/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Isn't it basically gnostic?

>>615945

They believe in it (Sethians) yea

>>615945

gnostics were strong dualists, so no.

>>615943

Absolutely nothing. From God being infinite and immanent and upholding all, and being described as ''all in all," I (like many others, especially emphasized in Eastern traditions) am a Christian panentheist, currently working on evil/goodness in theology. It is not a heresy, I'd say some form of monism (panentheism tbh) at least is the default Christian position.

>>615945

The Gnostics had monism and panentheism (paradoxically with radical dualism, but not really), but you must remember they did consider themselves to be "Christians" and had Greek philosophy. It's a logical position they hold to, even among their many other heresies.

God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself. God is spirit, and created other spirits out of nothing, not out of Himself. The heresies of Monism and Pantheism and similar heresies teach that God created the world out of Himself or part of Himself, or that the world is God. God created both matter and spirits as good. The heresy of Gnosticism is teaching that matter was created as evil, not in teaching that matter was created.

We have three fundamental categories:

1) uncreated God who is spirit (the Father, the Holy Spirit, and preincarnate Jesus)

2) created spirit that is not God and is not matter (angels and human souls)

3) created matter that is not God and is not spirit (the physical universe including our bodies)

These three fundamental categories can exist in combination:

1) created spirit and created matter or spirit (living human beings, infested objects, the possessed)

2) uncreated spirit and created spirit (indwelling of the Holy Spirit)

3) uncreated spirit and created matter (incarnate Jesus)

Christianity is dualistic in that you can group uncreated spirit and created spirit together as spirit and distinguish them from matter, arriving at a dualistic system of spirit and matter.

>>615954

>God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself. God is spirit, and created other spirits out of nothing, not out of Himself

Whether he created them out of himself or out of nothing makes no difference to monism; all things revolve around God and are related to God and he permeates all with no bias. The infinite is not bound by anything.

>>615954

All in all. Monism =/= pantheism always (which is bad).

>>615958

>>615956

>reducing immanence to substance

Literal idolatry.

>>615961

Where is the idolatry? What is being placed above God? This is just a necessary truth for Him being infinite, undefined, and unbound. I dare say we barely know Him, except that He revealed some things to us, and these small bits we can't even properly comprehend, let alone being literally infinite and eternal, and all this contains.

>>615961

>>reducing immanence to substance

>denying the incarnation

so Christ was a ghost

>>615962

You're saying that all idols are God. You're saying that the substance of the idol of Moloch was the substance of God. You're an idolater.

>>615964

You're bearing false witnesses against me. In my first post I testified to the incarnation.

Immanence is not incarnation. You don't understand what immanence is if you reduce it to substance. God can be immanent in something without actually being that thing.

>>615966

I am not saying things are built of God, simply that God is immanent in all things. Not sure where you get this from, it's literally just panentheism.

>>615966

>God can be immanent in something without actually being that thing.

nothing can exist apart from God, all things get their beingness from the ultimate being.

the fact that they were made out of nothing makes this dependency even stronger, there is nothing apart from God.

>>615970

A circle cannot exist apart from it's center, but that doesn't imply that the center is the same as the circle. In order to prove that two things are equivalent with regards to some relationship, you need to prove that this relationship is valid both ways. Do you have any reason to believe that God's existence is somehow dependent on yours?

>>615972

no finite phenomena is fully God itself, but no phenomena is apart from God or exists independent of God. That statue is a wave in the ocean, the totality of the ocean is God. The wave is not the ocean, but it is not apart or independent from the ocean.

>>615974

>Yes.

Thanks. That's all I needed.

>>615972

No, because panentheist aren't pantheist, you just aren't getting what was said.

>>615973

All things that are part of His act of being.

>>615976

There are different kinds of panentheists. I'm just trying to find out how wrong you are.

If you want to know if this is gnostic

“I am control and the uncontrollable.

I am the union and the dissolution.

I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.

I am the one below,

and they come up to me.

I am the judgment and the acquittal.

I, I am sinless,

and the root of sin derives from me.”

