Is belief in the supernatural an intelligent person’s game?

[DevaWolf]

Satan was judged for pride, mutiny and rebellion. He will never be forgiven so he hates us as we still have a choice. God must be fair in the way he judges our sins and provide the same severity he applied to Satan and the fallen angels to us. This is why Satan is called the “accused of the brethren”.

For God to be holy, just and fair, sin must be judged. So what would a good God do to solve this dilemma (and could you, @DevaWolf suggest a better plan that satisfies both love and holiness?).

God, unwilling to compromise his holiness by overlooking sin, instead gives his own Son to be tortured and killed in your place, so that you can (should you accept) inherit eternal life.

One day, if He is not some badly drawn, evolving fictional character, you will have to tell him that he fails to live up to your moral standards. At that point, the books will be opened and your claim to moral superiority will be tested against the standards you believe you surpass Him on.

I know I’m not good enough. That’s why I’m a Christian.

Fortunately for me, God was patient with my rebellious heart and I have come to know Him. Whatever it takes, I pray that something happens to bring you to a point where you can see things as they truly are.

I appreciate your kindness and genuine concern. I really do, and I know you write this with good intentions.
However, I feel that if such a God would be just, he would not create creatures capable of sin if the wage of it is eternal torment.

If the wage is death, maybe I can accept that. But then I still don't undestand why He would choose to do all this knowing how it would end, and how many would suffer during this life on earth. It just does not make sense to me that a being that allows such things, would be good.

Also, I am not claiming I am surpassing him on anything, because the God of the Bible does not exist to me so there is nothing to surpass. If there truly is a good God out there, he will surely not have created the world founded on such ideas.

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

I appreciate your kindness and genuine concern. I really do, and I know you write this with good intentions.
However, I feel that if such a God would be just, he would not create creatures capable of sin if the wage of it is eternal torment.

If the wage is death, maybe I can accept that. But then I still don't undestand why He would choose to do all this knowing how it would end, and how many would suffer during this life on earth. It just does not make sense to me that a being that allows such things, would be good.

Also, I am not claiming I am surpassing him on anything, because the God of the Bible does not exist to me so there is nothing to surpass. If there truly is a good God out there, he will surely not have created the world founded on such ideas.

A personal question, if you don’t mind...

Do you have kids?

I do, and one of the greatest pieces of advice I was given when they were still yoghurt covered toddlers was:-

“don’t take all the credit, don’t take all the blame”.

I think God operates with us on that same principle - he will reward those who have given their lives (or even a cup of water) for the sake of goodness. He will equally punish those who wilfully refuse to accept their sinful condition and the sacrifice Jesus paid for their sins.

He creates the kind of people who can choose either good or evil. I can’t get my head around the concept of the creation of a free being who could only choose good.

I think C.S. Lewis puts this very clearly, in a few logical proposals:-

#1 God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right.

#2 Because of free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only things that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating.

#3 The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

#4 When we have understood about free will, we shall see how silly it is to ask, as somebody once asked me :”Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?”
The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so; a superhuman spirit best—or worst—of all.

#5 You make the thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible. It is probably the same in the universe.

#6 Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes; you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it’s like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

Thanks @Colonel Valerio - I found your response incisive and interesting so I read it, thought about it and read it again... I believe each of your points should be taken seriously:-

I only believe it to be immoral if taken literally. There is infinite wisdom in the Bible if understood in a certain way. The Old Testament as an allegory is a brutal testament to human evolution. Taken literally it's a manual of slavery.

I do believe that bad exegesis can lead to bad doctrine, which in turn can lead to monstrous actions. How you should read and interpret a text often depends on what you bring to it. Interpretation of imagery and figures of speech often require a cultural context. Accordingly I do concede that it is quite possible for naïve readers to misunderstand parts of scripture to their own confusion. Instead, why not start with something like John 3:16 and work out from there?

A literal interpretation of the words of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount minus a cultural and outdated passage on divorce, is what if I were to put it into modern terms, would surely be denounced as an "SJW".

On divorce, there is a deeper meaning applying to God’s relationship to us than a simply a prescription of how we should conduct marriage counselling, but perhaps for another thread?

People like you hate Catholics, ( and rightly so for many reasons) but Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and the Berrigans were truer ambassadors of Christ than I have ever seen on this forum.

Au contraire, Colonel, I like Catholics very much. It is the “ism” I have an issue with as it confuses the Gospel.

How do you reconcile this to modern Christianity? To what is happening in my country? You ever write a letter to somebody in prison Red? I do it every month.

I believe America is being misled from a Christian perspective by Dominion Theology, the Prosperity Gospel, an obsession with experience like the NAR and a lack of genuine love for the lost. The Gospel is practical - read Acts 6 where Stephen was chosen to essentially work in a food bank! By comparison, American Christianity is “me” obsessed and cares little for the poor. I agree that true Christians should care about social justice. Read Revelation 3 - how closely do you see the Laodacean church matching the general state of organised Christianity today?

I think it’s great that you write to prisoners, and I think more Christians should do this! As for me writing to people in prison, in a sense I do it almost every day, however, the incarcerated folk I write to are of such a mindset that many of them don’t presently realise they are locked away.

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Definitely a call to practical faith. I agree that practical kindness must accompany truth.

To turn someone a way at the border is to turn Christ away.

I agree that it is possible to use security as a cloak for closed-hearted injustice and I suspect that the building of walls may include selfishness and security in equal measure. A serious question though - what if the person at the border wants to do you harm? Do you lock your door at night?

Funny that the nonbeliever sees that while the believer twiddles his thumbs and awaits the a-bomb.

I think it’s terrible how some Christians who are excited about the end times become insular and sit around trying to figure out exactly how things might pan out while bad things are happening in their communities and countries that they should be trying to stand against. Whatever happened to “occupy till I come?”