@Bill Sorensen: People transgress the moral law all the time …

Comment on LSU responds to Michigan Conference by Sean Pitman.

@Bill Sorensen:

People transgress the moral law all the time and don’t know it. You deny sins of ignorance and assume as long as we don’t know better, we are not sinning.

That’s correct. Jesus himself used the excuse of ignorance to excuse the actions of those who did not know and could not have known any better.

“Ignorance is no excuse for error or sin, when there is every opportunity to know the will of God.” – Ellen White, GC p. 597

Notice the qualifier that Mrs. White uses… that ignorance is not an excuse for error or sin when there is every opportunity to know better but such opportunities are deliberately rejected. In such cases, there really isn’t true ignorance because the opportunity was recognized and deliberately rejected. It is only when there was no such recognition of opportunity that one can honestly claim true ignorance and therefore stand truly clear before one’s conscience.

Consider the following passage written by Paul in Romans:

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. – Romans 2:13-16

Notice how Paul argues here that we will only be judged according to our consciences. Our consciences are what will defend or condemn us in the time of judgment – according to the Royal Law that is written on the hearts of us all by God Himself.

God is really going to ask just one question during the judgment, “What did you do for the least of these my brothers?” In other words, did you “love your neighbor as yourself”? This one question will divide everyone into two camps: Those who lived according to the moral law of love and those who did not.

Because “sin is transgression of the law”, and the law doesn’t care what you know, or don’t know, we need a Saviour to stand in our place and take the penalty we deserve.

Sin in the conscious transgression of the law of love – the Royal Law. There is no sin if there is no conscious transgression or at least a conscious willful ignorance of one’s duty. This is why animals or those who are severely mentally handicapped cannot sin.

The bible exhorts us to judge good and evil and apply it to ourselves and others as well. And many who support and advocate evolution are well aware that they are not in harmony with bible Adventism.

There may also be those who honestly do not realize the truth of the Adventist message too…

Yet they willingly try to deceive people and claim they are in harmony with not only the bible, but also the SDA faith. And this is not “sins of ignorance” but deliberate rebellion.

Deliberate deception in this manner is indeed a sin before God – even if the person thinks that the end result is right. This isn’t the type of error I’m talking about.

The bible is not as ambiguous as you would lead us to believe. And in the end, we are not only accountable for what we know, but also for what we could know and refuse to find out, or admit when it is clearly revealed and pointed out.

I agree. We are certainly accountable for what we could have known but refused to find out. Such deliberate ignorance isn’t truly honest ignorance though. I call this type of ignorance “informed ignorance” for which there is simply no valid excuse.

Again, I’m not talking about this type of willful ignorance. I’m talking about truly honest ignorance for which there was no reasonable way to discover or clearly understand the truth.

Why should, or would they repent if there is nothing to repent of? Since, according to you, they are not guilty, neither do they need to repent.

Just because a person may not be guilty of sin doesn’t mean that they aren’t in error and causing serious harm. Once such errors are clearly presented to them then they are morally responsible for the harm that they are causing and must repent of it or be guilty of sin at that point.

A superficial view of sin leads to a superficial view of the atonement. And a superficial view of the atonement leads to a lack of appreciation of what Christ has done for the human family corporately and each of us individually.

I think I have a pretty deep appreciation of the Atonement. Of course no one can fully comprehend the depth of the Atonement, but it is certainly possible to appreciate it to a degree that is sufficient to leave one in awe of God and draw one humbly toward the cross with a broken heart…

“To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not” is a selective and limited definition of sin that James uses for a particular purpose. It is not the full comprehensive view of sin defined by John as “transgression of the law” with no qualification.

It all depends in how you define “The Law”. The only reason we are all guilty before the law (the Royal Law) is because God has given us all our own consciences. We have all deliberately rebelled against what our consciences have told us was right. Therefore, we are all guilty of deliberate sin.

