toneyb:

Is Jesus God himself or the Son of God? If he is God himself then why did the bible say that he is presently sitting at the right hand of God?

In Paul's letter to the evolutionists were he stated that nature reveals the Godhead (trinity) therefore you are without excuse.

Lets see an analogy or paradox from the world of science by a scientist and theologian named Alister McGrath that explains this Godhead and how Jesus is God the Son:

"An example of this from the world of science concerns the nature of light. By the first decade of the twentieth century, it was clear that light behaved in a very strange way - sometimes it seemed to behave as if it was a wave, and sometimes as if it was a particle. It couldn't be both at once, and so the cry 'contradiction!' was raised. How could it be two totally different things? But eventually, through the development of the Quantum Theory, it was found that this contradiction expressed a fundamental difficulty in grasping what the nature of light really was. In other words, the contradiction did not arise on account of light, but on account of our difficulties in conceiving it."

McGrath went on to show that the nature of light was such that two contradictory models had to be used to account for its behaviour whereas on the Divine level we require three contradictory models.

"Most of us know what light is without needing to think about waves, particles or Quantum Theory.  Light is what we need in order to see, to do our everyday business, to read and write.  It is what comes out of the sun, and to a lesser extent from the moon.  It is what we get when we switch on electric light bulbs or strip lighting.  If we were physicsts, we might want to think about light in much more detail and go into the full complexities of it - and so we might start talking about waves, particles and Quantum Theory.  But we don't need to do this in order to make use of light or to recognise it when we see it."

The fact that we cannot fully comprehend the Trinity does not mean that it does not make sense.  When I switch on the television or communicate on a telephone I do not know how they work, but there is an explanation beyond the limits of my understanding and which does make sense.

bawomolo:

wouldn't this theory apply to the multitude of supreme beings. You really can't say Apollo, Zeus exist. Heck i can easily argue Aliens brought humans to earth. Your beliefs are based on faith on Only ONE GOD and not fact.

The onus is on you to argue scientifically or logically what you believe to be true. If you believe that Apollo, Zeus and Aliens are your creators then prove it.

How can one disprove the gods of others when one cannot even prove the existence of one's own god.This is why trying to impose one's own religion and god on others is an absolutely futile and pointless endeavour.
If you can prove to me that my god and religion is false,then i can do the same to your god and religion.CHECKMATE!

Sadly christians fail to acknowledge this fact. You tell them to prove their god,they throw insults and demand you prove his non-existence.
To all religious drunks out there, you FIRST prove the existence of your god and then we disprove your fallacy based on your EVIDENCE!

@jagunlabi and Tùdor,

Christians are not obliged to prove the existence of God because the evidence of His existence is there for all to see.  The Bible starts with the presupposition that there is God there is no controversy about that.  It says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."  If you have a problem with that the onus is on you to disprove His existence or to prove that this cannot be true giving your reasons or evidence for saying so.

OLAADEGBU:

@jagunlabi and Tùdor,

[b]Christians are not obliged to prove the existence of God because the evidence of His existence is there for all to see. [/b]The Bible starts with the presupposition that there is God there is no controversy about that. It says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." If you have a problem with that the onus is on you to disprove His existence or to prove that this cannot be true giving your reasons or evidence for saying so.

I am tired of all these back and forth, where are the evidence? what we see around are only evidence for vision and environment, not the existence of yo

OLAADEGBU:

In Paul's letter to the evolutionists were he stated that nature reveals the Godhead (trinity) therefore you are without excuse.

Which paul are you talking about here, and what are natures revelation of the godhead?

OLAADEGBU:



"An example of this from the world of science concerns the nature of light. By the first decade of the twentieth century, it was clear that light behaved in a very strange way - sometimes it seemed to behave as if it was a particle. It could't be both at once, and so the cry 'contradiction!' was raised. How could it be two totally different things? But eventually, through the development of the Quantum Theory, it was found that this contradiction expressed a fundamental difficulty in grasping what the nature of light really was. In other words, the contradiction did not arise on account of light, but on account of our difficulties in conceiving it."

How has this explained anything? Your ancient Jews had problem conceiving the rainbow too, so is this your evidence in nature for the godhead?

McGrath went on to show that the nature of light was such that two contradictory models had to be used to account for its behaviour whereas on the Divine level we require three contradictory models.

You have still not provided any evidence.

"Most of us know what light is without needing to think about waves, particles or Quantum Theory. Light is what we need in order to see, to do our everyday business, to read and write. It is what comes out of the sun, and to a lesser extent from the moon. It is what we get when we switch on electric light bulbs or strip lighting. If we were physicsts, we might want to think about light in much more detail and go into the full complexities of it - and so we might start talking about waves, particles and Quantum Theory. But we don't need to do this in order to make use of light or to recognise it when we see it."

What has this got to do with any biblical assertion? did you get to know about quantum physics from reading the book of revalation?

