Augustine said the Holy Spirit is Useless

Augustine of Hippo - author of "Confessions" and "City of God" - said assurance was impossible.

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Response to user FishyBirdMLS

He wrote me,

=== what proof do you have that Adam did not know how to multiply? Or, even more ridiculous, how to turn around? God told Adam to "be fruitful and multiply" as a parent might tell a kid, "Go outside and play." It isn't that the child doesn't know how to play. It's that the parent wants the child to play. It's command." ===

My response...

Interesting. You admit that God NEEDED TO COMMAND Adam to be fruitful and multiply. Adam couldn't have known the rightness/wrongness of multiplying by nature, could he? That's why God had to command him to multiply. After all, how was Adam meant to know the ethics of multiplying without God's revelation on the matter? Is Adam allowed to have more than one child? Was he allowed to fill the whole earth, or just the garden? Etc.

What seems obvious to us -- because we've been taught it from childhood -- is not that obvious when you think about it. It's only obvious because we've had revelation given to us.

It's just like the parent and the child. How's the child meant to know whether or not he's allowed outside to play that day? It may not be as self-evident as you think.

Can the child play in the cold? Will the parent let the child play in the rain? In the snow? With the next door neighbor? With the dog? In his new clothes? Til dark? After just eating? Before doing homework? etc etc.

One parent may let their child play in the cold with the dog but not before homework is done. Another parent might let their child play before homework but not with the dog in the cold. The fact of the matter is -- you can't innately know what's right and wrong.

And you can't know what's right by just speculating about it. It all depends on the requirements of the particular parent. And this is obviously why kids from easy-going homes can be "shocked" by the requirements of their friend's parents when ...