Tracer,
Maybe the father wanted his son to prove he loved him by recquiring that his son have faith and trust in him, therefore the father didn’t provide concrete evidence.
Hmmm, does that make sense to anybody other than me?
So I should make my son prove that he loves me before I help him? And if he doesn’t “love” me in just the right way, using just the right words, and practicing just the right routines, I should devise a way to torture him for eternity? Of course, I can deny any resposibility for the torture by using that old Oliver Hardy routine.
You know the one.
“Look what you made me do!”
How does one argue with a Devil’s advocate, as an Angel’s advocate? I’m certainly not that… 
OK, my first problem with your scenario: It is not just to punish the decendants for crimes that are not their own. Yes, apparently God does it, but it’s not just. It is ridiculous to punish, not only an evil person’s decendants, but anyone they adopt! So your father does not appear to be a just judge in the first place.
Second problem: for the father to let a beloved son die simply because the son does not think he is his father is not perfectly loving, whether because he wants to be loved (my scenario) or because he once made a rule that the son would die of cancer unless he un-adopts himself. Certainly an all-knowing judge would know that the son would be adopted by the decendants of Attila the Hun and would thus come under the cancer curse if he makes it cover adopted children as well; if he loved his son, he would not have placed adopted sons under the curse. If you make a loophole for un-adoption to spare your son, why not make another loophole, one that is easier for him to fulfill? I don’t think your analogy quite works, since all adopted children have must have a loophole; in order for this to be analogous to the salvation bit, all adopted children must have been the father’s children. In other words, anyone who has a way out must be the child of the father, since every human is supposed to have a way out because God loves them. He’s not making an unfair exception for his child, he’s making an exception for all adopted children, as indeed he should do. It’s not like he’s allowing his son to be free from the curse while all the other adopted children are cursed–for the analogy to work, all the adopted children are his, and* you cannot say it is unfair to the other adopted children to only release his own*–they’re all his own, there are no adopted children who would be denied the freedom from the curse. He simply chose to place all adopted children under the cancer curse and then give them a difficult loophole, rather than simply not putting them under the curse in the first place or giving them a much easier loophole. What sense does it make to say “I love you, so I’m going to put a curse on you but I’ll give you a way to get out of it!”
Don’t tempt me–I get a cuisinart from the Evil Atheist Association for each person I corrupt to my godless wicked atheist ways!
I do have a question Guadere. Is this line or questioning that is going on in this thread aimed directly as FriendofGod and other fundies, or all Christian religions. Because I know the LDS religion as pretty satisfactory answers to a lot of the problems you bring up, IMHO of course.
I’m only going after the fundamentalist view right now (although some points I have made are applicable to other Christian denominations as well), since that’s what I’ve been presented with here. Other Christian demoninations may have slightly or very different answers to my questions; some don’t think God sends all non-belivers to Hell, for instance. I might get a headache if I tried to debate all 4,000 particular varations of Christianity at once. 
If you want to start a LDS thread to explain the LDS answers to my questions that might work out better than doing this in the same thread; we’ve drifted a bit from the OP anyhow.
Guadere, I would start a new thread, except I’m too scared to do it. I don’t want to get start a debate about it, and I don’t want to ‘witness’
Everytime I mention LDS beliefs the traditional Christians are more than happy to tell me I’m burning in hell for eternity, and I’m mocking God or something like that. (Hey, I bet we have that in common!)
pepperlandgirl said: “FriendofGod, it’s very admirable that you are in this debate and standing up for what you believe etc etc. But I have the feeling that Gaudere has done this 100 times before, and she’ll probably do it 100 times again after you pass out of her life, and you are not going to change her way of thinking one bit.”
Thanks for what you said. Actually, reading Gaurdere’s latest response gave me the same feeling, and then I read your post! Although this IS an interesting thread, part of me is getting the idea that no matter how convincing my argument is, Gaudere will try to find some loophole in it or some argument against it. BUT I may be wrong! Maybe you’re sincerely curious.
I’ll admit it’s getting kinda exhausting explaning the issues you bring up Gaudere even though they’re interesting. I think I’m going to respond to some of your most recent comments … and I will ask you this question: is pepperlandgirl right? Am I “wasting my time” trying to convince you? Are you at all convinceable that this MIGHT possibly be the right way? ITS WORTH IT to me if you’re at all open.
