Telosism (the Biblical Post-Christian Religion)

Category: Theology

  • Notes on predestination and Calvinism

    First I am not a professional theologian. The following may contain factual errors. However, I am a mathematician and can formulate my thoughts exactly.

    As far as I know, there is no free will for salvation of a man or woman accordingly the teaching of the Protestant reformer John Calvin.

    I think we should accommodate that “free will” can be interpreted in different ways:

    1. We have free will in that sense that God does not change our character by just moving atoms in our brain to erase our old mind and create a new one with destruction of our former mind. Instead God communicates with us with words, visions, etc., all of which are accomplished as influencing our brains with information contained in cosmic electromagnetic waves. Cosmic electromagnetic waves are called “Christ” in Bible (see my book). So God decided to save us through Christ instead of erasing our mind with brute force and starting it anew with old mind erases. In this sense we have free will.
    2. Another meaning of “free will” is that we could be able to resist God’s influence to save us. I doubt whether we have free will in this sense. (Rom. 9:18-19) “18 So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. 19 You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” From this verse it seems that a human does not have free will in the sense to withstand the decision of God to save him.

    It seems that all mainstream and evangelical Protestants believe that God has predestined who to save.

    Another “feature” of Calvinism is that God has predestined also who not to save.

    Do I agree with this? It seems that this question is even more difficult than it seems:

    I suppose that people are born accordingly natural laws of biology and sociology. What is predestination for salvation of a particular person then? In my opinion it is “fitting” of a particular “natural” (stochastic that is randomly borb) person into the scheme of one of a big but finite number of a “new creations”.

    Then the main point of the discussion of Luther and Calvin becomes: Does God predestine only fitting particular persons into the scheme of saved “new creations” or does He also predestine into another scheme of non-saved people? I don’t know the answer but suppose that it is likely that God in this sense predestined only “new creations” and has not predestined not saved people.

    Another question: How can predestination fit together with the fact that people are saved when they willingly accept Christ into their hearts?

    I think the main part of the answer to this question is: (Is. 65:24) “It shall happen that, before they call, I will answer…” This means that our prayers can be heard by God even before the world begin, when He does our predestination.

  • Bible on abortion

    The following may look “not enough conservative”, but my purpose is to strictly follow the Bible:

    (Job 3:16) “or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.”

    Bible seems to say (if I understand it correctly) that unborn embryos do not have soul.

    I do not say that abortion is good. I just try to make a biblical point on it.

    Is killing an unborn embryos well a killing? I do not know, but it seems not to be sending a soul into separation of body, because there is no soul in this case.

    The above is just my personal opinion and it may be wrong.

  • Love is a simple thing

    What is love? What the word “love” means in New Testament? These look like very difficult questions.

    But the Greek word “agape” for “love” also means “charity”. So love is simply ability to do charity.

    (1 Cor. 13)

    1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. 3 If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.

    In the past it was about me. I had faith, I was baptized by Spirit and fire and prayed in tongues, I knew more than most other people. I even wanted to help the poor. But I didn’t have charity.

    I was seeking for ways to get money for my ministry. It was a business, business attempting to serve God, but not a charity.

    I was heavily pressed by the contradiction that I need money for my ministry but should not be greedy.

    I was divided between God’s commandments and between my desire to get money for my ministry by any means (such as cursing other people and making them to die because of my curse).

    At last (quite hilariously) I tried to put my hope on conforming to the Russian law (I’m from Russia) about charitable organizations. I tried to make me conform to this law, because I saw no other way to overcome my “holy” greed.

    I found myself a modern kind of a Pharisee.

    But now thanks to End of Gospel teaching I am free from being a Pharisee and have charity in my heart. Read this book.

  • What should we do?

    Many preachers teach that for each deed we need first receive a revelation from God and not to do what God has not explicitly requested us to do.

    But what God wants us to do?

    (John 6)

    28 They said therefore to him, “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?”
    29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

    There is no concrete deed we should do, but we should do anything and everything what conforms to the faith. The only good deed we can do is to believe. A deed with faith is good and a deed without faith is not good whatever we do.

