119 wrote:

From your wing of the building:

This is why G-d will send them an influence that will mislead them so that they will believe the lie. (2 Thessalonians 2:11)

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (Matthew 24:24)

This is indeed a relevant point. Let's quote the whole passage and analyze it:

The Apostle Paul wrote:

Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; whose coming is according to the working [energeian] of Satan, in every power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send to them a working [energeian] of delusion, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. (2 Thess 2:8-11)

So, the signs and wonders that the Antichrist will perform will all be "according to the working of Satan", i.e. limited to what an angel can do by his own natural power if allowed by God. This natural power can bring about a range of material phenomena, from the physically very dangerous like the fire from heaven which killed Job's sheep and shepards (Job 1:16) to the kind of impressive audiovisual effects at play in the second and third of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness. The book of Revelations gives a specific detail:

The Apostle John wrote:

It [i.e. the second beast] performs great signs, so that it even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. (Rev 13:13)

To note:

- It does not say "the appearance of fire" but "fire", real fire.

- Most importantly, is says "it even", meaning that's the most it can do. So, the range of signs and wonders of falsehood from the Antichrist will not include works that only God can perform, above all resurrecting a dead human being.

 

Last edited by Johannes (8/11/2018 5:28 pm)

And the relevance of that rambling in a thread with subject "Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?" is...?

Back to the thread subject, I will summarize the conclusions on the two postulates of the Sola Torah position that I have reached in this thread.

JP.ST.P1, Torah completeness: The Torah contains, explicitely or implicitely, all truths about God and his design, so that any proposition about God or his design which is not in the Torah and cannot be deduced from it is necessarily false and points to a false god.

- Neither in the Torah nor can be inferred from it.

- Intrinsically null regarding further revelation of truths or commandments by God Himself.

- Positively contradicted regarding further revelation by Isaiah 48:6b-7.

- Positively contradicted in practice regarding commandments by Ezekiel chapters 40-48.

JP.P2: The signs or portents supporting the claims of the false prophet predicted in Deut 13:1-5 can include any miracle that only God can perform.

- Neither in the Torah nor can be inferred from it.

- Most illogical per Deut 4:34-35, which states that the signs and wonders performed by YHWH to free Israel from Egypt are the evidence on the basis of which Israel may know that YHWH is God, the only God.

- Independently from the previous point, most illogical regarding the specific signs and wonders performed by Jesus per Isaiah 26:10-11,19; 29:13-14,18-19; 35:2c-6a; 42:6-8. (Post #81, from the paragraph beginning "... but I add to it by noting".)

- Independently from the above points, most illogical regarding the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus per Isaiah 51:9-10; 52:10; 53:1 and the rest of chapter 53. (Post #73, from the paragraph beginning "In order to discern".)

Therefore both postulates are false.

Thus, since the Nicene doctrine of a consubstantial Trinity and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the Incarnation are compatible with classical theism and the Torah (once the postulate of Torah completeness is abandoned), establishing the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus is all that is needed to establish the truth of Christianity.

PD1: Edited just to add links to two previous posts covering specific points.

PD2: Edited to change "rant" to "rambling".

Last edited by Johannes (9/10/2018 3:29 pm)

119 wrote:

You're quoting Isaiah? What's up with that? Yesterday it was Deutero-Isaiah. Did the majority of NT scholars [sic] decide it was written by some guy named Isaiah? Yay!

Whether the Isaiah of Is 1:1 wrote the whole book or some parts of the book had other human authors is utterly irrelevant for divine inspiration. We've been over this. It's gettin' old.

119 wrote:

If I accepted the NT's authority to interpret the TaNaKH I'd be a christian, just like you would only accept the koran's authority to interpret the NT if you were already a muslim. We've been over this. It's gettin' old. Squaresville daddy-o.

Where did I in my previous post resort to the NT to interpret the TaNaKH? I resorted only to reason and the TaNaKH itself.

What I did in my previous post was to apply texts of Isaiah to evaluate the events in the Gospel narrative, which is precisely the whole point of this discussion: if Jesus' miracles, passion, death and resurrection were in fact as narrated in the Gospels, what conclusion can we draw on those events from the TaNaKH?

