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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Gadarene swine
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
I don't think this is a good explanation. I spent time growing up with my grandparents and other relatives who raised pigs in small towns and villages where the livestock wandered the streets and grazed freely. From what I saw I don't think a shouting man, even a maniac, would be enough to drive pigs straight into water. They'd run anywhere else they could. I think they'd even charge at a man before diving off a cliff. The witnesses of the incident and the readers of the story would've been familiar with the behavior of livestock and known how strange and unusual that incident was.
To be fair, I don't think we should judge livestock behaviour in different parts of the world by the standards we are familiar with from a distance of 2000 years. I suspect pigs are considerably more domesticated today, given the developments in agriculture from the 17 to 19 century, than they would have been in first century Palestine.
When I first travelled to the Middle East, I remember seeing a flock of sheep-and-goats wandering along a road. From a distance it was almost impossible to see the difference. Where I am from in Northern Europe, breeding has meant that in most situations goats and sheep do not walk around in the same flock and their shape is usually easy to distinguish.
You might be right about pigs, you might be wrong. Or the point that the story is making might not be anything to do with pig behaviour at all.
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arse
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Pancho
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# 13533
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Posted
Pigs have been domesticated for a very long time and I'm skeptical that they behaved much differently in 1rst century Palestine. My experience is with pigs in a rural, somewhat remote part of Mexico where the animals are likely descended from the stock brought by Spaniards of 400 years ago rather than the modern breeds found in mechanized farms of developed countries.
If anything, a less domesticated animal would be less likely to feel so threatened by a shouting man to run of a cliff. Either way the people in the Gospels would've lived day to day with their own livestock and known their behavior and known how unusual it was or wasn't.
quote:
Or the point that the story is making might not be anything to do with pig behaviour at all.
I was responding to a post that cast doubt on the truth of the story based on the behavior of the pigs and what was a likely explanation for it.
I'd say the pig behavior does have something to with the point the story is making because part of it has to do with the identity of Jesus and how is it that He has authority over the natural (pigs) and the supernatural (demons). It might have as much to do about the question that's asked more than once in the Gospels ("Who do you say I am?") as it does with the healing of the posessed man.
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
Pigs have been domesticated for a very long time and I'm skeptical that they behaved much differently in 1rst century Palestine. My experience is with pigs in a rural, somewhat remote part of Mexico where the animals are likely descended from the stock brought by Spaniards of 400 years ago rather than the modern breeds found in mechanized farms of developed countries.
I'm sorry, that's not evidence. Your experience of pigs is of many generations of breeding after those brought by the Spaniards, which itself is of many many generations of breeding after those in first century Palestine.
I've seen wild boar spooked by flashes of light or sudden noises. But, of course, a single person's experience is not evidence of anything.
quote:
If anything, a less domesticated animal would be less likely to feel so threatened by a shouting man to run of a cliff. Either way the people in the Gospels would've lived day to day with their own livestock and known their behavior and known how unusual it was or wasn't.
I don't believe that is true in any sense. And, in fact, I don't know how you can possibly know that from this distance.
quote:
I'd say the pig behavior does have something to with the point the story is making because part of it has to do with the identity of Jesus and how is it that He has authority over the natural (pigs) and the supernatural (demons). It might have as much to do about the question that's asked more than once in the Gospels ("Who do you say I am?") as it does with the healing of the posessed man.
Right, but then into the mix is the issues of culture (relating to the unclean nature of pigs, the nature of the Roman occupation, the supernatural, of mental illness) and so on.
Therefore asserting that the important part of this story is the odd behaviour of the pigs is in fact just an assertion.
[ 17. February 2016, 10:15: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
I hope when we get to Heaven that there is a FAQ board, upon which Jesus will kindly answer questions like this.
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I hope when we get to Heaven that there is a FAQ board, upon which Jesus will kindly answer questions like this.
I have always taken comfort in that "through a glass, darkly" verse from 1st Corinthians, with its promise that all will be revealed in the fullness of time. I hadn't considered the mysteries of livestock to be part of that, but I guess you never know.
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
Well sure -- under 'fan questions'. Things of no theological import, but of fannish interest. Jesus, do you prefer red wine? Did you wear socks with your sandals (and how did this affect foot washing)? What is your position upon Star Wars, were numbers 1-3 accursed by you specially or did George Lucas just fumble them?
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem with the analogy is that in baptism we enter into the water and the "old man" dies, and we rise again anew. Baptism is a symbol of death and resurrection.
The pigs don't rise again. They just die.
If anything it's a CONTRAST with baptism. Humans die and rise again. Demons just die.
