Covenant?
 

I was perusing the web the other day and I found a discussion of atheists. They were talking about the creation of what we call the covenant between God and his children. What is this covenant? They follow the law or burn? Good choice for love?

(disclaimer: I am looking for discussion of this topic I am not an atheist going to debate you I am opposed to this view.)

:donuts

Not sure I understand the part in bold. A covenant is an agreement. Moses made one for Israel between Israel and God. It was a set of agreements and conditions that both parties would adhere to in their relationship

So I guess since I am new the consensus is I am ignorant until proven otherwise? :girlnails

The question is God gave man the choice to listen to him and love him, or burn?

Which to choose hmmm.... eternal pain and fire or no tatoos....

Is this Steven Kuntzman?

The question was about covenant and I answered it....

Maybe you should reword your question to read "what happens to atheists when they die? Do they burn in hell?"

That is why I said what you ask makes no sense. You are asking two completely different question as though they are the same

I need a kit kat bar!! :coffee2

Covenant is always based on a choice of entering into it or not.... the point I would like to discuss is just that.... it does not look like much of a choice.

I am not asking what happens in hell....

Why do you assume you even have the right to such a choice? God created the first two humans (and, in fact, all of existence) and the Creation is His to do with as He pleases. That God chooses to allow humans to have a covenant relationship with Him is something He does out of the kindness of His own heart as He is not under any obligation whatsoever to bind Himself to such a relationship. Consider what Paul said in Romans 9:6-29 (ESV):

"But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.' This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: 'About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son.' And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad - in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call - she was told, 'The older will serve the younger.' As it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.' What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?' But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' 21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory - even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,

'Those who were not my people I will call "my people,"
and her who was not beloved I will call "beloved."'

And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: 'Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.' And as Isaiah predicted,

'If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.'"

Your comment is simply put.... dumb.... haha

You make no sense... a covenant is an AGREEMENT... I am asking how is it a covenant if there is no agreement.... Chan it has to be a choice...

Come on people this should be one of the first things you learn....

My previous post makes sense to those who are able to spiritually discern.

The fact of the matter is that God chooses to allow us to enter into this covenant relationship with him. It is not a contract between two equals!

This is not the content of the debate Chan....

I am asking you to, as a Christian, describe the love that God is portraying, the freewill love that we all-too-often preach about when in fact there is no choice... I have preached this many times and the fact of the matter is HOW CAN WE preach love and say that God gave us the choice because the Angels are forced to worship him, yet the punishment for lack of obedience to him is, simply put.... :couch

God portrayed His love by allowing His enemies (humanity) to enter into a covenant relationship with Him wherein they cease to be His enemies (keeping in mind that it is their sin, their rebellion against God that makes them His enemies). God portrayed His love by sending His only begotten Son to bear the punishment for our sins so that we could enter into that covenant relationship with Him.

You assume that humans have free will and that is why you are having such a problem with this. The human will is not free, it is enslaved to sin along with the rest of the human's being (and, consequently, humans left to themselves will always choose sin and choose against God). Further, the human will is not free because it does not have the right to choose against God.

CHAN, you are not addressing the issue at hand....

God DID give humanity the free will.... the tree in the garden to choose right from wrong... you are looking at this from a point of view that makes no sense.

I am saying right and wrong is subjective, not to the individual but to the view of God, so in all tenses there in fact is no free will... BUT God gave man the opportunity to choose him or not... that way he would feel real love... the angels could not do this because it was there nature.... this is why we can worship and angels can only praise....

Yet I ask once again (echo... echo) if there is a punishment for not choosing God, then is it truly a choice?

I'm addressing what you are posting.

No, God did not. God did not give those first two humans the right to choose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He commanded them specifically not to eat from it.

Right and wrong are not subjective at all, they are absolute and are according to divine decree.

This notion of choice is a myth.

No way.... are you an idiot?
Yes He did command them, but he also gave them the choice otherwise they would not have been able to eat from it...


It is subjective very much so to what God thinks is right and wrong. Which in essence is divine decree. You are not looking at this topic like an intelligent person.. more like an idiot.

Are you a calvanist?

Careful, the Admin types here might consider that a violation of the rules.

Capacity (physical ability) does not constitute choice.



No, what God says is right and what is wrong is not subjective at all. We humans like to think it is but there is only one standard of right and wrong. Even though we humans don't have perfect knowledge or understanding of what that right and wrong are, doesn't negate its absoluteness - particularly since God judges us based on that absolute standard.



Yes.

I was asking...
Yes, the capacity to do something DOES mean you have a choice. You can do it or not, and since God is the creator of ALL he did create that choice.

It is subjective to the will of God, are you not comprehending that? If it were not subjective then ham would still be forbidden meat and many other things we do would still be against religious law.

I know you were asking. There are people here (including some Admin types) that equate questions with statements.

No, merely being capable of doing something does not give you the right to choose whether or not to do it.

No, it is not subjective to the will of God (subject to the will of God but not subjective). Under the Law of Moses, which is God's covenant specifically with the nation of Israel, ham is still forbidden meat and there are many other things that are still against that law.

