another spot

Lev. 19:18: (NIV)

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Deut. 6:5: (NIV)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Then of course in the gospels, Jesus repeated the above, well before Pentacost. Yet, we have Romans 5:5. This is an apparent contradiction unless you read precisely what is written in Romans 5:5.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

This isn’t talking about a spiritual ability to love. It is God’s love toward us. Compare to I John 3:1.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God….

Here’s a commentary from David Guzik.

“b. Every Christian should know what it is like to have the love of God . . . poured out in our hearts - to have a deep inner awareness of God’s love for us.

i. Paul’s logical arguments in Romans are devastating but the Book of Romans doesn’t lack emotion or passionate experiences with God. Paul wants us to think the right thoughts about God, but he also wants us to have the right experience with God - the love of God . . . poured out in our hearts.

ii. God’s love isn’t given to us in a trickle, it is poured out in our hearts. Some Christians live as if it was only a trickle but God wants us to know the outpouring of His love.”

Now there’s no contradiction.

Bolshevik. I am quite interested in this topic. I am unable to click on your links. I get an error msg. Could you copy and paste, maybe?

I know I am throwing this totally off topic....very sorry.

I still don't accept the trinity. However, there is the verse refering to the child Mary was carrying as a "holy thing." I thought of it today. I also thought, I don't see how Jesus could have had any of Mary's heredity and still be holy, so I have a little trouble with twi version of events also. An enigma.

Ok. As I was.

Following is a quote from David Guzik, commentary on Galatians I found interesting in light of this discussion.

"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

a. The Galatians struggled with a basic question: How are we made right before God? What is our standing before Him? Because of some bad teaching, they answered those questions wrong. They thought, “We are made right before God based on what Jesus did for us, plus what we do for Him under the Law of Moses.” In correcting this, Paul first wrote about his own experiences – first, when he came to Jesus by faith alone, not faith plus being under the law. Then he wrote about his experience of confronting the apostle Peter when he slipped up under this same error. Now, after dealing with his experience, the Apostle Paul deals with the experience of the Galatian Christians themselves. Just as Paul’s experience proved that we stand right before God based on what Jesus did, not based on what do under the law, so will the Galatians’ experience prove the same thing.

b. O foolish Galatians! The strong words are well deserved. Phillips even translates this, O you dear idiots of Galatia. In calling the Galatians foolish, Paul is not saying they are morally or mentally deficient (the Greek word moros conveys that idea, and was used by Jesus in parables, such as in Matthew 7:26; 25:1-13). Instead, Paul uses the Greek word anoetos, which has the idea of someone who can think but fails to use their power of perception.

i. The principles Paul referred to are things the Galatians knew, things they had been taught. The knowledge and understanding were there, but they were not using them.

c. Who has bewitched you: Bewitched has the idea that the Galatians are under some type of spell. Paul doesn’t mean this literally, but their thinking is so clouded – and so unbiblical – that it seems that some kind of spell has been cast over them.

i. Barclay translates bewitched as put the evil eye on. The ancient Greeks were accustomed to and afraid of the idea that a spell could be cast upon them by an “evil eye.”

ii. The “evil eye” was thought to work in the way a serpent could hypnotize its prey with its eyes. Once the victim looked into the “evil eye,” a spell could be cast. Therefore, the way to overcome the evil eye was simply not to look at it. In using this phrasing, and using the word picture of bewitched, Paul is encouraging the Galatians to keep their eyes always, steadfastly, upon Jesus."

Thanks, JavaJane. It really wasn’t easy to explain. I’m still not sure I’m satisfied with it, lol.

Very, very good post. I really get where you’re coming from. Like you, my previous church experience was hard core fundamentalism. Every Sunday was how I was going to hell for smoking, dancing, and cussing. Since I continue to indulge in these things, I reckon I am going to hell. Their God was pretty terrifying also. By age 13, I’d had enough. I took the class for the first time when I was 24. At the time, it was a refreshing and very good change. Or seemed so.

Hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it, but twi’s God was pretty terrifying during lcm’s days. Perform, perform, perform, or get tossed and He won’t spit in your direction. I also had not considered the legalism in the sense of leading people away from God. I agree with your comments, but I also think if you are afraid of God and caught up in works to appease leadership (thus supposedly appeasing God), then that pretty much destroys faith in God, which is a major point in Galatians. Circumcision, stringing chairs, all pretty much the same thing. The biggest difference between twi and what was happening in Galatia, is the old school was trying to get them to perform rituals to have salvation ie they had to earn it rather than believe it. Twi tried to force ritual and man made doctrines in order to retain a relationship with God and even physical life. Hard bondage either way. Legalism is heavy obedience to the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

I don’t know if you were around during the fog years. Shortly afterward, everyone was required to listen to the “Galatians tapes.” This was lcm going over how the former leadership was trying to put him under legalism and thus take down the ministry. What is interesting is he proceeded to do that very thing himself. What he claimed just about destroyed him, he did to everyone else. The very techniques he complained about he used, such as isolate and control.

To tie my thoughts together with yours: Gal 5:6 (NIV) For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

I know the word “expressing” is energeo or some form of it. Twi taught believing energizes love. That’s ok I guess. I like expressing better, personally.

Since there was no love at the top, we also know there was no faith/believing either. Perhaps the reason for no faith/believing was a lack of respect. God was a product to sell.

Javajane:

But then again, wasn't it fear of consequences that kept a lot of us from doing the right thing while involved with twi?

Sure. The legalism in twi was brutal beyond belief. No love at all. The single biggest difference is God loves us, twi leadership does not, did not. I really do get where you’re coming from. Lived through it myself.

My motivation not to steal from others is not that I may go to prison, it is because stealing from someone else would hurt them. I do not murder because of the harm it would cause others, not because I am afraid that I will get the death penalty. I also do not worship anything before God because it would hurt God's heart, and I love Him.

Is it possible to love God and have a healthy respect for Him at the same time? Is it possible to love Him more deeply because you really get it deep down who He is? The whole beauty of the Exodus record is God showed Israel how powerful He is. He wanted them to take Him very seriously so they would obey. He was trying to impress upon them very deeply these things were WRONG and carry it with them so they wouldn’t sin. Reverential awe (dictionary.com). Fear in the sense of taking Him very seriously. As I stated in my post above, twi doctrine undermined that kind of respect. The kind of fear I’m talking about is not the quaking kind, God and the base bat kind used in twi in connection with leadership. As I stated in my post above, twi doctrine undermined that kind of respect. The God of twi was a genie in a lamp.

As stated above, the motivation of a child is determined by fear of consequences inflicted by parents... this is how they learn initially what is right and what is wrong...

Sure. And if the family is healthy there is lots of love and love motivation also.

Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [to bring us] unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

This is one of the verses vp used to justify dispensationalism. His thing was license and being able to disregard “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Not under the law, you know. If you are walking in love in the renewed mind and in fellowship you can break the entire OT, according to twi, if you’re mature enough. It was not to us, but for our learning. We now live on this higher spiritual plane, doncha know. You and I may not have done this, but plenty at the top did. Keep in mind the subject of Galatians was faith vs works. It isn’t tossing out the law, or it would be ok to murder.

Since we are no longer under the law, we should be growing up into love as our motivation.... loving God, and loving your neighbor as yourselves.

Love God, love your neighbor is itself a commandment given by JC, as he said, it summarizes all the law and prophets. The basic change in the NT is how we are justified (not our works but faith), the accomplishments of JC doing what obedience to the law could not do (redemption), and a change in emphasis dropping the rituals but not the ethics. NT builds on the ethics side. It points out it is sin to act in a manner that is not loving towards others. It was sin in the OT also. The distinction is we are not under the law in the sense of justified by works. Growing up in love is fine. It’s great, but giving not under the law as a reason isn’t logical.

Not that we shouldn't fear consequences for our actions, but our motivator should be love.

Sure. But that was true in the OT also. That’s the very point Jesus was making.

I hope you understand (and anyone reading this) I am NOT trying to set out what is right doctrine and everyone should think what I think. I am only trying to point out in a different way, logic problems with Pfal and twi in general.

Twi changed fear God to respect God because their doctrine is all fear is wrong all the time. I believe that watered down true respect a bit in a subtle way. That’s just my opinion. At the same time, I am not advocating fear as the only motivation. Or a big one. But is it right to take it out altogether, completely? In any sense of the word? Lawlessness occurs because there is no fear of God at all.

Dispensationalism (the 7 administrations) is another example of black and white twi thinking that fails under close scrutiny. Not under the law doesn’t wipe out the ethics (love) of the law…which is the very essence and premise of the law in the first place. Twi’s version of things makes that very, very difficult to see and the reasoning gets extremely circular.

