You are ignoring what I said.
The actions of David are history. The rationalisation of why is editorial comment.
Does god incite people to do evil?
Did David consult God? How does the editor know this?
To understand Scripture you have to see past the editorial commentary.
Judaism attributes more to God than modern theology does, because of our experience and understanding of God.
Richard
Of course, Satan in the OT is not the same as in the NT, but rather more a prosecutor and thus works on Godâs behalf, or at least with his consent, as in Job and in Eden. So both version may be saying the same thing. sort of like the state has the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but pays the DA to prove you guilty and put you in prison.
Neither of those two narratives are thought to be based on any sort of reality in modern theology. The idea that God âplaysâ with mankind or âtestsâ us is Judaism or Pauline.(as Paul starts from a Jewish perspective.) Both do not sit well with any doctrine of freedom of choice, God is no longer manipulative of controlling, nor does He look to punish transgressions. Christ did not come to Judge, so any comparison to the legal system fails.
Richard
If you want proof that Scripture contradicts itself, even theologically read Job from start to finish. It s whole point is that suffering and calamity are not related to sin which implies the opposite that wealth and health are not related to Righteousness. And what does it do at the end?
It rewards Job for his patience and Righteousness!
For it to be consistant Job should live out his days in neither squalor nor wealth and comfort.
Instead God shows remorse and regret for putting Job through it all and not only restores him but makes him even better off.
Yeah, right.
Richard
No that is wrong. It is your statement (without any evidence btw) that fundamentalists are those who read the bible as written. The fact is (and this is fact btw), YOU must make a twisting of normal reading of language in order to support the claim that secular scientific interpretations disagree with a normal reading of biblical language. The genre argument is not well supported and easily refuted. Personally, i find it rather unintelligent that so many individuals here try to use the genre argument. I will point again at some simple refutations of the genre argument:
Examples i regularly use here that still are unable to be explained away are:
Moses - the earth was literally created in 6x 24 hours days
Matthew (repeating the words of Christ - God the Son)
Matthew 24 - 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Luke (again, repeating the words of Christ - God the Son)
Luke 17: 28 âIt was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Peter
1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, âThis is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.â[b] 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophetâs own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness[b] to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)
Id love you to produce any well referenced academic argument that is capable of biblically supporting the claim that the above references (particularly the writings of Peter here) are to be read according to Genre such that they are not recounting literal events. Peters statements are absolutely devastating to your belief there St RoymondâŠabsolutely devastating.
Personally, i think it absolutely impossible to believe that Peter is not recounting history when he states
Flood - calling Noah a preacher of Righteousness along with 7 others), and
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorah - calls Lot a righteous man living among them day after day.
Im sorry to be so blunt St Roymond, i really am, but this is your choice (not mine)âŠ
Essentially your only possible âoutâ there is to claim "i donât believe what the apostle wrote "(remembering Peter is both an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ and also the first bishop of the Christian church!)
Discrediting Peter, Matthew, Luke, and Moses writingsâŠwhats left of your Christianity?
See i do not have to play games with my philosophy (my beliefs). I can find scienctific evidence th as t is in harmony with a normal reading of language for both Testaments of the bible. These were largely writen upwards of 600 years apart and in significantly different cultural times so, the âbeing pulled out of historical contextâ argument is absolute nonsense. Its absurd for you to claim Moses writings are in the same context as those of the end of the first century AD.
I note that in another thread, you offer up this challenge for a yec to debate the science publicly. That fails to understand that Christian philosophy doesnt need to defend itself against other ChristiansâŠthe preaching of the gospel doesnt aim to convert the those who are already following ChristâŠso your aim there is pointless.
Your debate is only useful for non philosophical settingâŠie debating athiests and other non Christians and in that setting it would be fine, however going out on some kind of self proclaimed endeavour in order to refute YEC is merely an attack on religion itself.
YEC dont follow Christ because science tells them tooâŠneither should you.
Yes, the Church would seemingly agree with how you frame Sola Scripture. This is from Dei Verbum (note the bold):
But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, (8) has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, (9) whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.
