Waco1947 said:"The Incarnation is supernatural" I do not believe in the supernatural. What is your proof of the supernatural? If the world of which I John speaks happens within the confines science then you asking me to believe in your fantasy of the "supernatural". I do not believe in the supernatural but I believe in science. God is revealed in the Christ Child (incarnation) with the eyes of faith not the eyes of natural. The eyes of faith see love in the Christ child and God's gift of grace. I can see the Incarnation of the Christ made known in Jesus. I do not need a supernatural that flies in the face of reality. Surely, you believe in reality.D. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:I don't believe in any "lower god" but I believe in God., the one true GodD. C. Bear said:Waco1947 said:
DC You have argued vociferously and repeatedly against the supernatural, where God intervenes in the natural world. True
Instead, the reality of God, you have argued, is exclusively "spiritual." True, again. God is spiritual.
Romans 8: 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of[e] his Spirit who lives in you.
Do you deny this? If so, I am a bit concerned that you may suffer from memory problems. I do not deny what you are saying. Indeed, it is a good representation of my beliefs
This argument is in the same family of arguments that Gnosticism is in. Please this connection for me. My understanding of the Spirit and spiritual is captured in Romans 8 above
1 John 4:9-10, which you quote in your next response, goes entirely against your argument against the supernatural. When God "sent his one and only Son into the world," this represents a supernatural act. This represents God personally intervening in the physical, natural world. There is no other explanation for the incarnation as described as in the Gospels.
9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Your thought process, where the all loving God is spiritual, is in the same family of thought as Gnosticism, where there's a lower God who made the material Eve in the true God whose world and a higher god who is spiritual and can only be known throughelieve specialt bel knowledge. In certain Gnostic thought, Jesus was not actually God in the flesh but he only "seemed" to have a physical body. It is not that you are espousing, as it were, "orthodox Gnosticism," but your arguments share a number of similar attributes with Gnosticism, particularly when it comes to the physical vs. spiritual.
You need not believe in a "lower god," but the God that you do believe in is entirely beyond the physical and never intervenes in the physical world. In that sense, you do believe in a "higher god," as it were, and that is similar to gnostic thought. Again, you aren't promoting pure Gnosticism, but, as they say in Los Angeles area real estate to make people feel like they are close to the important people by calling neighborhoods "Beverly Hills-adjacent," your arguments are Gnosticism-adjacent. You fail to make a connection.
Assertions need some logical evidence which you failed to produce.
You don't believe in the Incarnation because you don't believe in the supernatural True!
and the Incarnation is supernatural.
So "the one true God" you espouse isn't the Christian God, it's a different God of some sort.
You need to come home.
If you do not believe in the supernatural then you do not believe in God. He is infinite, spoke the universe into existence, sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins, and He rose from the dead three days later. Those are all supernatural events, not scientific. Much of scientific theory is man trying to explain the supernatural, whether they realize it or not. Sir Isaac Newton understood this; many do not m. When they leave God out of the equation they get it very wrong, often embarrassing themselves in the process.
“Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!”
Psalm 119:36
Psalm 119:36