Moral Monsters: Deviants from Objective Morality

From a question on Quora:

If God the Father of life is All-Holy and objectively moral, then wouldn’t the definition of a true monster be anything that is subjectively moral and anti-life or anti-God?

I would start with a dictionary definition of monster. Most definitions are subjective. I like the definition from biology given on Dictionary.com because it implies a standard:

an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs; a grossly anomalous fetus or infant, especially one that is not viable.

We can apply this definition to morality. Monster: a personal being having a set of principles, thoughts, or behaviors, from lacking or deviating from objectively moral principles.

I wanted to say that a hypothetical person’s subjective morality could coincide with the objective morality that is based on God’s character. Such a person would not be a monster. However, basing morality on the wrong foundation, personal opinion, would make one a monster because ignoring objective morality requires rejecting God’s sovereignty; and rejecting God’s sovereignty is immoral. So it would be impossible to be subjectively moral without deviating from objective morality.

Is every person that is not objectively moral subjectively moral? One could say that because, if morals are not based on an objective standard, then they are based on a subjective one. Ah, but there are monsters who have no morals at all. They may have a personal code based on what is convenient, profitable, or pleasurable. That is emotional or pragmatic, not principled, so it would be incorrect to call it “morality.”

The grammar describes a true monster as subjectively moral and anti-life or as subjectively moral and anti-God. In this context, and requires that both be true. The construction implies that people who are pro-life but subjectively moral and people who are pro-God but subjectively moral are not monsters.

Furthermore, the anti-life and anti-God positions are subjective morals, so they are redundant. The phrase is like saying a motorcycle is not a car and tires or a car and bumpers when the tires and bumpers are part of the car.

Does it flow from If God the Father of life is All-Holy and objectively moral that subjective morality is monstrous? If objective morality is based on God’s character, specifically, His holiness, then the link that contrasts God’s holiness against subjective morality is indirect. That means that God’s holiness is background information rather than part of the premise.

It is necessary for objective morality to exist in order for subjective morality to be anomalous. There’s no such thing as an anomaly without such a thing as normal. It is also necessary that normality is desired or intended, which requires an agent who desires or assigns a goal or purpose. However, desire or intent, like God’s holiness, is not directly related to whether one meets the objective requirements.

So refining the original statement should include:

• Account for the worst monster, the amoral person.
• Restate anti-life or anti-God as examples of subjective morals (and perhaps be a bit more specific).
• Treat as background or trim information about God being holy (and imposing a requirement that His creatures be objectively moral.
• Use attitudes about God and the sacredness of life as examples rather than as requirements.

A better phrasing would be: God the Father of life requires of moral beings an objective morality based on His holy character. Since objective morality exists and is part of our original, intended design, a moral monster is any person who is amoral or subjectively moral. Examples of subjectively moral principles might include promoting atheism or non-medically-necessary abortion.

The elephant in the room includes a practical application of the definition.

Although some of us aspire to match our morality to God’s objective standard, we all retain subjective morals and fall short even of those. We are all moral monsters. None of us is born with the moral perfection intended in God's children. We are all spiritually deformed and spiritually non-viable. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 

God took responsibility for allowing us to bring moral monstrosity into the world by providing for redemption at His own expense. If we recognize our monstrosity, agree that we have earned the consequences, and entrust ourselves solely to the One who redeems us from our moral debt, then God will begin the process of transforming us from monsters back into the works of art that He originally designed us to be. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but please remember to give credit where credit is due.

Another Silly Question about God's Origin

From answering a question on Quora:

Does God know where he came from?

The question assumes that God “came from” somewhere. According to Christian scriptures, theology, and philosophers, God created the universe. Without a universe, no “then,” “there,” “source,” or “cause” existed from which God could come. So the question is broken.

Perhaps the asker meant, “What was the source or origin of God?” Again, without time, sequences such as going from non-existence to cause, to creation, to existence are nonsensical. Nevertheless, many Atheists ask the same question differently, asking, “Who created God?”

