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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Poll Question: enem-a (hehe) enem-e enem-i enem-o | Forum Quick Jump
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/27/2001 7:34 AM (GMT -6) |   | God commands us to love our enemies, but does God love His enemies? Surely most of us would say God still loves humans who oppose themselves to God but does God still love Satan and demons?
If yes: Does this not strike you as going against the grain of the very core of spiritual warfare? How can we say yes without falling into dualism? If God loves Satan and demons (in the way appropriate for Him to love these kinds of enemies) should we also love them in a similar way? Should it be a passive way as in turning the other cheek? How could we call this warfare? Is not saying this tantamount to saying God loves evil—especially if we take Doc’s position that Satan and demons are solidified in evil, that they are evil itself.
If no: How do we maintain this while preserving God’s integrity? After all it wouldn’t seem very praiseworthy for God to ask us to love our enemies if He Himself is not willing to do the same.
Wislawa
P.S. When God said “Love your enemies,” could He have Himself in mind as well? Is God ever our enemy? Are not we His at times? Is it possible for us to be His enemy while He is still our ally?
Yes God loves Satan
No God doesn't love Satan
I'm not sure
View Poll Results
trosie
06/10/01 10:00 PM
RE: Poll Question: enem-a (hehe) enem-e enem-i enem-o enem-u
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Wislawa: "but does God still love Satan and demons?"
The meaning of love that I found in the dictionary says: A deep devotion or affection for another person or persons.
This, I am certain, is NOT what God has toward sin, evil, Satan, and demons. God turns from evil and despises it. God asks us to love our enemies but NOT their sin. As I've heard it put "Love the sinner BUT NOT the sin." People are not totally good or bad, however Satan and demons are total evil. NO WAY does God love Satan and demons!
But God definitely loves us
trosie
Mephi2K
06/11/01 5:50 AM
Wislawa Asks the BOMB Questions!
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Wislawa,
I friggin LOVE your questions. You know why? Because they are questions that are THOUGHT OUT. LOL. Do you see how many double standards theologizing can have? All you have to do is ask the right questions...
Well done, Wis. Maybe more later.
Meph
PS: Tom, don't worry, playa. You're STILL the friggin man!
Mephi2K
06/11/01 6:22 AM
Meph Puts More Hot Sauce In the Mix...
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Oh, but let's go DEEP. Does God love ANGELS at all, either bad or good? Does God have a LOVE relationship with angels? If not, what does that say about God being love? If so, what does that say about God's loving, grace-filled, forgiving nature when APPLIED to fallen angels? (Even seen "Dogma"?)
Even deeper still. Does God STOP loving an individual just because they are evil? Does this mean that God stops loving people that are hellbound and his enemies? Does God actually "hate" ANYONE? If so, how does this square with God being love?
Yet more. Can a friggin omnibenevolent being hate ANY BEING at all? Shouldn't said being have a policy of not hating ANY being, though hating the acts of said being? Therefore wouldn't an OMNIBENEVOLENT God love even the Prince of Darkness himself? If not, WHY NOT??
Ooooh, this is LOVELY! Let's have some GOOD answers, people!
All Grins,
Meph
Wislawa
06/12/01 7:36 AM
RE: Meph Puts More Hot Sauce In the Mix...
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Let me start with your last question first
Mehpi asks: Yet more. Can a friggin omnibenevolent being hate ANY BEING at all? Shouldn't said being have a policy of not hating ANY being, though hating the acts of said being? Therefore wouldn't an OMNIBENEVOLENT God love even the Prince of Darkness himself? If not, WHY NOT??
Wislawa who is worse at answering q’s than asking them answers:
Given Doc’s formula of actions become being your distinction of hating actions while loving beings breaks down a bit. Even more than this omnibenevolence has to in some way relate to concepts such as holiness and Hesed. It seems to me that in the concept of holiness there is conditional love. An omnibenevolent God can in one respect only love that which is loveable. To love what is despicable for no other reason than because it is despicable was to be despicable yourself according to Plato. So why does God love us if we are not loveable? What is there to be said of unconditional love? What of Hesed? I would say (but I don’t know if this is correct or not) that God loves the unlovable for another reason than simply because the object is unlovable. That Hesed involves willing the sanctification of the object. So that God’s love for the unlovable will one day become a love for the loveable thru redemption.