By the way pepperlandgirl, sorry we sorta moved this thread down an entirely different track! I just reread your first post and boy did we get off topic. I’m probably partly to blame for that. Sorry!
Okay Gaudere, you said:
“So when God made us, He made us so badly that not a single one of us could have a healthy relationship with Him unless He gets Himself crucified, and unless you have a relationship with Him you go to Hell.”
No. If you recall from Genesis, Adam and Eve both walked with God and had a love relationship with God. He gave them free will, but they both chose to have that relationship with God and obey Him! Ah, if only things had stayed that way, you and I wouldn’t be debating now …
It was OUR foolish choice, as mankind, that got us into this mess. Life was UNcomplicated and we MADE it complicated by sinning against God. You are accusing God of something that WE are responsible for. He didnt make us badly. WE took a good thing and made it bad.
Let’s bring it to my life and yours, which, lets face it, is what it all comes down to. It’s MY fault that God was put in the dilemna He was put in. Had I never sinned, I could’ve had a wonderful relationship with God for all eternity with no complications. Because I sinned, God was put in the dilemna I’ve described before.
To be honest, it’s AMAZING that we even have the option to go to heaven and have a relationship with God. God COULD have said, “You sinned, no sin can enter my holy presence, therefore we can never have a relationship.” Thankfully, He loved us enough that a way was made through Jesus in the way I’ve already described.
In summary of this point: it’s not shocking how many people go to hell. Whats shocking is that God lets ANYONE into heaven! Again, our sin isn’t God’s fault … its our own.
“What of those who lived and died before Jesus came along?” This is a GREAT question, but unfortunately the answer isn’t a one paragraph answer. Let me give you the semi-short version and just plead mercy cuz my brain just is too lazy to do the full detailed account at the moment. If you REALLY want more detail I’ll try to do more later.
The original system God set up was innocent ANIMALS being sacrificed to cover our sins.
Let me describe the scenario of a Godly OT man. If I’m this guy, I have to find the BEST, HEALTHIEST, most INNOCENT lamb that I have and bring it to the temple. Before my very eyes, I have to pull back his little neck and slit it’s throat, and watch the blood drip. It’s a face to face, stark, terrifying reminder of the seriousness of my sin. Only innocent blood can be shed to cover sin.
So now I can have a relationship with God, but what an AGONY to have to face those lambs all the time! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have ONE sacrifice made that would solve this problem once and for all? In the OT, people looked with faith that God would send His Redeemer to be that one sacrifice. So in many ways, the OT believer had faith in Jesus too, they just didn’t know that was His name yet!
Have you ever heard Jesus referred to as the “lamb of God”? Now you know why. He was the ultimate lamb, the ultimate sacrifice. Only a perfect MAN could substitute for the sins of all mankind and stop the need for the animal sacrifices. Not to mention, when Jesus died on the cross there were all kinds of additional incredible benefits that animal sacrifices didn’t provide.
This may sound sacreligious … but I can’t resist. Animal sacrifices were like version 1.0 of a software program, it basically worked but had some bugs. Jesus sacrifice was like version 2.0, in which the bugs were removed AND new and enhanced features were added! Yes it’s silly but like I said I couldn’t resist. It’s late, what can I say.
Another quote:
“Boy, I guess you’ve gotta check the fine print on this one.” (ie, regarding the exchange)
Fair point. Here’s one way to look at it from the “free gift” angle. I’ve heard it illustrated this way. Suppose you live in a beaten up run down shack that has no running water. Jesus comes along with the keys to your own private mansion. The only condition to getting the keys is … you have to turn over control of the beaten up run down shack. Yes, it’s an exchange, but for all PRACTICAL purposes it’s a gift!
Of course the rude awakening is … you have to look at your life as a beaten up run down shack before you’re ready to make that exchange! But more on that another time.
Another quote (whew! This is like a marathon! :D):
"Do you really think that non-Christians genuinely believe Jesus was God, that he died for their sins, but they don’t want to accept eternal life? Is it perfectly loving to allow someone to suffer eternally just because they don’t think you’re God? "
Regarding the first sentence, I know SOME who believe this. I know many more who dont KNOW this about Jesus which is where my role comes in (and all those other dangerous religious right people!!! :D). My job in this life is to explain this to as many people as will listen so that they understand. I KNOW this raises other questions but I think I’ll wait til you ask them to go into it. This is getting long!
