1. Standard memberCalJust
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    11 Jun '15 14:114 edits
    This thread is addressed to those Fundamentalists here who believe that every word in the Bible is individually inspired by God and must be taken literally, i.e. at face value.

    (If any here read the Anglican lectionary, you would have come across this reading for this week):

    1 Samuel 15, 35: "And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel..." In other words, for whatever reason, he had made a wrong judgement call the first time around.

    If this was the only place in the Bible where God is said to have made a big mistake, it could maybe be a "mistake in translation". But what about:

    Genesis 6, 6 It repented the LORD that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart. " Another example of Ooops! What have I done?

    Here is a biggie:

    Jer. 19, 5 talking about people sacrificing their children to idols "I did not command it, neither did it enter my mind!". In other words, what they did was so terrible, I never even considered the possibility that somebody would do that!

    These are examples of man creating god in his image. Let's see some mental gymnastics to explain these verses away....
  2. Subscriberjosephw
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    11 Jun '15 14:20
    Originally posted by CalJust
    This thread is addressed to those Fundamentalists here who believe that every word in the Bible is individually inspired by God and must be taken literally, i.e. at face value.

    (If any here read the Anglican lectionary, you would have come across this reading for this week):

    [b]1 Samuel 15, 35[\b]: [I]"And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king ...[text shortened]... man creating god in his image. Let's see some mental gymnastics to explain these verses away....
    "These are examples of man creating god in his image. Let's see some mental gymnastics to explain these verses away...."

    But that's what you're doing. You are creating God in your own image when you go about interpreting His Word to mean what you think or want it to mean.

    I think it is mental gymnastics on your part to try and set up a debate in such a way as to in advance determine what your take on what a "fundamentalist" may or may not say.

    Disingenuous as it gets.
  3. Standard memberCalJust
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    11 Jun '15 14:241 edit
    Originally posted by josephw
    I think it is mental gymnastics on your part to try and set up a debate in such a way as to in advance determine what your take on what a "fundamentalist" may or may not say.
    So forget about the side-stepping for a minute.

    Do you think these verses mean what they say? That God is capable of making mistakes?
  4. The Ghost Chamber
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    11 Jun '15 14:44
    Originally posted by CalJust

    Do you think these verses mean what they say? That God is capable of making mistakes?
    I don't think the bible supports such a notion.

    It reads less that God made mistakes and more that he grieved for the mistakes made by man; that he changes his mind on things only in response to the failings of human beings.
  5. Subscriberjosephw
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    11 Jun '15 14:46
    Originally posted by CalJust
    So forget about the side-stepping for a minute.

    Do you think these verses mean what they say? That God is capable of making mistakes?
    No. But you already know that.

    "This thread is addressed to those Fundamentalists here who believe that every word in the Bible is individually inspired by God and must be taken literally, i.e. at face value."

    That is not what a fundamentalist is. Taking literally what is said in scripture isn't what you think it is. Like any other work of literature the Bible contains allegory, metaphor, hyperbole and poetic prose. Some of it is quite literal, but all of it is spiritual and must be understood as a whole. Every word and phrase and verse must be compared to all the rest of scripture to get a better understanding of the whole and its individual parts in particular.
  6. Subscriberjosephw
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    11 Jun '15 14:58
    Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
    I don't think the bible supports such a notion.

    It reads less that God made mistakes and more that he grieved for the mistakes made by man; that he changes his mind on things only in response to the failings of human beings.
    You said it well Ghost. For example; God repented of making man in response to man's failure to do His will. Something that man still has a problem with.

    God didn't make a mistake, man did. God expressing regret and repentance demonstrates to us the nature of His character for our own good.
  7. R
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    11 Jun '15 15:207 edits
    Originally posted by CalJust

    1 Samuel 15, 35: "And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel..." In other words, for whatever reason, he had made a wrong judgement call the first time around. [/b]


    God did not suddenly BECOME sorry Caljust. He started out sorry as is proved by First Samuel 8:7

    "And Jehovah said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people according to all that they have said to you; for it is not you whom they have rejected, but they have rejected Me from being King over them." (1 Sam. 8:7)


    God has Samuel warn the Israelites that THEY will be sorry.
    Be careful what you pray for. You might receive it.

    So if you read carefully chapters 8 and 9 I think you will see that God did not suddenly wake up and BECOME sorry. It was to His displeasure from the start.

    The beautiful thing to me is that God says in essence - "Okay, you'll be sorry. But I'll give you your king so you will be like the other nations. You blew it. BUT ... if you will still listen to My voice and obey, it will be OK."