It simply would not be fair of God to punish anyone for something that he/she no idea what he/she did wrong nor did he/she have any chance to determine the right. This particular notion of your strikes at very basic ideas of fair play and justice… ideas which are in fact commonly reflected in the Bible itself. I myself would not respect anyone, not even a God, who punished those who had no chance to know better and were honestly ignorant. I would hate such a God… and so would you if you happen to be shut out of Heaven for some doctrinal error of yours which you had no idea nor did you consciously choose not to know. That would make God seem very capricious and unfair in my mind – and I dare say yours as well if it really happened to you.

God must come through this Great Controversy with everyone in the universe understanding His dealings with us as being completely just and loving – refuting all of the claims of Satan against Him. Even the wicked will acknowledge God’s love and justice at the very end. God is also on trial before the universe here and no one can love someone who acts in an unfair manner against those who are truly and honestly ignorant; having no chance to know or do better.

The wicked are therefore lost, eternally lost, not because they were ignorant (ignorance can be fixed), but because they consciously rejected what they knew to be true (there is no cure for determined deliberate rebellion against the truth – i.e., the “unpardonable sin”). This is why the judgment against the wicked will be an eternal judgment because there is no cure for determined rebellion against known truth. If any possible cure could be found, God would find it and provide it. It is because no cure in the form of additional information or anything else can be found that the wicked are rightly judged to be incurable and are therefore forever lost.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

LSU responds to Michigan Conference
Another Distressed Student wrote (on the Spectrum Blog):

“I have heard Creation preached often! So many of us so-called ‘products’ of LSU are creationists! And many of us have studied in the sciences at LSU.”

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2010/06/03/la_sierra_mother_writes_review#comment-54704

Indeed, general creationism is preached at LSU. But when was the last time you ever heard literal 6-day creationism preached or actively promoted at LSU? – in either the religion or science departments? I bet is has been a fairly long while…

Come on now, at the very least LSU should be open and honest about what type of creationism is being promoted at LSU – certainly not the type promoted by the organized SDA Church as a foundational pillar of the SDA faith…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


LSU responds to Michigan Conference

Getting a pass for attacking just one fundamental belief…

From the Spectrum Blog:

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2010/06/03/la_sierra_mother_writes_review#comment-54582

Where in the posts on the FB page are there any testimonies about how LSU influenced students to favorably regard the fundamental beliefs of the SDA Church on the topic of a literal 6-day Creation of all life on this planet? Anyone?

Mrs. Webster’s letter, as well as the FB page defending LSU, are both missing the entire point of the current conflict with LSU. The point isn’t that LSU isn’t religious or supporting certain ideas of God and creation in general. The point is that LSU is directly attacking and undermining a very specific view of creation that the SDA Church, as an organization, holds to be a foundational pillar of the unique SDA belief system – – the literal 6-day creation week.

This particular view of a literal 6-day creation week is so fundamental to the SDA Church that it is reflected in the very name of the Church – Seventh-day Adventists.

So, should LSU get a pass when it comes to undermining and attacking this fundamental SDA doctrinal position of the Church because of all the other good things it is doing? Hmmm? I, for one, don’t think so. If a school wishes to carry the name of any organization, it should, at the very least, reflect *all* of the *fundamental* goals and ideals of that organization… not just most of them…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


LSU responds to Michigan Conference
@Bill Sorensen:

Since you are censoring dialogue like the liberal forums, I won’t post here anymore. Your duplicity is the same as theirs. In fact worse. They accused me of attacking individuals as their excuse. You can’t even use that as an excuse.

You are simply wrong, and won’t admit it.

I gave you my personal E-mail to continue your efforts to enlighten me if you so choose, but it seems like you only want to present your arguments in forum…

We did not set up this forum to go around attacking people as evil. It is difficult enough to point out that another is in serious error without adding to that the accusation of a deliberate rebellion against God – something that only God himself can know with regard to such doctrinal issues. That simply isn’t the purpose of this website – to judge the hearts of people.

I may be wrong here, but if so, I am sincerely and honestly wrong. I cannot admit something that I do not honestly see.

I perceive that you yourself are honest and sincere in your beliefs. I think you are mistaken, seriously mistaken and causing damage to the cause, but I don’t think you are necessarily responsible for the damage since you seem to be honestly unaware of your errors. If you think it best to no longer post here, that’s fine. We’ll struggle along without you… somehow ; )

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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