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Why would God's ultimate power come with ultimate responsibility?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
God does not have "Behaviour".
God has a purpose for us and creation serves that purpose, all the good and bad, as we perceive it, all depends on our relative state of mind.
God knows what is best for us, nothing happens that does not have a higher purpose, it is not all random.
Regards Tony
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
And why is that not correct and why do you think I would know it's not correct? Do Baha'is believe that God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve? Or that God send down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? And did God part the seas for the Hebrews, and then close them back up on the Egyptian army?
Or... are those fictional stories? Even if the usual reply is that Baha'is believe those stories were "symbolic", it still makes them fictional. Is there another option? Oh yeah, that maybe, just maybe, those stories are myth. No wait, that's still makes them fiction.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
Sure he does. A higher purpose for the children being blown up in Gaza and in Ukraine. It seems kind of random. But good to know that it's all part of God's plan. No doubt God has some great reward for them in the Baha'i spirit world.
I still believe that the ultimate "learning" method for people would be reincarnation? Live one life, learn somethings, make some mistakes and learn some more. Then, come back as someone else and in a different place and time and learn some more.
For most of us, one time through isn't enough to learn very much... Especially for those that die young.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It is still a choice.
Some people value money more than life.
Some people value their freedom to believe whatever they want to more than they value the possibility of getting to heaven.
That's true, nobody knows if God exists or what God is like if God exists, but I like these sorts of discussions about God better than discussions about religion which I consider drop dead b-o-r-i-n-g!
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The way I explain those Bible stories is to say they are anthropomorphic bunk.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
God does not create evil, only humans create evil, so God is off the hook for evil.
That means the KJV translation of Isaiah 45:7 is incorrect.
Isaiah 45:7 King James Version
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
But God is not of the hook for all the bad things that happen in this world, not by a long-shot, because God is responsible for all of the following.
NIRV I cause light to shine. I also create darkness. I bring good times. I also create hard times. I do all these things. I am the Lord.
AMP The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing peace and creating disaster; I am the Lord who does all these things.
ERV I made the light and the darkness. I bring peace, and I cause trouble. I, the Lord, do all these things.
EHV I am the one who forms light and creates darkness, the one who makes peace and creates disaster. I am the Lord, the one who does all these things.
ESV I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
TLB I form the light and make the dark. I send good times and bad. I, Jehovah, am he who does these things.
NASB The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating disaster; I am the Lord who does all these things.
NCB I form the light and create the darkness; prosperity and disaster depend upon my will; I, the Lord, do all these things.
NCV I made the light and the darkness. I bring peace, and I cause troubles. I, the Lord, do all these things.
NIRV I cause light to shine. I also create darkness. I bring good times. I also create hard times. I do all these things. I am the Lord.
NIV I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
Isaiah 45:7 - Bible Gateway
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Isaiah 45:7 NIV
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
There is a recompense from God for those who did not have a chance to grow and develop in this world.
The rest of us had our one chance and if we blew it we blew it. Why should we have another chance?
40: O MY SERVANT! Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more. The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 36
McBell
Unbound
(AFV) I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the LORD do all these things.'
(ASV) I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.
(Brenton) I am he that prepared light, and formed darkness; who make peace, and create evil; I am the Lord God, that does all these things.
(Cepher) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I Yahuah do all these things.
(Darby) forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, Jehovah, do all these things.
(DRB) I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.
(Geneva) I forme the light and create darkenes: I make peace and create euill: I the Lorde doe all these things.
(JPS) I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.
(JUB) I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil: I am the LORD that does all this.
(KJV) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
(KJV-1611) I forme the light, and create darkenesse: I make peace, and create euill: I the Lord do all these things.
(KJVA) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
(KJV-BRG) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
(LEB) I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things.
(LITV) forming light, and creating darkness; making peace, and creating evil. I, Jehovah, do all these things.
(MKJV) forming the light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil. I Jehovah do all these things.
.
(RV) I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.
(TS2009) forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil. I, יהוה, do all these.’
(Webster) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
(YLT) Forming light, and preparing darkness, Making peace, and preparing evil, I am Jehovah, doing all these things.'
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Before we take the one course of action (x) that God knows we will take, we can take a different course of action (y), in which case that course of action (y) will be what God knows we will take.
Some time ago, someone on this forum said:
If God knows I am going to wear the red shirt tomorrow, then I MUST wear the red shirt. I am not able to choose the blue shirt instead.
If God knows what we will do, then the future is fixed as a future where we will do those things he has foreseen. You can not get away from that.
I responded:
You will choose the red shirt because you chose to wear a red shirt.
If you had chosen to wear a blue shirt, God would have known you would choose a blue shirt.
God does not cause you to choose red shirt or the blue shirt by knowing you will choose the red shirt or the blue shirt.
The future is not fixed. Nothing has actually happened in this world until we make a choice and act upon it.
God knows whatever choice we will make because God is all-knowing, but God's knowledge is not what caused us to make the choice.
The only reason we will do what God knows we will do is because God knows everything that we will do.
What God knows is not what causes anything to happen. That is what you just do not seem to be able to grasp.
From another post:
God knows what we will choose but this foreknowledge is not what causes us to do anything. We cause our life to unfold as it does by virtue of our own decisions and actions. God knows everything we have ever done, what we are doing now, and what we will do in the future because God's essential knowledge surrounds the realities of all things. God does not exist in time so God knows everything simultaneously.
“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished. There is none other God besides Him. His is all creation and its empire. All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150
If humans had no free will to choose we would just be puppets on a string, God's programmed robots. We could not be held accountable for anything we do in a court of law. That is an untenable position.
