The arguement is relevant, as the reason Christadelphians do not believe in a literal Satan is based upon the same reasoning that they and JWs do not believe in a literal Holy Spirit person. By believing in Satan the WTS is not being consistent with their Holy Spirit stance.
Do Satan and Jesus exist?
by Amazing1914 19 Replies latest jw friends
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Amazing1914
Thanks Little Toe,
You are the only one who truly understands me, satire, and parody.
Lovelylil,
Please don't take this little side track personally. I need to vent my other self once in a while.
Thanks,
Jim Whitney
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lovelylil
o.k. Jim,
no problem. I am sorry. Lilly
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JAVA
Do Satan and Jesus exist?
You bet--in the minds of beholders.
Another question that comes to mind is, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" The answer(s) might take us back to the topic question again . . .
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Gregor
Well, I see that Jim chewed through his restraints and got to his computer again. Just kidding, Jim.
I read through the intro. to your topic about 3 times before I realized that you really don't care if it makes sense or not, in fact, it's my guess you wanted it to be confounding. That's OK with me. Personally, I try to make myself as clear as I can, out of caring that my own postings here be understood. I'm trying to communicate in my own imperfect way. Maybe your just too deep for me.
You jumped all over me (which is fine) on another thread and I tried to explain myself to you in reply. You never acknowledged my reply. Now I wonder if your just a drive-by shooter.
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Amazing1914
Gregor,
What posting did I drive by and shoot you? I will be happy to go back and shoot again.
Just kidding. Yes, I want my posts to be clear and I take life seriously. However, to live life without a little levity, a little fun, with a dash of satire, parody, sarcasm, and humor makes it awefully boring.
But, I will be happy to go back and check your response that I left unattended, and provide a good reply. I have to leave loose ends untied. If you provide the link, it will be most useful. Otherwise, I need to search a lot to find it.
BTW, besides being self-employed, working full time, I am also a full time student back in university. Sooooo, sometimes I stop into JWD and fire off a few rounds of postings, and then I have to get back to regular business. In addition to the foregoing, I have been working on a serious research project for BRCI called ... "What is the Nature of the Holy Spirit?" ... which has taken the better part of a year.
When I commenced the project, I fully expected to find no real conclusive data, thus making it impossible to determine whether the early Church Fathers believed in anything like the Trinity or something closer to what the Watchtower teaches. To my amazement, shock and awe, the early Fathers taught the full-fledged Trinity, complete with the triad terminology, by about 150 AD. They taught the component concepts as early as the year 105 AD.
Sooo ... I have been on an emotional roller coaster wondering if I should have remained Roman Catholic, and not converted to the Watchtower organization in 1968. I may have saved myself 25-years of nonsense ... followed by another 14-years of unwraveling the whole mess, and putting my life back in order before I hit the ripe old age where death is but a banana peel away from the grave. I look forward to your kind response.
Jim Whitney
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Gregor
Jim,
Interesting that you are involved with BRCI. You probably know Ron Frye. He is a great guy and smarter than I could ever hope to be. What a writer! He did a newsletter for years that was absolutely brilliant. We got aquainted back in the early 80's when BRCI was formed out of a meeting in Gasden, Alabama I attended. Ray Franz was there too. I'll never forget it.
Respond to my reply on the other thread if you get a chance, I really think you misunderstood my original point.
G
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Gregor
Whoops, the link. almost forgot. hope I did it correctly.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/112501/1969064/post.ashx#1969064
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Amazing1914
Gregor,
I will get to it in a few minutes. I am responding to another thread, then I need to stop and take meds. I should have my response to you in about 20 minutes from now ... its 10:40 PM Central time.
Jim Whitney
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Leolaia
If we consider Luke-Acts as a literary unit, the same work which personalises/personifies the Spirit (pneuma, neuter), having it talking etc., also personalises/personifies Wisdom (sophia, feminine) in a very similar way.
What is especially interesting about the text in Luke 11:49-51, 13:34-35 is that the parallel in Matthew 23:33-38 places these words in the mouth of Jesus whereas Luke attributes them to "Wisdom" (note also the feminine hen imagery that is given to Jesus in the Matthean version). Of course, the personalized description of Wisdom appears in many texts (cf. Proverbs 8, 9:1-6, Sirach 6, 24, Wisdom 7, 1 Enoch 42:1-5), and each of these texts played an important role in the development of christology about Jesus (cf. Proverbs 8:22-23 = Revelation 3:14, Colossians 1:15-16; Sirach 4:10 = Luke 6:35; Sirach 6:24-28, 51:23-26 = Matthew 11:28-30; Wisdom 7:25-26 = Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15; Wisdom 7:26, 30 = John 1:5, 9), at the expense of theological development of the Holy Spirit, despite the fact that in the OT and Qumran the "Spirit" was closely linked with "Wisdom" (e.g. Genesis 41:38-39; Exodus 31:3-4; Deuteronomy 34:9; Isaiah 11:2). Thus, we also find a pneumatic christology in Paul (cf. Romans 8:9-11, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, Galatians 4:6), who additionally refers to Christ as the "wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, cf. 1:30, Colossians 2:2-3), and Hermas of Rome explicitly identified the Son of God with the Holy Spirit (cf. Similitude 6.5, 9.1.1), which on the one hand shows that he thought of the Holy Spirit in non-abstract terms while on the other hand reveals the extent to which the theological status of the Holy Spirit had been sublimated to the Son. What acted against this tendency imho was the liturgical use of triadic formulae which maintained a distinction between the two (cf. Matthew 28:18-19; 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Clement 46:6, Odes of Solomon 19:1-4; Ignatius, Ephesians 9:1; Martyrdom of Polycarp 14:3), but even then speculation about the Holy Spirit lagged behind that of the Son, and in the subordinationist theology of the second-century apologists the Holy Spirit was sometimes thought to be subject to the Son in a third rank (cf. Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 60; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.7.3, 4.20.4, 4.38.3, 5.18.1, 5.36.2, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, 7), and ontologically derived from the Father through the Son (cf. Tertullian, Adversus Praxaeas 4, 8). Tertullian also addressed the erstwhile conflation of the Spirit and the Son in the following way:
But in saying, 'The Spirit of God,' although the Spirit of God is God [esti spiritus dei deus], he still is not directly called God, and therefore he wishes a portion of the whole Godhead to be understood, which was to receive the name Son. Spirit of God here must be the same as the Word. For just as when John says, 'The Word was made flesh,' we understand the Spirit also where the Word is mentioned, so also here we recognize the Word when the Spirit is named. For the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the activity of the Spirit, and the two are a unity [unum]." (Adversus Praxaeas, 26)