    Have you never noticed that ?
    The prophet tells them that even though they have erred it is not irrecoverable, IF they will be obedient to God henceforth.

    Now therefore here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have asked for. See then, Jehovah has set a king over you.

    If you fear Jehovah and serve Him and listen to His voice and not rebel against the commandment of Jehovah, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow Jehovah your God, fine. (1 Sa. 12:14)


    I have always LOVED this passage my whole Christian life.

    The pure essence of it is God saying "Yes, you did make a mistake. But if you listen to My voice from this point on, it will work out fine."

    I love this passage so much that I am getting off the point.
    Isn't it sweet ?

    " Yes you have just blown it pretty bad. You have sinned and messed things up. BUT if from this point you listen to Me, I will work it all out fine."

    Anyway, if you read from chapters 8 through 11 you can see God did not BECOME sorry. He just WAS sorry.

    Your other specimen:


    If this was the only place in the Bible where God is said to have made a big mistake, it could maybe be a "mistake in translation". But what about:

    Genesis 6, 6 It repented the LORD that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart. " Another example of Ooops! What have I done?


    I think it is meaningful to mankind that we see that God was displeased with something and had a remedy or salvation to take care of it. In a sense the entire plan of salvation is a matter of God rectifying something.

    So in the education of His ways throughout the Old Testament, it is important for Him to show us He COULD want to rectify something. Something was not right which had to be righted.

    And I think that is all your Genesis example really shows. IE. That God could be sorry about something and also have a solution for it.


    Here is a biggie:

    Jer. 19, 5 talking about people sacrificing their children to idols "I did not command it, neither did it enter my mind!". In other words, what they did was so terrible, I never even considered the possibility that somebody would do that!


    It is not that He never considered the possibility that people would do it. It never entered into His mind to command people to do it. God did not ever command human sacrifice of human beings. And it never crossed His mind to command such.

    So all human sacrifice in the world's religions are not of God.
    He did have on His mind one paying for the sins of the world by one atoning sacrifice in the Son of God.


    These are examples of man creating god in his image. Let's see some mental gymnastics to explain these verses away....


    It be nice for you to exercise your reading eyes and instead of selecting sentences, read First Samuel 8 - 11 in its whole context.

    You actually misrepresented the facts of Scripture.
    Your Genesis 6:6 sample is a little more representative of your theory. But in the context of God's overall providence and sovereignty it too doesn't really indicate a God sorry for His mistakes.

    I am a little surprised at you CalJust. For some reason I thought you were beyond this kind of accusatory attitude towards God. Maybe a case of mistaken identity.
  8. Standard memberCalJust
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    11 Jun '15 16:291 edit
    Originally posted by sonship

    God did not suddenly BECOME sorry Caljust. He started out sorry

    I am a little surprised at you CalJust. For some reason I thought you were beyond this kind of accusatory attitude towards God. Maybe a case of mistaken identity.[/b]
    You see, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that I am talking about.

    Firstly, my attitude to, and relationship with God, is just fine. I am not accusing him of anything. I am accusing people like you of taking things literally that clearly are "mistakes" written in the original tect by over-zealous authors giving God anthropomorhic characteristics.

    Your story of Samuel and Israel asking for a king is one of the mental gymnastics I am referring to. Yes, you are absolutely right in your run-up to the story: Israel asking for a king, Samuel's sorrow, God warniing them, their persistence and then God relenting. All that is true. However, the story continues how Samuel was miraculously guided to Saul, followed by Saul's initial good performance, and then the final disobedience which caused him to be rejected by God.

    The point that should bother you, or any literal reader, is why did God not chose David in the first place?

    To say that God did not BECOME sorry is to twist the story. The narrative clearly shows (taken literally) that Saul was God's first choice, but the latter disappointed him, and so he chose another candidate: David. Just like a human manager would have done. Nothing that goes before that, changes that fact.

    My point in this thread is not to malign God. In all these three scriptures, people that the Holy Spirit inspired to write down their history, included details that can readily be explained from a human point of view, but seen in the overall context of scripture, where obviously wrong. God is NOT like the way these authors pictured!

    Similarly the thread that I just opened on Jesus and the holy angels getting ringside seats at the torture of sinners and fallen angels - that is an absolutely horrible caricature of god, and should never have been in the Bible.

