Rev. John Harfouche @Jonfoosh

What a beautiful labor of love! We thank the Lord for the opportunity to bless our community and our families with the love of Jesus during this season. We love and appreciate everyone who has put their hands to the work... and we're not done yet! 🎄❤️🎁

No, I claimed that “an action can only occur in time” was a category error. You’re applying the features of a temporal being to an atemporal one. That’s the category error. A potential can’t be actualized without time (because that requires change) but God is pure act. In other words his action is eternal and unchanging. We only observe a fraction of his action at any given time, because we are moving through time, just like we would only perceive part of a 5 or 6 dimensional being moving through our 4 dimensions, but all of his action exists at once, eternally.

@KateTheLiberal @yhdistyminen Actually no, you are the one who asserted that you can’t use the word “create” unless something is made from pre-existing materials, that’s a limitation the word just doesn’t have. Sophistry is pointlessly debating words and their use instead of their actual referents.

Lol, no. Created “ex nihilo” by God means created without any pre-existing matter, but by the power of God. A universe created BY nothing has to account for the lack of matter, AND the lack a power, agency, and cause. A universe created by nothing just is a logical contradiction because nothing can’t cause anything.

@KateTheLiberal @yhdistyminen The creation of the universe from nothing by an eternal agent of infinite power and knowledge is not in any way the same as the universe coming into being out of nothing by itself.

@KateTheLiberal @yhdistyminen Pick a word then, Kate. The limitations of our vocabulary don’t have any causal or limiting effect on how reality works. What you’re doing is called sophistry.

@KateTheLiberal @yhdistyminen Huh? Are you saying creation “ex nihilo” should be called something other than creation? If God brought matter (and everything else) into existence from nothing, what would you call that other than creation?

@KateTheLiberal @yhdistyminen Your argument presupposes material interactions occurring via physics inside of the universe. The action required to create the universe would be a different thing altogether, by necessity. Again, category error. An action inside of spacetime can’t be responsible for spacetime.

Come on, man. You don’t actually think this is an argument do you? The Hebrew word is specific: תִּֿרְצָֽ֖ח, murder. “Thou shalt not commit murder” is the accepted translation. Killing someone in war or self defense is not “murder.” Not in language OR in law. Moreover, you know what the punishment for breaking this commandment was when it was given? Being killed. Just. Be serious, dude.

@IMACedarWaxwing @yhdistyminen Non-existent But when we’re talking about God we’re talking about something that exists for all time, and beyond time. Atemporal.

Pray for America

Paul and John’s students affirmed the simplicity of God and that he did not change. This was apostolic teaching, by Jewish men. The church has literally never believed anything different for 2000 years. Likewise the Old Testament states “I am the LORD I change not.” The idea that this is some kind of misrepresentation is absurd.

@rambler_atx @yhdistyminen I don’t. Why do you think you’re a greater authority on them than 2000 years of Christians, and the students of the men that wrote them?

Read again, I said it is not a unique Christian observation. Time changes and is effected by matter, it bends. Space is the same, like literally, it appears to be the same thing. Physics and mathematics seem to show that space-time began at the big bang. Space-time may even be simply an effect of matter-energy. But even if space-time extends past the big bang it is finite, so God couldn't be contained within it, even in principle. Ultimately, as a contingent thing, it needs a prime mover just like the rest of reality does in order to be explained.

The capacity to choose good or ill does not mean that morality is non-concrete, it means the opposite. Good has to objectively exist in order for us to be able to choose or reject it. What is at issue isn't moral goodness ITSELF, which exists regardless, the issue is our OWN moral goodness. Think of it this way: The poor being fed is good. If you feed the poor out of compassion then it is good that they are fed and it is ALSO a morally good act. If you feed the poor because you are forced to then it is still a material good that the poor have food, but it was not an act of moral goodness on your part. So in order for moral goodness to exist in creation free will has to exist. The fact that your choices are constrained by natural forces and your own prior choices does not mean that you don't have a choice. You know you make choices, that is why you are mad when people make evil ones.

@FourthSalty @yhdistyminen Is that a sufficient answer to 1? Do you accept that?

If you actually want to know and are open to it I can take these one at a time and take my time with it, but it is gonna have to be one at a time. 1. An action is only an act of moral goodness if it is a free act. In other words we cannot choose to seek Good, unless we also have the capacity to choose to not seek good. We can't choose to be obedient unless we can also choose to be disobedient. An automaton is not morally good. He isn't actually a moral agent at all. God did make us good, Genesis is explicit about that, but actual freedom entails the capacity to reject Good. Which we did, and do.

@Nicky_Bonez @wight1984 @yhdistyminen In order for "God" to exist at all he would have to be outside of time and unchanging, because He would have to exist before time in order to have created it. This isn't a uniquely Christian observation. It's pretty basic stuff.