Good and Evil, Towb and Ra

That is pretty much what Jesus did. He gave his life so others could live. I’d be loathe to call Jesus wrong for offering himself or to call those who accepted him wrong.

In general, regardless of the situation, there is a loving way to handle it, one that benefits the receiver of that love, though costing the lover something of him/herself. The act of love requires the one who loves to give something of himself for the benefit of others.

This is one interpretation of what happened. Does this description presume that God intended for humans to live forever in the Garden of Eden? Do you presume that God did not know what was going to happen? I believe that God knows what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen in this, His created universe, because God exists outside of the space and time of this creation. I also do not believe that God has permitted any human, or any other being, or any combination of the above, to subvert His purposes for creating this universe, and us in it.

I think you are partly right, but not totally. I see the scriptures as saying that ultimately God will bring about His plan of redemption and the reestablishment of Eden on this earth. That will absolutely happen. But the question becomes, how exactly will He do it? The answer to that question depends largely on the choice people make. God will not run roughshod over man, making him do whatever is necessary to bring about ultimate victory. Instead, He works WITH mankind, trying to convince (not coerce) them to do the right thing. He was successful in convincing Jesus to live a perfect life and to sacrifice himself for us sinners.

Jesus, like all men, had free will, so God really didn’t know if Jesus would obey to the end until Jesus said, “it is finished” and gave up the ghost. I can imagine the angst God had when Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, was suggesting there might be a better way to redeem mankind, one that didn’t involve his excruciating torture and death. I can imagine God sighing a huge sigh of relief when Jesus finally said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” That was a close call for sure, one that almost negated everything Jesus had done up to that point. God was sitting on the edge of His throne, hoping that Jesus would follow through to the end. There were sure plenty of opportunities for Jesus to have given up and go his own way. I’m thinking of how tempting it must have been for Jesus to accept the devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world. I’ll bet that was another tense moment for God, waiting to see how Jesus would respond. Again, He must have wiped a lot of sweat off His brow when Jesus successfully resisted the urge to give in to Satan’s offer. What an exciting story when read as I believe God intended it to be read!

Now God certainly has an idea of what any given person may do in a given situation, but He does not know for sure. I know my son would choose pudding over peas any day of the week, but he could still surprise me and choose the peas one of these days.

Jer 26:13,

Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you.

God didn’t know if they would amend their ways or not. Otherwise why would He have brought it up. Why would He tell them to do something if He already knew what they would do? I also see God here as holding back His plan of action until He know what they’d do. He had an idea in mind, but it was subject to change if Israel amended their ways. He had to wait and see what they’d do before making His final decision.

Deut 30:19,

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Again, why would God tell them to choose life over death if He already knew what they would choose?

God, through His angel agent, told Abram, “Now I know…” Prior to Abram raising the knife above Isaac’s chest, God didn’t know for sure if he’d follow through with His command of not.

Why would God have given Adam instructions regarding the tree of good and evil if He knew ahead of time what Adam would do? It would seem as though God was being quite disingenuous in making Adam think he had a choice when he really didn’t.

I agree with you that God’s perfect knows perfectly what has happened and what is going on in the present. He can correctly ascertain all the thoughts and actions of people at any given moment (which man can not even begin to do), but the future is partially open. Again, He knows the final act (new heaven and new earth), but He’s not sure of how it will come. That depends on what people do. The fact that God can work with such fickle creatures to arrive at the goal speaks volumes to the genius and limitless resourcefulness of God. That makes Him a far greater god than one who merely pulls the strings of all His created puppets.

Excellent points and well thought out. Yes, it is true that most people, non Christians included, believe in the golden rule. But there is a huge caveat here, namely, do all people have the capacity to truly love, to follow that golden rule?

I think the NT, Romans 1 for example, makes it clear what resides within the unsaved man and it’s not a pretty picture. There is certainly no mention of them having a capacity to truly love. Sure, they do good works, many more even than some Christians, but the fact is they do not have the love of God residing within so they can hardly love the way God originally intended when He made Adam and Eve.

Rom 5:5,

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

In Acts, Peter was clear in saying that repentance, i.e., getting born again, is necessary to receive that holy spirit which is the only source of true love.

