Posted on 11/08/2009 12:43:15 PM PST by Ari Bussel
In God’s Image? By Norma Zager
“… Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth ..." Genesis 9:16
A couple I have known most of my life lost their young son to a hit and run driver. Questions need to be answered once again, and no one can legitimately explain to me why God lets these things happen.
Of all the questions that plague me about the state of being, one of the foremost thoughts I cannot reconcile is why man glorifies God and then ignores Him?
Just to play the devil’s advocate, I believe there are only two ways to adequately assess the whole God/man relationship.
Either man created God or God created man. Either way it just ain’t working.
If man created God and endowed Him with limitless power over the universe, it is an indisputable fact the laws and qualities man gave himself in God’s name are ignored and maligned.
Why create Ten Commandments just to daily break them? Why give the world morals and laws if they become more irrelevant every moment?
Man may have created God, but he also chooses to ignore his tenets. He also included a loophole or two to allow him to indulge his darker side with no punishment.
If the other is true and God created man, with all due respect to the Lord, He did a really poor job. Aside from the obvious amazing technology of the human species, the genius of brain function, man refuses to even use any intelligence.
Each day on planet earth it becomes more obvious the battle between good and evil is markedly tipped in the devil’s favor. Man seems to choose evil intentions and deeds and blatantly casts out goodness through rationalization and arrogance. Good people even attempt to justify bad deeds in an attempt to make them comprehensible.
Although there have been no widely reported visits from God on earth lately, and the subtlety with which He displays His presence is largely ignored or explained through dumb luck or man’s own abilities to perform miracles, He is here.
In Biblical times, when He showed Himself more readily to the masses through various means like parting seas, burning bushes and as many believe sending His son, it was still not enough to instill enough fear in man’s heart to shun evil. At the very moment Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments, man was busily breaking them.
So shall we accept man created God only to spend his time explaining him away with the advent of every new miracle and new inspiration. Where is the sense?
Since time began man learned the benefit of rationalizing his bad behavior. Now, he has raised it to an art form.
Adding the caveat of choice or free will to the mix was a brainstorm that almost worked, until it became apparent more and more men would choose evil. So much so that the Lord was forced to send a son to earth to absolve man’s sins. Then man wrote the Book of Revelations to explain, literally, that since man cannot inhibit the dark side of his nature and will ultimately incur only destruction of the world he inhabits, there must be hope of goodness winning over the universe.
We hear constantly that the grand design opts for the triumph of good over evil. This gave man the hope that ultimately right would prevail. When that belief went south, man created karma to deal with the sad truth that evil couldn’t care less about its own sins.
Not working yet, okay let’s push an afterlife. The bad will be punished out of our sight. We must believe that those who spend their lives on earth as purveyors of the devil will suffer the pangs of eternal damnation. Since no one has come back from hell to explain the experience first hand, I can only imagine it is akin to driving the 405 freeway at rush hour throughout eternity.
The last thing I seek to convey through my words is a lack of faith in the glory or power of the Almighty. Or make light of the grievous sins of the human spirit. However, when no fear exists that sin will incur God’s wrath, how can man make the system work?
After the shocking murders at Fort Hood and Orlando this week, the consistently evil and disgusting antics of politicians and the continual murders throughout the world in the name of one’s chosen deity, I cannot reconcile the belief any god would give man free will knowing man would choose evil any day of the week.
Man’s worst flaw by far is using God as an excuse to kill. Creating excuses for killing and murdering in the Lord’s name is no more than a convenient way of skirting the rules.
The Fort Hood killer shouted “Allahu Akbar” (god is great) as he gunned down innocent people. What’s the point? If he believed his god was great why submit to the devil? Does eliciting Allah’s name bless an act of sinful and unimaginable proportion?
It must be little consolation to the families who lost loved ones and continue to lose them daily that at the end of days goodness will prevail.
I am certain all of us alive would prefer it prevail at this moment on earth, in our own lifetime.
I would suggest God perform miracles to announce his presence, but He does that every moment and it hasn’t helped. Man’s evil deeds increase to unimaginable heights each second, we need miracles that will blow evil out of the water.
I would offer that perhaps an epiphany of some sort might shake men’s souls and deliver them into their better selves toward the future. I have difficulty imagining what a deed of that proportion might entail, but I know God is capable of creating one that will work.
My question is why hasn’t He as yet?
Why create a creature so evil when you are in control? It’s almost as if you made a product you knew would break immediately.
I am certain I am not the only one who asks these questions when something evil and horrific happens. I am also certain that although we have numerous reasons to explain away man’s bad behavior, we are never truly satisfied with the answers. How can we be when the acts are always far more egregious than the mind can conjure and man is ever achieving new lows?
If there is an Afterlife, and I cannot guarantee with certainty one exists, Heaven is in small danger of overcrowding. Hell, however, must be as big as eternity. I imagine that’s why there are no limits on space in the galaxy, every inch will be necessary to fill the void with the devil’s minions.
The righteous and true believers are in short supply and battling to stay alive every moment. It is way passed time someone step up to the plate and put the fear of God in all men. Lord knows man needs it and must pray it comes soon.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun…” ~Ecclesiastes 1:9
### In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this “point - counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Feel free to share with others.
© Postcards from Home, November, 2009 Contact: aribussel@gmail.com
God did a fine job. Man chose, and continues to choose, to sin and rebel against God and man continues to suffer the consequences for that sin and rebellion.
God did not create things the way they are. Man destroyed the perfect creation God gave him and, in 6000 years of existence, still hasn't gotten the message that sin brings judgment and obedience and fellowship with God brings blessings.
America is decaying because we are reaping the harvest of fifty years of ruthless ejection of God from this nation. What happened in Texas is just more of the reaping.
[14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word "eido" (ειδο) signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.
