Can we get a definition please!?

[Medeus]

Shadows-shine

Rednal

Christian belief is such that Salvation is a gift offered by God to people (humans) who, by nature, are imperfect and do not deserve to be in the presence of a perfect God. However, in spite of our absolute unworthiness, God still desires our presence and is willing to overlook and forgive our flaws. For example, it has been suggested that the Ten Commandments, rather than being literal rules, might actually be more of an indicator for what God wants and something to point out the standard to which we should aspire, but ultimately cannot achieve. However, the Lord our God is also a fair God, who demands payment for wrongdoing. Sin is intolerable, but He set forth a way to move past sin, namely the sacrifice of life. In the times of the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were permitted, much like in the beginning of Genesis (specifically, 3:21) where God covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve with the skins of animals, sacrificing life to cover shame (and inventing tailoring at the same time, perhaps?). With His own sacrifice in the form of Jesus, the payment was made for all of mankind, such that any who asked for it would be able to receive salvation.

And this, of course, is the relevant point. By all evidence, God wants us to be with Him, but He will not force us to. Now, doing so would actually be very easy. Trivial, you could say. If God wanted servants who would just sing His praises and stuff, He could make them. Actually, some sources suggest that He already has. For us humans, however, salvation is a gift that is offered to us, a gift which we are permitted to choose. God appears to be very big on free will for humans; that is why He will not force us to do what He wants. As an optional gift, then, one that we are free to reject, salvation is also a choice. "To be with God" or "to not be with God". You see, for us to have free will, and for there to be a choice, you need two options. A vote with only one person on the ballot isn't really a vote. Forcing salvation upon us would mean we have no chance to decide for ourselves, and without the choice, even our sinning would be meaningless. Blameless are those who cannot choose their actions. Because of God's love for us, He permits us to reject His gift, and to choose "Sin" instead of "No Sin". The very existence of sin is an absolutely critical component to free will and God's desire to be with us. He allows us to say "no" to Him, not because He has to, but because He wants to allow us that freedom. People often wonder what a world without sin would be like. I say that it would kind of suck, because there would be no way for our existence to have any meaning at all to us as individuals. For our choices to matter at all in the truest sense, we must have the free will to make those choices, or we bear no responsibility for those actions and there is no meaning for us in anything we do. And the greatest choice of all, so far as we are concerned, is to be with God or not.

He cares about us enough to give us the option of walking away from Him (i.e. choosing sin), though He could easily arrange it otherwise. Omnipotence is useful like that. God sacrificed Himself and paid for our sins, but that sacrifice would have been unnecessary if He had not decided to give us free will and the burden of choice and responsibility for our actions. In other words, our ability to sin is proof of our free will, and evidence of a God who loves us enough to allow us to go against Him when there is absolutely nothing stopping Him from forcing us to be as He wants us except His own decisions.

*Sips tea* Sin is the ultimate proof of God's love. Q.E.D.

. The Atonement of Christ and Christ Himself are the ultimate proof that God loves us. True, we cannot have light without dark, love without hate, right without wrong, etc. There has to be opposition in all things, but that is only to help us learn. We are all given a choice in life, "choose ye this day whom ye will serve..." Our ability to choose is the proof of free will, not our sinning.

I honestly don't know if it matters which side you look at; so long as both roads point towards God, in the end does it matter which route you take/took?
razz  

[Rednal]

Some routes are more entertaining than others, though. rofl Myself? I think that all the free will in the world is completely pointless unless you have a way to use said free will. We had the sacrifice of Jesus, yes, but we also had the decision for events that led to the sacrifice happening in the first place, and I think it's good to think about that sometimes.  

[Medeus]

Rednal

Some routes are more entertaining than others, though. rofl Myself? I think that all the free will in the world is completely pointless unless you have a way to use said free will. We had the sacrifice of Jesus, yes, but we also had the decision for events that led to the sacrifice happening in the first place, and I think it's good to think about that sometimes.

That is a very good thing to think about. razz

Though it sounds more like you're talking about the Mechanism of our inadequacy, and not actually defining what it actually means to be a "Creature of Darkness". (although I do not disagree with anything you said. :3)  

[Kyramud]

Shadows-shine

Rednal

-snip-
*Sips tea* Sin is the ultimate proof of God's love. Q.E.D.

. The Atonement of Christ and Christ Himself are the ultimate proof that God loves us. True, we cannot have light without dark, love without hate, right without wrong, etc. There has to be opposition in all things, but that is only to help us learn. We are all given a choice in life, "choose ye this day whom ye will serve..." Our ability to choose is the proof of free will, not our sinning.

