civic
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we see that happen here frequently with those trying to support their presuppositions. or they will deny the scholarly sources from their own group which contradicts their beliefs.
The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity
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civic
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no one can trust a secularist when it comes to the bible- thanks for letting us know. I suppose you are also one who believes in evolution and science over scripture.
They are lying and they know it-2Cor 4:4 is proof of how its translated when 2 in the same paragraph are called God or god-One word ends in a g like character the other in a v like character at both John 1:1 and 2 Cor 4:4, to show a difference the difference= God and god.
100% fact=the Word was not called the same thing as the true God was called.
No not necessarily With modern tools anyone can provide a translation
The point is known established scholars who have the works to prove their expertease rebut his claims
civic
Active Member
nope thats just a typical response form those who isolate a passage to support their preconceived ideas. presuppositionalism at work.
it was 1822
In Ezekial it says about these last days about 20 x--They will have to know, i am YHVH(Jehovah)
So what?
One can easily apply his claims to the texts of scripture as was shown and see a god is not a consistent translation
But take this example continuing nf John's gospel
the bogus translation based upon the work of your "scholar" should read
John 1:6–18 (NASB 2020) — 6 A man came, one sent from a god, and his name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 9 This was the true Light that, coming into the world, enlightens every person. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of a god, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of a god. 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testified about Him and called out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who is coming after me has proved to be my superior, because He existed before me.’ ” 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen a god at any time; a god the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him.
as opposed to a real translation
John 1:5–18 (ESV) — 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
It is worded exactly as 2 Cor 4:4--one called a Greek word ending in a g like character, one ends in a v like character, yet they have-God and god at 2 Cor 4:4 correct. translating is the same at John 1:1--they are not being called the same thing--God and god is the only difference possible as shown at 2 Cor 4:4--the trinity scholars know 100% its FACT.
Did you just ignore what a consistent use of your rule would yield
John 1:6–18 (NASB 2020) — 6 A man came, one sent from a god, and his name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 9 This was the true Light that, coming into the world, enlightens every person. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of a god, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of a god. 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testified about Him and called out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who is coming after me has proved to be my superior, because He existed before me.’ ” 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen a god at any time; a god the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him.
So how many Gods do you believe in?
Very well-articulated, thank you. I think the relationship Jesus promoted men to have with His Father, makes this same point. It's a personal ONE ON ONE relationship with a personal God. He instructs me regarding how to approach and talk to His God. HE specifically teaches not to follow this world's religions in their collective religious traditions and outward appearance of reverence. But instead, to speak to God alone, in my closet, where no one else can see. A personal relationship with the God and Father of the Lord's Christ who Jesus wants us to know, through HIM.
And you doing the same, and another doing the same makes up the Body of Christ, the Church of God. This was Paul's understanding as well, in my understanding.
Eph. 4: 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who "is above all", and through all, and in you all.
Very good post my friend.
A god is not present at the spots you have shown.
e v e
Active Member
Simplicity is Plato's direct description in the Phaedo dialogue of the greek (pagan) god concept of the oversoul. Do not look to wikipedia; it has errors.
That is exactly what i retired from .. Teaching ancient greek philosophy and other ancients and medieval not just greek philosophy at university.
e v e
Active Member
none of this had to do with the Op. The op is about simplicity as the nature of God no?
e v e
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e v e
Active Member
Divine simplicity (as you surmised in different ways) is an utterly unrelating God with no need of us.
Love by its nature needs and desires another. The Greek Pagan view, which Augustine and Aquinas ascribe to, collapses all into the One.
I have some lecture notes I will find and paste here... if I can find them.
Then explain to us all why at 2 Cor 4:4 one gets god and one gets God when the 2 same words are used at John 1:1
4 different Jesus' being taught in the world
1) the trinity version
2) the Muslim version
3) the Jewish version
4) the real Jesus.
e v e
Active Member
I promised to post some notes..here they are...
