As I understand it, that’s supposed to be the whole point. It’s a test in the meaning that it requires an answer, and the answer generally seems to be why and how far a person is willing to serve God. Do people just pay lip service because they think they’ll succeed more in life? Because they just want to get into heaven? Because following God is, for them, not particular arduous and they feel they might as well? By removing some of those secondary benefits, the test is whether a person will still do what they do because they have a better motivation than those.
That’s the difference, as far as i’m able to tell. Satan provides good thing to get you to take them; God takes away good things to discover whether you’re only in it for the goodies.
So how come there are unbelievers in the world? If he knows all outcomes and can change the rules, why does he let people fail?
Also, remember he put the apple in the orchard. He knew that Adam and Eve would fall and let them. He punishes us all for this choice. It isn’t Satan who does it.
Did God create Satan? Then if he did he created him in such a way that he would fall, too. According to you, God knows all outcomes and didn’t act to stop Satan from doing whatever he did that was wrong, or change the rules such that he didn’t fall.
If a beautiful woman is offering herself to me, is God testing my faithfulness to my wife? Is Satan tempting me with lust? Aren’t they one and the same? How can God test without Satan tempting?
The answer, of course, is:
In what for the goodies? Isn’t the point to get to heaven for the ultimate ‘goody’? What are the rules to achieve the grand prize? You can pick up any number of ‘holy’ books and all you find in them are holes. No help there. You can listen to the crazy people rant and rave about what to do, but they are just as full of holes. Most of them pull their beliefs out of a combination of new age myths, old age myths, and their imagination* (*code for ‘ass’). So, what is a good unbeliever to do?
Sometimes it’s to do good for the sake of doing good, sometimes it’s to do good because that’s what God wants you to do - those at least seem to be the more common ones to me, but there’s plenty more.
I honestly have no idea what you’re saying here, if it’s beyond “Religion is all nonsense”.
It is the fruit (or outcome) of the knowledge of good and evil, as in fruit of the spirit, or even fruit of the loom. It is the result of us stepping outside the will of God, the consequences we bear ourselves.
God knew exactly what Satan would do with us, eventually mating with us and creating nephilum, very possibly a redeemable race, which, if true, God could use to reach fallen angels, as even those who are evil can do good for their children. (note: God didn’t flood the world due to the nephilum, but the wickedness of man -Gen 6:5, also note that the nephilum also exist after the flood - Gen 6:4).
God will change the rules for the believer/follower, Satan, though he believes he does not follow. God would need a free will decision of Satan to follow for God to change the rules for him.
There is, or never was, any human who knows God’s rules, wishes or will;one can only take the word of another human, and that human can be wrong. It just goes to what any human chooses to belive,or what human they believe…that is a fact
One of the main issues is that God exists outside of time (or so I was taught when I was in church), so all those Sci-Fi problems that make time travel so confusing have to be transposed onto the Bible, specifically God.
As such we have to model the universe, if there’s an infinite universe structure one could say God knows all possible timestreams and therefore temptation/testing (and following that, a distinction) is moot because while it may be a test in this universe there’s a similar temptation in another universe, something entirely different in a universe, and a quiet day at home with a purple cat in another.
If there’s a single time stream God knows what will happen, but then the question is: is it immutable or not? Maybe something bad WILL happen at t = 100 given the current state of affairs so he drops a test for someone and t = 97 and see if that changes it for the better. Perhaps temptations are also necessary for the best of all possible outcomes. I think it’s possible (well, in a “for the sake of theory I’ll pretend this is real” sort of way) that temptation/testing is effectively “debugging” and equally important (and God initiated) in the grand scheme. Though a temptation may have bad outcomes on the individual level it may have repercussions on a grander scheme, maybe if you didn’t fall into drugs and booze you’d become Hitler 2.0 and end up WINNING.
The main question, then, is why does bad stuff even exist? I don’t know, maybe we’re a relic, our universe was never “unloaded” from the heavenly timestream, maybe in Heaven Universal Time this particular universe has only existed for 5 minutes. Maybe the answer is the best of all possible world is out world, because some bad has to happen for the greater good, the “kill one, save a thousand” line of reasoning. If we postulate some modicum of free will exists, you could put it down to every time God hits the “restart universe” button you may make a different choice screwing everything up. The main problem with this theory is that it assumes a fallible God, and one who is only Omniscient in a bounded limit (the current timestream), perhaps he is infinitely wise, but the temptations/tests are the most wise thing at that time given the current state of affairs.
I suppose you could also say Satan is a bug or virus, going around screwing stuff up that God has to fix, but does Satan also exist outside of time? Can he go back and undo God’s work in the past or is he just reactive? I personally think (again, in a “if we postulate any of this is true” sort of manner) the tests and temptations are really the same concept, one just involves a bad action (on a personal level) and one involves a good one and God executes both.
Satan tempts us trying to draw us away from our devotion to God. If someone gives into that temptation God isn’t pleased with that person.
God tests our faith and devotion to Him by allowing Satan to tempt us. If the individual resists that temptation, they have passed God’s test and God is pleased with the person.
So, some guy allows you to be kicked in the nuts,… Scratch that. Some guy arranges for you to be kicked in the nuts, and because of that he expects your devotion. I guess if it is a choice between the nut kicker and the nut kicker’s boss, you’re likely to choose the boss. Seems kind of like a shakedown. You sure this god you worship isn’t actually the ‘Godfather’?
That doesn’t make sense, a 10 year old once asked me why Satan was smarter than God, he said" Satan makes evil look good, why can’t God make good look better" Why would a good father let a monster he created let the monster devour his children? Why should we need to make a choice?
The humans that came up with that explaination were playing games or God was!
In a sense you are saying that Your will is God’s will. There is no way of proving God’s will and that is a fact. It may be your belif but you are basing it on what you want it to be, or your faith tells you it is.
God seems to will others to do things differently than you.
No, not playing games. It’s just that the convoluted satanic temptation and/or god “testing” us is the only way to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent, omniloving god with the inherent and deep unfairness of existence. “Why does God let bad things happen ? Sweety, he’s testing us.”
It’s quite schizophrenic and wholy unsatisfying an answer, but still less of a cop-out than the “works in mysterious ways” crap.
The answer, of course, depends on the outcome. If you resist the temptation, then it was a test from God. If you succumb, it was temptation from Satan.
Also, if you resist, you will generally claim to have gotten the strength to resist from God.
God: “Hey, check out the gazongas on that bimbo!” You: “Wow, she’s totally hot. Think I should do her?” God: “What do you think?” You: “Will you be displeased?” God: “Yes.” You: “Will I burn in hell?” God: “Yes.” You: “Then I shan’t bonk her insensible!” God: “You have passed my test.” You: “Only through your love, O Lord.”