If God had a creator, who created him? And who created the Creator’s creator? And who created the Creator’s creator’s creator? Once you insist that the Creator had to have a creator, you create an infinite regression. It doesn’t work. If you started at a time infinitely in the past, and then pass through time, you could never get to our “now” because that would take an infinite length of time. In an infinite length of time, no matter how much time passes, there’s still more time that needs to pass before you can get to our “now.” Similarly, if you start with an infinitely precedent creator, you could never get to the current Creator. The assumption that God had a creator creates a mathematical impossibility.

The above analysis brings us to another problem. If God created the universe, then He created all the attributes and artifacts of the universe, including time, which cosmology and physics tell us had a beginning in the Inflationary period that became the Big Bang. If God created time, then He has an existence outside of time. And if God exists outside of time, then saying that He must have had a beginning and a creator is like saying that the number seven must have a color and a temperature. “Beginning” is meaningless without time, so, again, the assumption that God had a beginning creates a practical impossibility.

The question is in the class of questions such as “Why did God do this?” and “Why didn’t God to that?” It requires knowing the mind of God. Such questions require either God revealing His knowledge or reasoning to us, speculating, or reading god’s mind. I’m not a god, and I don’t believe anybody else who uses Quora is a god, either, so reading the memories in God’s mind is out of the question. That leaves us with either revelation or speculation. According to revelation through the Christian scriptures, God is self-existent and created the universe. From that, we can say that God does not "know" the incorrect assumption that He had an origin. If you reject revelation, then giving an authoritative answer is impossible. And the impossibility of giving an answer can only prove, at best, human limitations.

There’s a common practice of posing rhetorical questions as a substitute for actual arguments. Rhetorical questions can be used to hide false assumptions and faulty logic. The person answering the question has to restate the question as a claim and then detect the assumptions and logic and their flaws. So, if the intent is to discourage belief in God, the question is more specious than logical. (I don’t assume that the asker had that intent. I’m just pointing it out because others do use such flawed rhetoric.)

To sum up, the question is a non sequitur, meaning that it assumes facts not in evidence. And the concise answer is, no, God would not “know” something that is impossible and meaningless.

For further background:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gdeV4Rk9EfL-NyraEGXXwSjDNeMaRoX

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Jesus's Teachings Without His Identify? Patronizing Nonsense.

My answer to a question on Quora:

Is there a religion that only believes in Jesus, and not necessarily God? I believe in the things Jesus taught, but not that he would be the son of God. I don't believe in God in general, honestly.

One religion that allows belief in Jesus but not in God would be Atheism. Some atheists completely reject Jesus’s existence because they have an emotional need to refute the existence of God. They claim that Jesus did not exist in order to refute the existence of, specifically, the Christian God. However, other, less biased atheists accept the preponderance of historical evidence that Jesus did exist.

Atheists would protest that Atheism is not a religion because they reject the existence of the supernatural. However, by making a claim about the supernatural, they claim to have information that they could not have in a materialist world. So their claim refutes itself. Furthermore, the claim of Atheism leads to further beliefs. For example, one line of though leads from non-existence of God to the non-value of individual lives and to the Collective being a higher form of organism than the individual. The highest form of organism would be the State. Since, without God, objective morality and individual value do not exist, the State can do anything to individuals. Anything. certain States have done “anything” and do so today. This line of thinking, a part of Marxism, has led to the slaughter of more people in a single century than all the religious wars in history. If that kind of “revelation” and fervor about the supernatural is not “religious,” I don’t know what is.

Many religions pay lip service to Jesus. One relevant religion would be Buddhism. Buddhism, or at least a major branch or it, believes that the ultimate state of being is a freedom from consciousness and pain, resulting in “god” being non existent. That would make Buddhism a sort of a spiritual form of Atheism.

Now, it is a contradiction to say one believes in what Jesus taught while not accepting that He is the Son of God. As CS Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say…. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Jesus never said, “Worship me because I am God.” He followed one of the great rules of writing prose, Don’t tell them; show them. He made many claims that, against the backdrop of Jewish theology, were claims to divinity. He claimed authority over the Sabbath. He cast out demons by His own authority. He taught by His own authority without ever saying, “Thus says the Lord….” He claimed to have existed before the world and to have shared the glory of God. He claimed to have the power to judge and to forgive sins, which God alone can do. He even applied to Himself the name, I AM, that God had revealed to Moses. And he accepted worship and being called, “My Lord and my God!”

