Was the fall necessary ?

JudgeRightly

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What difference does it make as far as in once or anytime?

It makes a HUGE difference.

No one is denying that Christians sin.

What is being denied is that Christians DO NOT sin, and that Christians have no choice BUT to sin.

Tell me how you can.

It's called loving God. Maybe you've heard of such a thing?
 

genuineoriginal

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I had a feeling you were going to say this.
If you know the truth, there is no reason to work so hard to avoid it.
That's your doctrine, not the text.
The "heavens" that God created in the six days being the physical sky and outer space is the literal interpretation of the text.
If your doctrine teaches otherwise, then you need to reexamine your doctrine.

It is you who proposed that God orchestrated sin in order to prove Himself righteous, not me! It's blasphemy of the highest order whether you want to acknowledge it as such or not.
No, that idea came entirely from your own mind, and any blasphemy you imagine that your own mind is guilty of is your concern and not mine.

How does a doctrine that teaches that God orchestrated sin, which is not anywhere stated in the bible prove the God is righteous, when the very same bible that fallen human being learn of the fall of Adam from also states emphatically that God is righteous?
Since that doctrine comes from your mind and not from me, it is up to you to defend it.
If it is merely another strawman argument that you are creating, then you need to own up to it and abandon that line of argument.

No matter which direction you come at this from, there is no profit whatsoever in accepting the notion that God orchestrated sin! It's just so much blasphemous nonsense!
I agree, which is why I keep saying you should abandon that strawman argument that you created.

How is that relevant to the issue of God trying to prove Himself righteous to His own creation?
I have no idea, since "God trying to prove Himself righteous" is not my argument, it is yours, and I have no reason to do anything except condemn it as a non-Biblical argument that you came up with to divert from the truth of my argument.

God is all the time in the business of proving to us thick headed humans that we are evil
No, He is not trying to prove to us that we are evil.
That is what the accuser (HaSatan) does.
Please spend a bit more time in trying to understand what the actual text of the Bible teaches and less time just going along with the doctrines of your particular denomination.

First, as I have already said, all that is necessary is for there to be a real alternative from which to choose. If you can do or do otherwise then your will is free, by definition. It is not necessary for you to have ever done otherwise but only that doing so was a real possibility.
At that point, it is merely a theoretical free-will and not an actual free-will.
If you know anything about the scientific method, you know a theory is meaningless without any attempt to prove or disprove that theory.

Second, humans are not the only beings in existence with a free will. God also has a free will.
Yes, that is the fundamental basis for "Open Theism".

Does God also need to do evil in order to prove that He has a free will?
No. God proved that when He said, "Let there be light" and created the foundation of the universe ex nihilo.

If not, then on what basis do you make the claim that is necessary for men to do evil to prove the same thing?
I never made that claim.
Please pay attention.
Adam had to disobey God in order to prove that mankind has the ability to disobey God.
Free-will is the ability that God gave mankind to allow mankind to choose whether they would obey or disobey God.

I will say precisely and exactly what I want to say when I want to say it.
I have heard that before.
Spoiler
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I do not say things that are intentionally off topic but I am certainly not responsible for your ignorance and/or your inability to follow my reasoning.
You are certainly responsible for your own ignorance and your refusal to stick on topic with my argument.

You're premise is about God providing proof of His own righteousness, is it not?
Nope.
Please pay attention.
My premise is that Adam disobeying God is the proof that mankind has been given the ability to make the free-will choice of whether to obey God or disobey God.
 

Clete

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What difference does it make as far as in once or anytime? Tell me how you can not sin.

Sorry to jump in here but I can't resist...

How can it not make a difference?

If you do not choose to sin, is it really sin?
Conversely, if you think you love God but in reality you have no ability to hate Him, then is it really love?

If a man wants a woman to love him and puts her in a house with bars on all the doors and windows so that she cannot leave, is her presence in the house evidence of the woman's devotion or evidence of the man's mental illness?

