Where's God?

doubtingmerle · Mar 14, 2021

Paulomycin said:
God in eternity past, in the counsel of His own will, ordained everything that will happen;

So if you counsel a child that was molested, you would tell her that God ordained it? Why would God ordain that little girls get molested?

yet in no sense is God the author of sin; nor is human responsibility removed.

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Then what do you mean when you say God ordained it? If God ordained it, why is he not responsible for his decisions?

God is not the author of sin, yet allows sin to continue another day, because His final judgment is being suspended for another day.

In other words, when you look at the world, you will find it behaves exactly as you would expect if the atheists were right.

A: No one, including COVID patients, deserve life. . .period.

Do COVID patients deserve to suffer years of physical pain as a result of COVID? One would think that they do not deserve that.

Thus, prayer is not an attempt to control God. It's not even a guarantee, as one might prefer to read-into that verse. Prayer is not a cosmic vending machine.

And yet the Bible specifically says that God gives things as a result of prayer. Not only does James 5 say this, but other verse say this also:

John 15: 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mark 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Paulomycin · Mar 14, 2021

This post is addressing no one in-particular. Just some friendly advice for other users. . .

Protip: No one is ever obligated to answer speculative questions based on pure "if" scenarios, such as, "If you were a licenced professional counselor or pastor, would you tell a client at the very moment of their worst pain and suffering that God ordained it? IOW, if anyone tries to "get" you with a speculative "if" scenario, then it's fictional bait. If you take it, then you're committed to the frame narrative that your opponent is fictionalizing with his or her "if" scenario.

That being said, one with real empathy would allow the client to grieve, or choose something more tactful. I'm sure professional training would address this. Also, Romans 8:18-39 can be put to comforting use here, as it pretty much says it's God's will, but without any unloving, perverse, or malicious intent.

Remember, God ordains all things for His glory; not ours. The entire focus of Christianity is looking in the bathroom mirror and saying, "It's not about you."

Here are some possible questions that pretty much anyone might ask as a result. . .

Question: "When one looks at the world, wouldn't you agree that it behaves exactly as-if God did not exist?"

Answer: As the song says, "This is my Father's world," and I'm happy to sing it. I'm not looking at the world from an Empirical lens, or a bias of metaphysical naturalism. Both are flawed philosophies in-themselves. There is no evidence to support either of these 2 secular philosophies. So no, I don't agree, because atheism has nothing objective nor reliable to sustain itself, other than purely subjective and sustained rage against my Father's world.

Question: "Does anyone suffering from a terminal illness, such as COVID, deserve to suffer years of physical pain as a result of COVID?

Answer: Yes, if one assumed that people were so entitled. However, that assumption is wrong, because no one is entitled to one more day of life on God's green Earth, nor any comfort on His Earth while they're upon it.

See, our senselessly smug and self-centered pride as human beings tends to give us this idea that God somehow owes us a living! Wow! Where's the proof of that? What makes human beings so special to merit one more minute on God's green earth? No atheist, nor agnostic Karens out there can account for such a right.

Paulomycin · Mar 14, 2021

Let's say that someone (generally anyone) decides to derail the OP and make it about say, "prayer" instead (or any other topic, really). . .

You might have to address the following questions, in-addition to the ones I wrote about prayer earlier in the thread. Sadly, there are people out there who don't really want an honest and direct answer to their question, but are instead trying to satisfy their own confirmation biases, or push an agenda, or even both.

Question: "Why can't I interpret the Bible the way I think it says? The Bible specifically says that God gives things as a result of prayer, so why can't I assume that God is like say, a genie in a lamp, or a cosmic bellhop?"

Answer: Because you're arguing for a purely eisegetical interpretation of scripture, which means you're forcing your own presuppositions onto the text, and interpreting it according to those exact same prejudices. "Garbage-in, garbage-out."

In fact, that's not how you should interpret any document, or spoken-word presentation. The only proper interpretation of the Bible is exegesis, instead of eisegesis. Instead of asking, "What is this saying to me," ask, "What is this saying?" Which means you need to read the text in light of the entire context of the rest of the Bible.

Therefore, all other verses regarding prayer apply to James, such as James 4:3, among many others.

Question: But what about these verses?

