I can't remember seeing paintings where Adam, Eve and the snake are depicted in paradise and the snake still having its legs. Are there paintings like that? I guess the snake must have depicted with legs in medieval paintings as it would be accurate. Links to prominent paintings of that kind would be appreciated.

Is a wedding between a Greek Orthodox to a Maronite Rite Catholic permitted and can the ceremony be performed in the Greek Orthodox Church?

Is usury a form of extortion? St. Paul lists extortion among the mortal sins in 1 Cor. 6:10 : "…nor extortioners (άρπαγες, *rapaces*, "the rapacious"), shall possess the kingdom of God." Ex. 22:25 relates extortion and usury: "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor, that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner [*exactor*], nor oppress them with usuries."

I'm really trying to study the topic of election versus free will. A common theme supporting election is the difference between a general call and an effectual call. But there seems to be no differentiation in the original Greek between one call and another. For example, Matt 22:14 is often cited as a general call. Romans 1:6 is an effectual call. But both verses use the same Greek word for "call" (*κλητοὶ*, *klētoi*). I was hoping that the two theological terms would be based on distinct Greek words, similar to how various meanings of "love" are associated with five different Greek words (*agape*, *eros*, *philia*, etc). My question: who is deciding which verses refer to general vs. effectual? The term was coined by the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647. But other than that, **is there an objective vs. subjective translation/language standard to which we can scrutinize these verses**? Words matter and I **always** go back to Greek/Hebrew when studying. There are literally tons of examples if you just search your concordance or lexicon for "called."

Why do most Christians believe that the serpent was the devil himself directly appearing to Eve when scripture explicitly states that it was a literal snake and in this I quote the following verses to back up my claim *Genesis 3:15* >I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” **Only a created animal can have an offspring and not a spirit angel like the devil.** *Genesis 3:14* >Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. The serpent is cursed above all animals and he is cursed to crawl because he was created with legs before he was possessed. Now the Bible says this was a visible creature that Eve could see and interact with, why do most people think the serpent was the devil himself who was in spirit form and invisible to Eve? An angel possessed a donkey in the Balaam story and the donkey talked back, why is it hard to believe this was the case in the garden?

I have often heard it taught that those living in the time of the Old Testament were saved by the law, but that they also had to have faith that Christ would come. If someone living in the Old Testament era did not believe that Christ would come and denied the future coming of the Messiah, could they still be saved? Or was belief in the future coming of Christ necessary for salvation in that time period?

The *teleological argument* is defined as follows: > The teleological argument (from τέλος, telos, 'end, aim, goal'; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, **that complex functionality in the natural world which looks designed is evidence of an intelligent creator**. > > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument I'm aware of at least two Bible passages that seem to resonate a lot with the teleological argument: > The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. (Psalm 19:1 NKJV) > 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 **because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.** 20 **For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse**, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:18-25 NKJV) However, secular mainstream science tells us a different story from the theistic one, emphasizing naturalistic explanations such as [abiogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) and [evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution) . This perspective excludes the notion of an intelligent creator, largely due to science's steadfast commitment to [methodological naturalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Methodological_naturalism) . Advocates of this naturalistic approach in scientific research argue that supernatural explanations are not viable because they cannot be tested, falsified, or subjected to empirical investigation. Moreover, there are atheists like Richard Dawkins who champion the theory of evolution as their trump card against the teleological argument: > "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." > > *Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company* In response to the question [Is the teleological argument for God completely refuted?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/7050/66156) , this [answer](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/7054/66156) asserts: > **The teleological argument is effectively dead**. The last gasp at it was by William Dembski and Michael Behe with "irreducible complexity" (the intellectual core of the intelligent design movement), and they simply failed to understand the actual problem and/or came up with handwaving to state that certain things were impossible, when in fact they were not only possible but there were examples of them. > > **That evolution provides the mechanism to produce all the complexity of life seen today is no longer in serious doubt; and that simple physical laws suffice to produce all the complexity of the universe is also no longer in serious doubt**. The only area not completely nailed down is fine-tuning of universal constants, and that makes for an incredibly weak teleological argument since all we know about reality with different constants is that our familiar physics doesn't work. We cannot predict whether there'd be some other complex physical reality admitting evolution, so we can't tell if the numbers are actually finely tuned and thus whether we should be surprised by them. Or in response to the question [How does the theory of evolution make it less likely that the world is designed?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/100494/66156) , the most upvoted [answer](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/100513/66156) states: > When Laplace wrote his Newtonian, materialist explanation of the universe, Napoleon asked him where God fit into the scheme. "I have no need of that hypothesis, Sire," was Laplace's famous reply. > > Your question is fair enough, but employs a common misrepresentation of science. You can take any scientific theory and then add on God, as if inviting a "plus one." Many scientists do, but only on their own time, so to speak. > > To jettison redundant hypotheses is simply a critical working scientific convention, wielding Ockham's razor. You can always add God back in, but not into the published, peer-reviewed science. > > If you want to use God as part of your causal explanation of physical events, you must offer some experimental way to falsify that hypothesis. And this is where believers usually have a problem. > > Exactly what repeatable experiment would falsify the God hypothesis? A non-biased, double-blind series of unanswered prayers? **It is not so much that evolution "disproves" God. It is simply that it offers a compelling, verifiable explanation of observations that does *not require* God.** > > If some scientists do indeed seem hostile to the idea of God, it is more properly a hostility towards undecidable claims that muddy the waters, subvert the scientific method, and then tend to backload a lot of moral implications and assertions. Even concerning abiogenesis, whose evidential support is arguably much weaker than that of neo-Darwinism, we encounter statements such as the following: > **Is abiogenesis proven?** > > No. It is not proven. > > Regarding evidence, we know there was a time when Earth did not have life, now it does. So life did get started somehow. **There is no evidence of intelligent agency involved and no other problem in science has been solved by invoking non-human intelligence. Thus the operating assumption is that OOL was a natural event.** > > As to how it can happen, that is an open and active area of research. And while it hasn't been solved there are promising avenues of research. > > **Could God have done it? We can't say he couldn't have, but there is no reason to think he did.** > > Source: [Is abiogenesis proven? - r/DebateEvolution](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/13435wt/is_abiogenesis_proven/?rdt=37529) In an era where the teleological argument for God encounters significant challenges from advocates of abiogenesis and evolution, how do Christians who present it navigate these obstacles to make the argument more intellectually compelling to those who don't believe in God?