What you are saying here, and throughout your discussion, is totally dependent on an unstated assumption, that time is something that is absolute, that goes on both in this universe and wherever else exists in any way, shape, or form.
What modern physics demonstrates very thoroughly is that time and space as we experience them in this universe are inextricably interwoven with the matter and energy in this created universe. That is, time and space are dimensions of the created universe.
One interesting sidelight is the fact of relativity of simultaneity. That is, two events, separated in space, that appear to be simultaneous in one frame of reference will not be simultaneous in a different frame of reference, moving relative to the first frame. In one different frame, event A might preceed event B, and in another frame, event B might be first. The important point for this discussion is that time, as we experience it, in this universe, is a dimension of the universe, not something that is absolute, or independent of the matter and energy in this universe.
So, if as I believe, God created this universe, as an integral component of that creation, He created the spatial and temporal dimensions of this universe, along with all the laws of physics that define how this universe operates. And it appears from scientific observation that He created these laws to be consistent over time; we can repeat experiments, including intentional modifications, and get results that are consistent, time after time. So much so that, when we find discrepancies, rather than presume the laws of physics changed, we look for ways to modify and improve what we feel are the best descriptions that we have of what those laws are.
Now, If God created the time that we experience, then God must exist outside of that form of time.
What does this mean? One statement from the bible is the statement that Jesus made, “Before Abraham was, I am.” On the surface, the simple and straightforward interpretation of the words is exactly what I have been saying about time in this universe. I am sure that Jesus, as the Son of God, who was there with the Father when the worlds were made, and nothing was made without Him, exists outside of the time (and space) of this created universe. Jesus said that He was existing before Abraham at the same time as He was existing with the Jews while He walked on earth. That is, Jesus (and also both other persons of God) is outside of time (for sure outside the time as we experience it in this universe).
What this means to me is that, from God’s viewpoint, He looks at everything that was created - all the matter and energy, throughout its extent in space and time. And from that perspective, He knows (in an historical sense) everything that has happened, is happening, or will happen.
Here is where your understanding of time and mine lead to a very different understanding of what is going on in this universe. I agree completely that God does not make us jump like puppets on strings, that we really do have free will, to make choices, and those choices do have real consequences. The difference is that I know that God knew, “before” creating this universe (if “before” really means anything in His home) exactly what everyone had ever done.
Another aspect of this universe that is only known through modern physics is that the matter and energy of the universe is comprised of an enormous number of extremely tiny particles. The universe is constructed in a way that we cannot ever know the exact state of any one of those particles (exactly where it is, the sum total of all the forces that are being exerted on it, and the speed and direction in which it is moving). Yet the law of large numbers allows us to predict with near certainty how large groups of particles that are combined into objects that we can detect with our natural senses will behave.
I believe that God uses a similar approach to ensure that the decisions of billions of people end up leading to the overall result of how He wants this world to go. I also believe, both from personal experience and from many statements from other people that He does intervene in the lives of us on this earth, almost always in small, personal ways.

I believe God knew what they would do, and used His prophet to push them in the right direction. But God still let them make the choice. Why tell them? Because He knew they needed that one more push, and this was something important to God’s purposes on this earth. and maybe also because God knew that documenting the push He gave to His people in that way would give a good and useful push to others of us who would eventually read about it.

To give them just another push to choose the right thing. To remind them what God wanted them to do. And to let them know that they did have free will. God knowing what we will choose doesn’t make God any more responsible for our choices than we are responsible for the choices historical figures made, just because we know what they did choose. I do trust God’s judgement when He decides that some people need some extra warnings sometimes.

Why would God allow Satan into the Garden of Eden if He really wanted all humans to live forever in the Garden? Do you believe in a God who is not in control of the universe He created? I believe in a God who knew exactly what He was doing, and even more importantly than the “what”, I believe God knew exactly why He created this universe this way, and let it run the way it has run, and actually did (and still does) intervene when He knew it was appropriate, for the purposes for which He created this universe.

I believe He is sure exactly how it will come about. That is why He can promise me that “All things work together for good for those who love God.”

I agree completely with this, just have a bit of a twist on what I think God knows about what we will do, not just reacting to what we do. Again, I believe that God knows from an historical perspective what we will do, not from a controlling perspective. God advises us to do some things, but doesn’t force us do anything.
Bottom line: I have come to believe that modern physics does help us understand how God can give us true free will, the ability to make choices that do have real consequences in this world, and yet, because He knows what all those choices have been, He can fit together everyone’s choices so that His purposes for putting us into this world, rather than creating us in Heaven, can be attained.
And, to relate to the starting point, I am certain that His purposes for creating us in this world could not be satisfied if there were not both good and evil in this world.

