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Hi EinsteinsGhost Of course there is evil and it was created by God but He uses it to do good.
Then why do Christians admonish and punish people carrying out His plan? Then why the threat of "judgment" when people are merely His pawns? That almost makes God sound like a naughty/destructive child who devises ways to torture and punish some action figures and goes about it.
You're saying God and Satan are playing Good Cop/Bad Cop???
The good cop bad cop as far as I'm concerned is the spirit and the flesh,and which ever one we sow to we reap from. If I'm overweight from eating a full English breakfast every morning,it's not God forcing it down my cake hole,but me.
Then why do Christians admonish and punish people carrying out His plan? Then why the threat of "judgment" when people are merely His pawns? That almost makes God sound like a naughty/destructive child who devises ways to torture and punish some action figures and goes about it.
Hi Einsteinsghost We admonish and punish people when they do evil because that was what was in their hearts to do and they did it. Does not matter why they felt that way. They did not do it to further God's plan( even though it did) They did it because that is what they wanted to do. You will find out that as you understand how God works more and more ,the evil thoughts in you heart will become less and less, because you want to please God( your heart will change) In the end all of us will understand after we go through judgement and we will all repent and become the image of our Father.
Hey pneuma I've been following your and legoman's debate ( needless to say I agree with legoman) and some of your comments I find interesting.
That God is not sovereign is the biggest one. If God is not sovereign he is a pretty impotent God. God is not impotent
Also Jesus was out of God we were created by God, big difference. Don't get me wrong we will be adopted into the family of God and will be his children, but not till we change our hearts to be in line with his, which God will bring about in his time. Jesus was with God before the world was created.
Satan was created by God to be the adversary, not to God but to us. Satan does exactly what God tells him to do nothing more nothing less.
Hi sschulz as I have said most UR'er agree with Lego understanding, but as one who has been there myself I know that belief's shortfalls.
I am not going to debate this further but as you brought up one point that troubles you about what I have said I will address this issue one last time.
Sovereignty
Sovereignty denotes kingship, kingship means one must have a kingdom and in that kingdom everyone does the will of the king.
One scripture (although there are many more I am only going to use this one) shows that Gods kingdom or will has not yet COME into the EARTH.
Jesus taught us to pray
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
So I leave you with this thought.
How can God be sovereign in the EARTH if neither His kingdom or will is NOT being done in the earth?
Gods kingdom and will, will not be done on EARTH until" The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."
I dearly love you my brother, but about this you seem inexcusably wrongheaded and it seems you are immune to rational explanation. I would liken your intransigent insistence on your particular belief about the Omni's to a Fundamentalist UR Calvinism. God TRULY created us as independent creative self-directed beings with express permission to make decisions on our own, period. There is no preordained plan that each of us simply acts out like a TV drama or play. We can be influenced and affected by myriad forces, God's Holy Spirit, circumstances, "laws," nature, . . . whatever. But WE ultimately decide for ourselves . . . or we are of no value to God whatsoever. God has no use for pre-programmed robots or actors following a script.
In Christ's love,
Mystic
Mystic, the reason I believe what I believe is because it is the only rational explanation I can see, and I do try to be rational in my thinking. I'm not trying to be particularly dogmatic or "fundy" about this, it is simply a matter of presenting my understanding of the truth.
For me it comes back to God's foreknowledge. I believe God has perfect foreknowledge of all events and He had this before creation. Therefore this implies intent because God knew what would happen, yet still went ahead with creation as we see it now. Pneuma disagrees on this view of foreknowledge, I'm not sure what your view is exactly.
You talk about the idea of dominion. Generally I do agree with this viewpoint.
You agree with me (I think) that an understanding of evil is necessary to understand goodness and to spiritually mature.
So, God gave man dominion. Did God know what would happen? I believe He did. Did He know exactly, down to the minutia of all detail, including both things good and evil, what would happen? I believe He did.
Did God plan for man to understand goodness and to become spiritually mature? I believe He did.
Did God know that this would require an experience of evil? Obviously.
Furthermore, there is the logical proof: IF God has perfect foreknowledge, THEN we cannot do anything other than what God already knows we will do. If we did do something else than what God already knows, then we would have broken His perfect foreknowledge (which obviously would mean it is not perfect).
This is 100% rational to me. I don't see how anyone can rationally dispute this, given the conditions that: 1. God exists, 2. God has perfect foreknowledge, and 3. God intends for us to spiritually mature. If you see an error here, please let me know, but I don't think there is any.
Now of course people will dispute the preconditions, and that is fine. Maybe you don't think God has 100% perfect foreknowledge. But this is just how I see it. I believe scripture teaches it, and it also makes 100% rational sense that the perfect creator of our world would know exactly what is going to happen. The problem is if you take away God's foreknowledge, you reduce God to be something less than god. All of a sudden you run into these problems, like what I pointed out to pneuma. God doesn't know exactly what is going to happen. God is not sovereign over all. God's initial plan made a mistake, and God did not know if it would be a success or not.
Where this gets difficult for people is the implication of all this. As seen from the logical proof above, if we cannot do anything other than what God already knows, then we are effectively predestined according to God's foreknowledge. And this implies that God's foreknowledge is more than that - it is actually God's intent - given that God created the world in this way foreknowing what would happen.
