BC: "Meanwhile, this mortal life is intended as a time of experiencing and learning - which is why it is subject to disease, corruption and decay; and why it is not possible to be always and wholly aligned with God's creative purposes."
You have free will. You can choose to always and wholly align yourself with God's creative purposes. You can choose to do this at any time, nothing in this Universe can stop you from doing this.
Jesus always intended his disciples to reach 100% of his level. Christians today usually look at Jesus as some sort of unattainable ideal that they will never reach on this Earth, but that is incorrect.
@RB - "Jesus always intended his disciples to reach 100% of his level."
No. Jesus wants us to know what 100% Goodness is and we do; but we ourselves and this world was not designed that this could be possible - it has other purposes.
A mortal world such as ours makes sinlessness de facto impossible (wildly impossible!), therefore (unless we are to regard the creator as incompetent, or unloving) we are not intended to be perfect.
We *know* Good, but so far as living goes are intended to experience and learn.
We will sin, and we should repent, and we will be forgiven. Jesus came to save sinners.
21 May 2019 at 07:21
Robert Brockman said...
BC: "A mortal world such as ours makes sinlessness de facto impossible (wildly impossible!)"
Jesus himself would seem to be a decisive counterexample -- both fully mortal (gruesomely demonstrated) and sinless, same world as ours.
Note that the notion of "the impossibility of sinlessness" is a logical contradiction. Sinlessness means that we have used free will to make perfect choices within the constraints of our available knowledge and physical power. Thus sin is always optional for everyone. Any bad thoughts / actions that "you" engage in that are beyond your free will to control are not sinful -- they are just "natural disasters" like any other external constraint on your choices.
Sin requires knowledge of good and evil and knowingly and willingly choosing a worse outcome. This is *why* evil forces must get us to voluntarily choose evil in order to be effective at corrupting us -- turning us into puppets or simply crushing our mental and physical faculties achieves nothing from a spiritual perspective.
BC: "We will sin"
Why? Do you want to sin? If not, then just stop immediately. If you "cannot stop" the bad thoughts / behaviors in question then to that extent you are actually a puppet and the bad thoughts / behaviors in question are not sinful, but just mechanistic phenomena.
If you do in fact want to sin, then why?
----
The real problem here is that modern people (this includes you and me, still) set the bar for spiritual development waaaaaay too low. The disciples went from random schmucks to operating at very high level in THREE YEARS with proper training. The Book of Acts is a *practical goal* that we can and should reach.
@BC - I don't want to recapitulate what I have said in the post - but the answers to your questions are all there; except about Jesus.
Jesus was uniquely aligned with, in harmony with, God's creative purposes from pre-mortal spiritual life. He remained this way through his mortal incarnation and when he became divine.
But nobody else has ever entered mortal life in complete alignment with God's purposes.
It seems obvious to me that a world in which each person is different, and changes all the time; and each personal circumstance is different, and changes all the time - in which so many people are born very susceptible to temptation, so many environments are actively hostile to God's purposes... this is not a world designed for all people to attain perfect alignment with God's will.
It is - however - a world of billions of unique experiences, and vast possibilities for learning.
This is nothing to do with setting the bar low, or high - that was of talking is trying to use Christianity as a mechanism of social control, Christianity as a means to a worldly end of Good behaviour - which is dishonest as well as ineffectual (here and now).
Things are as they are, truth is truth.
24 May 2019 at 06:45
Jesus was fully in harmony with - aligned-with - God's creative purposes; but we mortal men are not.
We may partly - sometimes, but briefly, wholly - be aligned with God's creative purposes; but nobody (except Jesus) has always and in every respect been in harmony with creation.
Therefore all Men are sinners. And Men can do nothing about this, because in mortal life we are all flawed and there is always change (and the possibility of change); there is disease, corruption, decay - and death is inevitable.
Sin is not being aligned with creation, not being in harmony with God's will.
By analogy sin is being turned away from God's creative purpose; turned in some other direction than where God wants to go.
Repentance can mean 'turning' - so repentance is to turn and face in the direction that God wants things to go; it means to be in harmony with divine creation.