It may be both, after all the passage through the Red Sea was both a deliverance and death (and is described in Corinthians as a type of baptism), I agree with other posts that it is more likely to be a symbolic of the demons returning to primeval chaos though given the language used.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Yes, but what makes the passage through the Red Sea analogous to baptism is that it was a passage through death to life via water. The pigs are analogous to Pharaoh's army. They went into the water but never came out. Whereas the children of Israel arose out of the sea, as does the baptisand out of the baptismal waters.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
It seems quite a gruesome thought, but I wonder the extent to which the saving of the people via the parting of the Red Sea was seen as being redemptive due to the destruction of the Egyptian Army. Isn't that the nature of the Myth of Redemptive Violence: that redemption comes via the spilling of blood?
I appreciate that this is a tangent of what MT was talking about, but I wonder if there is indeed an element or illusion here to the Red Sea salvation story. The unclean animals, the Romans (maybe), the evil spirits. The destruction of what is evil and the washing away in the water.
In fact maybe it is even possible to think of this as a contrast to the Passion - here we have many of the normal elements of religious understanding of God's perfection and destruction of the unclean, whereas in the embracing on the cross of all that is unclean we have the subversion of the understanding of what God's salvation really means.
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arse
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
Something also interesting about this account in one of the Gospels is not so much the behaviour of the pigs but that of the demons.
On this occasion, as on others, the demons recognise Jesus and talk to Him. Strange indeed that these creatures, (or whatever they are), seem quickly to acknowledge, and be fearful of a Divine Being, whereas our own muddled consciousness is slow on the uptake by comparison.
With this story the demons intriguingly " beg" Jesus to allow them to go into the pigs, as if they need a host in which to survive whereas being ejected into nothingness is the worst possible thing for them. ISTM either the pigs couldn't handle the demon invasion and went crazy, or they took the honourable step and destroyed themselves along with the demons.
All getting a bit Dr Who really .
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
It also occurs to me to wonder what this says about Demonology in the New Testament writings. From this story it appears that either those in the crowds who listened to Jesus, those to whom the words in the story were repeated - or maybe both - had a fairly complex theology of demons.
First it appears that a demon is not a free agent and that it requires a host. So a demon or demons cast out from an individual need somewhere else to go, even if the only other option is into a herd of farm animals.
Second it appears that if a demon is possessing a pig, who subsequently dies, then that demon is not available to reinfect some other unsuspecting human individual. If that's the case, where does the demon go? If the demon knew that the pigs were going to jump off the cliff (and/or intended this to happen), what was the point in that?
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arse
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
I always took the (well, a) point of the story to be that the demons didn't know that, but Jesus did. He outwits them. We don't make much of the "cunning Jesus," but the Synoptics all present him that way to us at times.
It also says something to me about the inextinguishability of human hope, however much that light might be dimmed. The swine 'realize' they are possessed and end everything the escape this (scare quotes to not anthropomorphize this instinct too much). The humans, on the other hand, gets close to death but hang on.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
Another thought; maybe the pigs are just an illustration of the number of demons/evil spirits which were within the young man. He was just one person, but there were enough evil spirits to go into a great herd of pigs.
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arse
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
Furthermore, unless Jesus told someone what the demons said, the bystanders could hear and understand what they were saying. This actually is not unreasonable, if they were at that moment resident in the young man. They could use his communication systems and his Aramaic (or whatever it was they were all speaking).
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Yes, but what makes the passage through the Red Sea analogous to baptism is that it was a passage through death to life via water. The pigs are analogous to Pharaoh's army. They went into the water but never came out.
Sure, but I'm not sure the two things are as separate as that. Contrast with communion, where the communicant receives Christ, but those who eat and drink in an unworthy manner eat and drink judgement on themselves.
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
Bumping because this comes up again soon in the lectionary readings for June 19.
Luke 8:26-39
[ 28. May 2016, 03:31: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Gramps49
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# 16378
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Posted
A couple of things about the story has struck me.
First, when the demons confront him, they call out Jesus name.
Jesus asks the demon's name and they reply Legion for they were many.
In Semitic literature to know a person's name is to have power over that person. When the demons call out Jesus name, they were trying to get the upper hand on Jesus. When Jesus *asks* for their name, they are obliged to give him their name. So this is a story about who has the upper hand.
Now that Jesus has the upper hand the demons plead not be sent back into the abyss. So Jesus allow them to possess a herd of swine who then rush into the sea--which can be seen as actually the abyss. Thus, the joke is Jesus did not send the demons to the abyss, the swine did. In other words, the demons did not even have power over the swine.