Protestants may take exception to the part in italics.
But when you say obey the Lord more than humans, this is true but assumes, as you know, we have the actual word of the Lord and can interpret them correctly in their ancient contexts and correctly apply them in our lives today. There were a lot of Christians with diverse interpretations of Jesus in the past. There were many groups and books. We have the writings the Orthodox or winning Church deemed scripture.
All versions. âBible aloneâ would only really work if it fell from heaven. Someone has to write, disseminate, preserve, accurately copy and canonize all these works. Without the Church established by Jesus and the passing on of authority, I do not see how this is done. I think Iâve dialogued with three different people and though there were overlaps, sola scripture was formulated in three different ways,
You mean all the âit is writtenâ in the scripturesâthe specific discrete publications that were preserved and canonized by the Church? âIt is writtenâ only works if we accept the book saying it as scripture or already believe the author of the saying is divine. None of that happens without the church commissioned by Jesus. Its not wise to put the cart in front of the horse.
What if you said it rests on the âGoby Siftar?â That would be meaningless. You mean the Holy Spirit you know about from the discrete publications you accept as part of an authoritative canon? The reason you can speak confidently of the Holy Spirit is because you read about it and have an understanding of it based on the Bible. You are putting the cart before the horse. Now the Church of course would claim its authority is from the Holy Spirit and it was commissioned by Jesus.
It is factual that men wrote the books of the Bible. Itâs also factual that men canonized certain works over others. Sure, we believe the Holy Spirit guided them but we know they got things wrong as well (Hebrews was probably included because the church incorrectly thought Paul wrote it, they thought Matthew was the first gospel, written by an eyewitness, that Paul wrote the 13 letters attributed to him , etc.). We know humans were involved because they got lots of things wrong and disagree on some books.
All the churches? Is this Answers in Genesis level apologetics?
The sheer number of other gospels alone renders this claim delusional. Unless that Church had authority to recognize which works were authoritative, this is a moot point. There were very diverse interpretations of Christianity in antiquity and many books used by many groups of Christians (sometimes for centuries) that did not make the canon.
Not to mention, I think sola scripture is tied into inerrancy. If I was able to morally determine some commands and statement in scripture are wrong, I am not really going with âBible alone.â Claiming sola scripture with an accommodated text just seems like moving the goal posts Chicago statement style.
Wasnât the early church was accused of cannabilism? I cannot see the eucharist as anything other than literal. It makes no sense as a metaphor unless Jesus purposefully wanted to drive people away in John 6. The eucharist is the new Passover and Jesus is the new passover lamb, new manna, and new bread of the presence.
As far as I have read, canonization was a joint (ecumenical) recognition of scriptures that were read in churches in both west and east. So, there was first a widespread acknowledgement of the authority of certain scriptures, only afterwards came the joint recognition of these scriptures as âcanonâ.
There are different interpretations about what the Eucharist is. No need for lengthy debates about that topic on this forum.
Yet, remember when Jesus set the Eucharist? He was by the table bodily when he told that the disciples should eat the bread (his body) and drink the cup (his blood). It is quite evident that the bread was not flesh and the wine not blood, as Jesus was alive. I do not believe that there happened a magical change when Jesus died - bread did not change to flesh or wine to blood.
In addition, I believe that there was one sacrifice for our sins, when Jesus died. After that, he resurrected and ascended to heaven. We should remember and declare that, also through the Eucharist. If the bread would turn to his flesh and the wine to his blood, that would mean that he is returned to earth and sacrificed every week. It does seem a strange idea.
I know that some churches have a different interpretation about the Eucharist and do not try to force my interpretation on these churches. I am just reminding that there are other interpretations and my current understanding is that the interpretations suggesting that bread turns to actual flesh and wine to actual blood have gone astray, centuries ago.
