The existence of evil and suffering, and the nature of God as good and beautiful and all-powerful; these simply cannot be reconciled. As a believer in God, I think the answer is: God *is* good and beautiful, but God is *not* all-powerful. God created free-will creatures powerful enough to create universes, but God has no control over the activities of these. And so they create imperfect universes having unintended side effects.
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Questions from an Atheist about God
- Thread starter Nimos
- Start date
Shantanu
Well-Known Member
Are you referring to the States of the Planet Earth as the universes created by free-willed humans that God you insist has not control over?
OK...better take this in increments.....
Where do you get that idea? Jehovah does not deal with "children"...he deals with adults who know the difference between right and wrong and in whom he has implanted a conscience. If he has given a law and a stated penalty for breaking it.....then why is it somehow unjust to expect obedience? When adults behave like children, he will still treat them as adults. Time to grow up. Adam was alone and being educated by his God for quite some time before the creation of his wife. Adam was not a child who did not know better. He knew exactly what God said and he had seen animals die, so he knew what death meant.....yet he made a choice to join his wife and to invite death on himself and in turn on all his offspring.
The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was a symbol of God's sovereignty. It was placed in the garden so that the humans knew that free will did not extend to that which belonged to God. There were no 'if or buts' about this fruit.....it was not theirs for the taking, like every other tree in the garden.....taking this fruit meant the death penalty. Would you knowingly eat something that you knew would kill you?
The woman was convinced that she wouldn't die because the devil lied to her....and she didn't die straight away.
But the man was not deceived....he evaluated the situation as the educated man he was, and he made a choice....a willful and deliberate choice. One that would have dire repercussions.
The first humans were not defective in any way.....they had full mental capacity and no sinful nature to fight.
What they did was to fail to appreciate what belonged to God....in effect choosing the devil as their ruler by obeying him, and suffering the penalty in ways they had perhaps not anticipated. Was that unfair? I don't think so. If God sets a law, he doesn't have to explain it. We need never question the Creator's wisdom as if he would do anything to harm us. His great love for them was apparent from the beginning.
Where do you get that idea? Jehovah does not deal with "children"...he deals with adults who know the difference between right and wrong and in whom he has implanted a conscience. If he has given a law and a stated penalty for breaking it.....then why is it somehow unjust to expect obedience? When adults behave like children, he will still treat them as adults. Time to grow up. Adam was alone and being educated by his God for quite some time before the creation of his wife. Adam was not a child who did not know better. He knew exactly what God said and he had seen animals die, so he knew what death meant.....yet he made a choice to join his wife and to invite death on himself and in turn on all his offspring.
The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was a symbol of God's sovereignty. It was placed in the garden so that the humans knew that free will did not extend to that which belonged to God. There were no 'if or buts' about this fruit.....it was not theirs for the taking, like every other tree in the garden.....taking this fruit meant the death penalty. Would you knowingly eat something that you knew would kill you?
The woman was convinced that she wouldn't die because the devil lied to her....and she didn't die straight away.
But the man was not deceived....he evaluated the situation as the educated man he was, and he made a choice....a willful and deliberate choice. One that would have dire repercussions.
The first humans were not defective in any way.....they had full mental capacity and no sinful nature to fight.
What they did was to fail to appreciate what belonged to God....in effect choosing the devil as their ruler by obeying him, and suffering the penalty in ways they had perhaps not anticipated. Was that unfair? I don't think so. If God sets a law, he doesn't have to explain it. We need never question the Creator's wisdom as if he would do anything to harm us. His great love for them was apparent from the beginning.
Do you understand that the death penalty alone was a threat? These perfect beings were not children...they were adults with full possession of their faculties. Since the 'genie' was out of the bottle and could not be sent back, God decided to allow the mandate he gave them to be accomplished....they filled the earth with their offspring.
If the "cookie jar" had been out of reach then free will was not a reality. God wants us to choose to obey him...NOT because we fear a punishment, but because we know that he would never make a law that was not for our benefit in the first place. This is about knowing God and trusting his judgment and not our own.
Forgiveness is granted only on the basis of genuine repentance. In Genesis there is not one statement of remorse or a sacrifice offered to God to ask for his forgiveness. There is only a resignation and acceptance that they were separated from God by their sin from that day forward. Do you know why? There was no basis upon which to offer forgiveness. They were perfect so they didn't make mistakes.....they made deliberate choices....fully accountable...no excuses.
It is different for us as their children, born in imperfection, with sinful inclinations and with only death to look forward to. We have a basis for forgiveness because our sinful nature was not our fault. But we still need to be repentant. God sent his son to offer his life in behalf of Adam's children.....not for Adam and Eve.
