Vitaliy ✝︎

heal the world and make it a better place

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

His death changed my entire worldview🕊️

[The Conservative Alternative @OldeWorldOrder]

This man was about to change the whole damn world.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@TheSparklingMom @TheNotoriousMMA I love this verse so much. One of my favs.

What exactly did you, my brothers and sisters, think about this verse today?

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

“He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Psalms 103:10-12

And THE BEST for your tweet:
“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.””
Luke 18:13-14

Do not be afraid. You are infinitely loved.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@sourpatchlyds Why not Texas?

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

🤔

[Redeemed Zoomer @redeemed_zoomer]

Create an image that describes my account from the perspective of my enemies

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@Brotherhoodoft5 May the Lord bless you.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@RandomAbdulman @RealMattFradd “The Fourinity” theory by a user named Random Abdul…

I should definitely cease to think I have seen everything on the Internet.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@Blazewing1 @sourpatchlyds I’m not a Mormon, but angels absolutely appeared as beings with kind of luminous appearances. Matthew 28:2-3 is an example.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@HarryWKier @Maximumatheist Granting one’s claim for the sake of the argument is a completely standard form of internal critique. You temporarily assume some premises and test whether they are internally coherent.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

This so called paradox only works by assuming something it never proves, and that’s something like “if God plans an outcome, then the means by which that outcome occurs are redundant”

A plan can include both ends and means. If God wills that a certain thing happen through prayer, then the prayer isn’t outside His plan or changing an imperfect plan. It is essentially part of the plan itself.

For example, God wills “he will pray for X, and in response I will bring about X”. In that case, all three statements can be true all at once: God’s plan is settled, the prayer genuinely matters, God does not have to revise His will.

Saying “if God already planned it, prayer is useless” is really like saying “if God planned that you would survive today, eating is useless!”. I think it is very reasonable to say that the means can be precisely how the planned result comes about.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@joshwhitlatch That’s how we know!

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

I can definitely agree with the narrow point that John 17:5 by itself establishes pre-existence and pre-world glory, and not the entire Nicene doctrine, but you said 17:5 or any other quote cannot challenge your “semi-divine, not equal” model, and.. I mean, I think that’s precisely what needs some proving.

Look at John 5:19-23, for example. Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise, and as the Father gives life, the Son gives life to whom he wills, all judgment belongs to the Son, and everyone must honor the Son καθὼς [just as] they honor the Father. Then John’s Gospel climaxes with, once again, Thomas saying directly to Jesus, ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου which means “me Lord and my God”.

And John 1:3, by the way, still needs an answer. If the Logos himself is a created being who came into being, how can John say that not one thing that came into being came into being apart from him?

Broadly calling Jews henotheists also, I think, unfairly collapses centuries of development into one label. I haven’t read into it, but, if I’m not mistaken, scholars certainly debate early Israelite polytheism/monolatry, but that’s pre-exilic. Post-exilic and Second Temple Judaism is a different historical context. And even Philo, the source you keep appealing to, explicitly attacks polytheism.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@stewjo004 @elyasviel @AxadJimco You have ironically started doing what you rebuked the other person for. An hour ago.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@stewjo004 @elyasviel @AxadJimco Using the word repulsive while trying to describe my faith after not engaging with my points at all and instead calling them “a bunch of cope” isn’t really as useful as one might think.

Let’s just close this case.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@stewjo004 @elyasviel @AxadJimco I accept your quiet concession. Wish it went a bit more respectful, though. But it’s fine!

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

@stewjo004 @elyasviel @AxadJimco So no intellectually honest counterarguments, no proper rebuttal, no source that I asked for. Got it.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

“You must not be reading what I sent” - really? Did you spend at least half a minute reading at least one of the sources I linked in the other thread regarding Greek grammar?

I did read what you sent about Philo. If your point is simply that Philo also described the Logos as an instrument through whom God created, I agree. But the qurstion is whether John therefore gives his Logos Philo’s ontology, which I believe is exactly what still needs to be demonstrated, and it still hasn’t.

I also think that it would be quite intellectually honest if, where John 1:1 is disputed, we should look elsewhere in John to determine John’s intended meaning? That’s what I did. I gave you John 1:3, 5:23, 17:5 and 20:28. Pointing me back to Philo doesn’t explain those passages whatsoever.

John 1 itself is especially interesting. You gave John 1:1, then “He was [ἦν] in the beginning with God”, “All things came into being [ἐγένετο] through him” and then: “without him not even one thing came into being that has come into being”. If the Logos himself belongs to the class of created things that came into being, then I would love to have an explanation how that fits John’s own wording.

And Craig really doesn’t help the Arian case here, because.. Craig just rejects eternal generation, not the eternal deity of the second person. In the very paper explaining his position, he describes Arius’ view as the Son being a creature and then explicitly states his own position: “the persons of the ontological Trinity are equal and underived”. Here, check it out: https://t.co/K1C0u8Uv1J

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

Absolutely. If the construction itself doesn’t force either “God” or “a god” then we should look at John’s wider usage and theology to determine what he means, and that’s precisely why I really don’t think the JW or Arian reading works. For example, John 1:3 places the Logos outside the class of everything that “came into being”, 5:23 requires the Son to be honored just as the Father, 17:5 gives Him pre-world glory with the Father, etc etc.

[Vitaliy ✝︎ @mjackson50_]

A bunch of cope? Could you please engage with the point properly? That’s not an answer.

You essentially claimed that because θεός lacks the article, John 1:1 thus reads “the Word was a god”. I gave you a grammatical source showing that inference is invalid. Can you cite a Greek grammarian who argues that an anarthrous preverbal predicate nominative is automatically indefinite? If not, then I think your grammatical argument fails regardless of what you think about Platonism.