Jesus saved us from sin because he made it possible for us to be aligned with God's will fully and forever - but on the other side of death; by any of us who so chooses to follow Jesus through death to eternal and divine life. That is to be saved from sin.
Meanwhile, this mortal life is intended as a time of experiencing and learning - which is why it is subject to disease, corruption and decay; and why it is not possible to be always and wholly aligned with God's creative purposes.
Note: What people usually call The Sinsare, properly, actions (including thoughts) that are observable consequences of the real sin, which is inner and motivational - which is the state of being not-aligned with (including opposed-to) divine will.
"Jesus saved us from sin - but what is 'sin'?"
4 Comments -
BC: "Meanwhile, this mortal life is intended as a time of experiencing and learning - which is why it is subject to disease, corruption and decay; and why it is not possible to be always and wholly aligned with God's creative purposes."
You have free will. You can choose to always and wholly align yourself with God's creative purposes. You can choose to do this at any time, nothing in this Universe can stop you from doing this.
Jesus always intended his disciples to reach 100% of his level. Christians today usually look at Jesus as some sort of unattainable ideal that they will never reach on this Earth, but that is incorrect.
-- Robert Brockman
20 May 2019 at 22:55
@RB - "Jesus always intended his disciples to reach 100% of his level."
No. Jesus wants us to know what 100% Goodness is and we do; but we ourselves and this world was not designed that this could be possible - it has other purposes.
A mortal world such as ours makes sinlessness de facto impossible (wildly impossible!), therefore (unless we are to regard the creator as incompetent, or unloving) we are not intended to be perfect.
We *know* Good, but so far as living goes are intended to experience and learn.
We will sin, and we should repent, and we will be forgiven. Jesus came to save sinners.
21 May 2019 at 07:21
BC: "A mortal world such as ours makes sinlessness de facto impossible (wildly impossible!)"
Jesus himself would seem to be a decisive counterexample -- both fully mortal (gruesomely demonstrated) and sinless, same world as ours.
Note that the notion of "the impossibility of sinlessness" is a logical contradiction. Sinlessness means that we have used free will to make perfect choices within the constraints of our available knowledge and physical power. Thus sin is always optional for everyone. Any bad thoughts / actions that "you" engage in that are beyond your free will to control are not sinful -- they are just "natural disasters" like any other external constraint on your choices.
Sin requires knowledge of good and evil and knowingly and willingly choosing a worse outcome. This is *why* evil forces must get us to voluntarily choose evil in order to be effective at corrupting us -- turning us into puppets or simply crushing our mental and physical faculties achieves nothing from a spiritual perspective.
BC: "We will sin"
Why? Do you want to sin? If not, then just stop immediately. If you "cannot stop" the bad thoughts / behaviors in question then to that extent you are actually a puppet and the bad thoughts / behaviors in question are not sinful, but just mechanistic phenomena.
If you do in fact want to sin, then why?
----
The real problem here is that modern people (this includes you and me, still) set the bar for spiritual development waaaaaay too low. The disciples went from random schmucks to operating at very high level in THREE YEARS with proper training. The Book of Acts is a *practical goal* that we can and should reach.
-- Robert Brockman
23 May 2019 at 23:49
@BC - I don't want to recapitulate what I have said in the post - but the answers to your questions are all there; except about Jesus.
Jesus was uniquely aligned with, in harmony with, God's creative purposes from pre-mortal spiritual life. He remained this way through his mortal incarnation and when he became divine.
But nobody else has ever entered mortal life in complete alignment with God's purposes.
It seems obvious to me that a world in which each person is different, and changes all the time; and each personal circumstance is different, and changes all the time - in which so many people are born very susceptible to temptation, so many environments are actively hostile to God's purposes... this is not a world designed for all people to attain perfect alignment with God's will.
It is - however - a world of billions of unique experiences, and vast possibilities for learning.
This is nothing to do with setting the bar low, or high - that was of talking is trying to use Christianity as a mechanism of social control, Christianity as a means to a worldly end of Good behaviour - which is dishonest as well as ineffectual (here and now).
Things are as they are, truth is truth.
24 May 2019 at 06:45