Angels - what does scripture tell us about them?

[Checkpoint]

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.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 25 by LuciusWrong]

What do you think the title "ALMIGHTY" means and how would it differ from "mighty"?

I think this will be the third time I wrote this: I'm not saying God is not the "most" powerful; I'm saying that God's level of power is irrelevant to his claim to the throne.

So.....?

And since this thread is about "angels", I will reiterate that the belief that the spiritual being are all created by God creates problems that are impossible to resolve without changing something.

But you still don't list nor define these problems - I can hardly wait.

Years ago there was the "Open Theory" of God, which argued that God knows "everything", but only in the sense of "everything that can be known". The book argued that atomic particles are random, so therefore things in the world are random...so therefore God can't know what will happen. This theory attempts to reconcile the problem at hand, but this isn't the solution.

MY rejection of this definition of HIS being all knowing rests on the implication that if it is true then HE knew before creation those who would end in hell BUT CREATED THEM ANYWAY !! a blasphemy against HIS character as loving and righteous. It is HIS self revelation in Scripture that proves this conjecture to be untenable though many so called do believe that YHWH IS the creator of moral evil and evil people, sigh.

With my theory, we don't have to sacrifice any of God's attributes. We just have to let go of a naive assumption made by some medieval preacher.

You haven't stated what the problem is with the medieval preaching yet - how then do we trust your solution ? by which I guess you are referring to the eternal existence of all spirits?

[ttruscott]

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.

Yes indeed, good schoolboy questions...but since the answer is obvious I wonder if the boy just did not understand it?

Matt 13:27 The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28 ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up [bring judgement upon them]?’ 29 ‘No,’ he said, [postpone the judgement because] ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. It is the sinfulness of the elect that postpones the judgement until they are all safe from destruction by redemption and being trained to be righteous.

If God were so powerful, and if God knows everything, why didn't he know what was going to happen?

Indeed but if we are talking about earth and earthly society, of course GOD knew what would happen because HE predetermined it all. HE gives us perfectly pre-determined lives as the best lives for the redemption of HIS sinful elect.

If we are talking about the fall of Satan and the other demons then the short answer is in Acts 15:18 (kjv).

[ttruscott]

MOOT...given that GOD is a Trinity,

What if that is not in fact a given, but only a widespread but contested assumption or interpretation?

Grace and peace.

Yes indeed, what if?

[Checkpoint]

MOOT...given that GOD is a Trinity,

What if that is not in fact a given, but only a widespread but contested assumption or interpretation?

Grace and peace.

Yes indeed, what if?

Then all the other/following IFs are cancelled.

Grace and peace.

[bjs]

[Replying to post 34 by LuciusWrong]


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[AgnosticBoy]

Checkpoint said,
"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."

I'll approach this from the standpoint of demons.

In a debate involving William Lane Craig and Bishop Spong, it was claimed that demons were not actual living entities. Reading up on other liberal Christian views I came across similar views. Demons are just human projections representing evil and mental illness. I really question this viewpoint considering that Jesus who was omniscient looked at demons as being real.

I also wonder if angels are real, then does it make sense or far fetched to consider that demons can also be real? This is where I find inconsistency in liberal views.

[William]

A Theological Theory.

William: There is another way of looking at things.

1: There is more than one 'Heaven'.

2: The Fathers House, is the One 'Heaven' through which all other heavens own their existence, either directly by the Father or through indirect invention, by The Son.

3: Jesus created his heaven, (our Metaphysical Universe) and through this, placed an Eternal Entity - HIMSELF - into it.

The Eternal Entity fragmented into innumerable characters/individuate entities.

4: From this process, the Eternal Entities did not believe Jesus when he told them they were really his creations.

5: Jesus insisted that they should accept him as their creator, and a number of them resisted doing so on the grounds that they were Eternal Entities and therefore could not have been 'created' by Jesus or anyone else.

6: Jesus decided that he would place the rebels into a universe whereby they could learn to see him as their creator.

7: The particular place Jesus created to place them, is our Physical Universe. Specifically The Earth, specifically in human form. This allowed for the Eternal Entities not to understand that they were Eternal Entities, because birth and death and no knowledge of ever having existed prior to that, took away any knowledge which might interfere with said process.

8: Human beings unwittingly used their imaginations to create all manner of imaginary critter, but their creations became real in the Metaphysical Universe, where the properties of said universe make that possible.

9: The section of the Metaphysical Universe set aside for this process to happen, is only a small aspect of the overall Metaphysical Universe. This is where Gods and Jesus', Angels and Demons and other human imagined creatures exist and can be experienced by their human creators, as real.

10: Most humans who have gone through their sojourn into the Physical Universe, end up in this sector of the Metaphysical Universe, and are dealt with by the things of their own creation.

11: Everything within the Metaphysical Heaven - including the physical universe, is all a construct of Jesus - either directly or indirectly as the case might be.

12: Some humans do not get waylaid by the Metaphysical Universe, either within the human construct or the more real construct Jesus created before he created the physical universe. Those humans find their way through the Metaphysical Universe and end up in The Fathers House, where they are allowed to have a place where they can create their own Metaphysical Universes as they wish.

I understand, given what data is available from many sources, that this is what Jesus was referring to when he told his disciples about "The Knowledge of The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven"

Wrapping all the above up, one is left with the idea that all this happened because Jesus created a Metaphysical Universe and lost himself within it, and the process of his creativity is to gather the fragments together and eventually present them as whole before The Father.

One could protest that Jesus is without 'sin/evil' and this would be correct in relation to his existing prior to him creating a Metaphysical Universe and fragmenting into uncountable units of individuate Eternal Entities.

But, there are no Laws governing GOD and GODs Offspring in the Father House where Jesus was initially begotten.

Laws are only created when necessary, as was that case after Jesus created the Metaphysical Universe. Without Law, there is no sin recognized, and no judgment passed on anything.

The laws of both the Metaphysical and Physical Universes have been programmed into them, and these act as indicators which will eventually bring all the Eternal Entities in the Metaphysical Universe, back into The House of The Father - The Father's House.

In The Fathers House, no laws apply because no Judgments are given. The Metaphysical Universe and the Physical Universe created through that, are places of judgment, and thus exist within fields of Law.



That is the short version. All Theological Theories I have encountered, can fit into the one above @