Whatever that means doesn’t sound Christian fam

>>615975

>Yes

the implication is No. hence "no finite phenomena is fully God" the statue is a finite phenomena. But it is not apart or independent of God.

Simple reading skills are good.

>>615978

God is all in all, and the upholder of all that is, and immanent in all (for some reason you think panentheist believe that He is substance, and actually things themselves, like idols). That's the entire position. And it's not wrong. What makes you think it is?

>>615983

Does panentheism mean the root of sin comes from god? That’s heresy

>>615984

>Does panentheism mean the root of sin comes from god? That’s heresy

did the root of sin exist prior to creation, independent of God? Is it another eternal being? Or did it appear within creation, part of creation?

Of course all dichotomies come from God, Isaiah 45:7 KJV.

>>615987

The root of sin is logically free will, knowledge of good and evil, but paradoxically, it is nothing. It’s void. Saying sin can be a part of god, bro that’s definitely heresy

>>615984

The root of sin is your own free will. You (a created one) alone did that, God didn't make you do it. Sin is a deviation from God (and/or blindness to Him from the God of this world). But God being eternally love and mercy as art of His act of being necessitates a dichotomy. Not the root of sin being Him.

Also never forget that God being what He is, shows good by what is not Him. I became a Christian after seeing the results of the emptiness (really sin is nothing) of not-good, good is shown by not-good, light by not-light, etc. And the opposites are true, God by His being shows instantly what is not Him (you'd not know sin is utterly sinful if not for the Law).

>>615980

If you actually believed it isn't God then you would have just said a simple "no." Instead you equivocate by saying it "isn't fully God." I've already heard everything I need to hear from you. I no longer wish to speak to you. Thank you for the conversation.

>>615983

Then you're defining panentheism more narrowly than how it's actually defined, restricting the word to describe your personal belief and disregarding the wider definition in use by other panentheists which includes belief in the substantive divinity of the material universe (yet also transcendent), while claiming that I don't understand how the word is distinguished from pantheism, which is tiresome. There are better words to describe a view of God as being immanent and transcendent but not substantive of the material universe than panentheism, if that is your actual position.

That makes up the colossal but seemingly unimportant divide between the two ways. Christianity teaches the reason we do things is, really, void. The purpose of life is void. Only God was and is, we are the paradox.

>>615989

>The root of sin is logically free will,

and God created that root.

>Saying sin can be a part of god

I never said that its part of God. I take the view that sin is a deprivation of the good. But its not apart or independent of God either.

>>615991

That’s what I’m saying. If you do not have light you see darkness. What is darkness? Nothing - it does not exist.

>>615992

>If you actually believed it isn't God then you would have just said a simple "no."

if I just said "no" without any qualification you would've twisted it to contradict what I said earlier. You don't want honest discussion or honesty, you want rhetoric.

>>615996

darkness is not nothing. darkness is blackness. you can see blackness, you can't see 'nothingness'.

>>615995

Did he? Did he create “nothing”? How can that be created. Because the choice of good and bad presupposes the “existence” of “no”-“thing”

>>615998

You cannot in fact

Your eyes can. If you cut that connection to the brain, you will see literally nothing, not even blackness technically

>>615999

>Did he? Did he create “nothing”?

Free-will is the root of sin. God created the root. Man grew it and watered it into sin. Free-will is not nothing, free-will is a power of decision making, it requires a mind and moral compass of some sort.

>>616000

eyes don't see anything, the person/subject sees.

eyes are just mediums that transport data to the being. they don't know or perceive anything themselves.

Unnecessary post

>>616001

We are talking about what the choice to sin is. The knowledge of good and evil does not produce evil, nor good. Logical fallacy.

>>615992

From now looking up definitions of it, on the Stanford site, and an overview of how it is used in the Eastern Orthodox tradition (though I am not a part of it, I love how they define God most of the time), that is not so, and maybe this will help what I'm trying to explain:

>“Panentheism” is a constructed word composed of the English equivalents of the Greek terms “pan”, meaning all, “en”, meaning in, and “theism”, meaning God. Panentheism considers God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being in the world.