If Jesus was not the Son of God, then He was a liar, so His “teachings” would be morally dangerous. Indeed, by rejecting His divinity, you have already rejected a very large portion of His teachings. And the word for that religion is inconsistent.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use this for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Kingdom of God versus Kingdom of Heaven

From a question on Quora:

Is Matthew 4:17 occurring soon with the Kingdom of Heaven coming on the horizon?

No. The kingdom of heaven is not on the horizon. The kingdom of heaven, as referenced in Matthew 4:17, is here and has been here all along.

Christians rightly look for the return of Jesus Christ and the assertion of God’s rule on Earth, but that is not what Jesus meant by "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We could read all the references to the phrase kingdom of heaven, but we can find a strong clue in Luke 17:20-21. (Before you read it, you need to know that kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonyms. More about that, below.)

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20–21, NASB).

The word translated midst is Greek entos, which means within, among, or in their midst. The statement describes a fact that was already present as Jesus spoke, not somewhere off in a future age. This is consistent with what Jesus said in Matthew 11:11–12:

“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (NASB).

Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven as existing even before His sacrifice and resurrection. (So if somebody knocks on your door preaching a future kingdom, know that they have been severely misled by a heretical organization. Don’t argue with them because they won’t listen. Just know that biblical Christians don’t preach a kingdom; they preach a living King, Jesus Christ.)

The kingdom that Jesus preached was not God’s political rule or Judgment Day. It was a time of a new type of relationship in the spiritual dimension of God’s kingdom.

I appreciate the question because I learned from looking up the answer. I thought kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God existed at two different times. However, as you can see in the table, they are synonymous. Matthew tends to use one and the other gospel writers use the other. You can see a further discussion of this on the Got Questions website.

(You may need to open the figure in a new window. You can look up the individual verses and read them in their contexts in a couple dozen translations and in the original Greek using Biblehub.com. I use the New American Standard version because it has a reputation as the best word-for-word translation.)

Did you notice Matthew 19:23–24? Jesus used the two terms interchangeably in the same conversation.

The phrase, kingdom of heaven/God, has two meanings. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. Although God does not visibly assert His sovereignty, all of time, space, heaven and Earth is His kingdom.

And yet, there is a metaphorical sense in which we fail to enter into that kingdom. We are not born into it; blame Adam for that. The Fall made us foreigners, stripping Adam’s descendants of their citizenship and placing them, metaphorically, outside the kingdom.

We enter into the kingdom by repenting from sin, false religion, and self righteousness, and consenting to the gift of everlasting life from the great Giver of gifts. With that gift, we receive citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. This is what Jesus referred to in Matthew 4:17: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

One could divide the history of the kingdom of God into periods and milestone events. The first period lasted from creation to Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. Whether you take Genesis as literal or metaphorical does not matter. Man was created in innocence and introduced decay to all creation and estrangement from God with the first sin.

Before Jesus, the Old Testament sacrifices were inadequate to pay for human sin (Hebrews 10:4, 11), so the relationship between God and any person was tentative. Believers were called servants and friends of God. The Holy Spirit would anoint and be with believers, but that could be lost (for example, 1 Samuel 16:14 and Judges 16:20).

Since Jesus’s perfect, complete sacrifice, believers have had a permanent relationship with God (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30). They have been called children of God, and even little siblings of Jesus himself. In this sense, the kingdom of heaven/God is here, available to all who will enter and become sons and citizens. As Romans 14:17 says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The next period of the kingdom of heaven will begin with the return of Jesus Christ. God does not completely assert or micromanage His rule over Earth today. When Jesus returns, He will establish His kingdom in every area of life.

The final period will follow Judgment Day. Whereas heaven and Earth are like separate universes today, God will transform and merge them into a single plane of existence.

