Why would God ...?

Retro_p2 said:

1. Why would God, assuming he loves people, divide them into nations turned against each other, then enlighten less than one half of them and condemn the rest to hell?

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God does not condemn anyone to hell. It is a firm part of Christian tradition that no one is placed in hell other than through their own choice.

We do not know how God will deal with those who have never heard the gospel preached. We do know that we are called to preach the gospel.

2. Why would God give us a manuscript, that we are forced to trust has not been molested by the personal agenda of men through history, that is so open to interpretation, that it divides his own enlightened people into thousands of different denominations, rather than one that would unify them?

3. Why would God, if he wanted me to recieve the kingdom of heaven and his love, create me with the gift/curse of logic and reason. When in the face of choice, there is two options. A book that his own people can not even agree on how to interpret, or, what is sometimes almost an insurmountable amount of evidence to the contrary.

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What a strange question. Do you think that love is incompatible with logic and reason? Is it unreasonable to believe that a thinking mind is a gift of God's love? And to take it back to the second question--how could God give us a thinking mind and not know that we would interpret and misinterpret scripture?

Christian teaching is that the Holy Spirit is our guide to true teaching. But being what we are, we argue about who has believed the Holy Spirit.

,,, If you claim that these questions or anything that would refute the existence of this God is the work of the devil or the fault of man, then it still leads me back to the ultimate question of; why would he do that? Why would he give me the urge to ask why with a strong sense to always ask the very question, that could very well damn me to hell for all eternity? When all I really seek is to ask why and assert a solid backing to what I wish to believe in wholely? I am what I consider a good moral standing person, I believe in love and respect for my fellow human beings no matter what their beliefs are and that judement is between man and God. ... So long as he is not hurting others

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What do you consider a "solid backing" for what you wish to believe in? Do you need empirical evidence as most moderns do? Or can you have faith in things not seen?

No question will damn you.
A great Christian teacher once said "It is by doubting that we come to questioning and it is by questioning that we come to truth." (Peter Abelard)

4. Why would he allow so much distortion of himself through out the world and allow it to be so easy to choose a path other than the one he says to follow?

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If you are struggling with the problem of evil, you are far from alone. It is a question often raised in the bible itself. No one can give you an easy answer. Ultimately the cross of Christ is the only answer to evil.

Please note I have a no intention to disprove anything that anyone might believe. I only seek to understand the conviction of others, and why I can't find it within myself. Sometimes it genuinely saddens me to know that if this God exists, that even though I have tried to seek him I have not been able to find him. I find much good in the Christian church, but also what I believe to be misinterpretation and exchanged history. Even sometimes down right intolerance and a hypocritical judgemental position towards others. Not everyone though, my general opinions of the Christian church and its work through out the world is a good one. I have seen it restore a person from a gutter to a good life, therefore saving that person here on earth if not after life (not that I'm saying it doesn't). Thanks for the help.

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In early America there were many people who called themselves "seekers"--who joined no denomination or community of Christians because they were seeking the one true or pure Church. It is a vain quest. There is no pure Church outside of heaven and the history of the Church is one of many blemishes. We are, as Paul says, only earthen vessels. Yet the Church preserves a heavenly treasure. You have to be willing to accept the imperfections, even the history of atrocities and the many sins of Christians, yet seek beyond them to find the treasure within.

Good answers, Gluadys! Much better than the "wrong forum" answer I might have given.

Retro_p2 said:

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gluadys said:

God does not condemn anyone to hell. It is a firm part of Christian tradition that no one is placed in hell other than through their own choice.

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If that is the case, than I wish I had never heard the gospel. I wish I could have just went about my merry way in life. The only way that logic would lead me is that I have been condemned by the knowledge of scripture.

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Sorry, I don't follow the logic. I think you are assuming conclusions that make no sense. No one is condemned for knowing or not knowing scripture. No one is condemned for hearing or not hearing the gospel. You have to choose condemnation. As John says in his gospel "This is condemnation--that light came into the world and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."

