Marks " The person of faith has transcended the agonizing over what ethical burdens can be borne, and simply chooses that which is good. And how does s/he know what is good? S/he does not know, and knows that. But choosing by the light s/he has, s/he has nothing to prove and no inner division."

This statement contradicts the end statement of "Romans 7 and 8 could be the basic text for Kierkegaard's person of faith - Romans 7 with its "body of death" is the expression of the knight of infinite renunciation, willing to do anything to be doing right but trapped in this resolution."

These two concepts so disagree with one another. Your positioning is faulty by the following point - man is drawn to sin. We are the flower that reaches out the window to get more light for photosynthesis. It is engrained into our nature to thrive and enjoy it. It is the pleasing of our self through - the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh or pride of life. 1 John 2:16

We, as stated in Romans 7 that Paul "fights" with himself over doing what is right. He chooses often the opposite, as I do also. He uses the phrase "bring my body under subjection" which was a word picture of taking one hand, and placing on the forearm of the other, and twisting it until it bruises to force it to obey." This is the inner struggle of a true follower of Christ and even those that reject his ways. They know right and often reject it for person gain.

By this quote you have totally missed what grace is about "This is grace spelled out in philosophical terms. There is nothing the person of faith can do which, by doing it, will justify him or herself. Yet, by living according to the simple faith that doing what is right will be vindicated, s/he avoids the anxieties of the knight of infinite renunciation as to whether s/he is being good enough."

God's grace is where there is nothing I can do to merit it!! End of sentence. That man is so undeserving of this SECOND chance to restore our relationsip due to our egregious actions against him. It is that we have done so many wrongs, and yet, when asking for the atoning work of Jesus Christ to pay for our debt, God says that is more than enough, you are pardoned.

To show how true grace works let me give you the perfect example, in my estimation. Suppose that you have a 7 year old daughter that has the curly locks and wonderful dress, just like "Gone with the Wind." And Rhett buys her a miniature pony with all of the fancy saddle and straps. People would say that he committed such a GRACIOUS act. ANd they would be right in saying so. There was nothing that the daughter could do to merit such a lavished gift that he bestowed upon her. He simply chose to do so BECAUSE HE COULD. It was within his power to do so, and he made it come about.

Man simply reaches out to gain the lifeline that God extended for us in spite of our wicked ways. He did it because he was capable and chose to do so. That is GRACE. The wondrous concept of God's true love (looking out for our best interest) towards us.

In response to your statement of the Old Testament and God commanding the destruction of certain nations are somehow contradictory in nature to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

I delineate this plausible problem as being the PROGRESSION OF SOCIETY. Explained in the, thank you, b--k.

Jesus did not advocate that there should not be killing and the fighting of nations.

Jesus said "what King goes to war without counting the cost..."

If God was against war, he would not have illustrated such a spiritual story by its association, because it would appear to be a contradiction. God does know that mankind must war and sometimes it is for the betterment of the world to destroy evil nations.

brother bob wrote:Marks " The person of faith has transcended the agonizing over what ethical burdens can be borne, and simply chooses that which is good. And how does s/he know what is good? S/he does not know, and knows that. But choosing by the light s/he has, s/he has nothing to prove and no inner division."

This statement contradicts the end statement of "Romans 7 and 8 could be the basic text for Kierkegaard's person of faith - Romans 7 with its "body of death" is the expression of the knight of infinite renunciation, willing to do anything to be doing right but trapped in this resolution."

These two concepts so disagree with one another. Your positioning is faulty by the following point - man is drawn to sin. We are the flower that reaches out the window to get more light for photosynthesis. It is engrained into our nature to thrive and enjoy it. It is the pleasing of our self through - the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh or pride of life. 1 John 2:16

We, as stated in Romans 7 that Paul "fights" with himself over doing what is right. He chooses often the opposite, as I do also. He uses the phrase "bring my body under subjection" which was a word picture of taking one hand, and placing on the forearm of the other, and twisting it until it bruises to force it to obey." This is the inner struggle of a true follower of Christ and even those that reject his ways. They know right and often reject it for person gain.

