Angels - what does scripture tell us about them?

Checkpoint · Post by **Checkpoint** » Mon May 27, 2019 8:38 pm

When I think of angels I wonder about this and that and often come up short.

I find them something of a challenge and a mystery.

Maybe some of you are somewhat nonplussed as well.

Anyway, this thread is for us to share what we can about angels.

Such as, what angels are, why they exist, what they do and why they do those things.

And anything else you know or want to know about them.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:20 am

Dimmesdale wrote:
JehovahsWitness wrote:
Dimmesdale wrote:I regard Satan and demons as metaphors of sin and hard-heartedness.

So when God conversed with Satan as recorded in the book of Job was he talking to "sin and hard-heartedness" in himself?

JW
I don't think such a conversation ever literally happened. .

Do you believe God literally exists? Can he speak? If so who does he speak to?

JW

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:21 am

Dimmesdale wrote:
JehovahsWitness wrote:
Dimmesdale wrote:I regard Satan and demons as metaphors of sin and hard-heartedness.

So when God conversed with Satan as recorded in the book of Job was he talking to "sin and hard-heartedness" in himself?

JW
I don't think such a conversation ever literally happened.

So do you think the conversation between God and Satan was a metaphor of sin and hard-heartednes within GOD Himself?

ttruscott · Post by **ttruscott** » Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:55 am

Dimmesdale wrote:
ttruscott wrote:
Dimmesdale wrote:I don't think such a conversation ever literally happened.
Once you set yourself up as the arbiter of the truth of what is scripture and what is not...there is no good end to that.
I did not say I reject or deny the scripture.

I accept the scripture.

What I meant is, I interpret it differently.

Did Jesus mean it literally when he said "All things for which you pray, they shall be granted you"?

Oh I am well aware of the difference between metaphor and reality and I too differ greatly from orthodoxy about which is which...

What would you call a person, a living spirit, who sinned the unforgivable sin and so was eternally beyond the grace and mercy of GOD, unable to repent on his own power and forever outside of GOD's power of salvation because they have totally rejected HIM by their free will, as their GOD? If a will is truly free such a decision must be sacrosanct or free will is meaningless...

But as we know, there is no definitive proof of any spiritual doctrine either pro or con our Christian theology and so we live by faith, not proof. But if your objection is that no such evil person nor a place like hell could be created or allowed to be created by a loving GOD then I offer this for consideration:
IF we were created as eternally self and other aware spirits and
IF we were all created with a free will and
IF there is an unforgivable sin, a sin that puts the person outside of all grace and
IF some of HIS creation chose to sin the unforgivable sin and
IF it is true that a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) the whole lump (person, community), then
IF the only way to protect HIS Church and heavenly Family from these eternally evil people was to banish them from HIS heavenly reality,
THEN hell is an absolute necessity to keep the eternally evil ones from corrupting HIS heaven.

All of these ifs are accepted by orthodoxy and do indeed provide a platform for understanding how eternally evil people came to exist and the necessity of a place like hell. I used to think as you do and changed my mind when I met truly evil people... I hope you miss that lesson.

LuciusWrong · Post by **LuciusWrong** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:41 pm

JehovahsWitness wrote:
LuciusWrong wrote: So therefore it is impossible for there to be any kind back story to the Bible.
Can you explain this point further?

JW

I'm not sure what I can say in way of further explanation. I mean, if we are presupposing what I think is a fairly typical version of creation, which is the idea that God existed from eternity on his own, in the absence of any created thing (and everything is created by God, so there is literally nothing), then we are presupposing that there is no external reason for God to create.

If this is true, we are forced to concluded that God created just because he suddenly decided he wanted to. There is no back story.

And by the same theological presupppositions, we are also forced to accept that this world, exactly as we see it today, is exactly what God wanted to create. (Perfect foreknowledge plus infinite power proves intent; if God wanted it to turn out differently, he could have created it differently.)

We have painted ourselves into a theological corner.

LuciusWrong · Post by **LuciusWrong** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:23 pm

JehovahsWitness wrote:
LuciusWrong wrote:
God doesn't actually claim to be the most powerful in heaven.

