Response to: "I have become an agnostic" thread

Instead of calling me a legalist, it might be more productive if you were to demonstrate exactly how I am/was a legalist.

Now I must wonder, do you disagree with the assertion that God specifically chose some nations and people as vessels of wrath?

How about those who were/are never even given the oppurtunity to hear the message of salvation?

Dodging my argument won't make it go away.

 

Do you allow pain when you discipline your child? Do you allow for pain when your child does wrong? Do you allow for pain when your child does something wrong to another person? Do you allow for people to be put into prison because they do wrong? All because they were born?

Going to heaven or hell is determined by our response to God. People go to hell for rejecting God. They may claim to be religious and reject God. Many are sitting in our churhes each week who reject God and like the social climate.

 

Legalism focuses on self. Christianity is about our response to God. Go back and reread your posts and see how much of it is focused on yourself.

I am not trying to dodge your arguments. I have dealt with exactly the same thing in the past. Simply, I do not believe you understand what scripture teaches and how to interpret scripture.

"do you disagree with the assertion that God specifically chose some nations and people as vessels of wrath?"

Read that from a Jewish persepctive of God and you will find the trouble I believe you are having is mixing a Greek philosophy you have into a Jewish perspective and trying to come up with a proper persepective of God. It is much like mixing potatoes and corn. You have neither potatoes nor corn but a different colored mixture. Scripture must be interpreted from the writer's persepective and who it was written to.

 

Legalism is a focus on rules, regulations and law as opposed to the heart.

I fail to see anything legalistic in my objections to god. You have likewise failed to demonstrate anything legalistic in my arguments.

In that case you might be able to enlighten me. How did you resolve these issues?

How did a fully sovereign god become just and benevolent by creating a universe doomed to destruction and creatures destined for hell? To what purpose did such an act serve his glory?

 

Do you not mean more specifically that going to heaven or hell is contingent upon our acceptance of Jesus' sacrifice and atoning work? Is not Jesus the one and only way anyone can ever enter heaven?

 

Hi Travelsong: I agree with your interpretation of “legalism”, but you must admit that a lot of your previous post does seem to focus more about you and the God you perceive. A lot of Christians do perceive a God that is contrary to Scripture and that in itself goes against the first commandment.

Going back to the OT, I can understand your thoughts especially when a loving God commands women and children to be killed, but a close study will reveal that God’s commands were slow to develop. God sent prophets to warn of impending judgment least they repent. Some heeded the warnings others didn’t and thus God used other nations to judge those in sin. God also used other nations to judge His own people. Fact is sin has to be dealt with and judged.

Hopefully your kids (if you have any) aren’t free to do what they like when they like. Granted you won’t kill them, but you will punish them, because in life some crimes are deemed to be punishment by death.

Well I’ll take a shot at this question, but I really don’t see any use, since most atheists I have conversed with never accept the answer, much less any answer to any question posed and unfortunately you seem to have left Christianity and nothing can be said to convience you otherwise.

I believe that God created no one destined to Hell, but we ourselves make that choice. We humans bring sin upon ourselves as well. We chose to accept the free gift God offers or we reject the gift. God didn’t make me turn to drugs, I did. God didn’t send cancer to my being; I did by smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day (note: I is used in the third person).

The last part of the above question I can answer only as a loving parent. Why did my wife and I choose to have kids when we knew fully that they would eventually rebel against our authority? A loving relationship and a desire to share our love with them and have them love us unconditionally as well. Do we punish them? Yes and we teach them about God and His love and judgment and we don’t threaten our kids with Hell, because we chose to allow them to love God for who He is. My kids know me and they have a healthy fear of me because I am the authority and I will punish them, but they love me and I them and they try and do good. Our kids are a little young to really comprehend God to the extent you and I can, but we are teaching them of God and His love and judgment by reading to them OT Bible stories and explaining to them why God did what He did.