Regarding the second sentence: God does not allow people to suffer eternally just because they don’t think He’s God. In many ways, God never sends anyone to hell. We send OURSELVES to hell. Again, the things God gets blamed for all the time are really OUR fault! People CHOOSE to go their own way instead of submitting their lives to God.
As for God “allowing” it – again this gets back to free will. God’s a gentleman. If you really WANT to choose a path that leads you to hell, He won’t stop you. Now, He WILL woo you, try to draw you, try to get your attention, try to warn you before it’s too late in as many ways as possible. He will give EVERYone a chance. The Bible makes it plain that at judgment day, NO one will have an excuse.
Another quote: “You must believe I sacrificed Myself to Myself so that you don’t have to go to Hell”.
This is a WHOLE other topic that I really don’t want to dive into hugely … but the whole “sacrificed Myself to Myself” bit is incorrect. There IS a distinct Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Yes, the three together are God, one being, but yet they are distinct. And no, I don’t totally get that either! Believe me I plan to ask God when I get to heaven!
The best illustration I’ve heard: take water. It can be water, ice, or steam - 3 distinct things. God is like a bucket of water that is somehow water, ice, AND steam all at the same time. That’s not a perfect picture, but hopefully gives you food for thought.
One last quote and I’m going to bed!
"The choice God requires is not a sensible: “be a good person and help your fellow man” "
Are you ready for this? Yes it is. God WILL let you get to heaven if you live a perfect life. See Matt 5:48. But if you commit one sin, you’re guilty. How many robberies does it take to make a robber? One. Murders to make a murderer? One. Sins to make a sinner? One.
A whole other topic is just how much sin IS in our lives.
I can fairly prove that in every human heart, there is thousands of times more sin that even that person realizes. We are guilty in a dramatically huge way. If you want I can address this issue later. To be honest, NOT realizing this about yourself is really the CORE reason why people don’t come to Jesus for salvation.
Okay I changed my mind … one more quote: “…those who don’t believe the Bible, even if they’re decent people…”
Again … no such thing as a “decent”, or “good” person. I think I need to go through my whole spiel on this topic because, as I just said, it’s THE key point of coming to Christ.
Okay ONE MORE! (I can’t stop! :D) “I simply think that to create creatures because you want them to love you may be acceptable, but to let them be tortured eternally unless they love you too does not seem “perfectly loving”.”
Again, it’s our choice. And again, God doesn’t just “let” it happen. He does EVERYTHING in His power, throughout each person’s life, to get their attention. It’s not that God doesn’t try. It’s that most people just don’t want to face the truth about themselves, and God is left weeping for the souls who reject Him.
Gaudere, I hope what I said at the top of this post doesn’t sound harsh. I really am willing to take the time to explain all of this as best I can if you’re really interested. You are worth it cuz God deeply loves you personally and wants you to be convinced. I know you don’t believe that and may even find it condescending, but it’s true.
Catch you later. I’m crashing!
I am convincable that God can be both perfectly just and perfectly loving and still send people to hell if you can provide a logical way for Him to be so (this would not prove the existence of God, mind you; I can give reasons how it is logically possible for me to have a hunk of bleu cheese in my fridge, but that doesn’t mean there’s one there). I don’t think you can do so, with your God; I see too many flaws in the arguments and I suspect it will come down to “God did it this way, so it must be Good”, which could be used to excuse anything. (Perhaps you will sway some lurkers, though, if not me.) As to witnessing, just treat me as a person, not a project; I enjoy debating, but those who think it is their mission to enlighten the misguided unfortunates to their aspect of Truth are heartily annoying most of the time.
I really don’t think I should be held responsible for the actions of people who died 6,000 years ago. That’s not just, and God is perfectly just, right?
It is not shocking that anyone goes to heaven, since you state that God wants everyone to go to heaven. What’s shocking is that if He truly wants this, He seems to go out of his way to make it hard for a lot of people to do the stuff He demands of them for entrance.
Even so–not a gift. An “almost free gift” in your opinion, or a “really good exchange.”
Oh, please. God can let anyone in Heaven or Hell; He made the rules about who gets in. By requiring something from humans to let them into heaven, he decides who gets in and who does not, thereby sending those who do not fufill His criteria to hell. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to renounce Christ or I’ll kill you, and you don’t, and I kill you, do you think I can get out of it by saying “I didn’t kill him; he killed himself! I told him what he had to do to avoid getting killed and he didn’t do it, so it’s his fault!” I sure hope no one would accept that as an excuse!