GENESIS 17:1: â€œI am God Almighty"
The God of the bible on several occassions identifies himself as "The Almighty" ( Hebrew Ê¼El ShadÂ·daiÊ¹) a title uniqely applied in scripture to YHWH(Jehovah). By definition, he who is ALL mighty (all powerful) is the most powerful in all existing realms.

ISAIAH 40: 25

â€œTo whom can you liken me to make me his equal?â€� says the Holy One. â€œ ... because of his vast dynamic energy and his awe-inspiring power... Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, is a God for all eternity. He never tires out or grows weary.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

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This could be understood as saying, "I am the one who created you." The passage you cite describes it's own context: "...Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth..." It doesn't say anything about creating heaven or angels.

He does something similar in Job. He asks, "Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?"

Like I said originally, I am not arguing that God is not the most powerful; I'm saying that it is not necessary for God to be the most powerful spiritual being. But even if he is the most powerful, he doesn't rule by force.

Since I was a child, I have wondered why didn't God just destroy Satan before he could have created this mess. I'm sure I asked the question in school; it seemed obvious. If God were so powerful, and if God knows everything, why didn't he know what was going to happen? Why didn't he intervene? Earth was supposedly such a paradise, so why did God let it get spoiled immediately after he created it?

I think we can look to sci-fi movies for the answer. There are movies about a time in the future when future crimes can be predicted, and there is a special police force who's job it is to apprehend future criminals before they commit a crime. I think there have been a couple like this?

This always leads to the problem of abuse of power. The problem is that we don't actually know if a crime will occur, and if we intervene before it happens, we don't know if the accusation is correct or not. And in the movies, we always find out that the guy accused of a future crime is the guy who knows that there is an abuse of power going on.

If God's claim to the throne is being questioned, being accused of being some kind of tyrant rather than a just and benevolent ruler....and if he responds to that threat by pre-emptive action like eliminating Satan, he will appear to have confirmed Satan's lie.

Just because God knows, doesn't mean that anyone else has that same knowledge. So God is proving himself in the face of the accusations, proving himself to his subjects, so essentially he is making a case for why Satan's idea is in fact a lie that deserves to be punished.

Checkpoint · Post by **Checkpoint** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:34 pm

ttruscott wrote:
Dimmesdale wrote:
ttruscott wrote:
Dimmesdale wrote:I don't think such a conversation ever literally happened.
Once you set yourself up as the arbiter of the truth of what is scripture and what is not...there is no good end to that.
I did not say I reject or deny the scripture.

I accept the scripture.

What I meant is, I interpret it differently.

Did Jesus mean it literally when he said "All things for which you pray, they shall be granted you"?
Oh I am well aware of the difference between metaphor and reality and I too differ greatly from orthodoxy about which is which...

What would you call a person, a living spirit, who sinned the unforgivable sin and so was eternally beyond the grace and mercy of GOD, unable to repent on his own power and forever outside of GOD's power of salvation because they have totally rejected HIM by their free will, as their GOD? If a will is truly free such a decision must be sacrosanct or free will is meaningless...

But as we know, there is no definitive proof of any spiritual doctrine either pro or con our Christian theology and so we live by faith, not proof. But if your objection is that no such evil person nor a place like hell could be created or allowed to be created by a loving GOD then I offer this for consideration:
IF we were created as eternally self and other aware spirits and
IF we were all created with a free will and
IF there is an unforgivable sin, a sin that puts the person outside of all grace and
IF some of HIS creation chose to sin the unforgivable sin and
IF it is true that a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) the whole lump (person, community), then
IF the only way to protect HIS Church and heavenly Family from these eternally evil people was to banish them from HIS heavenly reality,
THEN hell is an absolute necessity to keep the eternally evil ones from corrupting HIS heaven.

All of these ifs are accepted by orthodoxy and do indeed provide a platform for understanding how eternally evil people came to exist and the necessity of a place like hell. I used to think as you do and changed my mind when I met truly evil people... I hope you miss that lesson.

What IF the first IF is a non-starter, because it assumes humanity was created as eternal beings?

