Human existence: the gender of God

petosiris

Banned
How many theologians can dance on the head of a pin? :smile::lol:

It depends, are they corporeal or incorporeal? :smile:

Waybread, do you think angels are corporeal or do you think they are incorporeal like God? I am asking unironically. It is hard for me to imagine a circumscribed thing as absolutely incorporeal.

After reading some books on the subject of dualism, I thought I had fully grasped and accepted the idea and arguments of created incorporeal souls and spirits. But then I thought about people taken into heaven alive with their bodies in the Scriptures. How is heaven incorporeal, if the alive bodies of Jesus, Elijah, Enoch and Moses are there? If the heavens, the throne and the angels are corporeal, this seems to suggest that all created souls and spirits are in some sense corporeal (all of creation occupying some kind of space and time, as if it is circumscribed by it), no? I hope you can help me answer these questions.

Grace be with you.
 
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waybread

Well-known member
And with thy spirit!

Petosiris, I have a lot of respect for people's religious beliefs unless they actually harm someone (like the Spanish inquisition, witch burnings, and the Crusades.) I have a lot of interest in the history of western religions.

But my perspective is one of a student of comparative religion, not as someone who thinks everything in a faith's sacred scriptures are objectively real. The Bible often speaks to us in metaphors, allegory, parables, and occasionally even riddles. I think St. Augustine said this (I confess, I got him confused with someone else a while back, possibly Irenaeus on the need to read the Bible literally, vs. through the Gnostic inner experience.)

Angels have had a long and interesting history. The Biblical "heavenly host" apparently meant "host" in the sense of a large army. This makes angels akin to soldiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_host Apparently the angels of the heavenly host were equated to the stars ( Genesis 2:1 Deuteronomy 4:19.) due to a slight problem that if everything were created in the 6th days of Genesis, where would the angels come in, if separate entities?)

In the Bible, occasionally one of them takes on a human form (Joshua 5:13-15.)

Then we've got cherubim and seraphim.

I just see too many parallels between Jewish & Christian heavenly beings and the lore of older civilization, some of them ancestral to Judaism, to think that the J-C angels were not simply part of an ambient Near Eastern lore that nobody much questioned or criticized. Why the wings? Makes sense for sky-dwelling beings?? There's some ecology here, too, where the high-flying vulture-- sacred in ancient Egypt-- literally conducted the dead to whatever afterlife awaited them (Cf. Zoroastrian towers of silence.)

Today, however, we understand stars to be giant balls of burning gases. Human-like winged creatures seem imaginative, not literal.

Metaphorically, the idea of religious leaders (like Elijah, in Jewish belief) taken up to heaven without their bodies literally dying may simply point to something indestructible about their message to humanity.

(In the Bible Moses died a physical death, but the location of his burial is unknown. This was probably to prevent the Israelites from worshiping at his tomb.)

If you want to get dualistic about it, I'd vote on the side of the Christian heaven being uncorporeal. Put differently, it exists in Christian minds, hearts, belief, traditions, and imagery. But is dualism even the way to go here?

Hag sameach (a joyful holiday to you.)
 

leomoon

Well-known member
A modern day miracle - building a rock hewn church altar in an area known as Trash City in a section Cairo - where Coptic Christians live:


https://www.samaanchurch.com/en/about-us


The story of how the church came to be, starts here and continues on another page:



https://www.samaanchurch.com/en/home


At the very top of the page, there are brown dots, and each dot takes you along the scrolling images of the gorgeous carvings done over the years. You can click the dots yourself to move to the next image...
https://www.samaanchurch.com/en/home
 

petosiris

Banned
Objection 2. Further, there is no place above the heavens, as is proved in De Coelo i. But every body must occupy a place. Therefore Christ's body did not ascend above all the heavens.