119 wrote:

You're quoting secular "scholars" who deny the Sinai Revelation and a circle of Isaiahs to prove your points?

Re the Hebrew Bible scholars, it should be clear that I quoted Dr. Rabbi David Frankel and Professor Hava Shalom-Guy not to make an argument of authority, but because I agreed with the conclusions they reached by historical-critical exegesis. And out of intellectual honesty, of course.

As the different authors of the book of Isaiah were not contemporary to one another, they were not a team or circle. Enough of this.

119 wrote:

Take a step back. Isaiah(s)' prophecies confirm the status of Jesus and we know Isaiah(s) were prophets because Jesus quoted them. That doesn't have much oomph.

No, I do NOT need Isaiah's prophecies to confirm the status of Jesus. Jews need it.

119 wrote:

We need to clarify something:

JP.ST.P1, Torah completeness: The Torah contains, explicitely or implicitely, all truths about God and his design, so that any proposition about God or his design which is not in the Torah and cannot be deduced from it is necessarily false and points to a false god.

This includes the Oral Torah, right? Or it's not even a straw man.

It most definitely does NOT include it. Christians deny that there was a divinely revealed Oral Torah on two mutually independent bases:

- from reason: the reasons set forth by the Karaites, as in this section of their wiki entry;

- from Christian revelation: the words of Jesus in Mk 7:6-13.

BTW, the reason why in the Old Covenant there was no divinely revealed Oral Torah while in the New Covenant there is a divinely revealed Apostolic Tradition and a divinely assisted Church Magisterium is because the Old Covenant was meant to last a short time, just until Jesus came, while the New Covenant is meant to last a long time.

And no, I did not write the last paragraph to convince anyone of anything, but only to show the logical self-consistency of the Catholic position. (The Protestant position, in contrast, is Sola Scriptura for both Covenants, each with their respective Scriptures.)

Last edited by Johannes (8/12/2018 1:40 pm)

119 wrote:

So Karaite Judaism is considered normative by Christianity?

It depends on what you mean by "normative".

On the one hand, all Christians share with Karaites the view that the traditions that later formed the "Oral Torah" were developed and passed on by Pharisees and scribes starting from around 150 bC without the involvement of divine inspiration. This is a logical conclusion from the TaNaKH, history and the nature of the Mishna text itself. For Christians, also, it was positively taught by Jesus.

On the other hand, the position of Sola Scriptura suffers inherently from the canon problem, i.e. how to determine the list (canon) of the inspired books which comprise Scripture. In the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the canon is determined by the Church Magisterium on the basis of Apostolic Tradition, and both OT canons are broader than the Jewish TaNaKH, the Eastern Orthodox OT canon being broader than the Catholic. Protestants, in contrast, adopt the Rabbis' decision on the OT canon just as Karaites do. Which in the case of Protestants is plainly nonsensical, as it amounts to assuming that the very same people who were unable to interpret the Scriptures correctly and to recognize their fulfillment in Jesus were nevertheless divinely assisted to identify correctly the books that comprise it! When in fact the very reason why they rejected some of the "Apocrypha" was their being used by Christians...
 

Last edited by Johannes (8/12/2018 7:57 pm)

119 wrote:

Dave wrote:

Look, the question right now is whether or not G-d Himself ever acts miraculously - which is to say, by His primary causality - to establish falsehood. Now, I suggest that false signs are always caused by creatures, in an attempt to draw us away from G-d. That I personally happen to believe that the creatures in question do this as an act of rebellion against the Creator is of secondary importance. Even if they're on His payroll, the point remains the same - there is no evidence that G-d Himself ever gets His hands dirty. This simple fact tells us that your interpretation of Deuteronomy 13 is questionable at best.

You look, if it’s such a “simple fact,” demarcate primary causation from secondary causation when none of the secondary layers have an autonomous free will.

Secondary causation is just another way of referring to instrumental causation - the stick that moves a stone because it was moved by the hand. The sun is a secondary cause. The wind is a secondary cause. Trees are secondary causes. I dare say that most secondary causes of which mankind is aware lack autonomous free will. Blaming G-d for evils caused by Satan is (on the theory you've espoused) a bit like blaming Him for evils caused by falling trees.

