Help me analyse this statement and answer how faithless people can do good

frater_domus said:

Edit: Posted before I was aware of your previous post. What you have written isn't based on biblical teachings though, is it?

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Of course it is. Entire books have been written on Biblical explanations of how and why God restrains the unbelieving from being as bad as they could be. Those books are too big to type in here. If you're seriously interested, read a good book on "common grace."

frater_domus said:

I have stumbled across the following text/post:



I have no idea what Chassidic literature is, neither do I care, so please refrain from making it a topic. I took the text at face value and, from what I am able to gather, it contradicts biblical teaching. However, I do not have perfect understanding. So, instead of breaking out in an angry rant, I want your help to analyse it according to the bible.

Now then, God did not "create atheists". God created humans in His image and we are given free will. Atheists are those who used that free will to deny God and live their lives for themselves.
But here is my question in conjunction with the text. The bible teaches us that none but God are good, that all are sinners are displease God. The bible teaches that good works are a result of saving faith and the fruits of the Spirit.
However, even unsaved people who denied God sometimes do deeds, which are good in His eyes. How is that possible? Is it a case of the law being written in their hearts, like Paul had written in Romans? Is it that, despite their natural affinity to evil due to the flesh, their free will allows them to act according to said 'writings on their heart'? Does the Spirit still work through them, despite them having turned back on God? If so, wouldn't that go against free will?

That part confuses me. I hope some one can explain that to me, according to biblical teachings. Cheers

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Atheists assume human autonomy, and under that assumption, all "good deeds" are for the glory of self. People will do good deeds if for no other reason than the selfish reason of such deeds casusing them to feel better about themselves. Then there are people with this idea that doing good deeds can atone for bad deeds, in this they attempt to resolve the human problem of guilt. We could go on and on with motives, but radagast hit the nail on the head with "common grace" and the restraint of sin. To go a bit further in probing the main question, mankind as one human race in Adam was created in the image of God, and as image bearers, mankind cannot truly be autonomous. We were made to be dependent upon our Creator, and this is true whether people admit or confess to it being true, and apart from our Creator how would we know the truth of the matter either way? Continuing on...our Creator writes His law on people's hearts, so people know right from wrong intuitively or instinctively to an extent. So this brings us to a moral dilemma for atheists, based on the inevitable relativism of the assumption of autonomy, what exactly is a "good" deed? It is difficult to even consider or think about moral behavior without at the same time in considering specific examples about the "ought" or "ought not" nature of behavior. To be fair, this can be quite the challenge even for Christians, it seems to almost every moral behavior there are exceptions to the rule. And it seems unfair, for the Christian to quote Paul in Romans 14:23 “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” However this is the great divide between the good deeds of the non-Christian and the good deeds of the Christian. The reason is faith in Christ, and because faith is a gift from God, and it is faith which pleases God, and because it is from God it is not a faith of our own invention or creating, it is authored by Him and the [true as opposed to false] good deeds of Christians, is the result of the Holy Spirit working in and through us in such way that we cannot boast in them, not rightly or justly.

frater_domus said:

I have stumbled across the following text/post:



I have no idea what Chassidic literature is, neither do I care, so please refrain from making it a topic. I took the text at face value and, from what I am able to gather, it contradicts biblical teaching. However, I do not have perfect understanding. So, instead of breaking out in an angry rant, I want your help to analyse it according to the bible.

Now then, God did not "create atheists". God created humans in His image and we are given free will. Atheists are those who used that free will to deny God and live their lives for themselves.
But here is my question in conjunction with the text. The bible teaches us that none but God are good, that all are sinners are displease God. The bible teaches that good works are a result of saving faith and the fruits of the Spirit.
However, even unsaved people who denied God sometimes do deeds, which are good in His eyes. How is that possible? Is it a case of the law being written in their hearts, like Paul had written in Romans? Is it that, despite their natural affinity to evil due to the flesh, their free will allows them to act according to said 'writings on their heart'? Does the Spirit still work through them, despite them having turned back on God? If so, wouldn't that go against free will?

That part confuses me. I hope some one can explain that to me, according to biblical teachings. Cheers

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Never look at an act of love and compassion for another person as evil. If we do then we'll be guilty of calling evil good and good evil. All people are made in the image and likeness of God and, while we may never quite measure up to that position as we should in this life, nevertheless God is pleased to the extent that we do live up to it. Perhaps true faith is born out more by our acts than by our words and in any case many have made the ugly mistake of thinking their "faith" has somehow excused them from the obligation to be righteous, to refrain from sin and harm to neighbor, from the need to do good "for the least of these".