    (Heb. 11:6) “Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him…”

    (Heb. 6:1) “Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let us press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God…”

    Our works are “dead”. This means that we sinners cannot do good by our deeds. Our psychic is too broken for us to do good deeds. But Christ opened us another way to serve God, we serve God by our faith.

    Faith is implemented in deeds, however:

    (Jam. 2)

    20 But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? 21 Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”;*x4 and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith. 25 In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.

    Also:

    (Ecc. 9:10) “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…”

    We should do everything we can do, this verse teaches.

    I do accordingly my faith math research, writing free software, and writing sermons like this one. These are important good deals of faith which change the world. Please support my good deeds with any sum of money.

  • Why we need to believe to receive God’s promises

    Why do we need to believe to receive God’s promises?

    A promise is void if the person who promises knows, that the one to whom the promise is addressed won’t believe.

    For example if I were pretending to be a madman who assumes to be much more rich than I am and I promised you 10 billion dollars in my imitated rave, then my promise to you is void because you would assume that I am a madman and thus I would not expect you to believe me.

    In the same way, if you don’t believe a God’s promise in Bible, God has no obligation to fulfill this promise for you.

    So to whom Bible is addressed? It is addressed to these who believe. If you don’t believe, the promise is not addressed to you.

  • Blood of Christ is an instrument of payment

    (1Pet. 1) 18 knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a faultless and pure lamb, the blood of Christ.

    Here we see that (on the heaven) blood of Christ is an instrument of payment, just like as silver and gold are instruments of payment on the Earth.

    For something to be used as an instrument of payment, it needs to be precious just like gold, and in this Bible fragment we see that blood of Christ is precious.

    By the way in modern Hebrew the word “damim” may be translated both as blood and payments. Coincidence?

  • What does it mean that Jesus resurrected in flesh?

    We know that Jesus really resurrected, that is not remained just a flesh-less spirit.

    But what does this mean? What is the difference between being a ghost or a real man, when it comes to a body which is able to enter into a room with closed doors, to change the face to be unrecognized, but also able to be touched, and even to eat?

    (1Pet. 3:18) “being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit”.

    My interpretation is the following: Jesus Christ is the “living God” as prophesied in the Old Testament. Yes, because every verse of Old Testament witnesses about Jesus, accordingly (Jn. 5:39) “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.”

    To be living it means that he can touch, get an item in his hands, build a mechanism such as a clock from physical details. This means that He is able to operate in our world, unlike flesh-less spirits which at most are able only to communicate with living people and ask them to do something in this material world, not to act in the world directly.

    This means that Jesus Christ is in a spiritual body after His resurrection, but His spirit is so powerful that he can be called truly alive.

  • A seeming error in the Gospel

    (1Cor 15:51-52) “51 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.”

    From this verse it looks like that Paul claims that he will not be among dead when “we will be changed” events happen. We know that it is not true.

    But claiming “we will be changed” does not imply “we will be not dead”. It can be understood as “we, both alive and dead, will be changed”.

    So there is no error here.

    The God’s word expressed through Paul is errorless, despite of that Paul seemingly meant something erroneous.

  • On meditation and Christian religion

    Some Christian preachers teach: “You should not meditate (in the sense of eastern religions), because a part of meditation act is not-to-think.”

    I doubt this:

    (Matthew 24:44) “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”

    (Luke 12:40) “Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”

    Jesus comes to us when you do not think! Maybe we should not follow eastern religions in how to meditate, but we should sometimes not to think, so that Jesus to come to us.

  • Why Jesus needed to be tempted?

    (Hebrews 2:17-18) “17 Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.”

    Have you ever wondered about Heb. 2:18? Jesus already knows all what means that He knows all situations. Isn’t it enough to help those who are tempted? why he himself should be tempted in order to help others? This looks like a very difficult question.

    I do not know the answer in details but propose this explanation:

    Jesus needs to suffer and be tempted himself so that when He helps somebody, the opposition would not be able to say: He tries to help tempted persons which he himself was not tempted and did not suffered.

    It is only a possible theory. I welcome you to discuss in comments to this blog post possible explanations.