 HaSatan is just a messenger doing his job. How does giving a command to a being that has no free will absolve G-d of responsibility? I look forward to seeing the primary-secondary causation flowchart, and the moral theory where all responsibility vanishes in the secondary cause.

The distinction between primary and secondary causes is fundamental to Classical Theism. Maimonides himself used it for the purposes of theodicy, asserting that "it cannot be said of God that He directly creates evil, or He has the direct intention to produce evil: this is impossible." (Guide to the Perplexed, Part III, Chapter X) 

Your position requires this.

Not necessarily. My position doesn't require that the secondary cause have free will, merely that it be secondary. Compare: G-d occasionally allows people to be deceived by coincidental links between astronomical phenomena and earthly affairs. The astronomical causes responsible for the deception are utterly lacking in free will, and are only doing what G-d has ordained that they do. Prima facie, there's even less room for absolving G-d of blame here than there was in the case of Satan, since these secondary causes don't even have minds, let alone free will. And yet, this is not the case. 

---

It would be good to recall what occasioned this discussion of signs and tests: viz, your assertion that true miracles - in the sense of events that G-d alone is capable of causing - are no sure sign of G-d's approval; that they are sometimes worked by G-d in the ministries of false prophets, and that G-d does this to test the faithful.

Now, we know that G-d, as the First Cause, is ultimately responsible for everything. So, the question at hand is not whether He is responsible for something, but rather whether or not He is directly responsible for it.

So...

Dave wrote:

Even if Satan's on G-d's payroll, my point remains the same: G-d Himself manifestly did not cause harm to Job directly, but rather permitted Satan to do so.

If you "permit" someone else to molest your children is there any “dirt” on your hands? Discuss.

Not in the relevant sense. Not directly, as it would have been had He personally exnihilated raiders to steal Job's things, rather than allowing Satan to get a hold of local Sabean and Chaldean raiders for the purpose.

Dave wrote:

If G-d Himself admits that His direct action isn't a sure guide to the truth of a prophet's message, then how do we know that the Torah itself isn't the test and Moses the false prophet? If what He Himself does is no sure guide to the truth, why should we trust His Torah? 

From which standpoint would this be true?

That of somebody who has no prior commitments with respect to such things. What we have are two reports of events that, had they occurred, could only have been caused by G-d. For one, the evidence has been obscured by the ravages of time. For the other, the evidence has survived and is clear to this day. 

This person meets up with another - one who holds to truth of the former report - who insists that, while the latter report may well be true, it was G-d testing the faithful, not testifying to a true prophet.

This introduces into the mind of the first person a troubling possibility - that G-d's actions and G-d's will needn't be connected. But this applies equally well to both events, the only difference between the two being that the former report describes events that occurred long before those described in the latter. As such, the person becomes skeptical of all claims of Divine Revelation - not because he thinks it unlikely, but because he thinks that revelation, as such, isn't evidence at all!

Now, suppose that this person revisits both reports, and goes over them with a fine toothed comb, searching for what they have to say about G-d's direct action in the world. Suppose also that he finds that neither report shows G-d's direct action ever misleading anyone.

Will he not conclude that the argument offered by the second person - that G-d's direct action and G-d's will needn't be connected - was specious?

And that being the case, will he not incline first towards the report for which the evidence has survived?

And by means of that report, proceed to accept the earlier report, insofar as the earlier sets the stage for the latter?

And will he not be within his epistemic rights to interpret the earlier report by the later report, since it is on the basis of the latter that he accepts the former?

Which prior revelation said any such thing? Deut. 13 isn’t referring to Moses.

We are approaching the issue, as far as we can, from a neutral perspective. There is no prior revelation to which we may appeal. The Torah and the Gospel alike are on trial.

The Israelites will believe in “My servant Moses” because of a direct Prophetic experience (“face to face”). The Sinai revelation was a unique genus of evidence altogether. This Singularity of Evidence then sets an epistemic standard.

You seem to be confusing quality of evidence with quantity of witnesses. More people had the Vision of G-d appearing at Sinai than saw the Risen Christ. But Resurrection as such is not inferior in quality to the Vision at Sinai - for Resurrection as such can only occur by the direct action of G-d, just as a genuine Prophetic Vision can only come from G-d Himself.

