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x-strongarm-x
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 6

Posted 5/9/2003 10:20 AM (GMT -6)

Why is it that sometimes it seems as if God doesn't care? One of the things I haven't been able to understand is why, if God really cares, He makes it so hard to believe in Him? One of my really good friends had a close teacher. The teacher killed himself. Another one of my really good friends got murdered. One of my grandfathers died of cancer. The other had polio, and fell out of his boat and drowned. Why doesn't God stop these things? It isn't fair to the people, nor is it fair to me. I try to believe and draw myself closer to Him, but it seems like every time I do, He backstabs me. Does He not care that I hold these people close? Does he not hear their cries? I've heard people say that we have a free will. But I don't see how free will applies to my friend. He didn't want to get murdered. My grandfathers didn't want to die terrible deaths. Those things were beyond their control. He didn't ask to be born with polio, nor did the other ask to develop cancer. I don't understand. I can't help but feel sometimes as if God has stopped listening. My girlfriend, for instance, feels the same way. She was so close to accepting him, and her teacher friend dies. Her dad develops cancer. Her mom nearly dies in a car accident.

I guess what I'm gettin to is this: Where is God when all this goes on? Why doesn't He do something to at least try to stop it all? You'd figure that if He really wanted us to believe in Him, He'd do a little bit more.

I hope you guys could help.

Andrew

trosie
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 550

Posted 5/9/2003 12:34 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
I guess what I'm gettin to is this: Where is God when all this goes on? Why doesn't He do something to at least try to stop it all? You'd figure that if He really wanted us to believe in Him, He'd do a little bit more.

Andrew, I love your questions and your openness to seeking. I am SO sorry for how hard things have been for you and your friend. I will be praying for you.

I'd like to comment on your questions and offer how I've been able to settle some of these questions. First, we don't see the whole picture. For instance we can tend to see life here on earth as being the end in and of itself and to that end try to preserve it BUT death is a natural part of living. In all reality this life is nothing compared to eternity. Death is a new beginning. It's a passage way for our spirit.

Also, we only see in the natural realm. There is a war going on in the heavenlies for every soulthat human eye does not see but that is as real as anything we can see. The free will you referred to does impose problems (as in the case of murder) which God GRIEVES over. God hates sin and the hurt and pain that results from it. God cries with us.

I have wondered why God makes it so hard to believe too. Why can't we just see all the answers and be able to see God so we can believe? Yet even when Adam and Eve could converse with God they disobeyed and didn't believe what he had said. Why? Because the serpent told them God was a liar.... I don't know if seeing is the problem. Think of the many people who witnessed the wonders and miracles that Jesus performed and yet still crucified him. I think that seeing isn't what is missing. I think that faith is a gift that we CAN receive from God if we ask and are open to believing beyond our own understanding. Some things will never be understandable to the human mind.

I hope this helps.
trosie

borg
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324

Posted 5/9/2003 2:35 PM (GMT -6)

Hey Andrew, it was good to hear something like that from your heart. I appreciate it, and I trust that God will work in you to accomplish good.
As far as what you are talking about, I really sense that you're asking about the problem of pain, and the reasons for it. Coming from a different angle than trosie, i hope to share in part my opinion of the problem of suffering.
Open Theists would say that the reason pain exists in the world, is because we have the freewill to choose good or evil. at times, free moral agents can even thwart God's plan and seem to get the upper hand, e.g. a murderer. This is what the Open View calls gratitious evil, evil that happens for no reason.
from a personal standpoint, i do not believe in evil without a cause. I believe that God is in ultimate control of this universe and doing things to accomplish His end. I take comfort in the fact that if i feel pain, i know that it is God's working to bring about a greater good. whether that be to save a lost soul, to glorify His name, to show His power and might in His sovereignty, whatever the cause, God is all about working things out for the good of thse who sereve Him. I take comfort in the fact that God won't push me beyond what i can handle, and than when evil does arise, when suffering comes my way, He has me in mind, to acheive some sort of sanctification for His glory.
this week i attended a funeral of a church family, whom i grew up with, and their 22 year old son died of a massive heart attack. They didn't know he had heart problems, he just went to bed a week ago and never woke up. At the funeral his father stood up and praised God through his son's death. He said that God didn't do this to "hurt their family" or the like. He said that if in some way his son's death brought about reconciliation to friends, family, neighbors, or whether or not someone chose to accept Christ, than as "painful" as his death was, it was worth it. This 22 year old guy, had just a week previously rededicated his life to God and the nite before he died, he told his mom that he wanted to serve God with all his life, and that is exactly what he did.
i agree with trosie in that we don't see the bigger picture. we cannot, because we are sin-fallen fallible, unknowing beings, but we have to trust in the word of God that He does all He plans, and brings to ruin the powers of this world, and that He works out everything for the good of those who serve Him. It's tough, but by believing in the Word of God, we can stand, we can find peace.

Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to theground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall i return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (Job 1:20-22)
grace and peace to you,
borg

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 5/9/2003 3:04 PM (GMT -6)

Good message, Borg!

honorman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 5/10/2003 2:05 AM (GMT -6)

Andrew: tough questions. Two years ago my niece died of cancer leaving her husband with two small children. It just seemed senseless. Still does. Still seems as if God doesn't care a whole lot.
From my own viewpoint, theology has practical benefits in the overall life, but in such moments I cling to a simple trust in God loving me. Without trying to get into a theological debate, even if I believed God had an overall plan in every evil, I would take no comfort in knowing God planned to have my niece die, planned that her children would be motherless, planned that my sister would lose her only child, planned that she would suffer great pain, all for some greater "glory." I have a hard enough time living each day without believing somehow that God was "against me" for some greater glory.
What we do know from scripture is that God suffers with us and sent his son Jesus bring us closer to God. But the world is not there yet and evil is still close.
I would suggest reading Phillip Yancey's three books, Where is God When It Hurts, Disappointment with God and Reaching For The Invisible God. Sometimes it seems as if God doesn't care? You got that right my man...

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 5/10/2003 3:30 AM (GMT -6)

From James Chapter 1

I need wisdom and patient endurance, when and not if, I fall into trials. Wisdom will regard every trial as inevitable and hopes to produce patience, which is an active endurance, such as the quality needed to endure through a long race, not a passive waiting. I picture the patience of being under a heavy load and resolutely staying there instead of trying to escape; to have such a virtue, would be my joy.

My faith in God is rightly tested through each trial, though my faith is not produced by the trial; every trial reveals the faith I have, not because God doesn't know my faith, but to make my faith evident to myself - and to others around me. It is easy to talk about my faith in God when things are easy, but my true faith is shown in the midst of trial.

When trials come my way, patience is not always the an inevitable result; I often receive difficulties in unbelief and grumbling, which is the source of great bitterness and discouragement; this is why James implores me to count it all joy.

James is not asking me to enjoy trials . . . He did not say that I must feel it all joy, or that trials are all joy.

James is saying, "God wants to be my first resource when faced with trials, not my last resort".

The work of patient endurance comes slowly, and must be allowed to have full bloom through trials; such virtue is a mark of the person who is perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Seeking to receive wisdom from God through trials is necessary; does God want me to eliminate the trial by faith or to persevere through the trial by faith. To receive wisdom, I simply ask of God - who gives wisdom generously, without despising my request. My request for wisdom must be made – in faith, without doubting God's ability or desire to grant me His wisdom.

Wisdom without reproach: "This is added, lest any one should fear to come too often to God. . . for he is ready ever to add new blessings to former ones, without any end or limitation." (John Calvin); do I serve the god of the clenched fist or the God of the open hand?

The one lacking faith should not expect that they will receive anything from God; and this lack of faith and trust in God also makes (or reveals) one as having no foundation, unstable in all his ways. The man who came to Jesus and said Lord, I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24) was not double minded; he desired to believe, and asserted his belief, but in feeling the inadequacy of his faith, asked for help with his faith.

There is encouragement…

exborg
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 9

Posted 5/10/2003 3:35 AM (GMT -6)

Hi borg. Nice name. I’m exborg. And hello to Andrew too. Sorry to hear about what you’re going through.

I’ve been hanging out here for a while but only just recently got up the coureage to say anything. I have been studying open theism for a while now and I guess you could say I’ve accepted it, but I still have questions too.

quote:
borg: …at times, free moral agents can even thwart God's plan and seem to get the upper hand, e.g. a murderer. This is what the Open View calls gratitious evil, evil that happens for no reason.

What about the family of the murdered individual? Are they supposed to believe that God’s will was NOT thwarted?

quote:
borg: …from a personal standpoint, i do not believe in evil without a cause.