I am coming in this one late and don't have it thought through like you guys do, but I will think about it more.

Just off the top of my head, tho. Jesus was summarizing the 10 commandments when he said love God love your neighbor. Some apply to loving God, some applying to loving your neighbor. If you go back and read them, they aren't all that difficult to do. The NT gives much more on the fine points. I think being born again gives us the ability to do a better job of it and we can always get better at it. I don't see the point in giving us something to do that we can't do. (Has that been said?)

Don't think I can go with a passive, Christ in me approach. Commandments involve obedience which would involve a conscience decision. Not much obedience to it otherwise and it wouldn't mean nearly so much to me as a giver or others as a receiver. On the other hand, if I make a conscience and deliberate decision to love you then that is really powerful and affects you way deep down.

Loving God as He loves us? That needs thinking. I can't think of a single thing I can do that God couldn't do better.

Yeah, me too.

We joke about the cult thing here sometimes, but it really isn't funny. I believe most if not all of us know that.

If I had words good enough or powerful enough to say, I would.

I am nonetheless sorry for what you went through.

A. S.

Ham: "There really is a difference between inductive reasoning and jumping to an unfounded conclusion..."

Absolutely. You are very good at wording things succinctly and hitting the nail on the head.

Templelady: “The problem isn't that there are things in life that could be said to be black and white. It is when black and white is the only way we can view the world”. Exactly.

The effect of black and white thinking is thought stopping.

When fear is defined as: believing in reverse, wrong believing

and choice (b) is positive believing

The only alternative is to think in those two boxes.

Or, choice (A) Pfal is perfect, God breathed and choice (B) all else is wrong.

Or choice (A) all research and personal study must fit within Pfal or (B) it is wrong.

What is insidious: you don’t realize you quit thinking.

Thanks Waterbuffalo. I agree. And you raise an excellent point. What about changing fear God to respect? Is it so terrible to fear consequences? Is it possible that changing fear to respect undermined God’s awesomeness and absolute authority of right and wrong, good and evil, to a great degree? (Check this out: upon giving the 10 commandments…Ex. 20:20 (NIV) Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” The entire context is pretty great in that light. God wanted to make a BIG impression to motivate obedience. For their sake. Now consider: OT for our learning. No degree of sin. Sin isn’t really sin anymore, but broken fellowship. Then you start to see a religious system highly appealing to someone who doesn’t take God seriously himself. The followers who are serious, strap this stuff on, quit thinking, end up going the opposite way they intended. Think about it. No fear of God or consequences because your mind doesn’t even go there because fear is evil. It is unsound thinking, dontcha know. It comes from the Debil. Spirit of fear, ad nasum.)

So, this is partly how you get to Australia using a map you were told would take you to Chicago.

When you can't meet the constant demands for money and told you aren't believing to give them more,

and if you do that often enought you get kicked out.

When you can't make a simple decision without permission.

Any infraction real or imagined results in threats of death.

Roy, that’s pretty good. I appreciate creative writing. I’ll play!!

Dear Roy:

We did determine a fault with VPW PFAL model, specifically they thought for themselves too much, questioned the leadership and had too much freedom. We then replaced them with model LCM WAAP and eliminated all traces of VPW PFAL programming. Unfortunately this programming proved worse than the first and we tossed most of them. They proved to be much more resilient than expected. You can imagine how disheartened we were to see them showing up on Grease Spot thinking for themselves more than ever and even having fun. We grieve for their money daily.

Our new model, Bland Head in Sand, is much more compliant, but not the money machine we actually need. Our solution is to extract as much money as possible from the ones we have, as efforts to interest anyone have been mostly unsuccessful owing to uninteresting programming and Grease Spot. This continues despite the fact we continue to tell people evil is good and good is evil. The program simply won’t take.

We appreciate your concern about our electric situation, however candles are far superior to electric lights owing to their many references in the Bible, and we are confident they are sufficient to light the Way. Also, there was no heat and air in Bible times.

Thanks for writing,

TWI

For me most definitely it was the manifestations (not worship). During my early years, I had some pretty spectacular experiences with revelation, God talking in my head, and 3D movie type. Sometimes both. These were really special and there is nothing quite like the Almighty God, Creator of the Heavens and Earth, talking to you. Personally. I added 2 and 2 together and decided twi must be the real deal.

