God took David's child's life - a contradicion in the Bible?

BNR32FAN said:

Yes it would be a blessing for the aborted child. What’s the ultimate goal here in this world for a Christian? Do we live for this world or the next? This world is nothing, it’s just a place to cultivate sheep and separate them from the goats.

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You ask: “What’s the ultimate goal?” and answer with: “it’s just a place to cultivate sheep and separate them from the goats.” Is that what you see as man’s earthly objective?

Yes, knowing God’s Love we can feel assured aborted children go to heaven, but that also means they did not fulfill their earthly objective and there is not way I see for them to achieve their earthly objective in heaven. So why are you not happy for those blessed aborted children?

All organizations need a “Mission statement”, so what would be our earthly “Mission Statement?”

In what way are sheep “cultivated” while here on earth?

zoidar said:

I don't think we share the same view on God's rights. I don't think God is allowed to do whatever. Why, because God's character is not allowing Him to do everything.

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Your assessment of this seems completely from not only a human perspective, but from the commonly held POV that humanity has any ability to assess God.

It is not a question of God "being allowed". Nobody 'allows' God. God is not limited by external fact or principle. God does what he does according to his own authority. It is misleading to even say he is "bound by his nature" --that is our way of putting things. He is not bound. There is nothing there for him to consider. If, for example, one is to say that Omnipotence suggests that he can (or cannot) make a rock too big for him for him to pick up, the question is ludicrous, self-contradictory. In the end it isn't even a question --it is foolishness. But more than that, this principle rules: God does only what he does, or as the Bible puts it, he does what he pleases. No other considerations need to be added. Our POV is unreasonably self-assured. If God does not please to make a rock too big for him to pick up, (and he does not, of course --such is a ludicrous notion), then he will not. What he does is only what he does.

This is in keeping with the philosophical subject of the Simplicity of God --a very interesting implication of Omnipotence.

zoidar said:

I guess God has wired me to be a person who wants to understand everything.

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rwiw. I think intellectual curiosity is a God-given trait.

Ec 7:1 A good name is better than a good ointment, And the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth.
The OP is confusing physical death with spiritual death.

bling said:

You ask: “What’s the ultimate goal?” and answer with: “it’s just a place to cultivate sheep and separate them from the goats.” Is that what you see as man’s earthly objective?

Yes, knowing God’s Love we can feel assured aborted children go to heaven, but that also means they did not fulfill their earthly objective and there is not way I see for them to achieve their earthly objective in heaven. So why are you not happy for those blessed aborted children?

All organizations need a “Mission statement”, so what would be our earthly “Mission Statement?”

In what way are sheep “cultivated” while here on earth?

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Good questions, but I would ask this, what Christian doesn’t mourn the death of a loved fellow Christian? We take comfort in knowing that they will be in paradise with the Lord but there’s still a sadness from the loss of their life and fellowship. I mourn the death of aborted babies because their right to live their life and raise a family has been taken away from them. Entire bloodlines that could’ve spanned centuries are wiped out by abortions. As for man’s ultimate goal it would be to accept Christ, to abide in Him and to spread the gospel to others. Now when you break down what it means to abide in Christ it gets a lot more complex but I chose that term just to keep it simple.

BNR32FAN said:

Most likely David’s son was immediately accepted into heaven which is a blessing not a punishment.

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Exactly. Going to be straight with our Heavenly Father would be a blessing. That's our endgame and David's son went straight through. It's definitely not a punishment for the child himself to have to skip this earthly life.

BNR32FAN said:

Yes it would be a blessing for the aborted child. What’s the ultimate goal here in this world for a Christian? Do we live for this world or the next? This world is nothing, it’s just a place to cultivate sheep and separate them from the goats.

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I agree.

zoidar said:

But death here is rarely a blessing from my view.

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As Solomon taught the day of our death is actually better than the day of our birth. Because again, that's the endgame. Some yes, have a purpose but to ultimately not have to suffer in some way on this earth and be with our Heavenly Father would be be a blessing for most. It hurts the ones left behind, such as David, but it certainly shouldn't be considered a punishment for the child.

zoidar said:

Oh, I disagree. I don't see this time on Earth as a passage to heaven. I believe God put us here for a purpose and life here is important to us and important to God. God loves His creation.