As an open theist, neither do I. As I understand it, gratuitous evil does have a cause. It’s just not God.

quote:
borg: I believe that God is in ultimate control of this universe and doing things to accomplish His end. I take comfort in the fact that if i feel pain, i know that it is God's working to bring about a greater good. whether that be to save a lost soul…

Do you also take comfort in the fact that when your sin causes pain to another person, God determined this for a greater good, even when that greater good is to damn a soul?

quote:
borg: I take comfort in the fact that God won't push me beyond what i can handle, and than when evil does arise, when suffering comes my way, He has me in mind, to acheive some sort of sanctification for His glory.

If God predetermines your entire life and controls all things, then the question of your being pushed “beyond what you can handle” doesn’t really arise does it? God gives you what he’s designed you for. No more or less. This is nice if you’re on the sanctified end of things. What about those who aren’t sanctified? Does their not being sanctified glorify God?

quote:
borg: He said that if in some way his son's death brought about reconciliation to friends, family, neighbors, or whether or not someone chose to accept Christ, than as "painful" as his death was, it was worth it.

I guess what I’m wondering is, is God so weak that he can’t bring good out of crap when it happens without determining the crap? Do we have to believe God predetermines crap before we can believe God can bring good out of it when it happens?

Andrew-

I’m really sorry about your circumstances. One reason I gave up on the deterministic worldview was because I couldn’t believe God determined all the evil in the world, like stuff you talk about, and still tell people like you that I was “sorry” to hear about it.

Can I ask you, what makes believing in God so “hard” for you? Is it just the existence of evil?

One thing I take comfort in when I suffer the lose of a loved one (and I have), is this: Whatever my pain and suffering is, it’s just a poor reflection of God’s pain. Have you been stabbed in the back? This should bring you closer to God, not distance you, for now you have a point of reference for understanding (although only in a tiny way) what God felt on our behalf when his world stabbed him in the back (and hands and feet). Use your suffering to identify with God. That’s a choice you CAN make.

I think Dr. Boyd often points out that though we don’t see the big picture and never have all our questions answered about why in some particular instance our friends or loved-ones are not spared, we are still right to believe that the Cross of Jesus removes any doubt we might have about what God's involvement was. Get mad at Satan. Get mad at evil. Get mad at fallen angels who have turned their freedom into a tool to mare and destroy God’s good creation. But let God hanging on the cross define what kind of God we serve.

exborg

Edited by - exborg on 05/10/2003 08:38:13 AM

borg
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324

Posted 5/10/2003 8:50 AM (GMT -6)

exborg, thank you for your response. i tossed around the idea of whether or not this was an appropriate thread to debate on, but your questions rhadamanthusly an answer.

exborg: What about the family of the murdered individual? Are they supposed to believe that God’s will was NOT thwarted?

borg: Would you take comfort in the fact that God didn't see this coming until perhaps a couple of seconds before it happened, and yet didn't intervene and "forefeited" His pawn to hopefully acheive some larger end? Is it comforting to know that God is needing to constantly change His immediate goals and processin the way He deals with "free moral agents" because His will is constantly being thwarted? Or is there more comfot in knowing that all things come from the hand of the Father, all things are for the good of those who serve Him, and that He will never leave His will at the mercy of some sin-fallen corruptable, fallible, unknowing, weakling, like a humanbeing? God is at the mercy of NO one, and in this I take comfort. So yes.

exborg: As an open theist, neither do I. As I understand it, gratuitous evil does have a cause. It’s just not God.

borg: How could something not be from God? God is the sustainer of this life, and eveything in it. In eesence, evil does come from Him, because He created ALL things under heaven and earth. once again i ask whether or not it is comforting to think that there are other wills with a vast amount of power, if even they can thwart God, working against God? Or do we delight in the fact that He is soverreign and NOTHING happens without Him already decreeing the "end from the beginning"?

exborg: Do you also take comfort in the fact that when your sin causes pain to another person, God determined this for a greater good, even when that greater good is to damn a soul?

borg: "For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have comapassion.' So then it is NOT of him who wills, not of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.' Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will? But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?' Does not the potter have poser over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?"
Pharoah's sin caused much pain in the land of Israel, YET Gos is the one who hardened his heart so that he would not listen to Moses. When Pharoah learned that this was the purpose he was raised up for, he still said, "You are a Righteous God."

exborg: If God predetermines your entire life and controls all things, then the question of your being pushed “beyond what you can handle” doesn’t really arise does it? God gives you what he’s designed you for. No more or less. This is nice if you’re on the sanctified end of things. What about those who aren’t sanctified? Does their not being sanctified glorify God?

