Posted by PS on December 03, 2003 at 15:53:27:
In Reply to: Re: The correct revealed chronology on Revelation--NEW!!!--Straight from God!!! Only $19.95! posted by Bob - the Alien on December 03, 2003 at 14:10:51:
: I don't know. Its feels like heresy to even go this direction,
I'm picking up rocks...
: but it is a question that has come into my mind.
How dare you THINK?!!
: Scripture doesn't even address this, so far as I have found.
Well, actually it does, but it does not answer the unanswerable questions we want to ask. It deals with real truths that have real applications, but which often seem to contradict other truths with different applications. It deals with the motivations (and mistakes) in the application of these truths. But only in their human contexts do such truths apply (though the contexts themselves are confusing), and when we, according to our great knowldedge, try to remove these concepts from their contexts and deal with them as universal, ideal philosophical or theological truths, we are confounded. This is because the "truths" in themselves are really applications and interpretations, designed to span the divide between the transcendent (ideal) and the immanent (purposeful) God.
: And therein lies the paradox. Can a being who is fulfilling his designed purpose be wholly evil?
This is an aspect of a deeper theological question that has been debated and puzzled over for millenia, not relating the evil of a being per se, but about the nature of God's will and his predestination versus our ability to choose, and the nature of evil in relation to God. Suffice to say that there is no satisfactory answer. God's wisdom is above ours, and the nature of how everything exists in Him is utterly inconceivable to us. Therefore, not only could we not understand the answer to our question, but the question itself is probably invalid and unanswerable according to our constraints. (The end of Job is very instructive here.)
Are the gnomes under the hood of my car green or blue? Am I predestined or free to choose?
Did God will for there to be evil? If not, why was there?
Does God will for evil to exist? If not, why is there?
1. If evil is not real, the Bible is a lie.
2. If God is not sovereign, the Bible is a lie.
3. If God wants evil to exist, the Bible is a lie.
4. If God is sovereign, and doesn't want evil to exist, it doesn't. (Go back to #1.)
Or how about these parallel Biblical truths:
God is loving and good
God is jealous and wrathful
God is incapable of evil
"God repented of the evil he thought to do"
God is not the author of evil
God IS the author of evil ("I create evil and calamity")
God cannot look on evil (Habakkuk)
God sees all the evil
There are MANY more...
These are all truths in the Bible, and sharply contradict each other. Yet they are all true, just not in the finite ways our finite minds conceive of them and the finite ways we try to recocile them.
What is God's will? This is the grandaddy of all impossible questions.
In our attempts to understand and explain, we philosophically complicate the issue by recognizing many different aspects of God's will: His perfect will vs. his permissive will, his ideal will vs. his applied will, his eternal will vs. his temporal will, his volitional will vs. his compassionate will...in fact, even his holiness and his love are in conflict when one considers the biblical teaching on how each is expressed! And yet God is not fighting himself. Nor does his will obliterate ours. Nor does his predestination preclude our choice. This subject will never be settled; the real issue will never even be addressed--we are incapable.
For instance: A little girl is playing and is run down by a drunk driver. The grieving parents are visited by a Calvinist pastor who tells them: "Take comfort: this is all part of God's plan and He has everything under control. He planned this for some glorious purpose." The Arminian pastor visits and says: "Draw close to God. He feels your pain and hurts as much over this as you do--even more! He did not cause your little girl to suffer and die, nor did he want you to bear this grief. He will make this right, he will fix all this in the life to come, after he has destroyes evil, and there will be no more pain when you are reunited." Two opposite views, and many people hold each of them.. Take your pick, or pick one of many variations. But you will never prove which is right; BOTH CAN BE EASILY BE SHOWN TO BE FALLACIOUS BY CONSIDERING THE OTHER.
Can God do evil? Was the little girl's death evil? If the driver was serving the purpose God gave him, the evil is God's. If he was not, God is not sovereign, not in control, not all-powerful. The real question in this case is theodicy: If God is God and all-powerful, why does evil exist? The answers to this question have filled libraries, and are a central problem in ALL God-centered religions.
Alas, I am wasting term paper time here and I cannot afford to. I must sign off for today.
Suffice to say we cannot answer the questions here. True wisdom knows it cannot. God's wisdom and truth are beyond us. When we pull them down to our level, they become our law and our doctrine, but they are not God. Ah, wait, I think I've found some purpose for this "faith"-concept! ;-)