We will all enter the final period of the kingdom of heaven — some to be judged, and some to rule with God the Son. Which role God will place us in depends on whether we obtain our citizenship in this age. To those who have not entered, the kingdom of heaven is near, yet they remain outside. It behooves us, therefore, to be certain that the gospel we follow is biblical and to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

For further reading:

• What is the kingdom of God? — God Questions article
• Kingdom of Heaven — Bible Dictionary
• From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." — Commentaries
• The Kingdom of God Cometh not with Observation. (Luke, xvii. , 20. ) — Why the adverb means among or midst rather than within — Augustus Neander

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use this for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Jesus Proclaims the Jewish Jubilee

From a Question on Quora

What is the implication for Luke 4:18-19?

In Luke 4:18–19, Jesus read Isaiah 61:1–2. The passage in Isaiah refers to the typology (symbolism) in Leviticus 25’s command to hold a year of Jubilee. (The wordings in Luke and Isaiah do not line up word-for-word because our English translation of Isaiah usually comes from the Hebrew manuscripts whereas our English translation of Luke’s quotation comes from the Greek, which probably translates from a Hebrew or Aramaic manuscript that Jesus read.)

One of the answers inserts an interpretation of verse 19 by a self-proclaimed prophet from 1800’s America. According to that prophet, verse 19 refers to his prophetic work; however, the context and language trace the language back to Isaiah, Moses, and something that was fully understood 3500 years ago and was never “lost.” The Bible we already have can interpret itself.

Colossians 2:16–17 explains that Old Testament ceremonial rules symbolized truths about Jesus Christ. For example, Hebrews 4:8–11 clarifies that the rest from work on the Sabbath symbolized entering into a rest from working to establish one’s own righteousness before God. Good that one does after entering that rest becomes a gift of love and thanksgiving rather than an attempt to earn grace.

Similarly, the Year of Jubilee had more than practical applications. God commanded Israel to hold a Year of Jubilee. The Hebrew calendar had seven sets of seven years (7x7=49), with each seventh year being a “Sabbath year” (Leviticus 25:1–7) The fiftieth year after the conquest of Canaan, and every fiftieth year after that, was to be a Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8–17).

During the Year of Jubilee, on the feast day called the Day of Atonement, a number of things should have happened. For example:

In Bronze Age Mediterranean culture, people often sold themselves or family members in order to pay off debts or to avoid starvation. Many Bible translations use the word slaves, but they were more like indentured servants in early American history. During the Year of Jubilee, all such Hebrew slaves were to be freed.

As Israel conquered Canaan, the land was divided among the twelve tribes, and the tribes divided their lands among their families. Over the course of 49 years, some prospered and others did not, so lands were sold. During the Year of Jubilee, all lands were to be returned to the original owners to preserve their inheritance.

Now that we have a path from the ceremonial symbols in Leviticus, through the prophetic preaching of Isaiah, to Jesus’s proclamation in Luke, we can consider the passage phrase by phrase.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me

Anointing was a ceremonial act analogous to, today, ordaining a minister. It meant that a person was authorized and empowered to perform a service such as priesthood, prophecy, or leadership. God anointing Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit was like, not just giving a policeman a badge, but giving him the whole utility belt. God the Holy Spirit verified Christ’s identity by empowering His miracles as well as working on the hearts of those whom Jesus served.

to proclaim good news to the poor

Jesus preached good news not just to the favored religious people, but also to despised poor. Metaphorically, the poor represented humble people who lacked a “treasury of grace,” but who, rather, confessed their moral poverty and cast themselves upon God’s mercy in total dependence.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

The Old Testament “slaves” represented people who were in bondage to sins and its consequences. There is a twisted idea that the sinner is in bondage to the devil, and the devil will torment sinners in hell. That is not a Christian idea. We are born with an inclination to sin; which sin is optional, but sinning is inevitable. For this reason, we are all subject to the penalty for sin. Hell can torment us all by itself without any devils’ help. In fact, Hell will be the place of the devils’ torment, too.

As long as we rely on our own righteousness, ceremonies, sacrifices, or self restraint, we remain in bondage to the consequences of sin. Jesus came to proclaim liberty to that captivity. He did what we could not and offers that act to us as a gift. We can ignore or reject it and remain in our prisons, or we can walk out and enjoy the liberty God offers. It’s our choice.

recovering of sight to the blind

Israel had apostatized so severely (even practicing child sacrifice) that God allowed other nations to conquer and scatter them. Only a remnant of a few tribes survived, primarily Judea — or, the “Jews.” When Assyrians allowed Jews to return home, they had learned their lesson. But they took it too far. They became legalistic, shifting their focus from God to the Mosaic Law. It became part of their religion to try to establish their own righteousness. Metaphorically, they blinded themselves to the larger point concerning humility and dependence on God for redemption. You see Jesus contending with the Pharisees about this throughout the gospels. And you still see it in major “Christian” churches, too.

