Like “Fake News” of Our Time.
Who said it wasn’t a real historical event?
Well, I was just wondering why he would kill a tree if only for theatrics. I’m not questioning the historicity of Jesus, just that some parts of the Bible already seem to have poetry. I just wasn’t sure if the same was happening here.
Note that stuff Jesus teaches (both by parables and by object lessons) are rarely about those actual things. It’s not about yeast. Not about mustard seeds. Not about lost coins or unjust judges or vineyards. It’s always about something else. I would put the tree in that category too. It isn’t about whether a tree can literally sin, or whether or not Jesus was being a knowledgeable horticulturist in that moment. Those weren’t questions or concerns that were on their minds in that time. It’s about people (specifically Israel and its leaders in a lot of his stories). Are they bearing good fruit or not? It’s notable that in another parable, Jesus had the character (a gardener working for the owner) appeal to give that tree more of a chance - another year, this time with fertilizer added and such. And again - even with the extra consideration and knowledge of horticulture included in this story, it still isn’t about the tree or about horticultural processes. It’s still about Israel, and ultimately us, and the ample grace we’re given to begin to show some fruit.
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Alrighty. Thank you for the clarification!
I have great sympathy for your dilemma. The proper answer to it is complex and can’t be given in a few sentences. I’ve devoted a chapter of my forthcoming book to the issue and will be happy to send it to you. Write to me at roy.a.clouser@gmail.com
This is quite amazing. You wake up every day and bask in the sunshine and drink the water and eat the food and you are telling me that you hate God! So, You are so superior to God in your goodness that you can judge Him? Have you every caused anybody to suffer? Have you ever broken anybody’s heart? Do you relieve suffering whenever you have the opportunity? How about this. God allows suffering in others to see how we will respond. Since you are so sensitive to the suffering of children are you on a crusade to relieve their suffering? Are you fighting the sexual exploitation of children? Do you partake in pornography which causes men to become monsters and perverts and creates child tormentors? I could go on and on forever but realize this. God is perfectly benevolent and good. Any suffering we experience in this age is only temporary. Once Jesus Christ returns from heaven all suffering will be exterminated along with all evil and evildoers. Are you one of the evildoers? Since you hate God you are! You are a rebel against his government and an agent of chaos and destruction and if possible you would ruin the entire universe. You wickedness has no bounds.
Hi, Cliff. You’re probably responding to @VAGRANT here and his opening post. But I’ll presume to butt in here a bit before others reply too.
You’ve chosen the moniker: “truthspkr” for yourself. Very good. But are you also a “Love speaker”? I don’t think one can ever fully come without the other. And those who imagine that one must always precede the other, are the very ones who likely then get their order exactly backwards, and think that it needs to be truth that leads. I think it likely that the opposite may be the case. If Love doesn’t lead, then there is little or no hope that there will be any truth forthcoming in the conversation either.
You don’t offer up any judgments that most in these sorts of positions haven’t heard before. So you’re ready to praise God for all good things! Good on you! But don’t expect the lamenting and even raging psalmists to suddenly forget his rage and anger, and suddenly think: “Oh! So I guess I just need to praise God for everything, huh? Why didn’t that occur to me earlier?!” They’re still looking at unspeakable evils for which they’ve seen no satisfactory answer from you or anybody else, and they’re not buying it. Turning up your own volume on them and rehearsing Sunday school stuff at them more loudly will not be giving them any helpful answers. But it does provide a nice punching bag for them - and everything they hate about religion. There is that. Sorry if my own response here seems a bit harsh - but if so, it’s only because I see myself in your response, and realize that I too can and have at times come across exactly that way. So here’s preaching to myself probably more than at you.
@VAGRANT , sorry if I put some words in your mouth here that you may or may not own. I don’t mean it to take the place of your own replies if you choose to give any.
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Perhaps God will judge me this way too. Could I be doing more? I suppose I could volunteer my time at Children’s Hospitals and make them laugh… But I find it hard to laugh myself. Especially when I see what they go through. Maybe I’m not strong enough to actually help. I’m not smart enough to cure cancer. I don’t stich anyone together in the womb. I don’t claim to be all powerful. I avoid evil behaviour where I am strong enough to. I don’t hurt children but I have as a child and now I’m an adult I hurt adults on occasion.
Point me in the direction of those adults who hurt children, give me a Police immunity card and watch me work. In the meantime, I suppose I am what you say I am. Though mostly, I think you just miss my point.
