# The One True God?



## Artfuldodger (Jan 23, 2015)

If there is one true God, why has he revealed himself in different ways? Why are there so many paths explaining this one true God?
Especially as the way it relates to where we are born or geographic location. Different cultures have different paths to God.
I'm trying to figure out why the one true God would do this.
He even gave different names for himself to the various tribes and villages with each having different laws and requirements to worship him.


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 23, 2015)

To start with, how many people believe there is only one true God?
How many believe this one true God is the same God the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Protestants, Catholics, Native American Religions, Methodists, and Pentecostals worship but God has revealed himself differently to each group?


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## ambush80 (Jan 23, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> If there is one true God, why has he revealed himself in different ways? Why are there so many paths explaining this one true God?
> Especially as the way it relates to where we are born or geographic location. Different cultures have different paths to God.
> I'm trying to figure out why the one true God would do this.
> He even gave different names for himself to the various tribes and villages with each having different laws and requirements to worship him.



Keep on asking those questions my good man.


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## gordon 2 (Jan 23, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> If there is one true God, why has he revealed himself in different ways? Why are there so many paths explaining this one true God?
> Especially as the way it relates to where we are born or geographic location. Different cultures have different paths to God.
> I'm trying to figure out why the one true God would do this.
> He even gave different names for himself to the various tribes and villages with each having different laws and requirements to worship him.




Well... my wife reveals herself to me differently  than to her friends. She really likes them.  No just kidding about the wife.


I suspect that God isn't friends the same way with everybody and He takes into factoring differences in time and people are fickle to various degrees. But I'm only guessing. If God appeared to you today as a catholic priest, would you give him the time of day? Maybe? I don't know. If God appeared to me as a millionaire, would I give him the time of day? Maybe. If God appeared to me as Jesus... ah?


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## gordon 2 (Jan 23, 2015)

ambush80 said:


> Keep on asking those questions my good man.



Why do you call him good?


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 23, 2015)

Or if God appeared to me as a Hare Krishna at the O'hare. Perhaps as a poor tramp on the street. Maybe as a female lesbian priest!
I think you are on to something.


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 23, 2015)

gordon 2 said:


> Why do you call him good?



Good in my quest for "Light." 
Not for my righteousness. Lack of atoned by Jesus.

That's why I like Jesus so much.
Did Jesus die for the Hindu?


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## gordon 2 (Jan 23, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> Or if God appeared to me as a Hare Krishna at the O'hare. Perhaps as a poor tramp on the street. Maybe as a female lesbian priest!
> I think you are on to something.



 I have to laugh.

I think Paul has the best answers to your questions here. There are others in current social science for example with claims that God, gods and religions is instinctive or part of our cognitive process which seeks to organize things and find order. But Paul simply says man is spiritual.


I personally think that the absolutes in our lives such as justice, freedom and love is God talk to all the peoples of the world, because all the peoples of the world suffer for not having these and it is part of their inner talk. So if a Hindi  has a religious, spiritual social or cultural narrative with more than one god, I'm not certain that as it is with me he or she in reality knows only one "God" with all the so called gods revealing mine.  Same thing with the budda, where some unnamed consciousness is God but not named and their " kindness" is as a part of our understanding of love in the spiritual sense.

I must think of the Good Samaritan who was a religious nobody compared to others who knew the "true God" of Abraham, yet is an example set before us of what is good in Mark.


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## gordon 2 (Jan 23, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> Good in my quest for "Light."
> Not for my righteousness. Lack of atoned by Jesus.
> 
> That's why I like Jesus so much.
> Did Jesus die for the Hindu?



What is "light" by any other name? A life force? Jesus? The outlook of some outcome  of some scientific enquiry? A slogan to flatter the mind? A meditation, a mind absorbed in a poem?


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 25, 2015)

Light is the truth which is Jesus or comes through Jesus from his Father. Jesus is the way. 
In what way is Jesus the way? Must the Hindu believe Jesus died for his sins? 
Why would the One True God make this requirement of a Hindu who has never heard about Jesus?