borg: 1 Cor. 10:13. I would say yes that even those who aren't sanctified bring glory to God, and not just glory, but the greatest amount of glory. Romans 9 goes on to say that God, perhaps, endures with "longsuffering" the objects of His wrath, in order that His glory might be shown among the objects of His mercy. if you look at the 10 plaques sent by God through Moses, it is God who hardens Pharoah's heart, He declares it before Moses even goes back to Egypt in Exodus 3 or 4. And why did God harden Pharoah's heart? first of all, i do not think it is our place to question God like this, but we are to assume, or more, we read, that this is because God wanted His chosen people to see His power and might. Why things work out like this, i do not know, but "who are we to speak back to God?" Malachi 1 may be of some help also.

exborg: I guess what I’m wondering is, is God so weak that he can’t bring good out of crap when it happens without determining the crap? Do we have to believe God predetermines crap before we can believe God can bring good out of it when it happens?

borg: "is God so weak..." Heavens no, we serve the most powerful being, if one can consider Him a being, in the entire universe! There is no weakness in God. let me ask you is God so weak in that His will is subject to the contingency of man and whether or not us as fallible human beings go along with His purpose? Is God so weak that He has to politley knock on the door of our hearts hoping, but not for sure knowing if we're going to open up? some say this is God being vulnerable in that in order to have a loving relationship both need to be vulnerable, but i see nowhere in the Bible where God seems to make Himself at the mercy of man's plans and man's undetermined will. some say this isn't a weakness, i say it is. if something is elevated above God's will, e.g. man's will, than God is not supreme, if time is above God, than God cannot be all sovereign. the God i serve isn't weak, the God i serve isn't a God who hopes that people will come to Him. When Christ poured Himself out on the cross, He didn't just hope that a church would be formed, Christ's death was the end of death as we know it. His death, His blood, bought me from a life of sin and from the moment He died for me, I had no choice but to accept the FACT that i am a child of God saved by grace alone. Christ did not merely die hoping that people would come to repentance, He died knowing full well who the regenerate were, and this PLEASED God to give up His one and only Son. I see a God of strength who has promised that His will will stand and that nothing can hinder it, especially some weak, fallbile, finite, humanbeing as myself. The question of God's weakness as far as i see doesn't stem from the Reformed/Calvinist view, i see God more weak and at the mercy of humans in the Open View.

I hope this helps exborg, very good questions. i would enjoy hearing from you again. by the way, nice name. is your last name borg? kind of a random question, but i was just curious.
grace and peace,
borg

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/10/2003 10:25 AM (GMT -6)

How fitting. "borg" (as in Star Trek) is arguing for the mechanistic / deterministic worldview and "ex-borg" (or reformed borg) is arguing for the dynamic / free-will worldview. Was that a conscious choice of pseudonyms?

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

x-strongarm-x
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 6

Posted 5/10/2003 10:37 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Can I ask you, what makes believing in God so “hard” for you? Is it just the existence of evil?

It's not so much difficult to believe in God's existence. I mean, I just look around at His creation, and I'm compelled to believe. But believing that He actually cares. That's what's hard. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love is murdered. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love dies of cancer, or drowns in a lake to be found half eaten by crabs a week later. It's hard to know that He cares when someone you love goes through such hellish trials. That is what is hard. I believe in God. It's just difficult to believe that He is everything people (and the Bible) make Him out to be, especially when so many things seem to stand contrary to that.

Thank you all for the replies. They're much appreciated.

Andrew

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/10/2003 10:49 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

quote:
Can I ask you, what makes believing in God so “hard” for you? Is it just the existence of evil?

It's not so much difficult to believe in God's existence. I mean, I just look around at His creation, and I'm compelled to believe. But believing that He actually cares. That's what's hard. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love is murdered. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love dies of cancer, or drowns in a lake to be found half eaten by crabs a week later. It's hard to know that He cares when someone you love goes through such hellish trials. That is what is hard. I believe in God. It's just difficult to believe that He is everything people (and the Bible) make Him out to be, especially when so many things seem to stand contrary to that.

Thank you all for the replies. They're much appreciated.

Andrew

I agree that the belief in a personal God that cares does require an important leap of faith. There is so much, seemingly, contradictory evidence.

When people who have suffered much enter my life and share their stories with me, the last thing I do is give them a theology lesson. I try to take a page from Brennan Manning and just exhibit God's love to them.

