Some disturbing challenges :/

Faith & Science Conversation
61

@Jonathan_Burke

I wrote: “The only way to substantiate your claim is to SHOW your audience how Jason’s complaint is DIFFERENT from the valid applications.”

Your answer below - -

Jon, you are making up your own gospel. Let’s read closely a sample from Romans 9:

Rom 9:13+
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth."

Quite clearly Paul defends even God’s creating Pharaoh (as a clay vessel) with a hard heart, and a perpetrator of sin. It is not blamed on Satan or the Angels… or even on Pharaoh himself.

Paul goes further, to make sure people like you, Jon, get the point:

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

God quite clearly leaves a mess … INTENITIONALLY … to show the glory of God when the mess is eliminated or resolved.

62

“Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”

Isn’t it our free will that leads us to honour or dishonour? Why sabotage us from the get go?

If I had to guess your motives for posting on my thread, it would be that you disbelieve yourself and want me to see God as you do. Cruel and unworthy of worship and love.

But in fairness to your desire to have me consider Romans 9, I now see no contradiction between the character of God and reality. He is the potter and forms flawed clay deliberately as per His will. He is in charge of the process and I am not to complain. This also satisfies my questions as to why Judas and Job seemed as puppets or pawns. However the fact is that I do complain, I find His methods unfair. I find Him an inconvenient God. How anyone could label Christianity a crutch is beyond me seeing as though there are many uncomfortable parts of Christianity. God is certainly not the God I would make up to suit my needs. My preferred God is more like myself in personality. Hates sin but would never purposefully form flawed people, born to suffer. This realization adds strong support for the Biblical God’s existence.

The question I suppose then is does this God deserve to be worshipped and loved? Instead of becoming an atheist due to finding reality too harsh to be reconciled to a loving God, even though the God of the Bible fits perfectly with the harshness of the World, is misotheism the superior option? Seeing as God states that He purposefully causes reality to be what it is. Blessing one and cursing another, forming one whole and leaving another flawed. Loving one and hating another. Considering Humans to have no rights. Does the fact that I find this abhorrent only show that I am one of the clay pots formed to be rebellious and thus destroyed? Am I destined to end up a misotheist? But my journey doesn’t seem to be over yet, surely there is a better understanding I can come to?

63

“… surely there is a better understanding I can come to?”

This is the point of considering and reasoning on these matters. If we are shown that God is compassionate and is so concerned with our sufferings that He lived amongst us as one of us, and went around healing and removing pain and sorrow, then we agree that we would follow and believe Him. And yet many who witnessed this decided not to believe. On the other hand, God can cut us of from communion with Him, saying to us that we are sinful creatures and He can just as easily leave us to ourselves and all the misery we bring. People may decide against such a God, thinking an all powerful being should and could do better, while others see that as a fair response and decide to worship such a God.

Paul (and many other Biblical authors) is showing that God is also creator and we, and the universe are His creation - my personal view to anyone who can think of a better god, go ahead and with your god, solve all of the world’s problems - indeed create a better universe while you are at it. If otoh someone decides they cannot believe in even their own version of god, they are also free to adopt atheism and materialism. The curious version of various choices are anti-theists.

In any event, we are free to come to our own conclusions and reasons for such.

64

@Burning_to_Know

And so it comes to this then … You are a self-described misotheist - - a “hater of God”. Then it should be no surprise to those here who are BioLogos supporters that you are not happy with the idea that God guides evolution - - and maybe you are not even happy with the idea of God.

I’m not sure there is anything that can be said to remedy your situation. I think we can all see that THEODICY is at the core of your dissatisfaction . . . and those Christians who are expert in dealing with this question are not uniformly found in the circles of Theistic Evolutionists.

I personally think that Young Earth Creationists have just as many challenges to face in the study of theodicy as Evolutionists … but mostly they just don’t think about it with any rigor. Their analysis STOPS as soon as they say:
“Adam did it”.

Even though this is far from a complete solution to the problem - - -because it is an unhappy and painful preoccupation… which is best resolved with the first handy theological excuse that comes to mind.

You are the clear evidence of what happens to those who become the most fixed on its nature. I have to think that God is satisfied with your disposition - - for whatever Cosmic reason.

