Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
My apologies, Matthias.
I recognize the wisdom of your refusal to debate. Let's keep our dialogue.
Genesis 14 and Psalm 110
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I recognize the wisdom of your refusal to debate. Let's keep our dialogue.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
I invite you to examine this carefully.
Either there are billions of false Christian gods, one for each believer, so that the probability of your God being the True One is less than 0.0000001%, or there is only One True God, and what happens is that each believer has their own view of that God, a view which is a unique mixture of truths and misconceptions.
There is only one true God -> the Messiah’s God. Everything else is idols.
“1. The one God. (a) theos is the most frequent designation of God in the NT. Belief in the one, only and unique God (Matt. 23:9, Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:4,6; Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19) is an established part of the Christian tradition. Jesus himself made the fundamental confession of Jud. his own and expressly quoted the Shema (Deut. 6:4-5; see Mk. 12:29-30; cf. Matt. 22:37; Lk. 10:27). This guaranteed continuity between the old and the new covenants. The God whom Christians worship is the God of the fathers (Acts 3:13; 5:30; 22:14), the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Acts 3:13; 7:32; cf. Matt. 22:32; Mk. 12:26; Lk. 20:37), the God of Israel (Matt. 15:31; Lk. 1:68; Acts 13:17), and the God of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3).
(New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Abridged Edition, p. 244)
I carried this around with me for decades @Pancho Frijoles. I’ve posted it here and on many other forums.
I’ll expand on it using the same source, which is something that I haven’t done here and don’t recall doing on any other forum. [If (a) doesn’t interest them then (b) and (c) aren’t going to - even so, witness isn’t useless.*]
“(b) Confession of the one God appears in Eph. 4:6 in an expanded form (‘one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’), which glorifies the omnipresence of the rule of God. …”
(Ibid.)
(c) The one God is the living and only true God (Rom. 3:30; Gal. 3:20; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2:5; Jude 25; cf. Jn. 17:3). He is the God whom the heathen do not know (1 Thess. 4:5). It is true that Paul acknowledges the existence of ‘so-called’ gods, who have authority as demonic powers over the heathen, but for Christians there is only one God (1 Cor. 8:5-6). …
This one God is called ‘our God’ (Acts 2:39; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rev. 4:11; 7:12; 19:5). The individual believer, like Paul, can speak personally of him as his or her God (Rom. 1:8; 2 Cor. 12:21; Phil. 1:3; 4:19; Phlm. 4). Belief in the one God involves turning away from all heathen ways. Therefore in missionary preaching testimony to God is linked with a strggle against the worship of false gods (Acts 14:15; 17:24-25; 19:26).”
(Ibid., pp. 244,245)
* Have you ever looked closely at a Torah scroll? If you have, you may have noticed something unusual; there are two letters printed larger than all of the other Hebrew letters in the Shema. eid is the Hebrew word for “witness“.
“Why are the final letters of the first and last words of the Shema larger than all the others in the Torah scroll? … When we recite the Shema, we attest to His primacy. This reflects the words of Isaiah (43:10), ‘You are my witnesses ...’”
A Jewish tradition.
(New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Abridged Edition, p. 244)
I carried this around with me for decades @Pancho Frijoles. I’ve posted it here and on many other forums.
I’ll expand on it using the same source, which is something that I haven’t done here and don’t recall doing on any other forum. [If (a) doesn’t interest them then (b) and (c) aren’t going to - even so, witness isn’t useless.*]
“(b) Confession of the one God appears in Eph. 4:6 in an expanded form (‘one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’), which glorifies the omnipresence of the rule of God. …”
(Ibid.)
(c) The one God is the living and only true God (Rom. 3:30; Gal. 3:20; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2:5; Jude 25; cf. Jn. 17:3). He is the God whom the heathen do not know (1 Thess. 4:5). It is true that Paul acknowledges the existence of ‘so-called’ gods, who have authority as demonic powers over the heathen, but for Christians there is only one God (1 Cor. 8:5-6). …
This one God is called ‘our God’ (Acts 2:39; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rev. 4:11; 7:12; 19:5). The individual believer, like Paul, can speak personally of him as his or her God (Rom. 1:8; 2 Cor. 12:21; Phil. 1:3; 4:19; Phlm. 4). Belief in the one God involves turning away from all heathen ways. Therefore in missionary preaching testimony to God is linked with a strggle against the worship of false gods (Acts 14:15; 17:24-25; 19:26).”
