/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

God knows what He's doing, anon. Don't worry.

>>669840

Even without prophets:

1. God has written the law into our hearts and we are judged accordingly Romans 2:12-15

2. God has given clear signs of his power and nature via his creation, Romans 1:20

3. God is always just and merciful so there is no need to worry about unfair convictions.

>Universalism/Perennialism kinda solves the issue, but it creates a new issue of God sending contradictory revelations

If God sent such diverse messages all he would have to do is make them inclusive, not extremely exclusive. Buddhist and Hindu and Greco-Roman religions quite open and inclusive…but Christianity/Islam/Judaism are very exclusivist, so Perennialism has a hard time making its case.

>>669855

because of the fall of man, our conscience and desire for God are operative but they are covered in a layer of ice, our hearts are hardened, we forget God.

Prophets come to remind us of God and what we should be like.

>>669855

>why do savages live in the wilds

>>669855

why do jews reject God's law when they were the first one to be given it?

>Why use barron women to birth patriarchs?

>Why use shepherd boys to become kings?

>Why use poor men to become prophets?

>Why use illiterate fishermen to become apostles?

>Why use a temple maid to become the mother of God?

>Why condescend to the flesh of a poor carpenter?

One word: Humility.

When great things come from humble and destitute beginnings, it demonstrates the power and authority of God. If God used the great and powerful to accomplish His will, people would attribute the glory to those great and powerful men/nations and not to God Himself, to whom all glory and honor is due. That's why God didn't choose Egypt or Assyria or Sumeria or Babylon or Greece or Rome. Instead, He chose a small and almost negligible tribe without a home to call their own (and arguably the most wicked and selfish people on the planet). From them, His religion has touched every culture and race on Earth. Have you seen Israel? It may seem grand when described in the Bible, but it was actually pretty pathetic. Who could make a great nation of them but God?

If God had revealed His presence to every nation on Earth through prophets to all peoples, either two things would have happened: either "science" would make some excuse to explain it away like some kind of literary theme or motif (like the Great Flood), or the proof of God would be so overwhelming that people could not freely choose to love Him through faith and seek the truth through love of truth for its own sake.

>>669922

Underrated

>>669840

Mark 16:15-16:

> 15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

> 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Because God uses blockchain

>Why didn’t God send his prophets to multiple regions around the world instead of just focusing on one specific region in the Middle East? I feel like this would have had multiple advantages

There are some who say he did, but that they were misinterpreted.

Some examples are the Dacian prophet Zalmoxis who was supposed to have been a student of Pythagoras who preached about resurrection and life after death, but was later deified and had his doctrine changed into one of eternal return/reincarnation, and also the anonymous prophets of India and the celtic lands who had revelations of trinitarian deities.

Aristotle, Heraclitus and Plato were considered to be prophets, with the latter famously called "Greek Moses" because of how similar his philosophy was with what is in the Pentateuch.

Virgil was considered in Christendom as being a prophet as he wrote (obscurely) in one of his ecloques (number 4) about how a maiden would give birth to a king and a new era would begin

Lao Tsi and Taoism have some similarities with the Gospel too.

>Universalism/Perennialism kinda solves the issue

It doesn't, not because the revelations are "contradictory" (which is man's error of understanding, not God's), but because these deny both a personal God, and that such divine knowledge/sophia can ever really be understood by or revealed to man.

>>669975

>the anonymous prophets of India and the celtic lands who had revelations of trinitarian deities.

You're not referring to the three priamry God's of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is it? Surely they're not comparable to the Holy Trinity at all in relation to Tinitarian theology? (I don't know much about them but from what I do know I wouldn't think it would be the case)

>Aristotle, Heraclitus and Plato were considered to be prophets

According to whombst, may I ask?

>>669983

>You're not referring to the three priamry God's of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is it?

Yes.

>Surely they're not comparable to the Holy Trinity at all in relation to Tinitarian theology? (I don't know much about them but from what I do know I wouldn't think it would be the case)

It's not directly analogous since they are considered to be both three gods (trimorti means three forms), and also single god at the same time )called Dattatreya) rather than one God in three Divine Persons.

I'm not getting bent out of shape trying to justify this, though. My point is that even in cultures like this where they still openly worship animals, there is some curious echo of the Divine still resonant, but dimly heard by the pagans.

>According to whombst, may I ask?

According the Christian tradition up until the Reformation. This is not to say that they were inspired in the same way as Isaiah, Ezekiel or Jeremiah, but the it was long since considered too neat a connection to ignore that these men said things that came incredibly close to notions of God and the ethical life. Heraclitus even called the governing reason of the universe the "Logos".

>>669994

>Heraclitus even called the governing reason of the universe the "Logos"

Cool, I remember the name from Bruce Gore's History of Philosophy and Early Christian Thought lectures on yt, look forward to leaning more about these guys

Isn't the proportions of the shadow a bit off?

I mean, the curvature of the Earth would distort it a little.

>>676742

>what is creating the universe

>>676742

Also how Freudian do you have to be to think that the size of a place determines it's value?

>>676742

Except parts of Genesis.

>>669855

A poster here posted a study the other day about tribes in Africa without exposure to the rest of the world. They couldn't even fathom what homosexuality and masturbation were. They had no words for it and, when the process was described, they laughed in disbelief that anyone would actually do it. Adultery was known and disapproved of though.

>>676742

What about Ethiopia?

>>676743

>>676754

>>676757

>implying the author of that image has even read single one of those books he mentions

>also using "Torah", instead of Tanakh lmao

>>669840

Thomas (unbelieving Thomas) suddenly fell off the grid after Jesus' ascension into heaven. Interesting, isn't it?

That's because he went to India and started a church on the coast that still exists today.

Hermes , Zoroastro , Aristoteles and Virgilio

>>669840

>God sent his prophets to multiple regions around the world

According the Koran that's what Allah did.

Because before the incarnation, the Christian prophecy was still being fullfilled and differences in language would have made it impossible.

Language does not mean what the dictionary dictates but rather the whole world of context.

Maybe because

> 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.