 

I’ll take a stab at this, as far as Christianity is concerned, yes, Jesus Himself said that He was the way, but how about a tribe in the Amazon jungle who has never heard the Good News.

My thinking is that they will be judged upon their works. Many tribes are very religious so to speak, they may worship the moon or sun or a rock, but it has been planted in there being that there is a God. They may not ever know the God of the bible, but they know that there is a supreme being and they still have a conscience and that conscience convicts them of right and wrong. If a tribesman murders rapes and never truly feels sorry or turn from that lifestyle, then they will be judged and God being just will rule appropriately. I will thus leave the judging to God.

The above is just my theory and I’m sure some will disagree with the above, but I think God is fair and just and does seem cruel for Him to create a person just so He could send to Hell.

 

Yes to all.

 

I don't think there was any one thing that enlightened me. It was a process when I challenged myself on some fundamental issues. As I began to understand what God required of me I began to realize that he simply wanted me to mature and grow as I aged. He wants me to have a relationship with Him that is active much like having a relationship with my wife.

I went back to the basics of some things I knew. I knew God existed. I had seen him do things which I would call miracles. As I journeyed back in time I realized that I had been interpreting scripture on the basis of what so many others said not on what was done historically. When I began to investigate the times that surrounded the time of the writing I was looking at in scripture, I began to get a better picture of what the actual message was. Many times it was very different than what I heard at church, read or thought . In my earlier years I asked the tough questions of my pastor and older people I knew, and got no answers except to often hear they didn’t know but they believed it. I was not happy with those kind of answers.

Initially I had been taught a very rationalistic approach to scripture and that all the words fit together like a puzzle. The only problem is that it is a false idea. The message fits but not always the words. Each boo of the Bible must be looked at in light of it historical context. For example if a person said, “The bats were sure flying today!” That could be interpreted in a number of ways. A baseball fan might interpret that as though he the writer was at a baseball game watching players hit home runs. Another might see that as though the writer were at a baseball game and the batters could not hang onto the bats. A animal lover might see that from the perspective of a person under a bridge at 5:00 PM in Austin, Texas watching bats fly from under a bridge. The only correct message would come from the writer. If the writer was not living then information about the writer would need to be known. If his location were known that would solve a lot of the problem in interpreting those words.

To understand scripture well one must try to see the message through the eyes of the writer and the recipients. Most of them had a Jewish background. Their way of seeing things is very different than ours which is a Greek philosophy. To understand the message of the writer one must understand the historical background of the writing. That is where the work begins. If one understand the historical background usually the message is easy to understand.

“How did a fully sovereign god become just and benevolent by creating a universe doomed to destruction and creatures destined for hell? To what purpose did such an act serve his glory?”

I do not agree with what I perceive as your underlying thought behind the question. I believe that God created the world for His glory and in doing so he said it was very good. I see it much the same as when you and your wife have a child. You don’t get married saying you will have a child so the child can turn out bad. You have a child and then pass the child around all the relatives smiling each moment. We do know there are those children who do turn out evil. Is that the sole fault of the parents? No it takes the responsibility of the child too.

Realize that when you read the OT they only had about an 800 word vocabulary and what the elements were. I think they were earth, wind and fire.

When you read about destruction for example in 2 Peter it is not talking about a literal falling apart of the planet but a judgment. If one reads literature of the same time period he will find that the same word pictures are used of judgment and not the planet falling from the sky. Fire often symbolizes judgment. The Jews say God as being a part of everything even man’s decisions. In one sense they are right and in another wrong.

In one sense God create evil by creating man and giving him a choice. By the fact of creating good there must be evil otherwise there would be no good nor evil. That is a Jewish perspective but often we do not think that way.

It is much like saying that when a couple has a baby they are creating evil. They create evil by also creating good. Without bad there is no good. Without good there is no bad. One cannot exist without the other.

 

Are we suggesting that God created all the good/evil scenarios that have played across the globe for the last 6,000 years?

