Church dilemma - knowing the will of God vs affirming that God’s ways are inscrutable, According to convenience
What’s the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?
- George Carlin
Reminds me of the Epicurean Paradox:
If you read the Bible with a purely objective mind and come away thinking God is the good guy in the story, I have some serious questions about your morality and ethics.
Username checks out?
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh. It’s not something Biblically portrayed as one of God’s gifts. Free will is portrayed as something that was given conditionally, but taking from the tree of knowledge and specifically eating the fruit of knowledge is known as man’s first sin in the Bible.
I think it’s a bit of a metaphor for a parent wanting to shield their child from the harshness of reality, but as the sheltered child grows older they often want to know more about the outside world and become exposed to that cruelty. This was my own experience with religion growing up. A teacher of mine one day sat us down and pleaded the above with our class, as many of us grew to see through the veil of how reality looked.
In retrospect I think some things about the world make sense to not told about, depending on one’s age. However, I think other things should never be hidden, have been hidden, or done in other cases.
Side note: I think the idea of God’s plan is for people to hold love for one another. Lots of people lose sight of what they are called to do and how they are to act though. They’re called to love their neighbor as their self, called to love their enemy, and called to forgive others for their transgressions. I personally think people are called to do good works in conjunction with holding faith, as people are called to act righteously in this life.
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh.
Then truthfully, I don’t think you’ve had this conversation with many christians. Every single one immediately defaults to that point when confronted with the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control.
Don’t worry, they don’t read the Bible, and especially don’t read the old testament.
They believe they have god given freedom of action
Did Calvin write this post?
Thought terminating cliche
This
You have the freedom to choose God or face an eternity of unimaginable suffering.
No good god would make an unlasting punishment. if you have forever, then even Hitler, Dahmer would have enough time for a finite punishment. Even the worst people in the world don’t deserve a unlasting punishment.
I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years but no one person deserves unending punishment for finite sins.
Depends on the flavour of Christianity
At one end unforgiven sins condemn you to the ancient Greek underworld, slightly modified
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect for a time that fits, thence to heaven for the rest of forever
Beyond that end, their god is infinitely forgiving so everyone goes straight to heaven.
Well, since this is a religious discussion, I’m a Christian. It’s always God.
Job 1:6-12 very clearly shows God granting permission for Satan to test Job.
1 Kings 22:19-22 shows the “court in heaven” and God soliciting ideas from spirits for enticing Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead, where he will die. When a good suggestion is made, God grants permission.
Exodus 10:1-2 states clearly that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to not let the slaves go, so that God could display his “signs” (plagues).
Satan is a liar, and the father of lies.
Romans 9:19-21 NIV
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Wow, sounds like a cruel deity that’s definitely not worthy of worship.
Hey, at least you’re judging based on the facts of what the Bible says. God is who He is. He’s not campaigning. You disagree with Him, but at least it’s really Him.
Of course, that puts you in the same position as Job. You want to judge God. You want to put him on trial. You disagree with Him.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
I’m judging a fictional character based on how he’s characterized by the book he appears in. There may be a higher power, but the god of the Bible certainly ain’t it.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
That would be what, “Why are you so weirdly obsessed with Leviathan?” after Job 41?
I would add that not every author is writing unbiased in the Bible. We know now for instance that some books near the end of the Bible were attributed to Paul may not have been written by him, but by some of the people under Paul in the early church. So adding parts about women not holding positions of authority within the Church more or less served to cement their own positions and authority for the early-Christians that were formalizing the religion.
Did god not have the power to give us free will without also giving us evil?
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Had the power but opted not to: god is himself some part evil
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Didn’t have the power, did the best he could with the tools he had: god is not omnipotent.
Pick one.
I think it’s a misread to say it gave us evil. The garden is portrayed as being a paradise with a tree with knowledge. The man and the women, as they self-identified themselves to be, were both allowed agency to be themselves and be blessed without the burden of knowledge, so long as they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Both the man and the women independently made the conscious decision to break the rule given to them to not eat the fruit of knowledge. The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God, through the eating of the fruit. My take on this is that story is meant to show that God can help you and will help you, but if you choose to go against his will you have the face the consequences of that decision on your own. However, you can still seek forgiveness for your decisions and even be forgiven, but this doesn’t magically put everything back to the way things were before.
The story is more or less a cultural device to explain good and evil from the perspective of the early Israelite society. The story itself is rippled throughout the Bible in this way: God gives instructions, the people follow the instructions at first but then grow complacent, bad things happen because people stop following God’s instructions, and then one of the leaders of the tribe of Israel steps in to help get people back on the right path of following God’s instructions.
I’ll add that functionally Genesis is three serparate creation stories that were pulled into one book. Culturally, the early Israelites borrowed some of the elements of other creation stories of their time seen in other cultures such as the Babylonians. The first creation story is the seven days, the second is what we know as the story Adam and Eve, and the third was the story of the great flood.
