Who is Satan? Is he Lucifer?

Faith & Science Conversation
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What the Christian concept of incarnation and all it implies? The Christian concept of living in the light of eternal life by seeking equality of outcome for all?

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Most Christians do not look for or expect equality. Humans expect justice which means the good are blessed and the bad are cursed. Whether this is God’s view remains to be seen. The Workers in the vineyard gives some indications of God’s view on fairness and equality but it is by no means universal salvation.

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Who’s talking about that? And eternal life is equality for all anyway. It’s our job to pursue that now as it was from Jesus’ first sermon.

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Salvation is given not earned. We do not pursue it.

Richard

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Who said otherwise?

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That is what salvation is: Eternal Life. So, yes, you did.

Richard

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No I didn’t.

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/quote]
Nick, IMHO, what I have emphasized in your response to @mitchellmckain is a point he is he is trying to establish–one that is overlooked by so many Christians: 1) True humans did NOT appear on this planet simply with the advent of the DNA that defines the Homo sapiens as a species; 2) True humans appeared only when the ‘wiring’ of the Homo sapiens brain produced a Mind and Conscience capable of overriding animal instinct. This resulted in the desire to seek out (and to become an Image of) the Creator. This is a Blessing–a Gift–and only in refusing it can we Sin.

Our situation is complicated by the fact that our ‘True Humanity’ depends on the fact that this Gift has a down side. It enabled us to form societies that allowed humans to become masters of the planet, but it also gave enormous power to the leaders of those societies. The history of events leading to World War 2 is clear evidence that as the Nazi party took control of German society, it was societal conscience and Societal Sin that overrode the individual. Even in a ‘free society’ (such as in USA) we must be on guard that we do not become guilty on that score.
Al Leo

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89

Thanks for the answer Leo. You made it simply and clear so i understood what you said. I agree at this point . But i cannot see how we (the children) can pay the sins of the father(adam ,eve) that is if you believe them to be historical

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There is nothing Christian about this idea of paying for sins. That is the old appeasing the gods type of religion which Christianity refuted. And it is when the Catholic church had finally degraded so much that it was selling indulgences to pay for sins that we had the Protestant reformation in order to recover the central teaching of Christianity (by the Catholic church too in the counter-reformation).

You cannot pay for sins. You might as well have people pay a fine for lighting themselves on fire. Sin brings death, and no amount of payment is going to change that. We simply MUST change… “go and sin no more.” And to be sure we need the grace of God to do that. This is the only way we can expect to have life.

The indisputable fact that we suffer because of the sins of our ancestors is a different issue entirely. If we are good people, then we work to make a better life for our children. In this way they benefit from the good we do. That they suffer for our sins is simply the other side of the same coin – from simple logic and not some absurd idea of divine punishment. The only alternative is to do away with parents and families to make all children be raised by the government in institutions out of some inane misguided effort to make everyone the same. It is not only inane but insane because people are NOT the same. They are in fact all different, and good parents allow their children to teach them how to be good parents to them by providing for their own unique needs.

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There is no such animal. Not in terms of culpability. Maybe we can be strung along by society but sin is ultimately individual. There is nothing in the Bible to validate a communal sin.

Richard

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I think I agree. There seems to be some fascination recently with the idea of collective salvation and I will admit there is collective aspect to wrong doing – some culpability when people do nothing in response to injustice. A Biblical reference is when Jesus talks about the Levite and the Samaritan in responding to the question of what is a neighbor. But I think we would both say that the Levite and every person who does nothing is individually responsible for their behavior. We certainly shouldn’t hold Schindler responsible for the crimes of the Nazi’s just because he was German. But that is because he did what he could and did it in a way that would save actual lives rather than speak up and be executed. But I think we would agree to collective sin in the sense that an excuse of “I didn’t do anything” doesn’t quite absolve people. Jesus clearly advocated a more proactive morality which demanded that people do good rather than simply abstain from evil.

As for collective salvation, I see some truth to this as the other side of the coin above. It is the character of relationships which makes a place hellish or heavenly. And while in the OT there does seem to be collective character to God’s judgments, with plenty of counter examples like in the stories of Noah and Sodom, there is plenty of precedent for the more individual character of salvation taught by Jesus and the NT. No, what we see over and over again is a description of creating the heavenly society by separating out the rotten apples.

I guess that one of the sentiments that speak in opposition is the idea that one cannot be truly happy when anyone is miserable. Such is one of the arguments for universalism. The only problem is that there are people who are only happy, not only when there are others who are miserable but only when they can be the cause of such misery. So I don’t think this idea and argument is ultimately self-consistent.

