I’m Confused about God (Protestant/Evangelical Caucus)

Key Life ^ | July 27, 2015 | Steve Brown

[metmom]

I grew up religious and always felt that, if I could ever believe the religious stuff, I would somehow find meaning, reality and joy. Then, years later, after much agonizing doubt, I came to believe the truth that God had revealed. I finally knew the truth and believed all of it. Then I waited for the promised meaning, reality and joy—and, for a very long while, I thought I had it.

Sometimes, during those days, I had the feeling that God was saying that it was nice that I now knew the truth and even tried to live it. But I came to suspect that belief in, defense of and the promulgation of the truth to as many people as possible weren't even the point.

Are you sometimes confused about God?

Let me tell you a secret. I’m confused about God too.

The difference between you and me is that I’m not supposed to be confused. In fact, if I ever start sounding confused, people will stop listening to me and reading my books. If that happens, I could lose my job. Nevertheless, I'm confused about God and I’m confused a lot (but if you say I said that, I’ll say you lied).

I know. I don’t sound confused. I have this deep voice and, even when I’m scared, I sound like I’m not. Not only that, I know a lot more than most people about the Bible, about theology, about the church and about God. So, if you put my deep voice with my lifetime of knowledge, even if I don’t know what I’m talking about, I sound like I do. That is, I suppose, a blessing of sorts.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to become a Buddhist or anything. I’m not confused about the verities of the faith. I still believe that the Bible is true…all of it. I know Christ and I trust him alone for my salvation. I believe in the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ and that he is coming back…really. I support the mission enterprise of the church and I’m still big on evangelism. I believe there are a heaven and a hell. I can repeat The Westminster Confession of Faith backwards, believing and accepting it as my standard of faith. I'm still confused.

But it doesn't matter that I'm confused. In fact, my confusion is the natural state of a real Christian. Paul put the point in the form of a rhetorical question: "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?" (Romans 11:34). The obvious answer is "Nobody…absolutely, nobody!" Isaiah said that God said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways, My ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Correct doctrine and correct theology (as important as they are) have only one purpose. The purpose is to point to him and, insofar as we can proclaim truth to others, to enable them come to him too. He is not a doctrine. The relationship between doctrine and God is the same relationship of Gray's Anatomy to the human body. It is a description of a reality. It is not the reality itself.

The Psalmist understood that when he wrote: "O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too profound for me. I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother" (Psalm 131:1-2). Are you confused about God?

Good. If you aren’t confused, then you are probably worshiping an idol. Be careful—be very careful—of those who seem to have God in their back pockets, have answers to every question and who are sure that they are right about everything. Frankly, God isn’t in anybody’s back pocket, we don’t even know the right questions much less have the answers, and nobody is right all the time.

But doesn’t the Bible say somewhere that God isn’t a God of confusion? Yes, it does in 1 Corinthians 14:33. “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace.”

But Paul was talking about worship and the confusion that was taking place in the Corinthian church. And that’s not what I’m talking…uh…well, maybe I am. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what I’m talking about—worshiping a God who isn’t confused, even if you are. Standing before a God who really is God and knowing that you aren’t.

God ought to be very angry…but he’s not. God should have destroyed the fallen and rebellious world…but he hasn’t. God should not have come to us…but he did. God’s love should not be unconditional…but it is. God should have washed his hands of us a long time ago…but he hasn’t. Knowing your secrets and my secrets, God should have turned away…but he didn’t. The last thing God should do is to give us forgiveness, eternal life, and joy…but that’s exactly what he does.

That confuses me, but it’s a good confusion. It’s the kind of confusion that tells me that I don’t have to be right, or acceptable, or perfect, or wise, or knowledgeable, or religious, or smart, or beautiful, or great, or famous, or spiritual, or good. It’s the kind of confusion that allows me to go to him.