When I was a freshman in College, I went to Ecuador for three weeks over January term. We were studying the Business and Economy of Ecuador. It was what hooked me into studying Economics. In Ecuador, they have the most gruesome, emotionally-evocative Crucifix Statues of Jesus in the world. Apparently, the natives, who were suffering much under the oppression of the Europeans, used Jesus as a symbol for their own suffering. I am still a Christian, in part, because of the notion that God would choose to suffer and to identify with those who suffer. It is that gruesome Jesus on the Cross, who did not suffer in vain, that I worship.

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

exborg
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 9

Posted 5/10/2003 11:44 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks borg for your comments. I want to be sensitive to Andrew’s original post and not debate unrelated stuff, but it seemed that he was asking pointed questions and was bound to get conflicting answer. It’s only in the interest of giving Andrew things to think through in his (and our!) search for answers.

quote:
borg: Would you take comfort in the fact that God didn't see this coming until perhaps a couple of seconds before it happened…

Not if that was what open theists believed. Is that what open theists believe? I don’t think it is. “Didn’t see it coming” means “unaware that it was possible” and implies being “unprepared,” usually be fault or reason of ignorance. Don’t Dr. Boyd and others talk about God’s infinite intelligence meaning he eternally knew all the possible ways things might turn out?

quote:
borg: …and yet didn't intervene…

What makes you think God doesn’t intervene to prevent murders, or doesn’t do everything he can to convince murderers not to murder? See, this is the assumption determinists seem to carry into the debate, namely, that the only way God can act at all is if he’s controlling or determining things. So if God “intervenes” (which by definition God cannot do in a world he exhaustively determines) then it’s to determine the outcome.

But why think God can only relate in this way? Why think God can’t set up the rules that define how our world runs and how God relates to it in such a way that God’s attempts to lead murders away from committing murder may be rejected by the murderers. Open theists seem to say that if God wanted a world in which people choose NOT to murder, he has to allow them the freedom of choosing TO murder.

quote:
borg: Is it comforting to know that God is needing to constantly change His immediate goals and process in the way He deals with "free moral agents" because His will is constantly being thwarted?

Actually, I do find it comforting to know that God is able to change and adjust in response to what’s going on. What’s comforting in believing God incapable of response and flexible adjustments along the way? Why would anybody think flexibility, especially on the part of a person with a character like God’s, is a weakness? Don’t we praise such flexibility as a virtue wherever we find it in persons? Why condemn it in God?

quote:
borg: Or is there more comfot in knowing that all things come from the hand of the Father, all things are for the good of those who serve Him.

But their serving him is ALSO from God’s hand. So this is circular. “We can have comfort when bad things happen to us IF we serve him.” OK. But, “whether or not we serve is as predetermined by God as the evil that happens to us.” Nothing is explained.

quote:
borg: …and that He will never leave His will at the mercy of some sin-fallen corruptable, fallible, unknowing, weakling, like a humanbeing? God is at the mercy of NO one, and in this I take comfort.

I’m just coming into this myself, borg, so maybe others who know more than I do can speak up. Any open theists out there who view libertarian free will as meaning God is “at our mercy”? I don’t think an open theist would need to concede that God is at anybody’s mercy or that God’s will is in it’s entirety at the mercy of human beings. We may say no to God’s will with respect to ourselves (as Jesus admitted the Pharisees had done in “rejecting God’s purposes” for them), but thwarting God’s purposes for the universe?

quote:
borg: How could something not be from God?

Maybe because God created us with the capacity for acting independently of his will? When we do that, when we choose in opposition to him, the effect is to bring into the world that which God did not himself create (except in the sense that he created us with the freedom to act against him) or desire. Doesn’t God say regarding false prophets in the OT that they “do not do my will, nor do they prophesy what comes from me. I have not sent them”? God wanted Israel to know that the words and messages of the false prophets were NOT from him.

quote:
borg: In essence, evil does come from Him [God].

Wow.

quote:
borg: once again i ask whether or not it is comforting to think that there are other wills with a vast amount of power, if even they can thwart God, working against God? Or do we delight in the fact that He is soverreign and NOTHING happens without Him already decreeing the "end from the beginning"?

Don’t ask me whether or not this is comforting. Ask whether or not God has decreed that I find it comforting, for whether we delight in this so-called fact or repudiate it is determined by God’s unconditional decree. At this time God hasn’t decreed that I find this “comforting.”

quote:
borg: And why did God harden Pharoah's heart? first of all, i do not think it is our place to question God like this, but we are to assume, or more, we read, that this is because God wanted His chosen people to see His power and might. Why things work out like this, i do not know, but "who are we to speak back to God?"

