Christian theology thread for Christians - Deus homo factus est naturam erante, mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

 

[Skyline Enthusiast]

What's your favorite hymn? Mine is "In the Garden of Eden" by I. Ron Butterfly.

 

[Divine Power]

 

[Froggy Fresh Sextape]

Literal Standard Version (LSV) an updated YLT,

This is available online for those who don't know, they released it under Creative Commons. It mirrors the style of the Tanakh very well.

And Israel dwells in Shittim, and the people begin to go whoring to daughters of Moab, and they call for the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people eat and bow themselves to their gods, and Israel is joined to Ba‘al-Peor, and the anger of YHWH burns against Israel. And YHWH says to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them before YHWH in sight of the sun; and the fierceness of the anger of YHWH turns back from Israel.” And Moses says to [the] judges of Israel, “Each slays his men who are joined to Ba‘al-Peor.” And behold, a man of the sons of Israel has come, and brings a Midianitess to his brothers before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, who are weeping at the opening of the Tent of Meeting; and Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, sees, and rises from the midst of the congregation, and takes a javelin in his hand, and goes in after the man of Israel to the hollow place, and pierces them both, the man of Israel and the woman—to her belly, and the plague is restrained from the sons of Israel; and the dead by the plague are twenty-four thousand.

This is where we get into the difficulty of translation because a modern reader's eyes are going to glaze over immediately. Nobody writes like this anymore.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Satan says to Eve, "surely you will not perish" so she was aware that God told her that she can't eat from that tree, and the consequences would be death. The chronology of events is something that is so curious to me but is ultimately meaningless.

Open for discussion, I doubt the "snakes" they were dying from bite of in the desert were metaphorical, nor was the snake Moses rose on a staff for the Israelites to lay their eyes on to be healed. The serpent in the Garden story is promised to have it's head crushed by the heel of the woman, is that a metaphor or literal? I always look to Christ and the Jewish prophecies he fulfilled: "They look upon that which they have pierced", many think this refers to the spear that produced blood and water from Jesus' side, but they nailed him to the cross, which would involve piercing already. It's an unknowable mystery what exactly the serpent in the Garden was, mysteries are reserved for God, we just have the revelations that he has revealed to us through his words in the book. The fact that the book is translated and interpreted so many different ways may lead us to miss the forest for the trees, distracting us from the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, without whom there is no hope.

It's one of those things that ultimately doesn't have a bearing on the core of the gospel but is interesting to discuss amongst Christians as I do think there is deeper knowledge to be gained. ALTHOUGH I do think there are aspects of Genesis that we can't fully understand.

The Genesis story is a bit complicated because its actually two stories in one. You have the creation story and then you have the Adam and Eve story. Both are derived from different texts and oral traditions, and understanding them requires less then literal interpretation.

I was taught growing up that Moses authored all of it but I know that people disagree on this. I err on the side of literal interpretation unless the literal interpretation obviously makes no sense.

The English translation for this part really sucks ass, but the Serpent IS Satan. The actual phrase is "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made". The text doesn't say that the Serpent IS a wild animal. More that he was more intelligent then them. Up to this point however Adam and Eve had not encountered other entities beyond God himself and the Animals. So there is no context for a fallen Angel like Lucifer.

"Crawl on his Belly" is pejorative. In traditional societies, you bow and scrape before superiors when being humbled as a crime. Saying the Devil will "Crawl on His Belly" is allegorical to this, and is done to illustrate the fallen nature of Satan. As for "Eating Dust", in agriculture societies you either have a productive farm and food, or you don't and you eat dirt. Like Haitians incidentally. This statement means that the Devil and his Works will lead to bad outcomes like famine.

This is very informative, thank you.

Though Eve got the short end of the stick because she sinned first.

In what way did she get the short end of the stick, can you elaborate?

Eve's sin was tempting him with the fruit

Did she really tempt him though? It doesn't seem like she really persuaded him although there's not a ton of detail tbf. Isn't her sin primarily that she disobeyed God's command?

Culpability for different reasons, but to God all sins are equally bad. There is no such thing as context or mitigating factors.

All sins are equally bad. Any sin leads to eternal damnation due to the absolute nature of Gods justice. It is why we need the intercession of Jesus Christ to take the Punishment on himself so that we can be able to assume the Grace of God's absolute mercy.

Sin is sin, and even the smallest sin separates us from God, but the Scriptures have many examples of sins being different in severity and in consequences. Sins committed intentionally or by those who have a greater understanding of God's will. Luke 12:48 is an example of this off the top of my head.

But when it comes to instructing and commanding men as is the role of a Priest, its not possible simply due to how the Genders work in biological function and abstract social organization.