I don't think so. Lucifer fell of his own volition. Eve was beguiled by Lucifer. She could have turned and fled. Adam was not forced to eat that which was forbidden. Adam disobeyed with the full knowledge of the consequences.

Now, what shall we blame on God?

Selah,

Bro. James

 

I haven't posted here in awhile, but I have read this thread with some interest. I've often wondered some of the same things about some of these same issues that you have, Travelsong. I also recommend The Case for Faith. It may not answer all of your questions, but I found that it did a good job overall of answering similar objections as yours.

However, I did want to respond briefly to what you said here:

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that God does indeed exist, do you think it is possible that He, being infinite and omniscient, might have "reasons" that are beyond our puny understanding? That He, who sees the end from the beginning and who knows everything actual and possible, might know how some of these "contradictions" ultimately work out? Personally, I don't think saying "mystery" is a cop out; rather, it's a sober acknowledgement of the fact that an infinite, all-knowing, eternal Being probably has reasons that I, a finite created being, cannot begin to fathom. Such an acknowledgement is perfectly rational.

And the thing is, whether or not I can fathom His "reasons" for doing things (as if I could comphrehend the infinite) has no bearing on whether such a god objectively exists. That is why this statement, "The moment you give god reasons for his actions he ceases to exist", makes no logical sense to me.

 

Which is why I gave you this post --
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/3442/5.html#000064

I did not see that you read it.

#1. Eternal damnation is the fate of those who reject the way God presents. Your complaint is like the who whines "Why is it I must take the fireman's way out of this burning building anyway? Why can't I just stay here and mind my own business. THe fire should just mind its own business and let me relax a while".

#2. Also Eternal Damnation in the Bible is such that the MAtt 10 statement of Christ is "true" - God "Destroys BOTH body AND soul" in fiery hell - in the same way that wicked man DESTROYS the body but is unnable to destroy the soul.

Clearly you did not read my post on Romans 2 that fully refutes your assumption.

You are just not reading. God did not create a world of pain and suffering and neither did He (according to HEb 1 and Job 1 and 2) create JUST ONE world. He is the ruler of the entire universe and the "Free will" question is respected in the system HE created.

So in Love He dies to redeem us - to redeem a world that CHOSE to fall - chose rebellion. You can honestly look at that and whine?

You are not reading. In 2Cor 4:4 and in Eph 2:1-3 (and in Matt 4 and in Job 1) it is shown that Satan is the "god of this world" in that he has been given its dominion. Note that he offers to give that back to Christ in Matt 4. So although God Himself is supreme over all - there is a set of rules, a system that is real that is enforced by God and that shows "consequences" for mankind choose the serpent over the Creator.

That is good news and bad news.

Good news that you are now challenging your own faulty assumptions. Bad news that you are just "making up the answers" now rather than seeking truth through the Word of God.

In Christ,

Bob

 

First of all the most "logical" thing is to totally reject evilutionism's "false god" and "lying god" picture of the creator. The creator who "lies about his own work" so as not to present the "REAL" Carnage, death, disease and extinction that he really uses only to claim that INSTEAD of such brutal blood-lust methods He actually "divinely create the species by divine fiat alone in peaceful perfect harmony and a moment in time". This lying god "foundation" set by evilutionism is more than enough "wrong-headed" compromise to invalidate the gospel.

Those who suggest that embracing such a contradiction would "help you" with your quest have totally lost touch with reality.

In Christ,

Bob

 

If you look at it from a Jewish persepective, yes. From a Greek persepective such as ours, no.

In Ex. 8-10, what does the scripture say about who hardened Pharaoh's heart? God. It also says he hardened his heart. Which is it? Both are right.

From a Jewish perspective: When God created good he also by the fact of creating good created evil. One cannot exist without the other. How would you recognize good without knowing evil. You would have no reference.