Heh, actually, it is very possible to have right without wrong, or good without evil, etc. Opposition/balance in all things is taught nowhere, at least from what I've been able to find, in my bible...  

[Medeus]

Kyramud

Shadows-shine

Rednal

-snip-
*Sips tea* Sin is the ultimate proof of God's love. Q.E.D.

. The Atonement of Christ and Christ Himself are the ultimate proof that God loves us. True, we cannot have light without dark, love without hate, right without wrong, etc. There has to be opposition in all things, but that is only to help us learn. We are all given a choice in life, "choose ye this day whom ye will serve..." Our ability to choose is the proof of free will, not our sinning.

Heh, actually, it is very possible to have right without wrong, or good without evil, etc. Opposition/balance in all things is taught nowhere, at least from what I've been able to find, in my bible...

I wonder if it is possible......Hmmmmmmmm  

[Kyramud]

Medeus

I wonder if it is possible......Hmmmmmmmm

Of course it is. Genesis, God created the earth and everything in it and saw it was Good. Not Good, and evil at teh same time. But, meh that's just how I see it.  

[Medeus]

Kyramud

Medeus

I wonder if it is possible......Hmmmmmmmm

Of course it is. Genesis, God created the earth and everything in it and saw it was Good. Not Good, and evil at teh same time. But, meh that's just how I see it.

This is true, but remember the Angels, at that point, had already fallen. Lucipher was watching all that happen with bitterness in his heart; darkness had already been planted, eh?  

[Rednal]

Medeus

That is a very good thing to think about. razz

Though it sounds more like you're talking about the Mechanism of our inadequacy, and not actually defining what it actually means to be a "Creature of Darkness". (although I do not disagree with anything you said. :3)

Evil/Sin is a concept to begin with. It is not tangible. It cannot be touched, tasted, seen, smelled, heard, or otherwise interacted with. When we say that someone is "sinful", we mean that they display traits similar to what we would define as evil (i.e not "good", using the word "good" in the Godly sense). Somebody who is "completely evil" could best be described as someone whose actions are only those we would refer to as sinful (at least, when actions could have a value judgement; it's hard to call walking down the street to be either saintly or demonic).

Having established that sin is a concept, I am therefore comfortable making the assertion that if you want to define it at all, you should not only look at what it is, but why it is. Also: Who, When, Where, and How. To look at only one aspect of sin is to be using an incomplete concept that fails to grasp the totality of the idea. ^^b


For example:

Who are the people we remember for being the most sinful/evil? Who are the people that seem to sin more than others?

What is the definition of sin? What encourages people to sin when they know it is wrong?

When is something a sin and when is it not? When are we held responsible for our sins?

Where is sin committed? Where do people think about sin and try to avoid sinning?

How do people sin? How do they try to avoid it?

and

Why does sin exist? Why are humans inherently sinful?

(And you can add more to any of these, so this itself still fails to grasp all of the idea)

Truly defining something is usually much more complex than what the dictionary does. rofl I can say that an apple is a sweet or tart fruit that grows on trees, for example, but that doesn't cover anywhere near my complete concept of "apples".  

[Kyramud]

Medeus

Kyramud

Medeus

I wonder if it is possible......Hmmmmmmmm

Of course it is. Genesis, God created the earth and everything in it and saw it was Good. Not Good, and evil at teh same time. But, meh that's just how I see it.

This is true, but remember the Angels, at that point, had already fallen. Lucipher was watching all that happen with bitterness in his heart; darkness had already been planted, eh?

Oh? There's a timeline that says when Lucifer and some of the other angels fell in relation to creation? Also, going with the angels example, were the angels not created pure and good?

@Rednal: Those are all really good questions, but most of them (Who..., when..., where..., why..., how...) are tangents that, while helpful for a more broad picture on the topic of sin and interesting things to look into, don't really pertain to the heart of the thread... Bottom line is, 'What is sin' really what the thread seems to be about.  

[Rednal]

Premise: Lucifer was in the Garden of Eden, tempting Man (early Genesis).

Reasonable Conclusion: Lucifer fell either before or rather soon after Creation.

Assuming that "before" can be a factual statement if you work off of the premise that time started when creation began, of course, since time seems to be a property of the universe. *Amused*  

[Medeus]

Kyramud

Rednal

On the subject of Angels, and their fall, I highly recommend the book "Demon" by Tosca Lee. Of course I don't take her word to be ultimate fact, but I think it's extremely insightful, and a good reference to turn to when pondering questions about Spiritual Beings. 3nodding

As for the other stuff, I'll respond to that when I have more time lol. 2am for an 11.30 shift at work tomorrow isn't really the greatest thing for functioning well....