A confusing disparity.

[Subfallen]

Peter666, "If I could have lots of sex with loose women, murder all my enemies and get cleared by 'believing in Jesus' rather than having to be truly sorry and changing my life, I would." (Emphasis mine.)

bills217, "Let me add to that a little. If anyone had ever made a compelling case to me that there was no God and/or Jesus was not His Son, I would drop Christianity LIKE A BAD HABIT. Speaking only for me personally, it is either true, or it is an incredible curse."

This bewilders me. I have always understood the very essence of Christianity to be a transformation including the substitution of spiritual appetites for carnal desires. How can one simultaneously profess Christianity AND admit a basic preference for the attractions of the world? To bills, I ask: what more compelling case against Christianity could be made than your own incorrigible heart?

For example, contrast the spirit of the above quotes with this selection:

Kierkegaard, "But the person who perceived that he was not capable of the least thing without God, unable even to be happy about the most happy event---he is closer to perfection. And the person who understood this and found no pain whatsoever in it but only the overabundance of bliss, who hid no secret desire that still preferred to be happy on its own account, felt no shame that people noticed that he himself was capable of nothing at all, laid down no conditions to God, not even that his weakness be kept concealed from others, but in whose heart joy constantly prevailed by his, so to speak, jubilantly throwing himself into God's arms in unspeakable amazement at God, who is capable of all things---indeed, he would be the perfect one whom the Apostle Paul describes better and more briefly: he 'boasts of his weakness' and has not even had experiences so numerous and ambiguous that he knows how to express himself more profusely." (Four Upbuilding Discourses, Copenhagen, 1844 [Emphasis mine.])

Who is right?

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
This bewilders me. I have always understood the very essence of Christianity to be a transformation including the substitution of spiritual appetites for carnal desires. How can one simultaneously profess Christianity AND admit a basic preference for the attractions of the world?

[/ QUOTE ]

Your understanding of Christianity is incorrect. Even Christ was tempted. You can't change your fallen human nature, only overcome it.

Stu

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

I have always understood the very essence of Christianity to be a transformation including the substitution of spiritual appetites for carnal desires.


[/ QUOTE ]

True, but it's a process, never complete in this life.



Romans 7:

14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.
17So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

[Subfallen]

[ QUOTE ]
Your understanding of Christianity is incorrect. Even Christ was tempted.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not sure how this really applies to the experience of Christianity. Anyways, as God Incarnate, Jesus could not be meaningfully tempted. Satan could not offer Jesus anything He could not already have if He so desired.

[ QUOTE ]
You can't change your fallen human nature, only overcome it.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:17, NIV)

So this is completely metaphorical? There is nothing essentially different about life as a Christian? Merely directing the same faculties and instincts to a different set of goals?

[Subfallen]

[ QUOTE ]
24Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?


[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly the vision that Peter666 and bills seem to be missing. The Apostle longed to divorce his fallen self; while P & b would fancy an affair with the forbidden mistress, but are afraid of the consequences.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

This is exactly the vision that Peter666 and bills seem to be missing. The Apostle longed to divorce his fallen self; while P & b would fancy an affair with the forbidden mistress, but are afraid of the consequences.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think they were both being honest about how they sometimes feel, about the temptations and difficulties that Paul spoke of throughout that passage. The state of someone's heart, his true motivation and greatest desire, is something only God knows, and the person himself sometimes. Sanctification is a lifelong process, never complete, sometimes it's two steps forward and one back.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
This bewilders me. I have always understood the very essence of Christianity to be a transformation including the substitution of spiritual appetites for carnal desires. How can one simultaneously profess Christianity AND admit a basic preference for the attractions of the world? To bills, I ask: what more compelling case against Christianity could be made than your own incorrigible heart?


[/ QUOTE ]

You've got the cart before the horse. Christ Jesus came for the unrighteous and unjust so they may enter into the kingdom of heaven. He speaks frequently about His Kingdom which is not of the earth. So he calls the sinners to His Glory which is the great relief of Mankind.

If a man professes to be a Christian this in no way means that he becomes pure for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Each man, in his heart, takes Christ into himself and begins the process of self regeneration in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

As usual, I offer the boon of reincarnation and karma in light of the above. This process of regeneration is accomplished over multiple lives as Man "schools" himself for a return to the Godhead sans death. Some might ask, why Christ if in karma one can atone for previous sins in another life? The answer is that all our transgressions are written as "objective facts" in the cosmic ether and the Christ Being takes our sins within himself in their objectivity while we improve within the activity of that very same sin.