quote:

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Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you):
this is the overwhelming aspect of God's character that is presented more than all the rest, although it is neatly excised from much Chrisitan liturgy and sermonizing, and is downplayed for children's consumption in stories like the Flood.

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quote:

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"Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing." Gen 27:35 for example.

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God redeems suffering. Denying suffering or those parts where it is found in the Bible would deny God's redemption of suffering. From my Christian liturgy we learn that suffering isn't ipso facto bad, God has redeemed it and so suffering can be redemptive.

P.S. I bet you would find a correlation between those who object to "God, the pathological killer", and those who object to "The Passion of the Christ".

[ 22. March 2004, 21:38: Message edited by: Ley Druid ]
 

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Posted by Freehand (# 144) on :
 
Yes, I think that the Bible presents a terrifying image of God. It's easier to stick to the nice passages. I cannot reconcile a God of love with the God of the Bible without making a myriad of arbitrary interpretive choices, i.e. assume that God is love, therefore chuck out verses (even books) XYZ.

Here's a scary thought. What if God really is the genocidal God? It makes it easy to answer the problem of evil. The world is the natural consequence of an emotionaly dysfunctional God that is trying really hard but has botched the whole thing up. This, I think, is easier to reconcile with scripture than the truly loving God.

Freehand
 

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Posted by Mad Sex Geo (# 2939) on :
 
This is one of the reasons that I am comfortable IMO with the bible being a series of writings that tells a story about God through human eyes, rather than a story literally penned by the hand of God through glovepuppet disciples (thanks Wood).

If God told those stories about itself, god is a really big asshole.
 

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Posted by frensic2003 (# 5667) on :
 
This is not the most coherent response in the world because, put quite simply, I have not ever bothered to fully reason this puzzle out. But somewhere in the back of my mind I think I have always thought/felt the following:

The God of the OT was rather a parochial one - ie., He was the God of the Jews and therefore particularly interested in their welfare. Some OT characters showed a glimmer of the faith that was to be fully realised in Jesus later on, and they are the heroes of that book. But they are the ones generally considered peace-loving...

Jesus revealed something greater than that parochial, local God. He revealed a loving, forgiving God.

Now, whether this means that in the dim, dark corner of my mind where this 'theory' has been loitering, God has undergone some kind of mutation between the OT and NT, I don't know. It might be that Jesus managed to show his Father that He was something greater, but this would be difficult to square away with the idea of Jesus having a 'mission'.

However, my final thought is this: the OT is not the exact and literal word of God. It is open to interpretation, being, as it is, the work of a number of minds. Jesus came along to show that God was greater than the OT vision of a war-mongering tyrant and in doing so enabled that God to be embraced by anybody, rather than just Jews. In other words, were it not for Jesus, only Jews would still worship Jahew of the OT - what would be the point of the rest of us worshipping a deity who cared not a jot for us and who, indeed, might smite us for being of the wrong lineage?

Damian.
 

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Posted by Mad Sex Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by frensic2003:

However, my final thought is this: the OT is not the exact and literal word of God. It is open to interpretation, being, as it is, the work of a number of minds. Jesus came along to show that God was greater than the OT vision of a war-mongering tyrant and in doing so enabled that God to be embraced by anybody, rather than just Jews. In other words, were it not for Jesus, only Jews would still worship Jahew of the OT - what would be the point of the rest of us worshipping a deity who cared not a jot for us and who, indeed, might smite us for being of the wrong lineage?

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If the OT is not the exact and literal word of God, then how is the NT? Isn't the NT the work of men as well?
 

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Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :
 
I think MSG is the closest to the heart of this conundrum. The Bible was, of course, put together by human beings who told of how they saw their God acting in their lives. And, if you think of their lives, it was a violent world (as is our times) where ther were other gods who supposedly fought and acted in behalf of their followers. Could the Hebrews have any less potent a God? Also there is a body of scholars who believe that the Hebrews never did come from Egypt and conquer the land of Caanan but were actually nomadic tribes who gradually assimilated the Caananites and incorporated some aspects of that relgion into the formation of a Yahwistic monotheism. If this is true we can regard the stories of bloodbaths by or for God to be heroic myths. This is not to deny that there is truth inside those stories as in all myths. It is still a true revelation of God as men came to see God.

The NT is another step along the progressive revelation. We do have historical evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified but, other than that, we must take the rest of the story on faith. The test for that faith is whether it is pragmatically true in our lives regardless of questions or contradictions. In this regard we are in much the same position as the Hebrews who formed the OT.

But we have a faith that promises that eventually we will know as fully even as we are known.
 

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Posted by hermit (# 1803) on :
 
Christians noted the apparent difference between the OT and the NT God long ago, some of the Gnostic Christians came up with the idea that the god of this world and the OT was indeed evil or petty or spiteful, and that Jesus was sent by a higher level more universal god.

I've always shied away from the OT because of the reasons stated above, but there doesn't seem to be any question that Jesus affirmed the Torah and the Prophets. I don't remember him commenting on the validity of the other books contained in our OT.

I don't know why you would use modern academic liberal standards to call God a nasty name like "pathological". I understand though that most people here don't believe He is pathological, but that the OT is mainly legendary or mythical, and that God is all sweetness and joy.

Since I believe Jesus was God incarnate, and that the record of his teachings in the NT is accurate (not necessarily perfect), I have little choice but to accept the record of genocide etc as likely accurate and from God. But I'm not sure what the problem with that is, other than emotional distaste on first reading it.

It's perfectly accurate to call God a killer ... He kills everyone who doesn't commit suicide or get murdered, doesn't He? He gives us all life on this planet, and then takes it away ... often with much more suffering involved than a relatively quick genocide. He owns our lives and has the right to make judgments individually and on tribes or nations.

My goodness, think of violence inherent in this particular Creation, don't shy away from it ... what's involved in simply living? We have to kill and eat other living creatures that we have dominion over! We also killed God, who gave us his flesh and blood to eat and drink. And He shall kill us and perhaps in some sense eat and drink our souls! And apparently that will be a very good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

The rules for human/human interaction aren't the same as the rules for God/human interaction. And He made the game, so He gets to choose the rules.

All the saints have said there was value in suffering, so maybe we should believe them.
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
But the problem with the genocide passages is that they are about human/human interaction.
 

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Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 
I think there can be quite a lot of scope for explaining this with the idea of progressive revelation, which Linzc alluded to.

A couple of people have objected to this on the grounds that if one accepts Scripture to reveal God, how can we think that the OT does not reveal God if the NT does?

If you polarise it this much, you are left to choose between the twin errors of Gnosticism (OT=different God) and actually believing in a God who commits and commands genocide, the torture of women and so on.

The problems this raises is down to the fact that in a good and right desire to uphold the idea that Scripture reveals God to us, some people make out that God must therefore be equally revealed in every single tiny passage of Scripture.

But surely it makes much more sense to regard God as being revealed by the whole of Scripture. So the Bible as a whole reveals the whole of God in Jesus. But Jesus is not mentioned in 1 Kings, or in Haggai for example. Therefore there is some kind of progressive revelation. God is not disclosed as Trinity until the Incarnation, for example.

So, we can use the revelation of God in Jesus (which we only have through Scripture in the first place, of course) to see that the OT does not fully reveal God. This is NOT using modern, liberal ideas about God to critique the Bible, but acknowledging that God's revelation of himself doesn't happen all at once (otherwise we'd get the Incarnation right at the beginning)!
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 

quote:

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So, we can use the revelation of God in Jesus (which we only have through Scripture in the first place, of course) to see that the OT does not fully reveal God. This is NOT using modern, liberal ideas about God to critique the Bible, but acknowledging that God's revelation of himself doesn't happen all at once (otherwise we'd get the Incarnation right at the beginning)!

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quote:

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If the OT is not the exact and literal word of God, then how is the NT? Isn't the NT the work of men as well?

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quote:

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Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
I think separating the angry wrathful God of the old testament from the kind loving and forgiving God of the new is a gross misrepresentation. We cannot escape from the fact that:'Rom 1 v18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.'

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quote:

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Originally posted by frensic2003:

I never said it wasn't. Indeed, I would say the same for the NT - it is only the work of a number of minds. But the difference (which to my mind and personal faith is crucial) between them is that the NT has Jesus in it, and it is through His teaching that we learn of this 'greater' God. In other words, God is for everybody in the NT - and for us as non-Jewish Christians, that must be fundamental.

Damian.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Ploughboy - it's not the wrath of God I find so offensive in the genocide passages. It's the wholesale slaughter of the innocent along with the guilty - even babies and young children - are they really rightful objects of the wrath of God? Not of any God worthy of allegiance, that's for sure.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you): <snip> In the OT God's wrath is directed against sin, sinners, the innocent children of sinners, people who happen to be standing next to sinners, etc etc etc.