Through His teaching, Jesus repeatedly drove home the point that only those who performed the inhuman feat of achieving sinless perfection could enter heaven. The logical conclusion was that we are all condemned and must, in humble repentance, entrust ourselves to God’s promises. This lesson does not come naturally to us. Our pride blinds us to it. Recovering sight of it is a work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus’s message. He restores sight to the blind.

to set at liberty those who are oppressed

All these phrases interrelate. When we see ourselves through God’s eyes, or compare our lives to the spirit of the Mosaic Law or Ten Commandments, we see our condition. Guilt weighs us down. The Roman Catholic Church does a good job of this; I’ve encountered many who have completely shut themselves off to any discussion of spiritual topics because that load of guilt is so crushing.

That weight of guilt is a good thing when it drives us to rely on God’s mercy by trusting in the redemption that God offers through Jesus’s sacrifice. The first-century Jewish establishment had so weighed down its people with rules and regulations that the weight became unbearable. Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant. His self-sacrifice lifts guilt’s oppression off of those who entrust themselves to Him and sets them at liberty.

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Because of the connection through Isaiah, we know that “year of the Lord’s favor” refers to the Year of Jubilee. The Bible does not record that Israel, or later, Judea, ever celebrated the Year of Jubilee. If it had been proclaimed in accordance with Leviticus 25:9, it would no doubt have been recorded because it would have been a very big deal. For the first time, Jesus proclaimed it. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He did not merely proclaim the legal, religious holiday, but its symbolic fulfillment.

Those elements of the passage have another layer of implications. Jesus could proclaim Jubilee only as a High Priest or Prophet. He could set people free from guilt’s weight only as a Redeemer. He could serve as sufficient sacrifice for our sins only as perfect man and as infinite God. That identity could only be verified by the power and works of God Himself. And liberty from guilt, sight, freedom from legalism’s oppression, and favor of God are offered to all who will practice a “sabbath” rest from self-justification and receive the Gift as a free gift from the great Giver of gifts.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Use freely for non-profit use, but please give credit where credit is due.

Who is Jesus?

From a question on Quora:

Who is Jesus, and who is God?

First, let’s describe God.

This question is a bit like pointing at a picture of Joe and asking two questions. First, you point at Joe’s face and ask, Who is that? Then you point at Joe, as a whole, and ask, Who is that?

Since God created the universe, which includes time and space, God exists outside of time and space. (Philosophers debate about whether God exists timelessly or in super-time-and-space dimensions.)

When God created time and space, God chose to enter His creation. He could have used His creative power over time and space to enter as one Person or as billions.

According to Christian scriptures, God chose to exist in and experience His creation as three Persons. (Being both Creator and Spirit, the physical laws that prevent two people from occupying the same space at the same time do not apply to God. It is probable that God existed as three Persons outside of time and space, as well. I have not seen any commentary on that question.)

These three Persons voluntarily differentiate into three roles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three roles demonstrate relational truths to us and met God’s relational needs before He created man. (God is relational. If God did not exist as three Persons, God would have an unmet need for experiencing and exercising relational attributes such as love.)

The three Persons have one and the same substance and all attributes in common: God. Existing “before” creating the universe is hard enough to deal with. Existing both outside of and within time and space is a mind-blower.

Then we can describe Who Jesus is.

Jesus is Creator of the Universe. According to the apostle Paul, by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16–17) Another follower who was personally trained by Jesus for three years wrote, All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

As a Person of God and as Creator, “Jesus” seems too familiar at times. He has the title of Messiah (Hebrew) and Christ (Greek), both of which mean Anointed One. Jesus is both fully human and fully God. To emphasize Jesus’s humanity, we often call Him Jesus Christ; to emphasize His deity, we often call Him Christ Jesus or God the Son.

