Theological Opinions , PART II

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I see that you should be a lawyer.

I read this as Sophistry with a capital "S". Where's GW when I need him?

Not this time, actually. Moral evil or sin comes about through the turning away from or opposition of one's will to God by disobedience to His commandments rather than from the act that is done. Suppose that a person determines to kill another person, but does not actually do so, because he is trampled by a herd of elephants at the very next second. He has still committed the sin, according to traditional Catholic theology at least, because he has moved his will away from God's commandments, even though he has performed no actual act.

So, since sin is the opposition of the will to God, or the turning of it from God, God by definition cannot sin, else His will would have to be opposed to itself, or turned away from itself, which is absurd, since opposition and aversion are forms of relation between two things, and God's will is one.

Originally Posted by hec

"God's image" may mean such things as discernment, logic, compassion...

It's generally considered to be reason, but I'm dubious about that, since the manner of an angel understanding is closer to the manner of God understanding than is the manner of a man understand, but I don't think angels are made in the image and likeness of God. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what the hell it means.

Originally Posted by sis

In order to see 'predestination' as 'that which we must do according to our inborn personalities', however, we must assume that beings who are 'created in God's image' are doomed to damnation.

Which is a premise for those who hold to the truth of Scripture.

Originally Posted by Lief

People grow through testing. They learn. So did Abraham. His personality may have been planned out by God and set up by God to turn out in a certain way, through tests of faith and other experiences, but it still had to grow. The results and path may have been predestined, but that doesn't mean growth wasn't occurring on that path or in those results. I don't see how growth and predestination are contradictory. Abraham was predestined to grow.

More importantly, it was done as an image of the offering of Christ.

Interestingly, according to Christian doctrine, sanctification is the process that makes us more and more like Christ, and that is the goal.

Except according to certain brands of Protestant theology in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, especially, which teach that we do not become more and more like Christ, but rather merely have Christ's righteousness credited to our account, if you will, or cover our unrighteousness. 'We are dunghills covered with snow'.

both for Christians who believe in Free Will and those who believe in predestination.

I thought you just got done saying that they weren't contradictory here...

People can act exactly as they please (ignoring sin and other such qualifications). They make decisions according to who they are, their own personalities and souls, while God makes those same decisions for them according to who he is. The will of God does not negate the will of man, for it does not confront it or overcome it, but rather works through it and with it. Mankind can still make decisions, can still learn and grow, and the fact that Love planned and uses those decisions too does not make them any less man's. It just makes them God's as well. Again, I reemphasize, man does exactly what man wants, without God forcing him to do anything he doesn't want to do, or changing man's personality against man's will. The fact that God wants and does the same as man, though for different reasons, doesn't negate man's freedom.

Or did I err?