Personally I've witnessed too many self-sacrificial acts of love and kindness by people from varying religious backgrounds, or none at all, to believe that only Christians, who can act as selfishly as the next person at times, necessarily have a huge advantage in this matter-even if we should at least know better. We pretty much have to turn a blind eye to what actually goes on in this world and engage in self-serving wishful thing to believe that all non-Christians are graceless or otherwise always wrongly motivated.

frater_domus said:

How is that possible? Is it a case of the law being written in their hearts, like Paul had written in Romans?

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All good things come from God. That's true even if indirectly, whether they follow a good culture influenced by believers, or whether they heed to whatever degree the conscience which God gave them.

Also, there is very rarely any such thing as a true atheist. Usually, it isn't so much that they don't believe in God as that they don't like him.

Further, I find that when I look honestly and deeply at my own motivations I find that what lies at the root of it, even at the root of the root, is usually something less than purely noble motivation. The outward motive seems good, but no one really knows what's going on underneath, and sometimes the person doing the good deed has no idea of their own underlying motives. I say this as a believer. What happens in the heart of an unbeliever is not for me to guess. Only God is the judge of that.

Does the Spirit still work through them, despite them having turned back on God? If so, wouldn't that go against free will?

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They freely do what they will. Nothing undermines that. What you believe is that God has no sovereignty in the matter, and with that I must disagree. If they were in a place where God did not exist, where the Holy Spirit did not restrain, where an unbeliever had no access to God, then they would be in Hell. In the meantime, such is not the case.

Remember, there is no such thing as an Atheist. The concept itself is a philosophical delusion.

God is Spirit, and contrary to popular superstition, a spirit is a Principle.

If someone's actions are motivated by what we would call holy and righteous principles, which are the essence of God, then their fate is in God's hands.

Remember, there are 2 resurrections. First, those who are Christ's, they are no judged, but are forgiven. The second resurrection is for everyone else, and this is where people are judged based on their works.

I thought it was a great story and we can learn from it. I don't think it contradicts the Bible.

frater_domus said:

I have stumbled across the following text/post:



I have no idea what Chassidic literature is, neither do I care, so please refrain from making it a topic. I took the text at face value and, from what I am able to gather, it contradicts biblical teaching. However, I do not have perfect understanding. So, instead of breaking out in an angry rant, I want your help to analyse it according to the bible.

Now then, God did not "create atheists". God created humans in His image and we are given free will. Atheists are those who used that free will to deny God and live their lives for themselves.
But here is my question in conjunction with the text. The bible teaches us that none but God are good, that all are sinners are displease God. The bible teaches that good works are a result of saving faith and the fruits of the Spirit.
However, even unsaved people who denied God sometimes do deeds, which are good in His eyes. How is that possible? Is it a case of the law being written in their hearts, like Paul had written in Romans? Is it that, despite their natural affinity to evil due to the flesh, their free will allows them to act according to said 'writings on their heart'? Does the Spirit still work through them, despite them having turned back on God? If so, wouldn't that go against free will?

That part confuses me. I hope some one can explain that to me, according to biblical teachings. Cheers

Click to expand...

I´ll divide the answer into two parts, the Jewish view and the Christian view.

The part good works play in Judaism is as follows:

1. God chose Jews to be a blessing to the world.
2. They will do mitzvot, good works, commandments, to repair the world, tikkun olam.
3. Adam was going to complete creation.
4. The Fall undid Godś work.
5. Now creation must be repaired and THEN completed.
6. Mizvot is done not for the sake of reward: that is selfish motivation.
7. So the reward of doing a mitzvah is the opportunity, the privilege, of doing another mitzvah!

This is the meaning of the article. In other words, do God's commands without expecting a reward from Him, which atheists do, because they don't believe He exists.

To continue.

Christianity has a different view about the commandments. Every commandment is about putting God or others first, not ourselves. When we do this the world is fixed. However, not everyone is qualified to obey the commandments, not even Jews.

How so?

We said doing a commandment is putting God or others first right? That means it is sacrificing self, putting ourselves to disadvantage, to the advantage of others. However, sacrificing self is not an acceptable sacrifice unless the creature being sacrificed is without blemish. We can confidently say Israel was not perfect. In fact, her sins made her so unworthy, she needed to be saved herself.

I repeat, the sacrificial animal needed to be perfect. Scripture speaks of a day, when in a single day, the People of God were made perfect:

Zechariah 3
8“ ‘Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch. 9See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyesb on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.

This shows the limitations of the good works of an atheist. They are ineffective, cannot fix the world, are dung, because they are not acceptable sacrifices.