Church dilemma - knowing the will of God vs affirming that God's ways are inscrutable, According to convenience
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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Reminds me of the Epicurean Paradox:
If you read the Bible with a purely objective mind and come away thinking God is the good guy in the story, I have some serious questions about your morality and ethics.
What’s the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?
- George Carlin
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh. It’s not something Biblically portrayed as one of God’s gifts. Free will is portrayed as something that was given conditionally, but taking from the tree of knowledge and specifically eating the fruit of knowledge is known as man’s first sin in the Bible.
I think it’s a bit of a metaphor for a parent wanting to shield their child from the harshness of reality, but as the sheltered child grows older they often want to know more about the outside world and in doing so become exposed to the cruelty. This was my own experience with religion growing up. A teacher of mine one day sat us down and pleaded the above with our class, as many of us grew to see through the veil of how reality looked.
In retrospect I think some things about the world make sense to not be told about, depending on one’s age. However, I think other things should never be hidden, have been hidden, or done in other cases.
Side note: I think the idea of God’s plan is for people to hold love for one another. Lots of people lose sight of what they are called to do and how they are to act though. They’re called to love their neighbor as their self, called to love their enemy, and called to forgive others for their transgressions. I personally think people are called to do good works in conjunction with holding faith, as people are called to act righteously in this life.
Don't worry, they don't read the Bible, and especially don't read the old testament.
They believe they have god given freedom of action
Did Calvin write this post?
You have the freedom to choose God or face an eternity of unimaginable suffering.
No good god would make an unlasting punishment. if you have forever, then even Hitler, Dahmer would have enough time for a finite punishment. Even the worst people in the world don't deserve a unlasting punishment.
The Nicean Council excluded a bunch of books, and Jesus was Jewish. In kabbalah, you learn about reincarnation, and so why did people think Jesus and John were OT prophets? So karma isn't a punishment, but a teacher, you repeat lessons, which are scaffolded, until they are mastered. Well, why don't you remember past life lessons? Why aren't crib sheets allowed in exams? Is doing the right thing only for personal gain still the right thing? Then no one should be upset with billionaires for reversing dei. And Jesus said the whole law can be summed love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Not better than, not less than. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. Also the fall of the morning star gave "the devil" the earth as his dominion. "Be in the world, not of it," and "be wise as serpents, innocent as doves," eg be neither boot nor doormat. Love you neighbor as yourself. Ha-Satan is the prosecutor, who freely comes and goes into heaven (where is the Kingdom?) who lists every reason (sin) you don't get to be there (schism of self). And a defending angel can list one redeeming quality and you're in. You passed that particular lesson set. Now you have a new set.
Also Jesus said he teaches in parables, don't take things so literally. Why wouldn't he want every student to understand? They're not on that lesson set, yet. Someone just learning division isn't ready for trig.
I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years but no one person deserves unending punishment for finite sins.
Depends on the flavour of Christianity
At one end unforgiven sins condemn you to the ancient Greek underworld, slightly modified
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven't been perfect for a time that fits, thence to heaven for the rest of forever
Beyond that end, their god is infinitely forgiving so everyone goes straight to heaven.
Did god not have the power to give us free will without also giving us evil?
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Had the power but opted not to: god is himself some part evil
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Didn't have the power, did the best he could with the tools he had: god is not omnipotent.
Pick one.
Life isn't black and white. Also, Psalm 82: 6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. (Lucifer, for example)
I think it’s a misread to say it gave us evil. The garden is portrayed as being a paradise with a tree of knowledge. The man and the women, as they self-identified themselves to be, were both allowed agency to be themselves and be blessed without the burden of knowledge, so long as they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Both the man and the woman independently made the conscious decision to break the rule given to them to not eat the fruit of knowledge. The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God, through the eating of the fruit. My take on this is that story is meant to show that God can help you and will help you, but if you choose to go against his will you have the face the consequences of that decision on your own. However, you can still seek forgiveness for your decisions and even be forgiven, but this doesn’t magically put everything back to the way things were before.
The story is more or less a cultural device to explain good and evil from the perspective of the early Israelite society. The story itself is rippled throughout the Bible in this way: God gives instructions, the people follow the instructions at first but then grow complacent, bad things happen because people stop following God’s instructions, and then one of the leaders of the tribe of Israel steps in to help get people back on the right path of following God’s instructions.
I’ll add that functionally Genesis is three serparate creation stories that were pulled into one book. Culturally, the early Israelites borrowed some of the elements of other creation stories of their time seen in other cultures such as the Babylonians. The first creation story is the seven days, the second is what we know as the story Adam and Eve, and the third was the story of the great flood.
Going by the Bible, it's both. He acted with malice and proved himself to not be omnipotent many times.
Jod introduced the idea of freewill to the board.
Lucifer said "That's a bad idea, chief. Free will would ruin them."
Jod cast him out.
Humans fucked everything up.
Jod sent his CTO, Jesus to try and fix it. It went poorly.
Lucifer said " I told you so"
Well, since this is a religious discussion, I'm a Christian. It's always God.
Job 1:6-12 very clearly shows God granting permission for Satan to test Job.
1 Kings 22:19-22 shows the "court in heaven" and God soliciting ideas from spirits for enticing Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead, where he will die. When a good suggestion is made, God grants permission.
Exodus 10:1-2 states clearly that God hardened Pharaoh's heart to not let the slaves go, so that God could display his "signs" (plagues).
Satan is a liar, and the father of lies.
Romans 9:19-21 NIV
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Wow, sounds like a cruel deity that's definitely not worthy of worship.
Hey, at least you're judging based on the facts of what the Bible says. God is who He is. He's not campaigning. You disagree with Him, but at least it's really Him.
Of course, that puts you in the same position as Job. You want to judge God. You want to put him on trial. You disagree with Him.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you'll say the same thing Job said.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
That would be what, "Why are you so weirdly obsessed with Leviathan?" after Job 41?
Haha, Leviathan was certainly the "big bad" in Job. I don't know what creature was being referred to (maybe a species of large crocodile?) but yes, he gets a lot of air time.
No, I meant Job 42:3, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."
I would add that not every author is writing unbiased in the Bible. We know now for instance that some books near the end of the Bible attributed to Paul may not have been written by him, but by some of the people under Paul in the early church. So adding parts about women not holding positions of authority within the Church more or less served to cement their own positions and authority for the early-Christians that were formalizing the religion.
Yup.
The teachings of Christianity don't make any fucking sense. (Unless you're willing to gaslight yourself for a lifetime.)
Now now, don't discount free reign to also gaslight others for a lifetime as well. And judge and shame others too. It's great for complete assholes.
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