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Discussion: Mere Christianity

Comprising most of Lewis' writings.
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 27th, 2006, 1:59 am

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 27th, 2006, 2:13 am

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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 27th, 2006, 2:40 am

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 27th, 2006, 3:19 am

I can relate to God simply (and only) because He wants me to relate to Him. He reveals Himself in such away that allows me to relate to Him. The word "relate" does not mean "understand". Yu certainly don't have to fully understand another person to relate to them.

Jesus told His disciples to pray "our Father". He specifically said that God was not the reigious leaders' father. In fact, He said that their father was Satan. Paul said that we (Christians) had been brought into the spirit of adoption (where we once were enemies) so that now we can go boldly before God and cry, "Abba, Father." The idea of the brotherhood of all humanity is absolutely nonChristian.

But jokng aside, my neighbor happens to be a Christian so I can, in fact, see God in him. My other neighbor is most certainly not a Christian and I see nothing of God in him. The Godness of Christians, assuming that it can be recognized at all, originates from God Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit that lives inside each Christian. You can only see God where God exists and the idea that "God is in each of us" is absolutely not, in any Christian sense, a fact. In fact, I can't think of a less Christian belief.
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 27th, 2006, 3:37 am

If your non-Christian neighbour is devil's spawn, you'd best kill him quick! You certainly can't love him.

You can only love what is loveable. Only God is loveable, and those things that bear his image.
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 27th, 2006, 4:19 am

What do you meen by "loveable". If you mean "undeserving of love", then that's grace, "loving those who do not deserve love."

How you do dramatize things! Such extremity would make anything hard to understand. I can see how you've confused yourself. "Devil span" would have a rather specific and biological meaning. I don't think devils have been running around Selma making women pregnant (you may but I think that's a rather strange idea). The Bible (of course you don't accept the Bible) says that Christians are God's by adoption. We didn't belong to Him at one time but He chose to make us His soms and daughters so He adopted us; but He went further by making is His true kin by indwelling us, thereby giving us a God nature. But then, would you call that a myth? I rather accept it literally. Mind you, I'm just relating what the Christian scriptures say. Others would certainly have other ideas.......

My concern for my neighbor is that he gets to know God (he's able to do that) and avoid many bad things.

I really don't know what you mean by "unloveable". Love is the intention to benefit another. I don't know why I shouldn't benefit anyone (well, I don't feel benevolently disposed toward demons, but that might just be me - other folks, though, hey, I can get behind it!).

Actually, I know of only one reason to benefit others - Jesus cared enough to die for them. If He cared enough to do that, I don't want them to die and go to hell. In the second place, I don't want them to waste what He did. Ultimately, it's because I love Him, not because I love them.
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 27th, 2006, 4:27 am

Oh, BTW, I need to add, just because something bears an immage doesn't make it kin of give it the "loveableness" of that whose image it bears. I have photos of my parents. Those photos aren't sons and daughters of my parents and, though I like to have them around, I don't love them, They're paper. Paper isn't loveable. All humans bear the image of God and although it's even true that God originated them, it doesn't make Him their Father nor does it make them loveable. It only means that they have some resemblence (I suspect that the resemblance is that they bear the same general form as His begotten Son Jesus).
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 27th, 2006, 5:53 am

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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Re: re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby Kolbitar » July 27th, 2006, 10:25 pm

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 28th, 2006, 12:14 am

Again, immediate and selfish behaviour is seeking a good thing using bad means.
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 28th, 2006, 2:39 am

Well, if you make up things as you go along, Allan, then you can make it look how ever you want, but that's not Biblical. And I just don't know you well enough to trust in the Gospel According to Allan.
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 28th, 2006, 5:54 am

OK. Let's take this one point at a time.

If the Incarnation and Resurrection happened, then...

1) God became a human, and still is a human. God is human. God is a Jew.

2) God is my blood relation, my actual, physical kin.

3) All of humanity is now God's physical kin.

4) God is bound by the morality of kinship. The Head of the family takes responsibility for the family. This often involves considerable personal sacrifice.

5) Christ is the new Head, deposing our father Adam. The whole human family benefits from Christ's victory, just as the whole human family suffered from Adam's defeat.

Next. If God is Good, then...

1) God cannot love the bad, only the good. God loves us. Therefore we are good.

2) God does not value things that have no worth. God values us. Therefore we are of great worth.

3) All good things, including us, come from God and return to God. From him and through him and to him are all things.

4) He sees we are enslaved to sin and pities us. He comes to seek and save the lost.

5) He works to set us free and will not rest until we are healed. His love never fails.
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby WolfVanZandt » July 28th, 2006, 6:45 am

When Adam fell, he became a "different creature", no longer family to God. When we become a Christian, we become a "different creature", again family to God.

If blood relation implied family, then you would be right, all humanity would be family. But that's a pretty shallow view of family. In fact, "family" implies special bonds and intimacies that simple biological connection does not entail.

There are certain individuals that will stand before Jesus in the last days (embarrassing people, I'm sure, in the Universalist's view) that Jesus will say, "I never knew you. Go away." There is no personal bond and no family intimacy between those people and Jesus. They are not family.

Your argument, Allan is guilty of fallaciies of ambiguity. Your use of the word family is not appropriate under the circumstances.
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re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby AllanS » July 28th, 2006, 9:13 am

Only an evil man looks at his biological family and says "I don't love them because they don't love me. I refuse to take any further responsibility." This was not the attitude of the prodigal's father, but it was the view of the elder brother.

In the same way, only an evil God refuses to love and take responsibility for his biological family.

The whole point of the Incarnation is that God had to become a man, the new Head of the human race. The Firstborn. He adopted us. He suffered Hell as our representative head. He alone found the narrow way. We are elect in him. In Christ, all shall be made alive.

As for "Depart from me", I agree. Many will be lost. Many will mourn in outer darkness, weeping and gnashing.

But why do you inexplicably forget that Christ came to seek and to save the lost? Are these lost souls not lost, for God's sake? Do you know so little about God's personality-- his patience, his compassion, his faithfulness, his determination that not one of his elect will slip from his grasp? Why do you forget that Christ will comfort those who mourn and wipe away every tear? Who do you think Christ ministered to, when he descended into Hell, leading forth the prisoners and setting the captives free?

Your Christ, on the other hand, will drop'em in, bolt the door and never give them a moment's thought. Ever. So much for 'his compassions never fail'! The Blessed in your Heaven will shrug and say, "Bad luck, Grandma. You had your chance", before heading off to the Heavenly Party. So much for their being perfected in love.

You have turned God from a loving Father into a strict magistrate, very like a Roman Governor. Which is interesting, since historically, universalism was only condemned as heresy in the fifth century, just as the official Church and the Roman state were really snuggling up. Before that, many of the greatest theologians were universalist (especially those who spoke Greek as their native tongue), and no one blinked an eye.
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
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Re: re: Discussion: Mere Christianity

Postby Kolbitar » July 28th, 2006, 9:55 am

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

Sober Inebriation: http://soberinebriationblog.blogspot.com/
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