Aquinas or the schoolman who wrote by his name replies in the following way:

Reply to Objection 2. A place implies the notion of containing; hence the first container has the formality of first place, and such is the first heaven. Therefore bodies need in themselves to be in a place, in so far as they are contained by a heavenly body. But glorified bodies, Christ's especially, do not stand in need of being so contained, because they draw nothing from the heavenly bodies, but from God through the soul. So there is nothing to prevent Christ's body from being beyond the containing radius of the heavenly bodies, and not in a containing place. Nor is there need for a vacuum to exist outside heaven, since there is no place there, nor is there any potentiality susceptive of a body, but the potentiality of reaching thither lies in Christ. So when Aristotle proves (De Coelo ii) that there is no body beyond heaven, this must be understood of bodies which are in a state of pure nature, as is seen from the proofs. - http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4057.htm#article4

This in my opinion is unintelligible.

In the Bible Moses died a physical death, but the location of his burial is unknown.

I believe that he died and was later at some point raised bodily and taken into heaven - Jude 9, and thus appeared to Jesus and the disciples along with Elijah - Matthew 17:3, Mark 9:4 and Luke 9:30. I don't believe that he appeared as a spirit or with a temporary body. I am aware of the objections to this interpretation, which I ask in advance to be spared.

Philo on his death speaks such ''Afterwards the time came when he had to make his pilgrimage from earth to heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body into a single unity, transforming his whole being into mind, pure as the sunlight.'' (Mos. 2.288)

I like the suggestion that the body and soul of any prophet who is now in heaven are transformed into a single bodiless union safekeeping the existence of the body mentally (rather than destroying it or shedding it away as the Gnostics thought), so that they can later be remanifested as two without recreation when they return to the physical realm at the end of days.

Alternatively, even the seventh heaven is a spatial location and even the sons of God there are corporeal.
 
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leomoon

Well-known member
I never believed or had reason to think more accurately, that in the appearance to his disciples, Moses and Elijah, were actually physical forms. I also thought they were akin an appearance without bodily form only looked to be so.



This also happens when people see their dead loved ones. One lady explained her sister who was murdered, "stood at the end of my bed" one night.




I've heard countless such stories, and believe them to be true too. More like an astral body, not a physical one which previously died.

With Jesus however, I do think for him, he was somehow physically restored right after his death, when he said he was hungry and asked for food.



He also told Mary not to touch him, because he hadn't yet risen to the Father i.e. took to mean been glorified on this highest plane. The others I don't think went through such a metamorphosis (imo) .



Jesus had to do this in order for the prophecies to the Jews to be fulfilled, i.e. make the point.


p.s. I usually try to add "imo", because that's all it is anyway for everyone!


transfiguration


NOUN


  1. a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state.
    "in this light the junk undergoes a transfiguration; it shines"
    synonyms:
    change · alteration · modification · variation
 
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petosiris

Banned
Necromancy and mediumship is forbidden in the Law. The only appearance of a dead person recorded in the OT (in 1 Sam. 28) in the context was most likely of a demon. Most people see lying visions and tell false dreams that are not to be trusted. People in grief, who are without the hope of the resurrection of the body, are especially susceptible to them, for obvious reasons.
 
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petosiris

Banned
I never believed or had reason to think more accurately, that in the appearance to his disciples, Moses and Elijah, were actually physical forms. I also thought they were akin an appearance without bodily form only looked to be so.

People can claim this about anything, even the flesh of Jesus. There is no truth in appearances and visions. Maybe there is semblance and expectation of a truth.

''If, then, such a being has now appeared in outward semblance different from what he was in reality, there has been a certain prophetical vision made to men; and another advent of His must be looked forward to, in which He shall be such as He has now been seen in a prophetic manner.'' - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103501.htm
 

leomoon

Well-known member
Witch of Endor - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Endor

9k=


In the Hebrew Bible, the Witch of Endor is a woman Saul consulted to summon the spirit of prophet Samuel in the 28th chapter of the First Book of Samuel in order to receive advice against the Philistines in battle after his prior attempts to consult God through sacred lots and prophets had failed.


