"Why did God kill people?"

Answering Protestants ^ | 2 September 2014 | Matthew Olson

[matthewrobertolson]

Why did God allow for the striking-down of people in the Old Testament? How is this reconciled with the dogma of a loving God?

Protestants and modern-day "Jews" don't have an answer for this -- one beyond dualism or "mystery", I mean. But the Church does.

There is mortal sin, and there is venial sin (1 John 5:17). Mortal sin -- willful and of grave nature -- separates one from God, practically killing the soul. Venial sin -- all other -- must simply be cleansed, and it does not eternally separate us from Him. And this distinction is shown in the Old Testament.

Among mortal sins punished: irreverence (2 Samuel 6:1-7), despair/disbelief (Numbers 11:1-3), and false claims of authority (Numbers 16). These crimes have always been condemned.

Why did punishment change from body-centric to soul-centric? First, it didn't, because unrighteous people were also kept from entering the Limbo of the Patriarchs, which, after Christ's Sacrifice, later led to Heaven. Second, temporal punishment was the only way to get at the Jews' consciences: As liberal scholars love to point out, the majority of Jews did not believe in an afterlife!

God does not desire death, though it can be used to give us the best chance at salvation (2 Peter 3). (I think here of St. Rita and her sons.) Even in the old days, He merely wanted a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17), and He wanted devotion.

There is no change in principle: God is immutable.

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[Gamecock]

***Protestants and modern-day “Jews” don’t have an answer for this — one beyond dualism or “mystery”,***

More sloppy writing.

My church has no issue with this issue: We have all died in Adam. (Original sin.)

I wonder if the author of that blog can form one coherent thought and present it instead of tossing around generalized false accusations?

[bmwcyle]

Read the book of Enoch. And the days of Noah are coming again.

[Little Ray]

Dunno why this is a question.

People tend to forget that we are a fallen people in a fallen world. We lost all claim on God’s protection and good will in the Garden, and what we do get is by His Grace, alone.

[Mr. Lucky]

Thank you.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Why did God allow for the striking-down of people in the Old Testament? How is this reconciled with the dogma of a loving God?

Protestants and modern-day "Jews"

Hmm. Do all those Jewish ecumaniacs know their Catholic "partners" think this of them?

don't have an answer for this -- one beyond dualism or "mystery", I mean. But the Church does.

Dualism? Hey, your religion is the one that teaches that G-d has an evil (lehavdil) "counterpart."

[CatherineofAragon]

Strange. I’ve only ever heard these kinds of questions from atheists and mockers.

No, wait, I take it back. I know of one (supposed) Protestant on the forum who has questioned in this manner, but I also have a Catholic friend who has done so.

The article is silly and pretty much worthless.

I add my voice to those who wonder why you put “Jews” in quotation marks.

[LevinFan]

” Protestants and modern-day “Jews” don’t
have an answer for this — one beyond
dualism or “mystery”, I mean. But the
Church”

Answer? Easy. God chooses what He will do. In the Bible, those strike downs were rare. Much of the Bible is over a period of hundreds of years, not days.
And there is a big distinction between OT and NT. How many NT strikedowns are there? Only the husband and wife who lied about their giving, come to immediate mind. A lot of sin
happened without lightning bolts of correction.
So if God isn’t zapping people, do you propose the use of Catholicism’s great gift of Inquazitions?

Many Protistants understand sin well. We also understand grace. We live in a real world with imperfect people. And bluntly, Catholics are hardly bastions of sinless living.
Nor can you simply lump all protistants together. Just because one accepts homosexuals, doesn’t mean all do. Protistant is a Catholic term of generalization. There are big differences between a Baptist and Lutheran.

And keep the Jew hate. They are God’s chosen people, even while fallen. Challenge that at your paril.

[Faith Presses On]

We’ve all committed sin worthy of death and Hell. Without Jesus’ sacrifice for us, no one would be able to enter Heaven. As Jesus taught, we need to be born again, and as Paul wrote, in Jesus we are new creatures, with His Spirit in us. The judgment of all is done by God, who knows everything, including men’s hearts. He is merciful and will warn, but He will judge at some point when there is no repentance, and we can be assured that He does so with perfect justice. Why, even with Jesus’ death to reconcile the world to Himself, are some people saved and some not and end up in Hell? Paul wrote of it. He said God has mercy on whom He will have mercy (as God Himself said) and with others, like Pharaoh, He hardens their hearts, and no one can resist God’s will on it. His judgment begins in this world, in other words, and only He has all the answers, while as Paul wrote we know right now only in part. Throughout the Bible we are told, though, about the way that leads to Heaven, and warned about the way or Cont’d

[Faith Presses On]

ways to Hell, for us to apply to the one situation we know and bear ultimate responsibility for - our own.

[PeterPrinciple]

Luk 13:1 About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple.
Luk 13:2 “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered?
Luk 13:3 Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.

---

Jesus doesn’t quite answer the question here but it is very clear that being worse sinners was not the issue.

I would also go to Job and the answer is that God is God and we are not..........................