Check out the NOVA video at least until it talks about spacetime slices:

This fits too:

Thanks. I’m not sure what this is in relationship to the absolute morality and relative morality question?

If you want to leave that for now, that’s fine.

I like the reminder that God is like a parent–rejoicing when we learn to do right, and become more like his Son. As with Emeth in “The Last Battle,” I think He knows our hearts, even if we don’t know the rules right. He’s not a gnostic God, thank goodness!
Thanks, Brother.

There is an important thing to keep in mind regarding the scriptures, namely that they were not written last year in New York of LA. They were written to a people who had no way, nor interest for that matter, of knowing what science knows today. God did not explain gravity to them. He didn’t even explain that the earth is a globe. Everyone in that time and place understood the world to be a flat disc surrounded by waters or chaos. God had no need to change that for Israel. It was irrelevent to the purpose for which God spoke and wrote to them.

The Ancient Near Eastern man or woman had no interest whatsoever in “space-time.” They were more interested in how to please the gods so as to ensure stability in society. That didn’t come to their world until the Greeks were the genesis of the idea that everything that happens in nature is explainable by physical laws, physics.

Of course all of that is good. We even advanced to the point of making Tang because of the space program. Yeah us! What the Greeks, did though, was begin the process of taking people’s mind off the truth that all those laws were because of God, a spirit. Everything now is physics, while largely ignoring the spiritual.

Any modern day science that is read into the scriptures are just that, a reading into the scriptures something that is simply not there. The Bible is a religious book, not a science book. As a religious book, it explained exactly what man needed to do to live a righteous life, which, as I said above, is where their interest laid.

I was replying to something you said:

“The rule is common to all of us, to love others as ourselves. We run the risk of a strawman if we say others don’t have the same rules we do.”

I said only Christians can love with the love of God. Seemed appropriate.

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Very well said!

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As I understand it, the ancient writers of the Old Testament had a very different concept of Satan than we do, having been influenced by extra-biblical texts and stories over the years. And, it is not clear that the serpent in the garden was Satan from the text in Genesis. Anyway, with its warts and limitations, Wikipedia says “ Satan ,[a] also known as the Devil ,[b] and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the yetzer hara , or “evil inclination.”

So, while your post really was not about the nature of Satan specifically, I wonder if the serpent or Satan in the garden can be thought of as evil, The evil that occurred was the product of Adam and Eve’s rebellion and disobedience, not the serpent’s actions, despite what Adam said.

I think it is true that that OT concept of Satan is different than our own modern Western view. For sure, our modern Western view is not the standard for truth. The scriptures ought to fill that role.

I think that if anybody wants to get an accurate view of Satan, it is necessary to see what Jesus and the writers of the NT (Paul, Luke, James, John etc) said. They are the ones that revealed his true nature, and it appears that none of them had anything good to say about him.

Satan is an agent of God (as per Wiki)? Isn’t that akin to saying George Washington was an agent of King George III? An agent represents the interest of the one who sent them. I hardly see either George Washington as representing the interests of King George, nor Satan acting in the interest of God.

1 Sam 16:7,

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for [the LORD seeth] not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

1 Kgs 8:39,

Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, [even] thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

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The other side of that, though, is this:

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Jeremiah 17:9

We can certainly fool ourselves about the condition of our own hearts!

Any reading of the scriptures to understand only what God’s authors were saying to the people at the time they were writing is just that, and requires further interpretation to evaluate what it means to us today. This is where understanding modern science can help us understand things about God that ancient humans had no way of knowing. And while we are busy interpreting, we dare not forget that God told Peter that some of the things He had told His people as absolutely true, and things they absolutely should do, no longer applied. The point is that it is not a simple thing to claim to know what a scripture written thousands of years ago, in a very different cultural, linguistic, scientific, and spiritual environment means to us humans living today, especially in terms of trying to determine what we should do, or even more problematic, to tell others what they should do. One particular fact from modern science, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, underscores what Paul said about knowledge, that our knowledge in this world is imperfect. And while Paul did not know Heisenberg, we do know that God created a universe where we could not obtain perfect knowledge by observation.

I do think all true science is because of God. However, I’m not sure why modern science would help us to understand God any more than the ancients. It certainly helps us to appreciate Him more because we can see details about creation the ANE couldn’t see.

