Why would it be? People are free and independent and can choose what they want freely. I don’t have any reason to believe God makes person to desire something. but, do you really think you are mindless being whose actions are ruled by someone else?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What is God responsible for?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Why would it be? People are free and independent and can choose what they want freely. I don’t have any reason to believe God makes person to desire something. but, do you really think you are mindless being whose actions are ruled by someone else?
We choose freely between our desires. We don't choose what those desires are, though.
If you don't think our desires come from God, and if we don't choose them ourselves, where do you think they come from?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I agree that we do not choose what our desires are.....
Humans have the will/ability to make choices based upon their desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free they are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints. However, we have the ability to make choices. Otherwise, we would just be at the mercy of our past experiences and our heredity.
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
If you mean things like hunger for food, or desire to be with someone, those are of course innate as we all agree, built in.
But, the particular choices we make, such as whether to eat past the point of being full, or to try to steal a person from their spouse (or just use them, and so on) -- there are many particular choices that matter and that additionally build up their own habituation/momentum.
Our choices tend to influence later choices. But we have a capacity, built in, to try (and often succeed!) in resisting that, wonderfully, and try to go in a better direction. That capacity is built in too.
It's also greatly interesting to consider our built in desires in a more full way, as Maslow for instance:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
I mean things like a desire to murder: personally, I don't have one. I don't wish to kill anybody, so me not murdering anyone doesn't come down to "free will" for me.
...but some other people do have a desire to kill. Some of them will act on that desire.
That difference - a desire to kill or not - isn't a matter of free will, and I'm sitting here as a living example of someone who apparently has free will but - through no effort of my own - has been prevented from going around murdering people.
... which is why I think "free will" doesn't work as an explanation for why a God would allow acts he disapproves of.
I think they come from what we want. And what we want depends on what we have seen and experienced.
And what part of "what we have seen and experienced" doesn't ultimately trace back to God?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Free will is not an "explanation" for acts that God disapproves of, but God allows humans to make choices and act on them using their free will, whether He disapproves of those choices and acts or not. In other words, God does not stop humans from committing acts He disapproves of.
nPeace
Veteran Member
You are absolutely right, that factors from birth to adulthood, do shape the course of our choices. I can definitely relate to that. However, think about that for a moment.
Before our birth, who cares for us? Is it not the parent(s)?
During childhood, who cares for us? Is it not the parent(s), or guardian(s)?
Before we were even a thought, was it not the man's, and the woman's genetics, that made us up?
So, even before birth, factors such as the disposition, health,for sure, were playing a role in shaping, and impacting, on... mot just our choices, but our condition - physically, and mentally... whether we suffer early, or late.
Who do we see as responsible here? Can we say God? How so? What was God responsible for?
"Serious life situations that cannot be changed"? What do you mean?
Whoops! Just a minute.
I can tell you Trailblazer, with all certainty, that you will never find anything like that on JWs official website.
Jesus was mot raised up with a transforming body, or a body that transformed. Jesus was raise up a spirit - a spirit body.
Apostle Paul said, "What you sow is not made alive unless first it dies." (1 Corinthians 15:36) "...but God gives it a body just as it has pleased him. . ." (1 Corinthians 15:38)
The scriptures show that those with the heavenly calling are given an incorruptable, glorious, powerful, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-45)
(1 Peter 3:18) . . .He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
The scriptures do not say Jesus received a human resurrection.
What do you mean by "fallen mortal bodies"?
What are you saying is a misinterpretation? I'm a bit lost, since you seem to have been speaking with someone other than a JW.
I agree there is no place in scripture that even suggests "a physical body that is transformed into an immortal body". No JW believes that.
You are using my words.
Are you saying that this verse - Job 1:21 - is literally saying God takes away, and thus you do not interpret it to mean anything?
... and apparently he implants the desire in humans to do things that he disapproves of.
Why wouldn't we say that God is responsible for all of it?
What aspect of the universe do you think isn't under the sovereignty of God? What aspect of the universe do you think can't be traced back to God's own creation (and where do you think it came from)?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, God doses not implant it, it is just part of the lower material nature of man. But man also has a higher spiritual nature so he can choose to follow that nature.
... which comes from where, if not from God?
Yes, mercy and forgiveness is still there EXCEPT for those who commit the unforgivable sin of Matthew 12:32.
So, yes, repentance is necessary for the rest of us as per 2 Peter 3:9.
We need to ' repent ' if we do Not want to ' perish ' ( be destroyed - Psalms 92:7; Psalms 104:35)
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Both our material and our spiritual natures come from God, since God is responsible for our existence.
So you can blame God if you want to.
nPeace
Veteran Member
If you are saying God is responsible for creation... Yes.
