Irvine511 said:clerics should tell you yes -- shouldn't belief in God be an act of empowerment rather than a method to strap you to a list of arbitrary, inadequate, human-created rules?
melon said:So why was Pelagius declared a heretic instead of St. Augustine?
melon said:So why was Pelagius declared a heretic instead of St. Augustine?
nbcrusader said:
I guess it depends on the approach you take with faith. For me, a good sermon is one that makes me aware of where I fall short of God's perfect standards (if you see them as human-created rules, there really is no point in faith).
Seeing that gap underscores (i) that God is Holy and Perfect, (ii) I am a sinner, (iii) my need for a Savior, and (iv) my need to change to be more like God.
Call it conviction if you will.
Irvine511 said:so a good sermon is like advertising? create a sense of need and inadequacy in the consumer/worshipper?
i am genuinely curious as to what people mean when they say god is "perfect."
stammer476 said:I'd say #6 has a lot to do with it. Jesus as the first and only sinless man is central to the theology of salvation.
That's skirting the bigger issue you raise, I realize, but may still answer your question.
nbcrusader said:Perhaps his points are unsupported by Scripture? Taken together, they say there is no need for Christ, no need for God.
nbcrusader said:
I appreciate the discussion, because we approach this from very different angles.
Instead of "create a sense of need” if would characterize it as identifying a real existing need.
Perfection is a way of summarizing many of God's attributes: all knowing, all-powerful, etc. and recognizes God's sovereignty.
melon said:
But, you see, a lot of the doctrine of salvation ("divine grace") is Augustinian in nature.
Interestingly enough, the Western Church (which became Roman Catholicism) declared Pelagius a heretic at the insistence of St. Augustine, while the Eastern Church (which became Eastern Orthodox) rebuffed Augustine and accepted Pelagius. This was one of the starting moments of the rift between the two Christian churches, and is undoubtedly one reason why Catholic priests are expected to be celibate (in keeping with Augustinian philosophy), while Orthodox priests can marry.
A lot of these moral questions are a matter of what came first: the chicken or the egg? Did Augustine reflect existing Christian doctrine or did he, instead, create it?
Either way, a lot of Catholicism and Protestantism hinges, unknowingly, on Augustinian philosophy. But his theology is highly Manichean, a declared heresy, rather than Christian. So should we call the modern church "Christian" or "Manichean"?
Melon
melon said:
This is a good question too. I think one of the questions we have to ask is how much of Christian tradition is built upon the Bible or merely extracted from Christian theologians, which we assume to be Biblical in nature. After all, St. Augustine believed in the power of "divine revelation" to the point that it superceded the Bible and Jesus, if need be.
In fact, a lot of the theology of "original sin"--that is, presuming that man is born in sin, due to the sin of Adam--is not particularly Biblically supported. In fact, the Bible does say the opposite:
"Only the father, since he violated rights, and robbed, and did what was not good among his people, shall in truth die for his sins. You ask: 'Why is not the son charged with the guilt of his father?' Because the son has done what is right and just, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. Only the one who sins shall die. The son shall not be charged with the guilt of his father, nor shall the father be charged with the guilt of his son. The virtuous man's virtue shall be his own, as the wicked man's wickedness shall be his own." -- Ezekiel 18:18-20
Who knows. Maybe Pelagius reflected what early Christianity believed before Augustinian influences.
Melon
Irvine511 said:i appreciate the distinction.
i'm curious, and perhaps this is better left to a PM, but how do you picture god? can you picture god?
when you imagine what god must be "like" (for lack of a better word), what do you see, think, feel, and hear?
nbcrusader said:
Not an easy question, but I'll give it a crack. There are few description for picturing God, and that is probably a good thing (so we don't worship the image instead of God Himself).
From Scripture, we know that we are all made in God's image (not the other way around), so there is infinite diversity in His Image. We know that at some point we will not need the sun or moon for light. We will live in the light of God's Glory. We know that God does not speak with a loud voice, but uses a quiet whisper.
For me, the only way I can begin to scratch the surface in trying to imagine what God is like is to look at my relationship with my children (especially when there were very young). I would enjoy watching over them, looking out for them, caring for them (whether they could see me or not). There is joy just watching them breathe while they sleep, discover new things, or simply looking at you. God wants/has that relationship with us.