10 of the Biggest Questions

[Monna]

If Jesus had written His own Gospel, such skepticism would be held in check.

You certainly have a positive view of the human race, the need to copy documents by hand in the old days, and the unintentional as well as the nefarioulsy intentional changes that have been made to them.

The Prophet Mohammed claimed to have written down verbatim the words of God. By the 3rd Caleph there were so many different versions that the Caleph ordered them to be gathered, and he destroyed most of them.

We have enough early copies of the individual parts of scripture to know that there are many early variations, hence notes in modern translations that certain portions do or do not appear in the earliest available copies. If Jesus had written his own gospel, IMHO it would have been the most often deliberately changed in order to try to give particular authority to the copier's pet religious viewpoint.

 

[listed]

[Note: The end of (4) apparently got erased and has now been corrected.]

(1) Why does God allow so many people to be born under atheistic Communism or in cultures in which they will never hear about Jesus? Can these people be saved apart from formal expression of faith in Christ? If not, how is that just?

(2) Why did God allow thousands of years of human history to elapse before He chose to incarnate and grow up in an obscure town, Nazareth?

(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship generally agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life. If Jesus had written His own Gospel, such skepticism would be held in check.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4) to be lost.

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims? For that matter, why didn't God answer one of the many prayers for Hitler's assassination, so that one of the assassination plots might have succeeded and saved millions of lives?

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?




(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4).

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims?

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?


​

They would do only what you've have done here, attack Christianity. Christianity is based on faith. If a person won't believe that person can't participate in Christianity.

 

[Christie insb]

Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

People with dementia have more going on spiritually than you might think. For one thing, pain and suffering are a chance to rely on God in ways we can't really understand. They are still sensitive to spiritual matters, even into advanced dementia. And spiritual growth is not intellectual growth anyway. We maybe don't understand the ontological ground of our being in the same way, but we still have an opportunity to be kind and patient and to help others and know God in a different way. "Old age is not for sissies," but God continues to meet us there.

 

[dqhall]

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

You might like to research some ways Alzheimer's can be avoided through good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle instead of asking why God is not doing enough. There are volumes of useful information beyond the Bible that are readily available to those diligent enough to search. God guides people in their searches. I had to read numerous books and many articles before getting healed of chronic illness through a healthier diet. God is a living God who does not sleep. It is sinful people who are not doing enough to improve the condition of their neighborhoods.
Where are the Lowest Rates of Alzheimer’s in the World? | NutritionFacts.org
People who are obese are at higher risk of dementia. Gluttony is a sin (Proverbs 23:20-12).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130133812.htm

Reading one article on the subject may not be enough. Wisdom is a greater depth of knowledge; more than a few articles.

 

[Light of the East]

Jesus, ultimately, wrote the entire Bible, since the Bible is God-breathed scripture. This is the truth and people still reject it.

Not "God-breathed." God-inspired. I guess you take the position that every single word in the Sacred Scriptures is word-for-word exactly what God said, as if the prophets who wrote were nothing more than secretaries taking dictation. Of course, if you believe this (do you?) then you have a problem with the fact that there are contradictory accounts of the same events throughout the Bible.

And how do you know this? Do you know who the elect of God are? Is this what you are claiming?

No such thing as "the elect of God" in the Calvinist (i.e. heretical) sense.

There are no God seekers (in and of themselves).

Romans 3:10-12 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; (11) no one understands; no one seeks for God. (12) All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Now go find the Psalm that this is talking about and interpret these verses correctly. St. Paul here in Romans is quoting the 14th Psalm. In Psalm 14:4, it identifies those who at not righteous - it is the wicked. They are contrasted to those who are God's people. And why did St. Paul write this? Because the Jews of his time thought that just because they were Jews, and just because they were circumcised, they had an express train to heaven. Paul strives to show them that their faith in their Jewish birth and circumcision was of no avail to them.

 

[R. Hartono]

Pretty sure in the gospels it said people rose from the dead and went into the city.

Still the Hebrew didnt repent until they all destroyed by the Roman.

 

[SolomonVII]

[Note: The end of (4) apparently got erased and has now been corrected.]