I general, I actually think the ANE understood God better than the modern West. They understood the spiritual world in a way that most moderns don’t. The moderns West pretty much ignores the existence of a spiritual world, and that largely due to a side effect of our science, namely, that if we can’t measure and weigh it, it doesn’t exist. Hence the devil and his minions have free reign to do things such as mass shootings and sexual perversions. Not sure how science could help there. Prayer and Christians exercising their God given authority is the only cure for much of evil we see going on in the world.

Jesus could heal a man born blind. I suppose there is a case or two where science has given the blind vision, but I’d bet the vision Jesus restored was light years ahead of what science has done so far. Noting at all wrong with science (it helps us keep bus schedules and such), but I believe the spiritual has way more power than science.

There are certainly timeless truths about both God and man taught in the Bible, OT and New.

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Here I must respond with something from modern mathematics that I’ve said before somewhere in this for. God is infinite; if applying this adjective to God as a whole is difficult, consider that God’s love is infinite. As some have noted, “infinite” as a specific numerical value might not be valid, but in the other sense of being “unlimited” we can still use the term with valid meaning. We can also apply some mathematical analysis that has been around for over 100 years, to note that any finite knowledge of God’s infinite love (or any other unlimited characteristic of God) is mathematically indistinguishable from 0% of the total. This does not mean that our finite knowledge is meaningless; without any knowledge, we could not have a real relationship with God. What it does mean is that God is so large, so unlimited, that my finite knowledge can be true, and yet can also be completely non-overlapping with someone else’s finite knowledge which can also be completely true.
So your claim that ANE understood God better than the modern West seems shaky at best; are you comparing the average ANE with the average modern person, or the best ANE with the best modern person, or the worst ANE with the worst modern person? Or are you comparing the best from ANE (because that’s what has been preserved) with a general perception of modern?
As for the modern West ignoring the existence of a spiritual world, are you taking this as a general fact, or is the modern world on a much better track, focussing most of our efforts on things we can do something about, and trying to figure out what will make a real difference in this world, which is what we can observe and have at least some meaningful influence over what we do, and what happens as a result of what we do?
Science could help with mass shootings, if we really allowed good science to work on the problem. Science also can help with sexual perversions. In both of these, good science will recognize the complexity of the problem, evaluate risks and uncertainties, gather information to help understand what might be causing or influencing these problems, and, over some timeframe, provide rationale for trying some actions that have potential for improving the situation along with identifying measurements that will demonstrate whether the actions are having the expected results. No, I am not sure in detail how science would help, but not trying is evil. And how can Christians exerting their God given authority cure evil? Do you mean that we Christians can legislate morality? I promise you, 100%, that is not what God wants us Christians to do in this world! We rather should be using our best scientific efforts to help us identify causes and solutions to problems in a manner that we can actually decide what to do, and determine whether we were right, and adjust our actions based on real observation of effects.
This is what strikes me as correctly applying everything we know in today’s world, including our understanding of what ancient people believed about God, what we believe about God today, and our observation of opportunities to improve our current world.

And there are many things written in the bible that were specifically intended for a particular audience at a particular time, which have been taken out of context and grossly misinterpreted to justify evil positions, such as the antebellum southern ministers justifying slavery. It is often not trivial to determine how something written thousands of years ago applies to me today. And I am certain that I have no right to tell anyone else what he or she must do based on what I believe. I only have the obligation to witness to what I believe, what I “know” about God, and leave it to every other person to work out how, or even whether, what I say means for him or her and their relationship with God. I do note that my understanding of twentieth century physics and mathematics strongly influences how I interpret anything I read or hear.

I have no argument with that at all (and incredibly, some of it persists!).

Sure, but there are some about which there is no question at all, or shouldn’t be. Some of the basic moral ‘laws of love’ are among them and encapsulated in the Ten Commandments, about covetousness, lying, stealing and committing adultery for instance. (We could talk about esoteric exceptions, like civil disobedience under the Third Reich of course, but that is beside the point.)

We do have a responsibility to inform and encourage other Christians by testifying to God’s loving and faithful sovereignty in our lives as well as others that we know of, let alone those in scripture. I’m not going to dig for them now, but I’m sure there is more than the one place in the epistles where we are so instructed. Your not accepting those accounts and that mandate is on you.

Of course, and me too. I wonder where we might differ in that.