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Picture one of your children. With her image firmly in your mind, imagine yourself hating her. Can't do it, can you?
I'm not saying it is impossible for you to hate your child. It could happen. But right now, as you sit here in your right mind, it feels inconceivable and beyond all possibility. You brought this person into the world and you are responsible for her in so many ways. There will be times when you are cross with her or even estranged from her. But to hate her would feel like a betrayal of your own nature.
Unless we humans are more loving than God, which we obviously aren't, He cannot imagine Himself hating His children either, whatever the ancients wrote about Him.
You know that nowhere in the Bible does it say that all people are God's children, right? In fact, it's John 1:12-13 that states that those who trust in Jesus are born again as children of God. By default, Ephesians 2 says we are children of wrath.
You know that John 3:16 doesn't say that anyone can come to him on their own free will, right? It literally says the believers will believe.
But yes, God saves based on HIS nature, not our's. Keep that up, you'll sound like a Calvinist. It's not up to us to decide salvation, but God.
Good grief. Not this again. Anyone is free to respond to the gospel message concerning Jesus. Anyone who hears the gospel and believes it therefore placing his faith in Christ Jesus is saved. Anyone can come to Jesus in response to the gospel. Period.
You know that nowhere in the Bible does it say that all people are God's children, right? In fact, it's John 1:12-13 that states that those who trust in Jesus are born again as children of God. By default, Ephesians 2 says we are children of wrath.
From Paul's speech in Rome:
"From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Therefore since we are God’s offspring . . ."
Good grief. Not this again. Anyone is free to respond to the gospel message concerning Jesus. Anyone who hears the gospel and believes it therefore placing his faith in Christ Jesus is saved. Anyone can come to Jesus in response to the gospel. Period.
Good grief, not THIS again.
The Bible tells us that sin affects all. We are born sinners, by nature. We are free to choose, but we cannot see the goodness of God without our eyes being opened. So yes, anyone that hears the Gospel and believes it, placing his faith in Christ Jesus is saved. And anyone that isn't blinded by sin can come to him.
The Bible tells us that sin affects all. We are born sinners, by nature. We are free to choose, but we cannot see the goodness of God without our eyes being opened. So yes, anyone that hears the Gospel and believes it, placing his faith in Christ Jesus is saved. And anyone that isn't blinded by sin can come to him.
Then why the hell are you arguing with me except that you like to argue?
Does the truth matter to you,
pray for your brother, pray too for your self that God would open your own eyes as to what needs to be said from His point of view.
Picture one of your children. With her image firmly in your mind, imagine yourself hating her. Can't do it, can you?
I'm not saying it is impossible for you to hate your child. It could happen. But right now, as you sit here in your right mind, it feels inconceivable and beyond all possibility. You brought this person into the world and you are responsible for her in so many ways. There will be times when you are cross with her or even estranged from her. But to hate her would feel like a betrayal of your own nature.
Unless we humans are more loving than God, which we obviously aren't, He cannot imagine Himself hating His children either, whatever the ancients wrote about Him.
I perused Aquinas along ago and remember him in broad outline. In the section you're talking about I could not shake the perception that Aquinas veered into a dense hedge of sophistry trying to support a tricky doctrine.
If I am using 'hate' in the wrong sense, how would you set me straight? How ought I to understand the term? To say that a correct understanding of "hate" is beyond us is the same thing as saying the word is meaningless.
Also, how can you remove emotion from something so devastatingly emotional as hate? There is such a thing as dispassionate hate?
I perused Aquinas along ago and remember him in broad outline. In the section you're talking about I could not shake the perception that Aquinas veered into a dense hedge of sophistry trying to support a tricky doctrine.
If I am using 'hate' in the wrong sense, how would you set me straight? How ought I to understand the term? To say that a correct understanding of "hate" is beyond us is the same thing as saying the word is meaningless.
Also, how can you remove emotion from something so devastatingly emotional as hate? There is such a thing as dispassionate hate?
Better yet, just read the Bible. It's clear that we are all blinded by sin from birth and our eyes have to be opened. Ephesians 2, Romans 9. Heck, Jesus himself said it in John 6. John said it in John 1:12-13 that we are born again not of the will of man, but of God. We are separated from God by our sin at birth. Without him opening our eyes, we cannot come to him. He can and does hate sinners. He is free to do what he wants.
I perused Aquinas along ago and remember him in broad outline. In the section you're talking about I could not shake the perception that Aquinas veered into a dense hedge of sophistry trying to support a tricky doctrine.
If I am using 'hate' in the wrong sense, how would you set me straight? How ought I to understand the term? To say that a correct understanding of "hate" is beyond us is the same thing as saying the word is meaningless.
Also, how can you remove emotion from something so devastatingly emotional as hate? There is such a thing as dispassionate hate?
I would not say that a correct understanding of "hate" is beyond us. On the contrary, I definitely think it's understandable.
However, we need to understand that God, being God, does not "hate" in the same way we do. We only use the word "hate" to explain how God relates to the reprobate because our vocabulary is limited.
Since God does not have "passions" the way we do; or at any rate, His "passions" would be fully under His control unlike ours - I definitely think it's possible for God to "hate" dispassionately.
Christian Tradition is clear that God rejects the reprobate and sends them to eternal judgment in hell. "Hate" has been used to describe this rejection by God.
As Aquinas said, it is possible for God to both love a creature by virtue of that creature having been created by Him, while at the same time "hating" the sinner because the objective goodness of their existence has been thoroughly eviscerated/obliterated by sin - something that is not of God.
At the end of our lives, the consuming fire will burn up all of our works, and only what is of value will remain. What if the reprobate has literally nothing of value due to them being totally consumed by sin? There is no longer anything there for God to love*.
*Disclaimer: I'm not promoting annihilationism, though I realize my woefully inadequate and purely figurative explanation may approach dangerously close to it
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