(1) Why does God allow so many people to be born under atheistic Communism or in cultures in which they will never hear about Jesus? Can these people be saved apart from formal expression of faith in Christ? If not, how is that just?

(2) Why did God allow thousands of years of human history to elapse before He chose to incarnate and grow up in an obscure town, Nazareth?

(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship generally agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life. If Jesus had written His own Gospel, such skepticism would be held in check.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4) to be lost.

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims? For that matter, why didn't God answer one of the many prayers for Hitler's assassination, so that one of the assassination plots might have succeeded and saved millions of lives?

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?




(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4).

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims?

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?


​

The questions in general remind me of the medieval king who, upon hearing how the heavens were laid out, according to the latest scientific opinion, figured God could have done a much better job of things.
This led to the retort by philosophers like Liebniz offering proofs that all is for the best in the best of all possible world, the atheist Voltaire spoofing that, and on and on through to de Sade and the idea that God is evil and this is the exact kind of world an evil God would create.
The best answer to these kinds of question is that this is the way that the world is, and that 'through him, with him in him, in the unity of the holy spirit' we have been provided with the tools to overcome.
All that is needed, all that is required is just a little faith, even the faith the size of a mustard seed is sufficient.
You don't need the faith of an acorn even. You don't need to believe that Moses did something that you think he didn't. You don't need to know how come this, or how come that. If you find answers to any of those questions, great, if not, no matter.
You don't need to know all that. You don't need to know what is beyond the limits of knowledge to know.
But what you do need is faith, faith that God is with us, and that is enough to more than overcome all adversity.
Wisdom itself comes only through great suffering. Peak experiences where people see the face of God and recognize the answer to all these question come only through times of great stress, which motivate all systems of our physiology to high alert, where death itself is a real possibility. And death is as common an outcome as wisdom in those moments.

What is absurd is disbelieving in the transcendant self, disbelieving in God who alone is the source of glory and human dignity. What is absurd is living a life without faith, and thinking that pronouncing the transcendant self as a delusion will be sufficient to get us through this life.
God is as real as you wish him to be. That is up to you. The voice of those cynics in your head ridiculing you for believing in God and the tooth fairy and unicorns have nothing to offer you other than scorn and derision.
God is more real than anything else. The experiences that people have of God are the most real experiences that exist in life.

That is no way to live, living without faith, as if you are nothing other than a fleshbot, with no dignity or free will, as only an icon of God might. So, if Moses did not write Exodus; so what? Nobody is required to place their faith in what they don't believe. Place your faith in God, in Jesus, as he is presented in the Bible, and there is no mountain high enough to stand in your way to live that rich and meaningful life that only comes through glorifying and honoring the Most High.

 

[Simon_Templar]

[Note: The end of (4) apparently got erased and has now been corrected.]

(1) Why does God allow so many people to be born under atheistic Communism or in cultures in which they will never hear about Jesus? Can these people be saved apart from formal expression of faith in Christ? If not, how is that just?​

Romans 1. Everyone who has ever lived has had enough revelation both internally and externally to know God. Evil exists in the world because we are free. Yet even in the worst places God still sends messengers of truth, whether they be human or angelic or both.

(2) Why did God allow thousands of years of human history to elapse before He chose to incarnate and grow up in an obscure town, Nazareth?

First, the Bible clearly shows us that God didn't leave the people before Christ without witnesses. He had active covenants through out human history from the beginning and he always chose people to be his representatives on earth.

Secondly, Jesus was born at the time when human civilization had developed sufficiently to both be able to spread the gospel and to understand the gospel.

Third, given the dynamic of how population grows the vast majority of people in history have lived since the time of Christ. Only a small percentage lived before.

(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship generally agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life. If Jesus had written His own Gospel, such skepticism would be held in check.

First, the scholarly attacks on the gospels and the rest of the scriptures have been largely refuted. There is no solid basis to argue that any of the gospels were written after the life time of the Apostles. There is also no reason to doubt that the gospels were written by the people they are attributed to.
Matthew - An Apostle
Mark - Companion of Peter, likely wrote down what Peter told him
Luke - Companion of Paul and also knew the other Apostles
John - An Apostle.