John 15:7 -If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Matthew 21:22 - And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mark 11:23 - For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Answer: All of those verses count, along with all other verses about prayer previously cited; all at the same time.

Therefore, the overall message on prayer can be rolled all-together into one big giant ball, & then paraphrased (while adding other verses on prayer) as follows. . .

"The (unceasing) prayer of a righteous man benefits greatly, but mostly according to Providence, and only if God's name is hallowed, and if God's will is 1st priority, as His own kingdom and His will alone, not mine, be done. If one lives continually in Christ, if His words live continually in you, and not in the flesh, then He will do whatever you ask (believing), up to and including literally moving mountains (except if you're hung up on cessationism), just don't ask amiss, that you may spend it on your sinful pleasures."

^ That's just a work in progress. I'm sure even more verses on prayer can be added to this; expanding the proper and true context even further, but you get the idea.

I can't pray like that. I admit it. I don't know anyone who can, really. Or maybe they can, and stuff happened, and they haven't told me about it. The exegetical context on prayer certainly disqualifies the unbeliever from God ever hearing his prayer.

But wait! God already knows we're awful at it. So the apostle Paul assures us. . .

Romans 8:26 - Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

And that's how prayer works.

Ed1wolf · Mar 14, 2021

InterestedAtheist said:
Textbook circular reasoning. Thank you, Ed. You have proved my point.

How is it circular? And it is not arbitrary, because His commands are based on His character.

Ed1wolf · Mar 14, 2021

doubtingmerle said:
You are still back to arguing that God defined the English language?

No, but He created the concept of language utilizing grammar, syntax, and symbolism to communicate because He used it for the eternity before we came into existence within the Trinity.

dm: Get serious. God never wrote an English dictionary. If you think he did, please point us to the document that defines what God says that words written in English will mean.

Do you say the same thing when a non-Christian policeman talks to you? "Words mean nothing objectively even to you if there is no God. You use language even in your head when you think. If it doesnt have an objective foundation, then you cant even really talk to yourself in your head."

Of course not, because even atheists and pagans have to live as if the Christian God exists in order to communicate with even themselves.

dm: Do you say the same thing when a non-Christian boss talks to you? "Words mean nothing objectively even to you if there is no God. You use language even in your head when you think. If it doesnt have an objective foundation, then you cant even really talk to yourself in your head."

Is any non-Christian ever able to talk to you, without you complaining that words have meaning only if you are a Christian?

See above.

Ed1wolf · Mar 14, 2021

doubtingmerle said:
Oh for crying out loud. That is the very thing we are arguing about!

Click at the arrow beside my name to reach the post you replied to. Then follow back 5 posts into this exchange. I have been arguing that my life is real and you have been arguing that it is not. Now you agree with me that my life was real.

Once again, we find you arguing for the exact opposite of what you have said before. Are you having fun arguing with yourself?

I did and found nowhere where I said you were not real. But what about my question that you didn't answer? Both you and Dahmer felt that you were living a meaningful life, prior to Dahmer going to jail, how could any body know which one of you was right or maybe you both were?

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

Ed1wolf said:
I did and found nowhere where I said you were not real. But what about my question that you didn't answer? Both you and Dahmer felt that you were living a meaningful life, prior to Dahmer going to jail, how could any body know which one of you was right or maybe you both were?

Both Dahmer and I could have been living what we considered a meaningful life.

But only one of us was living a life that builds the trusting relationships that is needed for people to survive.

But you will just ignore that and pretend I never said that, yes?

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

Ed1wolf said:
No, but He created the concept of language utilizing grammar, syntax, and symbolism to communicate because He used it for the eternity before we came into existence within the Trinity.

How do you know it was God and not Hofwfe?

And how do you know that language was not invented by proto-humans?

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

Ed1wolf said:
How is it circular?

Because it ran around in a circle.

See? Even nonchristians can understand the meaning of words.

Once again, is something "good" because God's character is so, or does God choose his character to be that way because it is good?

PuerAzaelis · Mar 15, 2021

doubtingmerle said:
So if you counsel a child that was molested, you would tell her that God ordained it? Why would God ordain that little girls get molested?

There are alternatives to the hyper-sovereign God of Calvinism who ordains everything from beginingless time.