So what about the irredeemable?
Mephi asks:
Even deeper still. Does God STOP loving an individual just because they are evil? Does this mean that God stops loving people that are hellbound and his enemies? Does God actually "hate" ANYONE? If so, how does this square with God being love?
Wislawa fumbles:
I have toyed with the idea that Satan and demons are not irredeemable. But I haven’t found any good reasons for this except that they continue to exist and it would solve their continued existence by saying there is still hope for them. Beyond that I think they are irredeemable which opens up the question of God loving His enemies which I’m still undecided on. The same would go for irredeemable people.
Mephi asks:
Oh, but let's go DEEP. Does God love ANGELS at all, either bad or good? Does God have a LOVE relationship with angels? If not, what does that say about God being love? If so, what does that say about God's loving, grace-filled, forgiving nature when APPLIED to fallen angels? (Even seen "Dogma"?)
Wislawa types with a mouthful of marshmallows:
I think the Bible depicts angels as loving God and since I think love has to be a two way street (in that God either loves them or doesn’t love them) I don’t know why God wouldn’t love them. As far as fallen angels go it would again depend on whether they are redeemable or not. I did a small study on God’s wrath last fall and what I found was that it always had a twofold purpose. Its secondary purpose is to punish but its primary purpose is to redeem. If this is how God’s wrath works I think we can take a clue as to how His love works. But again this opens up the loving enemies thing again so I don’t know.
Mephi2K
06/12/01 8:07 AM
WhooHaa!
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Wislawa,
This is in response to your parts...
1) Is God's love unconditional or conditional? It's either one or the other. Spell it out, chica.
2) Answer your own question for me. Does God love the irredeemable?
3) PLEASE show me your biblical evidence for saying that angels LOVE God, in the manner of a love relationship. Please give specific citations.
Meph
Wislawa
06/12/01 9:55 AM
RE: WhooHaa!
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Mephi:
1) Is God's love unconditional or conditional? It's either one or the other. Spell it out, chica.
Wislawa:
B-O-T-H. Why does it have to be all or nothing?
Mephi:
2) Answer your own question for me. Does God love the irredeemable?
Wislawa:
I don't know. Is it okay if I don't know something?
Mephi:
3) PLEASE show me your biblical evidence for saying that angels LOVE God, in the manner of a love relationship. Please give specific citations.
Wislawa:
All right this is a stretch. First of I’ll concede that there is not a direct, or an as direct reference to God’s love for angels as there is with His love for humans. But shouldn’t we expect this given that the Bible was God’s revelation to us not to angels? I based my answer on four things.
A) Angels can rebel against God which means they have a will (Rev 12:1-6 and stuff). To have a will and to choose God is a response to love. A response implies a relationship between God and an other. God is love (1 Jn 4:8) so to be in a relationship with God would, it seems to me, be a relationship characterized by the character of God and the character of one who chooses God.
B) God asks for input from angels (1 Kings 22:20, Is 6:8). This underscores the give and take relationship as well as the openness God feels in letting angels influence Him and His creation.
C) I’m with Doc that when the Bible says Lucifer was the most beautiful it meant he has the greatest potential for love (Is 14, Ezek 28). But I can understand how someone who didn’t hold to that interpretation wouldn’t find that very convincing.
D) I forgot the fourth thing but trust me it was really good!!! does that count for anything?
Mephi2K
06/12/01 12:04 PM
King Stuff!
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Some things.
Ok. I would AGREE that, many times, the truth of something lies within the two extremes. This is generally based on the fact that when there seems to be a contradiction many times, the contradiction is more apparent than real. And that's cool. Moreover, the postmodern society that we are in has a real knack for the "both-and" stuff.
My problem? People want to apply it ALL the friggin time! There are SOME times when there IS an "either/or" dichotomy going on that can be seen. For some reason, people nowadays find "either-or" thinking to be too narrow and confined. (Yeah, YOU'RE in this, Doc. LOL ) And I will admit that in a substantial number of cases, it probably is. The "either/or" is used prematurely instead of really searching out the issues to see the matter fully. However, the bottom line is the the law of non-contradiction is a BEAUTIFUL thing, and it doesn't matter how much some people want to have their cake and eat it too, it just won't work.