<snip>

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quote:

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Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
To order the death of a whole city summons the bad to destruction and the righteous to eternal life in his presence.

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quote:

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The good do not have to mourn the loss of their beloved. This is very different from a human perspective on the event.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Take the logic a bit farther: why not just kill everyone right now? If all that piss against a wall, or all that breathe, or every man, woman and child were snuffed out in the next five minutes, wouldn't this just be an efficient way for God to bring the wicked to destruction and the good to eternal life in his presence? Would the good actually want to spend eternity in the presence of one who authored such horror?

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quote:

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Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
Yes, especially if it is friendly fire from the Americans.
The only person who can legitimately end life is the wise all knowing creator who made it in the first place. Comparing an infinate all wise all loving being with a terrorist is totally absurd.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.

Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ley Druid:
P.S. I bet you would find a correlation between those who object to "God, the pathological killer", and those who object to "The Passion of the Christ".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.

Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?

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No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?

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quote:

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Originally posted by kiwigoldfish:
At the back of my mind is the possibility that this partnership issue has some merit. God says "these guys must go" and really wants Israel to recognise that they are agents of grace and intercede saying "No God, surely you're big enough to solve this another way." and God says "well done Tonto, you spotted my deliberate mistake."

But that could be quite shallow.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.

Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?

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No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?

Consequently, He cannot, with any consistency, have ordered Joshua to commit mass murder either. The whole point here is that the Joshua genocides are akin to the nuclear attack concept I suggested - man attacking man. What, ultimately, is the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden? Both believe(d) it is conceivable that God would order genocide, both are/were willing to do it. Who are we to say that Joshua was right and Bin Laden is wrong?

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quote:

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Originally posted by hermit:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.

Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?

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No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?

Consequently, He cannot, with any consistency, have ordered Joshua to commit mass murder either. The whole point here is that the Joshua genocides are akin to the nuclear attack concept I suggested - man attacking man. What, ultimately, is the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden? Both believe(d) it is conceivable that God would order genocide, both are/were willing to do it. Who are we to say that Joshua was right and Bin Laden is wrong?

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Hmmmm .... let's say there are 1000 fatal heart attacks tonight across America ... and assume that's about the usual amount. If God decided their time was up ... and I suppose most of us would take that view .... how is that different from 1000 Amalekites judged after numerous attacks against the Jews? Innocent children? They die every day as well, often of painful cancers. I have a lot harder time understanding that than a quick death in a genocide!

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quote:

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The difference between Joshua and Osama is that Joshua was told to do it by God, and received evidence it was God who was speaking to him. It's certainly not man against man when God has commanded it! Osama simply decided on his own that Allah wanted him to kill people.

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quote:

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Now let's say that leftwingers are right about President Bush being worse than Osama, worse than Hitler, worse than the Antichrist ....

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quote:

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let's say he goes on a rampage around the world, conquering nations for oil, sandalwood incense, enchiladas, whatever. And let's further say that most Americans enthusiastically support him, bombing innocent civilians and withholding nourishment from little children around the world, even as the loving Saddams of the world desperately try to save the little ones.

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quote:

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Wouldn't you want to see some sort of judgment on the USA if that happened, eventually? That we be humbled, that some measure of justice would be served on us as a nation? But I don't think we could get a just punishment without it affecting some innocent people.

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quote:

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And as we know, innocent good Christians even as we speak are having bad things happen to them. So the innocent ones may have to suffer from the punishment even if they're not being punished.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua a Jesus figure?

Where does Jesus kill thousands of innocent along with the guilty? Where, indeed, does Jesus kill anyone at all? What is His reaction every time?

"You do not know the spirit you belong to"
"Forgive them Father"
"Put your sword back in its place. For those who live by the sword will die by it"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Have you ever read John 3:17 Lep?

C

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua a Jesus figure?

Where does Jesus kill thousands of innocent along with the guilty? Where, indeed, does Jesus kill anyone at all? What is His reaction every time?

"You do not know the spirit you belong to"
"Forgive them Father"
"Put your sword back in its place. For those who live by the sword will die by it"

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Karl,
it never ceases to amaze me how selective your memory becomes in these discussions.

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quote:

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Try these
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law"

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quote:

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"So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. "

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quote:

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And I think, if you read any of the Gospels carefully you will find Jesus predicting his own role in a judgement far worse than that brought about by Joshua. One of many possible for examples:
""Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua's genocides were not - they killed evil and innocent alike. Everyone slain.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Lep, if we've really got to the point where you're arguing that we all deserve to be brutally murdered, so it's OK for Joshua to go and do it, I think my work is done.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If God is merciful, He would not be calling on Joshua to commit a most unmerciful genocide on entire cities.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Incidentally, this sig is also gibberish

'The only test of past conversion is present convertedness'

Unless you are God himself there is no test.

C

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But Jesus doesn't actually call the judgement down on them - not in the sense that anything happens.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Were it historically accurate, the Sodom story would make no sense, because there are always innocent people in any setting. The story goes to great lengths, indeed, to demonstrate that punishing the innocent along with the guilty is something that God cannot do. Hence, Marvin, the answer to your question is "I would." - Abraham did.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Were it historically accurate, the Sodom story would make no sense, because there are always innocent people in any setting. The story goes to great lengths, indeed, to demonstrate that punishing the innocent along with the guilty is something that God cannot do. Hence, Marvin, the answer to your question is "I would." - Abraham did.

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quote:

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Moving on - (a) is certainly true of some people. I know of plenty who are like Lazarus in the story, and whom justice would take to heaven.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Marvin - It's not the "getting to heaven early" bit, it's the getting killed bit.

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quote:

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You were all for stringing up child murderers earlier - but aren't they doing them a favour by your logic?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

And I do see a moral paradigm being set in the actions of God in the Sodom story. And that is that God agrees that it is unjust to punish the innocent along with the guilty - a principle completely undermined by the Joshua genocides.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crash Test Christian:
If we don't buy in to the God of the Bible, then what are we buying in to? Jesus apart from the Hebrew God? That doesn't work because of Jesus claimed to be sent by (be one with) that God.

Do we not acknowledge God as the author of morality? Can we call the Author immoral based on his standards? Many on this thread have.

Karl, if we are defining God apart from what is given in the Bible, we are therefore inventing a different god than Jesus spoke of; therefore, inventing a religion, in this case one that fits a less offensive god.

We are also in no position to know who may deserve death and those who are innocent. It is presumptious to say we know better than God.

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quote:

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I don't want to sound like I'm all for genocide, or that genocide is only offensive. But if God did tell Joshua to wipe out these people (and the Bible says He did), then what choice does Joshua have? The difference to me is I believe God told Joshua to do it and bin Laden is action on his own.

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quote:

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[tangent]
Joshua is a Christ type in that he save Isreal from her enemies. In fact the Jews were looking for a military leader to be the Messiah.
BTW- Jesus = Joshua (Yeshewa) in Greek
[/tangent]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And sorry to double post, but I've just read the story of Lazarus and there is no mention of justice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

And I do see a moral paradigm being set in the actions of God in the Sodom story. And that is that God agrees that it is unjust to punish the innocent along with the guilty - a principle completely undermined by the Joshua genocides.

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But Karl. God then goes on to rain down fire on the city! In the same way he uses his people to bring his judgement on the Amalekites (I think) in Joshua! God does agree that it is wrong to punish the innocent, but seems to then be implying that, at least in Sodom, there was no one innocent!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:


Incidently, both you and Lep have said the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden is that the latter wasn't under God's orders. How do we know that? I know Bin Laden wasn't under God's orders because I don't believe in a God who would order genocide. Since you do, how do you know?

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Because interpreting these events through the glasses of the NT (I too believe in progressive revelation ) they are pictures of JESUS bringing God's judgement at the end of time. The NT makes it clear that in the mean time we are to entrust God to judge, not take it upon ourselves. Because I believe in the authority (and inerrancy ) of the NT as well as the Old, it means that I can't use these actions as a justification for killing people. Rather I entrust Jesus, the instrument of God's justice to do so on that day.
 

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Posted by Crash Test Christian (# 5313) on :
 
I might have been unclear, so please allow me to correct any misunderstandings: Genocide is wrong. It is murder times x. But these are standards humans are held to.

[re-open tangent]
Karl:

quote:

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This I know. What I find fascinating is that events showed they were looking for completely the wrong thing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And sorry to double post, but I've just read the story of Lazarus and there is no mention of justice.

