How Do Christians Reconcile The Following Question Regarding Their Faith?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If I were a Christian trying to answer your questions, I would most likely feel compelled to fall back on the message of Job, which I myself pithily interpret in this context as "It's a mystery." That's not very satisfying, though.

I take the message of Job - or at least what God argues in it - is a lot like what Thana's arguing. It's something along the lines of "who are you to question me? I'm God, you're not, so you don't even get to ask if I'm moral." It's a meta-answer, not an answer.

 

[Forgemaster]

Well I would say your God needs to be questioned, he wants to take all the good for himself but pretends he didn't make the evil that goes along with it. Here's one of my favorite quotes.
"Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is god able, but unwilling? Then he is malevolent.
Is god both willing and able? Then whence cometh evil?
Is god neither willing nor able? Then why call him god?" Epicurus the ancient Greek philosopher.
So I ask you, which one is it? It has to be one if you believe he exists does it not?

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

I personally don't feel God is omni-omni-omni as popularly described. God didn't start off with this characterization. It took "ideal forms" from Greek guys to shoehorn that in. God(s) was (were) simply way more hardcore than us. That was it. They had more power, more knowledge, more years under His/their belt(s), but none of the absoluteness of it.

 

[Intojoy]

I was a devoted Christian for a very long time, 25 years or more - a Trinity believing Protestant taught that our creator God is omniscient (all-knowing) omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnipresent (present everywhere at the same time). This creator designed and created men and women fully and completely all by 'himself'.

What I don't understand, is if this creator purposefully designed and unleashed upon the earth a creature capable of rape and murder, why isn't 'He' to blame for these atrocities? Why would you construct a being with the potential to do so much harm to his fellow humans? What was the motive?

If my son murdered a human and I supplied the gun knowing ahead of time he'd shoot someone, I'm held accountable for my part in the homicide. How much more so should God be held accountable for DESIGNING a creature that he KNOWS ahead of time (he's omniscient, remember) will murder a fellow human?

You should understand my answer if you are born again.

Satan lied to Eve when he said "you shall be like God knowing good and evil."

Adam did not become like God, he did not know good but he did know evil and this is why he covered himself and hid himself.

Therefore, you do not know good or evil as to the extent that God knows both good and evil and thus your question is from the created being's standpoint and it is based in human emotions. Your question does not need to be answered.

The central determining question is and always will be, is the bible at he word of God? Or is it just another book written by men?

Selah

 

[Scuba Pete]

Might I also add that such a God is responsible for murder, rape, torture, hate, genocide, heartbreak, mindbreak, childbreak, baby killing, hate groups, racism, and so on.
Sure there are plenty of good things, but there are plenty more bad things.
Disease, mental disorders, still births, starvation, poverty, and it continues still.

It's above all this? It can literally just torture anyone it wants and still be called moral.
**** this God. I deny its existence and if it exists then I deny it respect.

If I took the scriptures literally, then I would be of the same mind. I don't and I don't think it's the logical approach to understanding the judeo-christian God. The scriptures are a blog of man trying to understand God. They don't claim to be written by God, nor do they claim to be without error. In there, you can see man trying to justify his own blood thirstiness by saying "God made me do it." Judging God through their eyes is about as sane as trusting the religious right to tell us what God thinks. They'll do or say anything to get their way.

Look at the difference the OT and the NT. Did God really change or simply man's perception of God? Oh I get the "I'm holier than God" denunciation makes you feel all self righteous and superior, but perhaps your premise is just as flawed as "God made me do it!"??? God is love. Anyone who says (or writes) something different is just trying to justify their hate.

 

[Katzpur]

So in your view, is God incapable of creating people who would be capable of evil but never choose it?

I believe that, as mortals, we are imperfect and are subject to making bad -- even evil -- choices. Could He have created us perfect in the first place? I tend to think not. To begin with, I don't believe He created us (or our universe) ex nihilo. I believe He created our spirits using a highly refined form of matter that was co-eternal with Him. Since this matter was itself imperfect, the end-product -- our spirits, that essence which gives life to our physical bodies -- was also imperfect. I can almost hear your next question: Why didn't He start out fresh, by creating us out of nothing, as most Christians believe is the case. From the LDS perspective, this would not have accomplished His purposes. He wanted to create beings who could become perfect, not beings who were initially perfect. Perfection requires growth, and it would have been pointless for God to create us perfect instead of allowing us to become perfect. To me, the question you have asked is just about as irrelevant as the old atheist favorite, "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?"