65

I’m not free to simply believe something better. I’m only interested in what constitutes reality. Not anything comfortable or of my own making. Whether I like what I find to be true is only the next chapter of my struggle.

[quote=“gbrooks9, post:64, topic:5431”]
And so it comes to this then … You are a self-described misotheist - - a “hater of God”.[/quote]

Does this conclusion satisfy you? But do not think I am happy with this. I don’t… Hate Him. I just do not understand and so object to His ways. There is still hope for me in that.

66

Theological contemplations often commence with what we consider to be knowledge and how we come to such knowledge. A “pure” search for knowledge is mainly the task of philosophers, while the rest of us try to understand their contemplations. You seem to start with a homespun theology on what you think gods should be and then seem to flail about things you feel are awful, and I guess you justify this somewhat irrational outlook as a search for the truth and reality.

From what I understand, I find it terribly important to see what I can know as a human being, what I may understand from scripture (fully aware of the differences), and then what can be understood as good and evil. This requires effort, but only after this effort would I begin to contemplate the importance of revelation of God by His servants, and faith. ALL of these activities are based on my freedom to undertake them - and I think I am in a position to begin to consider some aspects of the vast reality before me.

67

I’m not making any truth claims. I am only trying to uncover it. So far I am not satisfied with some things I have found but if it’s the truth then it’s the truth.

68

I guess my question would than be, “How are you going about uncovering the truth?” I have indicated that reality and the truth have been the subject of enquiry by many, many, people over many centuries. Are you dissatisfied with this effort? Are you proposing something new that would uncover truth that others have not? Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are subjective and hardly the criteria for concluding on truth - and there is so much knowledge that we humans present to each other. So your burning desire for the truth and reality - has this crystallised into activity that may assure you that your search is likely to bring you the satisfaction you seem to find? And if so, can you explain in in this forum?

69

I always thought this was a powerful argument, but few people are willing to recognize that a God who acts and does everything that you prefer, a God who never surprises, is more than likely a product of your own imagination. Probably because this line of reasoning does not play into our pride.

And here I was, thinking you were choosing between the worship of a loving God or a Japanese soup! Haha. If the choice is between love or hate as a basis for your core beliefs, I suggest you choose love.

Hang in there!

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70

Well the reason I am posting here is to try and gain better insight, better explanations than I have so far conceived. If my questions were the sort that I could entrust my local pastor to answer, I would not have posted here. Likewise, there are few places on the internet where rational discourse concerning God can be found. Whether atheists looking to attack believers or Creationists looking to brainwash, the internet is a biased, hostile mess and most people end up in a worse state for it. Biologos however shows promise by at least accepting reality alongside their faith. And so it is a resource that I can use to help further my understanding. I don’t swallow everything I get. I sift through and find whatever useful things I can. My hope is that I can eventually end up with a complete and satisfactory encyclopedia of information regarding God and reality and how they fit together, if at all. Something solid I can hang my hat on. Perhaps then I can help others who are struggling in the same way.

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71

As Paul says in 2 Cor. 1:3-5:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

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72

You might enjoy this essay by the late American philosopher William Alston called “A Philosopher’s Way Back to the Faith.” Your story reminded me of his, for some reason. It can be a journey.

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73

I agree that a rational discourse is helpful, and I know that I have benefitted greatly from discussions and debates with my close friends (outside of the internet) on a range of matters, including what we thought on a belief in God. Your comments however, often appear to show conclusions you have reached, rather than looking at a particular aspect of the subject matter.

If I were to consider if God exits I commence with a questions such as, “How can I ask such a question?” and “What is the meaning I attach to the word God in the context of my question?”

Since meanings are attached to “God” or “gods” by every culture and civilisation that I am ware of, answers are relatively easy - it is perhaps a little more difficult to find responses from those who would argue that God does not exist, but these are also useful in an attempt to arrive at a meaning of the term “God”.

On the other hand, if your concerns are more doctrinal, or you are focussed solely on theodicy, I for one would find your approach difficult, because much of what is said on theodicy presumes notions of god that are questionable, and often the reasoning is convoluted - people often start with “it should not be so”, thus I cannot believe in God, or I want the following attributes of God before I can believe.

Getting something solid to hang one’s hat on? A very good friend of mine could not get past his questions on theodicy and decided against God - yet he attended the church services, and displayed Christian attributes that all of us would admire. God can, and often does work in mysterious ways.