These experiences carried me through some really bad times in twi. I kept telling myself I wasn’t in it for the people. That was my personal mantra.

Groucho: beautifully said!!! I think also we were young and we trusted. When you trust someone, you tend to put your guard down. Also, you don’t tend to expect someone in a religious organization to lie to you. Then also, the manifestations were a really exciting thing and I hadn’t heard of it before. That by itself was darn convincing!

Ex10: Interesting! What started me down this particular foxhole is for some weird reason I recalled the other day a sns with lcm spending most of it bragging about how good he was at inductive reasoning. It stuck in my mind and I looked up what it was. A few days later it began to dawn on me different things that were inductive reasoning and false conclusions. The more I looked, the more I found….then things began to fall into place. I began to see how twi takes a sharp left turn off the path, in the sense of the mechanics of their thought processes. Combine that with a massive ego and someone who is willing to take a lot of license with the Bible, no wonder…!!!

You know what? They could have gotten away with all the error and had a successful ministry if it weren’t for the fact that the heart of it was so rotten….but you combine rotten heart plus doctrinal/practical error and what a mess!

Why does this thread matter? Well because for some reason I took this class and quit thinking for a long time. There is a certain stubbornness within me to know in detail why and how something this major affected me to such a degree. I am tempted to believe it’s my fault and I am just not that smart to begin with, but deep down inside I really don’t believe that.

It didn’t happen by magic. I used to read on Waydale concerns about brainwashing. I don’t think that’s it either. To a degree it was mishandling the Bible, but that was just the subject. It was HOW it was presented (the overall framework) that is the real problem.

Btw, this class was presented as a class on keys. I think locks is more appropriate. And, for something that was supposed to be so perfect and flawless, well it was certainly lacking in even basic logic.

Wordwolf. You really hit on something (see below). I would just throw in that example of the man with the withered arm who was healed by Jesus. This was supposed to support need and want parallel (no way did it do that). However, later on, vp tells us how he heals someone with a withered arm in a train station….

This is a quote from Wikipedia (emphasis mine).

“Anecdotal evidence is an informal account of evidence in the form of an anecdote or hearsay. The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, such as evidence-based medicine, which are types of formal accounts. Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific because it cannot be investigated using the scientific method. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is a logical fallacy and is sometimes informally referred to as the "person who" fallacy ("I know a person who..."; "I know of a case where..." etc. Compare with hasty generalization). Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily typical; statistical evidence can more accurately determine how typical something is.

When used in advertising or promotion of a product, service, or idea, anecdotal evidence is often called a testimonial and is banned in some jurisdictions. The term is also sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony. Psychologists have found that people are more likely to remember notable examples than typical examples.

A common way anecdotal evidence becomes unscientific is through fallacious reasoning such as the post hoc fallacy, the human tendency to assume that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. Another fallacy involves inductive reasoning. For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty or hasty generalization. [8] For example, here is anecdotal evidence presented as proof of a desired conclusion:

"There's abundant proof that God exists and is still performing miracles today. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. Her whole family went to church and prayed for her, and she was cured."

Anecdotes like this are very powerful persuaders, but they don't prove anything in a scientific or logical sense. [9] The child may have become better anyway and this could be an example also of the regressive fallacy. Anecdotal evidence cannot be distinguished from placebo effects.”

I would like to say that science and religion don’t necessarily mix and my point is not that everything needs to be proven scientifically. My point is to identify faulty reason within a class and ministry that supposedly specialized in the truth. It is not possible to arrive at truth using sloppy reasoning skills except by accident.

I stated on the conscience thread that I believe the problem with pfal wasn’t so much the contents (although flawed) but the context and practical application of the doctrines that was especially destructive. After some thinking, I realized it runs a little deeper than that. There is flawed logic within the doctrines of pfal et al, as well as general context and practical application of that doctrine.

Two major ways are through the use of black and white thinking together with inductive reasoning. I believe these two are quite closely aligned. While I think it is useful to pinpoint the doctrinal error, I think that looking at the logical flaws are even more illuminating. I also think it isn’t so necessary to identify every wrong thing so much as identify the underlying repetitive errors in general.

Black and white thinking is when a person thinks only two choices are available when there might be several. Such as: stay in the household or die, become possessed, ect.