Anointed One refers that not only is Jesus God in the flesh, but the full wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit rested upon Him. Jesus normally refrained from using His power as God, and instead allowed the Holy Spirit to perform His miracles. Through such action, the Holy Spirit bore witness to the hidden identity of Jesus.

Part of Jesus’s role is to be the representation or metaphorical face of God to humans. Jesus’s disciple John said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. This resolves Genesis chapter 1′s cryptic, “In the beginning Gods (plural noun) created (singular verb) the heavens and the earth…. And Gods (plural noun) said (singular verb), “Let there be light, and there was light.”

The Word (Greek: Logos) expresses that Christ Jesus is the earthly revelation of God. For this reason, Paul called Christ Jesus the image of the invisible God, and the unknown writer of the scriptures epistle to the Hebrews wrote, Christ Jesus is the radiance of His (God’s) glory and the exact representation of His (God’s) nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. The words the exact representation literally mean, in the original Greek, “the exact, three-dimensional imprint and representation of the substance of God.” Note that it does not say Jesus reflects or channels God’s glory; rather, He is the radiance of God’s glory. Christ does not depict God, but is the exact representation of God’s nature. To do so, He must have the same nature as God.

The Watchtower organization (Jehovah Witnesses) adds the indefinite article a into John 1:1 so that it reads, “the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” Greek grammar does not allow this. In fact, in the Greek the word order is, the Word was with God and God was the Word.

The Watchtower also mistranslates firstborn in the second half of Colossians 1:15. After He is the image of the invisible God, the text says, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Firstborn has two meanings. The obvious meaning is first one born. However, in Hebrew culture, the word became a metaphor for preeminence. That is why the original Greek text says, firstborn OVER (not of or among) all creation. He is the preeminent one over all the things He made. As the text continues in verses 16 and 17, For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

The Watchtower teaches that Christ Jesus is a created being, less than God the Creator. Notice that this demotes God the Son to the same level as the fallen angel, Lucifer (AKA Beelzebub, the devil, and Satan). That is why they have to twist the scriptures to say Christ was a god (which contradicts their belief in only one god) and to say Jesus Christ was the first one born among all creation. They cannot make an honest case, so they tamper with the evidence.

That God the Son took on a human nature has already been addressed. The writer of Hebrews wrote in chapter 4, verses 14 and 15, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

In his human body, Jesus suffered growing pains, tummy aches, stomach flu, and the loss of loved ones (specifically Joseph, his adopted father, and Lazarus, his friend). He suffered splinters, fatigue, blisters, hunger and thirst, and the attempts of aunts to match Him up with a nice Jewish girl — just like all of us. He suffered false accusations, opposition, attempts on his life, and finally ridicule, torture, and execution. He can fully empathize with us in all our trials and temptations. Together with His divinity, His humanity makes Him the ultimate High Priest for us.

So Who is Jesus? Jesus is a Person of God within space and time who added human substance to His divine substance. He is Almighty Creator, Judge of the universe, and the exact representation of God — not just what God is like, but what God is. He is the Anointed One who suffered in our place to provide us the sole way of escape from the consequences of our wrong thoughts and actions. And He is the ultimate intercessor and representative between us and God.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Maybe posting this on Quora voids the copyright. I still expect people to give credit where credit is due.

Weak God? No, Weak Argument.

Answering a question on Quora:

"Why is the Christian God so weak? He punishes those that don’t worship him for eternity."

The question assumes that punishing people who don’t worship Him shows that God is weak. Not just weak, but so weak. That is not only a non factual and a non sequitur, but it is also counter intuitive.

Suppose a criminal stands before a judge, charged with a lifetime of minor and major offenses. The list of charges might fill several volumes with fine print. One of the charges is contempt of court. Sentence has been pronounced: The criminal will serve a life sentence in prison.

Then the criminal’s lawyer goes to Quora and asks, “Why is the judge so weak? He punishes prisoners for life for contempt of court.”

Can you see how ridiculous the question’s assumptions are? The criminal is not sentenced for just one offense, but for a lifetime of offenses. The lawyer simplistically boils the volumes of charges down to a single charge — the one that happens to be an offense against the court — in order to embarrass the court. The intellectual dishonesty of the argument crosses into propaganda when posted or published. And many people who hate the court will be inclined to believe the lie and turn it into a meme, undermining others’ confidence in the court.