... and when it comes to evil, our freedom of choice is already limited: we can't kill people with our thoughts Darth Vader-style, we can't make people wither by sprinkling them with salt like a slug, etc., etc. Why is the arrangement we have the "sweet spot" between freedom of choice and minimization of evil? Why would the world be a worse place if, say, our skin was tough enough for us not to be vulnerable to stabbing, or if we were tolerant enough of cold that we couldn't die of exposure? It isn't an all-or-nothing choice between pure free will and being a "puppet"; we're already somewhere in between.

First of all, you're talking about two different things here, and I'm only going to address one of them. Since the OP had nothing to do with the imperfections of a mortal body and its susceptibility to heat, cold, pain, etc. I'm not going to get into that in this thread. The problem of how human beings are permitted to behave in reprehensible ways is a big enough one to tackle in one thread.

I disagree with your conclusion about it not being an all-or-nothing choice between our having free will or not. I believe we either have free will or we don't. No, we can't kill people with our thoughts, but that's not a limitation of our free will; it's a limitation of our power. The will to kill is ours, even if we are incapable of making it happen just by wishing it. The Bible teaches -- and I believe -- that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The time will come where we will be held accountable for the condition of our hearts, and if we truly would have killed someone by having the desire to do so, we will have to answer for that.

 

[Deathbydefault]

If I took the scriptures literally, then I would be of the same mind. I don't and I don't think it's the logical approach to understanding the judeo-christian God. The scriptures are a blog of man trying to understand God. They don't claim to be written by God, nor do they claim to be without error. In there, you can see man trying to justify his own blood thirstiness by saying "God made me do it." Judging God through their eyes is about as sane as trusting the religious right to tell us what God thinks. They'll do or say anything to get their way.

Look at the difference the OT and the NT. Did God really change or simply man's perception of God? Oh I get the "I'm holier than God" denunciation makes you feel all self righteous and superior, but perhaps your premise is just as flawed as "God made me do it!"??? God is love. Anyone who says (or writes) something different is just trying to justify their hate.

"I'm holier than God".
"Holy" is a trash term, to me.
I don't think myself above such a God, I only think that such a God deserves nothing but contempt.

I'll reiterate that I am replying my views on the God that has been described thus far in this thread.
If you disagree with that version of God then welcome to the club.

 

[George-ananda]

The standard response to that is to ask if there's free will in Heaven.

- if the answer's "yes", then free will doesn't necessarily require the existence of evil.
- if the answer's "no", then God doesn't actually care about free will over the long run.

Either way, the argument you gave doesn't work.

A lot of Christian dogma doesn't stand up to a more thorough analysis. The basic idea is that you have free will and the good will be rewarded and the evil punished. The basic idea does have some truth to it I believe.

 

[Scuba Pete]

"Holy" is a trash term, to me.

it is what it is. A rant or denunciation is as valuable as the premise it rests on. Not so much in this case.

 

[Deathbydefault]

it is what it is. A rant or denunciation is as valuable as the premise it rests on. Not so much in this case.

In that sense, what exactly is your argument against me?

 

[Scuba Pete]

There was no argument against "you"... only your rant and it's apparent premise. Is that clear enough, or is this going to be even more painful?

 

[Deathbydefault]

Ah, an opinion then.
I'll stop bugging you, seeing more will only make me bored.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Ah, an opinion then.

it's opinion vs opinion. What a novel concept for a forum. We're both free to agree or disagree as suits our need.

 

[Deathbydefault]

it's opinion vs opinion. What a novel concept for a forum. We're both free to agree or disagree as suits our need.

Opinions lead to discourse, arguments, or debate.
I prefer the latter two, thus my reaction.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Opinions lead to discourse, arguments, or debate.

None of which should be confused with mere semantic quibbling.