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You didn't look very closely.

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.'"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crash Test Christian:
If we don't buy in to the God of the Bible, then what are we buying in to? Jesus apart from the Hebrew God? That doesn't work because of Jesus claimed to be sent by (be one with) that God.

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quote:

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Do we not acknowledge God as the author of morality? Can we call the Author immoral based on his standards? Many on this thread have.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
And sorry to double post, but I've just read the story of Lazarus and there is no mention of justice.

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You didn't look very closely.

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.'"

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I think you're reading rather more into that sentence than is there aren't you? Its just a statement of fact. There's nothing in the text that shows it to be a universal principle of justice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Ahem! Use of the Bible issues please? Nobody interested. Oh OK ....

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quote:

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There are still many here who receive the hateful psychotic aspects and sublime loving aspects of the divine references in the Scriptures (Old AND New) as if they are of equal value and somehow to be reconciled. This doomed enterprise needs to waken up to what's really going on in the Bible. The SENSE of the true God through revelation is EMERGENT in the Bible, not hotly and freshly delivered entire complete and of equal nutritional value.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Father Gregory:
OK ... let's drag this previous post back to the front. What is unclear in this please?

quote:

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There are still many here who receive the hateful psychotic aspects and sublime loving aspects of the divine references in the Scriptures (Old AND New) as if they are of equal value and somehow to be reconciled. This doomed enterprise needs to waken up to what's really going on in the Bible. The SENSE of the true God through revelation is EMERGENT in the Bible, not hotly and freshly delivered entire complete and of equal nutritional value.

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Oh. I would have been jumping less eagerly if I had known that you meant this old chestnut. I've really had enough of it on tHe inerrancy thread.
Progressive revelation = OT incomplete BUT NOT MISTAKEN.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Leprechaun

YOU'VE had enough of the inerrancy thread!

The point is that until we get the use of the Bible right little else will be resolved when liberal and conservative positions pit themselves against each other on ANY issue.

I know you have probably written me off now as a hopeless liberal, not-taking-the-Bible-seriously type person. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a very real problem here with God as Cosmic Sadist .... quite willing (apparently) to kill the son of promise (Isaac) put the Amalekites under the ban etc. etc.

Some go through hoops and hand-stands to square this all with the God of Love. It can't be done. No matter how much mystery, total depravity or just requirements of the law of sin and death is imported into the equation ... the result is always the same ... distortion, incoherence, atheism. Allowing for the human factor in the Bible does NOT erode its authority. It makes it all the more cogent because it chronicles the experience of a people as they are led and saved by God.

The Old Testament is not mistaken; the New Testament is not mistaken. There is no need either to believe "7 impossible things before breakfast" .... Alice in Wonderland style .... OR to get out the Reader's Digest red pen and strike out all the nasty bits. You have to follow through on the Bible's own honesty .... and see where it leads.
 

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Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :
 
Amen Fr G. Why have they missed the myth?
 

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Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Progressive revelation = OT incomplete BUT NOT MISTAKEN.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Leprechaun

YOU'VE had enough of the inerrancy thread!

The point is that until we get the use of the Bible right little else will be resolved when liberal and conservative positions pit themselves against each other on ANY issue.

There is a very real problem here with God as Cosmic Sadist .... quite willing (apparently) to kill the son of promise (Isaac) put the Amalekites under the ban etc. etc.

Some go through hoops and hand-stands to square this all with the God of Love. It can't be done. No matter how much mystery, total depravity or just requirements of the law of sin and death is imported into the equation ... the result is always the same ... distortion, incoherence, atheism. Allowing for the human factor in the Bible does NOT erode its authority. It makes it all the more cogent because it chronicles the experience of a people as they are led and saved by God.

The Old Testament is not mistaken; the New Testament is not mistaken. There is no need either to believe "7 impossible things before breakfast" .... Alice in Wonderland style .... OR to get out the Reader's Digest red pen and strike out all the nasty bits. You have to follow through on the Bible's own honesty .... and see where it leads.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Leprechaun

YOU'VE had enough of the inerrancy thread!

The point is that until we get the use of the Bible right little else will be resolved when liberal and conservative positions pit themselves against each other on ANY issue.

There is a very real problem here with God as Cosmic Sadist .... quite willing (apparently) to kill the son of promise (Isaac) put the Amalekites under the ban etc. etc.

Some go through hoops and hand-stands to square this all with the God of Love. It can't be done. No matter how much mystery, total depravity or just requirements of the law of sin and death is imported into the equation ... the result is always the same ... distortion, incoherence, atheism. Allowing for the human factor in the Bible does NOT erode its authority. It makes it all the more cogent because it chronicles the experience of a people as they are led and saved by God.

The Old Testament is not mistaken; the New Testament is not mistaken. There is no need either to believe "7 impossible things before breakfast" .... Alice in Wonderland style .... OR to get out the Reader's Digest red pen and strike out all the nasty bits. You have to follow through on the Bible's own honesty .... and see where it leads.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
So your position would be that the genocides happened historically, but weren't ordered by God? That seems to go along with the idea of "good is what modern professors of morals and ethics decide it is", if you decide what was from God and what wasn't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The SENSE of the true God through revelation is EMERGENT in the Bible, not hotly and freshly delivered entire complete and of equal nutritional value.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:

The point is that until we get the use of the Bible right little else will be resolved when liberal and conservative positions pit themselves against each other on ANY issue.

---

Ah but who gets to decide what is the "right" use of the bible. Please do not use You or the Orthodox in your response I might get upset .

quote:

---

I know you have probably written me off now as a hopeless liberal, not-taking-the-Bible-seriously type person. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a very real problem here with God as Cosmic Sadist .... quite willing (apparently) to kill the son of promise (Isaac) put the Amalekites under the ban etc. etc.

Some go through hoops and hand-stands to square this all with the God of Love. It can't be done. No matter how much mystery, total depravity or just requirements of the law of sin and death is imported into the equation ... the result is always the same ... distortion, incoherence, atheism.

---

quote:

---

Allowing for the human factor in the Bible does NOT erode its authority. It makes it all the more cogent because it chronicles the experience of a people as they are led and saved by God.

---

quote:

---

The Old Testament is not mistaken; the New Testament is not mistaken. There is no need either to believe "7 impossible things before breakfast" .... Alice in Wonderland style .... OR to get out the Reader's Digest red pen and strike out all the nasty bits. You have to follow through on the Bible's own honesty .... and see where it leads.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Do you really think Jesus kills children to punish their parents? Not any Jesus I'd touch with a bargepole. Why do you want to believe in a God whose such an evil git?

---

quote:

---

Exodus 20


The Ten Commandments

1 And God spoke all these words:
...
5 ... I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

---

 

---

Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
Dunno about Karl, but I don't like that one.

And I'm not sure how I possibly could "like" that idea...

Do you like that one? Can you explain why it seems nice to you and what lesson you draw from it?

Oh, and doesn't reading that literally make God a liar? He certainly hasn't looked after a thousand generations of the offspring of the righteous, and Ecclesiastes and Job portray God in a different light. Do you think he's schizophrenic or what?
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
My goodness. You sure do get into trouble when you take it all so literally.

The Bible is highly symbolic. God is presented as a bloodthirsty tyrant at times in the Old Testament because the first principle of having a God is that God is in charge. The truth is that the Bible was written in a dark and wicked time, and the imagery suits the times.

God is love itself. It is impossible for Him to be angry. Descriptions of His anger are imagery describing the truth that evil returns to its source.
 

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Posted by sharkshoooter (# 1589) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jerry Boam:

Do you like that one?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:


God is love itself. It is impossible for Him to be angry.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshoooter:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:


God is love itself. It is impossible for Him to be angry.

---

I don't see it that way. The Bible is full of descriptions of God showing many aspects other than love. I choose not to ignore or rationalize them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Sex Geo:
I would think we have to rationalize (as in find a rational reason) this dichotomy if we are going to describe/follow/interact with God, wouldn't we? Don't we have an obligation to try to understand how God could be Angry and Loving?

---

quote:

---

I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshoooter:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Sex Geo:
I would think we have to rationalize (as in find a rational reason) this dichotomy if we are going to describe/follow/interact with God, wouldn't we? Don't we have an obligation to try to understand how God could be Angry and Loving?

---

This assumes:

1. God acts in a way which we would describe as rational.

2. We can understand God well enough to explain the apparent dichotomy.

I don't make those assumptions.