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality - in nature or history - is governed not only by a transcendent providence but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things. But one should consider the price at which that comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of - but entirely by way of - every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.
Or, to phrase all of this somewhat differently, words we would not utter to ease another's grief we ought not to speak to satisfy our own sense of piety. In the New York Times this morning, on this the last day I have set aside for the writing of this book, there appeared a report from Sri Lanka recounting, in part, the story of a large man of enormous physical strength who was unable to prevent four of his five children from perishing in the tsunami, and who - as he recited the names of his lost children to the reporter, in descending order of age, ending with the name of his four-year-old son - was utterly overwhelmed by his own weeping. Only a moral cretin at that moment would have attempted to soothe his anguish by assuring him that his children had died as a result of God's eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels, and that in fact their deaths had mysteriously served God's purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created this world. Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words; we would recognize that they would offer no more credible comfort than the vaporings of the most idiotically complacent theodicy, and we would detest ourselves for giving voice to odious banalities and blasphemous flippancies.
And this should tell us something. For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another's sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them; because what would still our tongues would be the knowledge (which we would possess at the time, though we might forget it later) that such sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God. In the process, moreover, we would be attempting to deny that man a knowledge central to the gospel: the knowledge of the evil of death, its intrinsic falsity, its unjust
dominion over the world, its ultimate nullity; the knowledge that God is not pleased or nourished by our deaths, that he is not the secret architect of evil, that he is the conqueror of hell, that he has condemned all these things by the power of the cross; the knowledge that God is life and light and infinite love, and that the path that leads through nature and history to his Kingdom does not simply follow the contours of either nature or history, or obey the logic immanent to them, but is opened to us by way of the natural and historical absurdity - or outrage - of the empty tomb.

David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

Paulomycin said:
Protip: No one is ever obligated to answer speculative questions based on pure "if" scenarios, such as, "If you were a licenced professional counselor or pastor, would you tell a client at the very moment of their worst pain and suffering that God ordained it? IOW, if anyone tries to "get" you with a speculative "if" scenario, then it's fictional bait. If you take it, then you're committed to the frame narrative that your opponent is fictionalizing with his or her "if" scenario.

Ah, so you are not obligated to answer.

That is an odd response. After all, you posted a link that seemed to say that all things that happen are ordained by God. So when a child gets molested, your link indicates that this molestation was ordained by God. So it is only natural to ask what you think about whether child molestation was ordained by God. Your response? You plead the right to remain silent.

Huh?

That being said, one with real empathy would allow the client to grieve, or choose something more tactful. I'm sure professional training would address this.

Wait, what?

One should use empathy when telling a young child that her molestation was ordained by God?

Some of us still scratch our heads wondering why God would ordain such a thing.

Also, Romans 8:18-39 can be put to comforting use here, as it pretty much says it's God's will, but without any unloving, perverse, or malicious intent.

Ah, when God wills this molestation, it is not with malicious intent? I'm not sure I would find that comforting.

Remember, God ordains all things for His glory; not ours. The entire focus of Christianity is looking in the bathroom mirror and saying, "It's not about you."

Ah, so this poor girl, who lives in fear, she needs to look in the mirror and say "its not about me". She needs to say it is all about God getting glory to himself, no matter how much it hurts her?

Wait, what?

I'm sorry, but with all due respect, this girl's life is about her. And if she is being molested, then one needs to find a way to stop it, regardless of whether God ordained the molestation for his glory.

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

Paulomycin said:
Let's say that someone (generally anyone) decides to derail the OP and make it about say, "prayer" instead (or any other topic, really). . .

Wait, now the thread police show up? Where have you been?

This thread has covered the gamut, from Hitler, to suicide, to the Big Bang, to suicide, to who defines English words, to suicide, to the source of morality, to suicide, to slavery, to suicide, to gay sex.

By contrast, the topic of unanswered prayer is very close to the question in the OP. And now the thread police show up?

Sadly, there are people out there who don't really want an honest and direct answer to their question, but are instead trying to satisfy their own confirmation biases, or push an agenda, or even both.

Sadly there are people who have the fleas of a thousand camels in their armpits.

Since both of us want honest and direct answers; and since neither of us has the fleas of a thousand camels; why don't we just skip those two topics and address the questions?