Entering heaven is of course a blessing for everyone. But death here is rarely a blessing from my view.

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I really do not know where to begin with you and will go back to address the original question and address this first.

The Garden of Eden was like a heaven on earth, but as we can see from Adam and Eve’s experience it was a lousy (impossible) place for humans to fulfill their earthly objective.

This messed up world (on the other hand) is actually the very best place for humans to fulfill their earthly objective. God is doing or allow Christ to go to the cross, satan to roam the earth, tragedies of all kinds, death, hell, and even sin to happen, all to help willing individuals fulfill their earthly objective.

Paul considered death for Himself to be a blessing, but was willing to stay on to help other, why do we not feel that same compulsion?

Life on earth for the Christian is extremely challenging, rewarding, blessed, physically hard and tiring. If it is not that way for a Christians, how closely are they walking in Christ’s footsteps? There are plenty of Christians to empathetically share their pain with, so we all look forward to our rest.
The importance of this short time on earth is in fulfilling our objective, since it is the difference between heaven and hell.

zoidar said:

And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”
— 2 Samuel 12:13-14

The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
— Ezekiel 18:20

I'm sure this question has been raised before. The punishment seems just to David for his aweful crime against Uriah, but David's child was innocent, yet the child was punished for David's sin. And in Ezekiel 18:20 we read that the son will not bear the father's iniquity, yet this seems to be exactly what happend.

We can say that sure we are all guilty before God, just being born sinners, but throughtout the Bible we don't see God punish people just because of that, but because of our own sinful acts. But here it seems to be an exception. Please share your thought through comments.

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First off: “The Lord also has taken away your sin” this means God has forgiven David’s sins in this case of adultery and murder. Forgiven sins are not also “punished” since God forgives 100% there is nothing left to be punished.

What Nathan goes on to tell us is: David’s child will die to help the neighbors to realize God was displeased with David as the God anointed representative of the people: “…you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”

God takes no pleasure in punishing people. God does not “punish” His own children but even with forgiveness a wonderful Loving Father will see to a fair/just disciplining of His children, so God will discipline His children to help His own children and those around His children.

The child goes to be with God and I doubt the child experienced any pain, but this really helped David and I could see how it would help those around David.

zoidar said:

Of course nobody allows God...

Maybe it's wrong to say God is bound by His own laws, but that is the way I see it. I'm of the belief that God would have saved everyone if He could, but it would be unrighteous to do so, and go against His nature. If He could just save anyone He chooses for any reason, the cross wouldn't be necessary.

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I know what you mean, and I admit we are unable to see from God's point of view. Our human words/ concepts seem necessary for us to do much thinking.

Nevertheless, as concerns your idea that God "would have saved all, if..." I don't think God thinks that way. At a minimum, this was all known by God when he created, and he created anyway. At a maximum, God created on purpose, and in fact, from his POV, it is already a done deal; this temporal universe we inhabit is his plan --the whole thing, even sin, and God's suffering (and the "negation of reality") as a result of it. Either way, the implication is that he never intended to save absolutely all, and that he saw it as worthwhile to plan for the demise of the forever lost by virtue of the fact he created them, knowing ahead of what would happen.

Granted, my reasoning here is human. We still don't know God's economy, God's thinking. Philosophy and Theology is good and useful concerning God, his nature, his work, but only HE knows reality. So we use his word, yet as humans, still.

BNR32FAN said:

Good questions, but I would ask this, what Christian doesn’t mourn the death of a loved fellow Christian? We take comfort in knowing that they will be in paradise with the Lord but there’s still a sadness from the loss of their life and fellowship. I mourn the death of aborted babies because their right to live their life and raise a family has been taken away from them. Entire bloodlines that could’ve spanned centuries are wiped out by abortions. As for man’s ultimate goal it would be to accept Christ, to abide in Him and to spread the gospel to others. Now when you break down what it means to abide in Christ it gets a lot more complex but I chose that term just to keep it simple.