Can you elaborate on this more? I can understand the social organization part (in simple terms, men being socially conditioned throughout history to see women as inferior/dumber/whatever and being unwilling to receive instruction from a woman; women not having as much access to education; etc.).

 

[Divine Power]

 

[mindlessobserver]

I was taught growing up that Moses authored all of it but I know that people disagree on this. I err on the side of literal interpretation unless the literal interpretation obviously makes no sense.

"Moses writing it" is part of the oral tradition. Its not really canonical. A better way of looking at it in my view is that the story is divinely inspired but subject to an unfortunate amount of "telephone" from its original authorship down through the millennia and translations up to whatever translation it is you read.

A frustrating thing for me is how people who often opt for strict interpretation (like young earth creationists), rely oftentimes on very recent translations like the New International Version which oftentimes glosses over context and nuance other translations don't. For example, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, some translations have God say "I" when referring to his command. As in And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” and others have God say "We", as in possibly the "Royal We" or in other context possibly in reference to the Trinitarian God, or in some more extreme outlier theories Multiple other Gods. Such as in the KJV Version he say's "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil"

This is why the Old Testament in PARTICULAR needs to be read carefully. It has wisdom but when it comes to doctrine its not so good. Prudent Christians will rely on the New Testament for doctrine because the authorship of the New Testament can be based on practical knowledge and not faith as it comes directly from Christs teachings and the subsequent work of the Apostles.

In what way did she get the short end of the stick, can you elaborate?

Well, humans are incredibly intelligent and as consequence we have massive brains. Of course our massive brains come at a cost. They are too large to properly fit through the birth canal. If I was too apply a literary analysis to the curse of eve, this would be tribal farmers trying to explain why their cattle can give birth with relatively little trouble and very quickly, but when it comes time for a human female to give birth its incredibly painful, drawn out and dangerous.

Adam (Men) were cursed to labor against creation for their food rather then to have it simply given to them, but Women(Eve) were cursed to suffer the consequences of having their children try and kill them on the way out because they had the knowledge of good and evil. Having to work too live is pretty tough, but it is small beer compared to what women have to do.

 

[Slap47]

Does Christianity teach ethnocentrism i.e. looking after and caring for your people before other ethnic groups?
It seems pretty clear to me it does like in Matthew 15:21-28 because we see Jesus say that the reason he looks after the Jews before looking after foreigners is the same reason a father should feed his children first before giving the left-overs to non-family members like the dog. So following Jesus' example we should also feed our children first before giving the leftovers to non-family members and look after our ethnic group first before giving charity to foreigners.
Old Christian scholars like Aquinas and Church Fathers also supported this , even reformers like John Calvin , but it seems like almost every major modern Christian group claims the opposite.
When did this happen? Is it a post-WW2 thing or did modernity cause this change earlier?

So what is the hierarchy to you?

Does a Christian in Zimbabwe have less value to you than an Atheist of your own ethnicity in your country? How exactly do you prioritize the former over the latter?
This line is about taking care of your own family before taking care of others. You're still expected to take care of others.

If anything, Christianity and most other religions are anti-racist. They care about whats in a persons heart and mind. Only exceptions of overtly racist religions I can think of are Judaism and pre-1980s Mormonism.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

A frustrating thing for me is how people who often opt for strict interpretation (like young earth creationists), rely oftentimes on very recent translations like the New International Version which oftentimes glosses over context and nuance other translations don't.

I'm a young earth creationist and while you can certainly arrive at this view solely by interpreting the days in Genesis as literal days and nothing else, I think it is also to consider such things as whether it is all that unbelievable that the Christian God could create the world in six literal days, and if the God of the Christian Bible would look down on many years of death and suffering of His creation and call it very good. IMO the obvious answer to both of those questions is "no." Dithering about the original language used for "days" in Genesis isn't really necessary. The Young Earth view also predates the NIV, which wasn't released in full until the late 70s. Many early Reformers, like Martin Luther, believed in 6 literal days.

A better way of looking at it in my view is that the story is divinely inspired but subject to an unfortunate amount of "telephone" from its original authorship down through the millennia and translations up to whatever translation it is you read.

I don't mean this to sound condescending or dismissive but couldn't you call into question much of the Bible with this mindset? Why believe anything in Genesis at all if you think it's so distorted?

This is why the Old Testament in PARTICULAR needs to be read carefully. It has wisdom but when it comes to doctrine its not so good.

Much of Old Testament doctrine doesn't apply literally to our everyday lives, but Christ Himself validated the teachings of the OT (Matthew 5:17). We no longer have to live by many of the OT laws in our day to day, such as avoiding certain fabrics or foods or offering sacrifices, but to say it doesn't have good doctrine seems quite obtuse to me. It's sound doctrine, it's THE doctrine, but it was fulfilled in Christ and there is much to be learned and gained from reading and studying the OT.