Are you saying God is responsible for the atom bomb... the gas chambers... Boka Haram, and Hezbollah.... and the list goes on? How is God responsible?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Our parents are responsible for creating a baby so they are responsible to care for that baby and child from the moment of conception, but God is responsible for creating humans such that there would be parents, knowing that sometimes those parents would not take proper care of their children. The whole system of free will – that God created man with -- allows people to get hurt by other people and animals to get hurt by people and other animals. It is a very cruel world that God created, and as Blu always says, the buck stops with God, since God is omnipotent and omniscient.
I mean just what I said, unless you are so naïve as to think that everything we do not like about our lives a can be magically changed. Maybe you never heard of the serenity prayer.
I agree that it was Jesus’ spiritual body that rose, but that is what most Christians believe; they believe that the physical body of Jesus came back to life.
Christians do not believe Jesus rose with a spiritual body because that would not be a miracle. The entire point of the resurrection is that it was the physical body of Jesus that rose from the grave, came back to life, and that was a miracle.
“The New Testament declares that without Christ's bodily res-urrection there is no salvation (Rom. 10:9-10). For He "was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justifi-cation" (Rom. 4:25). The physical resurrection of Christ's body is just as much a part of the gospel as His death (1 Cor. 15:1-5). The Apos-tle Paul insisted that if Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead, then (a) the faith of believers is useless, (b) they are still in their sins, (c) departed loved ones are lost, (d) the apostles are false witnesses, and (e) "we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor. 15:14-19).!”
The Significance of Christ's Physical Resurrection
I believe that is a misinterpretation of the Bible, and what Paul said referred to a spiritual resurrection.
The Orthodox View of the Resurrection Body of Christ
“Orthodox Christianity has always confessed two things about the resurrection body of Christ. First, it was the same physical body in which Jesus was crucified. Second, Jesus' body, at the moment it was resurrected, became an immortal, glorified body, a body that was physical but was also imperishable. Both are important to a biblical view of the resurrection, but the former is the primary focus of this discussion.”
The Significance of Christ's Physical Resurrection
Read the above quote and weep. It says that the body was physical but was also imperishable, which is an oxymoron, because no physical body is imperishable. Christians just cannot give up this attachment to the physical body of Jesus which is diametrically opposed to everything Jesus said about the flesh profiting nothing, and they cannot even see the irony in that because they have been so brainwashed by the church doctrines:
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Thank God for that! At least some Christians are rational.
I am not sure what you are asking me. I think the verse means that God is responsible for both life and death. Do you have any idea how much suffering death of loved ones, human and animal, causes? I have no words to describe it, and it is God’s design.
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
From a human perspective. Humans claim God exists.
Humans claim that God created all things, including all evils.
Humans claim the status evil is "burning". Simple.
We live in a body of gases that humans quote is a heavenly mass...that burns but cold space and cold gases in that space keep us safe. Also simple.
O the planet as a scientific thesis, a stone philosophy is reactive. Not safe.
Basic human advice.
We live as a human family. We write a story that says all humans owned the same 2 parents. Meaning the original 2 human being parents were human. How many of them is not what gets discussed. Just the number 2. Which was a story and a theme to claim equality.
For we all know that population and DNA diversity does not just allow rationally for 2 humans being parents originally for everyone. It is how it is taught, how it is read.
So observation says.....I own a blood family, and I own an extended human family everybody else. Very simple observation without lying/coercing using stories.
God in that theme?
Humans, as males in groups defined a status chosen by humans. And named it science.
Quoted the power which they could abstract and change by their human control was the planet on which they lived.
Which a human says, naturally is reactive by its own accord.
So if a human decides to change the planet body, and it attacks them, how would that story be told?
It could only be told by humans in a realisation, having lived through it.
For you cannot talk about a status reaction or reactive condition as a human unless you existed yourself and it occurred whilst you existed. To quote that God harmed a human life.
So if humans wrote that document then the only question is, God is defined as..............in ancient times it was planet Earth, the physical entity.
God the body mass says males in science was once a self consuming mass in space, and the vacuum stopped it from consuming and held it as mass. A very simple basic explanation about God the planet.
Humans claim that God created all things, including all evils.
Humans claim the status evil is "burning". Simple.
We live in a body of gases that humans quote is a heavenly mass...that burns but cold space and cold gases in that space keep us safe. Also simple.
O the planet as a scientific thesis, a stone philosophy is reactive. Not safe.
Basic human advice.
We live as a human family. We write a story that says all humans owned the same 2 parents. Meaning the original 2 human being parents were human. How many of them is not what gets discussed. Just the number 2. Which was a story and a theme to claim equality.
