Leaderboard
Popular Content
Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/01/2022 in all areas
-
Spirit of Prophecy Writings Coordinator
phkrause reacted to Kevin H for a topic
I needed to look up Divine Impassability and I don't know if I fully understand from what I read, however a gut first reaction is that I would reject Divine Impassability. Yes, these are things that I have studied for years, starting in College classes in Mrs. White's life and thought; and, outside of Adventism, similarities with what I learned about ancient thinking reflected in the Bible by people such as Methodist archaeologist Jim Fleming (who would have blended in well with my college professors from Atlantic Union College). What makes me uncomfortable with saying that my gut reaction is a rejection of Divine Impassability is that God tends to be a oneness of opposites: such as on the one hand God [Jesus] did not know when the setting up of the kingdom would be, yet another aspect of God did. I believe that there is a part of God who experiences what has been called "The Openness of God" But people like Richard Rice and others who like this idea tend to see this as the whole of God. I believe that God both experiences "the openness of God" and still yet sees the end from the beginning. Probably more through somehow transcending time and space rather than being limited to now but able to look down the hallway of the future from this current perspective. God is infinite yet finite, we meet opposite after opposite. We will constantly study all of these and still not grasp it all as we study all through eternity. So while I will, as bluntly as I can from where I currently stand, that I reject Divine Impassability, I'm not dogmatic in this rejection and willing to learn more about the topic and how it may or may not, or both, apply to God.1 point -
Spirit of Prophecy Writings Coordinator
phkrause reacted to Kevin H for a topic
As I understand Mrs. White's view of the trinity, we start with one God who is infinite, outside of time and space. Creatures are limited to time and space. If this infinite God just made life, they could not comprehend this infinite God; so they would naturally be atheists. Since we need a life giving relationship with God to exist, life would just come into life, be unable to comprehend the God they need the relationship with, so they die. Life and death would be sudden like popcorn popping. The infinite God had to reveal God's-self to the creatures. One of the things we need to know about this infinite God is that God is great, our creator, a great power. This aspect of God is what we see in who Christians call "God the Father". But if this was the ONLY revelation of the infinite God creatures had, life and death would still be sudden like popcorn popping, as they come to life, see this great awesome being and are quite literally scared to death. The infinite God also needed to reveal God's-self to finite creatures as a friend, approachable. Thus besides God the Father we have God the Son. Now, if the infinite God only revealed God's-self to finite creatures as God the Son, life would have some time. But once someone gets a dangerous idea, and God the Son warns them about the danger in that idea; the creature could reply "I enjoy your friendship, but what makes your ideas any better than mine?" and thus they will do things that would break the life giving relationship and creatures would die. To be able to exist creatures would need to hold a tension between God as this great power, but also as the approachable friend. So we find that God the Father was necessary, but insufficient. God the Son was necessary but insufficient. They needed to be both held in tension. But even the two were insufficient as these two were objective revelations of the infinite God. Like God, we are both objective and subjective. The infinite God also needed to reveal God's-self to our subjective existential experience. These three revelations together were both necessary and sufficient. Notice I said "necessary and sufficient" but did not say the word "complete". If the infinite God wanted to he could have revealed himself in enough revelations to make a Hindu's head spin and still not have everything. Mrs. White next has Lucifer asking some excellent questions about God. Sadly, and the mystery of iniquity is that despite the questions, Lucifer was not interested in finding the answers. Instead he just congratulated himself for being clever enough and having the intelligence to come up with these questions. He turned his questions into three deceptions about God. The first deception was asking if God was really God, or just a being as the same essence as creatures, who was only higher evolved, and wanted to prevent other creatures from evolving to this perfection by placing upon creatures the law of self sacrificing love. Where I'm too busy caring for you and you are too busy caring for me to bring ourselves to this perfection. Lucifer accused God of not keeping this law. (Headship theology, which has sadly become popular among different subgroups of our church, has God the Father breaking the law of self sacrificing love. The members of the