Prudent Christians will rely on the New Testament for doctrine because the authorship of the New Testament can be based on practical knowledge and not faith as it comes directly from Christs teachings and the subsequent work of the Apostles.

One must obviously have faith to believe the teachings of the NT. One must have faith in Christ's Godhood and the accuracy of the NT. One must have faith in many of the prophecies and wisdom in the NT that runs counter to logic or common sense. The NT is built upon the foundation of the OT and if you don't believe the OT, why would you believe the NT? Did Jesus really perform miracles? Did He rise from the dead? Is He coming back? Did He give a vision of the end times to John? One must have faith to believe this, no? Either you have faith or you don't; either you believe Scripture is divinely ordained and divinely inspired or you don't. I don't think there can be an in-between.

Adam (Men) were cursed to labor against creation for their food rather then to have it simply given to them, but Women(Eve) were cursed to suffer the consequences of having their children try and kill them on the way out because they had the knowledge of good and evil. Having to work too live is pretty tough, but it is small beer compared to what women have to do.

In one breath you say all sin is the same and Adam and Eve sinned equally, and in the next you say Eve got the worse deal. I might not be understanding you. And to be fair I don't totally understand this myself.

God to Eve - “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” God is addressing Eve and He curses her with painful/dangerous childbirth (which clearly affects men too since a male child can die in birth), and a desire for her husband while he rules over her (I don't understand this fully yet).

God to Adam - "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” God is addressing Adam and He curses him with having to work the field (women do this too; in many cultures they do it more than men), and He curses him with mortality (obviously this affects women too, and all creatures in the world).

 

[mindlessobserver]

So what is the hierarchy to you?

Does a Christian in Zimbabwe have less value to you than an Atheist of your own ethnicity in your country? How exactly do you prioritize the former over the latter?
This line is about taking care of your own family before taking care of others. You're still expected to take care of others.

If anything, Christianity and most other religions are anti-racist. They care about whats in a persons heart and mind. Only exceptions of overtly racist religions I can think of are Judaism and pre-1980s Mormonism.

All of mankind are welcome into the universal church.

But until Christ returns and the Kingdom of Heaven is proclaimed, all men are not one people. The curse of Babel is in force. For God sundered the nations and until the day that God himself is King of All, the nations of man will never be united. This curse is in force, and commanded by divine will to this day. Man will never speak with one tongue. Man will never be ruled by one King but God, and man will never ascend to heaven by his mortal effort. Only in death will man become immortal. All his mortal works are dust, and all his mortal rulers are dust.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I'm a young earth creationist and while you can certainly arrive at this view solely by interpreting the days in Genesis as literal days and nothing else, I think it is also to consider such things as whether it is all that unbelievable that the Christian God could create the world in six literal days, and if the God of the Christian Bible would look down on many years of death and suffering of His creation and call it very good. IMO the obvious answer to both of those questions is "no." Dithering about the original language used for "days" in Genesis isn't really necessary. The Young Earth view also predates the NIV, which wasn't released in full until the late 70s. Many early Reformers, like Martin Luther, believed in 6 literal days.

Then you need to repent of your heresy. You looked into scripture and assumed you could assume divine knowledge without the guidance of the Church. The personal relationship with god is heretical, because it is quite literally the feels before reals fallacy.

The Church exists to guide the sheep. But sheep we all are. And led astray you are. No mainline Christian denomination reads the genesis story literally. The "days" are viewed as allegory. To claim literal reading too explain concepts beyond human knowledge. The literal interpretation is a production of Liberalism, and the belief that any individual who once handed scripture can reach the correct interpretation as if the words alone are what is sacred and not the mind that is reading them.

What sets Christianity apart from the Muslims, the Hindus, and even the Jews is the adherence to the structure of knowledge that underpins the faith. The Councils were not called because Christians were dogmatic, they were called because the faith cannot survive if it becomes beholden to superstition and faith alone. Extreme protestant denominations stray from this and rely entirely on faith alone, and to those raised in it, it becomes baseless superstition because faith alone is not a foundation on which the kingdom of god can rest.

The God of Creation requires his creation to rest on truth. Not faith.

 

[Mad_Dog]

"Moses writing it" is part of the oral tradition. Its not really canonical. A better way of looking at it in my view is that the story is divinely inspired but subject to an unfortunate amount of "telephone" from its original authorship down through the millennia and translations up to whatever translation it is you read.

