
Originally Posted by
Nihilo
Boy, do you have a hair across your rear end. Geez.
Are you suggesting that if you today were to have a conversation with yourself from say 20 years ago that you'd agree with your former self on everything? If you are, then maybe you're the one who's not worth the time here.
Of course not! I'm suggesting that I'm still me. Living beings change in various ways. It doesn't mean they move into a different category of person or thing when they change in some way. A lemon tree, for example, doesn't produce fruit for five years. A mature lemon tree is still the same tree that it was before it bore fruit or else it wouldn't have any meaning to call it "mature". It is only dead, inanimate objects that do not change is such ways.
As for God, He too is a living being but He is not a creature as are all other living things but rather, He is the Creator and as such has fundamental differences, not the least of which is the fact that God does NOT mature or grow wiser. In regards to those things that make up God's character (i.e. He is loving, wise, just, etc), He is indeed unchanging but the Calvinists/Arminian goes much further than this and states that God is entirely immutable in all ways. The fact that the idea of absolute immutability and the gospel seem to be at odds with one another is ignored as an incomprehensible antinomy that we are simply to accept on blind faith. That's sounds nice and all except that it is utterly without biblical support and not at all necessary to accept in order to maintain a rationally coherent theology, in fact quite the contrary. The only reason anyone believes it at all is because Augustine imported the belief from the Classics (Aristotle and Plato) which he all but worshiped before becoming a Christian.
"...we (correctly) deny that God has passions; and with us a love that is not passionate means a love that is something less. But the reason why God has no passions is that passions imply passivity and intermission. The passion of love is something that happens to us, as ‘getting wet’ happens to a body: and God is exempt from that ‘passion’ in the same way that water is exempt from ‘getting wet’. He cannot be affected by love, because He is love. To imagine that love as something less torrential or less sharp than our own temporary and derivative ‘passions’ is a most disastrous fantasy." ~ Miracles, C. S. Lewis [emphases added]
In your previous post, didn't you conflate immutable with
impassible?
Impassibility is merely a corollary of immutability. It is immutability applied to one's state of mind. It's simply a more specific application of the exact same idea. If you reject one, you reject both.
And my concern is that you're conflating the Lord's human nature with His divine nature; that's all. You're using them interchangeably, and I'm not sure that's right.
I'm not conflating anything. Jesus died in every way in which it is possible for any human being to die. Your confusion may arise from not understanding what it means to die. To die does NOT mean to cease existing, it simply means that you (i.e. the real you - your soul/spirit) are separated from either your physical body which is physical death or from God the Father which is spiritual death. Jesus experienced both, as the scriptures I referenced prove clearly.
The Lord died; I've never denied that. I question whether it is true that our Maker died.
The Lord is our Maker.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
And this could simply be one of those areas of theology that requires a bit more precision in terms, and that once we iron out that precision, that we can agree with each other.
I have no doubt that this is the case. As I said, usually when a person who is otherwise a Christian is stumped by this issue it is usually because of a misunderstanding of what it means to die. When you understand that one thing and think through why it was necessary for God to become a man Himself rather than simply creating another "perfect human" to use as a sacrifice then it becomes quite clear.
Resting in Him,
Clete