Its not a misread, your interpretation skips the important parts. The problem with your interpretation is right here:
be blessed without the burden of knowledge
The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God,
The knowledge is “of good and evil.” Until eating they couldn’t know that breaking a covenant was wrong no matter what their god has told them. They did not know that they should listen to what their god said, the concept of “should/shouldn’t” was devoid of meaning to them. While they had free will, literally all actions were purposeless and the two would just bounce around the garden not knowing if they should actually listen to their god or not. This becomes more evident when you read further as well as look at the stories from neighboring cultures this was borrowed from.
Later in the chapter their god speaks to the other deities in the pantheon about how the humans must be cast out of the garden as having their new abilities, may find the tree of everlasting life and become as powerful as the rest of the gods and supernatural beings. The idea is that having knowledge of the ramifications of one’s actions and living forever would mean that humans would no longer be controlled by the gods. That having free will, knowing what is good and what is evil and being immune to the wrath of the gods would render them all powerful.
This narrative then follows that their god casts them out into the world riddled with pain and suffering and humans eventually lose their knowledge of the past and how their god has their thumb on them. This is why Satan, “The Accusor”, is called the bringer of light. As sin is defined as a transgression against god, Satan is there to show how the fall of man was truly an enslavement by their god. Rather than leave humans dumb bouncing around the garden or immune to suffering, their god keeps humans ensnared in this system of life, suffering and everlasting torment. the story of the garden is what makes their god relevant when they otherwise shouldn’t be.
Going by the Bible, it’s both. He acted with malice and proved himself to not be omnipotent many times.
Jod introduced the idea of freewill to the board.
Lucifer said “That’s a bad idea, chief. Free will would ruin them.”
Jod cast him out.
Humans fucked everything up.
Jod sent his CTO, Jesus to try and fix it. It went poorly.
Lucifer said " I told you so"
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How dare you bring logic into god’s house!
No matter how well you point out the paradox (if God knows everything that will happen, free will doesn’t exist, because everything is predetermined, just like a fully written book), a significant portion of christians will simply ignore and keep circling between “but God gave us free will” and “God knows everything”
Yup.
The teachings of Christianity don’t make any fucking sense. (Unless you’re willing to gaslight yourself for a lifetime.)
That’s the point of religion. Trick the brain into thinking everything is going according to plan so that it gives out the happy time drugs instead of the “you need to wake the fuck up and do something about this” drugs. The religion pushers get their cut, and everyone thinks their happy.
Now now, don’t discount free reign to also gaslight others for a lifetime as well. And judge and shame others too. It’s great for complete assholes.
I think that’s part of the appeal: the ingrained superiority Christians feel.
Not just Christians, that’s a common thing with any cult, be it for a person, a country, etc.
There’s actually a specific christian worldview called Calvinism where the view is that god wanted Adam and Eve to eat the apple and God was the snake on the tree which means god wanted all the wars on earth if you believe that view.
Pish. Calvinism teaches that God was the serpent? You’re a bit off base there.
Waiting for reference. Other than a Chick tract.
Ok, I misrembered the details so my bad on that one. What it actually teaches was that god created the serpent, put the serpent in the garden, knew Adam and eve wouldn’t resist the serpent so god still wanted all the wars and misery in this world.
“Wanted” is a funny word. The idea that there’s something difficult to understand about a supreme being who is so far above us that he created not only us but the entire universe according to what’s revealed about him? That shouldn’t seem a strange idea.
Imagine if we met an advanced alien who had technology far beyond ours. We might not be able to understand a lot of the way they thought, spoke, or acted.
The thing is, it actually says that in the Bible.
Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Yet we keep wanting to subject Him not only to our reasoning, but to our language.
My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Yet if adam and eve had just eaten the fruit of immortality, apparently they would have been exactly like god. That’s also in the bible. It’s almost as if there are contradictory parts and it’s full of bunk…
It’s not that diffcuilt to understand so I don’t know why you assumed I would find it diffcuilt to understand. I’m not that religious myself, I’m more agnostic but I’m happy to have respectful conversations about different viewpoints than mine.
There are a few verses which state god planned everything that would happen in this world. Romans 8:29-30 “For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
Ephesians 1:5 and 11 “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.”
So it’s not difficult to understand with these verses that in the lense of calvinism, god planned everything that would happen in this world and knew exactly what would happen.
Yes, we agree completely. I just meant the word “wanted” is pejorative. You can intend something without necessarily wanting it.
When he was little my son broke the growth plate off of his arm at the wrist. It was essential that it be pushed back into place. The doctor needed me to hold him still, to hold his arm still as he pushed that bone back on top where it belonged.
My son had a lot of pain. I didn’t want to hold him still while he endured that pain. But I intended to. I did it.
And all those events were planned under the lense of calvinism which you had no control of planning it yourself so predestination and no free will.