A frustrating thing for me is how people who often opt for strict interpretation (like young earth creationists), rely oftentimes on very recent translations like the New International Version which oftentimes glosses over context and nuance other translations don't. For example, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, some translations have God say "I" when referring to his command. As in And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” and others have God say "We", as in possibly the "Royal We" or in other context possibly in reference to the Trinitarian God, or in some more extreme outlier theories Multiple other Gods. Such as in the KJV Version he say's "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil"

This is why the Old Testament in PARTICULAR needs to be read carefully. It has wisdom but when it comes to doctrine its not so good. Prudent Christians will rely on the New Testament for doctrine because the authorship of the New Testament can be based on practical knowledge and not faith as it comes directly from Christs teachings and the subsequent work of the Apostles.
Well, humans are incredibly intelligent and as consequence we have massive brains. Of course our massive brains come at a cost. They are too large to properly fit through the birth canal. If I was too apply a literary analysis to the curse of eve, this would be tribal farmers trying to explain why their cattle can give birth with relatively little trouble and very quickly, but when it comes time for a human female to give birth its incredibly painful, drawn out and dangerous.

Adam (Men) were cursed to labor against creation for their food rather then to have it simply given to them, but Women(Eve) were cursed to suffer the consequences of having their children try and kill them on the way out because they had the knowledge of good and evil. Having to work too live is pretty tough, but it is small beer compared to what women have to do.

Alas, this is what "modern scholarship" does to one's faith.

To quote my previous comment on this topic:
Close your ears to their blandishments, brother, because these theories twist our religion into an entirely new thing where we no longer worship the God who thundered from atop Mount Sinai in cloud and Majesty and awe, where we no longer worship the Divine Savior who was crucified and risen for our salvation. In this new religion, we and our community, not the God we worship, are the protagonists of our religious narrative. The story is now self-centered, rather the God-centered, it's about our own growth: from primitive tribes who believed in things like "miracles," to sophisticated, self-aware, and mature believers who tell hard truths and congratulate ourselves on how nuanced and critical we are.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I fail to see how viewing the old testament as apocrypha is some sort of revelation. The old testament as Apocrypha has been such since before the Council of Nicaea

Subsequent church councils have since confirmed its Apocryphal status. As guidance only and not doctrinal. Adopting old testament teachings as doctrine is heretical and in contravention of the guiding fundamental teachings of Christianity.

Any church that uses the old testament as a guiding principle sets itself outside the universal church and is heresy

 

[Preacher ✝]

The Wisdom of Bl. Fulton Sheen

Day 202 - You want perfect life, and perfect truth, and perfect love. Nothing short of the Infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature... Why do you want Life, Truth, and Love unless you were made for them? How could you enjoy the fractions unless there were a whole?

 

[Paradox Mystic]

Isaiah 55:9 (NKJV)

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts."

 

[Divine Power]

 

[Divine Power]

 

[Divine Power]

 

[the big new poster]

So what is the hierarchy to you?

Does a Christian in Zimbabwe have less value to you than an Atheist of your own ethnicity in your country? How exactly do you prioritize the former over the latter?
This line is about taking care of your own family before taking care of others. You're still expected to take care of others.

If anything, Christianity and most other religions are anti-racist. They care about whats in a persons heart and mind. Only exceptions of overtly racist religions I can think of are Judaism and pre-1980s Mormonism.

I'm not sure. On the one hand there's matthew 15 21-28 teaching that it's good to look after your people (not just your family but your ethnic group , for the same reason that a father should feed his family members before the dog, who is not related by blood) first, and in matthew 9:12 teaching that it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick, while on the other hand there's verses indicating that Christians should have special love for each other.

But what we can say is that is that there's pretty clear teaching to look after Christians of your own nation/ethnicity before looking after foreigners.

Do you have any evidence of early christian scholars supporting your view and saying that it is wrong for a Christian to look after his people first ? I've not seen any before the 19th or 20th centuries when the secular ideology liberalism was becoming a big influence. By contrast early church fathers, Aquinas and Calvin all support what I'm saying.

 

[The best and greatest]

Where in the Bible does it say that life is supposed to be perfect and you're supposed to have everything handed to you? I'll wait.

Replying here so I stop shitting up the politics thread

To my knowledge, nowhere. Why would a morally perfect being create a machine that produces suffering in the first place though? What does the Bible say about a man's works and how they reflect on his character?

All of this has been to say I dont get on with the idea that god is perfect. Because his creation is a reflection of himself. We are imperfect because so is our creator, a thought which if I were more religious I think I would take comfort in personally. Its a comforting thought to me that god is like me, fallible, prone to err, capable of making mistakes and learning from them.

Here's a question I have. Is god capable of change or is he himself immutable?