I'm catholic and I live in Brazil. I believe in the gift of the infallibility in the New Testament, but i'm trying to understand if Jews, in the old covenant (Old Testament) were infallible too. I found some clues, like: 1 Samuel 9,6 ; John 11,51 ; 2 Peter 1,21 seem to teach infallibility of the prophets of the Old testament. However, it is impossible that the old covenant were TOTALLY infallible, because if it was so, they would in the first place, have recognized Jesus Christ as the true Messiah. So where does all this leave us? Were they "sometimes" infallible? Was there a limit to it? I found your link to an article here, but the link is broken :(https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/65996/the-chair-of-moses-and-jewish-clerical-infallibility) And this is the link you put: https://christiantheorist.weebly.com/basics-of-the-holy-faith/category/01-the-church-of-jesus-the-christ-is-one Could you help me with this, sir? I would love to read your insights about this theme!

After Lucifer and the fallen angels were hurled away from Heaven and landed on Earth instead of hell, because Earth was once paradise before the fall of man and Satan and his demons were sent there, if Satan weren't to persuade Eve to eat of the *fruit of good and evil*, would Satan and his demons live in earth forever and would have not been damned. Have any biblical scholars or theologians written the question following: **Would the Serpent (Satan) have dwelled eternally on earth if the fruit was not bitten?**

There is a legend that says that John traveled to Ephesus where he took care of Virgin Mary and that he lived there until the end of his life. Is this legend true? Are there any historical accounts that support the legend? Are there any other theories about the later life of apostle John?

"Some have argued that Augustine of Hippo never really shook himself entirely free from his Manichaean upbringing, with its intrinsic distaste for sexuality and understanding of eroticism as a work of shameful evil, and **that through him Manichaean tinges have survived in Western Christianity ever since.**" (John Anthony McGuckin. The Path of Christianity: The First Thousand Years ) I know that in the Roman Local Church, until about the 4th century, there was no mandatory practice of priestly celibacy: - George T. Dennis SJ, professor of Catholic University of America, says: "**There is simply no clear evidence of a general tradition or practice, much less of an obligation, of priestly celibacy-continence before the beginning of the fourth century.**" (Dennis, George T. SJ on Cochini, *The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy* (book review), *Theological Studies*, 52:4 (1991:Dec.) p.738) - Philippe Delhaye wrote: "**During the first three or four centuries, no law was promulgated prohibiting clerical marriage.** Celibacy was a matter of choice for bishops, priests, and deacons. [...] The apostolic constitutions (c. 400) excommunicated a priest or bishop who left his wife 'under pretense of piety' (*Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio* 1:51)." (Philippe Delhaye, "Celibacy, Clerical, History of" in *New Catholic Encyclopedia* Vol. 3, Catholic University of America, p.370) - "Early heretics, such as Manichaeans and Montanists, added a negative influence by proclaiming that sexual expression – including that of the laity – was impure. Catholic leaders, such as St. Augustine, taught that Original Sin was transmitted through intercourse. Therefore, abstinence and virginity was the ideal life and only the weak should marry. However, most bishops and presbyters continued to marry. When monastic spirituality became popular in the fourth and fifth centuries, it promoted the ideal of celibacy as a model for all priests." (Dues, Greg (1992). *Catholic customs & traditions: a popular guide* (Rev. and expanded. ed.). Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications. pp. 168, 169.) **Question**: Is there really any connection between Augustine's background as a Manichaean and his idea of priestly celibacy?

