Tlaloc
Member
Sometimes a string of things just seems to come together and harmonize into one point.
Quite a while ago my pastor was explaining covetousness, his opening question was 'Can the person with everything covet?' The question was an abstract to make a point, it wasn't intended to have actual direct application, but I now think it does. The answer was yes, in that to covet is, crudely, to want more. Like Uzziah, the king who would be a priest, even being a king he was not allowed to be that which he was not.
Then we get into recent talks about perfection. Perfection is not needing anything, being mature in what you are, perfection is not having everything.
Now, still more recently, it has occurred to me that misunderstanding or outright perversion of these concepts together has lead to a fair number of heresies. From the Valentine Gnosticism to modern North American universalism, the basic argument goes 'God, being perfect, cannot lack anything, therefore- (God is both Male and Female, God cannot lose anyone to damnation)'
I propose that God can lack, both can and should. God lacks sin, he lacks error, he lacks flaw to start. Even the supposition that X cannot lack is self defeating in that X would have to lack the ability to lack. To say that God lacks nothing he needs is true, but it does not help the heretical positions, to say that he lacks nothing period is nothing short of ascribing covetous to God.
I can come to no other conclusion that God is perfectly contented with who He is, and has no desire to be anything He is not. For him to be anything he is not would only take away from his perfection, rather than add to it. God has lost nothing for avoiding sin, and the same is true for us when we avoid it, despite what most would tell us.
Quite a while ago my pastor was explaining covetousness, his opening question was 'Can the person with everything covet?' The question was an abstract to make a point, it wasn't intended to have actual direct application, but I now think it does. The answer was yes, in that to covet is, crudely, to want more. Like Uzziah, the king who would be a priest, even being a king he was not allowed to be that which he was not.
Then we get into recent talks about perfection. Perfection is not needing anything, being mature in what you are, perfection is not having everything.
Now, still more recently, it has occurred to me that misunderstanding or outright perversion of these concepts together has lead to a fair number of heresies. From the Valentine Gnosticism to modern North American universalism, the basic argument goes 'God, being perfect, cannot lack anything, therefore- (God is both Male and Female, God cannot lose anyone to damnation)'
I propose that God can lack, both can and should. God lacks sin, he lacks error, he lacks flaw to start. Even the supposition that X cannot lack is self defeating in that X would have to lack the ability to lack. To say that God lacks nothing he needs is true, but it does not help the heretical positions, to say that he lacks nothing period is nothing short of ascribing covetous to God.
I can come to no other conclusion that God is perfectly contented with who He is, and has no desire to be anything He is not. For him to be anything he is not would only take away from his perfection, rather than add to it. God has lost nothing for avoiding sin, and the same is true for us when we avoid it, despite what most would tell us.