Featured Original Sin

One quote after another. I gave the URL's. I have debated you according to your beliefs. You do not believe in "original sin." You do not believe in the depravity of man. And you do not believe it is passed on from one generation to another, which is a given if you don't believe in the depravity of man in the first place. Such a position is Pelagianism.

 

You have not debated me according to my beliefs. I keep telling you that you have stated my beliefs incorrectly, yet you continue with denying what I tell you. To your disgrace, you continued to give urls that showed even more posts where you falsely accuse me. You have not quoted me where I say what you claim I believe. As for Total Depravity, I do not believe in the Total Depravity of all humans. There is no such scripture in the Bible. Are you going to pretend you do not know there is a difference between Total Depravity and depravity?

 

God knows, and that is the only One who matters.

 

I'm curious since you prefer to believe in Ancestrial sin rather than original sin do you also hold that baptism is the only way to get rid of it?

Both Orthodox and Catholic hold that Ancestrial/original sin is a deprivation of original holiness and justice not total depravity. The only difference between the two is the western position is that humanity also contracted the guilt (guilt in a community guilt stance) whereas the eastern position holds only the concusipence or leaning towards sin is passed on and not the guilt. Since new borns have no personal sin they aren't destined to hell. However, in both cases baptism is necessary to fix this issue.

where do you stand on that?

 

Just curious what was the sign of spit and mud that Jesus used to cure the blind man?
Did Jewish Children who were circumsised not a part of the Abrahamic covenant?
How about the serpent lifted up on a pole? Why did people actually have to look at it to be healed and not die.

Its seems to me God's Motus Apperandi is to use things to convey things. Why would he change in the NT with the New Covenant?

 

HP: This may or may not apply to your question, but God has reasons why He does things at certain times, yet not at others. There was a time He was revealing Himself in certain ways, yet we are called upon not as part of those miraculous things that have happened, in the OT but rather to have faith in God that they did happen. Even in the NT some things that have been done in the eyes of some will not be seen by others. This verse comes to my mind.

Joh 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

God indeed has reasons and purposes for why, when, and how He chooses to act or not to act that are hidden from us for now at least. God Himself is the same, yesterday today and forever, but He has every right to alter the means by which He is revealed to us or the means and act by which He chooses to reveal certan truths etc.

 

I think you misunderstand ritual. Ritual doesn't move God its man's response to God. Ritual makes noticable God's interaction with man. Ie. God presence comes before me. I bow down before him. The bow doesn't call God's presence into being but it is a response to hm being there. And there are certain ways God wants us to respond. One such way is baptism. What was it Jesus said to John the Baptist?

Certainly Jesus didn't need to be baptize however it is to be the response to God but also note what happens right after Jesus Baptism

and note Peter's order of what men must do to be saved in Acts 2

1)

2)

, 3)

4)

and 5)

So ritual is man's response to God's movement and God inturn respons back to man and so on. But God specifies how it is we are to respond to him.

 

Rome explicitly states in their Catholoic Catechism that circumcision is parallel to baptism in regard to the nature of sacramentalism. However, Romans 4:11 explicitly denies that circumcison of an adult like Abraham has any immediate and literal connection with justification being conveyed or grace of justification being conveyed other than as an outward DECLARATIVE sign or seal of something already literally conveyed long before circumcision occurred (Gen. 15 versus Gen. 17).

Hence, neither the act of circumcision or the act of baptism has any direct literal relationship with actual justificaiton or regeneration being conveyed to those being circumcised or baptized.

 

In one sense you are right but in another sense you are wrong about what I said. I'm trying to convey a dialogue between God and man. Let me explain further. I look at it this way ie the sacrament of baptism.


God first moves my heart to believe in him. I respond to him by being baptised as he instituted it. By the nature of my response to God and obedience to his call he commutes my sin at baptism and gives me the holy spirit. Thus the sacrament does what it represents.

But lets say I don't have faith and am being baptized because everyone else is. The baptism is not efficacious for me as I don't have faith. Its not salvific in that sense.

 

However, your problem is that you make baptism inseparable from faith, regeneration/justification/conversion.

Romans 4:11 repudiates sacramentalism as defined by Rome. Justification was already "had" long before Abraham was circumcised rather in direct connection with circumcision. The CCC clearly and explicitly states that circumcision is paralell with baptism in regard to the nature of sacramentalism.

 

Ok. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree with regard to the sacraments however just a note. I think they are more in line with scriptures. And I disagree with biblicist about Roman's 4:11. A sacrament is both a sign and a seal. A seal being an actual thing that seals a contract. Romans 4 actually supports sacramentalism because Paul notes that Abraham had faith but that faith wasn't sealed until circumcision.

Circumcision therefore was the actual imprint of the covenant. Faith led him to have that done. Note what Peter says