To explain what I mean by "very interactive, intimate, and personal friend", let me quote some excerpts from T.M. Luhrmann's book *[When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God](https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Talks-Back-Understanding/dp/0307277275)* . From the book's synopsis: > Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, ***When God Talks Back* examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society—can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry**. From the book itself: > I set out many years ago to understand how God becomes real for modern people. I chose an example of the style of Christianity that would seem to make the cognitive burden of belief most difficult: **the evangelical Christianity in which God is thought to be present as a person in someone’s everyday life, and in which God’s supernatural power is thought to be immediately accessible by that person**. The Vineyard Christian Fellowship is a new denomination, a few decades old, and it represents this shift in the American imagination of God. **These Christians speak as if God interacts with them like a friend. He speaks to them. He listens to them. He acts when they pray to him about little mundane things, because he cares**. This kind of Christianity seems almost absurdly vivid to someone who grew up in a mainstream Protestant church; when I first encountered it, I imagined that people thought of God as if he were a supernatural buddy with a thunderbolt. > The Americans in this church are ordinary Americans. They are typically middle class, but one finds very wealthy and very poor people in the congregations. They are typically white, but the congregations include many minorities. Most participants are college-educated. The church took form in California, but there are now more than six hundred churches across the country and as many as fifteen hundred around the world. **The Vineyard is arguably the most successful example of what one sociologist has called new paradigm Protestantism, the infusion of a more intensely expressive spirituality into white, middle-class Christianity.** **This style of spirituality has also been called neo-Pentecostal because it represents the adoption of a Pentecostal ethos, and its flamboyant emphasis on the direct experience of God, into a form acceptable to the white mainstream**. Another name is *renewalist*. According to a recent survey, **nearly one-quarter of all Americans embrace a Christian spirituality in which congregants experience God immediately, directly, and personally**. The Vineyard typifies this powerful new impulse in American spirituality. > The reason people have their notebooks out during sermons isn’t because the sermon is about God, the way a college lecture is about the American Revolution or the poems of Emily Dickinson. Rather, the pastor’s sermon teaches the congregation to use the Bible to relate to God, **both as a God of power and as a best friend**. **Church is a class in which you learn how to hear what God has to say. The pastor teaches that when you are intimate and personal with a supernatural being, God speaks to you. Not all the time and usually not audibly, but in as real and as practical a way as if you were sitting down to coffee with a puzzle you had to solve.** > **Elaine told me that she was trying to hear God speak in the little things, so that she could hear his voice when it really counted. She began to ask him what she should wear every morning. The Sunday we spoke, God told her—as she experienced it—to wear the blue shirt**. But when she put it on, her bra showed, so she took off the blue shirt and put on a black one. When she arrived at church, she was standing around with the worship team. The pastor walked by, smiled, and said (she reported), “I see you are all wearing blue today.” Elaine told me this story to illustrate how mortified she was at having not taken God seriously. The real point, of course, was that Elaine—a deeply committed Christian who had repeatedly explained to me that every word of the Bible was accurate—did not, as she stared at her closet, treat her inference about what God was thinking (“wear the blue shirt”) as an actual insight into divine intention. She thought she had just imagined it. > **The evangelical interest in the direct personal experience of God exploded in the 1960s**. Americans have always been religious, but every so often our religious enthusiasm seems to crest. **Historians have called these periods of religious excitement “great awakenings.”** They appear (more or less) from 1730 to 1760, 1800 to 1840, 1890 to 1930, and 1965 to the present. **During these decades, Americans were more likely to have had unusual spiritual experiences in which they fainted, spoke in tongues, saw visions, and so forth, and they were more likely to seek out and publicly celebrate these changes in consciousness as proof of God’s living presence in their lives**. These are not, of course, the only times when God has inflamed the American senses. Throughout the twentieth century, there were American churches that encouraged and even relied on unusual spiritual phenomena. Pentecostalism was born in Los Angeles in the early twentieth century and continued to grow over the decades. Southern Baptist churches encouraged richly spiritual experience well before the late twentieth century. Nevertheless, America does seem to have periods when great spiritual passion enters many humble homes. We are, scholars suggest, in such a period now. --- What is an overview of Christian views on the practice of relating to God as a very interactive, intimate, and personal friend?

"Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new." When or at what point did Jesus Christ become a new creation and why was it necessary for Him to become a new creation?

