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Under God, are we robots, or are we not people? That is a question that comes to mind when reading a Verse which says, according to the English Standard Version of the Bible, 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...” Some rely on other Biblical versions of this Verse, which says that al scripture is INSPIRED by God. Those that go by the latter Verse lean on the assertion that whatever words are in the Bible were written by people, under their own inspiration. They further infer that if the Scripture is the Words of God, then the words in the Bible would have been written by people acting as robots, which is absurd since people are not robots.
They further imply that God did not mean for us to be robots. There is a lot of truth in that. God in Isaiah 1:18, invites us to reason with Him. Would anyone expect a robot to reason with its master before doing anything? And Hebrews 6:1 says that for those who know the Old Testament, it is time to go beyond the “elementary doctrine of Christ,’ which is largely the Law of the Old Testament, and to enter a stage of maturity, not revisiting the part of the OT we already know, and to focus primarily on what will bring us salvation from the Lord as regarding ourselves. Would we expect a robot to do the things mentioned in Isaiah 1:18 and Hebrews 6:1?
Anyone who has seen movies and watched TV are aware that there are robots and there are robots. It is necessary to understand which is which, particularly amongst people who feel at liberty to assert that those who write the Word of God in the Bible would be robots, writing what God wants them to write. Technically, they would be doing the Will of God, that Jesus refers to when he says that only those that do God’s Will would enter His Kingdom. Would that make us robots? Can we be both robots and people, with a line drawn somewhere in between?
Anyway, one robot that comes to mind is the one in the movie ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ which came out in 1951. The robot, Gort, abides by the commands of Klaatu, the alien who comes to earth to warn everyone that the current political situation on earth is a threat to other planets. Gort, in response to a command by Klaatu, stops disintegrating the weapons of the army that were attacking Klaatu, and Klaatu obeys, no questions asked. This is the type of robot most people are familiar with...one that just obeys. Does Klaatu say to Gort, ‘Come, let us reason together, that army cannot hurt us, so stop destroying their weapons’? Does Klaatu say to Gort, ‘You can go beyond the elementary commands I give you, and think of your own salvation in deciding whether to abide by my commands’? No. Gort, is just a ‘robot.’
On the other hand, anyone who’s watched the TV show ‘Lost in Space’ is familiar with another type of robot, named B-9, you know, the one that calls out “Danger, danger!” on ocassion. The robot on that TV show has a mind of its own and is temperamental. Occasionally it goes off on its own to brood. Is that really a robot? Well, some might argue that B-9 is a robot because it was programmed by man. Well...some may point out that the Bible says that we were created by God to perform His Good Works. Does not Ephesians 2:10 say, that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.? So it seems, to that extent, that we are robots along the lines of B-9, having been ‘programmed by God,’ so to speak, to perform His Good Works. Some of us, like B-9, might go off and brood instead of performing all the works God expects us to do. Think of how Jonah acts at first, when God tells him to warn the Ninevens of their impending destruction. And you may as well thin of how he acts after he finally warns the Ninevans, after having been swallowed by a great fish and tossed ashore. Seems Jonah was acting more like B-9 than Gort.
Who is not to say that those who wrote God’s Words in the Bible were, as far as the words in the Bible go, programmed to take dictation, in a sense; and after the deed is done, they went on doing something else, or they go off to brood as B-9 did on occasion? And let’s be real about the dictation part...It is probable that those who wrote God’s Words in the Bible did not physically hear God talking to them, rather, as things go in the Bible, either God or an Angel appeared to those writers in a dream, or God, in the sense of His influence on the Pharoah in the Book of Exodus and contrary thereto, ‘softened their hearts’ to the point where the writers invariably wrote what God wanted them to write.
Some may think of robots as just obeying commands. As humans, we sometimes obey commands too, but we have also been programmed to reason, and have been given the ability to go our own way, whichever that way may be, whether it be toward God or away from him. We know which way we and others who strive toward God have chosen.
They further imply that God did not mean for us to be robots. There is a lot of truth in that. God in Isaiah 1:18, invites us to reason with Him. Would anyone expect a robot to reason with its master before doing anything? And Hebrews 6:1 says that for those who know the Old Testament, it is time to go beyond the “elementary doctrine of Christ,’ which is largely the Law of the Old Testament, and to enter a stage of maturity, not revisiting the part of the OT we already know, and to focus primarily on what will bring us salvation from the Lord as regarding ourselves. Would we expect a robot to do the things mentioned in Isaiah 1:18 and Hebrews 6:1?
Anyone who has seen movies and watched TV are aware that there are robots and there are robots. It is necessary to understand which is which, particularly amongst people who feel at liberty to assert that those who write the Word of God in the Bible would be robots, writing what God wants them to write. Technically, they would be doing the Will of God, that Jesus refers to when he says that only those that do God’s Will would enter His Kingdom. Would that make us robots? Can we be both robots and people, with a line drawn somewhere in between?
Anyway, one robot that comes to mind is the one in the movie ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ which came out in 1951. The robot, Gort, abides by the commands of Klaatu, the alien who comes to earth to warn everyone that the current political situation on earth is a threat to other planets. Gort, in response to a command by Klaatu, stops disintegrating the weapons of the army that were attacking Klaatu, and Klaatu obeys, no questions asked. This is the type of robot most people are familiar with...one that just obeys. Does Klaatu say to Gort, ‘Come, let us reason together, that army cannot hurt us, so stop destroying their weapons’? Does Klaatu say to Gort, ‘You can go beyond the elementary commands I give you, and think of your own salvation in deciding whether to abide by my commands’? No. Gort, is just a ‘robot.’
On the other hand, anyone who’s watched the TV show ‘Lost in Space’ is familiar with another type of robot, named B-9, you know, the one that calls out “Danger, danger!” on ocassion. The robot on that TV show has a mind of its own and is temperamental. Occasionally it goes off on its own to brood. Is that really a robot? Well, some might argue that B-9 is a robot because it was programmed by man. Well...some may point out that the Bible says that we were created by God to perform His Good Works. Does not Ephesians 2:10 say, that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.? So it seems, to that extent, that we are robots along the lines of B-9, having been ‘programmed by God,’ so to speak, to perform His Good Works. Some of us, like B-9, might go off and brood instead of performing all the works God expects us to do. Think of how Jonah acts at first, when God tells him to warn the Ninevens of their impending destruction. And you may as well thin of how he acts after he finally warns the Ninevans, after having been swallowed by a great fish and tossed ashore. Seems Jonah was acting more like B-9 than Gort.
Who is not to say that those who wrote God’s Words in the Bible were, as far as the words in the Bible go, programmed to take dictation, in a sense; and after the deed is done, they went on doing something else, or they go off to brood as B-9 did on occasion? And let’s be real about the dictation part...It is probable that those who wrote God’s Words in the Bible did not physically hear God talking to them, rather, as things go in the Bible, either God or an Angel appeared to those writers in a dream, or God, in the sense of His influence on the Pharoah in the Book of Exodus and contrary thereto, ‘softened their hearts’ to the point where the writers invariably wrote what God wanted them to write.
Some may think of robots as just obeying commands. As humans, we sometimes obey commands too, but we have also been programmed to reason, and have been given the ability to go our own way, whichever that way may be, whether it be toward God or away from him. We know which way we and others who strive toward God have chosen.
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