The Fool and the Heretic - another book that may spark interest

If animal suffering is evil before the fall, then it is evil after the fall. So even if you don’t allow that Psalm 104 is a creation account, praising God throughout, how can the Psalmist be praising God for providing prey for the lions?

Psalm 104:21 The young lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God.

In the same way that we must truly accept that leaders of governments in a post fall world are servants of God for His purposes. (Ro 13) That means Hitler was sovereignly allowed to reign for some time by God. God did not create the evil Hitler produced, but God allowed it in a fallen world.

I know it is difficult to process understanding about God and His attributes from a vantage point post fall…God sovereignly allowing evil to hang around while standing upon the fact that He never creates it causes me to be very careful how God acts in history before evil was present. Evil is going contrary to God in disobedience.

I watched the video and thought it to be a highly deceiving piece. The video takes a particular view, then frames the views countering it in a bitter light such as sound bites from young earth speakers that did not catch them in their better moments. Additionally the video establishes theological truth based on human reasoning such as things like, “well the idea of dinos eating watermelons is stupid” and “why would God create a scorpion with armor, pinchers and a stinger if He is not the maker of natural evil in death.” Lastly, the piece fraudulently accuses young earth creationists of bad Hebrew language scholarship. An example of this is how it accuses the interpretation about God providing plants for food as the only means of nutrition being false because God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the animal world. The Hebrew interpretation incorporated in the idea of dominion here is interpretation gymnastics to suggest that God allowed animals to be eaten too when the glaringly obvious scenario in the garden is that plants were given and that Adam and Eve were busily eating fruit from all of the trees except one. I wonder if science concluded that the earth was 6000 yrs old how the Hebrew interpetations that are so definatively slanted according to this guy towards an old earth perspective would change. There is no doubt in my mind that they would change to a more plain understanding of the text because all of the common sense renderings of these texts are of a fabric fitting of a 6000 yr old earth.

I awoke this morning at 6 am with a thought about a passage in the book of Job about Jobs wife’s attempt to get Job to curse God. I kid you not. I literally awoke with this passage on the tip of my mind. I searched for the portion about this exchange on my Bible app and found it in Job 2. Job is obviously troubled with trial here where he is physically cursed by satan with sores over his body. Just as satan hopelessly attempted to deceive Jesus in the desert, so he here again tries to deceive Him in this passage to inflict destruction upon job that is disproportionate to any crime. (Job 2:3b) satan tries to paint God as a creator of unjustness in being a ruiner without cause. This God cannot be because He is morally perfect. Although God cannot create a form of suffering that is not just to fit the gravity if a crime (or no crime at all) He still is willing in a fallen world where He is redeeming His people from the gates of hell to allow suffering as a test and proof that His redeeming powers are true in saints who experience great difficilty.

Jobs wife is not quite on the same page as this thinking. She comes into the scene in vs 9 where She tells Job,“Curse God and die.” You see that Job in his righteous standing before God by God’s mercy and grace would not accuse God of being the maker of such calamity as a proportionate just punishment for crimes Job committed. God in His sovereignty and as Redeemer in a post fall world allows difficulty disproportionate to the condition of particular men and women that ultimately show how righteous people saved by His grace persevere through the difficulty caused by the fall of man to realize eternal glory in the end. But God can never be accused of creating forms of punishment in suffering for crimes that are unfitting for the crime. Jobs friends want to prove that Jobs trial was a result of sin. But if Job agreed then he would have agreed that God is an unjust maker of the evil of suffering for no just reason thus accusing God of being unjust and evil. If Job agreed to his friends terms, he would be accepting his wifes really bad advise to “curse God and die.”

I can understand how God in His holiness and righteousness can be sovereign over even sinful regimes and natural evil and suffering after the fall of man ushers in sin to stain the world. This illuminates God as a sovereign Redeemor who is in the business of rescuing the lost to be reconciled back into relationship with Him. But I just cannot stand in solidarity with Jobs wife and accuse Him of instituting a paradigm of any type of calamity, disease, suffering, strife, and death out of the fabric of His character. If an old earth creationist would want to suggest a speculation that satan is somehow responsible for this natural evil before the fall of man, i would think, that is rewritting the Bible, but still better than accusing God of creating it.

Wasn’t Jesus God? God’s plan was for God to die, a God that always was and will always be? Why? To appease God for past, present, and future sins against God, God has to die? Why?

That’s a Protestant and Catholic view, but it’s not universal.

And, yes, Patrick, I find that extremely illogical as well.

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Yes, God works in mysterious ways. It is God’s plan. It is just a matter of faith. It is beyond human understanding.

Greg

Thanks for that response. While I no longer think I agree, I appreciate where you’re coming from. I would never suggest giving up what you believe the Bible teaches for the sake of science.

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@Djordje, @Patrick:

It is not as incomprehensible as you might presume. This is hardly an extended treatise, but it touches on a few salient points…

God’s motivation and his purposes are really quite understandable, and purpose for our lives is also involved in his. One of God’s purposes is to increase and share his joy – he is happy in himself.* He is a good Father, and one of the ways of increasing his joy is by enlarging his family. He gets joy for himself in our pride in him as our Father, and in our joy in reciprocated familial love. Notice that we get joy, too.

God intended two creations from the start.** He allowed evil into his first creation partly because as it was, we could not understand and fully love him for his justice, mercy, grace and love to us through the Lord, Jesus, the Christ. Jesus’ motivation is also explicit and clear, and it was forward looking***: “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” Hebrews 12:2****. That joy is us(!), if you are a Christian.

The New Earth will be perfect, and without evil.


*See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053CTN30/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
** “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matthew 25:34 Matthew 25:34 Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
*** Our motivation should be forward looking, too, toward future grace. https://www.amazon.com/Future-Grace-Revised-Purifying-Promises-ebook/dp/B008LMD8S0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
**** Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That’s great news. Anytime soon?

We haven’t had enough megacryometeors yet.

Perhaps with climate change.

Exactly. The Book predicts them.

Wow. To bad I don’t accept it as scientifically sound nor believable.

That is a problem for you.

No problem at all.

There has to be a case for the reality of the existence of a Creator who frankly does not place ultimate value on about what i think, what you think or that scientific reason is the best or only determimer of existence. I am not trying to force you to believe this. I am saying that in the world of possibilities, this can be an option.

Additionally, if scientific reason is the basis of ones measuring truth of our existence, then he must tie himself into knots to try to make sense of the existence of mass energy that is running down. The difficult questions, “what caused it?” And,“is it really feasible that mass energy is eternally existing and recirculating itself?” seem to paint a picture that the physical is one dimension of at least two if not several.

The intellectually astute who agrees with the logical conclusion of the latter statement above you would think will have at least one notch less doubt that the first statement is possibly true.

If the first statement is possibly true, then the worldview that declares,“without faith, it is impossible to please God” carries with it a lot more weight than many may choose to think it does.

You can’t force anyone to believe anything. I find it unethical, immoral, and unjust to force your beliefs on anyone especially children.

It is an option I considered and rejected.

Common ground between @greg and @patrick?

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We must live in completely different worlds.

Almost none of what you write there makes any sense to me.

For example, you talk of “measuring truth of our existence.” But we don’t ever do that, as far as I can tell. That we ourselves exist is so obvious to us, that it comes before any concerns with truth.

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