You've been thinking these things through, this is great
But that's what I don't get, why it
must be this way, why God couldn't or wouldn't find a better way to do it. It seems like Job's children and servants were sacrificed so that God may make a point for others. Again I find it hard to believe God couldn't have done that any other way. Or at least have limited satan's power (or our ability to suffer) more.
I really don't see any other way to show what happens down the path of unfaith, other than allowing it to actually happen in a temporal existence. The dichotomy of life and death is not enough if there is no true and thorough realization of what was lost and why and how it was lost. Remember, that this is a temporal reality, like walking through a purifying fire and coming out refined. We are not equipped to fully comprehend the full worth of the experience. I would bet my life that if you were to speak to Job's children and servants, they would say that they would gladly experience it a hundred times over, rather than miss out on an eternal, blissful, epiphany.
Glad to hear that. That's a much more positive, coherent and defensible position than the all too common idea that if you don't get to hear the gospel you're screwed when you die and God is going to torture you forever. That view is extremely hard to reconcile with what the NT writers say about God IMO.
1 Peter 4:6, For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
Hmm. The question doesn't really make sense to me if you exclude the question of whether or not it's actually true. I used to believe it was true, and the only reasonable (maybe even the only possible) response was to trust that man. I wouldn't have if I believed he was nothing but a man, but since I believed he was the son of God, then yes.
All men who would sacrifice themselves for others are trustworthy and sons of the Most High. But this is the Christ, the foretold of lamb of God. A fact of history and the very reason for the creation.
My point is to simplify the Gospel to its most fundamental element, knowing that if you were honest you would project what was undeniable to any heart that is pure. In other words it shows what only the pure of heart would
want to believe. Only the pure of heart can even see the divine Love. To the impure of heart, such thoughts as
"how do I know this man's not crazy" would arise, even because subconsciously they do not want to believe. They reason upon a false image of god. It is the essence of unfaith that finds every reason not to believe, even because it despises being under any god not of ones own making, and therefore despises any truth, which they view as captivity rather than freedom from lies. That's why scripture says that the impure of heart shall not see God.
But being loving doesn't make his claims about God trustworthy per se.
Respectfully, that does not even factor in, since
all things are built upon faith. As I have already stated,
it's about what you want to believe. We are not judging the Gospel, we are being judged by the Gospel. That is because the Eternal Truth precedes us in existence.
If you want to discuss sound reasoning, I study semantics and I can assure you that any reasoning based on falsehood ends in a contradiction. So if you say "yes, I want to believe" with your heart, then you cannot then turn around with your mind and say "that doesn't make his claims about God trustworthy", since that is not believing on him. I mean no disrespect to you when I say that it is a contradiction of reasoning because it is based on falsehood. We all are dealing with thoughts that are of the powers of darkness trying to deceive us.
And you can even feel the falsehood, because when we say with our heart "I want to believe" we feel a light rise in the heart, and when we say with our mind "that does not make what he says about God trustworthy", then the light we felt in our heart diminishes back into darkness. Either he is trustworthy or he is not, either you want to believe or you don't. This is why Jesus said let your conversation be either yeah or nay for anything in between is of the devil.
Let me show you more semantics to bring home the matter. When we say "that doesn't make his claims about God
trustworthy", that carries the same weight of evidence as saying, "that doesn't make his claims about God
untrustworthy". In other words it means nothing so far as providing any evidence of anything other than our own doubt. The fact that I see a self sacrificing Love there at the cross of the Christ, is all I need to put my trust in the intentions of that person towards me.
That said, one thing that strikes me most about the Paul and the other first Christians was their willingness to leave everything and die for what they believed in. That's one thing that kept me believing for so long, because it just seems unlikely that someone would just make something like that up. Then again, muslims suffer and die for their faith as well.
There's a big difference between sacrificing one's self to kill others who don't believe, and sacrificing one's self to allow those who don't believe to kill you. The semantics show that only the latter believes that Love is Eternal.
(But, and this I think is important, I have found that one can have peace, hope, meaning and contentment in life without believing in the Christian message. For me it used to be a big deal that the peace I found in God couldn't be found anywhere else, but in fact it can.)
You know, they say that there is a such thing as ignorance is bliss. And scripture says that much knowledge brings much sorrow. I would have to confess that I have never found peace or hope or contentment in this world. I can only see a dog eat dog world in turmoil and unrest, people chasing the dollar, children losing their innocence, land, water and air being polluted, all the animals dying, etc..
(But I still wish the gospel (the way I understand it, with ultimate salvation and reconciliation for everyone) is true.)I think if the gospel is indeed true, it means that everyone will get saved eventually. Or at the very least sinners will die (as opposed to getting eternal life in hell). The bible can certainly be interpreted that way, at least.
To me "I wish" is more a sentiment of magical terminology. "I hope" is one of positive plausibility.
If I understand you correctly, the lie is a necessary evil for love or God to do his thing?
If you recall, you asked me why I say that God is Love? So no I am not at all implying that a lie is a necessary evil.
I am saying that in semantics words are sentiments, or spirit if you will allow, and that there are dichotomies of sentiments upon which we reason. There are some that are overarching in the connotations of all words denoting positive and negative, such as good/evil or true/false or Love/hate or Light/dark or life/death. The negative is always relative to the positive which is why falsehood exists only to subvert the truth. Or in other words the Truth must exist before the falsehood. Thus only the positive can be Eternal and the negative temporal. Therefore God is Love, Truth, Good, Light, Life because He preceded all things.