The Yalkut Shimoni (11th century) identifies the anonymous witch as the mother of Abner.[13] Based upon the witch's claim to have seen something, and Saul having heard a disembodied voice, the Yalkut suggests that necromancers are able to see the spirits of the dead but are unable to hear their speech, while the person for whom the deceased was summoned hears the voice but fails to see anything.[5]
Antoine Augustin Calmet briefly mentioned the witch of Endor in his Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c. (1759):[14]
The Israelites went sometimes to consult Beelzebub, god of Ekron, to know if they should recover from their sickness. The history of the evocation of Samuel by the witch of Endor is well known. I am aware that some difficulties are raised concerning this history. I shall deduce nothing from it here, except that this woman passed for a witch, that Saul esteemed her such, and that this prince had exterminated the magicians in his own states, or, at least, that he did not permit them to exercise their art.
— Calmet, Chapter 7 on Magic
The Jews of our days believe that after the body of a man is interred, his spirit goes and comes, and departs from the spot where it is destined to visit his body, and to know what passes around him; that it is wandering during a whole year after the death of the body, and that it was during that year of delay that the Pythoness of Endor evoked the soul of Samuel, after which time the evocation would have had no power over his spirit.
— Calmet, Chapter 40
 
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waybread

Well-known member
The "place" of heaven gets pretty complicated.

The brief Letter of Jude sounds almost pagan in its mentions of fallen angels "who did not keep their proper dwelling" living in the dark and in chains; the threat of "eternal fire," the archangel Michael, the devil. Basically there is a subtext of angels (celestial beings) rebelling against God. When did all this stuff happen?

Verses 10-13 are clearly metaphorical. I suggest most of Jude could be read as metaphorical.

In English, we separate out the words "sky" and "heaven." In German (Himmel) and in Hebrew (sh'mayim) the same word means both sky and heaven.

So should Christians believe literally in a God who lives up the sky that we see outside? This makes sense for a God who blesses with rain and punishes with drought.

But what about God's omnipresence? https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God~s-Omnipresence

Or are we perhaps talking about a different dimension? One that co-exists with the world we can see "through a glass darkly" and one that surrounds us at all times?
 

petosiris

Banned
The "place" of heaven gets pretty complicated.

The brief Letter of Jude sounds almost pagan in its mentions of fallen angels "who did not keep their proper dwelling" living in the dark and in chains; the threat of "eternal fire," the archangel Michael, the devil. Basically there is a subtext of angels (celestial beings) rebelling against God. When did all this stuff happen?

Verses 10-13 are clearly metaphorical. I suggest most of Jude could be read as metaphorical.

I know the opinion of some of your teachers concerning the free will of angels, how they slander Christians with the sin of idolatry for believing in such.

In English, we separate out the words "sky" and "heaven." In German (Himmel) and in Hebrew (sh'mayim) the same word means both sky and heaven.

So should Christians believe literally in a God who lives up the sky that we see outside? This makes sense for a God who blesses with rain and punishes with drought.

But what about God's omnipresence? https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topi...s-Omnipresence

Or are we perhaps talking about a different dimension? One that co-exists with the world we can see "through a glass darkly" and one that surrounds us at all times?

The differences in the description of the omnipotence, omnipresence and incorporeality of God by Christian, Jewish and Muslim theologians are negligible. For they all describe the Supreme Being as better than anything one can imagine, and if one can think of a god in a spatial location such as you describe, one can think of God outside a spatial location, for he is the creator of space. Indeed, Maimonides encountered opposition to his insistence of the absolute incorporeality of God, for some of your teachers read some of the passages in question as literal rather than allegorical.
 

petosiris

Banned
Waybread, in Genesis 18 God appears to Abraham, eats, and then investigates, he seems to be visible, corporeal, non-omnipresent and non-omniscient. Furthermore there appear to be two who are called with the name in Genesis 19:24. Do you think there can be a second power, that is clearly inferior, but still divine and capable of bearing the divine name?
 

waybread

Well-known member
I know the opinion of some of your teachers concerning the free will of angels, how they slander Christians with the sin of idolatry for believing in such.