We have to remember that we need to avoid looking at the story through 21st century eyes, but try to understand why Mark and Luke would include this piece of propaganda in their gospels.
There is a strong hint, at least in Mark, that the demonic, now in his right mind, was the unnamed witness to the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane and was the person who let the women know that Jesus had risen on the first Easter
(Note the demonic either wore rags or ran around naked and lived among the tombs vs the person who met the women was dressed in a white robe in the area of the tombs--in Mark. Luke said two men dressed in white met woman at the tomb)
[ 19. June 2016, 23:13: Message edited by: Gramps49 ]
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
There is a strong hint, at least in Mark, that the demonic, now in his right mind, was the unnamed witness to the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane and was the person who let the women know that Jesus had risen on the first Easter
(Note the demonic either wore rags or ran around naked and lived among the tombs vs the person who met the women was dressed in a white robe in the area of the tombs--in Mark. Luke said two men dressed in white met woman at the tomb)
Here is the Mark passage about the demoniac. Where do you see a strong hint that this is the same young man that was at the empty tomb? Perhaps I've missed something, but I assume there was more than one set of white robes available back then.
[ 20. June 2016, 02:26: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
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Lamb Chopped
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# 5528
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Posted
I wonder what it says about me that I focus so much on the pigs in the story. Probably something unsavory about my priorities.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
Not unsavory at all. The pigs "make" the story. I was rereading the thread earlier and laughing at your observation here about the cartoonish imagery.
I like it when Jesus has a flair for the dramatic.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
Sorry for the double post - I needed to go back and check the Luke passage in my OAB.
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
First, when the demons confront him, they call out Jesus name.
They not only call him by name, they call him "Jesus, Son of the Most High God." The demons don't just know his name, they know who he *is*. This makes a stunning contrast with the disciples, who still haven't figured it all out.
[Sidebar: Are there other healing stories where the demons/evil spirits know who Jesus is? I seem to remember a commentary that pointed out the supernatural beings recognized Jesus' true identity ... but I'm not sure where I ran across that.]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Poor piggies!
And now I'm picturing the story if it were to happen today, and the resulting lawsuits...
And the judge's face as the lawyers try to establish cause and effect.
ETA: Am I the only one who thinks that Jesus was showing the demons a bit of mercy, not the man here? Because it wouldn't make any difference to the man where the demons went after leaving. I get the impression that they were begging pitifully for some other option than the abyss and, well...
Not that it did them any good since the pigs acted like sensible creatures and declined to house them any longer.
But I like the idea of Jesus showing even the demons some mercy here.
[ 20. June 2016, 03:12: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Mamacita, yeah, there's a bunch of those stories. Pretty much every story where the demons get enough time to draw a single breath they're shouting his identity all over the place and he has to shut them up. Presumably in order to muck up his ministry by concentrating attention on a fact that would bring unwelcome notice from the authorities. Or possibly just because they were totally freaked out.
There is a somewhat parallel story in the book of Acts where an apostle--Peter, was it? is being followed around by a fortune telling girl and the demons infesting her insist on telling everybody that he's there to preach about the true God. Eventually he gets annoyed enough to cast them out--I suspect because there are some "people" you just don't WANT recommendations from.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
ETA: Am I the only one who thinks that Jesus was showing the demons a bit of mercy, not the man here? Because it wouldn't make any difference to the man where the demons went after leaving. I get the impression that they were begging pitifully for some other option than the abyss and, well....
You have beaten me to yesterday's reading. I was going to post this evening.
Why did the demons beg not to be sent to the abyss? What happened to them when they entered the swine that then died in any event?
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Total speculation, but I suspect that going to the abyss was equivalent to going back to a supermax prison when they'd managed to get a certain amount of miserable liberty. Even pigs looked better to them than that. They were trying to spin out the time...
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
As noted in the thread in Purgatory, there is a strong parallel with the passage in Isaiah 65 to the extent that it seems unlikely that the gospel writer wasn't alluding to it.
I wouldn't have noticed if we hadn't had both readings together.
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arse
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
In Masefield's 'The Midnight Folk' he refers to folklore telling that a) pigs cannot swim, and b) if caught up in floods, they cut their throats. Kay wonders how and with what.
But this is not true. Have you seen the footage of swimming pigs ?
Which suggests another end to the story. Which has only just occurred to me. Depends how high the cliff was, of course.
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
In Masefield's 'The Midnight Folk' he refers to folklore telling that a) pigs cannot swim, and b) if caught up in floods, they cut their throats. Kay wonders how and with what.
