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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 24, 2007 0:11:26 GMT -4
I'll get back to you probably in a couple of days, Jason. Got a lot to do.
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Post by Ginnie on Sept 24, 2007 19:57:18 GMT -4
Hey, despite my last post it's survived very well for a book that's around 2,000 years old, with parts around 3500 years old. And the fact that it still inspires hundreds of millions of people around the world is pretty good evidence that there's something that speaks to people there. Well, Jason, most people are desperate to believe in something bigger than themselves. Or natural happenings become supernatural. Ever read Joseph Campbell Thus the Sun becomes God, the Moon becomes a demon or the river becomes a spirit.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 24, 2007 21:40:28 GMT -4
I have an English Lit degree. It's impossible for someone with that kind of degree to not have studied The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the monomyth to some degree.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Oct 2, 2007 11:51:10 GMT -4
So are you going to just leave the matter hanging DH? People might start to think you're having trouble coming up with an adequate response.
I beleive this whole faith/works debate stems mostly from the Protestant Reformation. The Roman church took things too far where works were concerned. They even began to say that they had a surpluss of good works and could bestow it where they wished - for a price. When Martin Luther began the Reformation he swung the pendulum too much the other way - demanding that works were of no use at all and that only faith mattered.
The true position is in between the two. Both faith and good works are required in order to be saved. Good works are not enough to save a man (or woman) without faith and God's grace, but God will not grant that grace to those who refuse to follow his commandments. "...for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do".
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 16, 2008 0:54:51 GMT -4
It's been nearly a year. I didn't want to leave this discussion hanging, but had no choice as I had to deal with a recurrence of cancer. Finished chemo a couple of months ago and the brain fog is just beginning to lift. So that's my excuse for the hit and run postings. I'll be back soon I hope.
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raven
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Post by raven on Sept 16, 2008 2:06:57 GMT -4
I say it is grace. All the way. However, works are important too, but to use a rather odd metaphor, they are the symptoms, not the disease. Many people can do good works, and many people have, Christian and Non Christian alike, and these good works have been good things, just like many diseases give fevers and a cough. However, if you are believing, it is a way to show it and to 'glorify your Father in heaven'. On the same note, god has forgiven us, but we are still human, still sinful. But we are forgiven. It doesn't mean as a Christian you can go around hooliganisming and plundering saying "God will forgive me!".I do believe He will, but you have to mean it when you ask.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 16, 2008 10:44:30 GMT -4
It's been nearly a year. I didn't want to leave this discussion hanging, but had no choice as I had to deal with a recurrence of cancer. Finished chemo a couple of months ago and the brain fog is just beginning to lift. So that's my excuse for the hit and run postings. I'll be back soon I hope. I'm sorry to hear that, and I hope that you will continue to respond well to treatment.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 16, 2008 11:00:47 GMT -4
I say it is grace. All the way. However, works are important too, but to use a rather odd metaphor, they are the symptoms, not the disease. Many people can do good works, and many people have, Christian and Non Christian alike, and these good works have been good things, just like many diseases give fevers and a cough. However, if you are believing, it is a way to show it and to 'glorify your Father in heaven'. On the same note, god has forgiven us, but we are still human, still sinful. But we are forgiven. It doesn't mean as a Christian you can go around hooliganisming and plundering saying "God will forgive me!".I do believe He will, but you have to mean it when you ask. Would you care to take a stab at answering some of the questions I posted about whether baptism is necessary or not then? How about some of the other scriptures I posted which emphasize how we will be judged by works? The parable of the talents and the virgins' lamps in particular. I feel that Dead Hoosiers never adequately addressed those scriptures either.
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Post by gillianren on Sept 16, 2008 12:34:08 GMT -4
I'm sorry about the cancer, Dead Hoosiers. I still think you're wrong about quite a lot of things, but I do not wish cancer on those who oppose me. My Goddess doesn't approve.
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raven
Jupiter
That ain't Earth, kiddies.