Now, let me put this in to context here. The law of non-contradiction says that two antithetical or mutually exclusive ideas, concepts, etc. CANNOT be true at the same time in the same respect. (The ONLY thing that I know of that goes against this is "complementarity" and that's to be a FORCED position, left as an avenue only because the evidence will allow nothing else) Now, help me out. HOW can God's love be both UNconditional and conditional...at the same time in the same respect? You are speaking Finnish to me! I can't understand you. I'd really ask you to justify your reasoning, if you would, and clarify for me so the epistemological dinosaurs like myself can understand what you are saying. Are you saying that God's love is unconditional IN A CERTAIN REALM while it is conditional IN ANOTHER? Could you make this more specific?
Next, sure it's ok if you don't know something. That's fine. I just wanted to highlight the question that I felt really touches on my point. Once you have an answer for that question, I think that you may perceive my position better. That's all.
Finally, this is just my opinion...but I would really agree that you were stretching there. I didn't find your stuff that persuasive. That's not to say that it wasn't. Just that I didn't find it to be so. But, hey, who am I, right?
Holla,
Meph
Wislawa
06/12/01 3:31 PM
RE: King Stuff!
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Sorry. I'm with ya all the way.
I didn't mean to violate the laws of non-contradiction.
I meant both in two ways:
1) Both seems to accuratly describe the inconsistancy we both see in God's actions (nice post with the quick answers. No I'm sorry I can't marry you but it's nothing personal). Sometimes God looks like He loves unconditonaly, othertimes His actions can better understood if we say He loves conditonaly. I think you're with me on this one.
2) I would say that God is relational on manifold levels. So here I'd take your realms defence. Somehow I think God's holiness, Hesed, and other junk interact in conflicking ways. Holiness is uncondtional/Hesed forgives all...
So that's all.
Sheesh--Me marry the Devil? What would that make me? The Antichrist?
-Wislawa
MrIndifference
06/19/01 10:07 PM
RE: RE: King Stuff!
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"Sometimes God looks like He loves unconditonaly, othertimes His actions can better understood if we say He loves conditonaly."
Am I correct in assuming that you are talking about when God disciplines when you are saying conditionally? I think that it hurts God to have to discipline his creation. I don't think that He necessarily "wanted" to send the flood that distroyed mankind, but instead that He saw how there was no other way to salvage humanity. I don't think that He wanted to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, but He had to keep them from the Tree of Life. Is there any difference between this and a mothers love for her child even though the child has become a drug addict? I would argue no...
MrIndifference
might-be-don
06/20/01 4:19 AM
RE: RE: RE: King Stuff!
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Not to take us too far of topic, but ...
MrIndifference said:
"I don't think that He wanted to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, but He had to keep them from the Tree of Life. "
might-be-don wonders:
What was so special about the Tree of Life that required God to keep them away?
don
Wislawa
06/20/01 6:11 AM
RE: RE: RE: RE: King Stuff!
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I was always taught that if Eve and Adam ate from the tree of life they would be immortal like God. I don't know how correct that is.
MrIndifference
06/20/01 9:33 AM
Time for a little speculatio n...
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Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. Gen 3.22-23
Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thus bringing sin into the world. If God had not restrained them from eating of the Tree of Life, they would be immortal in their sin. Christ became man and died on the cross for our sins. If at that point man was immortal from eating of the tree of life, then how could Jesus die on the cross atoning for that sin. Could it be possible that if God did not kick us out of the Garden at that point that there was not hope for redeeming us out side of total destruction of the human race?
might-be-don
06/20/01 12:10 PM
RE: Time for a little speculatio n...
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MrIndifference says: "If God had not restrained them from eating of the Tree of Life, they would be immortal in their sin. "
Hmmmm... isn't this what those who say we burn forever in hell mean? We live forever in our sin, apart from God.
don
MrIndifference
06/22/01 7:38 AM
RE: RE: Time for a little speculatio n...
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you are correct in a sense. The difference is that you are talking about a strictly spiritual imortallity. I, on the other hand, am talking about a spiritual and physical imortallity with what could possibly be no chance for redemption.
according to the Cambridge Annotated Study Bible:
Having disobeyed God and thereby ruined the peaceful conditions of original creation, humans are delivered from an endless existence in sorrow and suffering by being denied access to the fruits of this tree.
MrI.
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