Humans do not exist outside of time so humans have not experienced the future, since the future is not here yet.
The future does not exist for us until it becomes the present.
God knows for certain what our future holds because has perfect foreknowledge.
God is on another plane of existence. God knows what every outcome will be because God is all-knowing, but what God knows has not happened in this contingent world until we make a choice and act on it, causing it to happen.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes, I know about all those other translations. I mentioned the KJV because that is the translation people usually cite.
God creating evil is completely contradictory to everything else in the scriptures that say God is good.
That is one reason I know those translations are incorrect.
Evil is the result of immoral actions of humans who break God's laws.
“God hath in that Book, and by His behest, decreed as lawful whatsoever He hath pleased to decree, and hath, through the power of His sovereign might, forbidden whatsoever He elected to forbid. To this testifieth the text of that Book. Will ye not bear witness? Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to be attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves. Will ye not comprehend? This same truth hath been revealed in all the Scriptures, if ye be of them that understand.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 149-150
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I cannot imagine it either. Nobody can ever know how God thinks or operates.
I have no problem with that. I'd rather talk to atheists than believers because I already know what believers think.
I like to analyze people and how they think and why they think that way, be they atheists or believers. Psychology is a hat I wore a lot longer than any religion hat.
Thankfully I never experienced the Christian influence in real life, only on forums, since both my parents dropped out of Christianity long before I was born. I never even knew what Christians believed until I started posting on religious forums about 11 years ago. As a Baha'i, I got banned from a few Christian forums, so it is nice that this forum is open to all religions.
I have nothing against Christians and I like many of the moral teachings of Jesus, but to be honest I cannot stomach the Christian doctrines that teach that Jesus is the only way and Christianity is the only true religion. For that reason alone I could never be a Christian.
HonestJoe
Well-Known Member
There is no "before" though, because we're looking at this from Gods timeless point of view. To a timeless God, every single event and action across the entirely of time and space don't occur temporally or as cause and effect, they just are.
To this God, time is no different to the three physical dimensions. Imagine you have two people standing 100m apart with a high wall between them. They're separated on the horizontal dimension and so have no specific knowledge of each other. For example, they can't know whether they're wearing the same colour top.
If you're standing at the end of the wall though, you can see them both. You're essentially existing outside that horizontal dimension and so you simply know whether they're wearing the same colour top. From their point of view, it is undetermined whether they're matching but you can see that it is a definitive and unchangeable fact. Perception doesn't change reality, and so if anything can perceive the entirety of the universe across time and space in one go, the entirety of that universe is fixed.
I agree. God being all-knowing would only mean he would "always" know what choice we will make. God being all-powerful is what gives him the ability to control that choice. In fact, he couldn't not control it since he knows all of the possible options and all of the possible causes and actively chooses to create a universe that leads to the choices that actually exist.
It isn't untenable at all. It is the inevitable logical consequence of having an all-knowing and all-powerful God. It is a disturbing, uncomfortable and logically inconsistent position, which is why most believers in such things chose to ignore or dismiss it.
The future must exist even if we can't (yet) see it because God can see it. If you have something in a sealed box, does it not exist until you open the box?
Alien826
No religious beliefs
If God is "timeless", that is not subject to time, wouldn't he exist in a dimension/s of zero duration, which to my mind would be the same as saying he doesn't exist? What is time, we ask? Before Einstein, time was seen as a constant movement at a constant rate in a single direction. Now, it seems that time is relative to the velocity and position of the observer and is not constant at all, and can even go backwards in some QM situations. It seems that even physicists can't give a simple definition of time. I once heard one define it as "that which is measured by a clock".
So what, you ask? Well, if there are higher dimensions that God inhabits (or maybe we all inhabit them) then could God have his own time dimension? In that case, our time dimension would appear to him as a fourth dimension of space, and therefore viewable in it's entirety, from the "outside" so to speak, while still being able to "exist" and change. Incidentally, in a sense, we would be able to have free will within our own time dimension, meaning that nothing influences our decisions apart from actual circumstances. It's like reading an (accurate) history book. What happened is fixed, but the characters had free will at the time.
Can any of our resident mathematicians comment? Can there be two time dimensions?
From one angle yes, from another angle no since he too perfect and above such things.
In a way, if person is good, his duty is to do good, otherwise it could be said he is not good. Different question is, what is really good. Removing evil now is not necessary good.
But, perhaps responsibility was not good word from me. I should have rather said, God is guilty to His own actions.
I think God has done that and it is called the heaven, or God's kingdom.
But, many of them will do evil.
So, do I understand correctly, if the doctor would know that he person will do bad things, he should stop doing good?
I think God does only good.
Interestingly Jesus healed people, and people murdered him. It seems that people don't want to be healed.
From post 57:
I don't think those scriptures are against free will. For example, if it is predestined that righteous go to eternal life, it is still possible that people freely decide do they want to be righteous or not.There is no freedom, when you are threatened with everlasting torture if you disobey him.
As for the free will...
Acts 13:48 "And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Rom.8:29-30 "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
Eph.1:4-5 "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."
2 Th.2:11-12 "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned."
2 Tim.1:9 "Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
Jude 1:4 "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation."
Did you have your boarding pass to Paradise before birth?
And knowing how things will go doesn't mean that people can't have free will.
McBell
Unbound
Define behavior.
I ask because the definition I am familiar with is:
Which would mean that if God had no behavior, god would not do anything at all.Which would also be a behavior.