>In Christianity, creation is not considered a literal "part of" God, and divinity is essentially distinct from creation (i.e., transcendent). There is, in other words, an irradicable difference between the uncreated (i. e., God) and the created (i. e., everything else). This does not mean, however, that the creation is wholly separated from God, because the creation exists in and from the divine energies. In Eastern Orthodoxy, these energies or operations are the natural activity of God and are in some sense identifiable with God, but at the same time the creation is wholly distinct from the divine essence. God creates the universe by His will and from His energies. It is, however, not an imprint or emanation of God's own essence (ousia), the essence He shares pre-eternally with His Word and Holy Spirit. Neither is it a directly literal outworking or effulgence of the divine, nor any other process which implies that creation is essentially God or a necessary part of God. God is not merely Creator of the universe, as His dynamic presence is necessary to sustain the existence of every created thing, small and great, visible and invisible. That is, God's energies maintain the existence of the created order and all created beings, even if those agencies have explicitly rejected him. His love for creation is such that He will not withdraw His presence, which would be the ultimate form of annihilation, not merely imposing death, but ending existence altogether. By this token, the entirety of creation is fundamentally "good" in its very being, and is not innately evil either in whole or in part. This does not deny the existence of spiritual or moral evil in a fallen universe, only the claim that it is an intrinsic property of creation. Sin results from the essential freedom of creatures to operate outside the divine order, not as a necessary consequence of having inherited human nature.

This is how I'm using it, and it's not uncommon, neither my own beliefs taking a word and using it.

>>616006

Does the eastern tradition teach god created nothingness?

>>616007

Oh right it says creation was created ex nihilism iirc sorry I’m a new christian

>>616008

Ex nihilo*

My hand hurts from typing

>>616005

free-will is the root of sin. God created free-will

People can't create sins ex nihilo or via magic. They can only do what God allows them to do and what God has given them the power and understanding to do.

>We are talking about what the choice to sin is. The knowledge of good and evil does not produce evil, nor good. Logical fallacy.

Choice requires intention and some understanding of what is being chosen and its ramifications. A person devoid of all understanding like a full-retard or a baby doesn't sin.

So free-will has to be supported by other conditions to even function.

>>616017

Sin isn't a creation. Sin isn't even a thing. That is dualism heresy. Sin means to miss the mark. Sin is the act of embracing nothing over something for there is only one mark that is divine perfection and nothing exists outside of perfection.

>>616069

>Sin isn't a creation. Sin isn't even a thing.

>Sin means to miss the mark

For an arrow to miss the mark it must actually miss the mark and hit something else. Sin does exist, even if it's a deprivation of the good. Just like darkness and silence are existent things even if they depend on deprivations of other things.

>>615943

Is that the boss fight from Kirby?

>>615975

>>615992

You argue from bad faith.

>>616069

This poster is right

>>616017

Wrong. God created the tree of >knowledge< Of good and evil and Adam ate from it. Nothing more is said in the Bible. He didn’t create the choice just as he didn’t create “existing” those are logical constructs used by the mind. Mind is limited, God is not.

>>616190

Bad faith would be believing that a statue of Moloch is God (but not *fully* God teehee).

My faith is fine thanks, and I love truth and honesty, which is why I don't worship Moloch, you liar, false accuser, and idolater.

>>616006

The term "panentheism" was developed in Hegelian philosophy in response to Spinoza's metaphysics. The concept has been applied to all sorts of ancient Greek philosophies, Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age stuff. The word didn't originate in Christian discourse, nor is it only used in Christian discourse. I'm actually surprised to learn that it is used at all in Christian discourse considering its origin. Thanks for clarifying your definition. If you want to use it that way that's fine.

>muh ex nihilo vs emanation debate

St Thomas already explained that it makes no difference whether you say God created everything ex nihilo or via emanation out of himself, they two are functionally equivalent, I don't have the quote handy though or his argument. But I get the intuition behind it.

"Nothing" isn't actually something, it's not a real source, the actual source is always God himself, since before creation the only thing that existed was God.