God's unpredictability...

[Drifter Kybe Scythe Kane]

why and how is God's predictability most of the time is unpredictable to Christians. or is god's wisdom something christians play their trust in simply in what he preaches?

 

[royal priest]

What more need we trust than what He preaches in His Word?

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

"In every condition, in sickness, in health,
in poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth,
at home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
as days may demand, shall thy strength ever be."

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,
for I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand."

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine."

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake!"

 

[Humble me Lord]

In what way do you find God unpredictable?

Should God, who made you, me, everything before us and after, be predictable?
I do think many people try to make God into what they think He should be. We do have the ultimate guide, the Bible given to us to know what He has revealed of Himself so far.
I do believe that those who are faithful will be amazed at what is to come in the after.

 

[Drifter Kybe Scythe Kane]

In what way do you find God unpredictable?

Should God, who made you, me, everything before us and after, be predictable?
I do think many people try to make God into what they think He should be. We do have the ultimate guide, the Bible given to us to know what He has revealed of Himself so far.
I do believe that those who are faithful will be amazed at what is to come in the after.

just asking because christians sometimes say things like god's ways cannot be understood. he is just unpredictable sometimes, no?

 

[Humble me Lord]

This is true. We cannot understand all of the ways and reasons of God.

The bible tells us in Isaiah 55:8-9, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The good news is that God is a faithful God. I don't know what the true count of Gods promises to us are, I've seen numbers as high as 7,000 promises to us.

 

[Drifter Kybe Scythe Kane]

what about lucifer? how do people believe he is utterly evil if god made him to be so strong as to be the second most powerful being right now? lucifer was once in the kingdom of heaven and was known as the angel of light.

 

[bling]

what about lucifer? how do people believe he is utterly evil if god made him to be so strong as to be the second most powerful being right now? lucifer was once in the kingdom of heaven and was known as the angel of light.

God did not have to go out and defeat satan, but God sent an angel. Satan is not second only to God, but satan does have purpose which forces God to allow him to continue roaming the earth.

 

[juvenissun]

why and how is God's predictability most of the time is unpredictable to Christians. or is god's wisdom something christians play their trust in simply in what he preaches?

The Christian God is VERY predictable. If fact, Christian God WANTS Himself to be predictable.

And, that is what a God should be.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Calling the Bible the "ultimate guide" strikes me as blasphemous in and of itself. The book itself never obfuscates its status as an anthology, collecting heterogeneous texts written by diverse people with very different understanding of who and what God is.

 

[Phil 1:21]

Job 38-41 is good reading for anyone who thinks God's ways should always be understandable to us.

 

[zippy2006]

Calling the Bible the "ultimate guide" strikes me as blasphemous in and of itself. The book itself never obfuscates its status as an anthology, collecting heterogeneous texts written by diverse people with very different understanding of who and what God is.

Are you actually unfamiliar with the Christian (and Jewish) understanding of the Bible?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Are you actually unfamiliar with the Christian (and Jewish) understanding of the Bible?

The traditional Jewish understanding of the Bible is: passages announced with "thus says the LORD" are verbatim quotations of the one God.
Christianity does not hold a single stance on the matter, but the more fundamentalist parts of the spectrum try to obfuscate the anthology-status by seizing upon a passage from the Pauline epistles declaring the Jewish canon "god-breathed" (which they feel free to extend to the NT-canon as well ,even though Paul clearly could not have meant it.

 

[zippy2006]

Christianity does not hold a single stance on the matter, but the more fundamentalist parts of the spectrum try to obfuscate the anthology-status by seizing upon a passage from the Pauline epistles declaring the Jewish canon "god-breathed"

Paul was a Jew. Do you think he was innovating? For example, from the traditional Tannaitic school, "he who says the Torah is not from Heaven is a heretic, a despiser of the Word of God, one who has no share in the world to come" (Sanh. xi. 1; ib. Gemara, 99a). As for Christians we can go at least to Athenagoras in the second century, "[the human authors,] who, lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations of their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit, uttered the things with which they were inspired, the Spirit making use of them as a flute-player breathes into a flute." Of course we can find the same view expressed in the New Testament, as you already pointed out.

Inspiration is not uniquely Fundamentalist. Perhaps certain entailments and interpretations are more recent, but the basic idea is very, very old. Mere anthology is a much more novel and recent view.

 

[ViaCrucis]

just asking because christians sometimes say things like god's ways cannot be understood. he is just unpredictable sometimes, no?

I don't know that unpredictable is the right word; a better way might be to say that we can't know God's hidden will, it is inscrutible; because God in His hiddenness is incomprehensible, unfathomable, etc.