Suppose the judge wants to provide an opportunity for redemption to that criminal. “He cannot bear the punishment,” he reasons, “but I could, so I will take the punishment for him.” He steps down from the bench, removes his robe, and surrenders himself to the warden of the prison. Inside the prison, he is stripped, tortured, and beaten to death.

Fortunately, EMTs resuscitate the judge. (He’s just a human, after all, not both God and human.)

Back at the courthouse, the bailiff tells the prisoner, “The judge has taken your punishment for you. He died but was brought back to life. If you will admit your guilt and trust the judge’s actions on your behalf, you may go free.”

A humble person would follow the bailiff’s advice and spend the rest of his life doing reforming his life out of gratitude.

But this prisoner refuses to admit his guilt. Or he refuses to accept that the judge suffered in his place and was brought back to life. “Yeah, right!” he says. “What a bunch of lies! What I did wasn’t that bad.”

The way of escaping the sentence was provided, and he refuses it — adding yet another offense, this time, an offense against himself.

Having the power to punish is not weakness, and having the character to enforce justice is not weakness. To the contrary, having the character to allow people to make their own choices in life rather than turning them into puppets shows strength. And taking the ultimate burden to rescue others from a fate that they cannot bear, knowing that most will refuse it? That shows unimaginable strength.

No, weakness is refusing to acknowledge one’s moral failings, refusing to set aside pride and false intellectual arrogance, refusing to accept that one is dependent on someone greater for redemption and guidance.

Refraining from accelerated sentencing of enemies who mock you, patiently waiting for them to become more reasonable and honest with themselves, shows quite a bit of strength, too, I think.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. In the case that posting this on Quora makes copyrighting unenforceable, I ask that users at least give credit where credit is due. I don't mind if somebody uses it for non-commercial use, anyway.

Born Again, and Proud of It?

From a question on Quora:

Is it a sin to be proud of yourself and others about being "Born Again"?

Yes, it is a sin to be proud of yourself and others for being born again. Pride indicates that you credit yourself with accomplishing something or having some attribute that makes you better than others.

Now, be careful about saying that others are proud of themselves. They could be boasting of what God has done to make conversion more palatable or attractive to those who have not been born again. The apostle Paul boasted about how gentiles had been turning to God in order to make Jews want what God was doing for non-Jews. Or the intent could be to encourage shy people to share the faith. It’s easy to misread others’ motives, and we should always assume the best about people. 

To be born again, you must understand that you are no better than anybody else. In fact, you are under the same judgment as everybody else because “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There is nothing in your nature that makes you superior to others in God’s eyes. 

No good action you have done can make up for the bad things you have done because we already owe those good actions to our Creator. “My good outweighs my bad” is like saying “I’ll pay June’s rent with what I failed to pay in May;” you still owe May’s rent. 

Being born again is a gift from God. All we can contribute is getting our pride and self-righteous attempts at self-justification out of the way, and in despair, submitting to His offer of redemption and mercy, trusting God 100% and ourselves 0%. 

Did you give spiritual birth to yourself? There is no pride in being born again. God the Son experienced the darkness of separation from the Father and experienced torture and death on the Cross. God gave you conviction of sins, enlightenment of the understanding of the gospel, and faith to trust in Him. God regenerates the soul, endows and seals with the Holy Spirit. God forgives, credits you with Christ’s payment, and credits you with Christ’s righteousness. God adds you to the universal church and predestines you to the resurrection, the transformation of your body, and everlasting life in His glorious presence. Just what do you think you contributed to all of that? 

There is relief over having escaped judgment. There is rejoicing over receiving God’s undeserved favor and the blessings that come with redemption. There is gratitude and a determination to demonstrate that gratitude by reforming, that is, turning away from former sins and learning to do those things that are loving and right. There is a desire to develop knowledge of God, relationship with God, and relationship with His other children. There is concern about those who have not experienced redemption. 