Mmmm…lamb chops. Your God seems a little odd. “If you want a relationship with Me, you must kill baby sheep.” Bah. Baaaaah.
You say when God made the universe, He made it so the only way to absolve sin was innocent blood. This seems like a cruel and horrible thing to do. Why not make sin able to be absolved by something less terrible, like sincere repentance and doing good things? It seems like far more good would come of that choice than the one He did make.
Even God can’t get a program right the first time?! Kinda shoots the whole “perfection” thing in the foot.
Why? We are back to the first question again. You have not offered proof of why God required Himself to incarnate Himself and sacrifice Himself to Himself so He could let people into heaven. You say He had to, but there is no logical reason why that could be the only way He could do it.
And then, even if we accept that Jesus had to die for our sins, there’s no reason why God would require you to believe this before He’d let you in! He’s already “bought the cure”, as in my f’rinstances, He’s simply hanging onto it until you believe what He wants you to belive.
And unfortunately, with that nasty Original Sin thing, we’re all damned from birth. You keep saying that God needs some sort of criteria to keep people like Hitler out of heaven. But the criteria he picked don’t keep Hitler out; Mother Teresa would go to hell if she were a wiccan, and Hitler would go to heaven if he converted in the end. Why did God pick a criteria that can let in Hitler but keep out Mother Teresa, based only on whether a person belives in Jesus? Does He not care if you’re Hitler or Mother Teresa, He only cares if you believe in Him? It doesn’t sound like He is a fair judge to me.
There’s a difference between knowing about Jesus and believing He exists. I could tell you about the Holy Note Cards of the Invisible Pink Unicorn until I’m blue in the face, but that wouldn’t make you believe in Her. Why doesn’t God provide better evidence of His existence? And are you truly saying if someone doesn’t have a chance to learn about Jesus they’ll go to Hell?
No, I don’t think He does. He could make his existence perfectly plain and allow people to choose His gift with full disclosure, but He does not.
So, in closing, most of my arguments:
-God could have set up the world so blood sacrifice was not necessary to absolve sin (He’s omnipotent, right?)
-If God’s already sacrificed so all people can go to heaven, He shouldn’t be demanding that people believe He did it to let people in, if He really wants everyone in.
-If God wants some sort of criteria to let people in, there are a heckuva lot better ones than “does this person believe I died for them?”; otherwise Hitler could get in, and Mother Teresa could go to Hell.
-If God requires people to believe to go to heaven and He wants everyone to go there, He should announce this fact loudly and clearly and unambiguously every single day to every single person.
-It is not just to punish an innocent person for the crimes of another.
-It is not just to punish a person for something his/her ancestors did 6,000 years ago.
-(And while we’re at it: ) it is not just to punish someone for an infinite amount of time for a finite amount of sin.
Well I couldn’t sleep so I checked the post & read your response. Here I am again.
Guadere, I don’t see you as a “project”. I see you as someone God created that He deeply loves. By the way, I know many Christians use it but I don’t like the word “witnessing”. Too Christian-clicheish. My best description for what I’m trying to do is give advice - the best advice I could ever give anyone. I don’t think it’s my “mission to enlighten the misguided unfortunates to my aspect of Truth” - in other words I don’t divide the world into “me” and “them”. I divide the world into “all of us” and God. We ALL need Him. All I’m trying to do is try to convince my fellow humans of this.
By the way THANKS for the summary! Makes it easier.
I’m not going to respond to every point right now but I’ll go through the first two or three and maybe more tomorrow if I get a chance.
- “God could have set up the world so blood sacrifice was not necessary to absolve sin.” Not true. Let me put it in the most stark terms I have so far. The message of God is clear in the Bible - if you sin, you deserve to die. In other words, if I sin, I deserve to have my lifeblood drained out of my body. MY blood deserves to be shed. God in His mercy allows the blood of an innocent substitute to take the place of my blood.
Here’s the logic train: a) I sin. b) God is perfectly just, therefore He has to sentence me to death, ie to have my blood shed (if He is perfectly just, He has no choice.) c) God is perfectly loving, therefore He offers an alternative (if He is perfectly loving, He has no choice). d) The alternative is innocent blood shed (if He is perfectly just, He has no choice. Someone’s blood has to be shed. If it’s not going to be the guilty party, someone has to pay).
