Hey Edward Oleander,
In this post, I wanted to raise some direct questions that I hope you will take the time to respond to. Initially, let me bring up the topic of Justice and Accountability.
- Let me start this by again quoting Psalm 58:10-11
The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged.
They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
Then at last everyone will say, 'There truly is a reward for those who live for God;
Surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.'
Do you rejoice when you see injustice "avenged", when a wicked person's blood is spilled? Let me see if I can draw this out further with an illustration.
Suppose there was a country named Amerika. It is led by President Shrub, who has used the mighty Amerikan army to invade innocent countries, causing the loss of many innocent civilians' lives, and causing the rest of the world to hate Amerika. Given that Amerika is causing so much wickedness in the world, wouldn't you want God to step in and judge this imaginary country, to at least stop it from causing more evil in the world?
2. You have raised in your previous comments the topic that God should never judge "innocent" people / children. Let me see if I can flesh this out through a story Jesus used to describe God the Father. This story is told in Luke 15.11-32. Would you please read this story and answer the following questions:
a. Describe the younger son.
b. Considering that the father most likely knows his son's character and lifestyle, why does he honor his son's request to be given his inheritance immediately?
c. Why does God allow us this same kind of freedom?
d. How does Jesus describe the younger son's change of heart?
- What does Luke 15:20 tell us about the father?
f. What does the father's response to his son reveal about God's attitude toward you?
g. Could the father have done anything without the Prodigal son having turned back to his father?
3. 3. My final question is this: why is it that an animal is never put on trial?
Thank you Ed for the time you put in and setting out your thoughts. I hope the Lord blesses all of my readers with a weekend where you grow in Christ, and use your gifts and talents to serve the Body of Christ. I ask this through my faith and the righteousness of Jesus. Amen. /s/Tom Wolff
3 comments:
"Given that Amerika is causing so much wickedness in the world, wouldn't you want God to step in and judge this imaginary country, to at least stop it from causing more evil in the world?"
You've given two completely different possibilities... "Judging" in biblical terms usually involves lots of generalized death and suffering on everyone even remotely close to the one(s) actually responsible, so that choice is right out...
"Stopping" the guilty from furthering their crimes could be reasonable IF and ONLY if it is done with a minimum of bloodshed, which must be visited ONLY on those actually guilty.
Let's restate the scenario: An imaginary man named Tom is breaking into neighbor's houses and is murdering puppies. Tom has convinced his impressionable, inexperienced, 7 year old son to help him murder the puppies. Tom has a friend named Gonzales who says Tom's actions are proper and threatens that any family member who interferes will go to jail.
A Judge, complete with a jury and Sheriff's Deputies, arrives to hand out justice. EXACTLY who should be punished? Just Tom? Tom and the boy who barely comprehends what he is doing? Tom and Gonzales? Tom, the boy, and Gonzales? Or the whole family, because they didn't stop the crimes themselves, despite Gonzales' threats?
Hmmm... cut that one off early by mistake... gotta head for bed... I'll read the Luke and answer the next set in the next day or two...
Thank you for continuing the discussion!!!
Pax,
~E~
WARNING: LOOOOOONG POST!!!
Hi… Sorry it took SO long to get to this. I’ve been playing the younger son and squandering my brain and time for the past few months. Hasn’t got me anywhere so it’s time to exercize the brain again, and debate issues with substance instead of growing my mafia… :-)
"You have raised in your previous comments the topic that God should never judge "innocent" people / children. Let me see if I can flesh this out through a story Jesus used to describe God the Father. This story is told in Luke 15.11-32. Would you please read this story and answer the following questions:
a. Describe the younger son."Paris Hilton with a pee-pee… Actually, an obvious reference to a rather sizable portion of the populace who need to make their own mistakes and cannot, or will not learn from the mistakes of others. It shows a rather pessimistic view of the human race. Incidentally, it implies that the father didn’t do a very good job of raising his son. He obviously spent too much time with the older son (representing the wise, pious minority) at the cost of the younger son (the rest of us) turning out to be a lout.
"b. Considering that the father most likely knows his son's character and lifestyle, why does he honor his son's request to be given his inheritance immediately?"Are we assuming that dad knew about the younger son's habits? If we are, we could also assume the son knew dad was a soft touch and would give him more than he asked for, and wasn't REALLY repentant at all...