But this is not true. Have you seen the footage of swimming pigs ?
Which suggests another end to the story. Which has only just occurred to me. Depends how high the cliff was, of course.
Our sermon yesterday referred to the ability of pigs to swim.
Lamb Chopped, in Miltonian terms, the demons would have fallen into the abyss as a part of Lucifer's defeated army; perhaps they were too low in rank to comprehend Lucifer's determination to continue the fight. One way of putting what you say is that the demons were themselves victims in the abyss as well as tormentors of those of this creation who fell there. I wonder how they managed to get into this creation to victimise this poor man? And what happened to them after the pigs drowned?
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Gramps49
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# 16378
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Posted
Ah, I don't think Matthew records this story in his Gospel. I think it is only reported in Mark and Luke.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Lamb Chopped, in Miltonian terms, the demons would have fallen into the abyss as a part of Lucifer's defeated army; perhaps they were too low in rank to comprehend Lucifer's determination to continue the fight. One way of putting what you say is that the demons were themselves victims in the abyss as well as tormentors of those of this creation who fell there. I wonder how they managed to get into this creation to victimise this poor man? And what happened to them after the pigs drowned?
I know Milton, but I'm unsure how much of his story correctly reflects reality. And there isn't much information in Scripture on "the abyss" or why certain demons aren't in it already. The best theory I've been able to put together is that the abyss is a form of permanent and unpleasant detention--either the same thing called the lake of fire in Revelation, or a similar thing. And not all demons have been thrown in the clink yet. Some (all?) have a limited amount of freedom which they mostly use to make life miserable for their fellow creatures (certainly people, and here pigs
![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ). But even this limited freedom will be taken from them at the End, and they're really not looking forward to it. Thus coming face to face with Jesus unexpectedly was a shocker--and distantly akin to having your parole officer catch you red-handed as you commit a crime. They knew what his likely response would be, and begged for it to be softened.
But I have no idea what happened after the pigs drowned. I doubt Jesus would have let them go merrily off to infect some other guy.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Ah, I don't think Matthew records this story in his Gospel. I think it is only reported in Mark and Luke.
Matthew 8:28-34
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But I have no idea what happened after the pigs drowned. I doubt Jesus would have let them go merrily off to infect some other guy.
I always assumed they ceased to exist when the pigs died. Maybe that's what they wanted - a permanent death being preferable to the Abyss.
[ 20. June 2016, 18:36: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
I always assumed they ceased to exist when the pigs died. Maybe that's what they wanted - a permanent death being preferable to the Abyss.
Hmm. I don't think there is any difference between those two concepts and I don't believe this is the message we should be getting from this passage.
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arse
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Neither can I see. If you take the abyss as permanent separation from God - and knowing that - then their death in the pigs leads to that result.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I don't see anything in Scripture that suggests that any creature, angel, human, or animal, has ever been annihilated (which I think is what you mean by "permanent death"). There is a passage in Job which raises this question but does not answer it about animals. But as for sentient beings, the answer throughout is always "they go somewhere else where they continue to exist," whether that is a good place or not, and whether the existence is desirable or not.
The continued existence could still qualify as what the Bible calls "the second death" or "perishing everlastingly" if you bear in mind the ghoulish (but probably accurate) observations of Lewis--that in every case we know from this life, "to be destroyed" does NOT mean annihilation but rather permanent transformation into an undesirable form, into "remains." Thus logs get burned and are transformed into heat, gasses, and ash; to be those things is equivalent to "having once been a log."
If the analogy holds true through all of nature, then there is probably a state which could be called "having once been a demon" or "having once been a human being (but no longer)." We usually refer to it as hell or eternal damnation. It is not a state of nonexistence, but a state of existence in a changed form--and since human beings (and demons!) were never created with this change in mind, it is basically horrible.
So being sent to the abyss may be a reference to entering this sort of state, or it may just be a temporary station on the way to final judgment (and sentence to this state). But whatever it is, the demons didn't want it. They probably WOULD have chosen annihilation if it were on offer--but it doesn't seem to be. No "let there NOT be X" for them.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
The idea that demons are eternal beings upon which Jesus Christ could have pity relating to their eternal punishment is beyond bizarre.
As suggested in the parallel Isaiah passage I quoted above, God the only reason that God has mercy on his enemies is due to the protection of his people. There would be no point in having mercy on demons, even if there was some kind of difference between death and annihilation in the abyss.
To be this just shows the dangers of getting way, way into the literalness of the text in a totally incomprehensible way.
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arse
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
I also read that there are parallels with Greek hero myths.
