Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Vanity: Question about Book of Job

Posted on 11/22/2004 11:12:20 AM PST by stuartcr

I read the Book of Job this weekend, and I have a question regarding the reasoning behind Job's trials. I believe that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, which includes knowing what we are going to do. Going on this premise, my question is why did God, knowing the outcome, subject Job to all that he went through? Why did He allow satan to do the things he did to Job? The only thing I can think of, was to prove a point to Job?


TOPICS: Theology
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180 ... 261-267 next last
To: Cinnamon Girl

No, you aren't the creator, and didn't have anything to do with my wearing the shirt or making the time machine.


141 posted on 11/22/2004 5:09:16 PM PST by stuartcr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 137 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

"That's what I figured, but if the outcome is known, how is this really free-will?"

Very simple. Every action or thought(the outcome), whether good or bad, moral or immoral is already known by God before it happens.

I'm not disputing here whether God is truly omnipotent, ominiscent and omnisapient; I'm simply saying that your logic is faulty.

God gives man free will to do as he chooses. Man behaves. God knows of his behavior before hand. God does not interfere with man's behavior (outcome), yet he knows of it before the event. That's all there is to it.


142 posted on 11/22/2004 5:09:20 PM PST by Baraonda (I just paid all my taxes and am worried. I still have some money left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

The Lord God nevers explains why He did what He did to Job. What He conveys to Job when He speaks directly to him is: "Don't question anything I do. I know a lot more than you." Forever is infinitely more important than what happens to us in this part of life, and painful stuff that results in heavenly rewards, beause the pain changes our behavior and help us earn rewards that last forever, is worth what it costs us. Job says "He knows what I'm like, and when the testing is over, I'll be like refined gold."


143 posted on 11/22/2004 5:09:49 PM PST by 185JHP ( "The thing thou purposest shall come to pass: And over all thy ways the light shall shine.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

God says that He himself dwells outside of time. That is, he does not exist in a linear timeline as we do. What to make of that? C.S. Lewis attempts a word-picture that describes an onlooker looking down on a parade from a height that allows him to see the beginning and the ends and all places inbetween. He is not marching in the parade, however, but observing it as it progresses.

Some folks liken God to a watchmaker who, confident of His design, winds the well-made clock of human existence and sits back and lets it unwind, according to His design. This does not address free will, and dampens the idea of prayer, and He does tell us to pray for His will to be done. Are we to pray that the clock works correctly, for the parade of our linear life to progress on course?

We cannot comprehend the idea of dwelling outside of time, any more than our youngest child can comprehend the enormity of travelling to China and meeting people who don't understand his speech. As the child grows and experiences time, distance, speed...the elements of his linear life, he comes to comprehend the strange idea of China. In fact, if he really dedicates himself to study it further, he can imagine the speed of light, the expansion of the universe, the power of an atomic reaction...even attempt to think about a fourth dimesion.

Just because we cannot yet grasp the enormity of free will and presdestination, does not mean that we weren't meant to consider it, think about it, puzzle over it, discover new layers of thought about it.

But, if I waited until I perfectly understood the nature of electricity and the nature of light (particle or beam?) before I turned on the switch and got busy, I'd be living in the dark all my days, accomplishing nothing.

If any man will do, he will know.


144 posted on 11/22/2004 5:15:12 PM PST by January24th
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 138 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr
What God are you talking about? I believe that God is all-powerful and all-knowing...just as God designed it
145 posted on 11/22/2004 5:16:57 PM PST by suzyjaruki
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 140 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

"If God is the creator of all that exists, why isn't He also the creator of our behavior?"

But he is.

God intented to create us with free will. It is up to us what we do with it. If we're virtuos, then we will find God.

God is truth and you can only get to Him through truth. If you look for truth you won't find God; however, if you look for God you will find truth.


146 posted on 11/22/2004 5:17:19 PM PST by Baraonda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 135 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr
I don't understand why the punishment, as satan is only doing as he was knowingly created to do.

This is where you are going off the rails. You are imputing to God responsibility for the decisions we as created beings make, with the rationale that those decisions are a result of how we are made. This is the same argument used by many homosexuals. It ignores the fact that man is a self made soul in the sense that who we are and what we do is partially based on all of our previous decisions. Every decision makes a subtle change in who we are, and the sum of those changes equals who we are "right now."

G-d does not live in the dimension of time. It has been oft speculated that we do as it affords us an opportunity to be changed before we leave "time" as all of eternity would be like "now."

To us it seems somewhat paradoxical, but I'm willing to give G-d the benefit of the doubt as I can't see His side of the equation.

147 posted on 11/22/2004 5:27:08 PM PST by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

"How is someone free to act, when their act, and the results of their actions, is already known?"