Or for convenience, or because they are tired, or because something good is on television, or because they are busy making plans.

You are correct, I vastly oversimplified in claiming that Romans 7 is about the person trapped as "knight of infinite renunciation." There is an irony in "infinite" that Kierkegaard expects us to get - no one is infinitely willing to do right. The person who tries to live by the law finds that they fail. The person who lives by faith also must rely on forgiveness.

But the difference is crucial, and that is what Paul is trying to convey. The first case is the person who knows themselves as a failure because they know, by experience, that they can never be as good as their own ideals tell them they should be. The second case is the one who knows themselves to be loved and cherished, and therefore forgiven should they fall short, and who thereby makes better choices. Even if they do not choose acts which, by some philosophical criterion, are better, they choose out of an inner spirit which does not judge others.

In non-dualist thought, by accepting our own shadow side, our own tendency to do wrong even though we will the good, we are healed and enabled to bring healing to others. We are not instantly perfected, but we are helped to see that it is okay not to be instantly perfected, or perfected at all, ever. We are not rejecting (judging) the evil in ourselves or others, we are just being in relationship.

brother bob wrote:By this quote you have totally missed what grace is about "This is grace spelled out in philosophical terms. There is nothing the person of faith can do which, by doing it, will justify him or herself. Yet, by living according to the simple faith that doing what is right will be vindicated, s/he avoids the anxieties of the knight of infinite renunciation as to whether s/he is being good enough."

God's grace is where there is nothing I can do to merit it!! End of sentence.

No, I did not miss what grace is about. What you said is what I said, if you get past the empty form of how that grace is portrayed.

brother bob wrote:To show how true grace works let me give you the perfect example, in my estimation. Suppose that you have a 7 year old daughter that has the curly locks and wonderful dress, just like "Gone with the Wind." And Rhett buys her a miniature pony with all of the fancy saddle and straps. People would say that he committed such a GRACIOUS act. ANd they would be right in saying so. There was nothing that the daughter could do to merit such a lavished gift that he bestowed upon her. He simply chose to do so BECAUSE HE COULD. It was within his power to do so, and he made it come about.

Yes, exactly. Unmerited. It is a wild and amazing concept.

No, Paul speaks of a POINT in his life where he had not yet mastered overcoming sin.

Certainly Paul spoke of other aspects and telling people to do as the example he set before them.

Man can overcome his sin nature by discipline and God's help to squell man's desire to sin.

brother bob wrote:No, Paul speaks of a POINT in his life where he had not yet mastered overcoming sin.

Well, that is possible, but has not exactly been shy about labelling it at other points when he contrasts current with previous behavior. I think if that is what he really meant he would have stated it clearly.

I tend rather to think he is talking about "wretched man that I am" in the general sense of all humans being wretched in approximately this way. The previous material is like that, speaking in a general case about how the law doesn't bring death but sin uses the law, and Paul seems to shift pronouns freely.

When he announces that living in Christ is the answer, he then shifts to command tense - "put to death" the deeds of the flesh. Paul believes, I think very insightfully, that spiritual following gives a lot of power for overcoming "natural" nastiness - quarreling, licentiousness, gossip, etc. But I don't think he is claiming that it had already been completed in him. In I Cor 15 he says he dies daily - it is an on-going process.

Paul was a pretty well-grounded guy in the sense of being familiar with what people are like.

brother bob wrote: Man can overcome his sin nature by discipline and God's help to squell man's desire to sin.

That is kind of what I have been saying, but it is not mostly on us. Discipline is one of the least effective ways to be transformed. Hearing others, seeing needs, being part of a community - these take us out of ourselves, if we let a caring spirit move us.

I heard a wonderful comment on this on another forum.
"Because we are made to be in relationship, we can only give joy to others if we receive joy from others."

