A New York City Fire Department Emergency Medical Technician wearing protective gear helps a sick patient to a waiting ambulance during the outbreak of the coronavirus in New York City, April 1, 2020. (Stefan Jeremiah/Reuters)
Free will.
Posted on 04/06/2020 6:22:22 AM PDT by Rummyfan
The moral lesson that I have taken from reading the Bible is that God’s sense of justice, fitness, and proportionality is at odds with my own, but He still gets to be God.
There are two Christian concepts on my mind on this Palm Sunday. One is theodicy, the other is the sin of presumption.
“Theodicy” means “the vindication of God,” referring to a seeming conundrum that has vexed Christian thinkers since the beginning: How can evil coexist with an all-good, all-loving, all-powerful God?
Christians conceive of God as a father, which occasionally places us in the role of resentful adolescents: If God really cares about us, why did He let my friend die? If God really cares about us, why did He let that earthquake kill all those innocent people? I never asked to be born! There is a philosophically sophisticated version of that line of questioning, but the underlying dynamic is the same. Many Christian theologians consider the problem of evil to be the most persuasive intellectual challenge to the idea of God as Christians understand Him, and so theodicy has been a very hot topic for a couple of millennia now.
One common answer to the problem of evil is the “free will theodicy,” the proposal that among the good things God wants to give mankind are “freedom goods” as T. Ryan Byerly of Sheffield University calls them, morally valuable developments that can be had only under free-will conditions. Mankind cannot have the blessing of choosing the good without also having the opportunity to reject the good, hence evil and its product, suffering, are inevitable byproducts of God’s desire for us to enjoy a rarefied blessing unavailable to automatons.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
A New York City Fire Department Emergency Medical Technician wearing protective gear helps a sick patient to a waiting ambulance during the outbreak of the coronavirus in New York City, April 1, 2020. (Stefan Jeremiah/Reuters)
Free will.
And it’s Holy Week.
Wasn’t this the guy who wanted all the “deplorables” to die because they supported Trump?
I am not God.
“....One of the most important things is the acceptance of the fact: I am not God....”
Amen!!! And which is why the communist RATS hate/deny Him so much. They want to be God over all of us and all things. HE stands in the way. They think by denying Him and His existence paves the way to allow them to be God over everyone and everything. Whether one denies Him or not, it doesn’t change the Truth: He’s real and He’s sovereign.
God’s the same yesterday, today and forever. How He deals with us is the same as He’s always dealt with us in the past, present and future. He does it corporately as a nation, and He does it individually in a personal relationship. I am thankful for my personal relationship with Him. I, for sure, know I’m NOT God but I sure do know one that IS. :)
You are correct and this is the guy who wanted the deplorables to die. AND it’s NR. I NEVER give them a click if I can avoid it. Bill Buckley is turning in his grave over this bunch of losers.
Satan challenged the necessity of God-rule. The question couldn’t be answered unless God gave it time to play out. Evil will not be allowed to exist indefinitely.
Stopped reading right there. He still gets to? Really?
The sufficiently of God is enough.
The presumption that a omniscient and omnipotent, just and merciful Being was unjust in allowing evil or in sending judgments presumes omniscience and omnipotence on the part of the one who is judging God (not that I am not guilty of that, at least as a emotional yet irrational reaction).
For to be evil presumes that such was not justly warranted in the light of what it would accomplish, not simply in this life by for eternity. And only the God of the Bible knows what all the effects of even our next breath will be - not only for this life life but for eternity - and make it all work for the good of those who love God, and thus the Good.
This reality, of God's omniscience and omnipotence and purpose, was what the multitude of the rhetorical questions asked of Job by God conveyed, (Job 38-41) that if God created all that Job saw and more, and was the designer and sustainer of the universe, then He knows exactly what He is doing. And can and will make it work out for Good, as Job realized upon repentance - and praying for his falsely accusative and ignorant "friends" (except for the youngest) who vainly tried to charged Job with sins since His suffering did not fit into their theology.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
The premise of the devil was and is that a man such as Job only worships God because of what they receive from Him (which typical "word of faith" churches too often foster), versus loving Him for who and what He is (as David did, and thus longed to see Him in His beauty).[1] In contrast, the devil implicitly presumed and presumes is that justice demands that he should sit as God based upon his (the devil's) estimation of himself (as the original liberal elite).
Thus the original selfish "share the wealth" demand and lustful "occupy movement,"[2] and the use of the victim-entitlement mentality, with its implicit demand for "justice," whereby mercy and grace are replaced by presuming benefits obtained by merit belong to those who did not merit them, and that God's ordained means of additional elevation (rewards for the God-enabled and motivated obedience of God-given faith) to those who received mercy and grace - and punishment for trying to climb up some other way - are unjust.[3]
And which premises are foundational (in various forms) in liberal ethos, as proxy servants of the devil, who selfishly seeks allegiance and worship thru them, culminating in the final insurrection of rebels and manifestation of those who are, and their destruction.[4]
In contrast, God gives all that is good, and His command to creation to worship Him as the infinite omniscient and omnipotent being who cannot fail, is unselfish, for God does not need anything, and to worship perfection is only right and to the benefit of man, who actually causes God grief. But rather than wipe man out again and again, God spared not His own Son to save us, and Him himself loved us and gave Himself for us, that we may live thru Him, thanks and glory be to God![5]
[1]One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. (Psalms 27:4)
[2] How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. (Isaiah 14:12-15)
[3]for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:14)
[3]Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. (John 10:1)
[3]To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)
[3] (Jn. 6:44; 12:32; Acts 11:18l 16:14; Phil. 2:13)
[3]Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:1-5)
[4] And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. (Revelation 20:7-9)
[5]He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
[5]I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
The sin of presumption, in Scripture, means thinking of your own judgment as being superior to God’s.
As opposed to the OTHER false definition of presumption that we constantly have to deal with, where it’s sinful to believe what God has promised. For some reason.
Our Lord God is the sovereign KING of kings! He rules over ALL of His creation in this realm and the heavenly realm with no exceptions. Once a person accepts that fact you realize that we are not in control and the we are saved by faith because that’s all we have this side of the heavenly realm. Enter His rest and you will find that peace that only comes from faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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