Maybe this is what the Freemasons have been teaching for years. To believe in this "Great Architect" which is the Creator or One True God.
He has just revealed himself differently to the tribes and nations of the world..


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 25, 2015)

We, as Christians believe and according to our Bible, that God can manifest himself in different forms to include a bush and a human.

Can this one true God reveal himself as Mother Nature to the Wiccan or Native American?  Perhaps as the Sun to the Pagan?

Do ya'll see the One True God revealing himself in nature when you go hunting & fishing? 
Do Hindus go hunting & fishing? They might be missing this great reveal. 
Burning bush = campfire?


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 25, 2015)

If it is up to the One True God to reveal himself to the Totally Depraved, what is our mission? No one can come to Jesus in Heaven unless it has been granted him from the One True God. Can God grant Jesus an African tribesman? One who has been revealed by God to be granted?

Is there a difference from a totally depraved American  who has heard the Word than from a totally depraved African tribesman that has never heard of the Word?

Isn't one worse than the other in terms of God's judgement?


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 26, 2015)

I was thinking of all of Gods little children being saved because of their ignorance. Children must reach a certain age before being held accountable. 
If this logic applies to all of God's creation, then will their ignorance grant them salvation?

2 Peter 2:21
It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

Do they know of God by his revealing and yet aren't as ignorant as I think they might be?


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## TTom (Jan 28, 2015)

I have no specific text to back this up, no specific earthly teacher, I have only the meditation I have done, and the things revealed to me during prayer and worship.

God (with thousands of names) entrusted a part of the truth to the various religions of the world. Unfortunately most religions believe they got the whole truth. Our charge is to overcome the hubris and piece together the various pieces into a whole again.


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## Day trip (Jan 31, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> If there is one true God,
> 
> why has he revealed himself in different ways? Why are there so many paths explaining this one true God?
> 
> ...



Do you doubt that their is one true God?  There is God, not one of many, not even one true God, there is God.
He is evident in every single aspect of his creation. He is the constant, the variation is our perception of him.  
Their is one truth.  Different cultures use their own experiences and knowledge to try to explain their own understanding of him. THEY name him. THEY interprete their understanding into the laws and requirements.


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 31, 2015)

Day trip said:


> Do you doubt that their is one true God?  There is God, not one of many, not even one true God, there is God.
> He is evident in every single aspect of his creation. He is the constant, the variation is our perception of him.
> Their is one truth.  Different cultures use their own experiences and knowledge to try to explain their own understanding of him. THEY name him. THEY interprete their understanding into the laws and requirements.



I'm not doubting that there is only one God and his son Jesus Christ.
There is a great mystery between Christ and his Church that hasn't  happened yet. It could speak of a great unity as two becoming one is used as a comparison. 
There is a lot of mystery in the relation of natural things and spiritual things.
Maybe we will all be as one.


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## Harbuck (Feb 3, 2015)

*////////////*



Artfuldodger said:


> Light is the truth which is Jesus or comes through Jesus from his Father. Jesus is the way.
> In what way is Jesus the way? Must the Hindu believe Jesus died for his sins?
> Why would the One True God make this requirement of a Hindu who has never heard about Jesus?
> 
> ...



This way of thinking is dangerous. ^^^^^^^^^^^

John 14:6 (KJV)
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

John 3:5
 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.


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## Harbuck (Feb 3, 2015)

*God refered to the followers of these other beliefs as heathens*

Jer. 10:2
Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the *heathen*, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

Joel 3:12 (kjv)
Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

So your saying that heaven will be full of what God referd to as heathens?

If so how did they get there if the only way to the father is through Jesus? and what about being born of the water and the spirit?


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 3, 2015)

Harbuck said:


> Jer. 10:2
> Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the *heathen*, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
> 
> Joel 3:12 (kjv)
> ...



Those verses are about other nations. Nations that worship idols, charms, and the supernatural.