Mani (who Augustine had followed) thought that God’s realm was the dark realm, so he had that backwards, and he viewed God’s reality as being very dangerous, to indulge in it a ‘sin’, that to the contrary his ‘god of light’ had a sort of ‘body’, which was the celestial realm itself, and that this body [a pleroma/universe with limbs, attributes etc., the powers and energies of it], could be used to fight off the ‘king of darkness’. So he inverted everything as did the Greeks, because to them, anything opposing their type of satanic reality, and its type of ‘light’, was evil. Everything of of real Christianity, to them, is backwards, evil, dark. That god/body of light of Mani is very similar to Plato’s story of the creation of the world-soul, that by ‘educating souls’ and making them civilized, compare Plato’s cave, one could remove ignorance from them and they would escape evil, which to them was the innocence of Eden. Compare in the Timaeus dialogue of Plato, where the foreign realm finds the soul dark and tells of forcing her to join with reason [the higher soul/over soul].
Brown, in his autobiography of Augustine, explains Augustine’s attachment to these views before ‘having his supposed mystical experience’ and ‘conversion.’ Augustine read his Plato out of Plotinus, who shares this same point of view. And it is evident in Augustine’s Of Free Choice of the Will and even in his De Trinitate text, that he is a Platonist, using Platonic terms, and framing God’s nature to fit the Platonic terms. In his confessions he wrote that the bishop of Milan converted him precisely because of his own framing of Christianity into the Greek model. Because now, says Augustine, he can see the science behind Christianity, how it fits the rules of Greek philosophy, and so is is able to be converted on that basis (because though he doesn't say that explicitly, he can conform it to his own Manichaeism).
Mani believed himself an enlightened god, reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha etc., rejected that there was ever a fall from Eden, saying instead that the soul evolves [by attaining wisdom] to be linked to the ‘god of light’ [world-soul] and by that means escape “evil.” This he called ‘enlightenment’, the light that will take a soul away from its ignorance (=innocence). Manichaeism believed in an enlightened-Jesus-man, who ‘became a god’, a pagan counterfeit of Christ. And he even claimed that Christianity copied him and that he was the real Jesus-man. All backwards. He wanted to say Christianity depends on the pagan view, as its foundation. And this is what Augustine says allows his conversion, that now Christianity can be founded on Greek thought, which was the classical education of the day, in which everyone was trained. It was the Science of the day. Augustine shifts to Plato’s philosophy when he is exposed by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan to the “books of the Platonists” [particularly the Platonist Plotinus], from his sermons and lectures. [Confessions VII.9.13]. Augustine takes those Platonist explanations [of Plotinus which do conform to the same Manichaean ideas] and overlays them onto Christian themes. Peter Brown in his biography of Augustine, says that for Augustine Plato’s ‘Good’ is the One. A younger Augustine wrote the book you are reading [Free Choice] and confuses Plato’s One with God, the created world with Eden God created, and the soul (npsh) he confuses with the Greek concept of a soul (psuche), which is not at all a soul! Why? Because he uses Greek philosophy as his standard for his concepts. What Plato was as foundation for all of Europe [the west], Augustine [as church father] became for all of Christianity [in the west]. Augustine’s influence was great, so his view of these ideas affect Christianity, even today, even though at the end of the Free Choice text, there is a chapter called ‘reconsiderations’ [retractions], starting on p. 124 but these reconsiderations were published late in his life, and only take back some of what he was teaching; he is the same who established many doctrines and beliefs and even what texts were accepted. This text shows an early type of modern snowflake society. The scale of everything is now based upon the ego-self and its desires and needs and wants - all the concepts and events are set upon this earth and its superficial realities. All his examples in those first pages of Free Choice are like that, having been moved into the arena of psychology.