One cannot choose darkness in ignorance. One can only prefer darkness if one can see the light.

We do not know how God will deal with those who have never heard the gospel preached. We do know that we are called to preach the gospel.

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Jesus states that the only way to God is through him. Clearly, states it. If you cannot know Jesus and cannot know the father, than where do you go after life on earth? If you cannot know the father, than you cannot know heaven.

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So? How does this change anything? The matter is in God's hands. And we trust God has the same love and exercises the same mercy and justice to everyone--whether they have heard a Christian preacher or not.

It is surely not unreasonbable to believe that we were created with the ability to reason as a gift of love. However, I cannot find how this God, (Yahwey, Johova, God of Man), can give a book with scriptures that would defy my logic and reason.

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That's because your logic and reason has been cultivated in a modern/postmodern era. But the bible was written within a framework of ancient near eastern culture.

To read scripture and get meaning from it, you have to shed a lot of modernist assumptions about how it ought to be read. If you read it as you would today's newspaper or a favorite magazine, it will certainly seem nonsensical.

Being omnipotent, he would know that armed with my logic, I would surely pick other than the bible. Therefore by his rules, he would know I am surely going to hell.

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God's only rule is that if you prefer hell to God's kingdom, you are free to live there. What you think about the bible is really irrelevant. It is Jesus who redeems, not the bible. It is God's grace that saves, not the bible.

Have you ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis?

I have faith in many things unseen. However, application of these things reaffirms my faith in them. Such as math and science. You can find mathematical patterns in everything in this universe and use it to create and it is free, and cast no judgement upon people, and doesn't make you feel guilty if you question it, only stronger. It doesn't ask for money, penance, forgiveness, apology or choice because it only gives you one choice and that is the choice of what is natural and unchangeable. God, however has left me with nothing but unaswerable question, fear, and guilt even though when I reflect, I am generally a good person.

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A fairly good example. Numbers and mathematical operations and principles are abstract in themselves, but they are applicable to empirical experience and they work. Many Christians would say the same about the way God's love works in their experience.

You have built up an image of a demanding God who sets up an obstacle course you have to negotiate before you are accepted. In fact, that is the sort of image that Jesus came to destroy. He berated the Pharisees for promoting exactly that kind of image of God: one who demanded a perfect fulfilment of the law and rejected those who could not keep it as "sinners" to be excluded from his presence.

Jesus tells us of a loving Father who embraces us as just as we are; who doesn't wait for us to do right before accepting us, whose grace brings us into his household without any need for us to earn his favour.

But the pride of humanity is such that we often continue in the ways of the Pharisees rather than in the way set out by Jesus. Consider the story of Martin Luther, for example. He went through all the practices recommended by the church of his day--entering a monastery, fasting, meditating, living ascetically, going on pilgrimages, inflicting harm on himself, and none of it brought him any closer to God. It was when he let go of all that and simply trusted that God loved him and had forgiven him, that he found peace in fellowship with God.

If you are, as you describe yourself, a generally good person--and I do not question that--most people are, then the fear and guilt you have built up are self-induced (perhaps through exposure to Pharisaic-style Christians). They get in the way. Get rid of them.

I am not stuggling with evil. I know in my heart what is right and what is wrong. I know that there are varrying degrees of wrong. I cannot believe all sin is the same, (i.e. murder vs petty theft) or (Hitler's holocaust vs. my stealing a dollar from my mother's purse when I was 10), when it is clearly not.

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There are certainly degrees of sin. But all sin, even the smallest, is sin in the sense that it breaks a relationship of trust. Did you not have to be forgiven by your mother before things were right between you again?

That sin was easier to forgive, because she was your mother and loved you and because it was fairly trivial. But that doesn't mean it could be passed over.

Horrendous atrocities are much harder to forgive. They are even harder to repent of, for ironically those who commit such atrocities often feel they are in the right or have the right to act so. But if a person can overcome the inner pride and arrogance that justified such action, they too can be forgiven.