---

quote:

---

Now Karl has said that Biblical stories are just that, allowed into the Bible to teach moral points rather than being historical, I suppose analogous to Jesus telling parables. That's possible, but nonetheless the morality taught isn't what all of us would want - it teaches that the most important thing is to obey the Lord, even if that contradicts one's personal beliefs ... or personal beliefs about what God formerly commanded! The moral teachings of the OT are partly that if God commands us to kill, and we know truly and absolutely that is a command from God and not a delusion or hallucination, we must obey - and thus it isn't murder, any more than killing someone in pure self-defense is murder. "Absolute morals" means simply anything that God commands. There's no other reasonable way to define "absolute".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I want to keep this very simple for clarity's sake ... if being a Christian means worshipping a god who commands the slaughter of humans including women and children then I am an atheist.

Happily I am not an atheist. Happily I believe in God who is Love and who cannot countenance evil. Happily I can usually recognise the whiff of sulphur when I smell it.

The truly frightening thing in this thread (as Karl and others have pointd out) is that such abuse of the Bible can be matched in every religion that is prepared to resort to violence to uphold an alleged divine perogative.

How do I handle the nasty bits? ... I go to the Church; I do not rely on my own insights or the insights of any confessional group ... I listen to what holier people than I have said about sweetness of my Saviour. I recognise that sinners such as myself were biblical scribes. They were fiercely passionate in their love for God ... sometimes too fierce. The discernment comes not from academia or an alternative ethic but from the Spirit in the body of the faithful ... not personal illuminism.

I am going to bed now really quite depressed. Lord have mercy! [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshoooter:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Sex Geo:
I would think we have to rationalize (as in find a rational reason) this dichotomy if we are going to describe/follow/interact with God, wouldn't we? Don't we have an obligation to try to understand how God could be Angry and Loving?

---

This assumes:

1. God acts in a way which we would describe as rational.

2. We can understand God well enough to explain the apparent dichotomy.

I don't make those assumptions.

---

quote:

---

Now there are good reasons to believe that the story is an ancestor narrative. There is no archeological evidence for an Israelite invasion of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua and the nature of the miracles performed, such as the incident where the sun stops in the sky to allow Joshua to complete one of his campaigns of ethnic cleansing, strikes many scholars as being mythical.

---

quote:

---

OTOH we can place a much higher degree of reliability on the narratives of Christ's teaching in the New Testament, which are clearly pacific in their nature. This teaching is complemented by that of the Apostles, the Fathers and by later Church Tradition and by reason. Ergo we have a clear reason to believe that Christ told us that violence was against God's will, and this teaching is clearly more satisfactory, intellectually and morally, than any morality one can derive from the book of Joshua.

---

quote:

---

Even if morality is contingent on nothing less than the command of God the evidence that He has commanded us not to kill is vastly stronger than the evidence he commanded Joshua to commit genocide.

---

quote:

---

Given the enormity of countenancing genocide - even at this distance it is not an act we would countenance lightly - the element of reasonable doubt should lead us to conclude that genocide is always wrong and not countenanced by God unless, presumably we have ideological reasons to believe that the book of Joshua is equivalent to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, or unless we think that genocide is quite licit and wish to legitimise our convictions by window dressing them with Christianity. Where do you stand Hermit?

---

quote:

---

4Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: 5"I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'
8"I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'
9"The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'

---

quote:

---

The point is that a God who indeed ordered the mass slaughter of thousands or millions of people because their ancestors weren't nice to his people is totally irreconcilable with the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ, and the moral way of life which God himself demands - not to murder.

The issue is NOT whether God has the right to judge and avenge - clearly he does. But that is not the motive for his command given in this passage nor is it consistent with the picture of the God of mercy and forgiveness revealed in Jesus.

This isn't, therefore, just going along with what modern professors of ethics think. This slur is tiresome and manifestly untrue. It is simply observing that certain ways of reading the Bible end up painting God as a capricious and immoral terrorist.

---

quote:

---

But how does one defer to an outside authority (i.e. the Church) when the outside authority is deferring to the bible? And the bible was written by man?
And the acedemia you dismissed shows that all of the above is built on stories written by man. A house of cards built on stories.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
If God commands us to kill some person or person, and we can know absolutely, completely certainly that He commanded it, should we obey? (Let's assume that an omnipotent God could somehow make us completely certain He commanded it). By the greatest commandment of Jesus, I say it would be right and obligatory for us to do it, and it would not be murder in His eyes, but simply killing in obediance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
If God commands us to kill some person or person, and we can know absolutely, completely certainly that He commanded it, should we obey? (Let's assume that an omnipotent God could somehow make us completely certain He commanded it).

---

Interesting assumption. Why should we obey this commandment simply because God is omnipotent? Why should we disobey our conscience simply because an omnipotent God tells us to do something Satanic? Isn't the Law written even on the hearts of unbelievers, as Paul says?

Which brings us to the real point: the very way we discern whether we are receiving commandments from God or evil prompting from Satan is the nature of the prompting. Thunderous words do not come down from Heaven or up from the pit of Hell, but from the imaginings of our minds.

Hermit's and sharkshooter's God whose righteousness is beyond our comprehension might ask us to strangle an infant slowly for a righteous reason we cannot comprehend. But I say that the nature of the request itself tells us instantly that it is some bizarre evil. Satan can feign that he is God, but God does not feign that he is Satan. We are commanded by Satan, not God, to be the agent of merited torture or destruction. Since the time of Christ, God has given us unmerited favor and expects us to pass it along.

With respect to killing, I can only see the use of lethal force in the case where immanent and immediate loss of innocent life seems certain and no other option is available.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear JimT



What worries me is the suspension of an innate (God-given) moral sense that some believers experience when they fixate on something written by a fallible human being. Some have often felt like "dashing babies against the rocks" (Psalm 137:8-9) but don't do that because they recognise their inner psychological turmoil and have enough presence of mind by grace to stay their hands. To authorise that or even to sanctify that in the name of God is, literally, demonic. They can be absolutely no compromise between God and Satan. Satan is neither God's avenging angel nor the instrument of his alleged wrath. He (Satan) is both the enemy of humankind and of God.
 

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Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshoooter:
This assumes:

1. God acts in a way which we would describe as rational.

2. We can understand God well enough to explain the apparent dichotomy.

I don't make those assumptions.

---

<snips>
See Sharkshooter's admirable post I quoted above, Sean.

---

It's not a question of whether God acts in a way which we would see as rational and moral but whether he acts in a way which is consistent with his own self-revealed character. He reveals himself as rational. He reveals himself as loving and opposed to the wanton destruction of human life. It is not therefore a question of whether our puny little minds can understand God sufficiently, because our puny little minds don't need to try and work God out - that's the point of revelation. He tells us what he is like.

Plainly and simply: God is either irrational and capricious or he is loving and just. He can't be both - but not because my brain can't comprehend how he could be both, but because he has revealed in Jesus Christ that he is not both. I have made my decision which I think he is not on the basis of my own fuzzy feelings but because of the God revealed on the cross.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Sean

Amen. Amen. Amen.
 

---

Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Sean

Amen. Amen. Amen.

---

I believe Amen is usually only appropriate when addressing God Now I have to remind myself that "Me" is not short for "Messiah"...
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Sorry, I'm about to be pedantic (so what's new?).
First there's this.

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter: addressing Karl Liberal Backslider
:

I guess you really don't like the highlighted part of this one, then:

quote:

---

Exodus 20

The Ten Commandments

1 And God spoke all these words:
...
5 ... I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

---

And then there's this.

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshoooter:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:

Do you like that one?

---

It is irrelevant whether or not I like it. That would be the pinnacle of arrogance.

---

So when Sharkshooter asks KLB is he 'likes' a commandment he's what? Issuing a challenge TO KLB, throwing down the gauntlet, being robustly interrogative?

But when Sharkshooter is asked if he, too, 'likes' the very same scripture he's being tempted into arrogance, which of course he's much too virtuous to give in to!

If it's irrelevant for Sharkshooter to like it, why is he asking KLB if he likes it? I'm soooo confused !

There is also the implication that if KLB were to say he didn't like that scripture he would be wrong not to; whereas whether or not SS likes it is just 'irrelevant'. Is that called 'having your cake and eating it? '
 

---

Posted by Mad Sex Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

quote:

---

But how does one defer to an outside authority (i.e. the Church) when the outside authority is deferring to the bible? And the bible was written by man?
And the acedemia you dismissed shows that all of the above is built on stories written by man. A house of cards built on stories.

---

Which academia was that, MSG? Surely you know that most bible scholars around the world don't subscribe to that view? Or rather that it WAS written by men, who were inspired by God.

---

Well I don't know about "most" academia or "least" academia. I know what academia I've read, and talked to, and they are rather persuasive. If you need names , start with E.P. Sanders and end with Spong with a wide range in the middle. I happen to have a friend who's a NT biblical literature professor as well.
 