    But it is. Like these three verses that I mentioned. The point is to use your God-given spirit to discern embellishments and reject them. Look at the point of the story, and the message that it tells.
  9. Standard memberlemon lime
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    11 Jun '15 17:261 edit
    Originally posted by CalJust
    You see, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that I am talking about.

    Firstly, my attitude to, and relationship with God, is just fine. I am not accusing him of anything. I am accusing people like you of taking things literally that clearly are "mistakes" written in the original tect by over-zealous authors giving God anthropomorhic characterist ...[text shortened]... n embellishments and reject them. Look at the point of the story, and the message that it tells.
    My point in this thread is not to malign God.

    The point is to use your God-given spirit to discern embellishments and reject them. Look at the point of the story, and the message that it tells.

    I can appreciate your desire to not malign God, but it's a mistake to malign fundamentalists simply because you have disregarded what the entire Bible says about God. If God is never in error and can foresee everything that is to come, then why would a fundamentalist assume God felt sorry for being in error? This assumption of error is inconsistent with the nature of God. The passages that appear to you as though God regrets making a mistake are not embellishments that should be rejected. If this is how it appears to you then you should use your own God-given spirit to discern what these passages really mean.

    If God can be pleased he can be displeased. What the passages you quote mean to me is that God not only thinks and acts, he also feels. An unfeeling God cannot love, or store up wrath against those who hate him. He created us in his image so that we would be able to understand him... he didn't create us to be so different from him that we couldn't possibly understand anything about him or even recognize his existence.

    I think you should at least consider the possibility that you may have misunderstood these Bible passages. God is perfect in his understanding of us, but we certainly can't claim to be perfect in our understanding of him.
  10. Subscriberjosephw
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    11 Jun '15 18:01
    Originally posted by CalJust
    You see, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that I am talking about.

    Firstly, my attitude to, and relationship with God, is just fine. I am not accusing him of anything. I am accusing people like you of taking things literally that clearly are "mistakes" written in the original tect by over-zealous authors giving God anthropomorhic characterist ...[text shortened]... n embellishments and reject them. Look at the point of the story, and the message that it tells.
    "Similarly the thread that I just opened on Jesus and the holy angels getting ringside seats at the torture of sinners and fallen angels - that is an absolutely horrible caricature of god, and should never have been in the Bible."

    It is you that is painting a "horrible caricature" of God by your insinuation that God can do something wrong or make mistakes.

    The other thing you're doing is making yourself the authority above God's Word by declaring what should and shouldn't be believed or included in the canon of scripture. That's the worse thing you can do. Jesus Christ warns against adding to, or taking away from the Word of God in Revelation 22.

    Psalm 12:6,7
    The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
    Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

    God's Word is preserved by God forever.
  11. R
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    11 Jun '15 18:042 edits
    Originally posted by CalJust
    You see, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that I am talking about.


    No gymnastics. You explained God made a mistake. I pointed out that He as sorry from the start and not after realizing some mistake.

    I think you misrepresented was was really written there.


    Firstly, my attitude to, and relationship with God, is just fine.


    Mine could use some deepening and growth ... always.
    Nice to see yours is "just fine."


    I am not accusing him of anything. I am accusing people like you of taking things literally that clearly are "mistakes" written in the original tect by over-zealous authors giving God anthropomorhic characteristics.


    I thought you were kind of doing both.

    Now if you and I can point out the mistakes of God, that means He endowed us with wisdom that He did not have within Himself to give.

    How's that work?
    I think the Cause is greater than the Effect.
    Do you think our Creator bestowed upon us more wisdom than He was able to come up with?


    Your story of Samuel and Israel asking for a king is one of the mental gymnastics I am referring to.


    The only exercise I did was to read the account around the passage that you pointed out. That's pretty much it.

    Maybe you think you have come up with some really new stuff no one ever thought of before?


    Yes, you are absolutely right in your run-up to the story: Israel asking for a king, Samuel's sorrow, God warniing them, their persistence and then God relenting. All that is true. However, the story continues how Samuel was miraculously guided to Saul, followed by Saul's initial good performance, and then the final disobedience which caused him to be rejected by God.


    I don't see how this establishes the error prone God theory.


    The point that should bother you, or any literal reader, is why did God not chose David in the first place?


    Okay. I'll think on that. Maybe I'll get back to you about that.


    To say that God did not BECOME sorry is to twist the story. The narrative clearly shows (taken literally) that Saul was God's first choice, but the latter disappointed him, and so he chose another candidate: David. Just like a human manager would have done. Nothing that goes before that, changes that fact.