trinity all submit to each other in self sacrificing love, but "headship theology" has God the Father receiving all submissions but submits to no one. If this was true, then Lucifer's first deception would be correct.) This first deception is an attack on God the Father. The second and third deceptions are based on how God claims to be both just and merciful. Lucifer says that it is impossible for God to be both, that he can only be one or the other. To be just, if anyone breaks God's law they absolutely need to die (and instead of it being a natural result from separating from the only source of life, Lucifer has God imposing an arbitrary death.) However, for God to be merciful, then God can't kill sinners but forgive them and let them live despite breaking the law of self-sacrificing love. Since God is a cruel, arbitrary tyrant he will of course side with justice. This attacks God the Son who has the personal relationship with us and who ended up dying for our salvation. After Calvary Satan has put more emphasis on his third deception that since Jesus died for us, that the law has been done away. Just say the magic words about accepting Jesus' death in our place and the law does not matter. This is an attack on the Holy Spirit who leads us into a deeper relationship with Christ and changes our life into becoming loving and lovable people and placing the law of self-sacrificing love on our hearts. As for the possibility of Jesus sinning. We are sinners because we have the sinful nature. I like to define the sinful nature with a quote from Mrs. White and the quote from the poet philosopher Eli Siegel. Mrs. White wrote "There is in man a disposition to esteem himself more highly than his breathern, to serve self to seek the highest place and often this results in evil surmisings and bitterness of spirit" Siege wrote "There is in every person a disposition to think they are for themselves by making less of the outside world." Jesus was born with human frailties, but he did NOT have this disposition that White and Siegel described. There was not anything of selfishness in him. Thus Satan needed to modify the temptations to his selfless character. Lucifer said that creatures could not obey the law of self sacrificing love. God had never been a creature before. Prior to the incarnation he would take the form of creatures, but in the incarnation he actually became a creature. In the crisis of Gethsemane and the passion, Jesus' deepest desire was to be with his beloved Father and Spirit. The Father's and Spirit's deepest desire was to be with their beloved God the Son. They all bore our sin. Jesus bore it in a special way in being a creature experiencing the passion. But allowing our sin to separate them from each other was a horrible burden on them each. This is the same experience that the lost will go through, except that they suffer on a finite level. Being infinite the trinity suffered on an infinite level. Would Jesus in all his human weakness continue to be faithful? Would God the Father and God the Spirit submit and allow Jesus to make his choice or will they intervene and force Jesus to do the right thing. Had Jesus, or any member of the trinity failed, it would not merely be the destruction of earth and demons and Moses, Enoch and Elijah be called to face a divine firing squad while the faithful angels sing the doxology. Had any of these failed, it would have shown that there was something selfish in God. That God was not who he claimed to be. All life would realize that God does not deserve our love. I'm not sure what would have happened to the infinite God but this would have destroyed all created life in the universe. God did not pretend to take a risk, God really did take a risk.1 point -
Spirit of Prophecy Writings Coordinator
Kevin H reacted to GHansen for a topic
"I just read the Amalgamation answer at the EGW Writings link and noticed the following things." What the Naturalists believed may be interesting to you but that's what they believed, not what EGW believed or stated. She may well have been misunderstood by U. Smith and others. Again, not her problem although her editors could have prevented the confusion by inserting the word "of" as in the "amalgamation of man and of beast." The way it appears it does look like she was saying that men and beasts joined together through amalgamation. The larger context of what she wrote does indicate that the amalgamation she spoke of referred to the intermarriage of the children of Cain and the children of Seth. The following explanation is the most plausible: "We believe that the meaning of the key phrase in question is found by understanding it to read: “amalgamation of man and [of] beast.” Thus the passage would be speaking of the amalgamation of different races of mankind and the amalgamation of different races of animals. The grammatical construction and common usage permit us to understand “of” as being implied." All the illustrations you provide from Naturalist partisans are irrelevant to EGW. Good reason to believe that she meant that animals amalgamated with each other and humans amalgamated with each other. The anti-EGW crowd prefers to misinterpret her.1 point