---

Posted by Mad Sex Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear JimT



What worries me is the suspension of an innate (God-given) moral sense that some believers experience when they fixate on something written by a fallible human being. Some have often felt like "dashing babies against the rocks" (Psalm 137:8-9) but don't do that because they recognise their inner psychological turmoil and have enough presence of mind by grace to stay their hands. To authorise that or even to sanctify that in the name of God is, literally, demonic. They can be absolutely no compromise between God and Satan. Satan is neither God's avenging angel nor the instrument of his alleged wrath. He (Satan) is both the enemy of humankind and of God.

---

Why do you assume that people that "fixate on something written by a fallible human being" are more inclined to dash babies on rocks, or even suspend their innate moral sense, than say a "believer".

I know a few people that are challenged (in extreme) by the inerrent/god written view of the bible. The ones I know, in some cases are as moral or even more moral than some Christians I know. I would venture to say that one nontheist I know is also the most moral person I know.

I have observed the suspension of the innate "God-given" moral sense in believers, nontheists, and atheists alike. This, of course, is no comment on any of them, it's just an observation.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear MSG

I am not making such facile generalisations. Mileage varies across the board. I am, however, claiming that the mind set that justifies everything that the Bible says about God may be more inclined to fixate on something as not only a divine action but also a divine decree ... if they have suspended their moral sense or if it has been corrupted. Eschewing fundamentalism is the best way to despoil such selective justifications.
 

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Posted by Duncs (# 5677) on :
 
Oh dear, this was posted by someone, but i think it's turned into chinese whispers and i havent a clue who originally said it!


But how does one defer to an outside authority (i.e. the Church) when the outside authority is deferring to the bible? And the bible was written by man?
And the acedemia you dismissed shows that all of the above is built on stories written by man. A house of cards built on stories.


- Ahh. But is this not where faith comes in? the CHristian faith in believing it to be true. If we become really pedantic, everything we "know" is based on belief. (Work with me, it is true!)
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Duncs

But is not the Church not made up of men and women and did not the early Christian communities and their apostles pen the Scriptures? Deferring to the Bible is simply the Church being true to herself and what God has committed to her. The two are not alternatives.
 

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Posted by hermit (# 1803) on :
 

quote:

---

And how does this make us different from Al-Qaida? If I was convinced God told me to do this, I hope I would have the courage to go to hell along with Huck Finn.

---

quote:

---

Interesting assumption. Why should we obey this commandment simply because God is omnipotent?

---

quote:

---

What worries me is the suspension of an innate (God-given) moral sense that some believers experience when they fixate on something written by a fallible human being. Some have often felt like "dashing babies against the rocks" (Psalm 137:8-9) but don't do that because they recognise their inner psychological turmoil and have enough presence of mind by grace to stay their hands. To authorise that or even to sanctify that in the name of God is, literally, demonic. They can be absolutely no compromise between God and Satan. Satan is neither God's avenging angel nor the instrument of his alleged wrath. He (Satan) is both the enemy of humankind and of God.

---

quote:

---

It's not a question of whether God acts in a way which we would see as rational and moral but whether he acts in a way which is consistent with his own self-revealed character.

---

quote:

---

Plainly and simply: God is either irrational and capricious or he is loving and just.

---

quote:

---

Well I don't know about "most" academia or "least" academia. I know what academia I've read, and talked to, and they are rather persuasive. If you need names , start with E.P. Sanders and end with Spong with a wide range in the middle. I happen to have a friend who's a NT biblical literature professor as well.

---

quote:

---

So you're saying, Fr Gregory, that anything which disturbs your innate sense of right and wrong in the Bible came from Satan? And that we all have that same God-given sense, that if I read the Bible over again my innate sense of right and wrong would force me to reject the same passages, as Satanic verses?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

The following verses don't seem to support Jesus as pacifist alone:

Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

Matt 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.
(it's the will of God that one falls to the ground).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

Matt 21:18 Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

This next verse doesn't support the idea that God is aligned with any particular human culture, such as modern pacifist academic (or any other for that matter). In other words, let's not make God into our image:

Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
9
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:

The following verses don't seem to support Jesus as pacifist alone:

Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

---

This verse has nothing to do with God killing anyone, or Jesus being a "pacifist." It says that Satan can destroy body and soul.

---

I've never heard it said that the one who can destroy body and soul is Satan before. Satan isn't anywhere portrayed as the one who destroys body and soul in hell, rather he's the one destroyed in hell. The usual view is that Jesus is refering to God - the God who casts the goats into hell etc.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
What JimT said, ... except for (see below)

Dear Alan

You are correct that this is a reference to God but the sense is that of being able ... not desirous or something that he actually does. Much of Jesus' pedagogy and exhortation has this hyperbolic aspect. I don't see many tempted Christians going round plucking out their eyes .... mercifully.
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Oh I agree Fr Gregory. The comment by Jesus is addressed to people who feared what following him may entail, especially the possibility of persecution and death at the hands of the Jewish leaders. The perspective is they can only kill the body, God can destroy body and soul ... and, I'd add, conversely God can save body and soul. It's a relative power thing Jesus is outlining.

And, just because God can destroy body and soul in hell, it doesn't necessarily follow that he will do so.
 

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Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
It's a purely hypothetical question that assumes God, the Creator of the universe, is indeed commanding you to kill someone.

---

quote:

---

As for al Qaeda, I believe that Satan and not God is inspiring them. You can believe what you want about them, it's irrelevant to the question.

---

quote:

---

Well, at first it seemed he revealed Himself as One God only, nothing about a Trinity. I certainly don't see the Bible revelations of God as completely and obviously unitary at all times even in Jesus alone. I've never come across any theological system that manages to incorporate every thing he said and did in a perfectly consistent manner.

---

quote:

---

My parents seemed to be both from my viewpoint as a young child, but when I grew up I finally began to understand them.

---

Did your parents tell you to kill people, and then tell you it was wrong to kill?

You just aren't listening - please take note of my actual argument. I am NOT arguing that God's actions are inconsistent with my own puny perception of his character. I am saying they point-blank can't possibly be committed by God as God himself reveals God to be. I have no choice in the matter if I really want to believe God reveals himself in Jesus.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
JimT - I HAVE READ IT ALL TOO, MANY TIMES And of course it is only God who can annihilate body and soul in Hell. And will, there being no eternal punishing. Emergence is a nice word isn't it? I have no problem with love triumphant emerging in sacred history as God the Son revealed a human face over His lethal one.

But to rationalize away his lethal one without ever positing it is intellectually and faithfully inadequate. Just as it would be for me not to consider God saying 'I was misquoted, misattributed'. Which He hasn't yet.

The inadequacy of OT cultures to understand why God was killing them and leading them in killing, does not deny that He killed. As Alan said, Jonah did God's will in saving Nineveh and the Assyrians and was barely, eventually reconciled to that.

YES He haggled and we didn't haggle enough. Abraham did a fantastic job over Sodom and Gomorrah - which - of course - were NOT destroyed for being gay, which they weren't any meaningful way - as did Moses over Israel: God told him to stand back while he killed the lot of them to start again through Moses who declined the offer.

May be we can avert some of the horrors of the apocalypse by negotiating a bit harder. Prophecy is contingent after all.

What is astounding about God's lethal intervention is its minimalism and restraint:

From the Flood to Sodom & Gomorrah is at least 400 years from the latter to the assassination of Onan is about the same.

In the NT He assassinated Herod Agrippa and executed Annanias & Saphira. No inconsistency in His nature there. He used Vespasian to destroy Jerusalem. He has been in full control of European history and therefore world history since. And is yet to take over completely and not by being elected or in the person of the schizophrenic old bag lady, our Holy Mother Church. But in His great wrath.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Since this post was addressed to JimT I'll let him reply Martin.

I think I can ask one more general question. Is it your approach to the Bible to read straight from the page in a matter of fact kind of way without factoring in the context and the human situation?
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Yes and no.
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...as did Moses over Israel: God told him to stand back while he killed the lot of them to start again through Moses who declined the offer.

From the Flood to Sodom & Gomorrah is at least 400 years from the latter to the assassination of Onan is about the same.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
I like you Martin.

You're a nut and proud of it. I like that in a nut.

---

Also, he's aware of it. There's nothing worse than not acknowledging it. Martin may be a hardcore fundy but he knows it and is very humble. At least he's consistent, he takes the commands in the Bible to be humble and loving as seriously as all the genocide stuff. All too rare.

Don't listen to this, Martin, I don't want your head to get big.
 

