Did God cause evil?

Originally posted by jaywill

I was raised in a Christian home, and Bible reading was required. So I've read through the entire Bible many times.

Now that is interesting.

I came out with a different view of the 'whole picture' than you did. I see that even in the New Testament, even after Jesus had left,

Concerning "Jesus had left" I like ...[text shortened]... I obey His word to preach the Gospel to that many will hear rather than few.

Perhaps your concept of God is so nice that no one should even receive any correction or dicipline at all.

What was Ananias and Sapphira's crime? They told a lie. And their punishment was death? That seems totally out of proportion to me. Why didn't the apostles just refuse their money and kick them out of the church?

If people were killed for lying, there would be no one left alive eventually.

So in His love He gives the rejector just what his heart wants - a place totally void of God. It is only right that God should warn us that that is not a good place to go.

Bizarro-love: The state of caring about someone so much that you will ensure they are tortured for eternity if they fail to love you back.

I don't interpret that passage as you do. I expect that I will be very surprised at the revelation of so many saved.
....
And the narrow gate I see Jesus talk about I do not take as the narrow gate to eternal redemption. I see it as the narrow gate to be under the administration of His kingdom and to [b]live a kingdom life. [/b]

The verse I'm thinking of is:

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matt 7:14 (my emphasis)

"Only a few find it" - this part does not seem to fit in your interpretation. I can see why you'd prefer the verse from Revelation. Matt 7:14 sure makes it sound hopeless for the human race.

Originally posted by JS357

Every attempt of the disciples to get Jesus to break down into statistics the number to be saved was not met with percentages.

I realize you are responding to an issue about how many are saved, but even one unsaved is -- failure.

The only coherent position is Universal Reconciliation. Nobody wants to face that fact, because it seems to le be good [b]anyway. The un-self-absorbed reason.

That is, if one needs a reason.[/b]

I realize you are responding to an issue about how many are saved, but even one unsaved is -- failure.

God will coerce Satan and his followers to go where they do not wish to be ?
Against his will and choice God drags Satan into His kingdom of light ?

Take Christopher Hitchens. As far as we know he was obstinate against God and EVERYTHING related to God in total without reservation, vehemently. Isn't it God's love to let him be where he wants to be ?

Jesus will drag Christopher Hitchens into His eternal salvation when Mr. Hitchens clearly wants NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with it ?

The only coherent position is Universal Reconciliation. Nobody wants to face that fact, because it seems to lead to the position: "No matter what I do/believe/am, I will be saved." Let's call it being good.

Yet, under any coherent Christianity, we will all be saved.

The challenge is to find the reason to be good anyway. The un-self-absorbed reason.

That is, if one needs a reason.

You may always hope. You may always hope.
But John didn't see all saved in his prophetic glimpse into eternity. Did he ?

Originally posted by jaywill

The Bible already says that God ordered the Israelites to commit genocide from time to time.

Driving them OUT is not genocide. And here is God speaking about the driving of the Canaanites out:

[b]"I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn th ...[text shortened]... ikely it was the defenders and the combatants that were usually trounced.

add ethnic cleansing to the numerous charges of crimes against humanity to be brought up against biblegod.

this of course does not rule out the proven case of genocide against the amalekites, and don't forget the genocide of the pre-deluge civilization and arguably the destruction of the plains cities.

also ethnic cleansing and genocide go hand in hand as often mass murder is committed in the process of forcefully removing a population from their homes. one can draw many similarities from modern history. the ethnic cleansing/genocide of armenians out of anatolia, the ethnic cleansing of german minorities from various european countries, the ethnic cleansing of kosovar albanians, etc.

Originally posted by jaywill
Driving them OUT is not genocide.

I know. When I said what you quoted, I was talking to VoidSpirit, and referring to other instances like the cases of the Amalekites and the Midianites. I was not continuing our conversation there.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
add ethnic cleansing to the numerous charges of crimes against humanity to be brought up against biblegod.

this of course does not rule out the proven case of genocide against the amalekites, and don't forget the genocide of the pre-deluge civilization and arguably the destruction of the plains cities.

also ethnic cleansing and genocide go hand in h ...[text shortened]... man minorities from various european countries, the ethnic cleansing of kosovar albanians, etc.

You and I argued plenty about this already.
I feel no need to repeat to you.

Maybe I'll exchange with some others with whom I am talking about it for the first time.

