DOES GOD LEARN FROM MEN?
- Thread starter RJM
- Start date
Perhaps, but God also gave us the ability to discern right from wrong. That is, having the propensity to behave a certain way doesn't mean we have to give into temptation or preclude our ability to choose. We pick up a lot of baggage along life's highway and we all fall short of the mark, but at the end of the day we're still responsible for our own actions.
OK. I'll try and clarify.
Well here we're speculating on a mode of being outside time. So in that sense, past, present and future is all one. So things happen 'before' in finite time, but not from the viewpoint of the infinite and time-less, so there's no 'before' nor 'after'.
Take the idea of 'living in the now'. This has traction because the past is beyond (behind) us, the future is beyond (before) us. So now, this very moment, is the only place where we can act. We are in the now, consciously or otherwise. We are not in the past, nor in the future, in the same sense.
The problem under discussion, as I see it, is if God knows what we did, what we do and what we will do, does that mean God wills what we did, do and will do? I think not. God allows what we do, whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing, but allowing something is not the same as willing something. The idea that God wills in contradiction to His own will sets up a bit of a problem ...
Well there's no result to change until it's happened, so in that sense we don't change the result, or rather we opt for this result rather than that one.
At some point someone might raise the issue that although we can discern right from wrong, by some flaw in our disposition, or by the result of baggage/damage picked up/suffered along life's journey, we find ourselves incapable of doing the right thing in the right moment ... perhaps simply an inability to forgive, or a more extreme example the abuse suffered has turned us into abusers ... then it seems we are damned beyond our capacity to save ourselves, or rather God judges us according to a standard we could never meet in the first place.
This is where I think the judgement comes into play, and the judgement involves the opportunity for us to say 'Sorry' or whatever version of that we choose, other than a self-validating 'I didn't know/It's not my fault' — if either were true, then we wouldn't stand accused in the first place.
What the judgement is not, I believe, is us mute in the dock, a list of misdeeds read out, and a sentence passed accordingly.
Christ said the only sin beyond forgiveness is effectively that of refusing forgiveness (cf Mark 3:29), and I believe everyone is offered the chance to repent and accept forgiveness at the last...
"If there were no possibility to change inside, wherein are sheltered the seeds of what we are to become, we would be unable alter the unknown part of our nature. But we do have the opportunity to influence what we become."
Yogananda: from 'The Known and the Unknown' from 'The Divine Romance'
Yogananda: from 'The Known and the Unknown' from 'The Divine Romance'
HakimPtsid
Established Member
Well as God is non-personal, transcendent and not a 'being', it seems irrelevant to ask this notion - of course, I reserve this comment in the awareness that some other religions attribute other qualities to the word "God"
And so, in every faith, non-personal transcendent God manifests his human aspect as a personal human being to show human beings how to relate to him and to one another?
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HakimPtsid
Established Member
That would be those 'other religions' I referred to, like Trinitarian Christianity and Vaishnavism etc.
No, I don't believe God has or ever will incarnate as a human.
On another aspect; there are theophanies of the divine (which are more archetypal and/or symbolic with a metaphysical correlation) but they are only of the Will of God, not God.
Ok. Well God may reveal himself through a human being. In any case, God speaks to humanity. God is universal and transcendent. But God is personal too?
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Mathew 1:23
Bhagavad Gita 4: 7-8
Funny thing those transcendent beings....
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Bhagavad Gita 4: 7-8
Whenever there is decay of righteousness, O Bharata, And there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth
For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, For the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age.
For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, For the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age.
Funny thing those transcendent beings....
HakimPtsid
Established Member
Not in my religion.
Yet God responds to (personal) prayer?
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Nah
Self Realisation means "to know the Self as soul, made in the image of God." Fellowship stands for "fellowship with God, first, and through Him, fellowship with many."
(Yogananda: 'To Know God is to Love All'
Los Angeles Feb 26 1939)
ie: Honour God first, then it will become imperative to love thy neighbour.
It's strange how the same silly idea keeps recurring in all faiths and teachings, all through time, imo.
Imo this one word says angrily: 'If you're there God, it's up to you to prove it to me."
Nah. It doesnt work like that.
What shall I say of this generation? They say "We piped but you did not dance; we mourned but you did not weep."
God don't dance to satisfy anyone, imo.
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(Yogananda: 'To Know God is to Love All'
Los Angeles Feb 26 1939)
ie: Honour God first, then it will become imperative to love thy neighbour.
It's strange how the same silly idea keeps recurring in all faiths and teachings, all through time, imo.
Imo this one word says angrily: 'If you're there God, it's up to you to prove it to me."
Nah. It doesnt work like that.
What shall I say of this generation? They say "We piped but you did not dance; we mourned but you did not weep."
God don't dance to satisfy anyone, imo.
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God responding to personal prayer? A man is brought back from the brink of death and still he says, "Nah" ...... The mind boggles.
I was on the brink for awhile, died a couple of times, temporarily killed once...but yeah, nah.
Everyone I believe is entitled to their beliefs and opinions, that doesn't make any of them true.
Everyone I believe is entitled to their beliefs and opinions, that doesn't make any of them true.
HakimPtsid
Established Member
No, I don't believe that is the purpose of prayer either.
Ok. I'm interested to know what you believe the purpose of prayer is?
It's a feel-good thing. Another school shooting... Our thoughts and prayers are with you. It means I'm not willing to change the law, I'm not willing to give up on guns, I'm not willing to actually do anything. But my thoughts and prayers are with you