Apparently your vernacular does not understand the difference between theoretical possibility and actual reality,
but how do YOU explain why A&E were able to sin?
Essential Christian Doctrines
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Apparently your vernacular does not understand the difference between theoretical possibility and actual reality,
but how do YOU explain why A&E were able to sin?
So this is it? This is what you tell people, if you want to be saved all you have to do is believe? Nothing else?
Oh, well that was assumed. Lol
We all have this, however there is a right and a wrong path….. They were told not to do something, just as our parents told us not to do something, but disobeyed anyway. Sin!
Love God with all your heart and the world becomes brighter.
I’m already in Heaven. Everything has a new meaning.
Yes because there can’t be a right way unless there is a wrong way. If there were only one way then we wouldn’t have free will and neither right or wrong would exist. Just as darkness to light and hatred to love would we know that He is good if evil didn’t exist?
Makes me wonder sometimes if there was anything special about that tree or did God just call it that because it would be the only possible way for them to be disobedient.
U
Undergrace1
Guest
Yes, but when our parents told us not to do something and we did it anyway, they never threatened to throw us out of the family home when we did it, they corrected us as they saw fit. Does God love us any less than our parents do?
I might’ve chosen being thrown out over taking the paddle and belt had it been an option.
God gave them everything good and perfect to live forever. It was Satan who deceived Eve, and then she gave to Adam. Then God took away the perfect, beautiful peace and gave them a hard life, and death.
They didn’t even know about their nakedness until they ate of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Well, that depends on what we did, and at what age we did it. Lol
God punished His people when they disobeyed (read the OT to see how many times they angered Him and punished them). Thankfully, He sent His Son to save us from His wrath.
We are given the ability to think/reason and enough information to be able to figure out this very important point that is a stumbling-block to belief in the NT God for some people: reconciling God’s power and love with the fact of evil and its consequence. A person—even a theist—might think that God would not permit evil, suffering and hell to exist.
People who are mystified by evil and repulsed by its punishment do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is moral free will (MFW), which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27). God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine. If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons.
MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in cursing, death and hell (Deut. 30:19). This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. The Spirit of God is good: love, peace and joy (Gal. 5:22-23). Therefore, whoever rejects the Lord is spiritually separated from Him (Isa. 59:2) and thereby chooses the evil or satanic spirit of hatred, strife and misery and reaps the just consequence called “hell” in the afterlife (Gal. 6:7-9, Heb. 9:27-28). These options were presented by Moses to the Israelites (DT 30:19), and Jesus referred to this fundamental choice in terms of a fish or egg versus a snake or scorpion (Luke 11:11-13, cf. Gen. 3:24, Rev. 22:1-2).
God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (Gen. 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1John 3:8) and humanity (Rom. 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. The first people to choose the evil option were named Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:6). The first sin was ignoring GW.
Evil people grieve God and punish/torture themselves by experiencing delayed karma/reaping the just consequence for sins, just as those who experience appropriate justice during this earthly existence also punish themselves or reap what they have sown and send themselves to jail. This view makes souls responsible for breaking the rules rather than blaming evil on the judges (or Judge) who enforce the rules.
The purpose of earthly punishment is to promote repentance, but the reason for retribution in hell is to attain justice. It is difficult to imagine, but somehow even someone as evil as Hitler will receive perfect justice, perhaps experiencing the agony of the millions of deaths he caused in accordance with the principal of “eye for eye” (MT 5:38), after which their souls are destroyed forever (per John 17:12, Rom. 9:22, Gal. 6:8, Phil. 3:19, 2Thes. 1:9, 2Pet. 3:7 & Rev. 20:13-14).
Hi TruthDefender
I think you have a good point if I've understood you correctly...
The question would be:
If the fruit was not eaten yet...
and the sin nature did not exist yet...
Then, yes, how did Adam and Eve sin?
What made them sin?
If we check, we'll find that threre is no answer to this dilemma.
Hope this posts right - new here, and I don't see any dilineation between what YOU posted and what I posted).
Hi NIghtTwister
Just got here and I like this topic.
I've spent years debating the divinity of Jesus.
I realized a few months ago that Christians are not SUPPOSED to be debating the Divinity of Jesus.
YOU are calling the deninition of Christianity ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES.
If I may,,,I'd put it this way since a denomination could teach different doctrine but still be a Christian denomination.
What if we called it a TENET instead of a DOCTRINE?
IOW,,,there are specific Christian tenets that must be adhered to in order for a denomination to be conisered Christian in nature.
You've listed the divinity of Jesus - which would be the Trinity
Here are some more:
AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE (WHICH YOU'VE STATED)
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS AND EVENTUALLY MANKIND
SALVATION THROUGH FAITH IN GOD
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Probably more that don't come to mind right now.
IOW,,,there are certain tenets that define the Christian RELIGION...
without which, Christianity would lose all meaning.
TK
Welcome to CC, Toknow.
An answer to the dilemma is provided in the previous post, which you did not notice because it was only 1 minute prior,
so what do you think about that?
Yes, here is how I describe what you are saying:
The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in Acts 16:31, 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6).
The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:
- There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or Creator God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who loves sinful humanity (Rom. 5:6-8, John 3:16) and who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
- Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
- Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
- Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s grace or justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), at which moment God’s loving Holy Spirit of Christ indwells/baptizes the believer into the church (Rev. 3:20, Rom. 5:5, 1Cor. 12:13).
- Loving Christ Jesus as Lord (Luke 2:11), God the Son (Matt. 16:16) or God in the human dimension (Col. 2:9) means reflecting divine love as empowered by the Holy Spirit, thereby obeying His command to love one another (Matt. 7:21, 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2), which will eventually achieve spiritual maturity on earth and heaven after Christ returns at God’s resurrection (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Phil. 3:12-16, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).