    It did strike me something like that when I first read it.
    For some reason it has not been a part of my considerations since.

    I think OUR choosing and God's choosing are not the same.
    Yes, He did give them THEIR choice driven by THEIR motives.
    After the very sad failure of their agenda, God comes in with a man that is after His heart - David.

    Even with David everything did not turn out perfect.
    I think the imperfect people throughout the Old Testament were leading up to the One whom God Said "This is My Son, the Beloved. Hear Him."

    The OT road up to perfection is seen traversing through many prophets, priests and kings. The transition from Saul to David is a dramatic step along the way.

    By the way, I could find other examples of this kind of matter.
    For example, David wants to build a temple for God.
    In a sense God replies - " You build Me a house ?? I'll build YOU a house." Then latter God does have a temple built.

    Man's way, for man's glory, with man's agenda is one thing.
    God's way for His will is not the same.
    I think this is how we should approach the paradox.


    My point in this thread is not to malign God. In all these three scriptures, people that the Holy Spirit inspired to write down their history, included details that can readily be explained from a human point of view, but seen in the overall context of scripture, where obviously wrong.


    I never would deny that the human sentiments come in along side sometimes, of the revelation of God.

    Obviously, Mark has a flavor,
    Luke has another.
    Matthew has his emphasis and John want to get across his main points.

    Some of the Psalms are very full with human sentiment.
    You have arguments with God.
    You also have godly Israelites hoping their enemies really get it.

    Sure, some human sentiments come in along with God's speaking.


    God is NOT like the way these authors pictured!


    No, it is more like He is that and MORE.
    In the progressive revelation of God, we see more and more of His character.

    " He's NOT like this but IS like that" is not what I see from Genesis to Revelation. I see a deepening unfolding.

    I have to stop writing here.
  12. R
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    11 Jun '15 21:141 edit
    God is NOT like the way these authors pictured!


    Take an example of God "smelling" a sweet odor of Noah's offering after the flood -

    "And Noah built an altar to Jehovah and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

    And Jehovah smelled the satisfying
    [or soothing] fragrance; and Jehovah said in His heart; I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I ever against smite everything living as I have done." (Gen. 8:20,21)


    Okay Caljust. Point taken. On one hand you could conceivably say "God is NOT like that. He doesn't care about the smell of smoking flesh!"

    Okay. He who knew the inner thoughts of all people on the earth doesn't need to be concerned about a soothing smell of smoldering animal sacrifices.

    But in the progressive revelation leading up to the Son of God offering Himself for the sins of the world this is an educational window into the Divine heart. The picture is needed because Divine Will is very profound.

    Whether the writer Moses knew God doesn't care about smoke smell really, I don't know. But I think he wrote this in obedience to what he was supposed to write under God's inspiration.
  13. Standard memberlemon lime
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    11 Jun '15 22:25
    Originally posted by CalJust
    You see, this is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that I am talking about.

    Firstly, my attitude to, and relationship with God, is just fine. I am not accusing him of anything. I am accusing people like you of taking things literally that clearly are "mistakes" written in the original tect by over-zealous authors giving God anthropomorhic characterist ...[text shortened]... n embellishments and reject them. Look at the point of the story, and the message that it tells.
    Similarly the thread that I just opened on Jesus and the holy angels getting ringside seats at the torture of sinners and fallen angels - that is an absolutely horrible caricature of god, and should never have been in the Bible.

    Does "the thread that I just opened" mean you recently started reading that thread? Opening a thread could mean starting a new thread, but the only interpretation that makes sense is that you just recently started reading divegeesters' thread.

    I'm only pointing this out to illustrate how easily someone could have (purposefully) 'misunderstood' what you meant... in case you hadn't noticed there's been a lot of that going on around here. And you can see loads of examples of this at the thread you "just opened".
  14. Standard memberKellyJay
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    11 Jun '15 22:28
    Originally posted by CalJust
    So forget about the side-stepping for a minute.

    Do you think these verses mean what they say? That God is capable of making mistakes?
    Where did it say God made a mistake?
    He was upset about what we did, that doesn't mean it was a mistake.
  15. PenTesting
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    11 Jun '15 23:51
    Originally posted by KellyJay
    Where did it say God made a mistake?
    He was upset about what we did, that doesn't mean it was a mistake.
    So God knows in advance that he will get upset, or that mankind will sin or that Satan will throw a spanner in the works etc etc.... and continues on knowing the end result is being upset or regret?
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