I do know God cannot be perfectly benevolent, however. This would make any sort of ambivalence impossible, even for Him.
It’s fine. Thankyou for your response to them, it’s better than mine.
Oh, no problem. I don’t take offense and can handle a little bit of harshness even though I don’t think anything you said was harsh. Dialogue is good and we can all learn from each other. I did not see my points expressed by any of the other commenters so I thought I would offer them. I could all a lot more. God is infinite love and we have a moral obligation to love him back for loving us so greatly by all that he has done. I could give the free will argument that evil must be permitted in order for us to have freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is essential for love. Love must be a free choice and must include the alternative of hating. If you hate evil the first thing to do is to love God and then turn and love your neighbor as scriptures teach us. You also need to understand the celestial time clock. Time is divided into ages. There will be an infinite number of ages going into the future. Each of these is a segment of time. Things will change with age. We are in the very first age since the creation of the universe 6000 some odd years ago. This is the age of Adam or the age of Man which is 6000 years app. Our father Adam and our mother Eve chose to rebel against God. Doing so was a submission to an evil being called Satan who rules this present world during this age. He is soon to be deposed by Jesus Christ at his return. It is Adam’s fault that there is evil in this world. It is our fault when we do evil ourselves and allow evil in our own sphere of influence. All of our powers should be used to exercise good. The law of justice requires that. Evil is the result of free moral agents choosing to do evil. God can’t be blamed. He allows it because this is the age of Adam and he has chosen to not interfere in the course of events that we as a race have limited sovereignty over. He does this because this age must show all future ages the consequence of rebellion against God’s moral government and the imposition of self-will in defiance of submission to the will of God. God however overrides the evil done. Yes, there is temporary suffering of many innocents but you must realize that they only suffer for a very short period of time and will be rewarded will much in the future for their suffering. The suffering of the evil perpetrators will be infinite and will be an just and righteous execution of justice. Justice is a principle that is woven into the fabric of the universe. God is obligated to execute justice since he is the moral governor of the universe. Faith is the key to overcome evil that is perpetrated upon you. When you trust in the goodness of God you can overcome any evil. Thought they burn your body they cannot touch your soul. If somebody does evil to you and you respond in kind, then you become just like they are. When you refuse to respond with hate and choose to love instead and then trust and rely upon the goodness of God to execute justice by punishing the evildoer and rewarding the innocent and the righteous, you will overcome the evil and quench the fires of hate with the fountain of love. It seems to me that the misotheist has not learned that. Is that you or some other guy? Whoever it is, I hope to get the message across that if you respond to what you perceive to be injustice to the innocent by hating God whom you think is the perpetrator by allowing the agent of evil to exist, you are doing the same thing as one does who hates and kills in response to another human hating and killing. The Christian gospel brought us civilization by teaching people to love and forgive instead of hating and seeking retribution. I hope this helps you understand a little bit better. I hope you can see that your course of action will not do you good. You must love God and try to perceive his goodness. You must have faith. Then you will prevail against the evil in your own sector of the universe and create moral good by your moral choices to do good and to resist evil.
I agree with your point on love. That is equally important. Which comes first? There are two meanings to first. One is first in the sequence of time. The other is first is importance. Love is greater in importance but truth must come first in sequence. That is because love also recognizes universal moral law. First Moses came with the law. Then Christ came with the gospel. Which is more important? I see them go hand in hand. We need both.
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If the usual theodicy rhetoric helped, I would never have posted here.
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I’d be happy to wait for it’s release and buy it. Have you got a title set?
I’ve been responding to misotheist (and you)… so no; I am not either one of you, and would indeed be misleading people if I was pretending to be and just having a conversation with myself. No … my name is just as you see it. I’m not anonymous, nor ashamed of (most) things I write around here.
Kudos to your recognition that love is more than just some optional ‘add-on’. I still insist it belongs in the drivers seat even. Your post has some things now known (by people who are attentive to creation and how it is observed to work) to be false. You would probably have an interest in not continuing to promote falsehoods along with any truth that you hope people will consider.
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Wow, Vagrant! I can say that you are very puzzled, to put it mildly, by God, or the concept of God that you seem most puzzled with.
If, as you and most of us generally say, that God’s mind is not like ours, then it is hard to say that His motives are good or bad—just different and sometimes frustrating. And I agree with you about Job. At the end of the book, there seem to be no answers except for that Voice out of thin air who says “Where were you when God laid the foundations of the heavens and the earth?’