A prophet who performs miracles attributed to false deities doesn’t count as evidence at all.

Then we run into yet another issue: Christ doesn't fit that description. The Trinity is no more idolatry than the Sefirot in Kabbalah, the "Wisdom" of Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24, Philo's Logos, etc. 

 Deut. 13 is a statement precluding subsequent evidence from the standpoint of a direct Revelation from A-mighty G-d.  

This is a thing you say, and yet it goes beyond anything that can be found in the text itself.

Dave wrote:

One and the same epistemological standard must be applied to all prophets.

Not according to your Bible. Where are you getting this? Prove it. Moses was not just another prophet. He was THE Prophet.

Where am I getting this? Epistemic consistency. It's something that matters a great deal to me. Every test has to be applicable universally throughout its domain, not merely where one wants it to be applied. 

As such, we start from a situation where Moses isn't even a prophet, let alone THE prophet. We start with a basic knowledge of natural theology, a set of texts, and some principles of historiography. Using those, we attempt to identify prophets as effectively as we are able, with full knowledge of our own epistemic limitations.

If and when we identify a figure with a high probability of having been a genuine prophet, we must take a leap of faith - not in the sense of believing without reason, but in the sense of committing without reservation to a merely probable proposition. Then, and only then, will we have access to a G-d Given standard of judging other prophets. 

Dave wrote:

It's interesting to note that the one who bragged that he could justify his beliefs without faith now flirts with fideism - "G-d said it, I believe it, that settles it."

What’s interesting are the cheapshots you’re using. I said this in the context of Theism and the Kuzari Principle.

Indeed. And now you are saying that taking Moses at his word entails interpreting his words in a vacuum, divorced from all philosophy, exegesis, and historical argument. 

Then I mentioned a few references about the Torah being "everlasting," "eternal," "forever," "for all your generations."

Interestingly, from a quick check of the Hebrew, the word translated "everlasting," "eternal," and "forever" turns out to be Strong's 5769 - in every single verse you cited in that post.

Strictly speaking, the term means "for an age" or "to indefinite futurity." 

In Genesis 17:8, it is applied to Israel's possession of Canaan - from which they have often been exiled.

In Genesis 49:26, it is applied to hills - which even man can destroy or produce by his own efforts.

In Exodus 21:6, it is applied to the duration of a slave's service - which can be but a single human lifespan.

In Joshua 4:7, it is applied to the stones that were placed in the Jordan as a memorial of their crossing into the promised land - which stones have been buried under the silt of that river for centuries.

In Joshua 8:28, it is applied to the desolation of Ai - the mound Et-Tell, which was resettled in Iron Age I.

If you want, I could go on, but it's rather tedious typing all of these out. Suffice it to say, the word "forever" or "eternally" isn't quite a perfect match for Strong's 5769. 

Dave wrote:

So if I warn you that I'm going to lie, it means that my future lie isn't actually a lie? That's not how lies work.

If you receive a test, the parameters of which are specified, and you have the opportunity to fail the test, this necessarily involves a “lie”?

It does if the test boils down to "don't listen when someone lies to you." 

How do lies work?

A lie is a false statement made with the intention to deceive. 

Was this a lie:

And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”

Since when do imperative sentences have truth-values? 

G-d tests people in ways that could most charitably be described as brutal.

Where have I denied this? My focus has been extremely specific: on G-d's direct, miraculous actions, and their relationship to true and false messages.

He told Abraham to slaughter his boy (but didn’t really mean it)!

Tell me, where in the Hebrew does G-d tell Abraham that Isaac had to be killed?

This probably sounds like an odd question, given the context, so I will explain.

Hebrew, as used by the authors of the Tanakh, had a much smaller vocabulary than we do today - only about 8,000 words, compared to the 650,000 in modern English. As such, many words have to do "double duty" when we make the jump from the former to the latter.

The Hebrew has no word that means "offering" per se, but rather a set of words that refer to "going" or "ascent." In this case, the relevant words are Strong's 5927 (which is a verb meaning "to go" or "to ascend") and Strong's 5930 (which is the "noun-ified" active participle of Strong's 5927, which usually refers to sacrifices, but occasionally means "ascent" - or even "stairs" in Ezekiel 40:26!).

