Date sent: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 15:08:05 -0800 (PST)
|
The parts Roger has written are in italics. The parts Toby has written are in normal text. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 |
Roger:
Umm.... OK, this is leading down some interesting avenues...
I hear you saying that since we all go to heaven, hell or some other afterlife, we are all immortal, and in that context Jesus' immortality isn't different from any human's.
If Jesus' immortality is the same as every other human's immortality, then the question of sanity becomes moot. The only "surprise" is that he resurrected sooner rather than waiting for Judgment Day like the rest of humanity. (If Jesus' immortality is different from other humanity's immortality, the question of insanity is still valid.)
This still leaves the question of, "how much did he know, and when did he know it?" The question of what the veil let him know is still important. Was he guessing when he said he was Son of God? Or did he "know"?
Knowing meaning Jesus being able to say, "I still have a vivid and accurate sensory memory of my pre-mortal existence, so I'm speaking with personal authority when I speak about Heaven and God and what I/we of The Trinity want you humans to do."
Guessing meaning Jesus being able to say, "I've had visions. God has told me I'm the Son of God, and I believe him with all my heart and soul. But, in truth, the veil keeps me from knowing what I knew when I was a pre-mortal. So what I'm doing is what God told me to do, and what I'm telling you is what God told me to tell you."
This is important because either his words and actions are of similar validity to those of other prophets (he is guessing), or they are of more authority (he knows). This is something I haven't bothered to research in detail because this is a line of reasoning I haven't pursued before now. So, this is a question. I'm asking you as an authority on the subject: how much did he know when he was preaching?
On the question of how much Jesus has to suffer to satisfy me: Hey, I'm happy with a pinprick! Just like a sprinkle of water is enough for a baptism, why should a lot of suffering be necessary? But, I'm not the one who has to be satisfied with the amount of suffering. It's God the Father who has to be satisfied.
(Related thought: My feeling is I have free will, and you have free will. No suffering I do is going to affect your free will. I may choose to sacrifice for you, I may choose to try and persuade you using suffering as a tool of persuasion, but to suffer for you other than as a tool of persuasion is meaningless and silly. From my perspective, that God the Father should require suffering to open the Pearly Gates to mankind is an arbitrary choice of God the Father. He could just as easily choose ecstasy or a math examination as gate openers.)
(An unrelated thought: Keep in mind that from the perspective of those around Jesus, The Passion was as much about humiliation as it was suffering. Yes, crucifixion was painful, but, just as important, it was like dying of AIDS in the eighties... it was what it said about you and your family's character that was really painful. This means that the context of The Passion has changed enormously between when it happened and what we think of it these days.)
Those points being expressed, I'll move on to a question I've been staying away from before now because I didn't want to muddy the water...
Tell me again why God the Father has such a hard time dealing personally with sin? If I recall correctly, the whole reason for Jesus showing up on Earth and going through this Passion is that God the Father can't deal directly with human sin.
Related question: I'll ask you again: why does Sin require a price, and not other human activities and thoughts?
--Roger
Toby: Hell may in fact be the end of life, that i you don't want eternal life you get eternal nothingness.
Jesus is alpha and omega, his imortality spans all time, we are each created (you did not exist outside of time, nor did you exist before june 1948; we are not little jc's. we are not god.)
i thought we covered this:
he knew he was God... always as man as god
he didn't know everything while in human form, his comments about heaven and, if they included, precrearion or post creation or out this universe stuff were they surpass human understanding. sorry that is hard for some to accept that man's knowledge has limits, i would guess that you are in that camp.
i meant to answer the last question: all actions have consequences, sin is not alone in having consequesnces
--Toby
========================
|
The parts Roger has written are in italics. The parts Toby has written are in normal text. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 |