I think the reason that Jesus never wrote anything down himself was because he intended all along to leave that job to the Church, under the governance of his appointed administration (the apostles).

Further, if Jesus had written something down I can guarantee that it would not make the remotest dent in the skepticism of unbelievers, let alone scholars. Look at how many people don't believe that Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays, or how many people believe we never landed on the moon.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4) to be lost.

You are just misreading what Luke wrote here. When he talks about the eye-witnesses and the ministers who from the beginning delivered the accounts to them, he is talking about the fact that he personally knows and received what he is about to write from the Apostles themselves. He is essentially saying, I've been in the community of the apostles and they told me all this first hand information so I thought it was a good idea to write it down and send it to you.

The idea that the canonical gospels were written long after the fact is false. It is very well established that every one of the gospels was written before 100 AD, with Matthew, Mark, and Luke almost certainly being written before 70 AD. Keeping in mind that Jesus died in 33 AD (or there about) so they were all written within 70 most were written withing 40 years. John, the last living apostle is generally have believed to have died sometime around 100 AD.

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

Again, your "scholars agree" statement just isn't accurate. There are many scholars who believe that Moses did write most of the Pentateuch.

There are some sections of the Pentateuch that were probably written later, but most of it was probably not.

There are some sections, for example, which talk about how the law worked once the Israelites were settled in the promised land. These were probably revised after the construction of the Temple because some of the laws changed slightly due to the Temple being a fixed location as opposed to a mobile tent that was moving around etc.

Some scholars also argue that Genesis was either written or revised later because a lot of stuff in Genesis seems to be intended to make reference to and speak against Babylonian culture rather than Egyptian culture. As a result some scholars think it was written or revised during or after the Captivity, possibly by Ezra.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

Intellectual ability is not required for salvation. Understanding is not required for salvation. What is required is that you know and love God. There is no impediment to people with mental disabilities in this. The idea that we must have a certain level of knowledge in order to be saved is actually "Gnosticism" which was an early heresy that keeps coming back in various forms.

Illnesses and disabilities of every kind occur because the world is fallen. The Bible teaches that our sin literally affects the whole of creation. It's results and ramifications affect even the earth. God allows this because of our freedom. It is more loving to allow us to be free and have the bad effects of misusing our freedom, than it is to turn us into robots, which would literally be to unmake us as persons.

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

Same answer as above. Spiritual life and growth is not based upon cognitive ability.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

maybe they aren't as honest as you think. Skepticism in and of itself is not an "honest" or "open" intellectual position.

Ultimately God gives us enough evidence to find if we truly seek and truly want to find, but he gives us enough plausible deniability to avoid finding if we want to. That is part of maintaining freedom also. God doesn't want to force people to love him, because love can't be forced.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims? For that matter, why didn't God answer one of the many prayers for Hitler's assassination, so that one of the assassination plots might have succeeded and saved millions of lives?

Physical death and suffering are not the worst things that can happen. This question is best answered by the book of Job. The answer is we don't know, so we either trust God turn everything to the good of those who love him, or we don't trust.

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?

​

God will not inspire new scriptures because he has already given all that is necessary. The scriptures tell us that God left authority in the Church to interpret and teach the scriptures. Many people have rejected that authority and gone their own way. As a result they have created no end of confusion. Most of the questions you are talking about not only can be answered, they have been answered. It's just that most people don't want to put the effort in to go look for them, or they reject them because they don't fit with what the person already believes.

 

[Ken Rank]

(1) Why does God allow so many people to be born under atheistic Communism or in cultures in which they will never hear about Jesus? Can these people be saved apart from formal expression of faith in Christ? If not, how is that just?

If you see salvation as having to be something that hinges on a special word one says, and not a heart condition, you will continue to have this issue.

(2) Why did God allow thousands of years of human history to elapse before He chose to incarnate and grow up in an obscure town, Nazareth?