From our Greek perspective we see God as creating evil as wrong. We see evil as originating with God.

The Jewish perspective believes that God created everything. That, includes evil, good and every other thing. The Greek persepctiuve compartmentalizes things. It would seperate our responsibility, our response, our actions, good, evil and many other things. Each have an umbrella. The Jewish perspective says everything falls under one umbrella--God.

 

The Hebrew text says it both way when it comes to Pharaoh's heart. HE hardened HIS OWN heart and also God.

God because He KNOWS the future sends judgments that break Pharaoh - and cause him to repent to relent - but THEN by quickly removing them - his heart is bold and defiant. Also God starts with the milder ones and like an experiment in boiling a frog - moves to more severe ones over time.

The same sun that melts butter hardens clay. The free will God gives man (via the drawing of all mankind to God) Enables man to choose as to whether he will be butter or clay. But he can not choose whether the sun will shine today or not.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I am in a constant state of becoming, yet I can't be anything other than what I am. At least not yet anyway. Free will doesn't have any significant definition.

I have a 3 1/2 year old girl and another girl on the way any day now. Neither of them will be taught by me that they are innately evil, or that they are going to burn in hell for all eternity if they don't affirm their evil condition and need for a belief that a god (eternal, perfect being) killed himself so that he wouldn't have to kill them. Forever and ever and ever.

It's just plain detrimental to tell anyone, and even worse to actually believe it.

Yeah, I'm such a rebel.

 

Travel,

how can you have a 3 year old and not realize that they are born knowing how to sin? Whether you tell your children the truth or not, its still true. And if you lead them astray someday you will be sorry for it.

You know the truth. You know it isn't how you stated it. Sin cannot exist in the presence of holiness. That is just a fact. It is not God squishing us, it is just reality. Its like one person said, you cannot blame the furnace for melting the ice cube. Ice can't live in the presence of heat. Sin can't live in the presence of God's holiness.

God didn't "kill himself", He became man for our sake and paid the price. That's love, that's allowing for both holiness and love to coexist. If you are unwilling to believe that, Im sorry for you.
But at least give your children the chance to decide for themselves.

 

If 'sin' resides in the material, physical aspect of our nature, it is inherently a part of us. If god imbues our bodies with condemned souls that contain a sin nature it is still just as much inherently a part of us. We are what we are. There is no need to despise this fact, only to improve upon it as best we can. At least this seems to be a universal tendency of our nature.

Why not? I was made with my limitations was I not? It's not as though I can escape them either on my own or with belief in a supreme intelligent deity.

 

I'd also like to add that this aspect of our nature which 'sins' or acts contrary to an established code of behaviour is passed from person to person. You can either view it as having a divine or natural origin. Of course I really see no reason to differentiate between the two anymore.

 

Travel,

God doesn't "make" us each with a sin nature. We are born that way because we are sons of Adam. We inherited a sin nature from ADAM, not from God. (Thats why its called "pro-creation") God didn't "zap" you with a sinful soul upon conception or birth, its inherited from our human forefathers. This is how God ordained us in the beginning to procreate, only we FELL, Adam sinned, and then passed on a sin nature to the rest of us.

You were NEVER called upon to despise yourself. God in fact says that we are to love each other as much as we love ourselves.....do you think God was commanding us to despise each other? No. God was affirming the fact that we ought to have a proper view of ourselves, and then we can treat others accordingly....properly and with love.

If someone in your church circle TOLD you to despise yourself, than Im sorry that happened to you. I think its more likely that you somehow had a bad self-image for some other reason. Im still sorry about that, but it is not a reflection of reality.

Hating yourself is just as wrong as being narcistic, because you are valued by God.

Yes, we have a universal tendency towards sin, just like you said. Go beyond your first thoughts about that, and realize that God did not "ordain" for you to be left that way.

If you ever knew God's plan of salvation, which you said you did once, then you know that God only wants you to be able to be with Him someday.