Bad Theology

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willowtree
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by willowtree » Mon Nov 24, 2014 4:12 pm

I am grateful for the lesson in grammar. But I just want to confirm that I understand it all correctly.



The word 'whoever' refers to the antecedent 'world' but is specific in that it is qualified by the word 'believes'.

So it is correct to understand that God loved everyone in the entire world and gave his only Son for them. Some of them, the whoever group, who are part of this entire world, believe in Him, and because of that belief, do not perish but have everlasting life?

Regards, Graeme
If you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, always head for the rock. Ps 62..

john316yes
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by john316yes » Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:36 am

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (NKJV)


Here are the idependent clauses or complete senetences.

1.) God loved the world.

Subject = God.
Verb= loved.
Direct object= the World. What did God love? the World.

2.) He gave his Son.

Subject = He.
Verb= gave.
Direct object= His Son. What did God give? His Son.

3.) Whoever believes in him will not perish.

"Whoever believes in him"

This clause is a subordinate cluase or dependant clause. This senetence sounds incomplete with out the other part, it also sounds like a conditional statement. Whoever believes in him ...? then what?

Subject = Whoever. (This word is a relative pronoun. This words has no antacedent. Which means their are no names or groups to which it belongs to.)
Verb= believes.
Direct object = in him (I believe this is true.) This statement still needs additional info that why I labled it a subordinate clause. It cant stand alone.

"Will not perish"

Will = Verbs of being (forms of be) - show a state of existence.
Not =adverb (Modifies adjectives or verbs)
Perish = Verb(to die, especially in an accident or by being killed, or to be destroyed)

** So in other words, our state of existance is indestructable or immortable on the condition that we believe in Jesus.




4.) Whoever believes in him has eternal life.

Singalphile
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by Singalphile » Tue Nov 25, 2014 8:30 am

I used to like to diagram sentences. I've heard that a few books in the Bible have pretty bad grammar, but I'm not sure how so.
... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

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darinhouston
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by darinhouston » Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:25 am

I just love all this sideshow on English grammar when it was written in Greek or Aramaic. Even so, context and story is much more important than sentence structure when it wasn't written by grammarians. And I don't believe so much in verbal inspiration even in the original languages.


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Paidion
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by Paidion » Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:24 pm

So, Darin, you don't think that the grammar of the Bible was inspired, eh? No doubt you're right.

The apostle Paul wrote the following words:

And then the lawless one will be unveiled, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth, and will destroy by the brightness of His coming, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders... (2 Thess 2:8,9 EMTV)

The English Majority Text Version translates the sentence just as Paul had it. As far as I know there are no variants among the various Greek texts, with the exception that some texts have "Jesus" after the word "Lord". As it stands, the sentence seems to say that the coming of the Lord is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. Surely Paul meant that the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. Most modern translations have added words to the sentence to make it clear that Paul meant the lawless one, and not the Lord. But in Greek it was written just as in the bolded sentence above.

It seems that the NT writers, including Paul, dictated their letters to a scribe who wrote down their spoken words. Irenæus said that Paul got so excited about what he was dictating here, that he had the final clause in the wrong position, and the scribe wrote it down exactly as he said it.

Irenæus said there was a similar problem with 2 Cor 4:4

In whom the God of this age has blinded the minds of them which believe not...

In those days, the gnostics believed that Yahweh, the inferior God was the God of this age who blinded people's minds.
Today, many people believe that the "god of this age" is Satan.

But Irenæus thought that Paul had unwittingly placed "of this age" in the wrong position. He believed that "the God" was God. (God in Greek is written as "the God")
So Irenæus believed that the sentence should be written as follows:

In whom God has blinded the minds of them of this age which believe not...

Some would say that God would never blind people's eyes. But then Jesus said:

...To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ (Luke 8:10)
Paidion

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dizerner

Re: Bad Theology

Post by dizerner » Tue Nov 25, 2014 10:48 pm

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Paidion
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by Paidion » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:00 pm

But... why would we have a problem with: "In whom the God of this age has blinded the minds of them which believe not." Seems very clear that does not refer to God, but to Satan as a type of god in this world. Scriptural and contextual evidence is just overwhelming.
What contextual evidence makes it "very clear" that in this verse, the reference is to Satan?
Paidion

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Paidion
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by Paidion » Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:35 pm

Irenæus wrote that in the passage under discussion, that Paul referred to God blinding the minds of the unbelievers of this age. He shows that this is not the only place in which Paul has put a modifier in the wrong place. For Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians that the Lord Jesus will destroy him [the antichrist] "with the presence of his coming; whose coming is after the working of Satan." That surely reads as if the coming of Jesus is after the working of Satan. But no one takes it that way. So why should we be so certain that "of this age" modifies "God" rather than "the unbelievers"? Here is Irenæus's agument:

Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter VII.
1. As to their affirming that Paul said plainly in the second [letter] to the Corinthians, “In whom the god of this world [age] has blinded the minds of them who do not believe ,” and maintaining that there is indeed one god of this world [age], but another who is beyond all principality, and beginning, and power, we are not to blame if they, who give out that they do themselves know mysteries beyond God, do not know how to read Paul. For if any one read the passage thus—according to Paul’s custom, as I show elsewhere, and by many examples, that he uses transposition of words—“In whom God,” then pointing it off, and making a slight interval, and at the same time read also the rest [of the sentence] in one [clause], “has blinded the minds of them of this age do not believe,” he shall find out the true [sense]; that it is contained in the expression, “God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age.” And this is shown by means of the little interval [between the clause]. For Paul does not say, “the God of this age,” as if recognising any other beyond Him; but he confessed God as indeed God. And he says, “the unbelievers of this age,” because they shall not inherit the future age of incorruption. I shall show from Paul himself, how it is that God has blinded the minds of them who do not believe, in the course of this work that we may not just at present distract our mind from the matter in hand, [by wandering] at large.

2. From many other instances also, we may discover that the apostle frequently uses a transposed order in his sentences, due to the rapidity of his discourses, and the impetus of the Spirit which is in him.... in the Second [letter] to the Thessalonians, speaking of Antichrist, he says, “And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus Christ shall slay with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy him with the presence of his coming; whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.” Now in these [sentences] the order of the words is this: “And then shall be revealed that wicked one, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the presence of His coming.” For he does not mean that the coming of the Lord is after the working of Satan; but the coming of the wicked one, whom we also call Antichrist.
Paidion

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dizerner

Re: Bad Theology

Post by dizerner » Fri Feb 13, 2015 6:33 pm

Paidion wrote:
But... why would we have a problem with: "In whom the God of this age has blinded the minds of them which believe not." Seems very clear that does not refer to God, but to Satan as a type of god in this world. Scriptural and contextual evidence is just overwhelming.
What contextual evidence makes it "very clear" that in this verse, the reference is to Satan?
εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶν κεκαλυμμένον, ἐν οἷς ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἐτύφλωσεν τὰ νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων εἰς τὸ μὴ αὐγάσαι τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ. (2Co 4:3-4 NA28)

"ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου" means "the god of this age," and in the context of describing sinners who are blinded to the Gospel, I think we can safely assume the age referred to here is the same as Paul calls elsewhere τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ, "this age, the current one of evil." This current age or world system is always described as fallen and evil, Biblically. Not only that, but this age is also described as under the power of Satan in some sense. Ephesians 2:1-3 describes the "course of this world" as that which is "according to the prince of the power of the air," connecting Satan's influence with the world system and sinners. Satan is called or inferred to be the ruler of this world in many places (such as John 12:31). Again in 1 John 5:19 the world system is connected with the power of the evil one, "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one." And notice here that being "of God" is contrasted with "the whole world." This is why Christians are called to "come out" from "the world" so as not to "share in its sins." Clearly the sinful world system is not described in the Bible as something under the control of God, but under the "anti-Christ," God's enemy. We can find some Old Testament passages talking of God's ownership of the earth (e.g. "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof"), but we also find that God gave the earth to man, and man gave control to Satan—and God will not violate his own laws. This is also why the believer's authority is said to stem from the work of the cross, for the Work of the Cross judged the fallen nature of man and his sins, and is thus intimately connected with Satan's right to rule (John 12:31 again).

So in conclusion to read "ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου" as referring to God Almighty, we would have to ascribe God as the very power that energizes sinners and blinds them to the Gospel. This teaching is essentially the Calvinistic doctrine of complete divine fatalism, where God gives his creatures no freedom at all, but commands them to do things that God, himself, then indirectly decrees to the contrary, that the creatures must sin and break his commandments, thus essentially forcing creatures to sin. In this doctrine God has no real enemy, whereas the Bible teaches God has a true, not a fake, enemy. God is not pretending to fight himself. Scripture clearly teaches God desires all his creatures to be obedient and righteous:

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

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Paidion
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Re: Bad Theology

Post by Paidion » Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:06 pm

dizerner wrote:So in conclusion to read "ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου" as referring to God Almighty, we would have to ascribe God as the very power that energizes sinners and blinds them to the Gospel. This teaching is essentially the Calvinistic doctrine of complete divine fatalism, where God gives his creatures no freedom at all, but commands them to do things that God, himself, then indirectly decrees to the contrary, that the creatures must sin and break his commandments, thus essentially forcing creatures to sin. In this doctrine God has no real enemy, whereas the Bible teaches God has a true, not a fake, enemy. God is not pretending to fight himself. Scripture clearly teaches God desires all his creatures to be obedient and righteous:

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?
Perhaps God wishes to prevent the conversion of unbelievers until the time is ripe. Jesus Himself seems to have done much the same in speaking to the multitudes in parables. He seemed to wish to foster a more distinct separation between disciples and non-disciples.

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. (Matt 13:10-13)
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

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