This sentence, I don’t understand it, I know it’s in the Bible, Jesus himself allegedly said it, but I don’t understand being born and betraying Jesus is worse than not being born.
If this decision is final, it has to show the character of Judas, him being born later so he couldn’t betray Jesus would not change the fact that he can’t have a relationship with God, so the relationship is lost just the same.
If it was not based on his character, but on situation, and in different situation he may have made a good choice and enter relationship with God, then that shows God is separating a person with potential to have a relationship with him forever. And that makes no sense, if there’s a way, God will find it.
Living in this world is a kind of faint relationship with God to me. So why having no relationship at all ( not being born ) is better than having this faint relationship but not gaining anything deeper ( betraying Jesus )?
There’s also hell, but hell as a place where fire and suffering is never extinguished doesn’t make too much sense to me.
A controversial thought shows up in my head: “Maybe Jesus was wrong about that, after all, he was human”, but him being wrong about theology is kinda iffy.
Or maybe I’m taking it all to seriously and Jesus just wanted to underline how grave Judas sin was
God works within the framework of time. God does not “have” to, except God is constrained by God’s Will as found in the Creation. God is much smarter and wiser than we are, but does not know anything that we cannot know. God is not omnitemporal. God does not have to be a control freak to be in charge.
Proverbs is not the Logos. Anyone who does not prepare for possible unforeseen events, which what we are talking about here, is a fool.
Your reading comprehension is different than mine. I’m not going to take time to find the way more than several verses that refute that – just start with the thought that he is infinite and we are not.
You don’t know that. There are reasons to believe that he is. Is he omnipresent? Yes. If you haven’t yet, watch enough of this interesting NOVA video posted earlier and elsewhere to be able to visualize spacetime slices. God is omnipresent in them. That implies he is omnitemporal as well: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-fabric-of-the-cosmos-the-illusion-of-time/
ETA: Corrected link just above. ↑ Outside of the U.S., the video may be inaccessible, but there is a transcript available on the page. (Streaming might be available in Canada?)
God does not “know” something that is not true or real. If God knows something, it must be true and real. The future is not true and real until it takes place, because humans have free will. Therefore, God does not know the future.
I should have qualified that by saying, Within the scope of Creation God does not know anything that we cannot know. No, we cannot know how God created the universe out of nothing, but we are continually learning new information as to how God shaped the Creation. Please do not underestimate God’s ability to give humans the ability to observer and think.
The Fabric of the Cosmos
Science is beginning to understand that the Cosmos is basically relational, not physical. God is Relational. Philosophy is not, so God is not understood as philosophy, but Love.
This is one of a large set of questions asking why God doesn’t do things differently… such as “why doesn’t God make His existence more obvious?” like is discussed in many threads on this forum.
I have been watching a Korean drama called “Hellbound” where different people are being told that in 5 days they will be taken to hell. For me the most horrific thing are these religions rising up because of it – imagining this will bring about a world where people don’t sin. But I think it is clear that is not bringing out the best in people at all.
Calvinists believe that God is controlling because they say that God is Absolute, which is a philosophical concept. They say that God’s power makes God look insecure and thus weak.
This is not right. God’s gift of freewill is at the heart of God’s goodness. We need to use our God-given ability to think to reconcile God’s power with our freedom. See my essay, God and Freedom on Academia.edu.
His omnipresence, that he is absolutely everywhere, is not a philosophical concept. Nor is omnipotence. Absolutely. And you obviously did not grasp the concept about spacetime slices.
Jesus did, certainly with respect to some things. Or do you not believe there is such a thing as prophecy.
I admit to having a stereotype of “orthodox Reformed Calvinists”. Your question suggests that my stereotype is not accurate. Well and good, but you’d be stunningly mistaken if you were to assume that my stereotypes can’t be changed.
As an “orthodox Reformed Calvinist”, do you subscribe to the five points of Calvinism:
I do not claim to speak for your tradition, I’d thank you not to claim to speak for mine. If you are going to speak about Calvinism, I’d thank you not to repeat the same old tired and egregious strawmen.
This implies that the Calvinists on our forum have not already thought through these issues. Which could be construed as rather patronising.
The TULIP post-dates Calvin by some years and is not the criteria for being Orthodox Reformed. Rather, one is considered to be an Orthodox Reformed Calvinist if they subscribed to one a Reformed Confession, principally:
the Westminster Confession of Faith
the Belgic Confession
the Baptist one (I forget the name, sorry, Reformed Baptists!)
and/or the Heidelberg Catechism.
I’d be really grateful if those who are not part of a Reformed Tradition would stop tell those who are what they apparently believe. Thank you.