The Churches that doctrinally won. Their canons are not even exact. Orthodox, Ethiopian, Catholic, Protestant. All different numbers of books. Unless the Holy Spirit is the author of confusion, the human element in canonization cannot be denied. They also rejected many works other Christian groups that lost had used. Some works were even included for wrong reasons (Paul wrote Hebrews, a large handful of pseudonymous works, incorrect information about the order and authorship of the Gospels, etc). Canonization was not an open and shut process like @St.Roymond made it out to be. That is bad apologetics not borne out of careful historical inquiry.
Evident to who? Not to most Christians throughout history. The Real Presence of Christ is the earliest view stemming from the apostolic era and early Church. The same one that canonized scripture. Whether the first supper was transubstantiated before Jesus died I cannot say with certainty nor can I reject it. As you note, Jesus had not made the one Sacrifice yet. But I would rather avoid discussions of âGod not being bound by time.â At any rate, recall that early Christians were accused of cannabilism:
Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66, defends Christians against cannabilism ca 150 CE
And this food is called among us ÎáœÏαÏÎčÏÏία [the Eucharist]⊠For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, âThis do in remembrance of Me, this is My body;â and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, âThis is My blood;â and gave it to them alone.
Athenagoracs (ca 175) in his Plea for Christians writes: âThree things are alleged against us: atheism, Thyestean feasts, Ćdipodean intercourse.â In Greek mythology, Thyestes was unknowingly fed his murdered sons. A Thyestean feast is a charge of cannabilism.
Not to mention Jesusâs original audience took him the same way in John 6 (how can he give us his flesh?) and many left him because the saying was extremely hard. If we read John 6 carefully, when Jesus apostles/disciples are mortified by his grotesque comment (major blood taboo and OT violation) and lots leave, he offers them assurance and talks about the Son ascending, the flesh is of no avail and spirit and life. The Eucharist is not the dead flesh of a human Jesus, but the transubstantiated flesh of the transformed and risen Jesus. The comment is so hard many Jewish scholars think its absurd to think the historical Jesus could have ever said such thing. That would be a very strange metaphor, one aimed solely at reducing followers. Jesus actually doubled down and repeated its second time! I believe 6 times in 7 verses he refers specifically to eating his body.
In John 6, Jesus links his body with the manna from heaven which was nothing less than a supernatural miracle. Just before he walks on water (Exodus they walk through water) and fed the 5000 (recall the manna from heaven). Right in John the people say he I the prophet (new Moses) who is to come and they try to make him king. A few minutes later they reject him over a metaphor where he says following him is the new manna? That is a hard sell.
The last supper has Jesus, who is the New Moses that was hoped for, starting a new covenant that was hoped for in Jeremiah, and being the new Moses implements a new Passover and Exodus (Cross) and brings new manna that were all hope for in Judaism by some parties. I recently read a book on the Jewish roots of the Eucharist and it really changed my whole perspective. The last supper is entirely fictitious in its narrative details (stemming from Christian communal meals) or entirely prefigured in the OT. Not to mention the links to the bread of the presence. Ancient Jewish passover involved drinking four cups. The gospel passover ended early (they never drank the fourth cup!) and the cup in Gethsemane Jesus talks about takes on new meaning (its otherwise an odd symbol for death). Technically the passover/last supper/ of Jesus does not end until Jesus drinks the fourth cup on the cross then immediately dies. He specifically says I thirst then immediately after drinking (the 4th cup) gives his spirit up and dies.
A man dying on a Roman Cross for the sins of the world is also a strange idea if you think about it. But your statement âthat he is returned to earth and sacrificed every weekâ is a common Protestant objection that has no relevance because it has no baring on what Catholics actually believe. Itâs almost as if Protestants think Hebrews 9:12 isnât in Catholic Bibles. The Catechism states: âit makes present the one sacrifice of Christâ. The Eucharist was seen as a sacrifice (often unbloody) from the earliest of times. Itâs the only view that can claim to be apostolic.
https://classicalchristianity.com/2011/05/28/early-fathers-on-the-eucharist/
However we make sense of it, this strange idea is Christianity 101. But I donât think anyone thinks Jesus is dying over and over again. Neither are Catholics engaged in cannabilism.