[15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.
[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature. (Hobbes, p 444)
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
” I cannot reconcile the belief any god would give man free will knowing man would choose evil any day of the week.”
If God had not given his creatures free will their serving him as helpless automatons would be meaningless. It’s all about meaning, significance and worth.
And He is worthy. Not only is He incredibly glorious, but he laid aside all that glory to come down here and take the rap for you and me, so that we could choose (with free will only) to be with Him in glory in heaven in eternity.
Interesting question, only to only be superceded by another: Why should God glorify man, let alone allow evil to coexist with His Perfect Holiness forever?
The answer is provided by God. He won't. He does glorify man, in that the Son of God Christ Jesus will rule over all.
Some have posited this is part of the angelic conflict being played out, manifesting for all creatures how His Plan is perfectly righteous and just.
Thanks for posting the article.
“Does eliciting Allah’s name bless an act of sinful and unimaginable proportion? “
Why yes. I believe it is in the Koran.
Perhaps he is winnowing us for the few that can believe despite all evidence to the contrary?
(Why bother creating the rest of us though?)
Sum up your answer “Faith”.
Good Article Ari Bussel.
Image: God created man with the capacity to love (just as God does), and freedom of Choice
Just my two cents.
I suppose. In that balance, I am found wanting.
It has any number of formulations, e.g.
Etc. etc. There is in fact a logical answer to the thing which you see in John 18:36 i.e.
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world..."
Most people do not like the logical implications of that but, in actuality, that is the only possible answer which there is to the question of evil, and what it means is this:
The question of evil in any or all of its formulations boils down to the question of what the term "omnipotent" means. Defining "omnipotent" to mean having all the power which anybody could imagine leads to connundrums; defining it to mean having all the power which there actually is does not lead to conundrums.
Simple logic should tell us that the spirit world has little if any power to act in this physical realm which we inhabit. Bad things happen to good people here because neither God nor anybody else in the spirit realm has any power to prevent them, simple as that. There is no other rational solution to the thing.
The good news is that we are stuck in this place for a space of time which rarely exceeds 100 years, and the kingdom which Jesus spoke of is eternal, and goes on forever. This world is some sort of a training ground.
The one other thing worth mentioning is that in past ages there was at least reliable communication between our realm and the realm of spirits and even after the flood and the incident associated with the tower that continued for a space in the form of prophets and oracles and the like as per Julian Jaynes. All of those practices ceased to work prior to Alexander however and, as Jesus noted repeatedly, in our own age, we know the spirit realm through faith.
God doesn't have the power to intervene in His own creation if He sees fit to do so?
Sorry, I have to vehemently disagree with you on that. A God Who made everything that was made, as Scripture tells us Jesus Christ did, has the absolute, omnipotent power to manipulate circumstances, and people, to accomplish His purposes and, in fact, does so on a regular basis.
God may intervene in human affairs or He may not, according to His will and omniscience, but He absolutely has the power to do anything He pleases.
“Simple logic should tell us that the spirit world has little if any power to act in this physical realm which we inhabit. “
God turned back the sea so the Jews could cross it on dry land; he stopped the clock so Joshua could complete winning a battle and Peter healed the beggar at the temple by the Word of God.
The spirit world has free access to this world at all times.
People have struggled with this very thing for thousands of years. This is nothing new.
There are some good books that I’ve read recently that help get a handle on it some.
One is C.S.Lewis “The Problem of Pain”.
The other is a couple books by Brennan Manning. “Abba’s Child” and “The Ragamuffin Gospel”.
Sure, God can fix all the evils in the world, but He doesn’t. That’s just where trust comes in, just as a child trusts their parents when the parents don’t give everything to the child that he demands, when he demands it. The parents have more knowledge and better plans than the child can even comprehend. The parents don’t not love the child just because they don’t cater to him or protect him from every discomfort or inconvenience that comes along.
There’ve been times I’ve told my kids *no* to things that they wanted because we had better things planned. They didn’t understand it and were pretty unhappy, until they realized why we said no. They were grateful then that they didn’t get their way.
As for people dying in car accidents. Well, everybody has to die some way, some time. Nobody owes us a long, happy, painfree life with dying peacefully in our sleep.
Yes, I have problems with the gross evil that some inflict on others and question God about that and just have never settled that in my mind myself. I’ll just have to work on that later and in the meantime, do my part to make the world a better place to live.
Someone has to give birth to those who are going to believe?
Those two stories have physical explanations and whether you view those explanations as the way God operates or as natural events is up to you; the best take on them is still Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision". Aside from that the tale of the Amorites involves one of the classic mistranslations in the bible in which "barrad" is translated as "hailstones" rather than the necessary "meteorites". Hail made of ice and water cannot kill men wearing armor and carrying shields; meteorites can.
Other than that, the story of Joshua does not answer the basic question posed in the original post. How does even one child in the world die from malaria in the presence of a supposedly omnipotent and well-intentioned God?
“How does even one child in the world die from malaria in the presence of a supposedly omnipotent and well-intentioned God?”
I’ll go through this again for your benefit. It’s about reality, which is the substance of meaning. If God had made a bunch of creatures with no wills of their own, they would be serving Him like robots. How meaningful would that be?
He is a glorious God, rides on the wings of the wind and walks on the water. Light and truth are his clothing and judgement and justice his crowns. He deserves obedience, service and, yes, worship because of His awesome capabilities and glory; worship that is meaningful - in other words adoration and service by beings who could choose to do otherwise. Do you see what I’m saying?
So, as soon as you introduce free will you open up the door to doing wrong, messing things up - bringing about disease and death.
As for the hail being harmless to - whatever - don’t you know God’s hailstones aren’t limited in size? In Revelation it speak of 100 lb. hailstones. What kind of damage would that chunk of ice do?
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