you are biased toward good habits such as driving courtesy and obeying the law – they are not evaluated ‘at every turn’. Young men in pickup trucks or muscle cars, not so much.

Yes, like you and me!

Nonetheless, “be toast” is rather a “nice” way to describe hell.

It is rather obvious that our lives consist in a finite number of decisions after all.

The “calculus” is basically that described in Ezekiel 18:

21 “But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. 22 None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. 23 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?

24 “But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die.

Very good point!

The “weighing of the heart” against the ostrich feather of Ma’at in the Egyptians “Book of the Dead” confirms that the judgement by God after death is a truth written on the heart of all peoples.

Do you identify with the prohibition of homicide?

That is the question!

No I wouldn’t say I identify with it but I hope you’ll make clear why you put it that way. Naturally I’m in favor of prohibiting homicide. I’m repulsed at the idea of killing yet if cornered I imagine I would defend myself and any others being threatened, albeit not very skillfully as I’ve not studied self defense nor. do I keep any weapons around.

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I presume you also acknowledge that we humans are allowed to use non-human animals (chicken, pigs, cows, turkeys, lambs, salmon, tuna, etc.) and plants for food.

This principle, together with the principle of the prohibition of homicide (you are in favor of) is the very content of Genesis 9:3,5-6.

My claim is that everyone who acknowledges these two principles and is seriously committed to defend the uniqueness and dignity of humankind, does implicitly assume that:

  • “God became human flesh”;
  • God called and ordered humankind to share in God’s love and live respecting each other;
  • “from each human being God will demand an accounting for the life of another human being”.

And, at the end of the day, this is what you are claiming when you state:

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I do. However I would claim that right based on our rightful place in the web of life as an integral part of a wider creation.

What special dignity we have stems from the insight we’re given regarding the importance and dignity of every one of our fellow creatures. We may and must consume some to live but we should do so with respect and great care not to damage the great web of life which contains us all. We are not innocents who cannot reasonably be expected to know better. With great insight and power must come responsibility. I hope we are up to the challenge but I see there are many who look at resources but only see riches to be exploited for personal gain.

I frankly think it is time to recognize we have passed the point where going forth to multiply our numbers without restraint is conscionable. Adding another billion people to our population is not greater in the eye of that which has brought about the great web of life than seeing the rich complexity of the web balanced over the whole earth. Our infancy is over. Now we must stop putting our selves first above all other creatures. The richness of the biosphere is not but a yolk sack provided to allow humanity to hatch out as large a swarm as possible. That would not be deemed good.

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I fully agree!

But the reason why we should live “with great care not to damage the great web of life which contains us all” is to grant the survival and future good of humankind.

It would be tricky to invoke “the great web of life” to reduce humankind to a species more among others, and thereby deny the special dignity and uniqueness of humanity.

This would amount to deny the Incarnation of God, and the great work of evolution after all!

Do you think God is absent from all of creation except for that which leads to homo sapiens and on to the resurrection? Do you assume everything else is of no interest to God except for that portion that reflects his own glory? I think, if it makes any sense to think of a creator at all, that it is all God’s work and mattered to Him.

When you look at Jesus as God incarnated you are only seeing that part of God involved with humanity. But God is involved with everything. God does not glory in His reflection in us, it is we who glory in our reflection in Him. Why should God glory only in this one species if he is author of all? God as reflected in Jesus is humble, not vain glorious.

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Ephesians 1:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

God first chose humans to share divine life and ordered us to be children of God through Jesus Christ: God became human in order humans can become God; in heaven we will see God through the eyes of God’s incarnate Son, Jesus Christ!

To this aim, subsequently, God wanted all of creation and made the world.

The words your comment consist in, they exist because you write them to communicate with me. Similarly, the world around us does exist because God “utters” it to speak with us.

Absolutely!

God underpins the whole physical reality, so that we can properly say:
“In God we live and move and have our being”.

Indeed, Jesus says: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40)

When you look at every human being, you are seeing “God involved with humanity”, the incarnate God.

If we want to take care not to damage the great web of life, we ought to take care not to damage innocent human life.

If we go “vain glorious” and uphold manufacturing human life, then we will get rid of humanity, and of the great web of life as well.

In any discussion, it is crucial to look for some common ground the participants can share, in order to avoid discussing senseless.

In my view, in all discussions regarding evolution and faith everyone is basically arguing in name of “the uniqueness and dignity of humanity”, and this means acknowledging the prohibition of homicide while admitting that humans ought to use animals and plants for food. On this basis you can go further and argue in defense of the “great web of life”, but only as far as you do not deny “the uniqueness and dignity of humanity”.

Now, to coherently found the “uniqueness and dignity of humanity” you have to refer to eternal life and accountability toward God. Otherwise the criterion for truth and assigning rights is not “the happiness of humankind” but the selfish interests and strength of the individuals, at the end of the day.

This means that the universal revelation contained in Genesis 9:3,5-6 provides the very basis to evaluate tenets, and to this extent is the very basis of knowledge.

I am answering to you with a different account because the software tells me that I have already posted 3 replies consecutively. I apologize.

If you considered worthy discussing my last comments we can go on with the thread. Otherwise I will let it going closed, and thank all of you once more for this enjoyable debate where I have learned so much!

@MarkD
I am particularly keen to know how these “other rationales for respecting one another” may work.

In my view, if you get rid of eternal life, the image of God, and accountability toward God, the criterion for truth and assigning rights reduces to shrewdly boosted Darwinian selfish mechanisms.