74

@Burning_to_Know,

Why would anyone who hates God’s ways come to a debate between two groups of Christians debating whether God created a terrible world in 6 days… or spent millions of years to create a terrible world?

I don’t think we have the answers you are looking for …

75

I think your solid is maybe going to come in the form of Christ–his entrance into this mess and the eventual restoration of creation through him perhaps.

I, too, struggle with the idea that God, knowing the outcome that would result in intense suffering for much of human-kind, created/started creation/whatever it was anyway. I’ve been angry too.

I read something in Brian Zahand’s Farewell to Mars tonight: “Without an anticipated end that justifies God’s act of creation itself, happiness is mostly a form of escapist fantasy. And faith should never be confused with fantasy.” Then he goes on to talk about Rabi Emil Fackenheim and the Jewish idea that God works through humanity to repair the world. The Christian hope, in scripture and early church teaching and voices now, is that God is restoring all things through Christ. We are supposed to be living that out, restoring, even today. But the future is the final restoration of all things.

I struggle with the problem of suffering and evil. I struggle with doubt in all sorts of ways. Those things pre-date my understanding of evolution. Why a good God would create is still a question, for me, a completely satisfying answer in the here and now.

But restoration…we don’t see the end “that justifies God’s act of creation itself.” And Christ entered this world and all it’s evil to begin that final cure. That’s my hope.

FWIW, Greg Boyd’s Benefit of the Doubt helped me start to find a way of rebuilding a faith when a lot of my old foundations were swept away. I do think Christ has to be that foundation.

Time helped too. I do have a peace about it all. Not absolute answers, but a peace even with the questions–a faith I didn’t have before I started facing those questions without adequate answers. I can’t describe or even say how it happened, but I’m ok now, and I didn’t think I would be spiritually speaking. It was years in coming. I know others who kept seeking and seeking and finally found that as well. I pray the same for you as you keep seeking. I appreciate your honesty and search.

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76

Jason, our Worldviews, it seems, are almost diametric opposites. I see our Earth and its position in the Universe as beautiful and wondrous. Like Paul Davies, I am amazed that, once life began on this planet, the bumbling process of biological evolution could produce a nervous circuitry that had the potential of becoming aware of the creative processes that produced all these wonders. You may disparage this process as a mess, but that may not be how God views it. His offer to let us be co-creaors with Him, to ‘fix the brokenness’ we see in our human nature–this is the most amazing thing of all!
Al Leo

77

Jay, I do hope you will find the time to read it all. It attempts to answer the conundrum that (in my opinion) none of the BioLogos ‘faculty’ and responders have adequately faced: Darwinian evolution is intrinsically purposeless–no matter how one dances around it. Dawkins is essentially correct in describing Homo sapiens, not as the crown of an upright tree of life, but an unassuming twig on a rambling bush. What we really value as uniquely human is outside of Biology–is NOT encoded in the Homo sapiens genome. The step that advanced Homo sapiens to Homo sapiens sapiens was NOT the result of some fortuitous mutation in our DNA–it’s epigenetic, and must be initiated in each of us as we progress from zygote to adult.

All of this may sound rather weird–certainly un-scientific. But give it some thought. It has the power to explain some of the conundrums that remain troublesome to other world views.
Al Leo

78

Jason, it is my guess (and my hope) that you are one of the ‘clay pots’ that God values most–one that struggles to understand Him–not one who is indifferent to the injustice and suffering in this life and merely tries to maximize his own pleasures. If you could ‘time travel’ and spend a week with one of your ancestors in the Stone Age, would you be more or less optimistic?
Al Leo

79

Just to clarify for newcomers… i did not state that sentence. I quoted it from a prior post.

80

What? The Christian God has been perfectly “believe-in-able” for generations before BioLogos and will continue to be for generations to come. If the questions posed here are not interesting or relevant to a person’s faith journey, then why would they come here anyway. I work with subsistence farmers in the remote mountains of Mexico. Most of them don’t give two pesos for the “harmony of faith and science.” Most of them have never heard of the theory of evolution. They don’t have any problem (other than the normal human ones) comprehending and believing in the Christian God. There is no science or philosophy on this website that anyone has to understand, affirm, or believe in to become a child of God.

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