Is God able to sin?

[Acumen]

Acumen:  I'm sure you know that the heading of this board is correct, and that this isn't place limited to Christian exegesis.  My only point is that, at least with Christian exegesis, there is something to debate.  We can debate the meaning of words, historical and textual context, and an author's intent.  However, when it comes to using one's lack of experience to judge the presence of someone else's experience, it sort of ends the debate rather immediately.

Jack:  Methinks I am being pidgeon-holed a bit here as one who "lacks experience" in Christian spirituality in order to shut me up. Perhaps a truer statement might be that I lack experience coming to the same conclusions you have as I have wrestled with these issues all my too-long life, perhaps more than some for whom the conclusions come easily. Even among believers "spirituality" takes many forms and I submit that coming to conclusions other than those perpetuated by mainstream Christian organizations are valid, at least for discussion.

I don't know about being pigeon-holed, Jack.  If I believe that God exists because I've experienced His presence in church service, at home, or abroad; and you don't believe He exists because you doubt the veracity of divine experiences, then there isn't much more to add in terms of debate.  Your lack of divine experience cannot logically be used to rebut my divine experiences.  At most, you can only say that you doubt it based upon your lack of experiencing what I experience. 

Or is your belief so narrow it can only be discussed and explained to those in complete agreement? I personally don't have much sympathy as I am constantly having to explain and defend my beliefs to theist doubters. justifying oneself comes with the territory for those who stray from the mainstream.

Of course, such is par for the course.  However, I'm only at odds with you on this particular issue of divine experiences.  If, for instance, we were to debate the existence of objective morality from a Christian paradigm, then the debate is worth having because it involves more than just a stalemate of experiences.  We could debate relativism, a purpose-driven life, the afterlife, and anything else that is relevant to correct human conduct.  But this issue about the existence of God and subsequent experiences is sort of a useless debate if you cannot relate to my experiences.

[jacknky]

OK, as long as there are SOME things we can talk about. And while the "Does God exist?" discussions never "prove" anything they sometimes can be fun.

[Acumen]

Agreed.   

[peacebringer]

"If He can fail, the it questions how dependable He is, if He can be trusted, if He is worthy of sacrificial love, and if we are simply better off without Him.

Concerning intellectual constructs, I'm not sure what your point is.  Everything we conceptualize is an intellectual construct."

So, and I don't mean this as facetitiously as it sounds but I don't know how else to make the point, you Christians decide the nature of God and then believe it. i say that because there is nothing in the natural world to indicate the true nature of god so we are left with total mental conceptions. I think you should conceive of God as trustworthy.

In this sense I mean that religious conceptions are totally created in our minds. There is nothing in the natural world to tell us. That's one of the unique aspects of religion. It requires no justification in the natural world. Religious belief can be anything the mind conceives. In the rest of the world we are generally required to label conjecture clearly as conjecture and even then attempts are made to "prove" the conjecture. Darwin and others develop[ed the Theory of Evolution but they have found a lot on natural indicators that the theory is essentially correct.

But not in the faith world. In the faith world we can conceive of anything and it doesn't have to be justified in the real world. These conceptions can be believed so strongly it is almost impossible for the believer to tell belief from fact.

I remember a few years back there was a cult that believed there was a flying saucer on the other side of a comet approaching the earth. These folks believed that so strongly they killed themselves to free their souls to join the saucer. I realize most Christians aren't that gullible and while that is an extreme example of belief the principle is the same. In fact, that cult's faith was indeed very strong, strong enough to give up their lives, strong enough not to be able to distinguish belief from fact.

My point is that there are dangers when faith is ungrounded in the real world.

see that is assumptive and doesn't hold to the possibility of revealed truth.  The fact that a person can believe something very strongly has no bearing on the accuracy and legitimacy of the belief. The assumption that all spiritual beliefs are simply intellectual constructs are not even fully supported premise if you examine roots of belief.