Petosiris, I've repeatedly called you out for pushing your erroneous belief in my non-existent "teachers." I've explained why you're wrong about this multiple times.

I don't slander Christians and it is wrong of you to try to affiliate me with anybody who does.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbour.:rightful:

Are you doing this simply to be aggravating? You're certainly not making a convincing argument in support of Christianity by falsifying my beliefs.

Anyone who believes in the (non-existent) free will of (metaphorical) angels, or who slanders Christians is not my teacher.

Are you clear on that? Or is your repetition part of a persistent problem that you have with Judaism?

Are you anti-Semitic? :rightful:




T
he differences in the description of the omnipotence, omnipresence and incorporeality of God by Christian, Jewish and Muslim theologians are negligible. For they all describe the Supreme Being as better than anything one can imagine, and if one can think of a god in a spatial location such as you describe, one can think of God outside a spatial location, for he is the creator of space. Indeed, Maimonides encountered opposition to his insistence of the absolute incorporeality of God, for some of your teachers read some of the passages in question as literal rather than allegorical.
 

david starling

Well-known member
Petosiris, I've repeatedly called you out for pushing your erroneous belief in my non-existent "teachers." I've explained why you're wrong about this multiple times.

I don't slander Christians and it is wrong of you to try to affiliate me with anybody who does.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbour.:rightful:

Are you doing this simply to be aggravating? You're certainly not making a convincing argument in support of Christianity by falsifying my beliefs.

Anyone who believes in the (non-existent) free will of (metaphorical) angels, or who slanders Christians is not my teacher.

Are you clear on that? Or is your repetition part of a persistent problem that you have with Judaism?

Are you anti-Semitic? :rightful:




T

I've heard Christians claiming that the Pope is the anti-Christ, and that their fellow Christians, the Catholics, worship false idols in the form of saints and the Virgin Mary.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Right. Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love. Inter-denominational strife has been a problem since Christianity's inception, however. It is important to express Christian love in the correct orthodox way. :innocent:
 

petosiris

Banned
I've heard Christians claiming that the Pope is the anti-Christ,

The antichrist is a person and a world ruler, not a title as ''historicists'' might believe. The fruits of this erroneous movement are the failed 1844 and 1914 predictions of the second advent that spawned a few denominations.

and that their fellow Christians, the Catholics, worship false idols in the form of saints and the Virgin Mary.

This is undeniably true and is widely agreed by all non-Catholic/non-Orthodox Christians.
 

petosiris

Banned
Right. Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love. Inter-denominational strife has been a problem since Christianity's inception, however. It is important to express Christian love in the correct orthodox way. :innocent:

Of course it is. We don't want anyone to be thrown in the lake of fire for idolatry, do we?
 

petosiris

Banned
Petosiris, I've repeatedly called you out for pushing your erroneous belief in my non-existent "teachers." I've explained why you're wrong about this multiple times.

I don't slander Christians and it is wrong of you to try to affiliate me with anybody who does.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbour.:rightful:

Are you doing this simply to be aggravating? You're certainly not making a convincing argument in support of Christianity by falsifying my beliefs.

Anyone who believes in the (non-existent) free will of (metaphorical) angels, or who slanders Christians is not my teacher.

Are you clear on that? Or is your repetition part of a persistent problem that you have with Judaism?

Are you anti-Semitic? :rightful:




T

Waybread, you claimed that Jude is ''almost pagan'' in its description of the angelic and demonic realm. I've not said anything aggravating, but the opinion of your teachers concerning our ''Persian dualism'' belief that you simply parrot.

I am not an anti-Semite, I thought that was clear enough - https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1037280&postcount=609

But are you anti-Christian? It does seem like it sometimes. :wink:
 
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Dirius

Well-known member
Are you clear on that? Or is your repetition part of a persistent problem that you have with Judaism?

Are you anti-Semitic? :rightful:

Waybread you are a convert to judaism, you can't play the "racist" card against other people when you are facing criticism.

:innocent:

Besides being critical of a religion isn't a form of discrimination.
 
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