Used together in this sort of context, the typical assumption would, indeed, be that of a burnt offering. However, strictly speaking, G-d would have been within His linguistic rights to count the task completed as soon as Isaac was on top of the altar!

In short, what G-d asked was for Abraham to "put up" his son Isaac, which He really did mean - seeing as Abraham wasn't stopped until after Isaac had been "put up." 

According to what standard is Abraham’s test a nice one from a nice Teacher but using false prophets is too mean cuz it’s wong to lie?

My arguments have nothing to do with "niceness." They have to do with G-d's direct action and its relation to false messages.

According to Rashbam:

"This prophet makes his pronouncements with the full force of enormous authority. He has performed wonders; he has seen into the future. By virtue of his stature, he is regarded as a sacred religious figure. His direction to engage in idolatrous practices carries with it his full authority. Immense courage, confidence in one’s convictions, and clarity are required to resist and oppose such an imposing figure. Mounting this resistance and denouncing this established religious icon as a charlatan can only occur through a process of painful soul-searching, value clarification and an iron-willed commitment to Torah-true ideals even in the face of certain condemnation from an established religious leader. However, one who passes through the gauntlet of this challenge will emerge a giant."

Note the discussion of the test:

You should not listen to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for Hashem your G-d tests you to know whether you love Hashem your G-d with your entire hearts and your entire souls. (Sefer Devarim 13:4)

The passage above discusses the false prophet. This person has established his credibility as a prophet through either performing a wonder or through consistently, successfully predicting future events. The prophet exposes himself as a charlatan by directing the people to adopt idolatrous practices. As explained, it is completely inconceivable that a true prophet under any circumstances would issue such instructions. Therefore, any claimant to prophecy who does direct the people to adopt idolatrous practices is immediately known to be a fraud.

The above passage focuses on a theological issue related to the false prophet. How does Hashem allow this provocateur to perform wonders or predict the future? In other words, why does Hashem not protect His true believers from such confusing tests? The passage responds that Hashem is testing our commitment to His service. He allows the provocateur to achieve recognition and even acclaim as a prophet in order to test whether we can be fooled by this impostor.

The language used hardly implies any direct act of G-d being associated with the works of this "charlatan" (Rabbi Fox's word, not mine). Ha'Shem is said to allow the provocateur to perform wonders or predict the future, not to cause those achievements. 

In fact, this is not the only place where your own source has failed to establish your claim about G-d's direct activities.

Consider this article, which you linked to in an earlier post (the post immediately prior to my previous post on this thread, IIRC).

Just as we are commanded to render a [legal] judgment based on the testimony of two witnesses, even though we do not know if they are testifying truthfully or falsely, similarly, it is a mitzvah to listen to this prophet even though we do not know whether the wonder is true or performed by magic or sorcery.

Therefore, if a prophet arises and attempts to dispute Moses' prophecy by performing great signs and wonders, we should not listen to him. We know with certainty that he performed those signs through magic or sorcery. [This conclusion is reached] because the prophecy of Moses, our teacher, is not dependent on wonders, so that we could compare these wonders, one against the other. Rather we saw and heard with our own eyes and ears as he did.

Emphasis added. 

If the article you linked to in response to me was insufficient to prove your point, the article you linked to in response to Johannes actively undermined it. The distinction here is between the true miracle worked by G-d and the act of magic or sorcery - precisely the distinction I've been arguing for. 

Dave wrote:

You say that the "signs and wonders" mentioned in vs 1&2 quantify over all possible signs and wonders - including those that can only be worked by directly by the Finger of G-d. When we look at the actual history of Israel, we find that it doesn't even cover summoning insects.  

Show me any restrictions involving “Not to include signs and wonders from G-d’s finger but only His elbow hitting something else and kinda indirectly maybe secondarily causing it to happen in such a fashion as to leave G-d’s hands clean from all moral responsibility.” I must have skipped that qualification.

As I said before, the only argument you offer for the inclusion of G-d's direct actions is the fact that the verse doesn't explicitly exclude them. However, it's obvious that "not being directly contradicted by the text" is about as weak of an argument for a certain interpretation as one could ask for.