Every sin, even small ones, get in the way of a relationship with God until you take them to God for forgiveness. Just as stealing a dollar from your Mum's purse--though not a great sin--still needed to be owned up to and forgiven. The good news is that even though some sins seem beyond the reach of human forgiveness, none are beyond God's capacity to forgive. If you were not a generally decent person; if you were a horrible person with all sorts of terrible things on your conscience, you can still be loved and forgiven. Since you are a generally good person, how much easier it must be to bring your small sins to God and accept forgiveness for them.

I am not trying to bash God. I am simply speaking from my hear, that if he does exist, I have not been able to cohearently understand him.

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That's true. If you haven't understood that God is love, you have not coherently understood God.

Thus I have not been able to completely accept him, and I will suffer for all eternity for it.

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That doesn't follow. A God of love does not condemn anyone for lack of understanding. Nor do you have to "completely" accept him. Remember the father who said to Jesus "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." And Jesus also said, if you have only a small faith, as small as a mustard seed, that is all you need.

Don't worry about completely accepting God. God is ready to receive you doubts and all, questions and all, fear and all, guilt and all. Take all that to God and God will take care of the rest.

I have recieve only fear, from what he created me to be.. ,

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Not from what God created you to be; God created you to be his beloved child. But someone has taught you a spirit of fear and you suffer because of it. I pray you will be able to break that bondage with God's help and know the perfect freedom of the love of God.

gluadys has provided some very good answers to most of your questions. But this statement stood out to me as something worthy of further attention.

Retro_p2 said:

Sometimes it genuinely saddens me to know that if this God exists, that even though I have tried to seek him I have not been able to find him.

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Here's what the Bible says on this subject:

Here we will see that our very purpose is to seek Him.

Acts 17:26-28If you do seek Him, God promises this:

James 4:8verse 6 goes on to say:Proverbs 8:34-35but then verse 36 goes on to say:and here's my favorite one:

Proverbs 8:17That's quite a promise. God loves you and wants you as His child, but He won't force Himself onto you. You must humble yourself and believe, put down your resistance to Him and allow Him to penetrate your soul. Once He has, your job is to accept Him as Lord and Savior. From that point forward your life will never be the same. May God bless you in this pursuit.

Retro_p2 said:

1. Why would God, assuming he loves people, divide them into nations turned against each other, then enlighten less than one half of them and condemn the rest to hell?

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When He divide them, it was to proliferate his command to mulitple and fill the world. They had not listened and had stayed in one spot. He also didn't turn them against each other, they did this on their own.

God does not send people to hell, He rescues them from hell. Why do people think that heaven is their primary destination when they know they are imperfect sinners?

2. Why would God give us a manuscript, that we are forced to trust has not been molested by the personal agenda of men through history, that is so open to interpretation, that it divides his own enlightened people into thousands of different denominations, rather than one that would unify them?

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Ah, you only notice their differences and skip out on what their simularities are. The grand majority believe what is necessary to be rescued by God. They trust in Jesus Christ and accept his death as their substitutionary atonement for their sins. They divide on non-salvific issues. They are one in spirit.

As for the manuscripts. They can be trusted more so than any other historical work. We have thousands of manuscripts, some fragmants even that date back to 110 AD. Thanks to textual criticism, scholars are convinced what we have is at least 98 percent correct in terms of what was on the original autographs, the small differences being non-doctrinal. If you deny the Scriptures as historically accurate, then you must become a historical agnostic. No other historical work even comes close to the support the Scriptures have.

3. Why would God, if he wanted me to recieve the kingdom of heaven and his love, create me with the gift/curse of logic and reason. When in the face of choice, there is two options. A book that his own people can not even agree on how to interpret, or, what is sometimes almost an insurmountable amount of evidence to the contrary.

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Hollow philosophies decieve. You'll know the truth when you hear it. Your logic has already made you believe that there must be a Creator.

4. Why would he allow so much distortion of himself through out the world and allow it to be so easy to choose a path other than the one he says to follow?