I know this leaves hanging the “why innocent blood” question … more on that when I get to your 5th point.
Back to bed with me! 
More tomorrow …
Godless sinners stay up late too.
Why!?, again. God made the rules. God is omnipotent. Quoting the Bible simply tells us the decision God made as to what should be the punishment for sins; it’s not a logical reason, it’s faith. It’s not like we’re talking about God making a rock so big He can’t lift it–that’s logically impossible, and I am willing to accept that. I don’t accept it because the Bible says God can’t make a rock so big He can’t lift it, I accept it because it is logically impossible. In order to argue that sins must be paid for with death, you must show that it is logically impossible for there to be any payment for sin besides innocent death. I can tell you why an all-powerful God can’t make a rock so big He can’t lift it; it is inherently a contradiction. But I cannot find the contradiction that means sins must be paid for by innocent death. Certainly we do not consider death a fair punishment for, say, fibbing, yet your perfectly just God does? If we wish to be just, should we kill anyone who sins?
Wow. Friend of God, I think somewhere down the line you missed the point. You are entirely right; God’s truth is eternal, and as applicable to reality as is physical law – you mess with it at your peril. Now, take a quick minute and consider the following:
-
The Old Testament contains a bunch of strictures for living a holy life, separated from them pagan Canaanites. If you were a Jew, you were obliged to live up to those laws. If you were a Gentile who believed in God, you were obliged to keep five of them: the ones given to Noah and his descendents. Jewish tradition has been extremely clear on this as far back as it can be traced.
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In the New Testament, Jesus is very explicit in condemning a legalistic application of those laws, and when challenged about them, takes a largely humanistic application: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Asked which is the greatest Commandment, he names the total radical love for God as primary, and love for fellow man on the same level as love for self as the next. He spells out with a little parable that everybody is in the role of “neighbor” in that commandment. In one Gospel, he explicitly states that keeping these two laws is keeping the Law as a whole. It takes very little knowledge of Constitutional law to see him as setting these above the others and demanding that they be kept regardless of what the other laws may call for.
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Paul is quite explicit on our being free from the law, obliged to act morally from love of God and of Christ but not bound by the law. The only application of the law is as a guide to what may be a moral life. It is very important to remember, when Paul gets ornery about behavior, that what he was doing was writing letters in answer to churches’ questions. He was giving practical in-this-place-and-time advice, not laying down strictures for the rest of humanity at all times and places to follow.
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Points 2 and 3 are addressed to the believing Christian. The question of what makes the Bible applicable to anybody is a reasonable one. And the answer, “because it’s the Word of God” does not cut it. According to the Bible, the Word of God is the actuating factor in the Universe: “God said, ‘let there be ____’ and there was ____.” And the Gospel of John equates this actuating Word with Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible is the Word of God only in the sense that it is a record of his words and deeds and those of the people who followed him, written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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Jesus is very explicit on the need to judge oneself, repent, and turn to God, and to avoid judging others, lest you bring God’s judgment on yourself.
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The application of all this is pretty darn clear, at least to me. My job is to live the best moral life I can, to bear witness to God as best I can (that’s another bit of instruction from Jesus, which ties into love of God), and to refrain from determining what somebody else’s proper behavior ought to be (unless they overtly ask for my advice).
-=-=-=-=-=-
I am not going to even think about the Jesus-as-expiatory-sacrifice argument on page two of this thread. Tom~ of tomndebb has an explanation that has comforted my cavils about this involving seeing the same circumstance from different viewpoints; it’s worth looking at.
Final point: The primary characteristic of the God that I find in the Bible and Whom I’ve encountered in my life is one of love. I cannot stress this enough. I do not want to get off on the theory of the Trinity, the substitutionary atonement, and all that wonderful collection of attempts to unscrew the inscrutable. I just want to make absolutely clear my view that ***God is not interested in sending anyone to Hell unless they’ve made an informed choice to go there, totally rejecting Him in full knowledge of Who and What He is. This does not include (as suggested in page one) his condemning people for traits over which they have no control, or expecting a particular asceticism from people he hasn’t given the gift of asceticism to. That’s the bright idea of some people who have never walked in anyone else’s shoes. My distinct impression, as she is well aware, is that God is working through Gaudere without her knowledge by allowing her talents and compassion to show things he wants looked at to those who have eyes to see, and will continue doing so.