Don't learn the practices of the nations

Do not learn the way of the Gentiles

Do not start following pagan religious practices

I'm following you as Jesus being the only way. What does it mean that Jesus is the only way? I've always thought that it is true Jesus died for everyone but that "everyone" had to know that Jesus died for them. Everyone must "believe" that Jesus died for them.
My question is; How does the one individual tribesman know that Jesus died for him unless it is revealed to him somehow?
What if we don't reach him before he dies? Can God reveal Jesus and grant salvation at his will? Why would God who can give salvation to whom he wants, let this individual die without ever knowing about his son, Jesus?
Does God reveal Jesus to others Himself? After all Jesus did die on the cross. The sacrifice has been accomplished.
If people here in the US are totally depraved and can't come to Jesus without being called, how does God expect the Hindu to be called?
Many people believe that God has revealed himself to the whole world through nature etc. This is why the whole world has morals and knows right from wrong. They have been enlightened. Then again what does this speak of depravity?


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 3, 2015)

Will the one true God give everyone in the whole wide world a shot at salvation before they die? To include individuals that died before us? To include the Hindu that is blinded by his indoctrination and geography?
Speaking of indoctrination, will it keep Christians from gaining salvation? To include the Trinitarians vs the Oneness believers? 
Everyone in the whole world has been blinded to the "Light" to some extent. This is due to some or total depravity. Our eyes must be opened by God. Does God elect the Hindu?
I'm asking if God opens the eyes of the Hindu? The Mormon? The Methodist? The Oneness Pentecostal? The Elected Primitive Baptist?
The Freewill Baptist?


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 3, 2015)

Now the question is; will the great mystery of two becoming one be revealed eventually? Will we all be united?


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## centerpin fan (Feb 3, 2015)

Artfuldodger said:


> I'm asking if God opens the eyes of the Hindu? The Mormon? The Methodist? The Oneness Pentecostal? The Elected Primitive Baptist?
> The Freewill Baptist?







Good grief, man, you've got to draw the line somewhere.


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 3, 2015)

centerpin fan said:


> Good grief, man, you've got to draw the line somewhere.



Yeah I hope the Methodist are of the Elect as they are leading the way towards "Unity."

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free;
nor is there male or female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 3, 2015)

Romans 5:13
To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone's account where there is no law.

The Hindu never had a Covenant(law) with God.

John 9:41
Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

(Is the Hindu accountable?)

Romans 15:21
Rather, as it is written: "Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand."

(Only if made to see by God = election)

Romans 10:14
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

(I was assuming God could make them not blind himself)

2 Peter 2:21
It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.


Yet the Hindu has knowledge of the one true God and thus he knows right from wrong. How can a totally depraved person know right from wrong? Isn't he blind?


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 5, 2015)

Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

God's invisible qualities makes everyone aware of him. How does total depravity enter into this? Did God blind these people who should have been aware of his existence? Everyone is aware of his existence.
Is the Hindu aware of God's existence by his invisible qualities?
Is this awareness different from knowing about Jesus? Did they ignore God so he has blinded them from Jesus?
Why would God make someone depraved or ignorant to his own salvation? 
The blind can't see. God must deliver sight.


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 7, 2015)

Borrowed from another thread;

Is it possible for God to give this faith to people who have never heard of Jesus?

If every man in the whole world was made in the image of God, perhaps Adam took this image away and Jesus restored it.
Now somehow every man in the whole world's image has been restored. We can now become more like God.
We can become the Children of God and the brother of Jesus.

Election is better for world wide salvation compared to witnessing. 
God can give people the faith they need to believe even if it's just a small measure.
The one true God that is.


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## mdgreco191 (Aug 29, 2016)

I have to say your points are very interesting. I am not nearly as educated as you or others in the Bible. However, I will attempt to answer your question in my own simple way.

I have to believe as with anything that is touched by man it has been distorted. Therefore the Bible even though it is the inspired word of God was tainted and/or misinterpreted / incorrectly translated in some places. So I would have to believe that anyone that believes in God as a whole and decides to live a good life would be granted access to heaven. I know that may anger many who believe that accepting Jesus into your life is the only way to gain access to the afterlife. To Artfuldodger's point though I don't think it can be that cut and dry.

As I have said I'm sure others will dissent, but I just have a hard time believing that somebody on a far-flung place would not be granted access to heaven just because they hadn't heard the Christian version of God's word.


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