How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith?

[mcarans]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

 

[Sabertooth]

I just glanced at the link. I don't believe that an argument of any kind is going to help a person like that. I believe that it is more important to ask the Holy Spirit to give you the right words to pierce his heart where he needs it the most. It is quite likely in a completely different area than where he is posturing.

God, in His sanctification process, is constantly asking us to abandon our old paradigms in favor of new ones. Some people are very resistant to that process, but it gets easier the more we do it, because we learn that He is trustworthy in His leading.

 

[Noxot]

it is hard to judge a persons spirit as that is something that will be seen clearly once we are stripped of our flesh and our celestial body is revealed.

but I would keep in mind that sin is an ontological reality which means that evil people are literally suffering from some form of being destroyed of the very fabrics of their being since true being is made in the image of God. I think that God used this universe in order to help catch or perverse beings that turn away from him, so that we do not utterly "not ever exist" by turning from the primal reality that holds up all others- the Trinity.

God is very concerned with persevering our freedom and also with not coercing us by his beauty, since it is even to the point of tormenting to him that we would be little robots that are only good because that is how God made us to be. therefore he preferred to suffer by coming to the world as Jesus Christ to try to better interact with us in this world because the world in general fell so far away from God that we think that this universe and our flesh is the most fundamental reality.

the kingdom of Cesar at it's best attempts to force people to be good. being forced to be good is in truth, not good at all. it is not good that we remain babes who only know goodness because we were created in the image of him rather than also being good because good is good. God deserves a real loving response and act of faith by his people, even if they are temporarily in darkness and weakness.

so the not knowing God is a spiritual reality of death and blindness. we have in some way ceased to exist and are on the very edge of not existing, having fallen from eternity. this mortal body is about as dead as you can get and God is trying to call us back to life.

but sadly most Christians don't even think that the spiritual world is the real world. we are spirits and therefore must come to worship the Father, who is Spirit, in spirit and in truth.

injustice is self-corrected once we die because then everyone will be with a body like unto their spirit be it ugly or beautiful. evil people will be together because their spirits are alike and good people will be together because their spirits are similar.

 

[Strong in Him]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How does he know he is in the process of losing his faith?
He's having doubts?
He's about to make a decision that he actively won't follow Christ?
He knows God's love and grace and is deliberately rejecting it?
Or something else?

 

[Hazelelponi]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

Whenever your talking to someone about faith you have to address the post and what the poster is trying to convey.

A little intuitiveness and the right questions and you can often decipher what the poster is actually saying.

Online discussions are sometimes great - but too much and people burn out, start allowing false arguments to overshadow truth.

Like in this case. Here is a guy looking at the situation in India and acting like the situation in a country that doesn't follow Him but instead follow satanic religious and caste systems, is somehow God's fault even though it's the very same satanic religious institutions they follow that causes many of these issues..

Sure He could force all of us to follow Him instead of satan and be just to one another but that would absolutely remove the entire point of this exercise.

Does He want people to be mindless robots? Not even Calvinism teaches that we're robots with no will of our own.

Everyone who lives according to the flesh does so out of their own desires, not Gods.

What your poster needs to do is to revisit Cavinism, and brush up on the particulars because he has allowed those who don't understand Calvinism dictate to him the belief system.

There is a balance, a subtlety this poster has not seen concerning man's will.

 

[Sabertooth]

There is a balance, a subtlety this poster has not seen concerning man's will.

If he is willing to disavow God over a dynamic that he neither understands nor endorses, it betrays an underlying arrogance on his part. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble [James 4:6].

The fallen world and subsequent Judgment all have painful ramifications. We can either demand that God get on our page about those matters OR we can press in to get on His.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

Just my opinion here, but that does not qualify one as a Calvinist. He may have had some Calvinistic ideas, but no. Calvinism very simply answers his last comments --though he has rejected them. To him no longer, is God sovereign, nor is the Judge of all the World going to do what is right.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

This is a common question. Such a person is not illogical, but doesn't see past his rigid structures. It seems he wanted to believe the safety of logic that Calvinism provides, but in the end could not stomach the discrepancy between his feelings and the unapproachable "God is above us --we cannot know his ways."

To me, the very difference between God and his creatures --even the most intelligent of them-- is so huge, that patience is needed on the part of the creature if he "has a problem with" his Creator. Some questions may never be answered, but the implications of status logically implied by the very meaning of Creator vs Creature, show God to have the right AND THE JUSTICE to do as he will with his creation. He owes his creatures no explanation.

But I think if we look, we will find more than just hints at the explanation. We do see his purpose in creating, and a little study will show the necessity of sin and redemption in bringing that purpose to fruition.

We also know that this life is not about this life.