Which insect-summoning are you alluding to?

Exodus 8:12-15

Adonai said to Moshe, “Say to Aharon: ‘Reach out with your staff and strike the dust on the ground; it will become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’” They did it — Aharon reached out his hand with his staff and struck the dust on the ground, and there were lice on people and animals; all the dust on the ground became lice throughout the whole land of Egypt. The magicians tried with their secret arts to produce lice, but they couldn’t. There were lice on people and animals. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of G-d.” But Pharaoh was made hardhearted, so that he didn’t listen to them, just as Adonai had said would happen.

I have repeatedly referred to this portion of scripture. Whenever I made reference to "The Finger of G-d" pointing away from the truth, I was alluding to this passage. 

Pharaoh's magicians are the only figures in the Tanakh who both a) could be considered as "false," or "against G-d," and b) actually did something vaguely miraculous. But as soon as they try to summon lice (or gnats, as in other translations)? They can't pull it off, and straight-up tell Pharaoh that he doesn't know What he's dealing with.

Dave wrote:

Can I not say the same thing of my own interpretation? And can I not also say that my interpretation manages to explain the fact that no false prophet mentioned in the Tanakh ever did anything interesting?

What “interpretation”? You don’t have an interpretation. You have an eisegesis, some a priori standard the passage must, of absolute necessity, meet.

Do you consider figurative interpretations of passages that speak of the Hand of G-d to be "eisegesis"? After all, G-d's incorporeality is something you have to assert in spite of them, not because of them; you have to explain them away.

My situation with respect to the passage at hand is rather less problematic. There's no obvious reason for the signs of which it speaks to be the result of G-d's direct actions, so I needn't explain it away. There's not even a prima facie contradiction here. 

Now, that by itself is no argument for an interpretation, as I have argued. Hence my emphasis on the way G-d's direct actions are portrayed throughout the rest of scripture and various abstract principles regarding the nature of lies.

Where are you deriving the “interesting” requirement? Where are you deriving the insistence that it’s only true if the TaNaKH is teeming with “interesting” false prophets?

I'm not insisting that the Tanakh be "teeming" with them. I'm simply expecting the thing the passage warns against to have actually happened. After all, individuals and cities going after idolatry are described in the Tanakh, though rarely or never (in the case of cities) do we find a description of the law actually being obeyed. 

The passage warns about cities going off after idols. And occasionally, cities did - Bethel and Dan under the reign of Jeroboam spring to mind.

The passage warns about individuals succumbing to idolatry. And individuals did - such as Micah the Ephraimite. 

The passage warns about false prophets advocating idolatry. And there were - certainly the prophets of Baal fit the bill. Idolatrous wonder-workers are harder to find, but at least there's some precedent for that sort of thing in Pharaoh's magicians.

What there is no sign of, throughout the entire Tanakh, is G-d Himself directly causing a sign that leads people into idolatry. If your interpretation is correct, it's the only thing the passage warned against that never actually happened.

That, I submit to you, is a reason for suspicion.

You’re pulling this out of thin air and pretending it’s essential.

Expecting G-d's warnings to be relevant to things that would actually happen to Israel is "pulling something out of thin air"?

Did Abraham do a survey of Israel’s history to see if G-d meant what He said?

No, because G-d had yet to provide anybody with such a thing. But, in any case, Abraham had rather more direct access to the evidence than we do.

Dave wrote:

 Give me one example - just one - of G-d Himself giving miraculous attestation to a false message. That's what it would take for your interpretation of Deuteronomy 13 to be viable.

I deny the a priori Requirement of Viability, but what about this:

And now, behold the L-rd has placed a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, whereas the L-rd spoke evil concerning you. (1 Kings 22:23) G-d put a “lying spirit” into the mouths of prophets. Does prophecy occur via the natural process of photosynthesis? No. Then how did it happen? G-d did it!

I note that you omit the prior portions of the passage.

I Kings 22, beginning in verse 15:

When he reached the king, the king asked him, “Mikhay’hu, should we go up and attack Ramot-Gil‘ad; or should we hold off?”

He answered, “Go up, you will succeed, Adonai will hand it over to the king.”

The king said to him, “How many times do I have to warn you to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of Adonai?”