But what are some of his teachings in Free Choice, that directly correspond to Plato? Well for one, near the end of part one, he directly describes Platonic forms as part of God. And right at the start of the text, he defines evil as a kind of lack – ignorance and evil are based on the lack of something, the same “ignorance” Plato sees as a flaw in the soul, which ‘knowledge’ is supposed to correct… therefore, correct a lack of learning or knowledge, and a lack of connection to wisdom [the forms, the 'daemon of wisdom' in Plato]. Here he is not blaming the soul for our situation, in relation to satan who tricked Adam and Eve. All the blame is placed on us for being ignorant…which is why Augustine turns to “learning” on page 2 of the Free Choice text. The problem of course with ignorance, for Plato in the Phaedo text, was that it meant the soul was listening to what God says (posed as the god in a dream), for the problem for Plato of the archetype and symbolic ‘sickness’ of the ‘old school’ consciousness is that it lacks the ego (=flesh mind - daemon of wisdom). And Plato thinks philosophy, learning, is the cure for that ignorance. Every Catholic university theology dept. teaches this text, still. And essentially, they are Augustinian, regardless of if you stick to the concept of free choice or helplessness... both are Augustinian ideas based on the pagan dualism. We see that in the argument from opposites in the Phaedo text.
Pharmakós [philosophy] [medicine/a drug] requires a different consciousness, one that questions everything, which is Descartes’ same view, being an Augustinian. That questioning rearranges, not just the old consciousness we see in Euthyphro dialogue, who just obeys the rules without question because listening only to his ‘gods’ or in Phaedo, where the straight line implies listening to God and therefore not thinking and questioning. To have faith would mean to go in a straight line. We saw in Plato that he considers philosophy and the ‘mind’ or thinking thing as a “cure” for the straight line, [which he sees as ignorant].
For him, the ego (the self) will be the type of consciousness that can move all the concepts around, and avoid the straight line, so that the images [archetypes] can be have a different meaning that suits the ego. Plato sees philosophy as Pharmakós [cure, sorcery] because being a spell [rearranging words and images] it is considered able to change reality. And is that not what Satan does? Asks Eve a rearranged question to try to confuse for her what God said?
Consider that Greek philosophy, as Plato hints, has to mutilate something, by cutting up words [thus use sorcery words] in order to rearrange reality a different way, to change consciousness by words, and that the language philosophy uses, its dialectic way of understanding of things, because it rearranges archetypes, acts as a drug and veils God’s reality, just as a sky darkened by a large object can veil light from the people in the street. That is the meaning of Pharmakós = a drug, such that Plato’s question would be is the drug to cure or to poison, but either way the goal is the same: to mesmerize and spell because by this, a soul can be harmed and stolen from, and, dragged out of the ‘cave’ of ignorance. So, they lose their innocence. The point is that philosophy is not a neutral activity, and the cave analogy shows that, and Plato admits it involves violence in the cave analogy. Augustine contributes to this great emptying of the soul of her original concepts given by God, encouraging the soul give up her faith and to learn to doubt everything by his rerranging of meanings... so the soul will rely for her truth on science, the dialectical type mind - such that she will forget her own reality, which then can all be considered myth.
But remember, the soul in Plato’s Phaedo is an oversoul, what he conceives of as ‘god’ and which he classifies as ‘reason itself’, the same as Plotinus does, and this ‘god’ is not affected by anything but is impervious to love, feeling, or anything the Greek theology views as weak. Because, to the Greek mind, the soul (which term here is psuche!) cannot be affected or it would not be that ‘god’ concept. (Note how closely the 'god concept' of Plato as psuche matches the own Self as one's 'god'.) Plato's 'god' cannot have elements that war, thus can have no parts, since this implies a weakness to the Other, a relationship to the Other…a point made in Euthyphro dialogue, and this is why Plato notes that all those warring egos must be made subservient to reason/wisdom from there on out, as the One. This god, once inaugurated, will be modern science going forward. Aristotle takes this concept of the One and calls that “Mover unmoved” (=causality, nature) since it is unaffected and cannot love. Nothing like God....