I don’t at all mind not speaking back to God provided I’ve heard rightly from God or, in the case of the text of the Bible, rightly heard the passage. And in the case of all the passages you quote, there are good reasons for questioning whether they in fact teach what you say they do. I’m working through these as I can, but I have to say that so far I’ve found that making sense of them does not require us to assume (or conclude) determinism.

I asked whether God is so weak that he can’t bring good out of crap when it happens without determining the crap? Do we have to believe God predetermines crap before we can believe God can bring good out of it when it happens? You answered:

quote:
borg: "is God so weak..." Heavens no, we serve the most powerful being, if one can consider Him a being, in the entire universe! There is no weakness in God.

But you didn’t answer my question. Is God great and wise enough to bring good out of evil without determining that the evil happen? Is God still great if the good he brings out of evil is a response to the evil and not because the evil was predetermined for this particular good reason?

quote:
borg: let me ask you is God so weak in that His will is subject to the contingency of man and whether or not us as fallible human beings go along with His purpose?

I’d say he would be weak if this arrangement were not freely chosen by him to begin with, if it was forced on him from without. As it is, God must have thought that he could actually get something done in the universe in spite of opposition. I guess you don’t think God’s that confident in his abilities because he has to disallow all real opposition to him by preprogramming it out ahead of time.

quote:
borg: Is God so weak that He has to politley knock on the door of our hearts hoping.

“Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears and opens…” Is politeness a divine weakness now too?

quote:
borg: i see nowhere in the Bible where God seems to make Himself at the mercy of man's plans and man's undetermined will.

I see it everywhere.

quote:
borg: …the God i serve isn't a God who hopes that people will come to Him.

Isa 5:1-4 (v. 2b and 5b) describes God as “hoping” that Israel, his vineyard, will respond to him.

quote:
borg: He died knowing full well who the regenerate were

Then what does the Bible means when it says God will remove names of people from the Book of Life? What’s it mean for God to have your name in the Book if he didn’t elect you for salvation?

Thanks borg! Sorry to fire off all my questions at you. Don’t mind me. My last name isn’t “borg” by the way. It’s even stranger!

Well, sorry Andrew if I got off your topic. Don’t know if any of this helps. May God lead you to the answers we can have and the comfort you can have too. Just one comment. You said:

quote:
It's not so much difficult to believe in God's existence. I mean, I just look around at His creation, and I'm compelled to believe. But believing that He actually cares. That's what's hard. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love is murdered. It's hard to know He cares when someone you love dies of cancer, or drowns in a lake to be found half eaten by crabs a week later. It's hard to know that He cares when someone you love goes through such hellish trials. That is what is hard.

I haven’t had that much happen to me, but I’ve been there for some of it. Again, I just want to say that believing God CARES is possible when we remember that HE was murdered. He went through the most hellish trials, and to an extent we never will. He cares because he’s taken it deeper, he’s has drunk the dregs of the cup of suffering when we have only tasted it. People who don't care don't suffer for others like that.

God bless you.

exborg

Edited by - exborg on 05/10/2003 5:26:42 PM

exborg
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 9

Posted 5/10/2003 12:33 PM (GMT -6)

DLW wrote: "When people who have suffered much enter my life and share their stories with me, the last thing I do is give them a theology lesson."

You know, this is true. And after reading my last post, I think it was insensitive of me to carry on with borg over stuff I found interesting but which was probably not what Andrew wanted to hear right now. Sorry again. If borg wants to respond, then maybe we should move it to a new thread.

May God's peace embrace you Andrew,

exborg

selah
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210

Posted 5/10/2003 1:17 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

DLW wrote: "When people who have suffered much enter my life and share their stories with me, the last thing I do is give them a theology lesson."

You know, this is true. And after reading my last post, I think it was insensitive of me to carry on with borg over stuff I found interesting but which was probably not what Andrew wanted to hear right now. Sorry again. If borg wants to respond, then maybe we should move it to a new thread.

May God's peace embrace you Andrew,

exborg

Exborg, I think your posts were appropriate. It would be one thing if Andrew was just sharing his pain. It's another thing when he is ASKING the why questions.

Andrew, bless you for asking. I'm praying for clarity and peace.
love,
selah

Then He showed me the river whose waters give life, sparkling like crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Rev. 22:1

x-strongarm-x
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 6

Posted 5/10/2003 1:47 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

Again, I just want to say that believing God CARES is possible when we remember that HE was murdered.

Hmm...I may be misunderstanding, but He cared so much that He turned His back on His Son...

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/10/2003 1:57 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

quote:

Again, I just want to say that believing God CARES is possible when we remember that HE was murdered.

