Jason wrote:

I think you missed my point here. The important point for Jesus about his suffering and asking God to take that away but still have His will done, is the sense of humility. That is the key point here, even if what Jesus was asking was against his very purpose, Jesus's sense of humility to face his suffering ONLY because God wanted him to is an excellent example.

You can definitely ask God for anything, notice I said that God is under no obligation to answer it. If you "walk the path of righteousness" just so that you can get your own way defeats the purpose of walking the path of righteousness. Again humility is the key here. I think we can both agree that just like your human father who will not give you everything you ask for (even if you are the most obedient child) since in his worldly wisdom he might see that it would harm you in the long run then how much more would God do so.

I am not sure where I lowered God to below human position please clarify.  

What I said about God does not prevent me from being humble. My humbleness comes from the fact that I am precisely asking in my prayers the power to do whatever God wills for my life. Moreover, me confessing that my power comes from God is humbleness. So I don't see where I am arrogant.

Again what you are saying is missing the point. I am precisely praying for having the power to do God wills for my life. So in that sense, it is impossible for me to ask something harmful. So objection is invalid.

You have lowered God below humanly fathers by stating that God will reject my wish to walking a righteous path. Is it not what the God of the new testaments wants (in the case of Jesus this was going on the cross with all of its horrors and suffering)? Or he wants me to be in misery and darkness?  Even lets assume that God wants me to in misery and darkness, when I am resurrected God will be happy with me because I did exactly what he wanted. (Although I would never worship such God in the first place)

Last edited by nojoum (6/18/2017 2:31 pm)

Jason wrote:

Firstly, I think my disagreement is NOT that if you ask God for a path to righteous that He will not provide it to you. I am raising God's position higher and not lower by saying that even then it would be His Will not your will whether He will answer your prayer or not no matter how humble or sincere your prayer is..

By your standard then, I think the worldly dictators are in higher position than God. It's not God's power that draws human beings to him, rather his perfect Love. That is why we exalt him above everything and everyone.
Jesus was not in higher position when he was with God. He rose in position he became as human, sacrificing his godly status and power. When sacrificed all he had to give us life. That is when his position rose. The Jews did not obey him, the pharisees denied him but did that sink Jesus's position? No the more he loved them despite their enmity the higher his position became. 

Jason wrote:

Secondly, walking that path of righteous does not make your life void of misery and suffering. That is most certainly NOT the case in the Christian thought. As a matter of fact living a Christian life is carrying your cross of suffering with you as you might see in the lives of the apostles and the saints. Christians are looking forward to rewards in Heaven which we attain only through Jesus Christ.

I hope this helps

You are misinterpreting my words. I ask God for power in order to be able to overcome the obstacles and difficulties of life. I'm not asking him to give me another mission or task in life, I am asking him to help me submit to his will (which I what I normally assume walking the path of righteousness). So I don't see why God would want to reject such prayer.

Regardless of your answer, I will suggest a solution to this problem. Others' prayers are not important because God is not kind enough to grant our wishes. He can do that and he is kind enough to that. Rather, it is out of his wisdom that he tied our prayer's being answered to other people praying for us and we praying for them. In this way he has made us perfect in the sense that in order to please God we have to have love for others. For how is it possible to pray for others if you don't love them in the first place? It is in this way that we obey the two great commandments (Loving God with all our heart, mind and soul and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves).

This is again partly the reason we are told that we will be forgiven by God as long as we forgive others. 

Why did God decide to answer our prayers with this condition? I think it is because we human beings are weak against our fleshly desires and this condition helps to overcome our selfish ego.

Last edited by nojoum (6/19/2017 1:05 pm)

The reason for mentioning the dictators: The mere fact that you have power does not earn you any respect. Absolute NO respect. I respect and honor God not because he is almighty but because he has a loving nature and he is just. 

The reason that I did not accept your original post is that you failed to mention that God is kind enough to answer your prayers but it would be better for you if he ties everyone's prayers to each other. 

Let's say God has no obligation to answer our prayers. Why should he then care if we are a community or an individual? In any case he can ignore us and there is no moral consequence for him. I actually now a have good reason to avoid church because either case God is not obliged to answer our prayers.

But that's not how I think.
If God wants to claim that he is perfect in terms of loving, then he has to answer our prayers in a perfect manner (it does not mean that he has to provide exactly what we ask but provide what we exactly need) (this is just a logical reasoning). For how can you claim that your loving nature is perfect and yet do not perfectly address the needs of human beings. God has the choice not to answer, but once he makes that choice he loses his title as the perfect being (at least in terms of Love). So since everyone agrees that God is perfect, then from his perfectness we know assuredly that he will answer our prayers.

Note: But I am putting the bar of perfectness too low. Because if God provided us what we need even before we ask him, it would mean that his love is more perfect and indeed to me he does that. He does not wait for me to pray to him.
Note: I also dont know why we are so hang up on whether he has obligation or not. The point is that he will respond according to his character, whether you want to say he is obliged to answer or not,

Last edited by nojoum (6/19/2017 6:31 pm)

I think we need to have a chat on Discord. It would be way easier!

Jason wrote:

I think we are on the same page here but saying that just because God has no obligation to answer my prayer He is like a dictator is stretching it to far.

 
 
Of course, I did not mean that; I used exaggeration to get my point across.

Jason wrote:

He cares because being in a community is a higher good for an individual and God's Love is your highest good.

Sorry my choice of words was not clear. I meant that he would not be still obliged to answer the prayers. But then are you suggesting that God is obliged to bring forth the highest good which would can happen in a community? And If God is indeed obliged to do so, could you please provide the reasons as well?
 
Or if he is not fully obliged but more obliged compared to the individual, again can you give me the reason? Because then probably we can argue that if the more something is good, the more God is obliged to it, then probably there is a certain good that God is fully obliged to it.
 
 Besides, this would also bring another issue, how big the community should be? At least we can see the bigger the better. So, does this mean God does not even answer the entire catholic church since they don’t encompass the entire human beings? They do not even contain all the Christians.

Jason wrote:

I think you are mistaken here, God does not "want" to claim that He is perfect in loving. He does not want or need anything. He does however shows His Love to the world through the sacrificial death of His son Jesus Christ.
God does not need for your or me to give Him the title as a perfect being. He would have been Perfect even if no other being ever existed because of who He is

Sorry again for my poor choice of words. If God is to qualify as the perfect, he is forced to act in a certain way (this is a logical necessity which God cannot avoide); one which is to provide the needs of the human beings in the perfect way. So if that means that he has to answer my every prayer, he has to answer it if he wants to qualify as a perfect being. If that means to answer the prayers of the community, he must answer their prayers and so on. So in the same way, if sacrifice of Jesus was the best possible good, he had to do it.

Last edited by nojoum (6/29/2017 5:10 pm)