Posts: 509
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Post by raven on Sept 16, 2008 14:49:32 GMT -4
I say it is grace. All the way. However, works are important too, but to use a rather odd metaphor, they are the symptoms, not the disease. Many people can do good works, and many people have, Christian and Non Christian alike, and these good works have been good things, just like many diseases give fevers and a cough. However, if you are believing, it is a way to show it and to 'glorify your Father in heaven'. On the same note, god has forgiven us, but we are still human, still sinful. But we are forgiven. It doesn't mean as a Christian you can go around hooliganisming and plundering saying "God will forgive me!".I do believe He will, but you have to mean it when you ask. Would you care to take a stab at answering some of the questions I posted about whether baptism is necessary or not then? How about some of the other scriptures I posted which emphasize how we will be judged by works? The parable of the talents and the virgins' lamps in particular. I feel that Dead Hoosiers never adequately addressed those scriptures either. The parable of the talents has, in my mind, become an unintentional bilingual pun. The talents refer to, well, talents, as in skills and such. Most likely an admonishment of the pharisees and similar religious leaders, who spent so much time being pious, that they spent little time going out there helping people.It was also directed at the rest of humanity, saying that God can use anyone, no matter what skills they have or lack. Now you may say this is about good works, and I agree with that. Good works are good things, no one can deny that. Not correctly anyway, in my view. However, like James said, they are the fruit, not the tree. One does them primarily to help others, and also hoping others taste this fruit, and the seed gets planted. Gods grace is a gift, given when He/She sent Their avatar as the human Jesus Ben Joseph. This gift is free so that "no man can boast," so that no one can say that they will get to heaven/paradise on anything they did. Look at the story of the thief. This man had being bad and evil all his life, committed many wrongs against his fellow man, and now he had been given the just punishment from the civil authorities, the long and torturous method of execution that crucification was. You were hung by spikes through your wrists (the Greek word for hands included wrists) with your arms out stretched on either side. Your ankles were crossed and a spike driven through both of them. And their you hung, your weight supported by the two spikes through your wrist. To breathe, you had to pull yourself up, each breath an agony. Eventually, days later sometimes, you would be so exhausted you just couldn't pull yourself up anymore, and so you would die, suffocated. As an act of mercy, they would often break the legs of the convicted, so they could no longer pull themselves up, and would die sooner. This was how the thief died. This was how God died. But the thief apparently believed that Jesus could save, if not his body, his soul. And so he believed. Was it enough? I do not know, I have not died. It may be that only the Holiest of humans get in, and so Gandhi and Mother Teresa and God sit around, waiting for a fourth. Or maybe absolutely everybody gets in. I do not know. But I believe it was enough. Because I picture God as a parent, a patient loving parent, who wants us to come to Them, rather then They stomping on our free will and forcing a robotic affection from us. He/She could, but chooses not to. That is Gods love for us. As for the virgins and the oil, I do not know. Some say it is a metaphor for the End Times, and enough people argue about what that is, it is almost worthless to bring it up. On the other hand, for almost 150,000 people each day, today is the end of the world. They die, and we never hear from them again. The virgin parable may be about not delaying what can be done today. I do not know, I avoid that parable because of its end time connotations because I was quite traumatized, by those Billy Graham End Times movies. Seriously, they are like Christian horror movies. And I don't think them very Christian. Faith should not be based on fear. But on love.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 16, 2008 15:30:48 GMT -4
The parable of the talents has, in my mind, become an unintentional bilingual pun. The talents refer to, well, talents, as in skills and such. I agree there - most modern readers will see it as talents, skills, etc. The parable begins with "for the kingdom of heaven is as...", and the unprofitable servant at the end is cast out. That would seem to mean that the parable teaches a lesson of what to do to avoid being cast out of the kingdom of heaven. The lord in the parable recognizes that each of his servants has different degrees of skill, and so he entrusts them with different amounts of talents, but both of the servants who double what they were given receive an identical reward "I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy lord." So the lord of the parable was rewarding effort rather than an exact monetary gain. So, the message of the