The fact that the answers are none of them necessarily immediately satisfying to the logical mind that bases his thinking on this world's views does not disqualify those answers. God has no respect for the idea that mankind, specially mankind in his fallen state, has the ability to reason with him. God does all the telling --man has nothing to offer. In fact man can't even understand most of what God says. It is a mercy that God is even willing to
deal with us at all, and patience that he waits for us to learn anything.


“If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.”

― G.K. Chesterton

 

[Artra]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

EDIT: If you have objections about the way I worded this response, FireDragon and I are having a discussion about it below, and you can message or reply to me if you'd like to talk about it. I'm still practicing the Faith and I will stumble sometimes. Thank you and bless you all.

EDIT 2: This is a flawed argument. I'll leave it up but please don't take it at face value. Thank you.

It's difficult but these are the questions where the tough love aspects of Christianity need to be enforced.

God does not owe you anything, and He will cast you into the Outer Darkness for insinuating that you are entitled to be in and know His Light. He will also cast you into Outer Darkness for insinuating that the effects of Free Will, allowing others to make their own choices, are His fault for respecting His creation. If you follow the flesh, you will not hear Him no matter how much He communicates with you. God is good, but He is not soft on lawlessness, and He won't let any evil in your heart hear Him.

I think the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-43)
and the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) are what they might be looking for.

To say God is not addressing injustice properly is to say you know the full extent of the damage of the injustice, the entire cause-and-effect that stems from it and the proper means to address injustice that will work the best both in short and long term. To rebuke God would mean you claim to have superiority over a Being that comprehends everything, and if you believe that you are free to reject Him and make your own choices.

 

[mcarans]

it is hard to judge a persons spirit as that is something that will be seen clearly once we are stripped of our flesh and our celestial body is revealed...

Thanks for your helpful response. If it is of interest to you, you're welcome to join the subreddit r/cruciformity which discusses the idea that Jesus reveals perfectly the character and nature of God.

 

[mcarans]

God has no respect for the idea that mankind, specially mankind in his fallen state, has the ability to reason with him. God does all the telling --man has nothing to offer. In fact man can't even understand most of what God says. It is a mercy that God is even willing to
deal with us at all, and patience that he waits for us to learn anything.

Why does God deal with us at all?

 

[FireDragon76]

It's difficult but these are the questions where the tough love aspects of Christianity need to be enforced.

God does not owe you anything, and He will cast you into the Outer Darkness for insinuating that you are entitled to be in and know His Light. He will also cast you into Outer Darkness for insinuating that the effects of Free Will, allowing others to make their own choices, are His fault for respecting His creation. If you follow the flesh, you will not hear Him no matter how much He communicates with you. God is good, but He is not soft on lawlessness, and He won't let any evil in your heart hear Him.

It's this sort of response that is bound to convince people that Christianity has nothing to say to modern people's concerns. Psychologically healthy people refuse to be bullied, even by a god. They have more integrity than that.

 

[Artra]

It's this sort of response that is bound to convince people that Christianity has nothing to say to modern people's concerns. Psychologically healthy people refuse to be bullied, even by a god. They have more integrity than that.

It's this sort of response that is bound to convince people that Christianity has nothing to say to modern people's concerns.

The kind of response I gave convinced me to be pushed away for a time. I thought God was bullying me right until I came back, and I came back because I realized it is an essential part of the Faith to deliver that message effectively. I'm sorry that my seriousness went too far, but that means it has to be refined, not discarded, and I know the damage to someone's Faith that can happen when it's unrefined personally. I'm sorry I made you or anyone else feel that way, but modern people's concerns sounds dangerously close to New Age, and I can try to help deliver the Truth as best I can but there are parts of the Bible that were hard to swallow back then and that's no different now. I want to be as sensitive as possible, but the Bible is insensitive when the Book needs to be, and those parts need to be shared as well. I'll consider what you said, thank you.

 

[FireDragon76]

"New age" is, in my experience, a vague concept, it doesn't tell me exactly how something is right or wrong.

I belong to a church that has a respectable modernist wing, so I'm not sure I could agree with your sentiments.

I do not believe in sugar coating but the perspective you are talking about risks offending those with sensitive consciences, exactly what my religion says is something that should not be done. For instance, victims of abuse are bound to hear what you said as yet more abuse and negation of their suffering, for instance. It is very wrong to portray God as a bully, and those who do so will have to answer for it one day to a God that is zealous for the lost sheep.

 

[Hawkins]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

The answer is truly simple. What does he expect God to to. To bring justice to this world? That's apparently not how it works.

God's target is to eradicate evil once and for all, under open witnessing. The only way to do so is to allow evil to be displayed fully and openly in this world, such that Law will apply in the final judgment for evil to be completely eradicated and to secure a final Heaven without evil.

He lost his faith simply because he applied his human intelligence to assume that planet earth is a final place in God's plan while it's not.

