by Adam » July 11th, 2007, 7:29 pm
::We have thought, intelligence, humor, free will, emotions and (originally) holiness. Though our nature is fallen and that holiness is lost, the other aspects of God's image still exist within us...
...I'm confused by this. The divine nature isn't a matter of your faith then? Is it just a philosphical exercise?
There is nothing Scriptural or Apostolic about the term "nature" specifically; it is a constructed concept that proves useful, but you can't cut me in half and find the nature. When discussing spiritual things, I think it is well to keep in mind that the ideas that we use for our own understanding and communication are not necessarily accurate representations of God's reality.
Either we are lost children of God who need to be found, or we are strangers that need to be adopted. The son who leaves home does not cease to become a son. Our nature, that is, our constructed concept for an essential characteristic of our existence, is to be a child of God; all of creation waits for us to take our rightful place. Our intelligence, humor, will, emotions, these are all characteristics, attributes, but our essential being, our very identity, remains always children of God.
::Are you saying here that we are all the same as Christ? Different in mission perhaps, but the same in divinity and physicality?
My arm is alive as my head is, is the same body as my head, but it is no fair cutting off my arm and then suggesting that it's lifelessness is proof that it is different or distinct.
We are in Christ through faith; when He died, we died, as He was resurrected, so we shall be resurrected. His suffering was ours, and His forgiveness is ours. We relate to the Father and to the Spirit by being a part of the Son; He is our conduit to the Godhead; through Him we shall participate in the Trinity.
We are the same as Christ in the way that flame and wood are both part of the fire, though apart from flame the wood is nothing.
::How can we be prodigals if we have the divine nature? For what reason is salvation necessary if we are already divine?
How can we be prodigals if we do not have the divine nature? Someone else's dog is not my lost sheep. We are children who have lost their way home. We don't cease to be children because we are lost, and if we did cease to be children we would have no home to miss.
::So if I love my wife, but believe her to have a sinful nature, I'm actually poisoning our love? Don't get me wrong. I know she's worthy of love. Every person is. I just think you're misunderstanding what a sinful nature is if you think that believing it makes me unable to see the worth of individuals. Perhaps rather than "original sin" you're thinking more of the Calvinistic doctrine of the total depravity of man.
In some sense, yes, you are poisoning yourself. Or else you aren't taking the logical or rhetorical consequences of the doctrine of original sin seriously. If to you she is worthy of love, not in the sense that you believe that love ought to be graceful, or that God commands it, or that everyone has potential that deserves a chance, but rather that you believe she is worthy of love such that you believe it would be unjust, wicked, not to love her, then you admirably sidestep the consequences to the doctrine of original sin.
The Father sacrificing the Son for our sake was not grace, it was justice. That is what it means to say in Him the righteousness of God was revealed. If the Father had not saved us, it would be an injustice.
God's graceful act is not saving His children; it is what His children deserve, it is what their belovedness demands. God's graceful act was making us His children in the first place; His grace is what created the beloved.
Adam
Last edited by
Adam on July 11th, 2007, 7:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"Love is the only art that poorly imitates nature."