That is not what Scripture says
Richard
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The concept of energy dissolves the antiquated ancient distinction between thing and action. Both things and actions are forms of energy. We demonstrate this with particle accelerators by turning the energy of motion (action) into particles of matter (things).
Therefore God’s action of creation is sufficient to produce whatever materials He requires – creation ex nihilo, creation out of no pre-existing materials because God is sufficient to create anything all by Himself. It isn’t something from nothing because God is not nothing - it is something from God, the creator of all things.
And God created the where as well – the space-time continuum. God Himself is not subject to either this space-time or some other space-time. But this doesn’t mean God is without these things. God has no lack of anything. They are within Him to use as He chooses. But this doesn’t mean God is limited to creating things within Himself. God can create a space-time continuum outside of Himself for His created universe to exist on its own because He created it - the true creation of something real.
By which you mean He has to work within the limits of your theology, right?
Obviously I don’t believe that.
The only limits are those on God which He chooses to accept, including the limits of logical coherence which are the essence of the difference between dream and reality. Sure He can create dreams with no logical coherence but He can also create realities which are logically coherent. I think it is obvious that the universe God created is the latter and not the former, a place where things do what they are capable by the nature of what they are and not just because God says so (as the clergy would like you to believe so that claiming to speak for God they make themselves the authority over all things).
No. There are no such words in the Bible. That is your addition.
Yes God did it. On that we agree. But I do not agree with your decision about how God did it.
And I am not saying God did it with a “human union” (i.e. sex). I explained that a virgin birth is quite possible, because a human pregnancy only requires fertilization not sex. But God does not create human DNA by magic – all the evidence is against this. He creates human DNA by a long process of evolution – and that is what He did. The Bible gives the lineage of Jesus as coming through Joseph and you may think it lied, but I see no reason to think anything of the kind.
Agreed. It doesn’t say that either.
But Vinnie didn’t say anything of the sort. He only said God can. And I certainly agree with that!
Nonsense. You said God can’t. I said God can. These are the plain and simple words that were used. Sure you can explain that you didn’t really mean that. But it is foul to say I used a strawman when those are in fact the words you used.
Yes, He CAN!
No!
I mean. If God says Jesus is His son, then He must be directly related. That is truth and reality. It has nothing to do with Theology.
You are using a false argument.
Richard
Jesus is God.
It is not a biological relationship.
As one God, it is an unbreakable existential relationship. The Bible is crystal clear that He is the son from all eternity – so saying this means some biological relationship is nonsense.
God CAN become a fully 100% human being. God has no limits. But being human is full of all kinds of limitations (limitations which Jesus accepted), starting with the limitations of a helpless infant who knows nothing but has to learn everything. Without that Jesus wouldn’t be human at all.
So yeah we agree that they are directly related. And that is an essential truth and reality. But no I don’t have to agree with your ideas about what this means with regards to genetics.
You are using a false argument.
Mitchell
The difference being that unless the Messiah was born of a woman then he cannot be Redeemer: the Old Testament redeemer concept is one that requires the redeemer to be “close kin” of those being redeemed.
Richard’s statement is not arbitrary, it’s ontological. All it says is that God is not self-contradictory.
Not according to the Apostle Paul. It’s not just people who can be described as living and moving and having our being in Him, it’s all of Creation. If He disappears, so does everything that in Him lives and moves and has being.
No, it’s a limitation stated by the scriptures. It took me learning Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to see it, but in the original languages it’s plain.
I don’t edit anything out, I just refuse to chop the sentences into small pieces to wrest some particular meaning out of them. The entire chapter is about Who Christ is; the mention of angels is just one detail in there, it isn’t the main point.
I’ve dealt with this before but I’ll try again: you don’t get to drain the meaning from φέρω by changing the verb tense. φέρων is a present active participle, indicating ongoing activity, and thus is correctly rendered as “upholding”, though “bearing” can work in the sense of carrying all things φέρων τε τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, that is “by the word of His power” – not past tense, but present, as in at every moment carrying the existence of everything.