Hmm...I may be misunderstanding, but He cared so much that He turned His back on His Son...

That was because Jesus took the sin of the world upon him at the Cross and that drove a rift between him and God the Father for a brief while.

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

Leila
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 93

Posted 5/10/2003 2:10 PM (GMT -6)

Hi Andrew. I’m sorry to hear about your losses and questioning your relationship with God. I can appreciate where you’re coming from. I’m new to this discussion group (and a relatively new Christian) and I find myself struggling with questions like this all the time.

I, too, don’t have a problem believing in God’s existence. I respect God, I fear God, I (try to) live a life pleasing to God, and I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about God -- but I do struggle with loving God. Yet this is the greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matt. 22:37.

I have only recently been able to admit this – even to myself – and it is something that makes me question whether I am truly a Christian at all.

In my case, it is not personal loss or tragedy that makes me question God, but endless questions and concerns that fill my head. My main concern focuses on salvation: wondering if my deceased non-Christian relatives could possibly be in heaven, and worry of my father’s non-acceptance of Christ.

Despite my questions and concerns, I have not turned my back on God and I hope you don't either. Reading has helped me a lot.
Have you read any apologetic books on the issue of reconciling an omnipotent loving God with the existence of pain and suffering? I’d suggest C.S. Lewis’, The Problem of Pain. Greg Boyd’s Letters from a Skeptic is also excellent in helping sort through this, as well as many other issues.

Unfortunately I don’t have any answers for you; just wanted to let you know you’re not alone.

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/10/2003 2:50 PM (GMT -6)

x-strongarm-x

Hmm...I may be misunderstanding, but He cared so much that He turned His back on His Son...

Iconoclast

Jesus IS God. God allowed Himself to be murdered by us.

John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?

DLW

That was because Jesus took the sin of the world upon him at the Cross and that drove a rift between him and God the Father for a brief while.

Iconoclast

I struggle with your interpretation here DLW. My understanding is that "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me" is a reference to Psalms 22. I think Psalms 22 is a good characterization of how Jesus FELT when dying on the cross. He felt just like we feel when terrible things happen to us - He FELT like He had been forsaken. God knows exactly how we feel. He has experienced it Himself. Moreover He knowingly CHOSE to experience this terrible agony FOR US - which one of us would even think of doing such a thing? There must be a very good reason that God created a world in which terrible suffering happens. Why else would God Himself CHOOSE to enter into that suffering with us if not to show us that He cares and that Love is worth it.

God dying on the cross proves that it is not possible to BOTH create a world where love is possible AND prevent Himself from being tortured, from suffering, and being murdered.

Love must be chosen or it is not love.

Andrew, Greg Boyd shows why love must be chosen and how this metaphysical fact results in the evil that we experience in his book Satan and the Problem of Evil.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 05/10/2003 7:52:18 PM

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/10/2003 3:00 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

DLW

That was because Jesus took the sin of the world upon him at the Cross and that drove a rift between him and God the Father for a brief while.

Iconoclast

I struggle with your interpretation here DLW. My understanding is that "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me" is a reference to Psalms 22. I think Psalms 22 is a good characterization of how Jesus FELT when dying on the cross. He felt just like we feel when terrible things happen to us - He FELT like He had been forsaken. God knows exactly how we feel. He has experienced it Himself.
Moreover He knowingly CHOSE to experience this terrible agony FOR US - which one of us would even think of doing such a thing? There must be a very good reason that God created a world in which terrible suffering happens. Why else would God Himself CHOOSE to enter into that suffering with us if not to show us that He cares and that Love is worth it.

I don't see why our interpretations are at odds. My point was that Jeus choice to experience terrible agony was not just about him dying on the cross, but experiencing the weight of the burden of our sins and that, while Jesus took upon himself that burden of sin, it led to God the Father needing to turn his back on him since God cannot commune with sin.

quote:

God dying on the cross proves that it is not possible to BOTH create a world where love is possible AND prevent Himself from being tortured, from suffering, and being murdered.

Doesn't this involve a view that the fall was inevitable. Just because it was possible due to the possiblity of love doesn't mean that his torture and death on the cross were inevitable.

But that should be for another link...
dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

x-strongarm-x
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 6

Posted 5/10/2003 3:09 PM (GMT -6)

You guys are making alot of sense. Thank you all so much.

While you are clearing many doubts and questions, I'm still left with some confusion, but I guess that's up to me to deal with.