I don’t have to explain it or even understand it. It’s enough. Time to Draw Away

Read Romans 11:33-36 & Isaiah 55

Are you confused about God? In what ways does he confuse you? You really can trust God in the midst of your questions, confusion, uncertainty and doubt. In fact, confusion can be a good thing. It points out that God is God and we’re not. And frankly, that is a relief. We can now rest in his arms.

[metmom]

Sure.

That’s why I added Evangelical.

There is overlap in the terms, some Protestant denominations in name are more Evangelical in beliefs.

It’s actually more Evangelical leaning than Protestant. It was the use of Protestant as a catch all for all non-Catholic denominations that caused me to first use it and that was the sense in which I was using it.

[Mr Rogers]

I cannot imagine how the God Who Created the Universe could care about man. I cannot understand how God can love sinners. At the same time, I don’t think I have a clue about how much He hates sin.

It seems I’m not the first who doesn’t understand:

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” - Psalm 8

Of course, a God I COULD understand would be a mighty puny god...

[kosciusko51]

Sorry, couldn't resist: puny god.

[LearsFool]

Yes, the article was rather confusing.

Less confusing is to simply read the Scriptures and trust in what God tells us there. And leave the man-made doctrines to those who follow men.

[metmom]

It’s irrelevant what you see it as.

The RF guidelines are the RF guidelines.

Given the tenor of the threads in the recent past, it’s better, IMO, to prevent conflict in the first place.

The caucus label accomplishes that.

[Mark17]

Yes, Psalms 8 DID enter my mind. 😂😇😎

[StoneWall Brigade]

Good stuff Metmom.

[daniel1212]

Not according to the religion forum rules you cannot. But unlike some in the other caucus I’m not going to run to the RM or Jim and cry about it.

Actually, i think the reason for the caucus mode is because otherwise posting articles on distinctive Prot beliefs can see charges of "bashing" a certain protected religion.

However, i think posting numerous Prot/evang. caucus threads a day is unwise, and that maybe one or two a day would be better, so as to not seem to abuse the caucus allowance. Regardless of how often another religion may do so.

[dartuser]

I guess I'm confused about what the author is confused about. Does he really mean "I'm confused" ... or is it really an imprecise communication of "I cannot explain everything within the realm of Christianity to some bare minimum satisfaction" ... ?

I wouldn't characterize the latter as confusion ...

It should not be confusing if the thing supposedly causing the confusion is clearly articulated in scripture. Rather, if the thing that is causing the 'confusion' is clearly articulated in scripture, but your human mind (which btw suffers from the effects of sin) cannot comprehend it to some level of human satisfaction ... put that thing in your 'mystery' category.

As multiple posters have adeptly mentioned, it is a mystery why God has perseverance toward us believers while we are yet in this fallen human state ... but the scriptures tells us that He loves us, He is in the process of sanctifying us, and in the future that process will be complete and our own experience of His regenerating power in our lives allows us to just believe that simple truth without fully comprehending it.

[metmom]

I guess what he’s saying, that I got out of it, is that he doesn’t have God all figured out and that he wouldn’t want to.

He’s omni- everything and I’m a mere mortal who can’t even figure out my husband or kids sometimes. Well, most of the time.

Honestly, if we could figure God out, what kind of God would He be? Where would the mystery and awe be and the joy of discovering more about Him?

Not one I’d want to serve.

I think that’s the point he’s trying to get across.

I see a lot of situations in my life and the lives of others around me, that I do NOT understand why God allows them.

[Iscool]

Are you confused about God?

Nope...Plenty I don't know outside of the path to salvation...It's just a matter of study and waiting for God to reveal those things to me...

[Springfield Reformer]

It is a false dilemma to put doctrine and Christ in conflict with each other. We are given teachers. That is Scriptural. We test the teachers against the Scriptures. That is Scriptural. We know Christ as a person, *and* we know the truths He give us to know. We are obligated to follow sound doctrine.

BTW, there is a history to why doctrine has fallen on such hard times. The impulse of liberalism is to elevate personal, emotional experience to the level of supreme moral authority. The entire “gay liberation” movement is based on the same fallacy, the downgrading of objective truth to a status of being less important than how one feels personally. It is a very dangerous place to be. We have the word of God, and we have the words of God. They are not in conflict.