An analogy:
The final Heaven is like an aquarium while planet earth acts as its filter. The more dirty the filter is, it could mean that it's more effective in filtering the dirtiness to secure a clean aquarium. Now that guy's ask is for a clean filter. A clean filter only means it failed to serve it's purpose of allowing the dirtiness to show up and filtered.

The second wrong assumption that guy made is that earth should be a heaven like place while the Bible never says so. In contrary, earth is a place lying outside God's dwelling realm, where Satan is said to be the god here. Wherever outside God's realm should be hell like. Earth is a better place than hell simply because God has an unfinished job here, which is His salvation.

The third wrong assumption is that everyone is God's child while the Bible never says so. There are wheat and weeds, sheep and wolves. If you refuse to call Him Father then well perhaps you are not.

So the question going back to that guy who lost his faith is, with the best of his intelligence why couldn't him figure out the answers by himself, with so simple an answer is?

In a nutshell, human intelligence is a joke. Someone (like that guy who lost his faith) chooses to rely on it, he dies faster.

 

[Artra]

"New age" is, in my experience, a vague concept, it doesn't tell me exactly how something is right or wrong.

I belong to a church that has a respectable modernist wing, so I'm not sure I could agree with your sentiments.

I do not believe in sugar coating but the perspective you are talking about risks offending those with sensitive consciences, exactly what my religion says is something that should not be done. For instance, victims of abuse are bound to hear what you said as yet more abuse and negation of their suffering, for instance. It is very wrong to portray God as a bully, and those who do so will have to answer for it one day to a God that is zealous for the lost sheep.

To me New Age is series of modernization practices that soften the harder blows of Spirituality and Religion and focus more on the individual's Spirituality instead of how their Spirit serves the Creator and community. Sometimes that can be gradual and insidious, or it can be outright rejection. It's a dilemma because I can't indulge or entertain certain modern practices and try to relay God's Word. I don't mean to attack your church though.

My response was to the friend of OP's tone, which I felt in my heart was the right approach. I understand one approach might not be the best one for others, and there will be times where I may be prone to stumble and become overzealous. I'll still remember what you said and learn from it.

There is a balance with tough love, one I have to learn. God is not a bully, but He is also intolerant of sin and does not let it near Him. I apologize if my wording warped what I meant to say, and I will pray on it.

 

[FireDragon76]

God is not a bully, but He is also intolerant of sin and does not let it near Him. I apologize if my wording warped what I meant to say, and I will pray on it.

Are you sure we are talking about the same God? God walked the earth for 33 years and ate with sinners.

 

[Artra]

Are you sure we are talking about the same God? God walked the earth for 33 years and ate with sinners.

Intolerant of sin, not sinners. He loves His creation and does not want them to perish with sin, which is why He let Himself get as close as possible so the good in them could reach Him. He encouraged them to rid themselves of sin, and He fought sin Himself while He was on earth. It doesn't mean He is tolerant of sin, just patient with repentance.


2 Peter 3:9

Proverbs 6:16-19

Also, when Jesus became sin, He felt the farthest away from the Father that He ever felt. He felt distant from the Father because He took on our sins, but He was not separated from God the Father because He Himself was sinless. Anyone who sins by their own choice weakens their connection with God because sin can't be in God's Light.

Matthew 27:46

John 3:19

John 3:3

1 John 3:9
I see what you mean though and I would be willing to admit I'm wrong as I had to reflect for a moment.

 

[1213]

I was recently in online conversation with someone in the process of losing their faith. How would you have answered the questions he raised?

How would you answer these questions from someone losing their faith? : cruciformity

Then a week ago in response to an article, he said, "Why doesn't god correct the injustice? Why are we to blame and god has no responsibility?...It’s ok. I dont expect an answer. There is not a sufficient answer. This is the main reason I am throwing away my faith. I would stop injustice if I could. God won’t or can’t so it seems I am more moral than him if he exists. So he is not worth following in my opinion."

My answer to this is:
Is there some injustice that continues forever? If not, how can it be said it is not stopped?

Also, this “life” is the first death. People were expelled to here to learn what good and evil means. That is the reason why evil things are possible, so that we can learn. Luckily this is just a short lesson and nothing of this world can destroy soul, which is the important thing. Body is temporary and can be replaced, in Biblical point of view and we should not fear anything of this world.

"In the end, if God wants me to believe in him then he should know how to communicate that to me in such a way that I would believe he existed. Which he has never done."

I think it is not really about believing God exists. It is about being righteous, because those who are righteous, will get eternal life. I don’t think there is any reason to communicate, if it doesn’t make you righteous.

You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.
James 2:19

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God."
John 3:19-21

 

[BCsenior]

I touched on the link as well ...
he has no understanding of the basics:
humanity is in a horrendous condition,
in no way suitable to be welcome in heaven!