(Ibid., pp. 244,245)
* Have you ever looked closely at a Torah scroll? If you have, you may have noticed something unusual; there are two letters printed larger than all of the other Hebrew letters in the Shema. eid is the Hebrew word for “witness“.
“Why are the final letters of the first and last words of the Shema larger than all the others in the Torah scroll? … When we recite the Shema, we attest to His primacy. This reflects the words of Isaiah (43:10), ‘You are my witnesses ...’”
A Jewish tradition.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
If this is it, then take my word. I worship Jesus' God.
Take the word of Lutherans. They worship Jesus' God.
If you don't take my word or the word of Lutherans, it is maybe because you expect Jesus' God to meet other dozens or hundreds of requirements. That's not bad. Of course the true God should have some minimal requirements for us to worship Him. For example, God must have a will and mind (be personal, if we are theistic), must be All Powerful, All Good, Creator of the universe. God must be interested in our well being (otherwise we would be deistic), and in revealing Himself to us. God should be hold us accountable, in some way, on how we live our lives.
But many of those dozens or hundreds of requirements could not be tested or affect any of the above.
For example, the requirement that "God begot a Son".
The thing is... you don't even know the meaning of "beget a son". I say this respectfully, as you are as much a limited human being as anyone else.
Unless you conceive God with a reproductive system (either sexual or asexual, like fungi) you would have to admit that "beget a son" should have a non-literal meaning.
Well, the exact nature of such non-literal meaning has been the subject of debate for thousands of years among scholars (scholars, not the illiterate peasants, artisans, fishers, shepherds and poor merchants who constituted the vast majority of believers for centuries).
So. unless you believe that the meaning of "beget a son" is established and indisputable, and can be interpreted only in one way, I doubt it could help us to tell the true from the false god.
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To beget is to father and to father is to bring a person into existence.
The Lutherans have no difficulty understanding that I don’t worship their God. I’m in full agreement with them that I don’t.
A long time ago now a Lutheran told me how fortunate I was to live in the 20th century rather than the 16th century. It made the difference, he said, between living to see the sun rise and being killed (which, he added, I richly deserve for not believing in his deity.)
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
I didn't know that about the Shema. Thanks for this!
Bearing witness is a beautiful and key concept.
Let me share with you that we Baha'is have a formal daily prayer that we recite every single day of our lives.
It is based on the concept of bearing witness to God.
I have programmed my "Alexa" device to remind me every day at 12:05 of this prayer, so that I stop working, redirect my thoughts to God, prostrate and recite it. My dog keeps next to me while I pray... so I often call it "a Baha'i dog" :)
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I know how the Lutheran would answer this question @Pancho Frijoles but I’d like to learn how a Baha’i would answer it:
What is the origin of Jesus?
What is the origin of Jesus?
Witness is powerful.
Yahweh isn’t a praying God. Neither is Allah. Similarity.
Like you and I, Jesus is a praying man. The New Testament doesn’t preserve a record of all of his prayers but it does preserve some of them. They serve as a witness, just as yours and mine do.
The prayer you offer regularly isn’t one of his that is preserved in the NT. Do you think he could - or perhaps even that he did and it just isn’t preserved for us in the Bible - offer your prayer?
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
The short answer, according to Baha'is Scriptures is this: "It is a mystery". :)
Some pieces of the puzzle, based on my personal understanding of Baha'i' scriptures, are these:
Jesus had a a spirit, a body and a rational soul.
- His spirit is eternal. It is the Word emanating from God, just as the light continually emanates from the sun. This divine spirit is not restricted to a particular person in history. Such divine spirit may have manifested multiple times in multiple places (including, who knows, many other worlds, or an infinite number of worlds).
- His body started to exist in Mary's womb and ceased to exist at the moment of his physical death on the cross.
- His rational soul preexisted, but it has not been revealed exactly since when or how. This is the individual aspect of Jesus mind.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Perhaps.