Peace,

SR

[LearsFool]

I didn't suggest that doctrine is in conflict with Christ, my FRiend, but rather that man's doctrine is. The Lord's doctrine is inseparable from the Lord Himself - despite the author's claims to the contrary:

The relationship between doctrine and God is the same relationship of Gray's Anatomy to the human body. It is a description of a reality. It is not the reality itself.

Man's doctrines spring from his opinions, elevated and esteemed beyond their worth. The hubristic act of replacing God's words with one's opinions renders one's worship empty and pointless. (Matt. 15:1-9) But it's done every Lord's Day. One might as well stay home and watch the football game as engage in the pointless worship in many churches.

(If you don't believe it, visit around and ask people why they do the things they do in the assembly. Where are the instructions from God? Did God command it? Or do they just think it's a good idea?)

The author's confusion arises not from the Bible's description of God, but from his resistance to that description, as he clings to his own opinions and doctrines rather than yield in meekness to the Lord's.

As if that weren't enough, he seems to take pride in his resulting confusion. But not content to stop there, he holds up his ignorance and confusion as qualities authenticating him as a trustworthy teacher. Anyone with knowledge and understanding of God as revealed in the Scriptures is denigrated as "probably worshiping an idol."

Follow men like him at your peril.

[Springfield Reformer]

I don't think the author is saying anything too controversial.  It reminds me a great deal of something CS Lewis once said, to the effect that if God was exactly as we expected Him to be, we might have reason to suspect we had invented Him. Put another way, His ability to surprise us is exactly what we should find unsurprising.

However, I agree that the author's choice of "confusion" as the vehicle for expressing this lends itself, well, to confusion.  It's not just true that God is not confused.  It is also true that His work among believers tends to love and righteousness and an orderly mind, not alienation and disorder.  

But you say something I don't understand. The author makes an analogy between the Scriptures and Grey's Anatomy. There are problems with that analogy. Grey's anatomy was man in his own power trying to understand human anatomy, and while a magnificent effort, not infallible.  The Scriptures were God-breathed, written in effect by the very Person they describe, and so a form of autobiography. And as a divine autobiography, infallible.

And even more than that, unlike anything Grey could write, the Holy Spirit and the divine purpose of God accompany His word and assure that it accomplishes His purpose. And so the word of God is a living thing, with a divine power unlike anything a man by himself could ever write.

But the written words of God are not the very being of God.  An expression is not the thing expressed. If I tell someone I love, "I love you," the words I say are not me.  They are an expression of what is in me, a representation in the symbols of language. They convey a meaning, and they may well establish a relationship, but in themselves they are patterns of symbols, used to transport meaning from one person to another.

So at the end of all this, I do not see what is wrong with making a distinction. We do not worship words, but we do honor the meaning of the words because we do worship the one who spoke them.  This is the sense in which they are inseparable, in that we cannot draw away from the words and the plain meaning of them without also drawing away from the One who spoke them. Anyone who truly honors God will necessarily honor His word, and will not back away from it, no matter what the cost.

You also raise the question of human opinion.  You say, for example:

Man's doctrines spring from his opinions

I don't understand how it is possible to interact with the word of God without forming an opinion.  Do you believe in the Ten Commandment? Then you are of the opinion they are true. Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? Then that is your opinion of the truthfulness of that proposition.  I don't see anything wrong with that, and indeed I see no way to escape it.  Opinion is just another word for belief.  I suspect the problem most folks have with it is it probably carries an additional nuance of unfounded belief, or belief arrived at without enough of a factual basis to call it objective truth.

