God accepts me the way I am (2)

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]Suppose you die, and God, without citing any reasons, denies you entrance to heaven. Now, if entrance into heaven is merely a matter of grace, then God has not denied you anything toward which you were meritorious or entitled. Do you respect His decision?

I would respect his decision because I would assume, since he is a perfectly righteous jud Christ can therefore rest assured of eternal life.

God is trustworthy. That's the key.[/b]

That said, your question assumes that God has not made any specific promise concerning salvation.

No, it doesn't assume that (if on the other hand, you had said that it does not assume that God has made any specific promise concerning salvation, then I would agree; but that's different). But I figured that something like this objection would be raised. Still, the hypothetical is that he denies you heaven (and that is regardless of whether or not he made the promise you cite). So, supposing further that he has made the promise you cite; and supposing further that he is incapable of failing to make good on his promises; I guess that upon being denied heaven, you would be left with one conclusion: that by "believing in Jesus Christ" God meant something more (or at least other) than what you delivered. Do you agree?

I'm not sure where this is going, by the way. Regardless, you answered the question: you would respect his decision.

Originally posted by knightmeister
The problem with that one is that if you had such a strong love in your heart that you would sooner sacrifice your own soul than see someone else not be saved then you would end up in heaven anyway. A soul with such a love in them is inevitably heaven bound anyway.

As I said - it leaves most people spluttering.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Is this how you feel about my comments regarding physics when you feel that I just have no idea what I'm talking about?

I am not sure what you are asking. Please expand it a bit.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Jesus had that one figured out, and basically said 'stop trying to love God, and love your neighbor, your enemy and the poor and downtrodden.' -----------------whitey---------------

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind ,and all your soul " - Didn't Jesus say that this was the fulfillment/ greatest of all the commandments?

You are correct. My mistake.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Real love can never be based upon performance , it has to be unconditional.
...
"Love keeps no record of wrongs"

Does god love bin Ladin, Hussein, Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Bush the way they are? Unconditionally? So, they can/could continue what they were/are doing and still have their place in heaven? Funny...

Originally posted by knightmeister
If I am offering you a gift then in order to receive the gift you have to ....erhem...receive it. If you don't want the gift there's not a lot I can do. But saying that you must receive the gift in order to receive it is not a "condition" it's just the way it is.

But nobody I know of has knowingly refused such a gift. So it seems that it isn't conditional as such but rather Gods decision as to whom he offers the gift to. I do not consider a gift to have been offered unless the recipient has been made aware of the offering.

Originally posted by LemonJello
So I doubt very seriously that any group of humans could be properly described as psychologically egoist, regardless of their shared religion or worldview.

I agree. Many Christians do love their neighbor without any religious motivation for doing so. But I do come across too many Christians who put up a facade of following Jesus' teachings but are clearly motivated more by what other people think of them or by their desire to get to heaven than they are by a genuine love of their neighbor.

On the other hand, I do think it is an interesting question to ask to what extent expectation of heavenly reward enters into the motivations of the religious.
The interesting question for me, is why the whole reward concept is pushed so strongly if the behavior it is trying to motivate is not genuine when motivated by reward.

I'm not sure what would be a good test for love.
Jesus did.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]My favorite challenge for a Christian is 'would you give up your place in heaven for someone else'? Now that is true love. But it leaves most people I have asked spluttering.

I definitely would.

The problem is, things don't work that way.

Only faith in Jesus Christ can save any given person, and you can't just transfer one person's faith to another.

I wish I could.[/b]

I'm impressed. I think you are the first person who has actually said that they would. Most people carefully avoid answering but rather go for the 'its impossible' argument.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]That said, your question assumes that God has not made any specific promise concerning salvation.

No, it doesn't assume that (if on the other hand, you had said that it does not assume that God has made any specific promise concerning salvation, then I would agree; but that's different). But I figured that something like this objection would be going, by the way. Regardless, you answered the question: you would respect his decision.[/b]

I guess that upon being denied heaven, you would be left with one conclusion: that by "believing in Jesus Christ" God meant something more (or at least other) than what you delivered. Do you agree?

Yes, I don't see how I could conclude otherwise.

That said, the faith which God speaks of is indeed a faith attended by works. A faith without works is not faith at all. For example, would you get baptized if you did not have faith in Jesus Christ? Would not doing so be an affront to your personal integrity? Not only would the act be disingenuous, but its performance would publicly associate you with a group of people with whom you probably do not wish to be associated with. Would it be safe to say that, if you were ever to be publicly baptized into the Christian church, that you would have to first possess a rock solid faith that Jesus Christ is indeed who he says he is? You see, there are certain works which attend faith in Jesus Christ. It's difficult, if not impossible, to miss out on what God promises, provided one has faith.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I'm impressed. I think you are the first person who has actually said that they would. Most people carefully avoid answering but rather go for the 'its impossible' argument.