A Yale theologian Miroslav Volf was born in Croatia during the ethnic strife of former Yugoslavia. There he witnessed destruction of churches, the raping of women, the murdering of innocents. He speaks how these things changed his mind about the OT wrath sometimes displayed by God.

" I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn't God love? Shouldn't divine love be beyond wrath ? God is love. God loves every person and every creature. That's exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness ? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them ? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spirit of being love. God is wrathful because of love."

Originally posted by SwissGambit
I agree with LemonJello's response to this post, and could not have said it better myself.

I would only add one point. You said "we cannot read the hearts of those people that may have lost their life's by God's hand". What about infants and young children? They are innocent, aren't they? They can't understand the difference between right and wrong ye ...[text shortened]... he burns them alive with fire and brimstone, he orders the Israelites to kill them, etc.

As I commented we do not know God's thoughts and see the much bigger picture the way God does.
But a couple obvious questions are if God had decided to save all the children during the flood that were alive on the planet, at what age limit would you choose to have the cut off age to be saved or not saved? 10, 15, 18? Or what beliefs that their parents would have been teaching these children would you accept or not? If you had all this figured out, who would have built all the additional arks to house them and who would have watched over them during this time????????

The Bible clearly says that God remembers every single person that has ever died from the very beginning.
The Bible also clearly says that all dead will be resurrected to be judged, both the good and the evil.
So all these innocent ones that died during the flood will no doubt be ressurected in the future to once again have the cance to live on this earth.
So what is the problem here? They will live again and depending on how they react to this second chance of life, they may have the opportunity to live forever.

Originally posted by jaywill

I realize you are responding to an issue about how many are saved, but even one unsaved is -- failure.

God will coerce Satan and his followers to go where they do not wish to be ?
Against his will and choice God drags Satan into His kingdom of light ?

Take Christopher Hitchens. As far as we know he was obstinate against God an ...[text shortened]... s hope.
But John didn't see all saved in his prophetic glimpse into eternity. Did he ?

Well, because I lack belief there is a deity, I lack belief that John and other humans had an inside track on things. But you don't lack belief, and I am not trying to change your mind. I guess I am only laying out what the difficulties are for someone like me. I image you have heard it all before, and have answers that satisfy you.

Originally posted by jaywill
A Yale theologian Miroslav Volf was born in Croatia during the ethnic strife of former Yugoslavia. There he witnessed destruction of churches, the raping of women, the murdering of innocents. He speaks how these things changed his mind about the OT wrath sometimes displayed by God.

And do you agree with any of that? I don't, but there is no point addressing the points if you are just going to distance yourself from it after it gets criticized.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And do you agree with any of that? I don't, but there is no point addressing the points if you are just going to distance yourself from it after it gets criticized.

I agree that God's love calls forth the God's need to judge.

The concept of a loving God who does not judge unrighteousness is some kind of human perversion.

Originally posted by jaywill
I agree that God's love calls forth the God's need to judge.

The concept of a loving God who does not judge unrighteousness is some kind of human perversion.

What do you mean by 'judge'? Do you mean the act of assigning a value of rightness or wrongness to a given action? Do you mean assigning some sort of punishment / corrective action? Or do you mean what you quoted ie seeing red, going into a rage and getting revenge? I say the last one is not love at all.

Originally posted by twhitehead
What do you mean by 'judge'? Do you mean the act of assigning a value of rightness or wrongness to a given action? Do you mean assigning some sort of punishment / corrective action? Or do you mean what you quoted ie seeing red, going into a rage and getting revenge? I say the last one is not love at all.

What do you mean by 'judge'? Do you mean the act of assigning a value of rightness or wrongness to a given action? Do you mean assigning some sort of punishment / corrective action? Or do you mean what you quoted ie seeing red, going into a rage and getting revenge? I say the last one is not love at all.

I see practically all judgment in the Bible by God as corrective and/or instructive.

The one exception may be eternal judgment. While it will be instructive to the universe, those judged eternally are beyond correction. I refer to that as retribution.

God does take vengence - "Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath of God. for it is written, Vengence is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord"

If you are DULL concerning your own sins against others consider those serious offenses which took place against you. Do you think there will be no accounting at all for what was done ? Do you think you were injured and God did not see, did not record ?