God knew before He made man that man would fall, I can prove that without question. Therefore, it stands to reason that man had to reach certain points in understanding in order for certain aspects of God's plan to be enacted. To give you one example... when we read Revelation we see that, one day, the ability to buy or sell will be tied to having a certain mark or number. While one might be able to argue for tattoos (they have been around since there has been pagans), the progression of technology over the last 50 years has revealed a much more feasible answer to what that mark or number might be. And as such, we needed to "evolve" (if you will) to this point in order for this to take place.

That... AND.... God is eternal. It is us that have the issue with time and see through the lens of time, not God.

(3) Why didn't God inspire Jesus to write His own Gospel? As it is, modern scholarship generally agrees that none of our 4 Gospels was written by a disciple or another eyewitness of Jesus life. If Jesus had written His own Gospel, such skepticism would be held in check.

He walked out God's will to perfection and others wrote about it. That was God's will.

(4) Why did God allow all the Gospels apparently written by eyewitnesses of Jesus long before our canonical Gospels (on this see Luke 1:1-4) to be lost.

That was God's will... what we have is what He desired for us to have.

(5) Why didn't God inspire Moses to write the story of his life, including the exodus, the Reed Sea Crossing, and the awesome giving of the Ten Commandments? As it is, modern scholars agree that the Pentateuch is based on various sources composed by unknown authors centuries after these events.

Because, like Yeshua, Moses was too busy "doing." You seem bent on the need for writing... God is more bent on action.

(6) Why does God permit so many people to be born with physical conditions (e. g. mental retardation and mental illness) that make it impossible for them to grasp the content and relevance of the Gospel?

Again, you seem keyed in on what one might have to understand and say. That makes MAN responsible for salvation, not God.

(7) Why does God so routinely allow the elderly, including elderly Christians, to lose their cognitive functions due to dementia and Alzheimer's Disease so that they are no longer capable of grasping divine truth and they lose their potential for continuing spiritual growth is aborted.

They will regain it. What we see is the wage of sin... when Adam died entropy entered the physical domain. Thus we all decay, get disease, and eventually die. That is what Christ, in part, came to reverse. We still decay and die but that has lost it's sting because we now have the promise of perfection before us.

(8) Why does the Holy Spirit so seldom seem to convict honest seekers of the truth of the Gospel? So many skeptics seem to honestly believe that the idea of a loving God is absurd wishful thinking.

There is a difference between conviction and force. One of the primary definitions of the Greek word hairesis (heresy) is force... God is not a heretic, He won't force anyone to love Him or serve Him. The HS will convict those who seek Him and open their hearts to Him but will not convict one who plays Christians on Sunday and plays the harlot the other 6 days.

(9) Why hasn't God intervened at strategic moments in history to prevent natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, etc.) that cause a massive number of fatalities to innocent victims? For that matter, why didn't God answer one of the many prayers for Hitler's assassination, so that one of the assassination plots might have succeeded and saved millions of lives?

I am fairly certain that you'll find out that God did intervene many times throughout history. Your problem is that you think temporally... which isn't your fault, we are trapped in this realm. But we see things through a human perspective that is limited by time and the inability to see outside the physical realm. It will all be clear to us at His return.

(10) Why is the divine revelation in Scripture so incomplete, forcing us to speculate about the answers to so many big questions with little help from Scripture? Can God inspire new Christian prophets to expand the canon of Scripture to address more of these questions?

Not incomplete, just written in such a way that one can only find when they seek, hear when they ask. If one isn't serious about God, if their heart is not aimed squarely at Him... they will not see the fullness of Scripture.
​

 

[Ron Gurley]

It is impossible for mortal man to answer "WHY" questions about the eternal / infinite / spiritual / immortal " mind" of God!!

Job 11:7
“ Can you discover the depths of God?
Can you discover the limits of the Almighty?

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the human heart; (spirit)
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Isaiah 40:28
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding (wisdom?) no one can fathom.

Zechariah 12: 1b (NASB)
Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens,
lays the foundation of the earth, and
forms the spirit of man within him,

1 Corinthians 2: 6-10
...but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery,
the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood;...
For to us God revealed them (things unseen) through the Spirit; (God the Holy Spirit)
for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God....