I do not want to debate about the meaning of Eucharist on this forum. Yet, there is one detail I would like to lift up: that some accused Christians of cannibalism.
This was a misundertanding rising from the practice of the persecuted church to have the Eucharist secretly, so that only the baptized members were allowed to be present. The language of Christians was interpreted in a malicious sense: the remembrance of what Jesus did through the Eucharist as well as the love that brothers and sisters shared. The first one lead to accusations of cannibalism, the second to accusations of disagreeable sexual relationships. At some point, the accusation of cannibalism turned to a claim that Christians were eating small children (or their blood) in their secret rituals.
These were malicious rumors, nothing else. The rumors told how non-Christians could not understand the jargon of Christians and imagined the worst possible scenarios. It was an attempt to show the adversaries in the worst possible light - something that happens even today in contexts where people are strongly divided in their opinions.
It remains an interesting question how much misunderstandings and pagan thinking affected the interpretations of the later converts. The jargon was such that it could be understood in different ways. What interpretation became dominant probably depended much on the writings and talks of few influential persons who were not inerrant.
I agree that there was a human element in canonization. The basic principle was fairly clear but imperfect knowledge added uncertainties.
I guess the basic NT writings accepted by a vast majority of churches (almost all?) were Tetraevangelion and most letters of Paul. Hebrews was probably not written by Paul but the message in it agrees with the other accepted scriptures. The same could be said from the other scriptures that are part of the Bible today. Anything clearly in conflict with the message of the basic writings was rejected. In this sense, the voice of the apostolic teaching can be heard even today through the biblical scriptures.
The writings not universally accepted into the canon have elements that seem to be âoddâ compared to the message in the core of the canon. For example, apocrypha and deuterocanonical books include something valuable but also parts where the message does not fully fit to the teaching in the core of canon. When reading these, there is a sense of not hearing the pure apostolic gospel (/the voice of the Holy Spirit).
Although the biblical scriptures are perhaps not inerrant in the modern sense of the word, the message in these scriptures hits inerrantly to the bullseye. Anyone denying the authority of those scriptures should tell what else is a more reliable witness and voice of the original apostolic teaching?
Hereâs a question to throw into the mix.
Is illness related to sin?
Jesus often linked His healing with forgiveness. The paralyzed man:
âIs it easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say take up your bed and walk? But to prove that I the son of man has authority to forgive sins I tell you get, up take up your mat and go home.â (Paraphrased from synoptic Gospels)
Yet the whole point of Job is to prove that illness and suffering are not directly linked to sin.
In truth God does not actually contradict it, in Job, He basically says that we are not to try and fathom why God does or does not do anything. What He does say is that the so called comforters of Job spoke wrongly about him when they claimed that Jobâs suffering was due to sin.
And, like I said elsewhere, the book of Job contradicts itself by restoring Job and ârewardingâ righteousness.
So we not only have the question of whether sin and illness are related, but also whether righteousness is ever rewarded? The Gospel of Paul negates that possibility, if works count for nothing.
The again, the parable of the sheep and the goats would seem to suggest that works matter, even if it is only in the manner that James suggests, that works are a demonstration of faith.
IOW there is not a distinct teaching from the whole of Scripture on this subject.
Inerrant? Theologically?
Richard
No, it is in my statement that thy ARENâT: reading literally in English is contrary to reading the Bible as written because it was not written in modern English with a modern worldview.
Are you ever going to stop with the lies?
Reading the Bible in English translation and taking it literally is an approach that comes from scientific materialism. âLiteralistsâ are the ones demanding that the Bible must speak science; all I demand is that you let the scriptures be what they are â ancient literature from an ancient historical context.
The only way the âgenre argumentâ could be refuted is if there was no text at all. All human literature has genre, and without knowing the right genre it is impossible to understand the message.
By your approach, Joyce Kilmer believed that branches reach into the air because trees are praising God, Robert Frost believed that roads have emotions, and the Beatles really took a ride on a yellow submarine.
No, I just deny that your modern materialist philosophy is to be imposed on the scriptures, and I insist on not claiming more for the text than it gives.