If only I could explain this all to my girlfriend...she needs it so much more than I. She still believes in God, but she doesn't believe that He cares for her. SHe feels like God is ignoring her, and she's placing all the blame on God. She told me today that she felt like God just gave up on her. That's really sad. It's even more sad that she doesn't listen to what I have to say.

By reading these posts, and by carefully trying to sort things out in my head, I've come to realize that I can't blame God, because He's not the only power at work. Maybe I knew that all along. I don't know. It's kind of starting to make sense now.

Keep Heather (my g/f) and I in your prayers, please. And may God's grace be abundant to you all.

Andrew

might-be-don
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830

Posted 5/11/2003 4:48 AM (GMT -6)

Andrew,

I have found that one of the great things about folks that love you is that they don't mind it when you doubt them. They are generous in mercy and slow to anger. God won't reject them if they get mad at Him.

As we look around we have very few, if any, role models around us to show how God loves us. We read about Jesus, but that can seem so far away. If you have any idea about how love looks, begin to be that to your girlfriend. She, and you, will start to relate to each other and God in a way that provides strength in the daily battles we fight.

peace and love, don

---
"No Rules, just Right" Outback Steakhouse

x-strongarm-x
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 6

Posted 5/11/2003 9:28 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks, Don.

I guess it's just hard to be that to her. I've been doing alot of praying about this, and while it's still doesn't make sense, it's kind of like God told Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you." While I'm still hurt about everything, He's started to help me deal with it. But it's so difficult to get her to see that. She was raised Catholic, and didn't agree with the views, so she became skeptical (Ed Boyd..?). She's not mature when it comes to spiritual things, and that's what makes it hard to get the message through to her. She doesn't know that it's not God's fault (I'm still slowly trying to accept that, too). It seems as if she's already made up her mind, though: she's given up faith.

You guys are awesome. Please keep us in prayer. It's so much appreciated.

-Cheers

Andrew

ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/12/2003 8:32 AM (GMT -6)

I've got a question - Iconoclast, you said God allowed Himself to be murdered by us. How do you explain this from an OV point of view? Why did he allow himself to be murdered- did he know that was going to happen?
I must say I don't understand why God would have himself killed to appease himself as a sacrifice for sin, but that's another thread...

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/12/2003 9:25 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

I've got a question - Iconoclast, you said God allowed Himself to be murdered by us. How do you explain this from an OV point of view? Why did he allow himself to be murdered- did he know that was going to happen?
I must say I don't understand why God would have himself killed to appease himself as a sacrifice for sin, but that's another thread...

How would one explain it from any point of view other than an OVT view? I think this hinges on whether or not Adam and Eve's fall was inevitable. Earlier, I said it couldn't be inevitable, but this rests on the specifics of what aspects of the future are open and, as such, OVT may differ on this issue.

nice quote...
dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/12/2003 6:56 PM (GMT -6)

ReasonableDoubt

I've got a question - Iconoclast, you said God allowed Himself to be murdered by us. How do you explain this from an OV point of view? Why did he allow himself to be murdered- did he know that was going to happen?

Iconoclast

My understanding is that God allowed Himself to be murdered by us to show his total and unconditional love for us. Jesus said it Himself – “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And that is exactly what He did.

As to whether God knew it was going to happen, I think the answer to that is clearly yes. God sent prophet after prophet and they were killed. I think He pretty much knew that based on our make-up we would also kill Him if He came. In fact, it seems to me that Jesus had to use some of His miracle power to prevent the Pharisees from killing Him too early.

ReasonableDoubt

I must say I don't understand why God would have himself killed to appease himself as a sacrifice for sin, but that's another thread...

Iconoclast

I did not mean to suggest that “God [had] himself killed”. My understanding is that God allowed us to kill Him.

I don’t think it has anything to do with “appeasing Himself”. I would agree with you that this is an absurd notion.

The Bible is clear that the fundamental problem with mankind is that we have taken the knowledge of good and evil unto ourselves. We have become infected with the “legal view”. We see things in terms of good and evil and we judge ourselves, each other and God Himself. We just CANNOT believe that God loves us unconditionally. We believe that we have to be “good enough”.

My view is that God, in exasperation of our blindness to the reality of His love, came and incontrovertibly proved His love for us by allowing us to torture Him and then brutally murder Him while in the very moment of His being brutally murdered saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”

I just cannot imagine what more God could possibly do to prove His unconditional love for us and therefore blow away any basis for belief in the “legal view” than this. Again, He said it Himself – “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 05/12/2003 11:57:00 PM

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