Choice makes all the difference! The ability to choose is what makes a being moral. Without the ability to do otherwise then no action can be considered right or wrong. A gun going off is not a moral issue because the gun doesn't decide (i.e. choose) to go off. What sense would it make to accuse the gun of wrong doing? It's the person who chose to pull the trigger who has done something of a moral nature, not the gun. Guns kill but only people murder, the difference is choice and what a difference it is!

Clete
 

genuineoriginal

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Cntrysner

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It makes a HUGE difference.

No one is denying that Christians sin.

What is being denied is that Christians DO NOT sin, and that Christians have no choice BUT to sin.



It's called loving God. Maybe you've heard of such a thing?

It is not that we love God it has to do with that he loved us first.
 

Cntrysner

Active member
There are many people who God loves that will turn from Him in order to sin.
It is our love for God that guides us in turning away from sin and towards Salvation.

Are you saying that Israel did/does not love God yet they deny the Son?

1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
 

JudgeRightly

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genuineoriginal

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Are you saying that Israel did/does not love God yet they deny the Son?

1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What does God say to do to show Him our love of God?

Deuteronomy 11:1
1 Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.​


What does the New Testament say is proof of the love of God?

1 John 5:3
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.​


If our love of God is great enough, will we allow anything to get us to turn away from it?

Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.​

 

genuineoriginal

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Cntrysner

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What does God say to do to show Him our love of God?

Deuteronomy 11:1
1 Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.​


What does the New Testament say is proof of the love of God?

1 John 5:3
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.​


If our love of God is great enough, will we allow anything to get us to turn away from it?

Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.​


Your ideology falls apart within the scriptures. You can't deny their meanings and still stand. Where is original love? You are not going to show God anything.
 

JudgeRightly

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Yeah, Walt Brown is completely wrong on that one.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

He is twisting the word translated as "firmament"

And therein lies the root problem.

You're basing your beliefs on this matter on a translation of a translation, when preferably it would be better to look at the original language and see what it says, and then base your beliefs on that.

"Firmament" is an English word that comes from a LATIN word, not Hebrew. The Old Testament was originally written in HEBREW, not Latin.

to suit his own beliefs,

Sorry, but the Hebrew word that was translated into the Latin "firmamentum" doesn't only apply to the sky.

changing it from properly
[/QUOTE]

According to whom?

You?

describing the dome of the sky above us into his claim that it means the ground below us.

That would be "firmament (raqia) of the heavens," not "firmament."

The fact that there's a distinction between the two, "firmament" and "firmament of the heavens" should clue you in to what each of them means.

The idea that it ONLY refers to the sky comes from the TRADITIONAL UNDERSTANDING of the text, NOT the text itself.

'Raqqa,' the root form of the word for 'raqia' means to pound out.

And 'raqia' means:


Strong's h7549

- Lexical: רָקִיעַ
- Transliteration: raqia
- Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
- Phonetic Spelling: raw-kee'-ah
- Definition: an extended surface, expanse.
- Origin: From raqa'; properly, an expanse, i.e. The firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky.
- Usage: firmament.
- Translated as (count): the firmament (8), in the firmament (3), of the firmament (3), a firmament (1), from above the firmament (1), in firmament (1).

 

Clete

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The "heavens" that God created in the six days being the physical sky and outer space is the literal interpretation of the text.
If your doctrine teaches otherwise, then you need to reexamine your doctrine.
You're limiting "heavens" to outer space is your doctrine, not the text.

See! I can repeat myself too!

No, that idea came entirely from your own mind, and any blasphemy you imagine that your own mind is guilty of is your concern and not mine.
Accusing God of orchestrating sin is blasphemy, by definition.

It doesn't matter if you agree or not. That's what the phrase "by definition" means.

Since that doctrine comes from your mind and not from me, it is up to you to defend it.
If it is merely another strawman argument that you are creating, then you need to own up to it and abandon that line of argument.
Again, I do not make strawman arguments. I am not responsible for your lack of ability to connect the dots.