In Lutheran circles we talk about the Deus Absconditus (The Hidden God) and the Deus Revelatus (The Revealed God). By the "Hidden God" we mean God hidden behind the veil of His own unfathomable glory, God in His Essence. And by the "Revealed God" we chiefly mean God as He has revealed Himself and made Himself known through Jesus Christ, here in Jesus we can know God.

From Luther's Heidelberg Disputation:

"19) That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the »invisible« things of God as though they were clearly »perceptible in those things which have actually happened« (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25).

This is apparent in the example of those who were »theologians« and still were called »fools« by the Apostle in Rom. 1:22. Furthermore, the invisible things of God are virtue, godliness, wisdom, justice, goodness, and so forth. The recognition of all these things does not make one worthy or wise."

"20) He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

The manifest and visible things of God are placed in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human nature, weakness, foolishness. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 1:25 calls them the weakness and folly of God. Because men misused the knowledge of God through works, God wished again to be recognized in suffering, and to condemn »wisdom concerning invisible things« by means of »wisdom concerning visible things«, so that those who did not honor God as manifested in his works should honor him as he is hidden in his suffering (absconditum in passionibus). As the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 1:21, »For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.« Now it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross. Thus God destroys the wisdom of the wise, as Isa. 45:15 says, »Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself.«

So, also, in John 14:8, where Philip spoke according to the theology of glory: »Show us the Father.« Christ forthwith set aside his flighty thought about seeing God elsewhere and led him to himself, saying, »Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father« (John 14:9). For this reason true theology and recognition of God are in the crucified Christ, as it is also stated in John 10 (John 14:6) »No one comes to the Father, but by me.« »I am the door« (John 10:9), and so forth."

Trying to pierce the veil of God's glory is folly; but we have God for us and with us in Jesus, who makes God known to us. And through and in Jesus we encounter God "face to face" as it were, and here we meet the the One Jesus knows and calls "Father". And so through Jesus we meet God not as the hidden glory or fire on the mountain, but the beloved Father of Jesus Christ.

I may not know God's will in any given circumstance in life; but I can know, in Jesus, that God is the One who loves me, and gives Himself freely to me. In Jesus I don't have a God removed and far away from my suffering, or the suffering of my neighbor; but the One who Himself shares in that suffering, and suffered Himself for me.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

what about lucifer? how do people believe he is utterly evil if god made him to be so strong as to be the second most powerful being right now? lucifer was once in the kingdom of heaven and was known as the angel of light.

1) "Lucifer" isn't the name of any creature, evil or otherwise. It is a Latin translation of an epithet given to the king of Babylon (who was very much human). The Latin word "lucifer" means "light-bringer", and is used to translate the Greek words phosphoros (literally, light-bringer) and eosphoros (dawn-bringer), with the latter being used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew heylel ("shining" or "brilliant") as found in the text of Isaiah 14:12. All these terms are references to the planet Venus, which has often been called the "morning star" because it often appears quite bright just before dawn (also it has been called the evening star for a similar reason). The epithet is used in a sardonic way, since the king of Babylon thought himself so powerful that he was like the gods themselves, that he should ascend to the heavens--but he is just a man, and will die like a man, and become known as mockery among the nations for his arrogance.

2) The devil isn't the "second most powerful being". The devil isn't some sort of evil, junior god. He's just a creature, like you and me. The angels, including the fallen angels, aren't gods--they are regarded as "rational creatures", the same way human beings are regarded as "rational creatures". The devil is evil, devious, cruel, but he is not some kind of cosmic evil power that is second only to God. That would amount to a dualistic theology, which orthodox Christianity firmly and staunchly condemns as heretical.

3) The "angel of light" line comes from St. Paul who says the devil masquerades as an "angel of light", not that he once held some incredible status as an angel of light previously. The devil is a liar, so the "angel of light" thing refers to him lying. Luther recommended two ways to chase the devil away, the first is simply to call him a liar, or otherwise, Luther said he would chase the devil away with a fart. The devil is a liar and a coward.

"But I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, 'Devil, yesterday I broke wind too. Have you written it down on your list'?"

-CryptoLutheran

 

[zippy2006]

what about lucifer? how do people believe he is utterly evil if god made him to be so strong as to be the second most powerful being right now? lucifer was once in the kingdom of heaven and was known as the angel of light.

Some of what you say here refers to Christian and Patristic tradition rather than strictly Biblical ideas. Perhaps this will help you make sense of what you've heard alongside ViaCrucis' Biblical, sola scriptura angle.