Predestination is a 'bad word' for many people, because it brings to mind thoughts of "robots" or the Calvinist version of people who were doomed to be burned forever. But neither of those are true. No one is doomed to suffer forever. We are not robots. And we do indeed make choices all by ourself. I don't dispute that. Its just that there is always a reason as to why we make a choice.
So it is not that God is the one dictating it. You're simply speaking in scientific terms. Okay, we can agree there.
There is still the same effect as applied, multiplied as a sequence. Okay.
That doesn't prove it was already designed and put in place with more accuracy than a shopping list "by God".
So you're using hypothesis, based purely on belief and presenting it as a fact. Let me ask, with a sequential reply:
1- Okay
2- Why must He/She/It?
3- That will only hold a candle if you have a logical answer to #2.
4- See above, and below.
First of all, stop making assumptions about others. Stick with arguments you can present, against those you were presented.
Secondly, you started this thread on the premise of an entity that happens to be a micro manager. Why can't that be disputed but the debate must be on whether everybody believes in your version of God?
Disputing a hypothesis? No point in that. Even you have no proof (hence a hypothesis).
Hypothesis don't make for good platform to build a house on.
First let me apologize for assuming you were an atheist - I had read some of your other posts and it sounded like you were, but then I saw somewhere you said you believe in... something? (I don't know what exactly) But it doesn't sound like you believe in God as described in the scriptures. Anyway, that is one of the base assumptions for this thread - it is in the Christian forum after all.
The reason I stated the above 'hypothesis' as a hypothesis was simply for your benefit in pursing the discussion academically. You can dismiss it if you want, but the point I was making is that logically:
1. If God exists
2. and God has perfect foreknowledge
3. Then we cannot do anything other than what God already knows we will do - therefore our future is set in stone.
Now I believe that scripture describes God as having perfect foreknowledge. Some other people dispute this. That is fine, that is what the thread is for. But if you are looking for 'proof', you will have to accept the base assumptions for the thread - given that it is in the Christian forum.
But anyway, I believe God does have perfect foreknowledge, for two reasons:
1. scripture describes Him that way
2. to me it makes sense that the all-powerful, all-seeing creator of the universe would know what would happen. Certainly God is a bit smarter than a human who creates an invention which runs amok.
Now, if you do believe in God, do you believe He would have perfect foreknowledge?
From my experience, most people don't want to think He could really have perfect foreknowledge because that would raise the question as to the 'problem of evil'. But of course this ignores the reasoning that an understanding of evil is necessary for an understanding of goodness.
Because if He didn't, it implies many things that would make Him be "not god".
Without perfect foreknowledge, prophecy is simply a guess, not a certainty.
Without perfect foreknowledge, God made a mistake in His plan.
Without perfect foreknowledge, God is not in control nor is He sovereign.
In short, He is not god.
But here is the real issue: if God does not have perfect foreknowledge, then there is no certainty in anything we can analyze or discuss about the topic. God's plan to save the world (or save anyone for that matter) might not work, because God doesn't know what we will do or what will happen. It actually makes the dialogue meaningless - things could be spinning out of control for no apparent reason (perhaps the atheist will argue this), so then what purpose was there for God to even create? This is the line of reasoning an atheist will follow and then conclude there is no God, because look at the chaos in this world.
But again this comes back to cause and effect - things do happen for a reason. There are small immediate reasons and larger all-encompassing reasons. For example a thief steals because he ends up in the position and it appears to be the easy road for him to sustain hisself. Therefore evil perpetuates. But why is there evil at all? The larger reason here is that without evil, we could not understand what goodness is nor what love is.
Continuing with this idea of cause and effect:
You kick a soccer ball (the cause), the ball will fly off in a certain direction according to the laws of physics (the effect). Once the cause has happened, the effect is set in stone.
Now lets expand the scenario:
You kick a soccer ball, the ball flies across the field, bounces off a tree, lands in a ditch beside a busy road. A toddler has precariously wandered into the busy road, out of view of his parents, and seeing the soccer ball land in the ditch, chases after it, and narrowly misses being run over by an oncoming semi truck.
So what happened there? You kicked a soccer ball and saved an infants life. Knowing all the causes, the effect was set in stone.
Now lets change one thing. Suppose you have extremely good eyesight, and can see the danger the toddler is in, and can also see the oncoming semi truck. You are also a very precise soccer ball kicker, and can send the ball exactly where you want, and also know the toddler will react to chase the ball.
So you kick the soccer ball with intent to ultimately save the child. Same thing - cause and effect - the effect is set in stone, knowing how each element in the chain will react. The only difference is you intended it to happen because you had the power to see what would happen.
If we expand this to be from the perspective of God, not only is He an expert soccer ball kicker, He also caused a reason for the parents to be distracted, thus leading the toddler to imminent danger, and also caused the semi to be approaching (through some other cause) at that exact moment. All based on cause and effect - but if you know the initial cause you can determine the final outcome precisely.
Now consider what the real first cause is. Its not kicking a soccer ball. The real first cause is the big bang - the creation event - that first explosion that sent all particles whirling across the universe with precise speeds and direction, that God would have foreknown, resulting in the formation of stars, planets, and life. All cause and effect - all set in stone by the one creation event.
And this correlates with God's foreknowledge - for if God does have perfect foreknowledge, then we cannot do anything other than what God already knows - it must already be set in stone.
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