Answer: Because you're arguing for a purely eisegetical interpretation of scripture, which means you're forcing your own presuppositions onto the text, and interpreting it according to those exact same prejudices. "Garbage-in, garbage-out."

Uh, no I was quoting the words of the Bible to you. This is what the Bible says.

In fact, that's not how you should interpret any document, or spoken-word presentation. The only proper interpretation of the Bible is exegesis, instead of eisegesis. Instead of asking, "What is this saying to me," ask, "What is this saying?" Which means you need to read the text in light of the entire context of the rest of the Bible.

Why must I read the Bible in light of other books of the Bible? The Bible is written by many authors over many years and they contradict each other. One does not get to say that A does not mean what A says because B says something different.

Question: But what about these verses?

John 15:7 -If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Matthew 21:22 - And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

What about them? They clearly say that prayer involves asking for things and getting them.

Answer: All of those verses count, along with all other verses about prayer previously cited; all at the same time.

Therefore, the overall message on prayer can be rolled all-together into one big giant ball, & then paraphrased (while adding other verses on prayer) as follows. . .

"The (unceasing) prayer of a righteous man benefits greatly, but mostly according to Providence, and only if God's name is hallowed, and if God's will is 1st priority, as His own kingdom and His will alone, not mine, be done. If one lives continually in Christ, if His words live continually in you, and not in the flesh, then He will do whatever you ask (believing), up to and including literally moving mountains (except if you're hung up on cessationism), just don't ask amiss, that you may spend it on your sinful pleasures."

Ah so what John 15:7 really means is, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, [and you have unceasing prayer of a righteous man that benefits greatly, but mostly according to Providence, and only if God's name is hallowed, and if God's will is 1st priority, as His own kingdom and His will alone, not mine, be done, and you live continually in Christ, and if His words live continually in you, and not in the flesh, and don't ask amiss, that you may spend it on your sinful pleasures, then] ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Sorry, one needs to insert the words in red to make John 15:7 say what you want it to say. Sorry, but John 15:7 does not say that.

doubtingmerle · Mar 15, 2021

PuerAzaelis said:
There are alternatives to the hyper-sovereign God of Calvinism who ordains everything from beginingless time.

Hear! Hear!

The words in italics below are you quoting a book by David Bentley Hart.

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality - in nature or history - is governed not only by a transcendent providence but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things.

A comfort that many have sought here.

But one should consider the price at which that comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of - but entirely by way of - every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known;

Click to expand...

Sadly, many here have paid that price, teaching a God that wills disfiguring illness and even molestation.

it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

Click to expand...

Ah, the cost of that view is that one finds a God that is not worth loving. Interesting.

Or, to phrase all of this somewhat differently, words we would not utter to ease another's grief we ought not to speak to satisfy our own sense of piety.

Click to expand...

Correct. Some people say such words to themselves, but would never say such words to a grieving child.

Only a moral cretin at that moment would have attempted to soothe his anguish by assuring him that his children had died as a result of God's eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels, and that in fact their deaths had mysteriously served God's purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created this world. Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words;

Click to expand...

Hear! Hear!

Paulomycin · Mar 15, 2021

(just a general announcement for anyone reading)

Christian apologetics 101: Always be careful not to get caught out by the trap of eisegetical interpretation of scripture, meaning that the text is being interpreted in such a way as to introduce one's own presuppositions, agendas, or confirmation bias.

One clear sign of eisegetical interpretation is building an entire doctrine out of a single verse, or even "reading into" two or three at once. This is also known as "cherry-picking." That way, one can pretty much make the Bible say anything they want it to.

The solution to eisegetical interpretation is called exegesis. Any doctrine, such as for example, the doctrine of prayer, has to be read in-light of every-single-verse about prayer, as well as all related subjects. That's how proper interpretation works.

Otherwise, it's an eisegetical interpretation. That's how cults interpret the Bible. Sometimes it's just an honest mistake, but when repeated over say, 10-18 years of forum membership, it becomes a total scam.

St. Helens · Mar 15, 2021

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ewq1938 · Mar 15, 2021

Where's God?

I'll think about it.

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I'll think about it.

I'll think about it.

I'll think about it.

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I'll think about it.

I'll think about it.

I'll think about it.

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I stand with Israel

I love you three.

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