Just to restate my view: I liked RH and defended here the difficulties of Trinitarian formulations. My view is that there’s nothing wrong with Julie questioning it, and with open discussion of our perceptions of Scripture. Still, I completely understand that all such variations present a great barrier to most conservative Christians whom we deeply desire would recognize a greater hope. And I think the Board’s clarification on the book recommendation page was a fitting move.
Then you need to become a pan-en-theist. If you separate God from creation (at all) then He is guilty as accused above. websyte.com/alan/pan.htm
In the pantheistic view - God suffers in and with and as all creation. In the special one off God/man view God is now sitting in bliss while His" servants" (and everyone else for that matter) suffers.
maybe you are right, i should leave. questioning should be championed. towing the line for tradition’s sake is wrong. easing people into something i can understand, but being critical of questioning attitudes and searching for truth is a worrying trend.
You might explain that nothing can be done against ultimate truth, so why should anyone worry about someone making a case for an opposing view? We’re not in the dark ages - no one’s going to get arrested for questioning doctrine. In fact - understanding thrives in a free conversation where everything is on the table.
Hey - if I can stay, any heretic can stay. As long as they abide by the forum rules. 
First, good to see you back. I still cherish our Tweb days 
It’s not that someone might get arrested. They fear for their soul. Isn’t that obvious?
Also regarding your response to Alan, Suppose Nazi’s believed that All would be saved. Would you say that in order to be a Universalist you must also be a Nazi. Simply because Alan sees a God who’s a narcissist as not being worthy of his love does not logically conclude he must be a pantheist. He may have a common agreement on God suffering with his creation, but it hardly follows he must be a pantheist.
Aug
Hey Firstborn888…for the record, and to further incriminate myself (I always was an all or nothing kinda gal), I am a pan-en-theist. Thanks for bringing that up!
Pan-en-theism=ALL in God
This is the Hebrew understanding—that everything is in God, as the Psalmist said, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day.” Decidedly nowhere, because God is in everything. It’s such a beautiful and liberating truth" (Psalm 139).
Most Christians do not believe this, and you find them “inviting God” into their meetings, prayers, places of worship, etc, and fearing going or being anywhere without God. Without this view, the world is a scary place because, according to modern Christianity, God has removed Himself from most of His creation—and especially from anything “evil.” But with this view, suddenly, the world is secure and known.
FB thanks for that link. I think we can all enjoy dialoguing on that web site and giving our thoughts without putting Julie under the spot light 
Aug
I like to joke, although it is technically true (for the reasons Julie has said), that I am not only a pan-en-theist (“for in Him we live and move and have our being”), but a pan-ek-theist (for all things are “from” Him, and not all things are Him.)
Which (as I joke) helps keep people from pan-ek-ing when I affirm pan-en-theism. 
Transcendence and immanence are both necessary and important doctrines for supernaturalistic theism per se (whether Trinitarian or otherwise), compared to other notions of theism (like naturalistic theism, i.e. pantheism; or like cosmological dualisms, such as bi-theism or God/Anti-God).
Inviting God into our hearts and into our sanctuaries, is a Biblical notion, too, after all. 
(And the Jews demonstrably had a notion of God’s special presence with them beyond God’s normal omnipresence: a presence of YHWH that wasn’t only a messenger acting for YHWH, and which the other nations did not have. But that’s a discussion for another week. 
)
Chapter and verse please Jason?
And please find me one from the New Testament epistles preferably Paul. Thanks.
Really? With all the other things on my plate, I am supposed to provide chapter and verse on this, of all things??–but not from the OT (which is what I was referencing)?
What if one of the NT epistles, even Paul, quotes from the OT on this topic? Will that be sufficient for you, or insufficient because Paul referenced the OT?
2 Cor 6:14-18, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Beliar, or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
"For we are the temple of the living God; just as God has said:
"‘I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people.’ [reffing several OT declarations]
“Therefore, ‘Come out from their midst and be separate,’ says the Lord, ‘and do not touch what is unclean’ [reffing Isaiah 52] ‘and I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,’ says the Lord Almighty.” [reffing numerous OT declarations from God of this sort]
Paul goes on soon afterward to talk about “making room for us in your hearts”–no doubt referring to himself and other apostles and disciples. But if he talks about that in regard to mere men like himself, he cannot mean less than this when citing God coming to dwell in us as the living temple of God. (And the OT scriptures he is quoting are quite specific about this being YHWH ADNY Most High, not some lesser lord or god, coming to dwell in us. And walking among us. )
In between, (2 Cor 7:1), Paul exhorts us, since we have such a promise of God coming to dwell in us, “let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God”.
Even sweeping up our heart and putting it in good order–even if God Himself does this for us!–does not in itself automatically mean God will dwell in our heart. Something more is needed. Otherwise our heart will remain unoccupied, until something not-God takes advantage of the lack of occupation and raids the place to force its residence there! (This is exactly the moral of the double healing of the demented man from GosMatt. Jesus heals him once at Matt 9:32-34, with a foreshadow at verse 34 of what will come of this; then heals him again from a worse affliction at Matt 12:22-24; for which Jesus is accused by the Pharisees of casting out demons by means of an alliance with Beelzebul; and after rebuking them several ways for this, Jesus goes on to explain why the demented man, although already healed, was afflicted again, Matt 12:43-45.)
Jesus says in RevJohn 3:20 that He stands at the door and knocks (which at least means by metaphor the door of our heart, if not also the sancturary!), waiting for the person to open the door, at which Jesus will come in and dine with him. You may not accept that Jesus is one YHWH with the Father, but if Jesus says He and the Father will come to those who keep Jesus’ word and make Their dwelling with such a person (as at GosJohn 14:23), and if Jesus stands at the door and knocks to be invited in (as at Rev 3:20), then the Father also comes into our hearts at our invitation.
I really don’t see why a unitarian would have a problem with God being invited into our hearts, or even with this being a Biblical notion. On the contrary, some of the places (as I cited) indicate quite strong distinctions of the Persons that a unitarian of all people would be quite at home with! (Rev 3:21 for example continues the saying in that, to those who overcome, Jesus will grant permission to sit with Him on His throne as, having overcome, He Himself sits on the throne of His Father. This is frequently cited as a strong prooftext against trinitarianism in various ways.)
Surely you don’t think we are supposed to have Jesus in our hearts but not God?!
Good post Jason. I was thinking along similar lines myself. Although I do find the ‘invitation to our meetings’ as Julie pointed out, rather tiresome. I think it better if we remind ourselves of His presence and allow ourselves to become more conscious of His presence.
How about the daystar arising in our hearts. The mind of Christ. Being transformed into His image. Now we have the down payment then we will see in full. We will have the fullness as Jesus had the fullness.
I specifically didn’t say you should leave and I never said that people can’t question things. Sheesh! I wish people would really read others posts before they respond. If you read all my responses I said that Julie wasn’t wrong for doing what she did. I said that it was unfortunate for me, that’s all. The timing was bad, not wrong, and bad only for me, not for her. Why can’t that be understood. No one is trying to put a cork in anyone’s mouth or thoughts.
Good to be back! But I said pan-EN-theist - not pantheist. The reason I said that is because if not pan-EN-theism then Alan’s scenario (A God sitting in bliss while his non-God servant suffers) would be happening right now. Tis simple logic.
And yes - I get the “fear of a lost eternal soul for not believing the right thing” concept. It’s the basic fear on which all other sacred cows are built.
The idea of a man-deity is in most ancient cultures yet most religious beliefs tend to separate man from God, and so any man-deity is explained away as a one off (and without peer) who is now absent.
Regardless of what one believes about the ancient past it should be obvious that God is presently working exclusively through the human consciousness. Outside of that we can only presently see the deistic view (God created and then left) but in the human consciousness we see Agape, which is God, at work.
So again - I believe the one off God-man theory is religion at work darkening (as it ever does) spiritual reality. In short, the son of God and son of man are one and the same. In the ages to come this son will continue to awaken from the dust of the earth (the man part) and once again know the splendor of spiritual life in the Father’s presence (the God part).
FB,
I disagree. It still doesn’t follow for me. You present it’s either or. Something I wonder about Julie. I even questioned her regarding if she’s open to trinity being both true or not? We tend to do this “either or” thing.
For example,
Do you believe people need to be saved ever? How could they if they were never seperated from God or never fallen? Is man still in the image of God if he indeed needs to be transformed back to the image of God?
So Pratt sounds correct to me.
I haven’t been here for awhile. Perhaps if I answer the following post, it will suffice.
Correct. I do so affirm.
In what way do I seem to rescind it?
Yes, I do reject binitarianism.
That is correct.
Again, correct. I do not believe there are two Gods. I am aware of no inconsistency in holding all of these positions.
- The Son of God is divine in virtue of the fact that He is the only begotten Son, and thus is of the same “stuff” as the Father. No other individual is divine as the Father is divine.
- He is separate in that He is a different Individual from the Father.
- He is equal to the Father in the sense of being of the same essence. Justin Martyr likened this to starting a small fire from a large one. The small fire is of the same essence as the large, and yet it is separate. No other individual is of the same essence as the Father. The son is not equal in terms of authority. He said, “The Father is greater than I.”
The Father is the supreme God, Creator of all things — Yet He created all things THROUGH the Son. The Son said that He did nothing from Himself. The Father who dwelt within Him did the works. While the Son was living on earth as a complete human being He divested Himself of all His divine attributes. He retained only His identity.
… have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:5-7
In virtue of the fact that He is the ONLY begotten Son of the Father, and is therefore of the same essence. He is the exact imprint of the Father’s essence (Hebrews 1:3). No one else is a child of God in this sense. Thus no one else is divine. God begat only a single offspring.
Your earthly father begat you. Are you not a separate individual from him?
Please review my point 3 above.
I trust I have done so to your satisfaction.
God:
The Mind/Heart: Father
The Action: Son
The Power: Spirit
The Power is not separate from the Mind/Heart or the Action, but it is not the Mind/Heart or the Action etc.
Jason, I’m just about clueless as to how to respond to your post. I guess firstly I’d ask you to step down from the high horse you seem to be on. I’m sorry if this offends you, but the tone of your post, to a large extent, is one of having to condescend to some pleb.
Point in case. How on earth would I personally have a clue what is now on your plate? I simply assume that if you make a post on these forums, then someone else can ask you about something you’ve written. Isn’t that how they work?
Unfortunately, I think you’ve misunderstood what I was asking. Let me attempt to be clear. But please, if you don’t have time, don’t worry about it.
Christians regularly have these strange phrases they use. One of them, which is said to children lots, is “Give your heart to Jesus”. Another one is “Invite Jesus into your heart”. My question was simply this: Where are we ever told to do that in the New Testament? Where are the Israelites ever told they need to invite God into their hearts in the OT? Where is there a demonstration or a command given as to “This is how you should present the invitiation.”? That is all I was asking.
Again, whether you see it or not, you have come across so impatiently and arrogantly here.
Quoting things like this:
and this
seem to me to have nothing whatsoever to do with what I was asking, which was the notion of us needing to invite Jesus/God into our hearts. They have to do with what God will do for us.
To be absolutely clear, I’m not (and never was) questioning the notion of God dwelling in a human heart. I was questioning the notion of us needing to invite Jesus into our hearts.
I don’t either. More strangely, I don’t get why you said this. I’m not a unitarian.
Please refer to everything above.
I ummed and aahed about making this post. I’ll probably regret it. But your attitude strikes me as something similar to what corpselight has recently experienced. I’m even more fearful because you are extremely well respected on these forums (and rightly so) for your knowledge etc. I’m now worried that someone will tell me I’m being disrespectful…
I confess I just don’t get it. I thought this was a place where questions could be raised and answers offered (without being made to feel like I have).
I felt exactly the same reading Jason’s tone as condescending and unnecessary. Thank you for being brave enough to call it out, especially since he has a higher responsibility as administrator, in my opinion, to conduct himself with love and humility, if he is representing Christ to others.