What IF God created humanity with potential, but not actual, immortality?

Perhaps God did not create the commonly understood hell because He had no need to do so.

LuciusWrong · Post by **LuciusWrong** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:01 pm

ttruscott wrote:
LuciusWrong wrote:About the creatures themselves, we get a glimpse in the Bible. In Revelation we find a description of creatures that are extremely strange according to what we expect. The one that comes to mind is the one covered with eyes, all over it's body. And there are a few others, which are all quite different from each other, which implies to me that there is a vast diversity of these heavenly beings.
Good morning Lucius,
all the strange physical descriptions are metaphors for spiritual aspects. Covered with feathers is hidden, obscure. Eyes all over means total awareness of everything. Wings equals the power of movement, ect.

Different names are given to the different jobs they perform, not to different species of angel.

A spirit is a spirit - if in heaven, it is an angel; if on earth engulfed in a body, a man, a soul. imCo

It is also plausible that the "strange metaphysical descriptions" are the actual descriptions of what was actually seen...and what was seen was strikingly different from what we are accustomed to.

I'm choosing follow a literary analysis, so I am not trying to decide if some things are literal and others are not. I mean, how can a person decide such a thing, except by presuppositions?

If we interpret the Bible based on presuppositions, we can only conclude what it was that we pre-supposed!

Maybe you are familiar with the standing stones on Easter Island? The native people have an oral history that says that the stones "walked". And they even have a ceremonial dance that is mimicing on these stones walked!

When Westerners showed up, they characteristically decided that understanding how the stones were moved was the important question. They asked the natives, who said, "They walked." Westerners said, "Don't be silly, stones can't walk!" So they decided that the saying the stones "walked" was a metaphor, since being "gods", the natives would naturally need believe these statues have supernatural abilities, so they would create a tradition to reinforce the believed spiritual power of the statues.

So the Westerners decided that the stones didn't walk; don't be ridiculous! Obviously they were rolled on logs!

But more recently, a researcher made a compelling case that the stones "were walked." They were transported in an upright position...using ropes, rocking the stone side to side. And he made a life size stone to demonstrate how it was done. And not only did he demonstrate it was possible, but he did a careful analysis of the roads and all the abandoned statues along the roads; it all matched perfectly! In other words, the oral history was correct. The people didn't understand it, but they were correct nonetheless.

My first point is that oral history is surprisingly good at preserving information. My second point is that Westerners are really good at completely missing the point! (I count myself as a westerner, but I hope I'm getting myself turned in the right direction...)

Checkpoint · Post by **Checkpoint** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:02 pm

[Replying to post 24 by LuciusWrong]

We have painted ourselves into a theological corner.

Something that can easily happen when we start from a flawed theological presupposition or two.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Sun Jun 16, 2019 12:55 am

IS GOD ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUFFERING IN THE WORLD?

ANSWER No, one carries responsibility only for what one does or causes, not for what one legitmately allows. The natural (and spirit) world God created was perfect. Humans were perfectly designed, entirely without fault and purposed to pass on that perfect condition to their offspring through their biology. He created both humans and spirits ("angels") as free moral agents capable of determining their own future. This being the case the responsibility for any decisions such ones would make is entirely transferred to each independent being.

RESPONSIBLE

# Answerable or accountable, as for something within one's power, control, or management

# Chargeable with being the author, cause, or occasion of something (usually followed by for):

Source https://www.dictionary.com/browse/responsibility

NOTE To be RESPONSIBLE means to be accountable for that which is within one's power or control. By creating free moral agents God made intelligent beings capabe of self generated thoughts and actions not under his control. Since God was not controlling or managing their actions - having given this power to the individuals themselves - he cannot rightly be accused of being responsible for said actions.

To illustrate: If a man runs over his neighbours dog, who killed the dog? Who is responsible? The man or the manufacurer of the car? Most reasonable people would conclude that even though the accident would have been impossible if the manufactuer hadn't made the car, creating a possibility isnt the same as carrying responsibility. The manufacturer handed over CONTROL of a car, free free of default, to a competent driver, the responsibility therefore lay with the DRIVERS own negligent action.

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