Inductive reasoning is a way of logic that is believed to assure the conclusion but doesn’t guarantee it. Such as: I have never seen anyone dry their clothes except in a clothes dryer. Therefore, all clothes are dried in a clothes dryer. Inductive reasoning is based on limited facts. Inductive reasoning doesn’t try to find alternative explanations and assumes there are none. This is opposed to deductive reasoning which attempts to assure an accurate conclusion.

I know these examples have been discussed to death, but I am using them because most folks remember them…

1. The law of believing. All believing equals receiving. Fear is believing in reverse. The red drapes and fear killed that little boy. Black and white thinking: all fear is unbelief, negative, gets consequences. All positive believing gets results. No other possibilities. We start with a faulty premise moving on to inductive reasoning:

All believing equals receiving

therefore

you get what you believe for, fear killed that little boy.

2. All fear is caused by wrong teaching and ignorance, corrected by teaching or right teaching. This is another example of black and white thinking. If I am in an airplane that has run out of gas at 28,000 ft alt., I will most certainly become frightened. Is that the result of ignorance or wrong teaching? He used an example of a boy in a closet to distinguish wrong teaching and ignorance. Inductive reasoning:

A boy was afraid of being in a closet because he was taught wrongly or was ignorant

therefore

all fear is caused by ignorance or wrong teaching.

What is so ironic to me is John 10:10, the foundational verse. The context concerns thieves and robbers vs the true shepherd. The main theme of pfal is all about what we are missing from mainstream religion, how they are in error (4 crucified ect), all the while, vp is separating out the sheep (us) to become his followers as he convinces us that only he has the answers. He did it with a lot of Bible verses and faulty reasoning.

The foundational class on black and white thinking plus inductive reasoning was the launching pad for spiritual abuse that elaborated on the logic errors of pfal. (Whew! That was a sentence!) I suspect this impacted (maybe still does) my thought processes in a similar manner as described in the conscience thread.

Speaking of the conscience thread:

Vp is the mog

therefore

whatever he says is God breathed and whatever he does must be ok, even if it is showing doggie porn.

From the dark side,

A. S.

You know you're are in twi if you don't care what happened to Coco.

"I remember the Columbine comments. Craig said that they deserved it because they had rejected the WOWs who had been there several times and the number of chances they'd had to "respond to the word". "

Belle, that is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, bizarre. Beyond it.

Hi JavaJane!

I've been thinking about this too. This isn't a very well thought out or comprehensive response, but: if choice (A) is toe the line exactly or choice (B) is leave, and become possessed, die, leave God's protection, God not even spit in your direction because you are such a worthless bag of dung in His eyes....that's really not a choice is it? Free will implies a choice.

There was no free will in twi I can remember. It stopped when I took the class. Either stay with twi or slap God in the face and turn my back on Him.

I should get lots of rewards for commitment. Probably few if any for brains.

You can take a person out of twi, but it’s kinda hard to take twi out of the person…not only that, twi isn’t “user friendly.” (Some of my weird thoughts for today).

Well, I wrote this post before I saw the latest. Very possible, Listener. I know I am not ready yet to decide what exactly conscience is. Still gathering information. I am still looking at it Biblically, but also from other points of view.

T-bone: Nice. I was reading Thayer’s this morning. It had some real interesting things to say about the change in emphasis from the letter of the law to the moral emphasis in NT. Unfortunately, I can’t copy and paste it. In any case, the basis of the moral emphasis is love God, love your neighbor. So it all kinda ties together. And, until just now I hadn’t thought about the sin part!

You know, if it was just a matter of identifying doctrinal error to “get over it,” while a massive project, it wouldn’t be SO difficult. It isn’t just that. That is what is so intriguing about this thread. I personally want to define for myself just what happened to me, as clearly as possible. I have realized some things during the course of this thread, but I still feel like my understanding is just dancing around the edge of it so far.

One thing I realized a few minutes ago: It wasn’t so much that the doctrines were such a big problem (if they were, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to twi at all). It was more the context and application of the doctrines that were so destructive. Take the law of believing for example. Had it not been used like a baseball bat, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Be indifferent to terrible tragedy, because believing was at fault. How about especially good to the household? Well that’s in the Bible. Fine. The problem was in the application. Twi was the household. Be indifferent to all others. Thus, twi redefined right from wrong in a manner that would violate the ethics of most people, Christian or not. All over the world, to be exact.