But if that is the objection to "opinion," it is easily remedied by looking at the supporting facts.  If I believe there are things about God that are hard to understand, and I can back that up with a statement from God Himself that says the same thing, then no matter how well or poorly I frame it, my belief has some real foundation, and I am not just spouting a self-made opinion.  Likewise with any doctrine, if I can back it up with teaching from the word of God, then it isn't a man-made opinion. It's just me expressing my belief in what God has said. Nothing wrong with that:

But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
(Romans 10:8-10)

Peace,

SR

[dartuser]

I see a lot of situations in my life and the lives of others around me, that I do NOT understand why God allows them.

Amen to that ...

[LearsFool]

I didn't say that the words of the Lord ARE the Lord, but that they are inseparable from Him. We learn this when He says - to people who believed in Him but would go no further - "If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples". And, "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"

We learn it from the Jews, who had "the oracles of God", but didn't believe them and so rejected their Messiah: "For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"

How is it that some say, "I know Jesus," but disregard what He says? The apostle John has this to say about such people:

"He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

Does that sound like anyone you know? The FR RF is filled with them.

In contrast are those who obey the Lord:

"And he that keepeth His commandments abideth in Him, and He in him."

And here:

"He that abideth in me, and I in him....If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you....If a man abide not in me..."

This is not some mystical cohabitation of two beings in the same body. This is the submissive relationship of the disciple to his Master, and the inseparableness of the the Master and the teaching.

Some claim to be Christians, not understanding that only disciples are worthy of that name. A disciple sits at his Master's feet, yielding to the Master to be taught and molded according to His will. He discards his own opinions and ideas, to be replaced with only what the Master provides.

By contrast, many come to the Scriptures to find support for their preconceived ideas and opinions. These may originate from one's upbringing, or persuasive preachers, or one's own experience, etc. Whatever the source, no misconception can be corrected until one looks to the Scriptures, not for confirmation of what he believes, but to be instructed in what to believe.

The Jews had preconceptions about the Messiah and His kingdom. And because He didn't meet their expectations, they rejected and killed Him. Many people today are no different.

[Springfield Reformer]

This is not some mystical cohabitation of two beings in the same body. This is the submissive relationship of the disciple to his Master, and the inseparableness of the the Master and the teaching.

You no doubt refer to this:

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
(John 15:5)

However, you present a false dilemma.  No one disputes that the disciple is a follower of Jesus in terms of obedience.  I know of no one here who has ever made that argument. Of course we obey Jesus.  It is our delight to live in the love of God and love of neighbor in all we do.

But this kind of life is not anything that comes naturally to a lost sinner.  It is flat out impossible without the new birth.  It is flat out impossible without the "mystical cohabitation" of two beings with each other.  And the apostolic teaching confirms this, in exquisite detail!

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
(1 Corinthians 3:16)

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
(1 Corinthians 6:19)

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(2 Corinthians 6:16)

Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
(2 Timothy 1:13-14)

And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
(Acts 6:5)

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
(Ephesians 5:17-19)

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
(Romans 8:9-11)

But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
(Galatians 5:18)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
(Galatians 5:22-23)

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
(Galatians 4:6)

There is no escaping the fact that this life of obedience we live is driven by our supernatural relationship with Christ.  We really are new creations.  Anyone who has been raised from spiritual death to newness of life in Christ can testify to this reality.  It is not just compliance with rules.  It is a God-powered life.

Do we live up to those standards all the time?  John says if we say we have no sin we are liars.  So rather than contradict the apostle of Jesus, we must concede that we still sometimes sin.  That doesn't make us any less a child of God, though it does subject us to chastisement.

As for the spiritual state of FR RF participants, I believe it is distinctly against the rules of the forum to "make it personal" in that way.  It is above my pay grade to determine the relationship other people have with God in Christ. We all form opinions, because as humans, that's what we do.  But I'd rather not clutter up our discussion of the issues by prattling on about things no one but Good can know.

It's like CS Lewis once said.  It isn't the things I don't understand about God that bother me.  It's the things I do understand that bother me. Sharp insight, that.

Peace,

SR

[Springfield Reformer]

Speaking of errors:

things no one but Good can know.

.... should be ...

things no one but God can know.

Peace,

SR