 

[Thana]

You remind me of the Muslim fundamentalists who insist that there is nothing like Allah and yet ascribe to him attributes such as wrath, dissatisfaction, contentment, and contempt. Even further, they explicitly find it blasphemous to refer to Allah with a feminine pronoun and insist that he be referred to as "he." So much for avoiding anthropomorphization.

If no one anthropomorphized God then we would have nothing to talk about since everything we could say about Him would be in some way anthropomorpization.

Now I know what you're thinking, why would I ask people not to anthropomorphize if I know that we all can't help but do it?
Because I only say it when people forget that God is not a human being. There's the anthropomorphizing that we all do and then there's just treating God like a human. If you're not going to even acknowledge the hypothetical belief in a God-like entity that is more 'alien' than anything else, why bother debating it? We have to be on or atleast near the same page to have a constructive argument.

 

[Thana]

As a matter of fact, yes.
I judge him based upon his own standards.
Just like he said in Matthew


Again, I am only judging him as he claimed he would judge us.
If he did not want us to learn something, he should not have taught it to us.


It is illogical to argue logic about a being not bound by the logic you would argue with.

But why would the standards that He gave us then apply to Him?
Do the rules and standards we give our pets apply to us?

 

[Thana]

Your approach doesn't get you to "God is moral"; it only gets you to "so what if God is immoral - what are you going to do about it?"

I was never trying to argue that God is moral...

 

[Thana]

My morals standards are that I would not purposefully create a creature capable of murder and then sit back and watch as it happens and not intervene. You don't see the issue I want to discuss?

You seem to be forgetting the Genesis story. God did not make us murderers, We made ourselves that way.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I believe that, as mortals, we are imperfect and are subject to making bad -- even evil -- choices. Could He have created us perfect in the first place? I tend to think not. To begin with, I don't believe He created us (or our universe) ex nihilo. I believe He created our spirits using a highly refined form of matter that was co-eternal with Him. Since this matter was itself imperfect, the end-product -- our spirits, that essence which gives life to our physical bodies -- was also imperfect. I can almost hear your next question: Why didn't He start out fresh, by creating us out of nothing, as most Christians believe is the case. From the LDS perspective, this would not have accomplished His purposes. He wanted to create beings who could become perfect, not beings who were initially perfect. Perfection requires growth, and it would have been pointless for God to create us perfect instead of allowing us to become perfect. To me, the question you have asked is just about as irrelevant as the old atheist favorite, "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?"

That's not a fair comparison. Really, what I was getting at is just one part of a larger question: how could the Earth end up in a state that God does not find desirable?

From what I gather, you don't believe in an "omnimax" God, so I'm not sure that this is a problem for your theology. If God did as well as he could with what he had available to him, then the moral dilemma disappears.

First of all, you're talking about two different things here, and I'm only going to address one of them. Since the OP had nothing to do with the imperfections of a mortal body and its susceptibility to heat, cold, pain, etc. I'm not going to get into that in this thread. The problem of how human beings are permitted to behave in reprehensible ways is a big enough one to tackle in one thread.

They're two sides of the same coin. Part of what makes an act reprehensible is its effects; if an act no longer causes harm, then it's no longer reprehensible.

I disagree with your conclusion about it not being an all-or-nothing choice between our having free will or not. I believe we either have free will or we don't. No, we can't kill people with our thoughts, but that's not a limitation of our free will; it's a limitation of our power. The will to kill is ours, even if we are incapable of making it happen just by wishing it. The Bible teaches -- and I believe -- that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The time will come where we will be held accountable for the condition of our hearts, and if we truly would have killed someone by having the desire to do so, we will have to answer for that.

Wait... if you consider free will to only be about the desire to act and not necessarily the act itself, then how was your response to Buttercup relevant? She was acting about actual harmful acts, not just the desire to commit them. If the requirements of free will are satisfied by allowing people the desire to, say, murder, but free will doesn't require people to actually commit murder, then you could have a world that's completely murder-free but where free will is entirely preserved.

Also, if free will is a matter of desire, then our free will is already limited, too. We don't want anything and everything. I like the way that Penn Jillette put it (quoting from memory, so I may be off a bit): "I murder as much as I want to murder; it's just that the amount of murder I want to commit is zero." When we already desire some things but not others, how would it hamper our free will to desire fewer bad things and more good things than we do now?