But there is no pride in yourself. Pride in yourself could be just a sign of immaturity. But it could also be a sign that you don’t understand the gospel. Study the scriptures, especially the epistles. Learn. Examine your life. Be certain.

If you are proud, be proud of God. Rejoice in the dignity of being His child and all that being born again entails, but give the glory to the God who did it all.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Posting this on Quora probably put it in the public domain, and I don't mind its use by individuals or for non-monetary purposes. However, please respect intellectual property and give credit where credit is due.

Could God Be a Monad?

Can God the Father be God without Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

(From a question on Quora)

The question is asked in present tense, and it is a bit ambiguous. I take it to mean, Is God the Father able to remain God if God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were split off, eliminated, or retracted from the universe?

Your question could also be taken to mean, Could God the Father have chosen to be a unitary God without having also existed as Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

Based on the relationship between God and the universe, I would say yes with respect to His substance but no with respect to His character. The same answer applies to either interpretation of the question.

One of the arguments for the existence of God is known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It states:

• Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  
• The universe began to exist (around 13.8 billion years ago)
  
• Therefore, the universe has a Cause. 

From the nature of the universe and related arguments, one can derive (without turning to revealed information such as the Bible) that the Cause is timeless, spaceless, non-contingent, unimaginably powerful, volitional, and unfathomably intelligent. In other words, God.

According to General Relativity, time, space, matter, and energy are so intertwined that if God created the universe, He created time and space, as well. Creative power over time and space allows their Creator to be omnipresent and omnitemporal — which explains omniscience with respect to both every location and every time.

Creative power over time and space also allows God to enter and experience time and space as one Person (or center of consciousness) or as a billion Persons, yet remain One God outside of the Universe. As it happens, He chose to exist in time and space as three Persons. Those three Persons, while remaining in every way equal, voluntarily took on different roles and titles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Due to the feat of entering time and space, all three Persons have the same substance (spirit). If God were a creature of the universe, this would be counter intuitive. However, with God having His “home” or “natural” existence outside of time and space, all three Persons can consist of the same spiritual substance.

We would be bothered by the physical law that two things can simultaneously occupy the same space at the same time. However, God’s substance is Spirit, not physical; so He is not subject to the same limits as we are.

Since all three Persons consist of the same substance, eliminating one or two of the Persons would not affect the existence of the third Person. Neither would it affect the existence of God outside of time and space.

So, with respect to God’s substance, one Person of the Trinity could exist without the other two.
But is this consistent with God’s character? God is relational and loving, and He has no needs. To exist as a unitary Person (a “monad”) would leave a relational God without any source or object of love until He created intelligent life. If God has no needs, then this makes it probable that God existed as three Persons even “before” creation. As Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning, Gods (Elohim, “gods”) created (singular) the heavens and the earth.….

If the Son and the Holy Spirit ceased to exist in the universe, God the Father would still be God. However, He would cease to be “the Father” because you can’t be a father without at least one person in the role of “the Child” (or “the Son”).

Also, the roles of the three Persons teach us about relationships and solve problems that I won’t go into now. (For example, how can God remain untouched by corruption and at the same time experience incarnation? Or how can God simultaneously express His wrath and be the subject of that wrath in our place?) God would have to either fulfill the functions of all three Persons or eliminate some of those functions.

If God is God, then He is maximally great. If God is maximally great, then any other form in which He existed in the universe would be less than maximally great. By definition, a less-than-maximally great god would not be God.

To Modalists such as Oneness Pentecostals and to sects such as the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Oneness is not a problem. Modalists believe God is a quick-change artist, switching between three hats in order to deceive people into thinking He is three Persons. But that makes God a deceiver. The Watchtower teaches that only the Father is God because the Son is just an exalted archangel and the Holy Spirit is just an impersonal force of God.

But we are approaching this from the view that all three Persons are God, so a lonely, God is an unsolvable problem for Modalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and Muslims.

So my final answer is that, if two Persons ceased to be, the third Person could continue to be God. However, as a monad, God would have had or might still have unfulfilled needs and would be less than maximally great, so without the Son and the Holy Spirit, He would not be God.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Since I originally posted this answer on Quora, I probably lost the right to claim copyright. However, I ask that if you use this material, please give credit where credit is due.