I agree, which is why I keep saying you should abandon that strawman argument that you created.
You deny positing that God orchestrated Adam's fall?

What in the world are we talking about then?

You should keep in mind that all of your posts are still here for everyone to read.

I have no idea, since "God trying to prove Himself righteous" is not my argument, it is yours, and I have no reason to do anything except condemn it as a non-Biblical argument that you came up with to divert from the truth of my argument.

YOU brought up the issue of God's righteousness when you said the following...

"You appear to be hinting that only an evil god would orchestrate the fall and condemn most of humanity to eternal damnation in order to gain the praise and glory from the small remnant that were predestined for salvation."

It's in post #84

Besides, it's the same issue anyway! How can you not see that?

Free will is what makes a persons actions moral in nature and whether that person is you, me, Hitler, the Apostle John, Lucifer, or God Himself, if they have no ability to do otherwise then their action is not free and it is not right or wrong!

Further, if man does not have free will then for God to punish any action of his would be fundamentally unjust and so once again, proving man's will is free is, in essence, proving God's righteousness. It's all the exact same issue! When you are discussing free will, you are discussing morality. "Does man have a free will?" and "Is man a moral agent?" is the same question!

No, He is not trying to prove to us that we are evil.
That is what the accuser (HaSatan) does.
That is what the law is for and it was God who gave the law.

Romans 3:19 What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20 Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, [f]kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our [g]tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

Please spend a bit more time in trying to understand what the actual text of the Bible teaches and less time just going along with the doctrines of your particular denomination.
Fool

At that point, it is merely a theoretical free-will and not an actual free-will.
If you know anything about the scientific method, you know a theory is meaningless without any attempt to prove or disprove that theory.
This is utter stupidity.

So God has never sinned. Is His free will theoretical?

Go on! Don't be scared of your own doctrine! Say it! "God might or might not have a free will. We can't know for sure until He commits an act of evil!"

Say it! I dare you!

Yes, that is the fundamental basis for "Open Theism".
What?

It is the fundamental premise of a moral being!

No. God proved that when He said, "Let there be light" and created the foundation of the universe ex nihilo.
Are you just making this up as you go?

How do you know that God could have chosen not to create the universe?

MAKE THE ARGUMENT!!!

I never made that claim.
Liar! You make the claim again in the next two sentences!

Please pay attention.
Adam had to disobey God in order to prove that mankind has the ability to disobey God.
Free-will is the ability that God gave mankind to allow mankind to choose whether they would obey or disobey God.
Double talking idiot.

I have heard that before.
See if you can stop me from saying whatever I decide to say whenever I decide to say it.

Go hide yourself and watch to see if you giving me orders changes my behavior in the slightest.

You are certainly responsible for your own ignorance and your refusal to stick on topic with my argument.
As are you.

Nope.
Please pay attention.
My premise is that Adam disobeying God is the proof that mankind has been given the ability to make the free-will choice of whether to obey God or disobey God.

So then why did you just ignore the end of my post where I said the following....

"Okay fine then make the argument. I mean, actually write out the argument that concludes with the statement, "Therefore, if Adam (or anyone else) had not fallen and evil did not exist, we could not know that we have a free will.""​

You ignored it because you are completely incapable of making such an argument. There is no such argument because it's utter stupidity.

Prove me wrong. I dare you to try.

You won't though.

Clete
 

Cntrysner

Active member
My ideology is consistent with scriptures, so it may be your "meanings" that make you believe they are inconsistent.

How is it that you can show God anything?

1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Stop denying or continue to work it out.
 

Cntrysner

Active member
Originally posted by Cntrysner...What difference does it make as far as in once or anytime? Tell me how you can not sin.


Sorry to jump in here but I can't resist...

Irresistible?

How can it not make a difference?

Because it doesn't matter when you sin or how many times you sin but you will.