They began the long slow process into death, much like unplugging a fan from the electricity powering it. It doesn't stop straight away but slowly winds down to a halt. God said that they would die in the day that they ate.....and so it was in God's counting of a "day". No human has lived for 1,000 years. (2 Peter 3:8)
We have to understand what this all means in the big picture. If God had forgiven perfect creatures for breaking his laws...that would have been setting dangerous precedents for the future. By having limits or parameters within which to function, then free willed beings would not abuse that freedom and make life miserable for everyone else. Remember that the first rebel was not human, so his response had repercussions for the angels too.
This is what God did by allowing things to play out naturally. He did not interfere with their free will, but showed them and their children first hand what would happen if it was allowed to go on. We are living in the greatest object lesson that we will ever have. This life sets precedents that will last for all eternity to come.....both in heaven and on earth, God's free willed creatures can see the end result of rebelling against their rightful Sovereign...it will never be allowed to happen again.
It funny your saying this, because those other JW I have spoken with have said the exact same thing, not in relation to what we are talking about here. But that scriptures explain themselves. Which is really not something I agree withIf that were the case, there wouldn't be so many different interpretations of them. I am as certain as I can be, that the way you understand them and believe that they explain your position perfectly is no different from others that do not share your views are that you are wrong.
Again, that is not true if you understand the big picture.
We all have a common enemy whose whole agenda is to create religious confusion. If he can't get people to abandon belief in God altogether, then he will give them so many choices in religion that they will find it almost impossible to to learn the truth. What satan did to Judaism was play on human imperfection and appeals to selfishness. It corrupted the whole system. He did this from the beginning...appealing to Eve's self interest in thinking that God was withholding something better than what she already had. The devil used the same tactic when he tempted Jesus....all were appeals to selfish interests.
I find the opposite to be true. Science cannot explain the most important question.....how did life originate?
If you can't answer that question then you can't answer any others with substance to back them up.
It was Jesus who foretold that he would appoint a "faithful and discreet slave" to feed his household their "food at the proper time". (Matthew 24:45) This slave exists at this time of the end because Matthew 24 is all about our day and the things that would mark this time period like a fingerprint.
Give me some specifics and I will show you how the Bible explains itself and why Christendom can never accomplish this.
Spartan
Well-Known Member
Here's the answer.
Satan in the Garden of Eden
To Summarize:
1. Man was to be created in the likeness and image of God (Genesis 1:26).
2. Part of this “likeness” was a knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:22)
3. For Adam to be truly “like” God, he had to acquire a knowledge of good and evil.
4. The means to that end was eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
5. To do that a “tempter” was likely needed to entice Adam into sin.
6. God provided, or allowed, Satan as the tempter.
7. God knew in advance what the outcome would be, but allowed it anyway.
8. God knew atonement would be required, and provided Jesus Christ as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth” (Revelation 13:8).
9. Man achieves the likeness of God, acquires a knowledge of and overcomes evil, partakes of Christ, and is reunited in paradise with God. Man is now an overcomer with a keen knowledge of evil.
The key to all this remains, “Is acquiring a knowledge of good and evil a prerequisite to coming into the likeness and image of God? If the answer is yes, I think Adam has to eat from that tree, and God has to make it happen. If the answer is no, then I think you have to look back to Genesis 3:22 and reconcile that with Genesis 1:26, explaining how Adam is “like” God, but at the same time lacks a knowledge of good and evil. Also, how does man acquire that knowledge without eating of the fruit of that tree?
Satan in the Garden of Eden
I think that is good point and reason why all should be careful, when making claims about the Bible. It seems that people often take something out of Bible and then paint own picture about what happened and speak about it as it would be the truth. Many Biblical problems are based on those interpretations and it usually clears things, when people look what the Bible actually says. And truth often is, Bible doesn’t give all the information. And if we don’t have all the information, it is not good to make great judgments about the matters that we don’t know very well. Some things can look very different, if we would have all the information.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
I can accept you explanation as to how the story could be understood, if we allow for basically free interpretation and adding things that are simply not there, which is fine, as I have mentioned before the story doesn't really give us a lot of details. So understanding it the way you do is as good as any other way. I don't think we will get closer to the truth how the story actually unfolded, so it would be a matter of whether one found God's punishment just and good or not. And as far as I see it, we disagree greatly on this, which is fine. As also mentioned before, I were just interested in hearing people opinions.
No, I wouldn't eat something that would kill me, but then again. I don't think the story is about eating a deadly fruit and neither do you, if I understand you correct.
I would agree that the fruit could symbolize God sovereignty, but still find it rather weird, why or how it would fit into the rest of the story.
So let me get something clarified first. Why did God create us with free will? and what would we do with it?
Ill link this one to the question above about free will to avoid to much confusion.
God flooded the whole world, because he didn't like what he saw. Wouldn't it have been a good time for him to forgive humans, as he like Noa and his family, so he must have seen something in them that he didn't see in the rest. Yet he choose to keep the punishment.
