Can God Pray?

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

No, that was me pointing out to someone else that when we compare God to Man we make a big mistake because in our NORMAL experience we don't walk on water. Do you? We never SEEN anyone walk on water. We don't die and three days later. it's not NORMAL.

So the fallacy is comparing Human PERSONS to GOD and expecting God to be LIKE us.

So no, I am not all over the place and no you didn't understand

I understand that Jesus was not NORMAL in so many ways, but His being abnormal doesn't make Him God. I understand that Jesus was unlike any other being, no doubt about that. I also understand that Jesus was Jesus and God was God. There is no Jesus, who is God praying to someone else (and He WAS praying to someone else) who is Jesus and is God. As the apostolic missionary said, and I agree with his statement....""God cannot pray! If he could, he would not be God! We all know that God cannot pray to God and still be God!". The person who prayed to God wasn't God, He was the Son of God.
[/QUOTE]

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by seekerman

I understand that Jesus was not NORMAL in so many ways, but His being abnormal doesn't make Him God.

That wasn't the point

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

That wasn't the point

The point was, Jesus isn't God for God cannot pray to God.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by seekerman

I understand that Jesus was not NORMAL in so many ways, but His being abnormal doesn't make Him God. I understand that Jesus was unlike any other being, no doubt about that. I also understand that Jesus was Jesus and God was God. There is no Jesus, who is God praying to someone else (and He WAS praying to someone else) who is Jesus and is God. As the apostolic missionary said, and I agree with his statement....""God cannot pray! If he could, he would not be God! We all know that God cannot pray to God and still be God!". The person who prayed to God wasn't God, He was the Son of God.

[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

That wasn't the point

Originally Posted by seekerman

The point was, Jesus isn't God for God cannot pray to God.

Let me rephrase that since you never were following Jfrog's conversation with me and seem to be confused

That wasn't MY Point. In other words you don't know what MY point was and Im not gonna try to explain it again

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Let me rephrase that since you never were following Jfrog's conversation with me and seem to be confused

That wasn't MY Point. In other words you don't know what MY point was and Im not gonna try to explain it again

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

You are limiting the PERSON of God based on your philosophy which seems to be based on what you believe Persons are or can or can't be. What is that based on if not human experience?

Im not looking for a benefit. I don't claim this is some benefit we can all experience.

Yes my philosophy of natures and persons is based on experience and logic and answering the hard questions. I don't deny that because there's not a better way to obtain a philosophy. I also don't deny that your philosophy is possible. I did at one time and i was wrong about that.

I would like to elaborate about your philosophy though. I would like to elaborate about its origins. Your philosophy originated by trying to answer a hard question. That question in general form is, "How can I have two totally different things and actually have them be one thing?". Well the answer is soo simple it might suprise you. The way to make two totally different things be one thing is by grouping. We simply need a word for the group and then we can refer to any set of things as a single thing. In fact in grouping we can group together any 2 or more things we like no matter how different or how similar. In fact we can even have groups of one.

So Prax actually asked how do I have one thing that is God and another thing that is man and actually have them be the same thing? His answer was by grouping. He grouped the thing that was God together in the same group as the thing that was man. He then needed a label for the group and he decided to settle on the term person so that he could confound and hide that his solution was simply a solution by grouping.

So please rememeber that anytime Prax uses the word person, in his vocabulary it is simply a term for the grouping of what he calls beings.

Prax also makes the claim that persons do things. This goes right along with the hiding of the grouping origins of his solution. In Prax's philosophy every action can more easily and naturally be associated first with what he terms a being and then by the method of grouping he logically extends that action to the group, what he has termed the "person".

FYI, I actually don't believe Prax intended his explanations to try and hide that they work because of the logic of grouping and nothing else. Instead I think he was tricked by it just as much as some of us. But I do think anyone that understands the basics of his person nature and being philosophy and reads and understands my contention that its simply an explanation by grouping will realize there's nothing more to it than an explanation by grouping.

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Yes my philosophy of natures and persons is based on experience and logic and answering the hard questions. I don't deny that because there's not a better way to obtain a philosophy. I also don't deny that your philosophy is possible. I did at one time and i was wrong about that.

I would like to elaborate about your philosophy though. I would like to elaborate about its origins. Your philosophy originated by trying to answer a hard question. That question in general form is, "How can I have two totally different things and actually have them be one thing?". Well the answer is soo simple it might suprise you. The way to make two totally different things be one thing is by grouping. We simply need a word for the group and then we can refer to any set of things as a single thing. In fact in grouping we can group together any 2 or more things we like no matter how different or how similar. In fact we can even have groups of one.

So Prax actually asked how do I have one thing that is God and another thing that is man and actually have them be the same thing? His answer was by grouping. He grouped the thing that was God together in the same group as the thing that was man. He then needed a label for the group and he decided to settle on the term person so that he could confound and hide that his solution was simply a solution by grouping.

So please rememeber that anytime Prax uses the word person, in his vocabulary it is simply a term for the grouping of what he calls beings.

Prax also makes the claim that persons do things. This goes right along with the hiding of the grouping origins of his solution. In Prax's philosophy every action can more easily and naturally be associated first with what he terms a being and then by the method of grouping he logically extends that action to the group, what he has termed the "person".