FriendofGod wrote:
If God left bugs in version 1.0 that weren’t fixed until version 2.0, what makes you think He’s removed all the bugs and hasn’t introduced any new ones?
Going back to the original thread: 1. homosexuality is not a sin. 2. Gay SEX is a sin, but no more than fornication or drunkeness. That verse in Corinth. that FoG refers to, lists “effeminates” instead of homosexuals. While there is no doubt that “effeminates” WERE homosexuals, what Paul was referring to seems to be (passive/fem) gay prostitutes. The idea of two men living together as domestic partners, and not sleeping around was “unheard of” in those days. True, in the past there was the “manly” idea of greek homosexual love, but thta had been gone for centuries.
And some “wild and crazy” Christians, of the Celtic variation, believe that if you are a “moral pagan” you go to that god’s “happy hunting ground”, just not “Heaven”. The Celtic belief is that the Christian Way is the Best & easiest way. Some verses in the Older sections of the OT seem to show that they believed that other gods did exist, and had power, but never as much as “G-d”.
Gaudere, I pondered your last post a little bit today. I was wondering what it was I was leaving out of the equation that would make my point a little better. Then it hit me.
God’s HOLINESS.
God is multi-faceted. He is not merely perfectly just and loving, He is also perfectly HOLY. He is also more than just those three things but my point is … His Holiness is a key part of the equation that I left out.
There are passages in the Bible where someone wanted to see God’s face, and God said you couldn’t do that and live. His Holiness is just a part of who God is. Anything UNholy that comes into His presence is wiped out. Think of it this way … imagine you were some comic-book character whose body was full of nucleur radiation. Anyone who got close to you would die from nucleur radiation. No “rules” here … it’s just a fact because of who you are!
Now suppose there was some kind of suit you could put on that contained powerful material. This material is capable of being in the presence of nucleur radiation and without being destroyed. You could wear this suit and go directly to the guy whose body is full of nucleur radiation!
This is an illustration (imperfect though it is) of how the holiness factor affects my relationship with God, and WHY death was the punishment for my sins. The ONLY way I can come into God’s presence and NOT die is through the filter of the blood of Jesus, because of God’s Holiness. Jesus’ holiness and perfection is basically a filter / substitute for my lack of holiness and my imperfection.
So it’s not about “God making rules”. God just IS certain things (holy, loving, and just to name a few), and in order for man to get to Him, certain things have to happen that incorporate who He is.
Now, regarding why the sacrifice has to be “innocent”. The more I think about it, that one’s not difficult. Ask yourself one question – can you imagine if the sacrifice WASN’T innocent? Suppose Jesus goes to God and says, “I’m willing to receive your wrath for mankind’s sins.” God says, “Hang on, let me do a background check”, and finds that Jesus has sinned all His life. Well, what would qualify Jesus for being a substitute? How is He different from anybody else? HE would need to have a blood sacrifice made for HIMSELF! No … Jesus HAD to be a perfect substitute, innocent of all sin.
I’m going to address this comment as well: “It is not just to punish an innocent person for the crimes of another.”
Are you ready for yet another aspect of God’s character? We have to throw this one into the mix at this point. It’s God’s MERCY. God is perfectly merciful, besides being perfectly loving, just, … ah, you know, all that other stuff I said :D.
God’s justice says we’re guilty.
God’s holiness says the punishment is death.
God’s love says there has to be another way.
God’s mercy says an innocent substitute can take your place.
So the innocent substitute isn’t God’s justice at work … it’s His mercy at work. If your head is spinning, trying to keep track of all these different aspects of God and how they jibe with each other … so is mine! But the bottom line is, when you investigate God’s perfection you realize just how many layers there are to it.
God is purely and totally logical. He CREATED logic for pete’s sake! He created all good things. Every aspect of His character is interconnected in ways we can’t even possibly imagine. He is truly amazing, and I must add that it is OVERWHELMING to think that such a powerful God cares a whit about you and me. But He does. He loves us deeply and went to ALL this trouble to make sure we had the option of having a relationship with Him!!
That’s all for now. I’ll save the other issues for later. Hope everyone is having a good Father’s Day!
FoG: It is hard to find a Gospel verse that sez if you DON’T accept JC, you are going to Hell. Yes, JC is the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven, but there are verses in Matthew which say that Jews who follow the Law still go, as the Covenant still holds for them.
And, assuming JC is the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven, who is to say there are not other kingdoms for virtuous pagans?