I'm just imitating Paul.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
I would respect his decision because I would assume, since he is a perfectly righteous judge, that he has a perfectly legitimate reason for refusing me entrance.

This is confusing.

If you have obeyed with both heart and action God's commands and He denied you entrance to
Heaven, then how is He a righteous judge? Why would you respect it? Is this one of those 'God's
ways are not Man's ways' thing? God cannot err, therefore if I burn in hell -- even though I did
everything I was supposed to do to the best of my ability, with contrition for my wrongdoing,
&
so forth -- it must be fair? Maybe you were just wrong and God is unfair. I mean, if we're using
the term judgment, and you've fulfilled all the requested criteria and you still don't get what
was promised, that's the antithesis of righteous.

Judgment, of course, is a nonsensical term for most Christian theology, because salvation comes
from grace which is a gift. To judge someone means you are determining worthiness or justness.
Sincere gifts aren't a product of merit (I take it as a given that God is sincere).

So, after believing as you were taught to believe, having faith in the God and His Son Jesus
Christ, &c, &c, God didn't give you this gift, what does it say about God? Rather than raising
questions about His righteous judgment, it would simply reflect poorly on His character.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
This is confusing.

If you have obeyed with both heart and action God's commands and He denied you entrance to
Heaven, then how is He a righteous judge? Why would you respect it? Is this one of those 'God's
ways are not Man's ways' thing? God cannot err, therefore if I burn in hell -- even though I did
everything I was supposed to do to the best o His righteous judgment, it would simply reflect poorly on His character.

Nemesio

Whether or not it reflects poorly on God's character would not be for me to decide.

If God isn't fair, then the tragedy of my life would be that I trusted in him, and that, because I trusted in him, in the end I could not recognize his injustice towards me.

So be it.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
If God isn't fair, then the tragedy of my life would be that I trusted in him, and that, because I trusted in him, in the end I could not recognize his injustice towards me.

Er. Does that mean that there is nothing that God could do to get you not to trust Him? That is,
at the Final Judgment, if He said,

Ephphinehas and Nemesio: you both followed my Word and my Commands. You were equally
faithful, equally charitable, and equally sincere. You acted with compassion towards those in need,
and you saw my Son in the eyes of those who were hungry and lonely. And, while I have an infinite
space here in heaven, I'm going to flip a coin and if it's heads, Nemesio you go in; tails, Epiphinehas,
you go in.

Aw shucks. It was heads. Sorry that you have to spend eternity in hell, Epiphinehas. Later!

Are you telling me that you couldn't realize the injustice of this?

Nemesio

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]I guess that upon being denied heaven, you would be left with one conclusion: that by "believing in Jesus Christ" God meant something more (or at least other) than what you delivered. Do you agree?

Yes, I don't see how I could conclude otherwise.

That said, the faith which God speaks of is indeed a faith attended by works. A faith without ...[text shortened]... It's difficult, if not impossible, to miss out on what God promises, provided one has faith.[/b]

Would it be safe to say that, if you were ever to be publicly baptized into the Christian church, that you would have to first possess a rock solid faith that Jesus Christ is indeed who he says he is?

I understand your point: that works attend genuine faith.

But I am confused by this example. Maybe the problem is that I am ignorant on the topic of baptism, but aren't, like, infants and babies publicly baptized (and I presume it is not the case that infants and babies possess a "rock solid faith" in Jesus Christ)? Geez, I think I may well have been publicly baptized as a baby.

Or are you talking about baptism to which the person willfully consents or something?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I agree. Many Christians do love their neighbor without any religious motivation for doing so. But I do come across too many Christians who put up a facade of following Jesus' teachings but are clearly motivated more by what other people think of them or by their desire to get to heaven than they are by a genuine love of their neighbor.

On the other en motivated by reward.

[b]I'm not sure what would be a good test for love.
Jesus did.[/b]

The interesting question for me, is why the whole reward concept is pushed so strongly if the behavior it is trying to motivate is not genuine when motivated by reward.

I agree that is an interesting question. I think it is a complicated subject why so much witnessing proceeds through pragmatic or prudential considerations. Arguments for theism of that nature are outrageously bad (for instance, Pascal's wager). I think most theists would agree that motivations that are ultimately selfish cannot undergird a genuine or meangingful faith. However, I suppose they may witness with such considerations in attempt to get a person's foot in the door, so to speak, or at least get them to some provisional acceptance of theism. Maybe they think the holy spirit will then soften their heart and repair and sharpen their motivations from there. Or something.