---

Posted by hermit (# 1803) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jerry Boam:

And are we really supposed to imagine that God desired the deaths of every person who is killed in a hurricane, tornado, tsunami, volcano or earthquake?

Really?

---

quote:

---

This verse has nothing to do with God killing anyone, or Jesus being a "pacifist." It says that Satan can destroy body and soul.

---

quote:

---

God lets birds fall from their nest, says Jesus. Again, God is not killing people. We don't even know if the bird gets hurt.

---

quote:

---

Jesus killed a tree, not a person, to make a point.

---

quote:

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Notice that the verse doesn't include anything along the lines of, "And sometimes I'll do the same things that Satan does and you won't know why."

Hermit, you need to disabuse yourself of the term "pacifist" here. Fr. Gregory's point, my point, and others' is that people have an innate, God-given moral sense, a knowledge of Good and Evil, that allows them to discern between God and Satan.

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quote:

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It also says that God haggled and bargained like a street vendor.

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When a voice whispers, "kill the innocent," it is not God." You retort that "it could be--you never know--God is an absolute sovereign with ways beyond our ken."

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The usual view is that Jesus is refering to God - the God who casts the goats into hell etc.

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Much of Jesus' pedagogy and exhortation has this hyperbolic aspect. I don't see many tempted Christians going round plucking out their eyes .... mercifully.

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Good grief Hermit - this is precisely what we're arguing about! It wasn't purely hypothetical for Joshua, in your view and by your own admission. So if in your view God really does that kind of thing, it precisely isn't hypothetical. And if he did it once how on earth are we supposed to know he doesn't do that kind of thing any more?!

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Why should you suppose Josh and his pals had such existential certainty about it? They didn't know they were going to be in the Bible!

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You cannot have your cake and eat it. If it is evil and wrong for one group to committ mass murder and genocide, it is also wrong for another. If Satan is inspiring al-Qaeda, how can we say it was Jesus who inspired the slaughter of the Amalekites?

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Congratulations. You have now managed to give all the reasons for not believing in inerrancy.

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Did your parents tell you to kill people, and then tell you it was wrong to kill?

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I like you Martin. You're a nut and proud of it. I like that in a nut.

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I realize this was said in jest, but I'd be happier if we don't call each other names even affectionately because this is one of those hot issues that can deteriorate quickly.
 

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Posted by hermit (# 1803) on :
 
D'oh, I just realized what Alan was talking about with the goats. Sometimes I'm a bit too literal!
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Hah! Look, how'm I s'posed to get over myself now? Eh? Call yourself Christians? Bastards. And Jerry - you are of course absolutely right: there is scant evidence if any for the Flood. The controversially attributed counter-current in the Bosphorous (Oxford!) in to the Black Sea. Marine foraminifera in North American soils. Eight feet of clay by a single act of sedimentation in static water in Ur. The Old Baylonian Epic of Gilagamesh, the Chinese Bamboo Annals in which Nu-weh is a survivor, of 8, of a world flood. Tantalizing stuff. The Flood does exercise me scientifically to say the least.

If it was global and covered Everest, God has covered His tracks to an inordinate degree. To me biodiversity is the greates challenge to that. If it covered Ararat that's nearly as bad. Half way up and one is rationalizing away.

Jonah, however, is far easier to swallow as he was the prophesied Assyrian redeemer. As is the Exodus, which fits with radical but valid Egyptology. As per the archaeologist David somebody or other Rorvak or summat.

Genesis is a phenomenal mixture of genres with many editors and contributors and indeed open to interpretation, but apart from the hard core Evangelical-Fundy submission reflex I have, there is also the legal authority of the geneologies, if one chooses to view them that way. Which I find impossible not to.

Your genuine praise makes me feel a little like that mad arsonist psycho in Steven King's magnificent The Stand. I'm not sure why ...
 

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Posted by JimT (# 142) on :
 
Hermit, I really do respect your point of view and understand that your underlying motivation is a perfectly normal, healthy, and admirable dedication to righteousness. The crack at Martin was purely playful and not a swipe at him or you or anyone else: he simply seems to like comments like that. I've heard him accept them from others and I'd never offerred him one before. To tell you the truth I was hoping to make Pyx_e chuckle because he once postulated a puppet fight between me and Martin PC in Heaven. Pretty funny.

To return to a serious and respectful vein, you seem to have conceded that if we cannot prove that God actually kills, we must however say that if he is a person-like, choice-making consciousness with unlimited power then at the very least we must grant that he sanctions killing because killing in fact does happen. I grant this. Now I must deal with the philosophical consequences. What to do? If I take your approach, I say that killing exists for a greater good than I can comprehend. Where does this lead? It leads exactly where you say. It leads to the possibility that I might be asked to kill without knowing why. Now I feel that I must go on. The premise has led me to somthing of an absurdity, which you more or less conceded: there is no way to imagine how to evaulate whether or not this was happening. More frightening, the premise opens up that I might never be able to tell Good from Evil: I cannot know it in my heart, and I cannot ask others because they are fallible and finite as I am. I cannot trust Man; I cannot trust myself; I can trust God, but he has asked me to commit atrocity. Or has he? Is it Satan posing as God? I will never know. I want absolutes, as you do hermit. I don't want this loose end.

So I go with God as something non-personal. In my world there is not a God "presiding" over creation, "sanctioning" killing. I don't know how others get around it exactly. It leaves me without an absolute in the sense that I can't look up the answer somewhere, but really you are without an absolute as well: you have imagined a possibility without a guaranteed way to evaluate it. As you said you would have no choice but to look to the ambiguous and fallible opinions of saints, Church fathers, and the Body of Christ surrounding you if you were to receive your hypothetical command. Eventually, faith in the Knowledge of Good and Evil says that you should come to an absolute, unshakable, and correct opinion. I say it will come from the God in and around you, not from the Old Testament figure with fiery eyes and hair like smoke.

In myself sanctioning the killing of a hostage-taker, I am in a sense with you: I would shoot to kill under the circumstance I said and would feel that I was "doing the will of God" but would never describe it in those terms. I would say instead that my moral choice was clear, that I had to kill, even though with all my heart I wished that I could have saved the hostage-taker and healed whatever it was that was wrong with them.

Peace my friend.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Hermit

We have a real impasse here. Orthodoxy teaches that God is NEVER the author of death. Death is not natural however crowded you think the world could get. Satan is not God's instrument toward the fulfilment of his purpose in anything. In short there is no moral darkness in God. "Behold I am become death the destroyer of worlds" is an accolade that falls to the fallen one, never the Risen One ... who has destroyed the long corrupting reign of death by his holy resurrection. Mindful of Pascha coming I can do nothing other than cleave to God who can only raise the dead ... not both kill and bury.

Truly it is when I contribute to threads like these that I realise just how irreconcileable Orthodoxy and mainline western Christianity really is ... both Roman Catholic and Protestant. I just give thanks for those western Christians who smell something dank and festering under the floorboards and who are inclined to something better.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Not pre-empting the good (and much maligned, by me, for which I'm still cut to the quick) Hermit's reply, but damn JimT, that's beautiful. And no offence taken, no way.

Iron to iron here. As in as a man's countenance is to his friend, as it sez somewhere in't'good book.

There's absolutely no way God would oe COULD command me to kill. He will do His own killing. That would be completely alien to NT normalcy and Christianity. If, God forbid, I should kill it would be on my own head, in extreme self or other defence. Any other circumstance would be murder.
 

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Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by hermit:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jerry Boam:

And are we really supposed to imagine that God desired the deaths of every person who is killed in a hurricane, tornado, tsunami, volcano or earthquake?

Really?

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I couldn't resist starting with this one. Of course He desired it, indirectly. Why else would this world be designed by God with death in it? It would get a bit crowded if no one died, wouldn't it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Hermit

We have a real impasse here. Orthodoxy teaches that God is NEVER the author of death.
...
Truly it is when I contribute to threads like these that I realise just how irreconcileable Orthodoxy and mainline western Christianity really is ... both Roman Catholic and Protestant. I just give thanks for those western Christians who smell something dank and festering under the floorboards and who are inclined to something better. emphasis mine.

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Originally posted by hermit:
As I keep saying, God kills all the time ... even if He doesn't directly do it, he created this world where everything dies.

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"God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world" (Wis 1:13; 2:24). CCC 413

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quote:

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Truly it is when I contribute to threads like these that I realise just how irreconcileable Orthodoxy and mainline western Christianity really is ... both Roman Catholic and Protestant. I just give thanks for those western Christians who smell something dank and festering under the floorboards and who are inclined to something better.