First I must let this out.
“THANK YOU GOD, A SHORT POST TO ANSWER!!!”
- whew *
Okay, I’m better now! (I’m kidding, I don’t mind the long ones, they just take more work)
Daniel, without doing a lot of research the famous John 3:16 comes to mind. It says:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Turn it around, and this is what you’ve got …
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever DIDN’T believe in Him SHOULD perish and NOT have everlasting life.”
There are more as well, but that’s one for now.
As for this quote: “who is to say there are not other kingdoms for virtuous pagans?”
Sometime I think I’m going to start a topic on this, but there’s no such thing as a virtuous pagan. There’s no such thing as a virtuous Christian! There’s no such thing as a virtuous human being.
Not understanding this point is the KEY REASON why people don’t come to Christ. There is no such thing as a good or virtuous person. Like I said, I think I may start a topic on this at some point to make my case that this is true.
Polycarp!!! Great to see ya again.
::cough::
[Exo 24:9-10 NRSV] Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet here was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.
[Gen 26:2 NRSV] The LORD appeared to Isaac and said…
[Gen 32:30 NRSV] So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
[Amos 9:1 NRSV] I saw the LORD standing beside the altar…
Neither is it merciful to punish an innocent for the crimes of another. Say you kill someone and the judge says, “Hm, you killed someone, but I love you and I’m merciful, so I’m going to kill Gaudere, who hasn’t killed anyone, instead.” Wow, how merciful and just. Sorry, I just don’t buy it.
I don’t think the introduction of “Holiness” helps us much here. I ask why an all-powerful God cannot have chosen anything besides a cruel innocent sacrifice to wash away sins, and you say it is because He is Holy–you may as well have said God requires an innocent sacrifice becuase He is Glurft. If Holiness means that God cannot be in the presence of sin, fine, I can maybe see that; holiness is the opposite of sin, maybe they cancel each other out like matter and anti-matter (it doesn’t explain how they can coexist, but anyhow). But if you say “the reason God cannot allow sin in his presence unless an innocent dies is becuase He is Holy”, it sounds an awful lot like you’re making “Holiness” into a term that could cover anything. If you met someone who worshipped a God that commanded them to paint themselves blue to free themselves of sin, and they explained it by saying that God required this because He was perfectly Glurft, I don’t think you’d accept the argument. “Loving” I have a defintion for; “mercifcul” I have a definition for; “just” I have a defintion for. Let’s look at the defintion of holy:
1 : exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness
2 : DIVINE
3 : devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity
4 a : having a divine quality b : venerated as or as if sacred
Now, where in there does it even hint that holiness means that innocent blood in required to allow sin into its presence? I’m sorry, but the shedding of innocent blood to cover another person’s sins seems neither holy, nor loving, not just.
If you want, you can skip my first question about why we need innocent sacrifice and move on to why a belief in the sacrifice is required by God. But I suspect it will come down to “because God is Holy”. He will die to fulfill the obligations He Himself created, He will require a belief that He did so (even though He says He wants everyone in heaven), He will neglect to announce this clearly and fully every day, although the consequences of not doing so are eternal torture for those who disbelieve, He will punish innocents for the crimes of another, He will punish eternally even for the smallest sin—because He is Holy. Do you think I should believe that Holiness can remove the illogic? Would you believe in a God that someone said was perfectly loving and just, yet apparently acted imperfectly loving and just, if someone said it was OK for Him to do this because he was holy/divine/glurft? Isn’t this simply the “God is mysterious and we don’t know why He does stuff but we trust that it’s all right even though it doesn’t make sense” argument?
Here, let’s try an experiment: “I love you so much, I’m going to give you 30 bucks so you can buy a tank of gas and go visit your mom.” Does this sentence mean there is no other way to visit your mom besides using the money to buy a tank of gas? You could take a train, hitchhike, etc. If you switch it around, you get “I love you so much, I’m going to give you 30 bucks, but if you don’t buy a tank of gas you can’t go visit your mom.” The switch doesn’t work; the first sentance gives you one way to get there, but it doesn’t say it’s the only way, just that this one way will work. Now, there’s J.C.'s “no one comes to the father except through me,” but that doesn’t neccesarily mean that those who don’t know Him as Jesus won’t get in; it might mean that even if people worship another God they’re really worshipping Jesus (insulting though that is to those of other faiths) and are using Him to get to God. After all, if people need to worship Jesus to get to God, everyone before He was born is pretty SOL.
