NationStates Jolt Archive

God is not capable of tempting us. He can allow us to be tempted, but He cannot do the tempting.

He can not or will not?

He can not or will not?

Yes. His nature does not allow Him to, and He wants nothing outside His nature.

God is not capable of tempting us. He can allow us to be tempted, but He cannot do the tempting.
Our test is not against temptation, necessarily. It's that with our freewill allow us to still follow Him. Adam and Eve were created perfect with freewill, and they could've remained perfect for eternity, then along came satan in his serpent form and used their perfect freewill against them.

God's test for us continues up to today. God knew temptation would get the better of us, and a common misconception is that since He knew and still created us, that He is flawed as well. Which is undertandable, but if He knew, and still created us, then it wasn't a mistake.

It's a test, and I also like to believe that He created us simply so He could love us and be loved in return.

Yes. His nature does not allow Him to, and He wants nothing outside His nature.

Intresting ... kind of contradicts the normal christian omnipotent god thing

I guess that might be the real problem. I heard it used in the Scripture readings in churches several times, for well known verses (John 3:16 for example) and it changed a lot, so I've avoided it.

did the general idea change or just the words? also, listening to someone reading to you isn't studying.

Intresting ... kind of contradicts the normal christian omnipotent god thing

Does He have the power to do something outside His nature? Of course. But is He able to? No. Paradoxical, but Biblical.

Does He have the power to do something outside His nature? Of course. But is He able to? No. Paradoxical, but Biblical.

Paridoxical in a close system yes but its definatly strong proof (if conrect) that said deity would have to exist outside of a closed system therefore would be non falsafiable in that closed system

It does not make it more reasonable to believe in such a deity but it does make it intresting

Paridoxical in a close system yes but its definatly strong proof (if conrect) that said deity would have to exist outside of a closed system therefore would be non falsafiable in that closed system

It does not make it more reasonable to believe in such a deity but it does make it intresting

I'm not familiar with the term closed system.

Hi everyone. First of all, I would like to apologize up front if I answer questions which have already been sufficiently answered according to everyone else's liking. I have only just joined this thread and I see there is a great deal I have already missed.

In response to a recent statment by Edwardis, I believe you said that is both able and not able to do certain things at the same time. I do wish to contradict you on this because it is true that there are certain things which God CANNOT do. For instance, He cannot sin. The only way for Him to be capable of sinning would be if you removed His attributes of Holiness and Righteousness from Him. So though He is limited in these ways, it is not through His lack of power but rather because it would be incongruous with some of His other attributes.

I'm not familiar with the term closed system.

"A physical system on which no outside influences act; closed so that nothing gets in or out of the system and nothing from outside can influence the system's observable behavior or properties."

Now the trick is to figure out if the universe is a closed system or not

But in the end for something to be a part of a physical system closed or not it must be bound by the rules of that system ... omnipotence by definition is not bound by ANY rules of any system there for can not be a member of it.

Sense logic is defined within the framework of the observable universe and its laws a god which is not a member of the universe is not bound by those constructs of logic.

Edwardis is, for lack of a better word, ignorant. He lacks perspective. He lacks compassion. He lacks an understanding of the word "love". He says "God is loving." then goes on to describe things that god does that are not loving, and his only defense in it is "Well, he can because he's god." but doesn't connect the dots and realize that while he CAN do those things because he IS god, the fact that he does them does NOT make him loving.

Edwardis lacks logic and sense. He's very blind, and apathetic to boot.

2) Translation contradict one another without being revisionist because Ancient Hebrew is a language with a very different template then modern English, French, or, anything that is not semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic). Translating accross such differences necessarily leads to a great amount of interpretation on the part of the Translator. Try Comparing the NIV to the Good News to the King James to the Artscroll (OT only). None of those are 'fringe' or particularly revisionist, and yet they describe very different things.
Pay particular attention to Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), that gets VERY interesting with Christian translations.