Then he said, “I saw all Isra’el scattered over the hills like sheep without a shepherd; and Adonai said, ‘These men have no leader; let everyone go home in peace.’”

The king of Isra’el said to Y’hoshafat, “Didn’t I tell you that he wouldn’t prophesy good things about me, but bad?”

Mikhay’hu continued: “Therefore hear the word of Adonai. I saw Adonai sitting on his throne with the whole army of heaven standing by him on his right and on his left. Adonai asked, ‘Who will entice Ach’av to go up to his death at Ramot-Gil‘ad?’

"One of them said, ‘Do it this way,’ and another, ‘Do it that way.’

Then a spirit stepped up, stood in front of Adonai and said, ‘I will entice him.'

"Adonai asked, ‘How?’

"And he answered, ‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’

"Adonai said, ‘You will succeed in enticing him. Go, and do it.’ So now Adonai has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours; meanwhile, Adonai has ordained disaster for you.”

From the narrative, it looks as if G-d just put a rubber stamp on the deceiving spirit's idea, and let said spirit go ahead with it. And in any case, one can hardly call this direct. 

I know, I know, it’s that blasted “secondary causation”! G-d has to stop bumping into stuff and secondarily “causing” it to happen.

You do know the difference between primary and secondary causation, right? The idea is that secondary causes get their causality from G-d, not that G-d "bumps into them" "accidentally."

Dave wrote:

“In what sense is the Christian doctrine of Satan "dualistic?"”

Please. Phone call from Zoroaster.

And where does it say that Satan is G-d's equal and opposite? I'll accept an answer for either Paul or Zoroaster. The latter, especially, has a bad rap w.r.t. this issue.

If it's the "god of this world" thing that's causing problems, remember that, in Exodus, G-d said that He would make Moses "be as G-d to Pharaoh," and Psalm 82 describes rulers of the nations as "gods" who know nothing and will ultimately fall to G-d's judgement. This isn't an unprecedented way of speaking, and to be blunt, describing Satan as "god-like" seems far more appropriate than giving the same apellation to even the greatest of merely human prophets.

Dave wrote:

Your eagerness to cut off my potential future lines of advance speaks volumes about your confidence that you can win the battle at hand.

Win the battle at hand? Who are you?

An actor who has been in a few too many farces.

Dave wrote:

There's no explicit statement in the Torah that such signs of contrition are an adequate replacement for the 244, and that's the standard you've set for establishing this sort of thing.

To clarify, was the Torah annulled with the destruction of the First Temple?

That's what I've been trying to get you to tell me!.

Suppose you’re thrown into the Gulag. You’re going to miss Sunday mass for the foreseeable future. Therefore … the New Testament has been canceled?

Sunday mass doesn't fulfill the same role for Christians that the Temple did for Second Temple era Jews. To pull off an AD 70 style upset on us would require marching up to G-d's throne room and bodily chucking Christ out of there. As long as He is there, we have our temple services being carried out. See the book of Hebrews for details.

Dave wrote:

That G-d stands alone does not entail that He is an undifferentiated lump. Why should we attribute the unity characteristic of a photon - which doesn't even have enough reality for a proper synchronic identity - to He Who is Higher than the seraphim?

That’s right, I’ve been defending the “undifferentiated lump” position. I’ve clearly maintained that G-d is just like a photon. One day me think pretty. Are you even reading my posts? G-d isn’t “like” anything at all.

True enough, in one sense. In another sense, He is like everything, especially insofar as He is the exemplar cause of every act - including transient activities. A transient activity necessarily involves terms, so identifying the "Pure Act" with something analogous to a transient action is ipso facto asserting that the Divine Essence is identical to some kind of relation or relations. This entails that there's something about the Divine Essence that allows it to stand in relation to itself, in some sense, as giver to given - in other words, that there are relations of emanation or procession within G-d.

All of this follows from the existence of Pure Act, and the fact that Pure Act serves as the exemplar cause for every act of any composite. Both propositions can be proven by Reason, and both of them are essential to Classical Theism. 

Sorry for the fideism again, but G-d describes Himself as One.

"HaShem eloheinu HaShem echad."