According to some Protestants, the receiver of God’s initial, justifying grace is passive in doing so. For instance, in the Joint Declaration on Justification , it is said that: > According to Lutheran teaching, human beings are incapable of cooperating in their salvation, because as sinners they actively oppose God and his saving action. (Section 4, Paragraph 20) However, according to some of these same Protestants, man is capable of rejecting God’s grace, contra the teaching of irresistible grace. As a friend of mine has said, man is active in his damnation and passive in his salvation. Or, as the Joint Declaration puts it: > Lutherans do not deny that a person can reject the working of grace. When they emphasize that a person can only receive (mere passive) justification, they mean thereby to exclude any possibility of contributing to one's own justification… (Section 4, Paragraph 20) However, this seems to pose a dilemma that leads these kinds of Protestants to either need to accept irresistible grace, or accept synergism. The dilemma is this: Does man choose passivity? Because it seems that if the Protestant say man does choose passivity, they either contradict the very meaning of being a passive recipient of God’s grace, or they must be a synergist (read: in agreement with the Council of Trent), because man is choosing God’s grace. If they say that man does not choose passivity, then they must believe in irresistible grace, because man’s passivity is the result of God’s choice. Man is incapable of rejecting God’s grace because passivity is not something he chooses. How could a Protestant who accepts monergism but rejects irresistible grace escape this dilemma?

Sometimes as christians when we are talking to the Jews, we tell them the Old Testament refers to the coming of **Jesus Christ**. It's like we are forcing our beliefs unto them by using references from the Old Testament and adding Jesus Christ there. How can you prove or is it possible to prove to a Jew from a book (New Testament) that they already reject that indeed Jesus is the awaited Messiah? Without the New Testament, I think it's impossible to prove that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah. It's like a Muslim telling us that Mohammad is the comforter by using the Qur'an. While we already know that it's the Holy Spirit.

I have been unable to find out whether the new testament part of the Bible in Basic English is translated from the 'Received Text' (*Textus Receptus*) or from the Westcott & Hort/Nestle Aland 'Critical' text. > The Bible In Basic English (also known as the BBE) is a translation of the Bible into Basic English. The BBE was translated by Professor S. H. Hooke using the standard 850 Basic English words. 100 words that were helpful to understand poetry were added along with 50 "Bible" words for a total of 1,000 words. > The New Testament was published in 1941 and the Old Testament was published in 1949.[1] Wikipedia - The Bible in Basic English

I've been learning about the various flavors of dispensational and covenant theology. Classic Dispensationalism (as taught by Darby, Scofield, Ryrie, etc) holds that God plans to bring literal fulfillment to Old Testament prophecies about the physical kingdom of Israel during the Millennium, and that the church does not share in these promises. (I do not agree with this view for various reasons, but am trying to understand it the best that I can.) One thing I have not understood, though: according to that system, do Israel and the church remain separate forever, or are they finally merged after the Millennium? What does Classic Dispensationalism say about the relationship between Israel and the church in the eternal state?

I'm not a fan of dispensational premillennialism, but I don't know of any denominations that specifically hold to it. I'm just fairly curious. I've met individual people that believe it, but never an entire denomination that supports it. Do any such denominations exist?

A Catholic Diocese in a certain locality in my country invited the president to oversee the ordination of a certain episcopal rank, I was shocked to see the security team of the president lining up all episcopal authorities clothed in their service robes to frisk and search them to see if they posed any security threat to the president. This exercise shows that the president and his team do not trust the Catholic Church leadership, why would the Catholic Church allow the public image and trust of their Church to be damaged this way for it would have been better if this leader didn't visit the church foe Christ and the Church is above all men including governments?

The common interpretation of > "we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins" in the 381 [Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#Comparison_between_creed_of_325_and_creed_of_381) was [baptismal regeneration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptismal_regeneration) which makes many Baptists uncomfortable, although recent Baptist scholars *still* advocate that Baptists confess it (see how Gavin Ortlund [argued for a Baptist interpretation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41aB2y8CvQ&t=912s) , see also CBR article [Baptists and the Baptism Clause](https://www.centerforbaptistrenewal.com/blog/2024/6/20/one-baptism-for-the-remission-of-sins-baptists-and-the-baptism-clause)) . My question has to do with the origin of what looks like an expansion from the clause in the [Apostle's Creed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed) that merely states > "I believe in ... the forgiveness of sins, ...". **How did baptism become linked to that clause in the first place?** What debate / heresy precipitated this? Is "one" the keyword here (thus anticipating the Anabaptist controversy centuries later)? Why not leave it simply as "forgiveness of sins"? Who were the church fathers / theologians advocating for the expansion? Was it a deliberate expansion from the Apostle's creed, or was it added to the 325 Nicene Creed independent of it? Did the original meaning of that clause really have to do with "baptismal regeneration" or were the framers thinking of something else, such as emphasizing the word "for" (see [Gavin Ortlund's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41aB2y8CvQ&t=912s) for the many nuances and the associated Bible verses for each) ?