âDiscreditingâ? I give them the credit due their work; I refuse to insult them by insisting that God somehow took over their minds and forced them to write in a literary form that would make Adam happy twenty centuries later.
Literalism strips the text of meaning, starting with the opening of Genesis and shredding its way right through the Bible.
The only challenge Iâve offered up is for any YEC to point to where in the scriptures it says that it intends to teach science.
If I had made such a challenge, it wouldnât be pointless, it would be to show that when YECists try to talk science they cannot do so without lying.
No, itâs an twofold effort, though primarily it is aimed at combating a false Gospel that is the primary reason that university students abandon the faith. The main result of YEC ideas on campus when I was in university was Christians leaving the faith; it was only when someone was willing to talk about scripture as ancient literature that cannot be read literally in English that I saw people come to faith in Christ. In the self-congratulatory little YEC world forcing the scriptures to fit a modern materialist worldview may earn point, but in the real world people capable of common sense understand that you canât grasp the point of any literature uness you know its context.
BTW, the âself-congratulatoryâ description came from an engineering student who got tired of the literalist spiel yet ended up a Christian when he realized that there are Christians who are honest about the Bible, and started listening.
More making stuff up. I donât care about the science except when people lie about it. I care about the text â not the English, but the original, as understood by the people back then.
Nor do I follow Christ because of the Bible; that is idolatry. I follow Christ because of the Resurrection, and I regard the scriptures as authoritative because He did.
I meant which version of âsola scripturaâ. I go with the one Luther held, which comes from St. Gregory, Athanasius, and others, which oddly isnât adhered to by anyone today as far as I can find.
And was bigger than the Library of Congress.
If the authority of the text comes from a human organization, regardless of its claims of authority, then I would reject it as having no more relevance than the Epic of Gilgamesh. But its authority comes from the Holy Spirit Who spoke through all the churches, thus making the canon catholic, âfrom the wholeâ. No council or bishop had the authority to decide what was scripture, only to announce what all the churches had said.
It happened with all the churches, not any one church claiming authority over others. That does not give any church today a basis for claiming that they should be listened to because they are the ones who gave us the canon.
No, it doesnât, because most of those were written after the canon was essentially established. Itâs like saying that if twenty or thirty people wrote something they claimed was by Tolkien what they wrote should be considered on par with his work.
Sts. Gregory and Athanasius apparently didnât think so.
âWidespread acknowledgementâ is canonization â itâs just that the term wasnât used till later. Reading through records of local councils and regional and on upwards itâs evident that all the higher levels were doing was relating what the lower levels had decided â the phrase âare read in our churchesâ is the constant refrain, a reporting of the consensus that began with trading copies of different things a Christian might read.
So ârecognitionâ is a good term: it indicates that they werenât exercising any authority to decide for or against, but that they were seeing what the Spirit had already done and bowing to that.
The only problem here is that we have a narrowed view of âsacrificeâ â we tend to look at the version involving death and blood as being the whole thing. There was also, back then, a âsacrifice of remembranceâ, which strangely to modern ears wasnât about humans remembering something but about reminding God of something. Seeing the eucharist as that sort of sacrifice puts the transformed elements up there with the rainbow â something God sees and âremembersâ and has mercy. [Thereâs actually a trace of that in some Orthodox liturgies where the consecrated elements are âwavedâ above the altar.] This is how the Wittenberg Reformers conceded that the Mass could be viewed as a sacrifice: not anything new and propitiatory, but the very same thing that was once offered on the Cross lifted up to âremindâ God of that one effective sacrifice.
Depends on what you mean by âactualâ. I go with a French Catholic theologian I read stuff from long ago that of course it canât be flesh and blood as we know them since Jesus is no longer flesh and blood as we know them.
But that human element is the hand of the Spirit; the lists that are mostly the same with some unevenness along some edges is a lesson for us.
My view of the process is the result of painstakingly reading record after record (not infrequently in bad Greek) where the operant phrase was âthese are read in our churchesâ and seeing the convergence emerge, a consensus born in a situation where these decisions were initially being made independently.