In the Odyssey, Circe turns soldiers into pigs:
quote:
"They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who suspected mischief and stayed outside. When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian but she drugged it with wicked poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her pigsties. They were like pigs-head, hair, and all, and they grunted just as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they remembered everything.
Apropos of nothing in particular - I am not overly familiar with greek myths, I just noticed someone commenting on the similarity and thought it was interesting.
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arse
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
The end of the Circe story is that the men are restored through the agency of their leader aided either by Hermes' gift of the holy moly, or by his own noos (don't know how to do Greek or correct spelling), and when restored, the men are in a better state than they were before transformation.
This is probably not helpful. It is also probably unhelpful that the Circe story may not be unrelated to Celtic ideas about pigs as belonging to the Otherworld of death, from which they were brought to be useful to humanity. (The Galatians were only just up the road from Jerusalem.)
Trying to link Biblical events to myths can be fun, but not necessarily useful.
[ 21. June 2016, 09:35: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Trying to link Biblical events to myths can be fun, but not necessarily useful.
Well I suppose one is then left to ponder the meaning of the term "useful". Some have speculated that this is evidence that the NT writers borrowed from existing Greek hero narratives. Is that a "useful" idea? How are we using that word in that context?
Or on another level, we might ask whether it matters where the text came from, the important part is how the church has understood it. That's a different kind of "useful".
Ultimately, to me, this passage is nearly useless. I think at best it is picture language linking Jesus back to the deity via Isaiah. I don't think it tells us much to be spread relating to demons, and I find the literal theological jujitsu offered above leaves me quite cold.
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arse
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Lamb Chopped, I think that "annihilated" is a good way of putting it. OTOH, there's that long debate whether on the Last Day, or however, Lucifer/Satan and his followers will be forgiven, or at least given a final opportunity to repent. I don't want to go down that path as it seems to place the abyss into this created universe.
I find the balance of your post useful though. While I don't (yet) accept its basis, it takes the matter I wanted to raise much further down the path than the earlier discussion of the reading.
BTW our OT reading for Sunday was not Isaiah but 1 Kings 19, 1-4, 8-15).
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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leo
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# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
BTW our OT reading for Sunday was not Isaiah but 1 Kings 19, 1-4, 8-15).
Then you're in a minority of churches that follow the continuous rather than the related track - the good thing about that is that it stops making possibly artificial links where they don't really exist.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The idea that demons are eternal beings upon which Jesus Christ could have pity relating to their eternal punishment is beyond bizarre.
As suggested in the parallel Isaiah passage I quoted above, God the only reason that God has mercy on his enemies is due to the protection of his people. There would be no point in having mercy on demons, even if there was some kind of difference between death and annihilation in the abyss.
To be this just shows the dangers of getting way, way into the literalness of the text in a totally incomprehensible way.
Wait a sec. You seem to be implying that God cares for his [human people] but not for other bits of creation [here, the fallen angels]. Why? When we know from Jonah and Matthew he cares even about the animals and birds? It seems to me odd to place humanity as the sole object of his care, and everybody/everything else as mere periphery.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Wait a sec. You seem to be implying that God cares for his [human people] but not for other bits of creation [here, the fallen angels]. Why? When we know from Jonah and Matthew he cares even about the animals and birds? It seems to me odd to place humanity as the sole object of his care, and everybody/everything else as mere periphery.
I certainly am implying that. The only destination for non-human evil is annihilation. See all the other bits of the Bible.
[ 21. June 2016, 16:42: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The only destination for non-human evil is annihilation. See all the other bits of the Bible.
Like, which ones? I can't recall any. I wish I could--annihilationism would be far more comfortable than the traditional view.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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What do those verses have to do with annihilation? they are all about evil creatures being kept imprisoned before Judgement Day. If anything, they appear to prove the opposite of annihilationism.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
What do those verses have to do with annihilation? they are all about evil creatures being kept imprisoned before Judgement Day. If anything, they appear to prove the opposite of annihilationism.
That's how I read them also.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
OK, but you'd agree that the abyss is a place for the demons to await punishment? No indication that some kind of mercy is on the table, right?
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arse
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
No, expulsion from Heaven to the abyss, that is, absence from God's eternal life and love, is the punishment. There is nothing in that one way or the other about an ultimate act of mercy restoring them to that presence.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
No, expulsion from Heaven to the abyss, that is, absence from God's eternal life and love, is the punishment. There is nothing in that one way or the other about an ultimate act of mercy restoring them to that presence.
Would they perceive it as a mercy if they were restored to that presence?
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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