For we all know that population and DNA diversity does not just allow rationally for 2 humans being parents originally for everyone. It is how it is taught, how it is read.
So observation says.....I own a blood family, and I own an extended human family everybody else. Very simple observation without lying/coercing using stories.
God in that theme?
Humans, as males in groups defined a status chosen by humans. And named it science.
Quoted the power which they could abstract and change by their human control was the planet on which they lived.
Which a human says, naturally is reactive by its own accord.
So if a human decides to change the planet body, and it attacks them, how would that story be told?
It could only be told by humans in a realisation, having lived through it.
For you cannot talk about a status reaction or reactive condition as a human unless you existed yourself and it occurred whilst you existed. To quote that God harmed a human life.
So if humans wrote that document then the only question is, God is defined as..............in ancient times it was planet Earth, the physical entity.
God the body mass says males in science was once a self consuming mass in space, and the vacuum stopped it from consuming and held it as mass. A very simple basic explanation about God the planet.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
A non decomposing physical human bio cell is incorruptible...yet they are still deceased. As a human Saint is meant to teach in self presence.Our parents are responsible for creating a baby so they are responsible to care for that baby and child from the moment of conception, but God is responsible for creating humans such that there would be parents, knowing that sometimes those parents would not take proper care of their children. The whole system of free will – that God created man with -- allows people to get hurt by other people and animals to get hurt by people and other animals. It is a very cruel world that God created, and as Blu always says, the buck stops with God, since God is omnipotent and omniscient.
I mean just what I said, unless you are so naïve as to think that everything we do not like about our lives a can be magically changed. Maybe you never heard of the serenity prayer.
I agree that it was Jesus’ spiritual body that rose, but that is what most Christians believe; they believe that the physical body of Jesus came back to life.
Christians do not believe Jesus rose with a spiritual body because that would not be a miracle. The entire point of the resurrection is that it was the physical body of Jesus that rose from the grave, came back to life, and that was a miracle.
“The New Testament declares that without Christ's bodily res-urrection there is no salvation (Rom. 10:9-10). For He "was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justifi-cation" (Rom. 4:25). The physical resurrection of Christ's body is just as much a part of the gospel as His death (1 Cor. 15:1-5). The Apos-tle Paul insisted that if Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead, then (a) the faith of believers is useless, (b) they are still in their sins, (c) departed loved ones are lost, (d) the apostles are false witnesses, and (e) "we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor. 15:14-19).!”
The Significance of Christ's Physical Resurrection
I believe that is a misinterpretation of the Bible, and what Paul said referred to a spiritual resurrection.
The Orthodox View of the Resurrection Body of Christ
“Orthodox Christianity has always confessed two things about the resurrection body of Christ. First, it was the same physical body in which Jesus was crucified. Second, Jesus' body, at the moment it was resurrected, became an immortal, glorified body, a body that was physical but was also imperishable. Both are important to a biblical view of the resurrection, but the former is the primary focus of this discussion.”
The Significance of Christ's Physical Resurrection
Read the above quote and weep. It says that the body was physical but was also imperishable, which is an oxymoron, because no physical body is imperishable. Christians just cannot give up this attachment to the physical body of Jesus which is diametrically opposed to everything Jesus said about the flesh profiting nothing, and they cannot even see the irony in that because they have been so brainwashed by the church doctrines:
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Thank God for that! At least some Christians are rational.
I am not sure what you are asking me. I think the verse means that God is responsible for both life and death. Do you have any idea how much suffering death of loved ones, human and animal, causes? I have no words to describe it, and it is God’s design.
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Jesus first to own life is said born to the womb of his human Mother. You cannot suddenly change that ideal about a theme, where did he come from. When you talk man, male and male baby. Otherwise you would be lying.
Yes and yet not really.
We are looking at that statement within the reference of what we know today and in that reference you are correct. Our bodies are created from the natural substance, earth, that was cursed in Genesis 3.
However, the body that Adam had before the earth was cursed was created for eternity. Indeed, the medical profession still doesn't know why we age when our cells replace old cells.
One view is, "There have been numerous attempts to understand how and why we age—as recently as 1990, the biologist Zhores Medvedev tallied more than 300 possible hypotheses. But according to Steven Austad, a biogerontologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, one explanation has risen to the top: “Reproduction is the name of the game. Basically, we age because it’s not in nature’s best interest to perfectly repair our bodies. The main thing is to keep us reproductive as long as possible, and then let our bodies deteriorate.”"
why-do-we-age
Jesus' body wasn't created from the cursed earth, it was created by the Eternal Word and was the second Adam - an eternal body.
Not brainwashed but logically explained.
So, yes, his body is the same body. And when mankind gets their new body... it will be the joining of the eternal spirit with an eternal body.