So put yourself in your shoes and what would your assessment be of your life of Christ. This is a person that put followers of Christ to death! Do you ever feel that that is wiped clean from your slate. YES and NO! It haunted him till his dying days. What impact had he had on many people's families.

Quote ""Because we are made to be in relationship, we can only give joy to others if we receive joy from others."

This is partially true, but Christ told to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us. Joy should hopefully be shared with others. But true JOY is an inner peace that even though the circumstances are not great we still have the confidence that the end will be wondrous. That is true inner JOY.

brother bob wrote: This is a person that put followers of Christ to death! Do you ever feel that that is wiped clean from your slate. YES and NO! It haunted him till his dying days.

Sure, but the problem then did not seem to be that he did what was wrong in his own sight, but that he thought something was right which turned out later to seem wrong to him. Very different from the subject of Romans 7.

brother bob wrote:But true JOY is an inner peace that even though the circumstances are not great we still have the confidence that the end will be wondrous. That is true inner JOY.

There is some nice exposition by Christians following St. Francis and other non-dualistic Christian mystics, arguing that undivided consciousness provides that same joy with a full focus on now. They believe we should set aside not only circumstances going badly or well, but also our own excellence or shabbiness, our own emotions, our own judgments of others - all those distinctions that seem so important when we are striving about them, can be just transcended if we can see ourselves and others as God sees us.

Myself, I am unable to vouch for this undivided consciousness, but it sounds right.

Quote "Sure, but the problem then did not seem to be that he did what was wrong in his own sight, but that he thought something was right which turned out later to seem wrong to him. Very different from the subject of Romans 7."

Paul "pens" in Romans 7 that the "things he wished he did not do, he does, and the things he wished he did not commit, he did.

Mr. Marks, Why do you give more credence to the statements of those other than the inspired word of God. 2 Timothy 2:15 - George Mueller once said "why do I seek the mere writings of men, when I have the holy scriptures?"

brother bob wrote: Mr. Marks, Why do you give more credence to the statements of those other than the inspired word of God.

Well, I think the inspired word of God is not something that stopped being written when the Bible was canonized. God continues to inspire writers, and some writing continues to rise to the level of the Bible we know. I might list "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann, and "Moral Man and Immoral Society" by Reinhold Niebuhr, and "The Life of the Beloved" by Henri Nouwen.

brother bob wrote:George Mueller once said "why do I seek the mere writings of men, when I have the holy scriptures?"

Holy scriptures are the "mere" writings of men. Many were subject to extraordinary inspiration, but many were also subject to error and deception, not to mention motives which at times included a rather bad mix.

The canon was chosen by Councils, and these were summoned by a Roman Emperor. As I have mentioned to you before, they came close to rejecting the Epistle to the Hebrews, and some people today feel they should have included some of the gnostic writings which were put forward at the time.

Protestants rejected some of the post-Exilic writings which had not been settled. The process still goes on.

Why do you give so much authority to men of the past? Some of them were awful people. If you knew them, you would no longer respect their decisions.

You make two counter points of the scriptures

"Well, I think the inspired word of God is not something that stopped being written when the Bible was canonized. God continues to inspire writers, and some writing continues to rise to the level of the Bible we know."

"Holy scriptures are the "mere" writings of men. Many were subject to extraordinary inspiration, but many were also subject to error and deception, not to mention motives which at times included a rather bad mix."

Your statements seemingly focus on the character of the men who "penned" the scripture. What man does not have skeletons in the closet? All men have character flaws even after coming to know and receive Christ as their savior. You are confusing on this point. It alludes to the leaning on men to write inspired messages. Only God can direct this to actually happen.

You also state of the great flaw in the character of people, "awful people," I don't know who or what you are insinuating.

"Why do you give so much authority to men of the past? Some of them were awful people. If you knew them, you would no longer respect their decisions."

You state that Hebrews almost wasn't included in the Bible - well it was! God has the ability to keep in the scriptures what he chooses too.