Thatâs not the fourth cup:
"I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fatherâs kingdom.â
The fourth cup comes as Isaiah said:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
In a solid theological sense we are living between the Cup of Blessing and the Cup of Elijah (sometimes the Cup of Messiah) in a sort of suspended Passover where we repeatedly eat our Passover Lamb and continually drink the Cup of Blessing.
If you read it that way. I look at it as an âin your faceâ to the Accuser for maligning Job in the first place.
It still doesnât work on three counts
No one is supposedly righteous after Adam.
If all have sinned then all should be disabled or ill
Sinners should not be successful
Richard
Well, I donât think it is about Job or his righteousness at all. His story was a literary device to show something of Godâs providence and glory. You know it is fictitious as he had three friends come sit with him for seven days, then take about the meaning of life. In reality, they would have come by for 15 minutes, talked about the weather and football, then would have had to head back home before the wife got worried.
Yeah. There is much talk about sacrifice in the scriptures, in a wider sense than most realize. When we praise God, even that is one form of sacrifice. And the most challenging one is the request to give our whole life as a living sacrifice to God.
Yesterday the topic of the sermon in our church happened to be from 1 Corinthians 10:31:
âSo whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of Godâ
It is strongly related to the idea of living to and with God (both a sacrifice and a priviledge). Made me remember all the times I have written even on this forum in ways that do not give the glory to God in the sense that this verse is telling about - I regret and repent.
Eucharist as a sacrifice of remembrance sounds good. I see this kind of sacrifice as a reminder of the covenant between God and those who live in Christ. A symbolic reminder towards God but also a deep reminder of what Jesus did, the covenant, mercy, and unity of Christâs body (= believers) to those who participate. That is much more than just a supper among brothers and sisters.
It does not matter whether the setting is real or just a stage for a theological debate. The subject is clearly whether suffering comes due to sin or not. Job claims He has done nothing to deserve it (and the introduction shows him to be correct). Even the fact that his suffering is due to the Devil does not matter either.
The four âcomfortersâ spout Jewish Doctrine. Each from slightly different perspectives tries to convince Job that he is to blame and that if he repents then it will all go away⊠Job maintains his innocence and would rather die than admit any sinning.
Godâs answer is not exactly a denial of the accusation that He is responsible but He does say that it is not for us to try and judge or explain His actions. His response is basically that we have no idea what God is abut either before or now and it is not our place to judge a person to have sinned because of his circumstance,
Paul clearly states that the world is suffering because of sin. The story of Job denies that sin is the cause of suffering. The two views are incompatible.
Richard
The following two statements are different from each other. As in one could be true while the other is simultaneously false.
Sin causes suffering.
Suffering comes from sin.
Note that these are both too vague to really evaluate⊠E.g. is there an implied âAllâ before the statement? If so it definitely makes at least one, and maybe even both statements false (again, still subject to yet further needed clarifications).
Without descending to semantics.
That sin can , or even does cause suffering would depend on the exact sin. lies can actually prevent undue suffering but still would be counted as a sin.
Suffering comes from sin? That would be harder to unpick, as it were. Disease causes suffering but we do not consider it to be caused by sin. (Also Job) The point is that Paul basically claims that the world is suffering because off sin, in a global sense and that would be contrary to the principles behind Job, because Paul seems to imply that there is no countering good other than Christ.
Remembering Pauls Jewish heritage, which sees himself, and all others bound by the will of either God or evil, the Christian view of there being no righteousness outside Christianity is flawed. It just isnât true, and anyone who reads the less sensational parts of a newspaper will find good deeds done by Non Christians. The Good Samaritan was neither a Christian nor saved by Christ! We are not slaves to sin, unable to do good, and by we I mean humanity as a whole. Christâs salvation is not lessoned because we choose to sin, it is magnified tenfold. If our sin is innate then we have nothing to be guilty about. It is not our fault. As it is, we confess the sins of our own choice and volition not some distant misdemeanour by a character who may or may not have actually lived (in the form shown by scripture)
Richard
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
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