Mani (who Augustine had followed) thought that God’s realm was the dark realm, so he had that backwards, and he viewed God’s reality as being very dangerous, to indulge in it a ‘sin’, that to the contrary his ‘god of light’ had a sort of ‘body’, which was the celestial realm itself, and that this body [a pleroma/universe with limbs, attributes etc., the powers and energies of it], could be used to fight off the ‘king of darkness’. So he inverted everything as did the Greeks, because to them, anything opposing their type of satanic reality, and its type of ‘light’, was evil. Everything of of real Christianity, to them, is backwards, evil, dark. That god/body of light of Mani is very similar to Plato’s story of the creation of the world-soul, that by ‘educating souls’ and making them civilized, compare Plato’s cave, one could remove ignorance from them and they would escape evil, which to them was the innocence of Eden. Compare in the Timaeus dialogue of Plato, where the foreign realm finds the soul dark and tells of forcing her to join with reason [the higher soul/over soul].
Brown, in his autobiography of Augustine, explains Augustine’s attachment to these views before ‘having his supposed mystical experience’ and ‘conversion.’ Augustine read his Plato out of Plotinus, who shares this same point of view. And it is evident in Augustine’s Of Free Choice of the Will and even in his De Trinitate text, that he is a Platonist, using Platonic terms, and framing God’s nature to fit the Platonic terms. In his confessions he wrote that the bishop of Milan converted him precisely because of his own framing of Christianity into the Greek model. Because now, says Augustine, he can see the science behind Christianity, how it fits the rules of Greek philosophy, and so is is able to be converted on that basis (because though he doesn't say that explicitly, he can conform it to his own Manichaeism).
Mani believed himself an enlightened god, reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha etc., rejected that there was ever a fall from Eden, saying instead that the soul evolves [by attaining wisdom] to be linked to the ‘god of light’ [world-soul] and by that means escape “evil.” This he called ‘enlightenment’, the light that will take a soul away from its ignorance (=innocence). Manichaeism believed in an enlightened-Jesus-man, who ‘became a god’, a pagan counterfeit of Christ. And he even claimed that Christianity copied him and that he was the real Jesus-man. All backwards. He wanted to say Christianity depends on the pagan view, as its foundation. And this is what Augustine says allows his conversion, that now Christianity can be founded on Greek thought, which was the classical education of the day, in which everyone was trained. It was the Science of the day. Augustine shifts to Plato’s philosophy when he is exposed by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan to the “books of the Platonists” [particularly the Platonist Plotinus], from his sermons and lectures. [Confessions VII.9.13]. Augustine takes those Platonist explanations [of Plotinus which do conform to the same Manichaean ideas] and overlays them onto Christian themes. Peter Brown in his biography of Augustine, says that for Augustine Plato’s ‘Good’ is the One. A younger Augustine wrote the book you are reading [Free Choice] and confuses Plato’s One with God, the created world with Eden God created, and the soul (npsh) he confuses with the Greek concept of a soul (psuche), which is not at all a soul! Why? Because he uses Greek philosophy as his standard for his concepts. What Plato was as foundation for all of Europe [the west], Augustine [as church father] became for all of Christianity [in the west]. Augustine’s influence was great, so his view of these ideas affect Christianity, even today, even though at the end of the Free Choice text, there is a chapter called ‘reconsiderations’ [retractions], starting on p. 124 but these reconsiderations were published late in his life, and only take back some of what he was teaching; he is the same who established many doctrines and beliefs and even what texts were accepted. This text shows an early type of modern snowflake society. The scale of everything is now based upon the ego-self and its desires and needs and wants - all the concepts and events are set upon this earth and its superficial realities. All his examples in those first pages of Free Choice are like that, having been moved into the arena of psychology.
