A question for theists-how do you reconcile these two statements?
“God loves us and wants what is best for us.”
“We cannot know the mind of God.”
A question for theists-how do you reconcile these two statements?
“God loves us and wants what is best for us.”
“We cannot know the mind of God.”
You can know so much of the “mind” of God in that it includes the portion of a Venn diagram that would be loves us and wants what is best for us. Knowing the whole mind of God isn’t possible any more than knowing the whole mind of your parent is possible.
Define “best”. Best for us as individuals, or best for humanity as a species? Or maybe best for the universe as a whole?
I’m not personally privy to God’s view of best. I am relating that it has been described to me as similar to a parent’s desire for the best for their children. It doesn’t help to understand how it is explained to the flock by using rigorous logic. If people want to do that, Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica systematically went through those kinds of questions. I believe that they are the basis of Catholic understanding of these questions after seven centuries. On this particular question the Protestant understanding is going to be similarly based on the same sort of thinking.
Can you describe what you believe needs to be reconciled?
Regards,
Shodan
I reconcile them with the knowledge that the second statement is not found in the bible.
And to the extent we don’t know “God’s mind”, it is both relative and requires context.
If you’re talking about Christians, the Bible specifically mentions that God loves us. John 3:16 and all that jazz. There’s also various covenants in the Bible. God makes a covenant with Adam, he makes another one with Abraham, and he makes one with Noah. In each case God spells out some conditions of that covenant. So knowing what God expects out of us isn’t really a problem.
The part about not knowing the mind of God is really about accepting that we cannot know why things happen. I’ll point to my favorite old testament book, Job. It explains that we can’t really understand why bad things happen to good people. It also warns against those who assume they understand why God allows something to happen.
So, in short, you can know what God expects out of you and that he loves you but you might not know why he wants you to do some things.
Odesio <----Atheist (I always feel the need to put that disclaimer in there for some reason.)
Not in those exact words but it’s pretty well spelled out in the Book of Job.
Not even close.
1st Corinthians 2:16
Here is the complete chapters of 1 Corinthians 2 & 3 so we can see your link in its complete context.
Please give us your thoughts and then we can see what this really says in its complete context.
It’d be nice if you explained yourself. Saying “not even close” isn’t exactly conducive to good conversation nor is it a particularly valid point.
on the way
What these threads lack is context. Using Job as an example, the book establishes 2 primary themes, and at least one minor theme, but none of them establishes the theme “We can’t know God.”
The first main theme is posed as a challenge by Satan and can be rephrased as a question[s] “Why do people serve God”; or “Do people serve God purely out of self interest”, or "In the absence of God’s blessings, will people still serve God?"
That challenge is the backdrop of the book of Job (Job 1:5-2:13)
So God accepts the challenge and Job’s trials begin. During his trials he is confronted by 3 friends, who seeing his trials determine that Job is somehow to blame for his plight. Thus begins a series of 3 long debates as to the reason for Job’s trials. (Job chapters 3-25)
Job gives his “final argument” before the jury in chapter 26. Along the way, a 4th person has been silently listening, Elihu steps in and [wisely] counsels Job that he has lost sight of the bigger issue; Job has become more concerned with his own vindication and lost sight of God. He also counsels Job’s 3 so called friends. **(Job chapters 32-37)
**
In chapter 38 God steps in and calls Job to task for the same things Elihu had been counseling Job over, and the answer that Elihu and God give Job as to the questions asked in the first main theme establishes the second main theme, which is "God’s righteousness."
This was never about Job. Job was a valid role model for Satan’s challenge, but any God fearing servant could have served as the purpose. However, Job was an exemplary model though, enough that he caught Satan’s special attention.
Job had to be reminded that the issue was larger than him, that while his sufferings were real, Satan was challenging God’s legitimacy not Job’s righteousness.
To accomplish this, Job had to be shown his own insignificance in the larger context. No where in the exchange that begins in Chapter 38 does God indicate that “Job can’t know God”, and in fact in all the examples he gives Job he gives examples of his creative works, and his power.
***Contextually, *** Job is shown to “not know the mind of God” because Job had contextually placed the **vindication of his own reputation/integrity ** as a primary issue in his trials. (which in fairness to Job, his 3 friends in Chapters 3-25 had relentlessly challenged)
But Satan challenged, not Job (and his reputation) but God. Job had gotten (understandably) self-righteous and his “dressing down” put him and his trials in their proper context.
(A secondary theme of the book of Job is understanding the nature of human suffering, and that theme is driven by the 2 themes that open, and close, the book of Job)
Theres an old saw*" When I was 18 my father didn’t know a darn thing. When I was 28 and had a child of my own, my father knew everything. Imagine how much he learned in 10 short years!"*
Most young men—at some point—get too big for their britches. It’s not uncommon for a loving father to humble them----to take them down a notch or two.
That lesson may involve showing them how much they don’t know; to put their life and knowledge in a context that shows them their insignificance-----and how much more they need to learn.
But showing them what they don’t know, doesn’t invalidate what they do know. A loving father isn’t sending the message “You don’t know me”, or “You don’t know anything”, but rather it is putting the relationship it’s proper and healthy context.
And so goes the book of Job. The exchange that took place in Chapter 38 and going forward only took place because Job found himself in a position/context that required that Job be taught----to be humbled.
That didn’t invalidate the things Job did know about God, nor did it invalidate Job’s perceived relationship with God.
A final thought…
“Knowing God” requires both relativity, and context.
My son can reasonably say he “knows me.”
But there are contexts-----things/events/feelings/relationships in my life etc------that he doesn’t know. (and might be inappropriate for him to know) And so in some contexts it might be true that he “doesn’t know me.”
Both the statements “he knows me” and “he doesn’t know me” are not contradictory when there is the simple recognition that these are, by necessity, relative, and in any given context either statement may be true.
GraphJam needs this!
I do not reconcile it. It’s your dichotomy, not mine.
To be a bit more helpful, one might first consider if Love is an intellectual act, or perhaps something other than the act of God’s mind.
Or, to be a bit more ordinary, my infant child cannot apprehend any motivation behind my actions at all. In fact, cannot quite understand that I am not part of himself. Yet love exists.
There are aspects of the universe which are not within the bounds of intellect.
Tris
To me it looks more like Satan was challenging the general righteousness of man, rather than Job in particular. That Job was an example standing in for mankind in general, the question being, as you say, why exactly do people serve God? If that answer had been that Job (and man, in general) actually only serve God in order to gain blessings and good things with no interest in higher ideals, that doesn’t say anything about the legitimacy of God, only the legitimacy of man’s servitude.
Should we then not assign the attribute of love or loving to God? If it exists as something other than the act of God’s mind, how do we link the two?
This attitude has always disturbed me. It says, “You do not understand this, you can not understand this, you will never understand this. Quit.” IMHO, mysteries are for solving, not embracing.