Of course it doesn’t – that’s a fantasy you dreamed up. God holds all things in existence by His power, much like how electricity holds in existence the light from an LED – turn off the electricity and the light goes away; “turn off” God and everything goes away.
Just as the Exodus passage establishes: YHWH alone can claim “I AM”; everything else can only say, “HE IS!”
There’s no “enslavement” involved in holding God to His word, which He has given for our understanding.
Except you can’t. Human dreams are shallow, lacking detail, whereas God upholds every single particle in all their detailed quantum states and relationships, simultaneously aware of each and every bit of information concerning everything in the universe down to the quantum scale to every other bit of information about the universe.
Humans can’t even come up with anything new in their dreams, we can only mix and match from the menu of our experience.
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Sorry, but unless you have the elusive Divinometer there is no such evidence. There can’t be evidence against something that can’t be measured.
Besides the fact that magic doesn’t apply to God anyway; His will and His command do.
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And I think the only contradictions are to your own theological claims which I do not agree that God must be confined to.
Not according to YOUR reading of Paul which I do not agree with. Paul simply doesn’t say all these things you are adding to the text.
I disagree. I think these are things you are adding to the text, which simply are not there.
It is obvious to me that you are pinning this whole theology on this interpretation of one word in a passage which is not addressing that subject (as well as your own additions to other texts). I can only repeat what I have already said because nothing you have said convinces me otherwise and all the reasons I have given remain my reasons for what I believe and my disagreement with you. I will not agree with you and repeating yourself will not change this.
I didn’t say that scripture was wrong or right on the virgin birth. I just said that it’s not an absolute necessity that God must incarnate himself in a specific way. He is God. How God chose to do that and what the witness of scripture records and should be interpreted as are separate questions.
This was the whole point of my questioning which leads to as St.Roymond said, everything is contingent on God.
Also, for me, “energy” is a very useful scientific ledger or mathematical book-keeping. A bunch of concepts in our physical models are defined and calculated using this very abstract term. But its exact definition or how it plays into these discussions is far from settled.
Vinnie
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By which you mean He has to work within the limits of your theology, right?
Now you’re saying that Richard is defending my theological claims?
What would those claims be? How is he doing that?
The assertion he made really boils down to saying that you can’t have water at room temperature that isn’t wet, and your response basically says that you can.
Rubbish. You twist the words and the grammar to reach your disagreements, and those twistings can only be done of you think you have the authority to treat scripture the way many lawyers treat the law: as something to be redefined to mean what they want it to.
You love to harp on clergy twisting things to have power, but what you do is as bad as any twisting any clergy have ever done.
I’ve said this to others this before and now have to say it to you: lying is not a valid debate strategy, nor is it consistent with a certain group of ten items God delivered to Moses. All I’ve done is lay out what the original language means and haven’t relied on just one word.
Heh – good point.
Nothing on the list means I put no limitations on God whatsoever. Go ahead and blame my theology for this. I will as well, since it means my theology puts no limitations on God and I don’t accept the limitations your theology puts on God. Theology putting limitations on God is what I refer to when I speak of the enslavement of God to theology. It is very convenient for refusing to face questions you don’t want to confront. Instead of dealing honestly with the question you simply forbid the questions by making sure your theology doesn’t allow such questions. I am not interested in that kind of dishonesty.
Which I agree as far as meaning they would not exist if God did not create them. But I do not agree that it means God cannot create things which exist on their own as if everything God creates are essentially no more than a highly detailed dream. I cannot see how that is any different from pantheism or panentheism – making the world into part of God or an emanation of God rather than a creation of God. I believe God can create things which exist on their own and doing so is the whole reason for the creation of the physical universe based on space-time mathematical laws of nature.
That’s your theology.
Well said.
To the extent that your theology conflicts with what God has to say, well, your theology can go pound sand.
Christians believe in revelation. They believe that God has revealed Himself. They believe this self-revelation to be recorded in sacred scripture.
Scripture states that God is Love. Your theology indicates that God can be both love and not love. So much for your theology.
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