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You take the Biblical commands to: “accept Christ”, “Abide in Christ” and “spread the gospel to others” as man’s objective, but you can take any command given man in scripture and say “This is man’s objective” and have scripture support for “it is what God told us to do”. So, is there a command that all other commands are subornment to, which might be the hidden Mission Statement?

God can raise from stones children of Abraham.

The tragedy with abortion is that child will never have the opportunity to fulfill His/her earthly objective.

Starting with God is Love (the epitome of Love), which means God is totally unselfish and is not doing stuff for His own sake, but is doing everything for the sake of man, which is also God’s desire and might be referred to as His sake.

God would be doing or allowing everything to help humans who are just willing to accept His help to fulfill their earthly objective.

So, God allows evil to happen to help humans, but God also allowed Christ to go to the cross to help humans.

There is really nothing you (a created being) can “do” to help the Creator, but you can allow, of your own free will, God to help you, which is God’s desire, since God is a huge giver of gifts.

Man’s objective is found in the God given Mission statement of: Loving God (and secondly Loving others) with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. In order to fulfill that mission man must first obtain Godly type Love which will make man like God Himself in that man will Love like God Loves. Would becoming like God Himself not be the greatest gift we could get?

The objective is not to never ever sin, but to obtain this Godly type Love is the first of man’s objective.

The Adam and Eve story helps us understand. Most people go through a time in which they ask: “How could a Loving God allow such a thing”, which means “why does God not start us all out in a Garden type situation without, needy people, limited resources, death, and questions about His existence?”

What we can do is thank Adam and Eve for showing us and them that what we might consider the ideal situation is a lousy situation for man to fulfill his earthly objective. Adam and Eve as our very best all human representatives did not fulfill the objective while sinless in the Garden and really could not. The situation after sinning outside the Garden did provide a way to fulfill the objective.

There are just somethings even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like God cannot make another Christ since Christ is not a created being. The big inability for us is to be created with instinctive (programmed) Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also, if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real likely alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)

This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).

This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.

All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them burden them to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus (Luke 7: 36-50) and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).

This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing mature adult individuals to see, receive, give, experience, accept and grow Godly type Love. All these tragedies provide opportunities for Love, but that does not mean we go around causing opportunities, since we are to be ceasing these opportunities (there are plenty of opportunities) to show/experience Love.

I and it seems other have to have opportunities at our doorstep to respond with Love, if I would just cease the opportunities at some distance there might be fewer opportunities (tragedies) needed for me, so if you want to blame someone for all these tragedies blame me for not ceasing more earlier.

Hell does nothing for the people going to hell, but that was their choice since they kept refusing to accept God’s help (forgiveness, Love, grace, mercy, charity) to the point they will never humbly accept. Hell does help some willing individuals to not put off their acceptance of God’s help.

We are not making some honorable choice to accept God’s forgiveness, since sin burdens us and we just want undeserved relief from our pain and burden.

In order to be forgiven of sin you must first sin, so sin is necessary, but not desired.

zoidar said:

And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”
— 2 Samuel 12:13-14

The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
— Ezekiel 18:20

I'm sure this question has been raised before. The punishment seems just to David for his aweful crime against Uriah, but David's child was innocent, yet the child was punished for David's sin. And in Ezekiel 18:20 we read that the son will not bear the father's iniquity, yet this seems to be exactly what happend.

We can say that sure we are all guilty before God, just being born sinners, but throughtout the Bible we don't see God punish people just because of that, but because of our own sinful acts. But here it seems to be an exception. Please share your thought through comments.

Click to expand...

ah, but consider the ultimate real situation:
God is the One Who reverses mortal death.

Children, adults, anyone, that seems to 'die' (who merely dies mortally) isn't (yet) dead in the ultimate (or final) way.

Basically, they are not dead.

Luke 8:52 Meanwhile, everyone was weeping and mourning for her. But Jesus said, "Stop weeping; she is not dead but asleep."

Luke 8:53 And they laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead.

And notice David had this very thought: the babe would live again.

bling said:

The tragedy with abortion is that child will never have the opportunity to fulfill His/her earthly objective.

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But then, why assume the child had an earthly objective? True we have no right to decide to remove a child, but is it not evident, the life of that child had no earthly objective (as we assess such things, that is --after all, the child did have a huge earthly effect). Can anything really happen outside of God's plan?