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It leads exactly where you say. It leads to the possibility that I might be asked to kill without knowing why. Now I feel that I must go on. The premise has led me to somthing of an absurdity, which you more or less conceded: there is no way to imagine how to evaulate whether or not this was happening. More frightening, the premise opens up that I might never be able to tell Good from Evil: I cannot know it in my heart, and I cannot ask others because they are fallible and finite as I am. I cannot trust Man; I cannot trust myself; I can trust God, but he has asked me to commit atrocity. Or has he? Is it Satan posing as God? I will never know. I want absolutes, as you do hermit. I don't want this loose end.

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So I go with God as something non-personal. In my world there is not a God "presiding" over creation,

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But say you were right and death was a feature, not a bug--why not specify that everyone lives in rude good health untill a certain age, then has an angelic encounter with the message "Your time to come home is in three weeks at sunset, mortal." The soon-to-depart get to say goodbye to the people and places that have become dear to them and then after a little ceremony with their loved ones and church, or whatever, peacefully expire with a look of peace and contentment on their faces...

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Why Bam? Why Krakatoa? Keeping down the surplus population is really not a very plausible answer.

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Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha (the priest) softly…”But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him…”

No, I have not forgotten Him; on the contrary I've been wondering all the time how it was you did not bring Him in before, for usually all arguments on your side put Him in the foreground. Do you know, Alyosha -- don't laugh I made a poem about a year ago…

Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.

In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at last reject even Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems.

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Originally posted by hermit:
Freddy, do you believe the laws in the Torah demanding death sentences for seemingly trivial matters (such as failure to keep the Sabbath, or a woman getting married when she wasn't a virgin) ... are from man or God? Jesus did seem to uphold their truth, even if the covenant was changed.

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Everything in the Bible is from God. The difference is that it is given in accommodation to the people. Those laws in the Torah are literally totally wrong. It would be wrong to obey them, just as it is basically wrong to make animal sacrifices. It would have been wrong for Abraham to slay his son. This was a dark time in the history of humanity and people behaved harshly and cruelly.

In ancient times, however, people had a great reverance for symbolic actions. Animal sacrifices were therefore able to symbolize something sacred, even though in themselves they were disgusting.

So these trivial laws were simply symbolic. They were harsh and cruel because the people were harsh and cruel, but the symbolism could still be heavenly despite this.

Swedenborgianism attributes very deep meaning to these things. The rituals and laws, and their written accounts in the Old Testament, literally served as a basis for the connection of heaven and earth in the time before the Advent.

If it had been possible for anyone to receive the actual truth in that time, and for there to be true worship without the negative elements that are present in many Old Testament stories, this would have happened. However, if this had been possible there also would have been no need for the Incarnation. It happened only because of the sad state of the world.

So it is no surpise to me that the literal Old Testament contains many peculiar and even wicked things. I accept them, however, as metaphors symbolizing heavenly and spiritual things. If interpretted through the lens of the New Testament, however, I think that they can be just fine.

[ 27. March 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: Freddy ]
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Freddy has it!

I have a little theory about the supposedly divinely commanded slaughter of Isaac (Genesis 22) .... so indulge me.

NEVER did the Jews practice child sacrifice, (leastways those that didn't apostasise ... Micah 6:7). It seems a little strange, therefore, (to say the least) that the archetypal believer, Abraham, should be considered praiseworthy for an obedience that would have him slaughter his son by divine decree.

It's no use having God say:- "Only testing!" That's a bit like nuclear deterrence being play acting. Those actions for which we prepare, if credible, must be capable of being followed through. So do we have not only God, the pathological killer but also God the culler of children?

It's all in the context.

When someone experiences a paradigm shift in belief ... conversion, enlightenment, what you will ... it is rare to find in such a person, no matter how righteous, an instantaneous and comprehensive purging of old ways of thinking toward the new.

Abraham came out of a pagan culture where child sacrifice was practised. The most perfect offering, as we know, had to be the most costly personally. The measure of obedience was one's own blood. What more "natural" for Abraham to offer the One True God the very child of promise, blood of his blood, bone of his bone. That for which he yearned most he felt compelled to surrender. The requirements of this just and holy God always take precedence. But, was this truly the voice of God or that which he heard, angelically mediated, as he raised the knife:- "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know you fear God." God condescends to Abraham's imperfect understanding but honours the radical obedience. For all that, though, the understanding was imperfect. God does not bay for human blood. The substitute ram indicates the name of the place GOD-will-provide.

Skip 1700 years or so. God provided again. This time himself in the sacrifice of Christ. He willingly provided himself. He did not bay for Jesus' blood nor did the Christ placate the Molochian bloodlust of the Father, (Anselm?) This is a demonic reversion. No, God willingly offered HIMSELF for our sakes. Truly this is the wonder of the Incarnation. We now have no excuse. Unlike dogs we do not return to our vomit. The delusion of idols and the former ignorance have passed away.

GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.

GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.

GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.
GOD IS LOVE.

[ 27. March 2004, 18:52: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

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Posted by Faithful Sheepdog* (# 2305) on :
 
No-one seems to have mentioned the Christian Thinktank that is referenced in the Ship's links. This resource has several full length heavyweight articles on the subject of this thread.

Here is one and here is another. There may well be a few others, since I haven't done an extensive search.

Neil
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Thank you Fr. Gregory! I think that you are completely right about this.

Maybe I belong in the Orthodox church. Or maybe you are half Swedenborgian!
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
The Christian Think Tank is AWESOME. I used to correspond with Glen Miller it's owner. What a guy.

I bow to the loving disposition of Father Gregory, the Ship's Orthodox community on this matter and to those faithful liberal Christians on other matters, like Arabella, Vikki, ChastMastr, Emma and others, particularly on sexual conservatism, as I have been forced to acknowledge, by my conscience, on other threads.

I do not doubt the quality of any one's faith.

And I acknowledge that my disposition tends to the Neanderthal. I find it easy to see the God of Love as a killer, I find it easy to reconcile The Son of God in His divine, dread, deadly power and in His utterly exemplary human face of sublime gentleness, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance; love and that He wears that face for us now whenever we invoke it.

I am quite prepared to be surprised, amazed in the resurrection that you are all right.

Are you if I am?

[ 28. March 2004, 10:26: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I am quite prepared to be surprised, amazed in the resurrection that you are all right.
Are you if I am?

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If I find that God really did kill all those people, and order the killing of countless more, I will lecture Him for at least half an hour on how wrong that is of Him.

I will then lay out for Him a far superior system by which He could have achieved the same results without being so mean.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Ah, but will the citizens of Sodom and the Amelekites, basking in His love, be wondering what the .... you're on about?!
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
And Father Gregory, I absolutely have no doubt that God had NO intention whatsoever of making Abraham sacrifice Isaac. He wouldn't have asked if He hadn't known Abraham's heart.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Martin

quote:

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Ah, but will the citizens of Sodom and the Amelekites, basking in His love, be wondering what the .... you're on about?!

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But that's exactly what we Orthodox do believe they are doing .... except for them the Love of God is a painful burning rather than a sweet warmth. It all has to do with the disposition of the soul. Back to the River of Fire ....

Dear Freddy

One of the most delightful things I have discovered since joining the Ship and corresponding with you is just how much Swedenborgians and Orthodox share in common ... not in all things of course but in many other areas that, frankly, I never anticipated.

[ 28. March 2004, 13:59: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
This is where I get more liberal than you Father Gregory, which is saying something! Why on Earth or in Hell or Heaven's name will the Amelekites or Sodomites be suffering in the resurrection?

Haven't they suffered enough? In being what they were and in the way God destroyed them?

They will be in awe at His grace and the vast majority if not all will fall in to His Son's arms after falling at His gracious, pierced feet.

They will berate the Jews of 2000 years later for their disbelief.
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Who said they would be? ... I was merely making a more general point that IF anyone suffers it is NOT because they are deprived of the Love of God but rather because they have set their faces against it.

[ 28. March 2004, 15:51: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
You did! I didn't notice any shift from the specific to the general!

'...for them the Love of God is a painful burning rather than a sweet warmth'
 

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Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Sorry Martin ... I didn't make that clear. I would NEVER presume to say who was and wasn't saved.
 

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Posted by hermit (# 1803) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog*:
No-one seems to have mentioned the Christian Thinktank that is referenced in the Ship's links. This resource has several full length heavyweight articles on the subject of this thread.

Here is one and here is another. There may well be a few others, since I haven't done an extensive search.

Neil

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Your genuine praise makes me feel a little like that mad arsonist psycho in Steven King's magnificent The Stand. I'm not sure why ...