Perhaps the error is in thinking that heaven consists of perfect happiness. I am reminded of the “Buffy the Vampire” episodes where Buffy is brought back from heaven and finds it difficult to cope with life on Earth. I have a hard time believing in a heaven which makes people weaker in that way. Rather than perfect happiness or mindless bliss, the heaven I believe in is defined by growth, learning, and becoming stronger, better, and more like God. It would seem to me that this is the meaning of the phrase “eternal life,” which rather than mere unending existence (which can be hell), means having that which makes an eternal existence worthwhile. I envision an eternal parent-child relationship with God where there is no end to what He can give and no end to what we can receive (learning and growing) from Him.

P.S. edit: added bold to avoid people reading to quickly thinking that I am arguing for collective salvation/sin or universalism rather than against it.

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[quote=“aleo, post:88, topic:42874”]

[Richard G.] There is no such animal. Not in terms of culpability. Maybe we can be strung along by society but sin is ultimately individual. There is nothing in the Bible to validate a communal sin.

Richard, perhaps it matters how one defines “Culpability”. [Culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. Wikipedia] I think “Societal Sin” is more a matter of it’s being a “Sin of Omission”. A German pastor once described how many German Christians reacted as the Nazis were seizing power in the early 1930’s as: “I saw them mistreating Jews, but I was not a Jew, and so I did nothing.”

Mitchell cites the story of Otto Schindler:

[quote=“mitchellmckain, post:92, topic:42874”]
We certainly shouldn’t hold Schindler responsible for the crimes of the Nazi’s just because he was German. But that is because he did what he could and did it in a way that would save actual lives rather than speak up and be executed. But I think we would agree to collective sin in the sense that an excuse of “I didn’t do anything” doesn’t quite absolve people.

Since we live in the USA, where we have some say so in choosing our leaders, we share some ‘culpability’ when they promote a policy of “America First” even when it ignores the legitimate aspirations and needs of our fellow humans on the antipodes of our common home planet. So I deem the refusal to vote as a Societal Sin. However, I do take some hope in the fact that, even in my own lifetime, there has been a greater acknowledgement of (and shame for) the treatment of the Native Americans and African slaves that helped “make America great”. Again I quote Mitchell:

[quote=“mitchellmckain, post:92, topic:42874”]
I guess that one of the sentiments that speak in opposition [to ‘collective salvation’] is the idea that one cannot be truly happy when anyone is miserable. Such is one of the arguments for universalism.
[/quote]
I must admit that much of the language of theology befuddles me, but I seem comfortable with ‘reformed Catholicism’ if it includes what I understand of ‘Universalism’. I looked at the movie “Come Sunday” again on Netflick, and I enjoyed it even more the second time.
Al Leo

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We tend to be individualistic in modern society but in the Old Testament Israel was often held accountable as a collective, and even the idea of a scapegoat was for community sins. There is some carry over in the early church where we see someone become a Christian and his whole house including slaves were baptized with no real personal salvation story recorded for the others.

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Now, does that apply to us? I have recently been convicted that some of the fear and racial ly motivated violence has sprung from our silence and failure to confront hate and division in our society, and perhaps we suffer judgement for our silence and participation as a church.

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I think there is a big difference between remaining silent when you see injustice being done right in front of you, and not feeling compelled to be a sounding board harping on some issue endlessly.

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Harping on something is certainly more likely to annoy than correct. I guess my musing is if society were not so polarized and if we did not tolerate the fearful attitudes and hateful speech that drove them, would the father and son have murdered the young black man jogging down the road? That is not to take away their personal responsibility, but rather to say we bear some guilt for allowing such attitudes to stand and be nourished.

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How is it you are imagining we are supposed to disallow racist attitudes?

In the example you mentioned, they broke law. Not only is murder against the law but we also have laws against hate crimes.

In order for us to understand that you are not indulging in empty harping, maybe you can share a personal experience where you saw “toleration of fearful attitudes and hateful speech” and “allowing such attitudes to stand and be nourished.” Frankly many of us haven’t seen it.

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Haven’t seen it or failed to recognize it.

As a pre-teen, I often listened with my Dad to the radio program, 'Amos and Andy’. I thought their behavior was just an exaggeration of ALL human weaknesses and strengths: Amos generally acted rationally (like ‘us white folks’ should) while Andy retained a great deal of ‘childishness’ (much like even some of us white folks still do). Looking back some 85 yrs. later, I can’t believe that I considered that radio show as acceptable–some sort of Morality Play: black or brown skin does not prevent one from becoming morally adult.

To be effective in these times, racists realize that carrying a torch on a night march and yelling out threats is counter-productive and more subtle methods are called for.
Al Leo

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Such as…

You know when it comes to things like hiring people. The biggest “prejudice” I see going on is hiring the people they already know in some way. Perhaps some of this is because they don’t know how trustworthy strangers are. But I suspect a lot of it is just keeping all the money within a circle of family and friends.