Gaudere wrote:
DO NOT QUESTION GOD’S PERFECT GLURFTNESS!!
Well, that’s what I get for being lazy and not looking up scriptures for what I’m saying! Good catch, Gaudere.
The main passage I was basing my statement on was this one, from Exodus 33:18-23 (I won’t quote every word):
“Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence … but,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. . . . . . When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by . . . then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’”
So what we have here is one of those seeming biblical contradictions that everyone on this board lo-o-o-oves to point out!! Since I’ve never studied this one before I don’t have a thorough answer for it … but I do have a few interesting thoughts:
- In all but one of the passages you quoted, the individuals saw the Lord, but it doesn’t say they saw His face. Maybe there’s a distinction of some sort.
- In Jacob’s case, perhaps (or perhaps not) it was more a symbolic thing. The man he was wrestling with may have been an angel, or may have been an O.T. incarnation of Jesus. This is a weird and interesting O.T. story but my point is, when he says he had “seen God face to face” he clearly meant the man he wrestled with. The question is, who was that man. Not trying to “spiritualize” it away, just asking honest questions of the Bible here (which, by the way, is a healthy thing to do! :D)
- Notice in the passage above that Moses asks God to show His GLORY. Perhaps His face can only not be seen when in this state. The “glory” is kind of what I meant by the nucleur illustration.
So those are some thoughts but I don’t have any real solid answers. It’d make a great Bible study though!
On to the main points of our discussion. You said:
“Neither is it merciful to punish an innocent for the crimes of another.”
You used the illustration of a judge saying he would kill you for someone else’s crime. I’m glad you said this, because it drove home for me what I’m not making clear.
Your illustration doesn’t work for two reasons. First, remember that Christ VOLUNTEERED HIMSELF as a sacrifice. He stood up and said to God, “I’LL take their place. Let me receive the punishment for them.” God didn’t force it on Jesus. Jesus OFFERED to sacrifice His life for us.
Second, the mercy is not toward the innocent one, it’s toward the billions of people that will be able to be saved becuase of the brave sacrifice of the innocent one.
So then you might ask, “what about the poor innocent one?” Well, remember that Jesus IS God. Yes God and Jesus are distinct parts of the Trinity, but they are also ONE. So in one sense, God is offering HIMSELF. The only one who could get God out of this dilemma was … God! I know that raises the whole “how the heck does the Trinity work” issue, but see my earlier post for my thoughts on that.
Now, you also asked (in essence) if I was saying “the reason God cannot allow sin in his presence unless an innocent dies is becuase He is Holy”.
I’m going to admit to you Gaudere that I read that statement over and over, KNOWING deep inside that something wasn’t right about it but not quite able to put my finger on it. Finally I did was Christians like myself are always too slow to do - I asked God to show it to me (and I coulda saved myself several minutes if I’d asked earlier!!) A few minutes later I saw it plain as day: “UNLESS an innocent dies”. That’s the fatal flaw in the sentence.
God cannot allow sin into his presence PERIOD. No exceptions or excuses! THIS statement is correct: “The reason God cannot allow sin in His presence is because He is Holy”. You acknowledged that if God is holy than He can’t be in the presence of sin, which is the same thing as the previous sentence. A further explanatory sentence would be “When sin comes into God’s presence, it is consumed.” Therefore, since all of us sin, WE can’t come into God’s presence.
Since God has provided the blood of Jesus, the Bible says that NOW I can walk BOLDLY into God’s presence! God is not allowing sin into His presence when He lets me in, because I’m COVERED by the blood of Jesus.
Gaudere, I’m going to apologize and stop here. Believe it or not I started this post about 1 1/2 hours ago, then got into a long phone conversation with my brother, and now it’s time for bed. So I’ll have to discuss your other points later this week, but don’t worry I’m not going anywhere!
FriendofGod:
God’s perfect love, perfect justice, and perfect holiness still do not explain why He doesn’t spell out his message in a less ambiguous fashion. Why doesn’t He just put on a nightly light-show spelling out the words “Believe Jesus died for your sins and you’ll go to heaven, otherwise you’ll burn to a crisp” in 20-foot high letters of fire or something? Most “unsaved” people do not “know in their hearts that the Gospels are true but reject them anyway”; they simply reject the Gospels for lack of evidence.