Do you think that if Noa and his family had asked for forgiveness that God would have granted it to them and all humans? No one have ever been in a better position to do it than them, as they would have witness all of the destruction and death that follows when God gets upset. And I would assume that they knew about Adam and Eve.
Ill link this to the question about Noa and his family to reduce confusion.
If you really mean what you are saying here, then you would or ought to have as little or as much faith in JW as in any other religion that believe in God, would you agree with that? Ill highlight the text of why that would logically be the case:
If he can't get people to abandon belief in God altogether, then he will give them so many choices in religion that they will find it almost impossible to to learn the truth.
I think this way of reasoning is almost purely related to people when they talk about their belief in a God, its not meant to be taken in a offensive manner. Because in any other situation they have no problem understanding why this is as wrong as it can possible be. There must be something about faith in a God or something that causes it, I really don't get it.
Ill try to explain why it is so wrong.
1. Just because science can't answer a question, doesn't mean that whatever else you might think is true is true. If someone that believe in Norse mythology thought this way, they would be able claim the exact same thing.
2. Just because something is written in a book doesn't make it true.
If we agree that these two points are in fact true. Then there is as much substance to any other idea as there is with science. That no one knows. You might be satisfied with believing you know the truth, which is no issue. But it have nothing to do with reality, except yours.
The huge difference between science and religion, is that science doesn't say they know if they don't. Because it causes people to be ignorant of what is objectively true and what is not. Which is also why science fights so much against not getting religion mixed up with science. This is one area, that I take really serious, I don't mind people believing in whatever they want, its a personal choice. but trying to teach people wrong things on purpose, leads to bankruptcy of human progress.
This is not a lie, I actually decided to watch a debate between a person that thought the earth was flat and one that didn't. Which I thought would be interesting to hear, which evidence and arguments he had. Only to realize that it were going to be much better. Not only a flat earth believer, but he was going to debate a person who believed the earth were 6000 years old, I were speechless to be honest. Talk about complete failure of an educational system
I don't really understand, what you are saying here, can you try to phrase it differently?
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Nimos
Well-Known Member
Well the way I would understand it, would be that God created Adam and Eve as he wanted them to be, in his image. It doesn't naturally follow that he wanted to make them "like" him and know good from evil.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created them "after our likeness", so they are not exactly like him.
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
So after eating he say "become as one of us"
I don't know if that is what you mean? But if it is
Then that is how I understand it.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
I've thought about that too, but the issues raised (ie., mankind's ability to live successfully without God's guidance) wouldn't have been settled.) Only time would answer it.
This is an important point @Jollybear. As free willed beings, if God had taken a different approach; say he meted out the stated death penalty straight away because there was no excuse for what they did, and no basis upon which to forgive them....unless the issue of God's Sovereign right to set limits for free will, and to prove that God's rulership was best for us, what would have prevented the same scenario from being repeated endlessly.....another "satan" could have arisen and raised the same questions....only a resolution of the issues would create precedents that would last forever. That way, rebellion can never plague God's intelligent creatures ever again. Any abuse of free will in the future, either in heaven or on earth, will be dealt with immediately because there will be no basis to allow it to continue. The issues are all settled.
The way God handled the rebellion of his children was nothing short of genius IMO. It was done with a long term view to the future....
God can even erase all memory of the awful things that have happened in this life lesson, thousands of years in its outworking....
This prophesy in Isaiah is repeated in Revelation....
Isaiah 65:17...
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind."
Revelation 21:1-4...
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away,......And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
This old world system with all its tragedy and suffering, will be gone....not even a memory....and precedents will be set for all time to come......nothing to do but enjoy life on the new earth, ruled from above by the new heavens.
I used to answer one question only. So I pick this one.
Tree of good and evil is a many fold metaphor. Basically, it tells that Law has already been set up for both angels and humans (Satan as angel and Adam as man broke the Law). Instead of teaching Adam and Eve what murder is or what raping is, the best way to protect them from breaking the Law is to keep them as innocent as possible (i.e., not knowing good from evil), till Satan stepped in to tempt them to sin.
Moreover, with some study of statistics and probabilities, you may gain the concept of what expected outcome is. Basically, freewill signifies division. In terms of Law, humans by assumption a normal distribution, will be like a bell curve mathematically. Salvation is about how to make a cut on this bell curve as acceptance and rejection. (that's what it is if you like science)
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Nimos
Well-Known Member
You already mentioned this before, which I questioned, but I think you might have missed it as you never replied to it.
So Ill post it here again (It were about the crafty serpent):
Firemorphic
Activist Membrane
Shekhinah?
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe Adam doesn't explain his actions but If Eve can have previous sin the so can Adam.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe in prophecy. I haven't heard of any Jewish prophets these days.
Muffled
Jesus in me
LOL....how could you tell? No tattoo on their forehead?
I believe the Holy Spirit testifies of His presence. One might look for a halo though.