Not to mention, of course, that not all Bibles are translated directly from the Hebrew to begin with. The OT in the King James version, for example, was translated from the Vulgate, which was translated from Greek, which was translated from Hebrew. There is a bit of interpretation involved in any translation - and this particular one had the added problem of not adding anything that King James wouldn't like.

Since I can't actually read Greek or Hebrew, I prefer to use English translations that were translated directly from the oldest texts we have available. Of course, even then, there are numerous disputes (and these are footnoted in my copy).

I guess that might be the real problem. I heard it used in the Scripture readings in churches several times, for well known verses (John 3:16 for example) and it changed a lot, so I've avoided it.

Changed from what?

But this gets wonky.

Look, we're not perfect. We all fuck up sometimes. But that doesn't suddenly make us unworthy or bad to the core.

God is supposed to be our Father, right? Well, my father loves and cherishes me no matter what mistakes I might make. He is far more knowledgable and capable than I am, and he doesn't make mistakes nearly as often as I do, but that doesn't mean that I am "unworthy" to be close to him because of my own mistakes. Even if he were totally perfect and never made a single mistake, he still would never be so hurtful and pointlessly cruel as to shove me away from him. Because it is silly and irrational to expect any human being to be perfect, and thus it is silly and irrational to punish a human being for not being perfect.

My father wants to help me become the best person I can be, and part of that is helping me to understand that good people make mistakes. This doesn't make them bad people, nor does it mean they are dirty or unworthy. It simply means that even the best of us can put a foot wrong. We learn from our mistakes and we try to make things right with the people who we may have hurt. We do not expect others to take on these burdens for us.


Mistakes are not mud, and they cannot be "washed away" by anybody else. Your mistakes are a part of you, and always will be. That's okay. It doesn't make you bad or dirty, and you don't need to have parts of you scrubbed away to make you worthy. You are okay as the natural, imperfect human that you are.


I firmly believe that the best way to be able to grasp who God is to us is to have had a healthy relationship with our own fathers, which is one of the driving forces in why I work to ensure my children feel loved, protected and guided.
Based on what you are saying, it sounds as though you have had a good reltionship with your father, but the vision of Chritianity and God that you have doesn't measure up to the example you have seen.

I attribute that to 2 things:
1) That you have been exposed to an institutionalised version of Christianity that benefits itself from a God that heaps guilt upon His worshippers.
You are not being blamed for anyone else's sins, only your own, the Christian story of original sin isn't meant as the means condemn you or anyone, just to explain exactly what you said, we all fuck up sometimes. Even though that is true, God still loves us and desires us to be with Him and wants to see us be the best each of us can be, to grow and learn.
When you look at the Biblical examples of who God chose to work with or through to reach mankind, it seems as though he almost deliberately chose people that fucked up but used them anyway and made sure the stories stayed true to who those people were and weren't glossed over.
I'm thinking of Samson, Jonah, David, Moses, Peter, etc. Not many of us can come close to David's 'royal' screw up in the Bathsheeba story, but God loves David.

2) God as Father is only one facet of God. He is also our Judge. The best example I've ever heard of how this Judge and Father role mesh is a story about a poor man that stole food to feed his starving family that was brought before a judge known for his strong sense of Justice in a Law and Order fashion. Not willing to compromise his position of Judge and set a precedent where stealing was somehow acceptable, the Judge proclaime dthe thief guilty and to the horror of the court and defendant, pronounced the fine at the highest the law would allow.
The judge closed the court session, took off his robes, stepped down and walked to the thief and promptly paid the fine from his own pocket.
A perfect blend of Justice and Mercy.

That is what I believe that the sacrifice of Jesus is about.
God being God, our Creator, cannot set aside the sin of any of us without setting a precedent where no one can be fairly held accountable for their sin. So instead He holds each of us fully accountable, and then pays for each of us.
This results in a situation where we will only be held accountable for our sins if we willfully reject His offer. (I don't put in any stock in the common notion that tribal people that never heard of the Bible or any of it's teachings will somehow be punished)

For the sake of being accountable for our sins, God 'washes' us clean. We will still bear the consequences of our actions and hopefully learn from them, even though we are forgiven.