So, our ethics changed, our morals changed, our beliefs regarding right from wrong changed, we suppressed our emotions, it changed who we were in some very fundamental ways. I know it affected my conscience, I’m just not sure how exactly. At a bare minimum, it was certainly sedated. I think of sedated as asleep. Turns out it’s a synonym for numb. That fits too.

Hmmmm….sin. The leadership sinned ie T-bone’s post. They taught us to do the same, see paragraphs above. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. We did it. That by itself is a big deal.

Bolshevik: That's a great question!!! Wish I had an answer!!!! I enjoy your posts a lot.

Yep, Listener, I keep thinking about it too. T-bone’s comments about morality have my attention today. I was also considering the phrase, “law written in their hearts.” What does that mean, exactly? I still don’t know, but according to Thayer’s Lexicon, “law” here refers to the moral aspects of the law, which makes sense owing to the fact Gentiles had no access to Mosaic law.

In any case, below is text from Wikipedia:

"Morality (from Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of right and wrong — also referred to as "good and evil" — used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values —shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct morality.

Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions, motivations or actions, as these have been learned, engendered, or otherwise developed within each individual.

Conscience refers to the impulse toward morally 'right'. For example, if a person was concerned about what is morally right, then s/he would most likely not rob a bank. The actual definition of right behavior varies according to belief system. Religious belief systems usually include the idea of divine will and divine judgment and usually correspond to a strict moral code of conduct".

Still pondering.

Eyesopen: This is why while in TWI many supressed their natural "instinct" to fight or run, where an animal would not have any such inhibition when faced with such adversity.

I love that sentence! lol. Makes me think of times people came down hard on me. Growling or perhaps hissing would have been pretty satisfying!

T-bone: “Which hits me as the conscience being more of a law-observer – than a lawgiver.”

Yes. The conscience bears witness to but is not the source of law written in hearts by nature.

There is no consistency between one man’s conscience and another’s.

1Cr 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another [man's] conscience?

Conscience bears witness to godly behavior.

2Cr 1:12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.

Conscience can be defiled by ungodly behavior and have dead works.

Tts 1:15 Unto the pure all things [are] pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving [is] nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Hbr 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Finally, Paul instructs people to consider conscience with regard to decision making and motives:

1Cr 10:27 If any of them that believe not bid you [to a feast], and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

________________________________________

1Cr 10:28 But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth [is] the Lord's, and the fulness thereof:

This is an example of something not being a problem from God’s perspective, but from mans’.

The law is God’s will which is perfect, and conscience is composed of man’s will, reasoning, thought processes and decisions, and may or may not reflect God’s will. Conscience is variable. Even so, God still thinks it’s important.

If conscience were perfect in the sense of law giver, then it would always reflect God’s will, and it couldn’t be weak or defiled. On that basis, the tree of knowledge of good and evil can be ruled out the source of conscience because of:

Gen. 3:22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and

evil;

What would make more sense, is the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the source of the law written in hearts by nature, if it weren’t for this:

Hebrews 8:10: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

V11: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

V 12: For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Sigh.

And finally. The Bible instructs us to trust God. It never instructs us to trust our conscience or use it for guidance. If conscience were perfect and unerring, we would not need God or the Bible. Or the new birth.

You know I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject of conscience. I learned that theologians, sociologists, philosophers, and psychologists have been debating it for centuries.

That being said, the central issue is what is it (Biblically, not a dictionary), and it’d be nice to know how did we get it, and when. Unless we can answer that question definitively, we can’t really define the impact of twi (or anything else) on conscience, never mind relate it to other parts of the mind with any authority.

Beyond that, well I am not sure I still agree with my own posts…

The only thing I am sure about right now, is conscience Biblically is affected by decisions/actions ie, references to a pure conscience because of actions (guilt free) and seared conscience because of actions (beyond guilt) (Jeaniam, that was sharp!).

T-bone, I am not so sure Romans 1 is saying the witness within is conscience. After reading the chapter a gazillion times, the issue seems to be the witness of the power and righteousness of God (God’s qualities) within and without. I don’t see how the internal witness of God’s power and righteousness equals conscience, since conscience relates to right from wrong, not God’s qualities….and context is recognizing God vs idolatry. I’m not saying you’re not right, I just don’t see yet how you got from one to the other.

T-bone: Excellent

Since you mentioned image: I wonder if at least part of made after the image of God, had to do with the fact that man as originally created had no disobedience in him?