The first thing to note is that "eloheinu" doesn't mean "our G-d," but rather "our gods." This "Plural of Majesty" is pretty much unique to Jewish religion, as far as I'm aware. It's as if the writers of scripture wished to convey that HaShem alone could do more than anyone else's entire pantheon!

In any case, there are four ways to interpret this verse. Each phrase - "HaShem eloheinu" and "HaShem echad" - can be interpreted either as a sentence unto itself, or else as a mere phrase.

If both are mere phrases, we get, "HaShem our gods is one HaShem" - there are no other HaShems running around out there.

If the former is a mere phrase, while the latter is a full sentence, we get, "HaShem our gods, HaShem is one" - an assertion of the unity of HaShem, with the phrase "HaShem our gods" serving as a means of clarifying the subject of the sentence. 

If both are full sentences, we have, "HaShem is our gods, HaShem is one" - which isn't any different in meaning from the last option.

Finally, the first could be a full sentence, while the latter is just a phrase, which gives, "HaShem is our gods, HaShem alone" - which asserts that HaShem exhausts their entire pantheon. Where every other nation needs a gaggle of gods and goddesses, Israel has everything it needs - and then some - in the single entity known as HaShem.

So, there are three ways of viewing the Shema: first, as a statement that there are no other HaShems; second, as asserting the unity of HaShem; and third, as a statement that HaShem alone is uniquely worthy of worship. Does the doctrine of the Trinity fail any of these tests?

Well, to me, it's obvious that Trinitarian thought emphasizes, rather than diminishing, the uniqueness of G-d. Moreover, the idea is about the inner life of G-d, not about putting up anything else beside Him. So that last one's out. Nor is there any possibility that there could be more than one Trinity, so the first one's out too.

That leaves "HaShem is one" as the only interpretation of the Shema with any bite against Trinitarianism. But even there we run into a problem. To call a thing "one" is just to say that it is undivided in itself and divided off from every other. But recall my lengthy spiel about triadic differentiation a while ago, and how the terms of the triad substance-apprehension-appetite become more clear and distinct, as well as less divisible, as we ascend the "chain of being." Well guess what? Ascending the chain of being is ipso facto ascending the chain of unity! Humans are more perfectly undivided in themselves than brutes are, and angels more so than humans. Likewise, humans are more distinct from one another than lower animals are, and angels more so than humans.

The more "one" a substance is, the more clearly demarcated are the elements of the substance-apprehension-appetite triad!  As such, "infinite unity" as such may well be the ultimate expression of that triad, precisely as unity!

Such a view is paradoxical, but it can hardly be ruled out a priori.

Dave wrote:

 How many faithful Jews are you prepared to denounce as idolaters?

Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. That's unsanitary

You're the one who's been arguing that the Trinity (and, by extension, Jewish Wisdom literature, Philo of Alexandria, and Kabbala) is idolatrous.

Where have I “denounced” anyone? This is a debate within Orthodoxy. I spoke the truth with no accusations whatsoever. (Gentiles aren’t supposed to study Kabbalah.) My point was that Oneness is very important and I cited evidence.

As long as the debates about Wisdom theology, Philo's Logos, and the Kabbalah's Sefirot are considered "orthodox," the Trinity is as well. If any one of those views has adequate respect for the Oneness of G-d, then so does Christianity.

Anyone who defends a book oozing with this evil filth can shut his damn mouth about denouncing “faithful Jews.”
 

Er... you are aware that I literally worship a Jew, right?

It's okay if you're not. Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only one worshiping Him who is aware of that fact.



On a (slightly) less flippant note.

Paul? He was a Jew.

Peter? A Jew.

John? Jew.

James? Jew.

Matthew? Jew.

Mark? Probably a Jew.

Jude? Also probably a Jew.

Author of the book of Hebrews? Based on content, quite likely Jewish.

Luke is the only non-Jewish author in the entire NT!

And he mostly wrote about Jews!

(okay, so I lied about it being less flippant) 

If anyone, Jew or Gentile, manages to come up with an anti-Semitic interpretation of the NT, it's a safe assumption that they took a wrong turn somewhere along the line. Whatever you find in it that wasn't written by a Jew was written about a Jew. 

Last edited by Dave (8/14/2018 2:29 am)