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His path is the easiest! All religions try to reach out/up to God, Christianty is God reaching down to man. We want to work to gain salvation because we are prideful. However, it is only the humble that can ask for help in this impossble task. God is trying to give us a free gift of grace we do not have to work for...and people are calling this a difficult path?

If he created a person, in the jungle of Australia hypothetically, and as a child this person never heard the word of God and Christ, and worshiped a statue of a some other deity, how could he expect that person to come to him through Jesus if they are unaware of it? When clearly jesus says the only way to know God is through him.

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Creation proclaims the existence of a Creator, so they are without excuse truly. Those who seek for Him honestly however, He will provide a way for the gospel to reach them. I have heard of many real life stories like this.

If you were to preech the gospel to this person, and they refused to believe you, and therefore refuse God, are you condemning this individual even more?

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He was already condemned. He is an imperfect person, how could a perfect being consummate with him without tainting Himself? This is why God is willing to wash us clean for FREE. For some reason, not many people are in line.

Retro_p2 said:

This is a definite factor of my unwillingness to accept Christianity. People like you infurriate people like me. With your damn condescending and judgemental comments like this. Oh please forgive me! Almighty "laptoppop" ??? Thanks for being so constructive. If I didn't know this site was filled with respectful, helpful people, I wouldn't be so prudent to chain my tounge. I'm sorry my questions have made you sacrifice thirty seconds of your life when you could have just clicked the back button.

The very fact that someone put "Christians only" in the forum title leads me to believe this place was created by closed minded individuals, for closed minded individuals. So I should know better than to not have expected a comment like that.

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It saddens me greatly that you would see my compliment to Gluadys as condescending and judgemental. That's not what I meant at all. I was praising her for the way she responded in love and caring.

What I meant by my "wrong forum" shorthand was not at all suggesting that you go away, although I can see how it could be taken that way, and I apologize for that. Christian forums has thousands of posts everyday, so it has been separated into different topics to facilitate discussions between people who are interested in particular very narrow topics. For example, this part of CF is set aside for people to discuss the theological differences between evolution and creationism. There's another part of CF specifically set aside for folks to discuss honest searching questions like what you are raising. (http://christianforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1037) Many times the moderators will move a post from one forum here in Christian forums to another forum here to facilitate the discussions and to keep the areas on-topic.

Yes, much of the overall site is marked as areas for Christians to discuss things. This is done to facilitate discussions as opposed to locking people out. There are many things that Christians accept that don't necessarily make sense in a non-Christian context, and so it modifies the dynamics of the discussions. For example, we all accept the existence of God, His supremacy, and the loving work that Jesus did. By directing the conversations into shared topics, the site facilitates the appropriate discussions.

Again, please accept my apologies for coming off as judgemental. That was not my intent in any way shape or form.

Retro_p2 said:

I am seeking a logical explination of God and what he has given us. Please do not misconstrue my questions to be of a source of a malevolent attitude towards anyone's personal belief. I feel as though I have an undeniable spiritual connection to a God, and have genuine desire to know my creator. I want to find answers and constructive logical opinions only.

1. Why would God, assuming he loves people, divide them into nations turned against each other, then enlighten less than one half of them and condemn the rest to hell?

2. Why would God give us a manuscript, that we are forced to trust has not been molested by the personal agenda of men through history, that is so open to interpretation, that it divides his own enlightened people into thousands of different denominations, rather than one that would unify them?

3. Why would God, if he wanted me to recieve the kingdom of heaven and his love, create me with the gift/curse of logic and reason. When in the face of choice, there is two options. A book that his own people can not even agree on how to interpret, or, what is sometimes almost an insurmountable amount of evidence to the contrary.

,,, If you claim that these questions or anything that would refute the existence of this God is the work of the devil or the fault of man, then it still leads me back to the ultimate question of; why would he do that? Why would he give me the urge to ask why with a strong sense to always ask the very question, that could very well damn me to hell for all eternity? When all I really seek is to ask why and assert a solid backing to what I wish to believe in wholely? I am what I consider a good moral standing person, I believe in love and respect for my fellow human beings no matter what their beliefs are and that judement is between man and God. ... So long as he is not hurting others

4. Why would he allow so much distortion of himself through out the world and allow it to be so easy to choose a path other than the one he says to follow?