The ability to do something does give the choice... and it subjective to the will of God... if God so changes his mind, then it is no longer the same... right and wrong is subjective and not objective.... By saying it is not subjective you are implying it is objective meaning that it is superfluous to any outside opinions... FALSE... it is subjective to the will of GOD.

The right is granted by ability.... a choice is not defined by law or restriction more or less it IS defined by ability. By saying someone does not have a choice, you are saying there is an ABSOLUTE decision meaning that someone else has predefined the outcome. God gave man the choice he said not to eat or you will "surely die". If there were to be no choice given, there would have been no tree.

Man in his stupidity (or should I say woman), weighed the consequences and decided so. In this she made three inherent choices... to disobey God, to obey the devil, to eat rather than not.

Again, merely having the capacity (physical or mental ability) to do something does not give us the right to choose whether or not to do it. Also, there is nothing "subjective" about the will of God. His will is absolute and God does not ever "change his mind." As for your suggestion that I'm implying something, I don't imply - ever! I made a very clear statement: "it is not subjective to the will of God (subject to the will of God but not subjective)" and there is nothing else to be derived from that statement. There is nothing subjective about right and wrong. I'll grant you that right and wrong are subject to (under the authority, determined by) of the will of God; however, God's will is immutable.

Again, ability (capacity, capability) does not constitute having a right. A person may very well be physically and mentally capable (ability) of committing murder but the law does not give him the right (choice) to murder and, thus, the restriction is very definitely defined by law and not by ability. Further, I am indeed saying that God's law and God's will are absolute and that God has decreed the end from the beginning. And, no, God commanding Adam and Eve not to eat from that one tree and telling them that the consequence if they disobeyed would be death is not giving them the right to choose!

I doubt very much that either Adam or Eve weighed the consequences of their disobedience. The only thing Eve was thinking was that the fruit looked good and that eating it would make her "wise" and "like God." Adam didn't appear to even be thinking: he simply took the fruit that Eve gave him and he ate.

From reading the previous posts the right to make a decision is and has not been part of this discussion Chan, but the matter of entering into a covenant that is not balanced.

You are saying that right and wrong is not subjective to God's will... that is wrong, the fact is that the definition of right and wrong COULD change it MAY not due to the fact that it is immutable (which I disagree on the grounds that God can do whatever he pleases).

So in essence when you say it is not subject you MUST there is absolutely no way around it imply that it is objective. And the law is established by the will of God, not by some external force.


This is confusing? So you are saying that God in all his might and power, did not give Adam and Eve the right to choose yet they still had the ability? Odd theology for a proclaimed Calvinist.

Why would you doubt it? The serpent had to lie and convince them otherwise... if they were not weighing the consequence of death then why on earth did he have to do this?

Very interesting thread... Chan I will have to side with Vegas on this one. But the question still stands....

If God created a covenant consisting of free will... meaning you can enter it or not... then why is there a consequence of hell for not? Does that mean it is not free will since there is fire or golden streets?

But it is only the right to choose that makes a will free. Merely having the capacity to choose does not make the will free.

Note the word used is "subjective" and not "subject." Right and wrong (as established by God) do not change - ever! God's standards are as immutable as God is.

No, I didn't say right and wrong were not subject to the will of God (in fact, I said they were subject to the will of God), I said right and wrong were not subjective*! Since I don't imply, your statement that I must imply is simply wrong. But let me make it clear for you: RIGHT AND WRONG ARE NOT SUBJECTIVE, THEY ARE OBJECTIVE AND ARE ESTABLISHED BY GOD.


There's nothing confusing about it except maybe to people who ridiculously think that "free" simply means "ability or capacity." There is no FREE will since the will does not have the RIGHT TO CHOOSE. The fact that God punishes us for our choices, judges us for our choices, is proof in itself that God does not give us the right to choose what we want. If we had the right to choose sin, God would not have the right to punish us for our sins. A person has the capability of murdering another person but that doesn't mean he has the right to murder.



It was the serpent's nature to lie! But notice that the serpent fed Eve a whole bunch of truth before slipping in that little lie. Sure, Eve told the serpent what she was told (that if she ate of the tree she would die) but that doesn't mean she was weighing the consequence of death after the serpent told her she would not die.

You have the right to be wrong.

He didn't.Since "not" brings eternal consequences in the form of punishment, it is not a right to choose what you want. Yes, it means there is not free will. In order for a will to be free, it must have rights. Free=freedom=rights!






*arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes

Chan your logic amazes me... you also are very rude and I would not want to deal with you as a minister of mine since you are so pompus.

You also have a wicked belief system....

the foundational principle of LOVE is choice... and God declares that many times in his word... Draw nigh unto me and I will draw nigh unto you....

Punishment for something does not signify failure of free choice... some people choose to love the devil and know hell is a consequence.. Just one person doing that proves your philosophy ignorant...

your personal attacks on profession are ridiculous and I have a problem with forum for banning me over calling someone a name that referred to their job and not you for saying I was wicked.

Goodbye