The fact that we cannot fully comprehend the Trinity does not mean that it does not make sense. When I switch on the television or communicate on a telephone I do not know how they work, but there is an explanation beyond the limits of my understanding and which does make sense.

You claim to have the holy spirit in you who "explains" and "teaches" all things yet you still can not comprehend the trinity? fast and pray and let the holy spirit explain it to you.

toneyb:

Which paul are you talking about here, and what are natures revelation of the godhead?

Jesus said to Nicodemus who was finding it difficult to comprehend what He was saying: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? If a religious man struggled with natural illustrations I will not be surprised if you an atheists cannot see it at all.

toneyb:

How has this explained anything? Your ancient Jews had problem conceiving the rainbow too, so is this your evidence in nature for the godhead?

Even this scientific illustration is above you, do you have any hope?

toneyb:

You have still not provided any evidence.

We know that Atheists find it difficult to understand the supernatural while the Muslims amongst other religious adherents find it difficult to comprehend  the triune nature of God.  God is not totally comprehensible otherwise He will cease to be God.  I will be using a helpful analogy by C.S. Lewis a former atheist who had come to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his book called Mere Christianity.

“You know that in space you can move in three ways – to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down.  Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them.  They are called the three Dimensions.  Now notice this.  If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line.  If you are using two, you could draw a figure: say, a square.  And a square is made up of four straight lines.  Now a step further.  If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube – a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar.  And a cube is made up of six squares.

Do you see the point?  A world of one dimension would be a straight line.  In a two dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure.  In a three dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body.  In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind you the things you found on the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways - in ways you could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels.

Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle.  The human level is a simple level and rather empty level.  On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings – just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures.  On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine.  In God’s dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.  Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that:  just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube.  But we can get a sort of faint notion of it.  And when we do, we are then, for the first time in our lives, getting some positive idea, however faint, of something super-personal – something more than a person.  It is something we could never have guessed, and yet, once we have been told, one almost feels one ought to have been able to guess it because it fits in so well with all the things we know already.

You may ask, ‘If we cannot imagine a three-personal Being, what is the good of talking about Him.  The thing that matters is being actually drawn into that three-personal life, and that may begin any time – tonight, if you like.”

In seeking to understand the Godhead we need to recognise three limiting factors.  First, the human language is limited such that it is incapable of describing the aroma of coffee.  Secondly, the limitation of our own understanding and intellects.  John Eddison in his book talking to children said 'Our little intellectual systems find themselves groaning under the strain of trying to accommodate God'.  Therefore, in an attempt to describe the Godhead we have to resort to the use of paradox.  A paradox as defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary is a seemingly absurd though perhaps actually well founded statement.  And thirdly, we have to recognise the limits of our finite world and our finite minds.

toneyb:

What has this got to do with any biblical assertion? did you get to know about quantum physics from reading the book of revalation?

You can at least see from the standpoint of a sincere ardent former atheist in the quote above how he was able to use natural phenomenon to explain the unknown.  Thank God for how he submitted his intellect and scientific skills for the glory of God.

toneyb:

You claim to have the holy spirit in you who "explains" and "teaches" all things yet you still can not comprehend the trinity? fast and pray and let the holy spirit explain it to you.

With the illustration above I believe you should be able to have a clue even if you do not fully comprehend it.

OLAADEGBU:

@huxley, toneyb, bawomolo et al

In Romans 1:20, Paul makes it clear that, from the evidence we observe around us, a Creator obviously exists. If you guys don't believe this, you are without excuse. Listen to Paul's letter to the atheists: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Even the nature of God as in the Godhead has been revealed in nature!

The Bible also plainly says in Romans 10:9 that we need to do more than recognise our Creator: "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

So even if a person believes in a Creator and is a theist, he will be separated from God forever, just as atheist will, unless he receives the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Unless one believes this declaration made by Jesus Christ one cannot spend eternity in heaven with the Lord.

So, from a biblical perspective, it is not good enough for us just to believe in a Creator God or just to change from an atheist to a theist or to just know about God because God did not fill the universe with His glory just so we could be awed by it but He intended us to turn to Him, and to enjoy Him forever. From the perspective of understanding the ultimate meaning of life, merely seeing the wonders of creation and recognising a Designer is a futile exercise unless a person comes to know the Creator/Redeemer, who is revealed in the written Word of God as we have in the Bible.

Afterall, nature does not tell us what we need to know in order to be saved. Rather, we must turn to God's written revelation for the answers: "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom.10:17). Also, Isaiah 55:11 states, "So shall my word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." The word of God, not man's words, convicts us and brings us to faith in Christ.

As you can see on this forum and in this present sinful world, evolutionary naturalism pervades the culture, this is the reason why it is necessary to show the evidence for the infinite intelligent Creator unlike the deception that permeates the educational institutions where students are indoctrinated the lies of the origin of life and man that teaches that everything arose by natural processes with no supernatural activity involved. When we talk about an intelligent Designer, we are not talking about all sorts of gods such as the Hindu god, a New Age god, or the Muslim god or your so called Zeus or aliens as possible intelligence, instead of the one true Creator God.