"The only thing that can happen is whatever happens."

zoidar said:

Thanks for your thoughts! But I do think Eden was the perfect place for human fulfillment. I think the fall was a true tragedy and not what God had purposed for us.

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I cannot see how one who knows and believes in the Omnipotence of God can conclude that anything can happen outside the original plan and purpose of God who created the whole business. The only way I can see around it is to admit to being merely human, and not God. Logic will not otherwise allow me to consider such a notion, nor will Scripture.

zoidar said:

Thanks for your thoughts! But I do think Eden was the perfect place for human fulfillment. I think the fall was a true tragedy and not what God had purposed for us.

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Adam and Eve were made “very good” by God’s standard of “very good”, which I would say: “The best two made beings could be made.” Christ is perfect, but Christ is not a made being but deity, so God cannot make clones of a perfect Christ.

Adam and Eve lacked one very important attribute which could keep them from sinning, but that attribute is something even God cannot gift them with, because it has to be humbly accepted of their own free will, let me explain:

Unfortunately, sin has purpose and appears to be needed for all mature adults (which Adam and Eve showed themselves and us) to help those who are willing to fulfill their earthly objective. The objective drives everything.

Starting with God is Love (the epitome of Love), which means God is totally unselfish and is not doing stuff for His own sake, but is doing everything for the sake of man, which is also God’s desire and might be referred to as His sake.

God would be doing or allowing everything to help humans who are just willing to accept His help to fulfill their earthly objective.

So, God allows evil to happen to help humans, but God also allowed Christ to go to the cross to help humans.

There is really nothing you (a created being) can “do” to help the Creator, but you can allow, of your own free will, God to help you, which is God’s desire, since God is a huge giver of gifts.

Man’s objective is found in the God given Mission statement of: Loving God (and secondly Loving others) with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. In order to fulfill that mission man must first obtain Godly type Love which will make man like God Himself in that man will Love like God Loves. Would becoming like God Himself not be the greatest gift we could get?

The objective is not to never ever sin, but to obtain this Godly type Love is the first of man’s objective.

The Adam and Eve story helps us understand. Most people go through a time in which they ask: “How could a Loving God allow such a thing”, which means “why does God not start us all out in a Garden type situation without, needy people, limited resources, death, and questions about His existence?”

What we can do is thank Adam and Eve for showing us and them that what we might consider the ideal situation is a lousy situation for man to fulfill his earthly objective. Adam and Eve as our very best all human representatives did not fulfill the objective while sinless in the Garden and really could not. The situation after sinning outside the Garden did provide a way to fulfill the objective.

There are just somethings even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), like God cannot make another Christ since Christ is not a created being. The big inability for us is to be created with instinctive (programmed) Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also, if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real likely alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)

This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).

This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.

All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them burden them to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus (Luke 7: 36-50) and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).

This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing mature adult individuals to see, receive, give, experience, accept and grow Godly type Love. All these tragedies provide opportunities for Love, but that does not mean we go around causing opportunities, since we are to be ceasing these opportunities (there are plenty of opportunities) to show/experience Love.

I and it seems other have to have opportunities at our doorstep to respond with Love, if I would just cease the opportunities at some distance there might be fewer opportunities (tragedies) needed for me, so if you want to blame someone for all these tragedies blame me for not ceasing more earlier.

Hell does nothing for the people going to hell, but that was their choice since they kept refusing to accept God’s help (forgiveness, Love, grace, mercy, charity) to the point they will never humbly accept. Hell does help some willing individuals to not put off their acceptance of God’s help.

We are not making some honorable choice to accept God’s forgiveness, since sin burdens us and we just want undeserved relief from our pain and burden.

In order to be forgiven of sin you must first sin, so sin is necessary, but not desired.

Mark Quayle said:

But then, why assume the child had an earthly objective? True we have no right to decide to remove a child, but is it not evident, the life of that child had no earthly objective (as we assess such things, that is --after all, the child did have a huge earthly effect). Can anything really happen outside of God's plan?

"The only thing that can happen is whatever happens."

Click to expand...

I did not say aborted children do not have a purpose, but they in that state they are in cannot fulfill an objective.