Consider this: as the earth undergoes manmade global warming, hurricanes are getting more powerful (they feed off warm water) and fire season is getting longer and deadlier. So is global warming actually making God angrier and deadlier, or is this something we need to take care of ourselves?
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For me (and i might be the only one)events such as these indicate that the “metaphorical” disasters or things the Revelation has might not be so metaphorical after all.I might be the only one to actually take at least half of the book as literal.Your question is really great though and makes me think!!!
Where do you get that concept from again? Not counting the impossible, unhistoric, fantasies attributed to God of course. But what language describing God’s emotions and morality in human projection? What words?
Sure, if you discount the reality of God’s intervening providence.
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Sorry I don’t see the connection. There is no intersection of categories. And how does that relate to the phenomenological encounter with words?
Words are used to recount wonderful instances of God’s interventions that you dismiss as fantasies across the board.
Generally, if disaster strikes other people, we tend to blame their sinful behavior for bringing on the wrath of God.
Uh huh. Where do the words ‘the wrath of God’, wherever they come from, do that?
They come right after the words ‘evil’ and ‘justice’.
Where’s that? In what original language? With what etymology?
Conceptually. Or maybe wrath comes before justce.
This reminded me of something that I read last week by N.T. Wright in his little book, Preaching the Cross in Dark Times. He said, “In the modern world, since the Enlightenment, we’ve divided up ‘evil’ into three quite separate areas: personal sin and guilt, dark political ‘forces’ of wickedness, and so-called ‘natural evil’ like earthquakes and so on” (p 20).
So, I would call it evil. I also think we need to distinguish between God’s will and what God allows (and I, personally, believe there is a difference). More than anything, though, your struggle is the cry of Psalm 13:1: “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (NIV, Biblegateway.com) These are tough questions, and hopefully they lead us back to God.
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Yes, there are distinctions to be made between his permissive will, his sovereign will and his revealed will.
Insurance companies routinely call hurricanes and fallen trees “acts of God.”
Seems a little presumptuous but I suppose it does give you the basis for a proof of God’s existence … if you were into that sort of thing.
Religion Is Man’s Attempt To Communicate With The Weather. As someone famous famously said. But I can’t find any source. Always knew it as T.H. Huxley.
And for at least fifty, eighty, two-four hundred thousand, a-five million years that has been the case. Still is.
I find it interesting that we blame God for not stepping in and preventing these disasters that end in death. Truth is, in the garden of Eden, we were protected, but when man broke the law, we lost that protection.
When God kicked out man out of the garden, he said," I cursed this world for your sake," We’re a cursed people living in a cursed world, and our time will end.
The thing is, Christ died for the ungodly, and promised eternal life through him to those whom believe. His death and resurrection is a testimony of that truth. Therefore, what is the body, that we should value it? It’s death will come, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. But, we are more than the body. We are also of the Sprit and it’s by the Spirit that we will be raised up. This is why the fruits of the Spirit is important to us, for without the fruits, we’re lost.
We cannot stop what will come, but, we can strengthen our spirit just as Christ did through faith.
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We are living in the time of grace, so in this period of grace God is never punishing. This comes after the period of grace. He lets the rain fall over good and evil persons or vice versa.
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I’m confused. Adam’s children, though sinless on birth, lost God’s protection because of their father’s sin?..that is what my church says, and I have been taught all my life, but is not just, it seems. It’s something I have struggled with all my life. I also don’t think there is evidence for a change in protection in the fossil record. Maybe there is another interpretation. Thanks.
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I agree completely. I am pressed for time so I can’t keep up the conversation with Roger and Mitchell right now but this has also been an issue of struggle for me.
The argument for a God that isn’t all good is a tough one to dissect when dealing with natural evil— since He created it.
Vinnie
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