We are expected to answer that one, I think,
And that is basically what we are left with –after all the flowery speeches and arguments – in the book of Job. Just the question: “Where were YOU when……?” Not a waste of time to read, but not a book I go back to often.
I left off with religion for many years because of unanswered questions and more-than-slightly mean thoughts about God and everything that I had heard or read about Him……
…..and I did not like hearing other people’s smarmy explanations. For the most part, people cannot answer you (or me) on this because they either are 1) just as angry and agree with you or 2) they want to defend God because of some inherent need to do so – and often at the expense of your or my legitimate experiences and/or questions.
But I did, at some period of time years back, suddenly start having “experiences” that 1) convinced me that there really IS God….2) when something happened in my life and someone (whom I could not see) asked “What is your image of God and is it the right one? Are you angry at God and blaming Him for the things that people do?”—well, to be honest, I did not want to have a theological argument with anyone….but I could not answer that question much either—not really, not much. Whomever I thought I was talking to, had just done a tremendously wonderful series of things in front of me…things that I could not just write off as “chance.”
If experience is worth anything, then the Unanswered Stuff (like “why do the innocent suffer?” etc) has to be balanced against the things we know that are Good…….and try and develop a more balanced outlook. But that takes time and maybe working through personal stuff.
P.S. JUST read ths comment of yours:
the Christian God is unique in that on the cross, He actually took responsibility for what He had done, for making Humans in the first place. No other god does this. Only a god that could take responsibility would be worth my affection.
Interesting comment. BUT!!! The text itself does not say that “the Christian God” was taking responsibility for His failures in creating humans to begin with. God has never said creating us was a “failure” of His….although the Bible does characterize God (on an occasion early on) as regretting creating us—not because of Himself but of how we have turned out (long story —read it in early chapters of Genesis)….Jesus’ death was, and always has been, described as taking our punishment for us – so that WE do not have to experience it, so long as we acknowledge His death for our sins (etc)…if nothing else, the Innocent dying for the Guilty is a rare trait in the history of theology (actually…counting other religions and theologies here!)…..If Jesus is/Was the fleshly manifestation of God, then what He shows in taking the penalty for our sins (rather than us having to pay it), is a remarkably humble thing for Divinity to have done. OK… all for now on that.
Hope others here have more valuable input.
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It may be a long time until it’s in print. Please write to me from your own email address and i’ll send the reply I’ve written.
Please write to me from your own email address so I can send the reply I’ve written
Perhaps much of this describes me as well, though the very thought of it confuses me. I was raised to be a skeptic and a rebel, though I supposed I ended up being skeptical of skepticism and rebelling against rebellion.
I came to the conclusion that the creation life is of very dubious morality since doing so commits entities with no choice involved to considerable suffering. It is of course impossible to choose whether to have existed/lived or not. We can only choose what to do with life as we are given it and not whether we want such a choice at all. How then can God be justified in doing such a thing? I think there is only one possible justification and this is being ready, willing and able to love what He has created. That is the difference from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, where the creation of life was for his own pride and ego and no willingness to love his creation.
Everything you say reminds me very much of the book of Job and the wrangling dialog with others telling him he has no right to complain. In the end, however, these others are rebuked. We have a right to feel whatever we feel. The conclusion of the book of Job is I think that our judgment of God is ultimately foolish because we simply do not see the big picture. I am reminded of people who look from the sidelines in judgement of parents doing their best to raise their own children.
And this makes me suspect that the trouble with your own parents is at the root of this. I learned to love my parents even though there was much I disagreed with them about, making rather different choices for my own life. But I suspect our parent are so deeply intertwined with our own identity, being unable to love them also makes it difficult to love ourselves. If that sounds a bit psychological, it should be little wonder since that was the religion in which I was raised – both parents majored in psychology.
As for my own children… I have three boys. And while my relationships with them remain good, I find some of their choices both incomprehensible and wrong according to my own measures of what is right and good. I don’t know how that story will end. I think this goes back to this same root difficulty embedded in the fundamental challenge of parenthood, which is after all how we involve ourselves in the creation of life.
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Pretty sanctimonious perch you are on.
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The withering of the fig tree is 100% about Israel and the destruction of the temple. It’s also a classic sandwich or intercalation— which is a neat literary device employed quite frequently by Mark. Matthew does not have it in sandwich form.
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