If you do not choose to sin, is it really sin?

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.


Conversely, if you think you love God but in reality you have no ability to hate Him, then is it really love?

There is a middle ground. I would call it man after the fall.

If a man wants a woman to love him and puts her in a house with bars on all the doors and windows so that she cannot leave, is her presence in the house evidence of the woman's devotion or evidence of the man's mental illness?

Your choice of words here does not reflect God. God's grace doesn't bound man because His grace is just and man will stay by choice because of God's grace.

Choice makes all the difference! The ability to choose is what makes a being moral. Without the ability to do otherwise then no action can be considered right or wrong. A gun going off is not a moral issue because the gun doesn't decide (i.e. choose) to go off. What sense would it make to accuse the gun of wrong doing? It's the person who chose to pull the trigger who has done something of a moral nature, not the gun. Guns kill but only people murder, the difference is choice and what a difference it is!

Yes we chose but not totally. Cause and effect. Amen
 

Clete

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Irresistible?
Indeed! You make a good point! Why should I ever opologize to someone who thinks everything I do was predestined by God?

Because it doesn't matter when you sin or how many times you sin but you will.
On the contrary, if you have no ability to do otherwise, you never sin at all. There is no morality in a world without free will.

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
The only reason Paul's statements make sense is in the context of free will. There exists within men a dual nature, one that desires to do one thing and another that chooses to do otherwise. In other words, Paul's statements here acknowledge the choice and that his flesh is what chooses badly.

There is a middle ground. I would call it man after the fall.
If you don't explain what you mean then this one liner isn't helpful or even meaningful for that matter.

What is the middle ground and why would you call it man after the fall?

Your choice of words here does not reflect God. God's grace doesn't bound man because His grace is just and man will stay by choice because of God's grace.
Saying it doesn't make it so, Cntrysner.

I find it so fascinating how people refuse to answer what should be the easiest of questions or to take on an issue based on its own premises if it in any way threatens their doctrine. They'll avoid it like the plague, twisting themselves into whatever contorted knots that are necessary to avoid the simplest things.

It absolutely does reflect the god of Calvinism (which does not exist) and of any other form of theistic determinism. And the question obviously answers itself, if the woman cannot leave then her presence in the house is NOT evidence of her devotion. She may be completely devoted and might love her captor very much but you won't be able to tell because of her having not left the house because she has no ability to leave.

Now if you want to say that this doesn't reflect the God you believe in then simply making the claim isn't good enough. You invoke the concept of justice, which is an excellent start! Why is it so difficult to simply start with justice as your primary premise in the first place? There is no biblical or rational reason to insist that God predestined anyone's sin. It just flat out is not taught in the bible - period and there is no other (i.e. rational) reason to insist on it either so why cling to it? Isn't it obvious that moral actions must be chosen? Isn't that much clear even to children?

How can God be just if He punishes people who perform the very actions that He predestined that they would perform? Indeed, the god of Calvinism is more unjust even than that! Calvinism teaches that people were predestined for either Heaven or Hell based on nothing at all! That it was a completely arbitrary selection of their god's that had nothing to do with the person's actions or beliefs.

“God is moved to mercy for no other reason but that he wills to be merciful.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 8)

“… predestination to glory is the cause of predestination to grace, rather than the converse.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 9)

“Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christia/n Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 1)

“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)​

By what definition of justice could such a god every be called just?

Clete
 

genuineoriginal

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Saying it doesn't make it so.
Yes, Walt Brown saying "firmament" means the ground does not make it so.

However, when God says it it does make it so.

Genesis 1:8
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.​


And that is the last post I will make about it in this thread to keep from derailing it.
 

JudgeRightly

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Yes, Walt Brown saying "firmament" means the ground does not make it so.

However, when God says it it does make it so.

Genesis 1:8
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.​


And that is the last post I will make about it in this thread to keep from derailing it.
I'll start a new thread then...
 
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