While I would not normally encourage it, think of something someone did to you, undeserved that really hurt. Do you think a God of love had no care for it ? He didn't see it ? He will not inquire the perpertrator about it some day ?

If you can see that God calls for justice for what was done to you, it should not be too big of a leap to then realize that YOU TOO are responsible for sins against others.

So we ALL need a Savior from our sins.

But if you really don't want the Savior, in love, God will allow you to go where He is not, and where any of His blessings are not. But you will take with you the just punishment.

Me? I have learned to believe the Gospel. In Christ, on His cross, I was judged already. I accept the offer.

Originally posted by galveston75
As I commented we do not know God's thoughts and see the much bigger picture the way God does.
But a couple obvious questions are if God had decided to save all the children during the flood that were alive on the planet, at what age limit would you choose to have the cut off age to be saved or not saved? 10, 15, 18? Or what beliefs that their parents ...[text shortened]... on how they react to this second chance of life, they may have the opportunity to live forever.

what age limit would you choose to have the cut off age to be saved or not saved? 10, 15, 18?

Well, God allegedly looks at the heart. He would know the age of accountability for each person.

who would have built all the additional arks to house them and who would have watched over them during this time?

If I was God, I think I'm smart to enough to think of a way to punish the guilty without flooding the whole world and killing off a bunch of innocent children and animals [possibly even some adults whose sins weren't worthy of capital punishment?].

So all these innocent ones that died during the flood will no doubt be ressurected in the future to once again have the cance to live on this earth.
So what is the problem here?

The problem is that they don't just die; they suffer along the way.

They will live again and depending on how they react to this second chance of life, they may have the opportunity to live forever.

So some of them will not live forever? They missed out on a chance at hearing the preaching of Noah, and repenting; in their second life, maybe they never hear anything as persuasive and don't make the right choice, right? That means God's judgment indeed deprived them of life.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
[b]what age limit would you choose to have the cut off age to be saved or not saved? 10, 15, 18?

Well, God allegedly looks at the heart. He would know the age of accountability for each person.

who would have built all the additional arks to house them and who would have watched over them during this time?

If I was God, I think I'm sm ...[text shortened]... don't make the right choice, right? That means God's judgment indeed deprived them of life.[/b]

Yes he does look at the heart and knows what that person would no doubt be the rest of their life's. So who are you to say he did not do that before the flood? In fact the Bible clealy says that he did look and ONLY found those 8 people.

And yes you are not God and do not think like God and do not in the smallest amount know what he does and do not know all the circumstances that made him finally do this flood.
You were not there and have no idea what the fallen angels did to those humans and did to the earth.
So unless you have some very special insight or a time machine to go back and look at the pre flood world I don't see how you or any human alive today can even start to question God's actions.
How presumptuous of you to question him and this action to blame him for something you have no clue to the facts is very, very unwise....

Originally posted by galveston75
Yes he does look at the heart and knows what that person would no doubt be the rest of their life's. So who are you to say he did not do that before the flood? In fact the Bible clealy says that he did look and ONLY found those 8 people.

And yes you are not God and do not think like God and do not in the smallest amount know what he does and do not k ...[text shortened]... this action to blame him for something you have no clue to the facts is very, very unwise....

I didn't say that God didn't examine people's hearts before the flood.

[you] do not in the smallest amount know what he does

Wait - I can read the Bible. That tells me a little more than a small amount of what he does.

[you] do not know all the circumstances that made him finally do this flood.

Yes I do:

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”
Gen 6:5-7

So unless you have some very special insight or a time machine to go back and look at the pre flood world I don't see how you or any human alive today can even start to question God's actions.

That's your loss - you have simply turned off your critical thinking when it comes to this issue.

How presumptuous of you to question him and this action to blame him for something you have no clue to the facts is very, very unwise....

But I do have a clue about the facts.

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The Bible supports my claim that there were still children being born on the earth. Some even grew up to become men of "renown". I have no doubt that the human race was still procreating. I do not need a time machine trip to know that. Therefore, infants and small children were around during the flood, and they suffered a death by drowning. The animals were also there - note the last part of verse 7 - "and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground" - God cavalierly condemns the animals to death even though they were innocent.

Again, you're just ignoring the obvious and pretending like we as humans can have no clue about God's motivations or actions when they're stated plain as day in the Bible. Your critical thinking switch is firmly in the OFF position. Shameful.