Based on few accounts like the prayer He offered in the Garden of Gethsemani, we know that He submitted his life and will to his Father's will. So perhaps a common element of Jesus prayers and the prayer I posted could have been the recognition of God's sovereignty and power, in contrast with our own station.
Still, the relationship of Jesus with God was different in quality that our relationship with God, so I wouldn't necessarily expect that his personal prayers were the ones He thought were better for us. For example, I don't see him saying "And forgive our sins..." as he taught his disciples to pray.
We baha'is recite many prayers revealed by Bah'au'lláh. The one I posted is the daily standard prayer in the afternoon, but there are perhaps more than 100. What is constant in all of them is the acknowledgement of the Oneness of God and the uniqueness of His attributes.
.
Thank you.
The origin of Jesus isn’t a mystery in the Bible. (Lutherans, though, would say that he has no origin. In other words, the Lutheran would say that my question is based on a false premise.)
I consider prayer to be a form of worship. Do you?
If Jesus prayed your daily standard prayer he would be thanking his God for creating him. Lutherans, of course, don’t believe that Jesus was created; for God - who has always existed - didn’t create himself, nor was there anyone to create him.
To be created is to be a creature, and to be a human creature is to be a human person who has been brought into existence. That’s unthinkable to a Lutheran. It doesn’t describe his God at all. At best, the Lutheran would think it absurd, a complete impossibility. His doctrine precludes Jesus from being a human person. No creature is the one true God.
Returning to your question, my God is different from, is not the same as, the God of the Lutheran. The God of the Lutheran isn’t my God; the Lutheran and I both recognize and acknowledge it.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
You don't think that the Lutheran is worshiping the God of Jesus. Am I understanding you correctly?
By the same token, the Lutheran does not think you are worshipping the God of Jesus. Is that right?
So, the peril here is... each one of you think that the other is worshiping a false God. This goes against the first and most important commandment. Then, each one of you think that the other will be either destroyed or burn in hell for ever. Am I right in this statement?
The Lutheran worships the Trinity. My God isn’t the Trinity. (The Trinity used to be my God. I have turned away from, have rejected, the God of the Lutheran.)
The Lutheran will, generally speaking, when pressed, acknowledge that I worship the God of Jesus.
One of us is right.
This brings us back to my standard: Jesus. I rely upon Jesus to know who the first commandment is speaking about.
You’re right about the Lutheran thinks about me but, as I mentioned in passing earlier, I believe something about conditional immortality that most who believe in conditional immortality don’t believe.
How long have you been a Baha’i? What are the Baha’i scriptures called? Do they include the sacred books of other religions?
“On the cross, God looked at Christ and saw you. Now He looks at you and sees Christ.” - John MacArthur
What about Allah @Pancho Frijoles?
“On the cross, Allah looked at Christ and saw you. Now He looks at you and sees Christ.”
Will Muslims go along with this? How could any Muslim go along with this when the Quran teaches them unequivocally that Christ was never on the cross, that he wasn’t crucified?
Yahweh looked at Christ on the cross. Allah did not look at Christ on the cross.
How is it possible to conclude from this that Yahweh and Allah are the same God?
What about Allah @Pancho Frijoles?
“On the cross, Allah looked at Christ and saw you. Now He looks at you and sees Christ.”
Will Muslims go along with this? How could any Muslim go along with this when the Quran teaches them unequivocally that Christ was never on the cross, that he wasn’t crucified?
Yahweh looked at Christ on the cross. Allah did not look at Christ on the cross.
How is it possible to conclude from this that Yahweh and Allah are the same God?
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Not under the statement created by John McArthur.
But I could create dozens of statements which would clearly show that Allah and Yahweh are the same God.
Then it isn’t the same God and it isn’t the same Christ.
Similarity.
Pancho Frijoles
Active Member
Good morning Matthias.
I’ve been a Bahai for seven years. Before that I navigated atheism for about 20 years.
Baha’is sacred writings don’t have a single name. We just call them “The Writings”. They include those of The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh and Abdul’ Bahá. We also consider inspired interpretations of the former writings the statements of Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice.
We regard the Bible and the Quran as revealed by God.
The Avesta, The Vedas and in general the sacred textbooks of Hinduism and Buddhism are greatly respected and honored, and read from time to time in special meetings.
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