But for the sake of arguement:
Several reasons suggest, but they all tend to push the father into the role of referee or observer, rather than loving parent. I think Dr. Spock would have agreed that the father’s desire to allow his child the freedom to choose his own life to be a loving one. I think Dr. Spock was a nutball.
"c. Why does God allow us this same kind of freedom?"Because he is neither loving, nor nurturing, nor even Good (in an alignment sense). He withholds his love, teaching, and support in favour of a minimally invasive approach in which he gives the children only the barest of hints, then sits back and cherry-picks the ones who turn out the way he wanted them to.
"d. How does Jesus describe the younger son's change of heart?"Enlightenment by starvation, which shows us that some people, after failing utterly, can indeed have an epiphany whereupon they realize that they must either change their strategy or die. Natural Selection takes care of the ones who fail to recognize their failure.
"f. What does the father's response to his son reveal about God's attitude toward you?"Exactly what Jesus wants us to believe about the Father: He is all-loving and all-accepting.
"g. Could the father have done anything without the Prodigal son having turned back to his father?"Absolutely. He could have had a messenger with a loaf of bread and his own signet ring go to the starving son in the middle of a field of pig poop and say, “Your dad says you’re welcome to come home any time… Here is his ring to prove it. Here is some bread so you can make it home.”
"3. My final question is this: why is it that an animal is never put on trial?"You’re kidding me right? Millions of animals are put on trial every year. Most are tried by individuals who have been “given” that authority, with summary judgement and execution tossed in for free. Animals are tried, convicted, and executed constantly for acting on their instincts/ desires, or for just being too close to humans. They have their own court system, called “Animal Control” and “The DNR,” but are occasionally tried in our own criminal justice system (Google “Elephant hanging” story from India)…
Entire SPECIES are executed for the crime of being inconvenient to humans, or for being exceptionally useful as well. We CONSTANTLY judge their needs and survival to be of trivial importance to our own wants and desires. Only occasionally does the judgement swing in the animals' favour.
I know what you’re getting at, and you’re wrong. Animals have the same emotions, motivations, and appetites we do. They are just operating on a vastly simplified scale because of their limited intelligence. This simplification is manifested as "instinct" and we humans separate that from what we call "thought." The reasons they don’t get the credit/blame they deserve are:
1) Communication barriers which make it impossible for us to grasp their understanding of OUR concepts of right/wrong, as well as their immediate and specific motivations for individual behaviors.
2) Human ignorance of their true capacities, which is perpetuated by a desire to dominate in a guilt-free manner. Have you ever noticed that for thousands of years, slavery was justified by describing the enslaved as backward “savages” who “needed” to be dominated and owned for “their own good”? That way, tyrants and slaveowners could claim they were doing good by subjugating whichever race happened to be the target. We minimize our collective guilt for our treatment of the subjugated by marginalizing them, like we still do to the Indians today. The same pattern of thinking allows us to slaughter billions of meat animals every year, and enslave millions more for their eggs, milk, wool, etc…
Part of the system of ignorance which perpetuates the subjugation of animals is the partial myth that they cannot do any thinking, that all their actions are instinct, that they can’t help doing what they do, so we must control them.
You’re opening up a much larger can of worms here than I think you realize, and I’m not talking about the crap PETA and ALF feed us about animal rights.
I'm not saying that using animals for food, clothing, and lots of daily products is always wrong. After all, I love chicken and lamb, and wool blankets just as much as the next guy… I just want to be clear that our suzerainty over animals is something we have TAKEN, not something that was decreed or given to us.
Let me know where and how far you want to take this idea…
Okay… Now please explain the relevancy of any of this to the point about God assigning sin and judgement to innocent babies. I'm also very interested in where you wanted to direct the whole animal thing... Pretend for a moment that my answer was, "Gosh, Tom, I don't know... Why aren't animals ever tried?" and let's see where it leads...
Discuss also how the story in Luke would have differed if the younger son had incurable cancer, knew it from an early age, and died before he could make it back to dad, or even before he had his change of heart (2 separate questions here).
Free will vs. omniscience is one of my biggest arguments against an all-everything God, and against the all-loving part in particular.
As always, thanks for keeping up the discussion. The past couple hours of writing this has been WAY more satisfying than playing Mafia Wars... Time now to go look at your Easter (ANOTHER theft of a Pagan holiday!) post to see what's up...
Pax,
~Ed~
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