Why aren't you free to act if your behavior is already known?

Are you saying that if God didn't know a priori your actions then you would not be free to act? Or, are you saying that since God knows your actions, your acts should differ from what God already knows?

Think of it as an indepedent event like playing the lottery where the numbers drawn are equivalent to someone's actions, and your guessing them beforehand is like being God. So, when you play the lottery, you're attempting at being God.


148 posted on 11/22/2004 5:33:17 PM PST by Baraonda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 138 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr
If God is the creator of all that exists, why isn't He also the creator of our behavior?

Of what value is a "love letter" if you have to ask your spouse to write it?

149 posted on 11/22/2004 5:34:33 PM PST by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 135 | View Replies]

To: Chad Fairbanks
Well, I guess one way of looking at it would be that when we do something, we choose to do it - just because God KNOWS we are going to do it, doesn't mean He made us do it...

Uh oh, now you've done it! You had to go and make too much sense with that answer didn't ya? :-)

150 posted on 11/22/2004 5:35:28 PM PST by ladyinred (Congratulations President Bush! Four more years!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

It was an analogy in an attempt to try to explain how G-d's knowing your future doesn't deny you free will.


151 posted on 11/22/2004 5:36:48 PM PST by Cinnamon Girl (OMGIIHIHOIIC ping list)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 141 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

:)


152 posted on 11/22/2004 5:50:10 PM PST by gortklattu (check out thotline dot com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

Try looking at the entire book of Job as one big metaphor. The fact that the Almighty and Satan are sort of casually hanging out and playing one-upsmanship should have been the first big clue.


153 posted on 11/22/2004 6:00:37 PM PST by Pahuanui (When a foolish man hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

In the physical realm, muscles are built by resistance. The same thing occurs in the spiritual realm.


154 posted on 11/22/2004 7:58:46 PM PST by Canticle_of_Deborah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr
I didn't see the movie, but since God knows what our free-will decision is going to be, how can it truly be free-will? God controls/creates all that happens. We may feel that what we do is a decision, but it is already known, along with all that happens as a result. To me, it seems like the outcome to everything is known, not to us, but to Him that made it all happen. It seems that everything happens just as it should.

God knows but YOU do not know until you do it. His knowing what you WILL do has nothing to do with the fact that you can CHOOSE to do either good or evil. Saying God knows what you will choose doesn't say WHICH you will choose, does it? And we don't know which we will choose until we choose, do we? So His knowing has nothing to do with OUR choosing. Got it?

155 posted on 11/22/2004 9:46:49 PM PST by Technical Editor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 123 | View Replies]

To: xzins
If God knows that you are going to use your free choice to make a decision, then God knows that YOU AND NOT HE are going to do something, and God is never wrong about YOUR CHOICES, then God knows ahead of time what YOUR CHOICE will be.

But He still lets you choose. God may know what you will choose, but YOU do not until you choose it. Here's something for you: With my predictive capacity, I can predict that someone assaulted by the basketball player "Artess(?)" is going to sue him. Now...when that comes true, does that mean that I caused it?

No one is saying that God causes us to choose as we do.

156 posted on 11/22/2004 9:52:13 PM PST by Technical Editor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 117 | View Replies]

To: aimhigh
God disciplines those he loves, even those like Job, who, with sinful flesh,

Many Christians can't make the distinction between discipline and punish. He disciplines those who are in faith, punishes those who are unfaithful.

What most of us don't understand is that except Christ there, are no "Heroes" of the Bible. All of the folks mentioned in scripture were sinners who were declared righteous through faith. (Hebrews)

157 posted on 11/22/2004 11:54:19 PM PST by Gamecock (Freewillers and Dems both deny [the] election)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: stuartcr

So, it is your opinion that if God knows something that that means God caused it?

You can only affirm that as a personal opinion and never as a fact.


158 posted on 11/23/2004 5:38:45 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army and Proud of It!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies]

To: Baraonda

We agree that God knows what will happen.

I'm not saying God interferes with man's behavior, I'm saying God makes man's behavior, because God made man, and everything else.

I don't think we can really apply our logic to what God does, because we are so limited when compared to God, and all that He can do.


159 posted on 11/23/2004 5:51:42 AM PST by stuartcr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 142 | View Replies]

To: Baraonda

You should tell Pete that, as he is the one my reply was directed to. I happen to believe that God created our behavior, that is why I do not believe we really have free-will....since our behavior is created by God, we may think we have free-will, but we really are only doing what we are supposed to, according to the creator. Whether we believe we have free-will or not really doesn't matter.


160 posted on 11/23/2004 6:12:54 AM PST by stuartcr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 146 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180 ... 261-267 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson