Of course man is made of “God stuff.” What else could there be of which to make man? We come forth from the Father and to the Father we will again draw near. For a time it is necessary for us to be somewhat separate, at least in our perception, so that we can develop into persons who are not mere extensions of God. In a sense, we must be extensions of Him, but only as children are extensions of their parents–not as fingers are extensions of a hand–that would negate our personhood, and I am convinced that God wants us to be persons. That’s the whole reason for the epistimological distance, imo. We couldn’t have developed into genuine persons without it–we would have been fingers rather than sons; puppets rather than people.
Bottom line though, the whole human race is one, even though we are many persons. In a lesser sense, all of creation is one, though we were made the lords of this world (Does that include more than earth? I have no clue.) If we and the earth are one, does that mean the earth will one day be human? I don’t think so–It may become sentient one day–even the very planet–and attain personhood–but that is so very, very far out in what we see as time that it doesn’t even signify for us today–even if it’s more than fantasy. Even if that were true, though, I think that it would always be the earth, and we will always be humans, and God (though the entire creation is made of His substance) will always be God in a sense that we will never be God. We are humans and, imo, humans we will remain, though we will be always becoming more and more what humans were always meant to be; a reflection of the glory and love of God. Not withstanding all that, the entire creation, cannot cease to be one with God, nor can it cease to be itself. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive. We are not God, but we are God’s children who will, as we grow, become more and more like Him. It doesn’t follow that we will BE Him.
) of our Creator. I would suppose that this would make us somewhat divine should we be following the ways of Him who made us. The Bible sees man’s relationship to God as that of a Husband and wife, Father and son, and King and prince. As mentioned before, the Trinity paints a different picture. Keep in mind that this doctrine did not come about until hundreds of years after Christ. It seems to promote the idea of a “God family”, one that does not include man. It makes one wonder if there was not perhaps some Greek/Roman influence on the doctrine, as they believed in such “God families”. Also, many in those days did not have a Bible in hand, and many could not yet read. I’m sure there were those who did not want to give up their “in group” status. This may have had some influence as well. For extending from the Trinitarian belief is the teaching that God gave all power and authority to His Son, Jesus. What happened to God giving man dominion over the earth? This takes us back to the belief that God has all power and authority, and those “appointed by God” tell man what God says. Only this time it becomes Jesus who has all power and authority, and those “appointed by God” tell man what Jesus says. I suspect that man may have been up to his same old tricks. And so Jesus says in Matthew 24:4, “Take heed that no one deceives you.”
Some of the delay was related to the delay in collecting a canonical set of texts, since the point was to work out the implications of the faithful deposit.
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Please don’t say we need THREE posts!! 