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Originally posted by Sean D:
Plainly and simply: God is either irrational and capricious or he is loving and just. He can't be both - but not because my brain can't comprehend how he could be both, but because he has revealed in Jesus Christ that he is not both. I have made my decision which I think he is not on the basis of my own fuzzy feelings but because of the God revealed on the cross.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Due to some absence, I have only just seen this, so apologies if the discussion has moved on. This statement rests on a number of assumptions:
1) I am able to define what is "just" better than the writers of the Bible
2) The God revealed at the cross is different to that revealed in Joshua - it must be because I can't understand it any other way
3) Jesus implicitly disapproved of the actions attributed to the God in the OT, but decided, for some reason known only to himself, to not point this out, and in fact use those events as models for the coming judgement.
4) That we are so conversant, in our experience, with the nature of love, that we are able to define it better than God himself.

I do not think any of those assumptions can be warranted.

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1) No, because my notion of justice is defined by the Bible in which murder is wrong, life is precious and sacred and not to be harmed and that God wants all to be saved.
2) No, it is not that the God revealed is different, because clearly the God revealed in Jesus is a God of judgement and wrath against sin. But it is indeed my view as I've said that God is progressively revealed (I posted a response on the inerrancy thread about this). The God revealed more fully in Jesus really does have differences, e.g. being Trinity and accepting humanity on the basis of faith in Jesus rather than on ethnicity/circumcision etc.
3) I'm not aware that he uses the slaughter of the Amalakites thus. Neither am I aware of any reason why just because Jesus doesn't directly criticise the passage this means it's entirely and wonderfully commensurate with the God he reveals. This is an argument from silence.
4) I know very little about the nature of love, but thankfully don't need to know about it, as it is defined in the God revealed in Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John and the various other NT passages which discuss love describe it as self-giving, sacrificial and seeking the welfare and benefit of the other person. On these biblical definitions it seems obvious to me that the slaughter of the Amalakites is fundamentally unloving. I can also look at the passages in the NT which speak of God's saving will for the whole of humanity. If the Amalakites were so deserving of destruction, how can the Bible also say there will be members of every tribe, people, nation and tongue in heaven?
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Sean

I was about to make those exact same replies.

The argument that God is incomprehensible, and that therefore what seems wicked and capricious to us is actually good, just doesn't work. Certainly good things might seem to us simple humans to be wicked and capricious - due to our misunderstanding. But this is not the same as saying that it is impossible for us to understand. There is always a rational explanation, waiting to be found. The trick is to find it.
 

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Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 

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Sean D wrote:
1) No, because my notion of justice is defined by the Bible in which murder is wrong, life is precious and sacred and not to be harmed and that God wants all to be saved.

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2) No, it is not that the God revealed is different, because clearly the God revealed in Jesus is a God of judgement and wrath against sin. But it is indeed my view as I've said that God is progressively revealed (I posted a response on the inerrancy thread about this). The God revealed more fully in Jesus really does have differences, e.g. being Trinity and accepting humanity on the basis of faith in Jesus rather than on ethnicity/circumcision etc.

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3) I'm not aware that he uses the slaughter of the Amalakites thus. Neither am I aware of any reason why just because Jesus doesn't directly criticise the passage this means it's entirely and wonderfully commensurate with the God he reveals. This is an argument from silence.

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I can also look at the passages in the NT which speak of God's saving will for the whole of humanity. If the Amalakites were so deserving of destruction, how can the Bible also say there will be members of every tribe, people, nation and tongue in heaven?

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Do you mean this? Let me introduce you to the doctrine commonly known as grace. (Sorry needlessly sarcastic, couldn't resist) The answer is surely that no one from any of those tribes will be there because they deserve it! The Jewish people who are there won't be there because they kept the law. The British people who are there won't be there because they were good and gave to charity. All of them will only be there because of God's gracious gift of rescue to them.

There seems underlying this whole debate, to me anyway, to be a serious difference in how we see our relationship to God. As far as I can see he is creator, we are creatures, we are sinful, he is holy. Thus he has every right to deal with us has he sees fit, and the just fair way to deal with us would always be punishment. If he chooses to have mercy, that too is his prerogative. I'm very nervous of a position that begins to tell God that there are things he can and cannot do.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 

 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
There seems underlying this whole debate, to me anyway, to be a serious difference in how we see our relationship to God. As far as I can see he is creator, we are creatures, we are sinful, he is holy. Thus he has every right to deal with us has he sees fit, and the just fair way to deal with us would always be punishment. If he chooses to have mercy, that too is his prerogative. I'm very nervous of a position that begins to tell God that there are things he can and cannot do.

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quote:

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The complex and complete picture of God that emerges from the Old and New Testaments taken as a whole is one of a God of love, who is merciful and gracious, and yet who defeats sin and evil. He is supremely intelligent, rational, just and fair.

Inconsistency, irrationality, and unmercifulness are not usually depicted as attributes of God - but they do crop up, or appear to crop up, in various places in the Bible. To my mind, this just means that they need to be explained - and I am confident that logical, intelligent, and consistent explanations are possible for each one, explanations harmonizing them with the greater picture.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
You see, what I see this doing is seeking to define these things (rationality, mercy, consistency) from outside the schema that God reveals about himself. Maybe there's an issue here as well about how we see ourselves , but I don't think we are capable of defining the love that God is outside of seeing what he is. He is the definition of love, rather than us coming with such a definition and ruling out what does not fit our definition as "not God". We certainly, in our sinfulness, cannot outdefine God from love. Rather we must accept what he says is loving and merciful and just.

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No, apparently it is only defined by SOME of the Bible.

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There are places outside of Joshua where the Bible seems to be saying that God does not "want" (and there is a serious issue of definition of that word in the Bible) everyone to be saved (Romans 9 being the most obvious NT example). Life is indeed precious and sacred, but less precious and sacred than the glory of God himself. Or so it seems to me.

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quote:

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He does use Sodom and Gomorrah though. Which I would have thought raises similar questions on your view.

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Even if it is an argument from silence, it is still an argument. Jesus didn't hesitate to point out people's misunderstandings of God from the OT elsewhere. It certainly seems strange to me that is (as you are suggesting) he meant to introduce such a wholesale revision of God's character he didn't bother to mention it.

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quote:

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Do you mean this? Let me introduce you to the doctrine commonly known as grace. (Sorry needlessly sarcastic, couldn't resist) The answer is surely that no one from any of those tribes will be there because they deserve it!

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quote:

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There seems underlying this whole debate, to me anyway, to be a serious difference in how we see our relationship to God.

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It's nothing to do with that. I believe in the sovereignty of God, the universal sinfulness of humanity, the righteous wrath of God against sin and therefore sinners, the judgement of death and eternal separation of God upon us all and the justice of punishing us. I am saved by grace alone. I contribute nothing to my relationship to God. It is all his love and gracious gift and I love him desperately for it.

The real difference between us is which logical, rational deduction do we make. Very crudely, yours is "The Bible is inspired by God therefore God said it so it can contain no errors." Mine is "The Bible is inspired by God but there's no biblical reason to suppose that this should mean it is error-free. Two things which are totally self-contradictory cannot both be true, even if the Bible says them both."
 

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Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
Sean

Yup, getting all of this, and indeed I agree there is a difference here in our views of the Bible. The "you" in my previous comment was wider than just you Sean, and as Freddy says it does underly some of the discussion.
The Sodom and Gomorrah thing, I think realistically does cause a bit of a problem for your view. A more common answer (put forward on this thread, with which I disagree) is that Jesus didn't need it to be a real event to be using it as an example.
It is just as possible that the Amalekites were man woman and child as guilty of rebellion against God as the people in those cities (and in fact, I think, because of original sin, there should be a de facto assumption they were.)

I'm not sure we need to throw our whole hands up in horror at the deduction issue. There are good and bad deductions. There are deductions that seem plausible and are nevertheless wrong, and that are implausible, but turn out to be right. Try the latter with any Agatha Christie book - the least likely person is always the murderer!
The deductions we have come to looking at the text are indeed different, and both indeed have grounding, but the truth is out there...

No one is saying that reason is not involved, rather that there is a dialectic between reason and text in which text (IMO) must always be given ultimate authority. Our logic too is fallen.

Anyhoo, your probably right that this is getting exhausted - thanks for the chat. Useful. Interesting.
 

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Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
No one is saying that reason is not involved, rather that there is a dialectic between reason and text in which text (IMO) must always be given ultimate authority. Our logic too is fallen.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
The (inerrancy) question remains this - can the text remain authoritative over my reason, if I use my reason to decide parts of the text are mistaken? My view is no, yours is yes. That's the bottom line I think.

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