Mankind's sinful heart is the reason why people are not seeking after the true Creator God. Our hearts are too corrupt to take up the challenge to find God and we cannot do this without the Bible. Jeremiah 17:9 states, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Ephesians 2:1 explains that humans are "dead in trespasses and sins." We cannot raise ourselves from the dead. Only the One who has ultimate power over death can do that and He is the infinite Creator God. Romans 3:11 tells us that "there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God." Even if someone is convinced that some intelligence or creator must have designed the universe, their sinful heart will not want the true God. We, just like Adam are in rebellion against our Creator God. People are more likely to pursue a false god than the true One, just as is evidenced in this thread. The human heart does not want to submit to the Word of the One who created us. That is the very nature of our sin, inherited from Adam, after he rebelled against the words God clearly gave him in the Garden of Eden.

Despite the numerous evidence that we Christians have produced that there has to be a Creator God to show us that you have no excuse to deny the Creator, we still feel that we have to share what the Bible reveals about the true God and His unique plan of salvation and restoration. Jesus Christ the Son of God who is also God the Son, paid the ultimate penalty for our sins, which God planned before the beginning of time. Where you stand in relation to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the most important thing in the entire universe. Not all theists will go to heaven but heaven awaits all theists and creationists who place their trust in Jesus Christ, the Creator and Redeemer!

I hope this message was taken to heart in the heat of events.

toneyb:

I am tired of all these back and forth, where are the evidence? what we see around are only evidence for vision and environment, not the existence of yo

[img width=500 height=500]http://www.answersingenesis.org/assets/images/media/cartoons/after-eden/20030428.gif[/img]

bawomolo:
Your beliefs are based on faith on Only ONE GOD and not fact.

^{i'm quite assured that this avowed disbeliever of the Sovereign and Hallowed Ancient of days would sooner be in the know if his views were factual or fallacious. and this i am afraid is quite far from an issue of trivialities. . .}

Mr. Turkey:

^{i'm quite assured that this avowed disbeliever of the Sovereign and Hallowed Ancient of days would sooner be in the know if his views were factual or fallacious. and this i am afraid is quite far from an issue of trivialities. . .}

dude are u new here? or u've not been following latest trend on NL?

Mr. Turkey:

[sup] were you by any dint of incredulity attempting to make a reasonable response

Yes i was just that my message wasn't grabbed by urself

or were you just drawn to the thread based on the effluence of emotions that trailed the wake the demise of the thread creator brought about on cyberspace?

Not at all. I've been around for a while and such isn't new to me to make me follow the crowd against my own perspective of issues

i am trying real hard to comprehend the exact purpose to your post, only i am consistently at a loss.

Probably u needed to have tried harder than u did

thus, i must take it that you failed to swallow the strong meat that you obviously are not acquainted with.

Don't be in a haste to come into conclusion. I got ur message but u failed to get mine. Mine was more on a jovial angle. In matters like this, as a theist i go with 'pascal wager' i.e

OLAADEGBU:


I hope this message was taken to heart in the heat of events.

Same here. i must really commend u for a job well done on this thread. read through responses to jagun, tudor, toneyb and of course not forgetting the op of blessed memory

[quote author=toba link=topic=270880.msg7317131#msg7317131 date=1292101704][/quote] ^{ok, sheathed swords}

Mr. Turkey:

toba link=topic=270880.msg7317131#msg7317131 date=1292101704:
^{ok, sheathed swords} 

lol. So u brought a sword to thread to use on me? Thank God the use of the sword wasn't needed afterall if not my Christmas fun intended could have been affected. lolrmaof

toba:

Same here. i must really commend u for a job well done on this thread. read through responses to jagun, tudor, toneyb and of course not forgetting the op of blessed memory

To God be the glory.  It is my prayer that these people not only read it but to take positive steps in changing their destinies.

OLAADEGBU:

[img width=500 height=500]http://www.answersingenesis.org/assets/images/media/cartoons/after-eden/20030428.gif[/img]

^^^^
God, like beauty, is in the[b] "I" [/b]of the beholder . . .

toneyb:

@ OLAADEGBU

The God that used to address the entire people of Israel in a public address has now been reduced to a personal God that revels himself to certain individuals? Why is the bible God always shrinking? He started out as a God that walks with his chosen men, lead them in wars, ate with them, sewed cloths for them, lived in the heaven above the sky, but any time men became wiser the God becomes more invisible. Why is the Bible God always hiding?

This shows that u dont read ur Bible at all.Sin seprates us from God.When u get rightous u will definitely feel d presence of God.What do u mean by becoming wiser? Sin offcourse.Almighty God is not hiding he is omnipotent.