FYI, I actually don't believe Prax intended his explanations to try and hide that they work because of the logic of grouping and nothing else. Instead I think he was tricked by it just as much as some of us. But I do think anyone that understands the basics of his person nature and being philosophy and reads and understands my contention that its simply an explanation by grouping will realize there's nothing more to it than an explanation by grouping.

This is the first I've read about the 'grouping' view and seems just a modified trinitarian view of God. There is one group called "God" but within that group are things which aren't each other but together make up God. I guess that's what the grouping view would be?

That would still require one of the distinctions to step out of the group and not be part of the group and interact with others in the group as though it (He) were separate and distinct, when in fact He wasn't because it was still part of the group.

To me at least, that view works no better than the trinitarian view of God. Who am I to say that view is wrong? I don't understand how it can be, but that just may be a limitation on my part.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by seekerman

This is the first I've read about the 'grouping' view and seems just a modified trinitarian view of God. There is one group called "God" but within that group are things which aren't each other but together make up God. I guess that's what the grouping view would be?

That would still require one of the distinctions to step out of the group and not be part of the group and interact with others in the group as though it (He) were separate and distinct, when in fact He wasn't because it was still part of the group.

To me at least, that view works no better than the trinitarian view of God. Who am I to say that view is wrong? I don't understand how it can be, but that just may be a limitation on my part.

Nope you totally don't understand.

Maybe some background in what Prax believes would help you. Prax believes there is one "person" that has two "natures", one divine "nature" and one human "nature". Prax believes a being is a person with a nature. There the person with both the divine and human natures is actually 2 distinct beings, both a human being and a divine being.

Prax beleives that I am a person with a human nature and thus by his definition I am a human being.

What I contend is that Prax's definition of person actually makes it nothing more than a grouping term like flock or pride or family. This doesn't mean he belief is wrong, its just I like to call things what they are and his explanation of how Jesus is one person that is god and man involves a clever use of grouping (just like 2 or more birds may be called a flock he may call one or more beings a person), that is not very apparent at first because he uses the word person for the name of his groups.

[seekerman]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Nope you totally don't understand.

Maybe some background in what Prax believes would help you. Prax believes there is one "person" that has two "natures", one divine "nature" and one human "nature". Prax believes a being is a person with a nature. There the person with both the divine and human natures is actually 2 distinct beings, both a human being and a divine being.

Prax beleives that I am a person with a human nature and thus by his definition I am a human being.

What I contend is that Prax's definition of person actually makes it nothing more than a grouping term like flock or pride or family.

Yes, I'm familiar with the what I call the 'switcheroo nature'theology of prax. In that view, Jesus is God when one needs Him to be and not God when one needs Him to be. The slippery slope of the natures view though doesn't address in interpersonal actions between Jesus and His Father and God but rather presents a God who is a multi-personality schizophrenic God that interacts with Himself as if He's more than one person, one of His selves believes the other to be His Father and another of His selves believes that He's His own Son and dies and ascends to Himself who wasn't dead.

The 'natures' view simply does not explain the anointing, suffering, death, burial and ascension of human nature Jesus to Himself, who is the Father God nature Jesus, who is continually presented as separate and distinct and the source of power and authority of the human nature Jesus. Kinda convoluted I know, but that's how I understand it. Well, no, I don't understand it.

That view may be correct, my view may be wrong. I think we all have our view of God that's based on what we honestly believe to be correct and go to scripture, giving this passage, and a rebuttal from another passage. Battling scripture I call it.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by seekerman

Yes, I'm familiar with the what I call the 'switcheroo nature'theology of prax. In that view, Jesus is God when one needs Him to be and not God when one needs Him to be. The slippery slope of the natures view though doesn't address in interpersonal actions between Jesus and His Father and God but rather presents a God who is a multi-personality schizophrenic God that interacts with Himself as if He's more than one person, one of His selves believes the other to be His Father and another of His selves believes that He's His own Son and dies and ascends to Himself who wasn't dead.

The 'natures' view simply does not explain the anointing, suffering, death, burial and ascension of human nature Jesus to Himself, who is the Father God nature Jesus, who is continually presented as separate and distinct and the source of power and authority of the human nature Jesus. Kinda convoluted I know, but that's how I understand it. Well, no, I don't understand it.

That view may be correct, my view may be wrong. I think we all have our view of God that's based on what we honestly believe to be correct and go to scripture, giving this passage, and a rebuttal from another passage. Battling scripture I call it.

I understand your problem with this but I think it's misguided. Follow me for a moment. Take a snake and a cow. Clearly those are two very different things. You should not deny that they are clearly not the same thing. Instead embrace it. You have one animal with the body and everything else of a snake and another animal with the body and everything else of a cow. The cow may even step on the snake one day and the snake may even bite the cow.

Now imagine that behind the scenes in a place you couldn't see sense or detect that there was one thing which was acting and appearing like both the snake and cow at the same time. Except imagine it wasn't an act. Imagine that one thing actually existed as the snake and cow. That's prax's conception of Jesus being man and God. Jesus is the person that exists in one form as God and in another as man. He isn't tricking us or acting like one or the other. He actually is both. These are actual interactions just as the snake and cow interacted. Do you understand?