But what are some of his teachings in Free Choice, that directly correspond to Plato? Well for one, near the end of part one, he directly describes Platonic forms as part of God. And right at the start of the text, he defines evil as a kind of lack – ignorance and evil are based on the lack of something, the same “ignorance” Plato sees as a flaw in the soul, which ‘knowledge’ is supposed to correct… therefore, correct a lack of learning or knowledge, and a lack of connection to wisdom [the forms, the 'daemon of wisdom' in Plato]. Here he is not blaming the soul for our situation, in relation to satan who tricked Adam and Eve. All the blame is placed on us for being ignorant…which is why Augustine turns to “learning” on page 2 of the Free Choice text. The problem of course with ignorance, for Plato in the Phaedo text, was that it meant the soul was listening to what God says (posed as the god in a dream), for the problem for Plato of the archetype and symbolic ‘sickness’ of the ‘old school’ consciousness is that it lacks the ego (=flesh mind - daemon of wisdom). And Plato thinks philosophy, learning, is the cure for that ignorance. Every Catholic university theology dept. teaches this text, still. And essentially, they are Augustinian, regardless of if you stick to the concept of free choice or helplessness... both are Augustinian ideas based on the pagan dualism. We see that in the argument from opposites in the Phaedo text.
Pharmakós [philosophy] [medicine/a drug] requires a different consciousness, one that questions everything, which is Descartes’ same view, being an Augustinian. That questioning rearranges, not just the old consciousness we see in Euthyphro dialogue, who just obeys the rules without question because listening only to his ‘gods’ or in Phaedo, where the straight line implies listening to God and therefore not thinking and questioning. To have faith would mean to go in a straight line. We saw in Plato that he considers philosophy and the ‘mind’ or thinking thing as a “cure” for the straight line, [which he sees as ignorant].
For him, the ego (the self) will be the type of consciousness that can move all the concepts around, and avoid the straight line, so that the images [archetypes] can be have a different meaning that suits the ego. Plato sees philosophy as Pharmakós [cure, sorcery] because being a spell [rearranging words and images] it is considered able to change reality. And is that not what Satan does? Asks Eve a rearranged question to try to confuse for her what God said?
Consider that Greek philosophy, as Plato hints, has to mutilate something, by cutting up words [thus use sorcery words] in order to rearrange reality a different way, to change consciousness by words, and that the language philosophy uses, its dialectic way of understanding of things, because it rearranges archetypes, acts as a drug and veils God’s reality, just as a sky darkened by a large object can veil light from the people in the street. That is the meaning of Pharmakós = a drug, such that Plato’s question would be is the drug to cure or to poison, but either way the goal is the same: to mesmerize and spell because by this, a soul can be harmed and stolen from, and, dragged out of the ‘cave’ of ignorance. So, they lose their innocence. The point is that philosophy is not a neutral activity, and the cave analogy shows that, and Plato admits it involves violence in the cave analogy. Augustine contributes to this great emptying of the soul of her original concepts given by God, encouraging the soul give up her faith and to learn to doubt everything by his rerranging of meanings... so the soul will rely for her truth on science, the dialectical type mind - such that she will forget her own reality, which then can all be considered myth.
But remember, the soul in Plato’s Phaedo is an oversoul, what he conceives of as ‘god’ and which he classifies as ‘reason itself’, the same as Plotinus does, and this ‘god’ is not affected by anything but is impervious to love, feeling, or anything the Greek theology views as weak. Because, to the Greek mind, the soul (which term here is psuche!) cannot be affected or it would not be that ‘god’ concept. (Note how closely the 'god concept' of Plato as psuche matches the own Self as one's 'god'.) Plato's 'god' cannot have elements that war, thus can have no parts, since this implies a weakness to the Other, a relationship to the Other…a point made in Euthyphro dialogue, and this is why Plato notes that all those warring egos must be made subservient to reason/wisdom from there on out, as the One. This god, once inaugurated, will be modern science going forward. Aristotle takes this concept of the One and calls that “Mover unmoved” (=causality, nature) since it is unaffected and cannot love. Nothing like God....
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