If he created a person, in the jungle of Australia hypothetically, and as a child this person never heard the word of God and Christ, and worshiped a statue of a some other deity, how could he expect that person to come to him through Jesus if they are unaware of it? When clearly jesus says the only way to know God is through him.

If you were to preech the gospel to this person, and they refused to believe you, and therefore refuse God, are you condemning this individual even more?


Please note I have a no intention to disprove anything that anyone might believe. I only seek to understand the conviction of others, and why I can't find it within myself. Sometimes it genuinely saddens me to know that if this God exists, that even though I have tried to seek him I have not been able to find him. I find much good in the Christian church, but also what I believe to be misinterpretation and exchanged history. Even sometimes down right intolerance and a hypocritical judgemental position towards others. Not everyone though, my general opinions of the Christian church and its work through out the world is a good one. I have seen it restore a person from a gutter to a good life, therefore saving that person here on earth if not after life (not that I'm saying it doesn't). Thanks for the help.

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Christianity is much more about a Person than about a Book. Our tradition identifies the man Jesus, the Christ (Messiah), as the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, and as the revealer of God's true character. Scripture is seen as revelatory in a secondary or derivative sense.

Jesus has been identified as the "light of the world that enlightens all men" (John chapter 1). There exists in all people, of all races and creeds, something of this "light" which may be followed or rejected. One Christian mystic has spoken of "that of God in all people", citing scriptural teaching on the light which is Christ. Elsewhere scripture teaches that all people will be judged according to the light they have recieved.

You must not force yourself to accept something which in all honesty you do not believe; I've heard it said that it is better to be an honest agnostic than a dishonest or self-decieved Christian. The Way of Christianity is a Way of honesty with God and with oneself, not an imposition of required or essential beliefs.

You wrote, "I am what I consider a good moral standing person, I believe in love and respect for my fellow human beings no matter what their beliefs are and that judement is between man and God... so long as he is not hurting others"; on what basis, or according to what standard do you consider yourself a "moral" person? Virtues like love and respect and tolerance were exemplified by Jesus Christ, and I suggest your inclination toward such virtues might be from God.

Just my 2c worth. God bless.

Retro,

Are your questions a true lament that you are unable to find God, or your justification for not believing in the God of the bible? Many, like Gluadys, strain to provide helpful answers to the confused, but are usually unable to help those who couch their unbelief in the very familiar arguements that you present.

Man has always been cynical, but today cynicism has been institutionalized. It's a big monkey on the back of any who seek God. Good luck in your search.

owg

Retro_p2 said:

2. Why would God give us a manuscript, that we are forced to trust has not been molested by the personal agenda of men through history, that is so open to interpretation, that it divides his own enlightened people into thousands of different denominations, rather than one that would unify them?

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You asked to many major questions in Christianity. It is very difficult to cover any of them even in one thread of discussion. If you care to hang around longer, I would suggest you to divide them into threads. We talk about them one at a time. The question may not apparently fit the OT theme. But, hey, we could orient the discussion on anything to fit any theme, right?

So, I pick the second one and try:

If you read any of the Gospel books and try to understand how did Jews at that time treat Jesus, who claims Himself as one equivalent to God. Is His message and all He does "clear" and "apparent" enough? Does what He said allow a lot of interpretation? If not, then ask again: why MOST of Jews at that time did not believe in Him?

Yes, we can give reasons, this and that, so Jews did not believe. Nevertheless, we are not smarter than Jews. If Jews did that, we would also do the same. So, the problem is not on the Scripture. It is on us. Not only on how do we interpret the Scripture, but also on a host of other problems. It is OUR problem, not the problem of the Scripture.

With that said, I think the main message of the Scripture is loud and clear. That unmistakable message is the reason that we have one united faith: Christianity. Consider its comparatively less logical theology, and a wide room for interpretations, don't you think it is a miracle that this religion eventually prevailed?