parable is that the lord understands that each of us has different abilities but will reward those who work to the uttmost equally. Works will be rewarded based on the effort we put into them rather than their real value. ? I don't see this in James. The only refrence I see to trees or fruit in James is when he says that a fig tree cannot bear olives, during his sermon on controlling the tongue. Some interesting things that James says about faith and works include: Jas. 1:22 "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." Jas. 2:14-17 "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. " Jas. 2:21-22 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?" Jas. 2:24 "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." Jas. 2:26 "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." So, James says that you are only "justified" with faith and works together. In other words, you can't get by with just faith. I agree, it is a gift, and no one is saved without it, but God choses who will receive that gift, and the gift is not given to those who do no good works. Those who refuse to work are unprofitable servants, and are cast out. Jesus promised the thief that he would be with him that day "in paradise" but is being in paradise the same as being saved? In LDS theology it's not. The theif on the cross has made a good beginning by showing faith on the cross, but he will have to back it up in paradise before the final judgement. I certainly agree that God values free will and is a patient and loving parent. I would agree that it is a metaphor for the end of times, but what is the metaphor? It's that we must be prepared, and that we can't rely on others to help us, as they must be prepared themselves. Being prepared is a work.
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Post by stutefish on Sept 16, 2008 19:00:28 GMT -4
I'm not a theologian, but it seems to me that all the quoted passages in the OP are consistent with an interpretation that salvation is by faith alone, and that (Earthly) consequences and (Heavenly) rewards are allocated according to works.
E.g.,
... a murderer might repent and be saved through faith alone, and so enter Heaven, but still suffer the consequences of imprisonment and execution here on Earth.
... an indolent wastrel might through faith be saved, and so enter Heaven, but still be judged at before the throne and find himself less prepared to enjoy the full splendor of God than a believer who diligently spent their whole Earthly life training body and soul for the time when they would "see clearly face to face".
While most of those passages make the reasonable claim that for work there will be reward, and for misdeeds there will be consequences, none of them explicitly state that "good works" are a requirement for salvation itself. Meanwhile, there are several passages that either curiously omit "good works" from their explicit description of the salvation mechanic (e.g., John 3:16), or else explicitly state that it is by grace through faith alone (e.g., throughout Paul's letter to the Romans).
I suppose if you wanted to say that faith--i.e., "choosing to believe"--is a "good work", then okay, sure. But it seems a semantic quibble. And again, while I'm not a theologian, I think even that is addressed, with the doctrine--clearly expressed by Paul (and others)--that even this faith is not of our own making, but is a gift from God beyond our own power to produce or sustain.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Sept 16, 2008 19:41:37 GMT -4
Not bad, Stutefish. You're not too far off from the LDS concept of salvation, actually.
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Post by stutefish on Sept 17, 2008 17:14:14 GMT -4
Thanks!
But now I'm confused: Are you saying that the LDS concept of salvation is that it is by grace alone? And that you are dissenting from the mainstream view of your church when you argue in favor of a scriptural interpretation for grace and works together?
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Jason
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Sept 17, 2008 17:40:21 GMT -4
But now I'm confused: Are you saying that the LDS concept of salvation is that it is by grace alone? And that you are dissenting from the mainstream view of your church when you argue in favor of a scriptural interpretation for grace and works together? The LDS view is...a bit complicated, but I'm fairly orthodox. In one sense everyone is saved, and it is grace alone that saves us, but in another you can't receive the fullness of Christ's grace without good works. This is the idea that most stood out to me as being in line with LDS thought. We believe very much that the better you do on Earth the more prepared you will be to meet the life to come. LDS theology is also that ultimately everyone will be "saved" in the sense that everybody will live forever, be re-united with their bodies in the resurrection, and reside in a kingdom where conditions are far better than anything we had on Earth. However there are multiple kingdoms ("many mansions"), and advancing into the higher kingdoms requires some effort on our part.
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