[Faith Presses On]

It also seems to me, on further consideration, that you didn’t look into what evangelicals have said on the questions you pose, but merely are embracing the Catholic mortal-venial sin belief and speculating from there.

[PeterPrinciple]

How is this reconciled with the dogma of a loving God?

---

A few further thoughts.

1) Yes God is a loving God but he is first and foremost a just God. our minds might say these characteristics are exclusive but they are not.

2) We are all appointed to die at some time, no one will escape.

3) I would also refer to

Mal 1:2 “I have always loved you,” says the LORD. But you retort, “Really? How have You loved us?” And the LORD replies, “This is how I showed My love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob,
Mal 1:3 but I rejected his brother, Esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau’s inheritance into a desert for jackals.”

That for me is God’s most interesting definition of love. He choses some and not others.

[wbarmy]

The answers are very well thought out and cover a wide variety of possible and truthful replies.

There is one more which I use to explain this to my children. In the Bible God describes us as something He made. We belong to Him in the total sense of the word belonging. And just as we can destroy something we own, He has the right and power to do the same.

And if life is eternal, then death really isn’t that big a deal to God, because He knows the outcome. Think of all the children who have died in times past, when the Word of God was not widespread. Could their deaths be Gods way of removing those who in His foreknowledge KNEW they would have accepted His Son but would not have the chance during their lifetime.

Was their death a blessing or a curse? That is why He is God and any death is His specific or allowed will. He knows the Plan and the end.

[daniel1212]

Protestants and modern-day "Jews" don't have an answer for this -- one beyond dualism or "mystery", I mean.

Matthew are RCs in-sane, or are you just exampling one or one who lives in a vacuum? Your blog pimping posts continue to provide arguments against being RC, this absurd statement being one of them.

Unless dishonestly is involved, it must surprise you to learn that the most abundant apologetical resources for decades has been by evangelicals, the modern movement itself having begun (as fundamentalists) against liberal revisionism, and for the basic truths such as that sin is sin, and results in temporal and eternal punishment, and the immutability of God.

But which provides far more apologetical depth than your exceedingly superficial response here, which seems more designed to get hits for your perverse propaganda blog than to give a substantive answer. Here is one.

And here is a list of just a few links from conservative Protestants apologetics you can learn something from, by God's grace. 's grace. .

http://net-burst.net/hot/ Issues That Make Christians Squirm!

http://www.existence-of-god.com /

http://www.truefreethinker.com/

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/existence.html

http://www.atheistdelusion.net/

http://www.rhoblogy.blogspot.com/

http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45&mode=detail (Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?)

http://www.apologetics.com/

http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue06/governments.htm

http://www.christianaction.org.za/firearmnews/2004-04_thegreatestkiller.htm

http://www.scholarscorner.com/apologia/deathtoll.html Atheism's Body Count

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/wally01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/

http://www.muslimhope.com/BibleAnswers.htm (responses Alleged Bible contradictions)

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/

http://www.answering-islam.org/Bible/Contra/index.html (responses to Alleged Bible contradictions)

http://www.answers.org/atheism/zindler.html

http://www.carm.org/atheism.htm

http://freedomdefender.blogspot.com/2005/05/atrocities-of-atheism-episode-i.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html

http://www.iangoddard.net/roger.htm

http://www.sowhataboutjesus.com/existed.php

http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45&mode=detail

Biblical Prophecies in the Light of History By Jim And Judy Stocker

http://www.harvardhouse.com/site-map.htm

http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexisthub.html

http://kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Home.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/copycat.html

http://www.thedevineevidence.com/pagan_copycat.html

http://www.preventingtruthdecay.org/zeitgeistpartone.shtml

Written as if these objections and more were never made before and responded to:

http://www.muslimhope.com/AnsweringMuslimBibleObjections1.htm

[daniel1212]

But does your rejection of dual-covenant theory mean you reject that the Lord’s return awaits His recognition by all Israel as a particular entity, after the full number of the Gentiles has come in (distinguishing the two), because a particular hardening has come upon part of the Jews?

[metmom]

Could their deaths be Gods way of removing those who in His foreknowledge KNEW they would have accepted His Son but would not have the chance during their lifetime.

I've wondered the same thing.

A verse for your consideration.

Isaiah 57:1-2 The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.

[metmom]

Protestants and modern-day "Jews" don't have an answer for this -- one beyond dualism or "mystery", I mean. But the Church does.

Something being a *mystery of the faith* is the typical fallback for Catholics when they have something they can't explain because it contradicts Scripture.

Prots don't use that one.

[daniel1212]

Simple, because he is a jealous god.

That is not simple, as apart from Scriptural understanding, being jealous is easily understood as selfishly wanting attention or possession, which is simply not the case with God who needs nothing, and is always giving, and calls man to love and worship, and trust in and obey above all the only One who is perfect, almighty, all-wise, and can never fail us, which is simply right and what is most beneficial to man.

Thus he is "jealous" like a winning coach with the winning plays would be of his players attention before a key game, when they are distracted or tempted by the opposing team to do things that would lose the game.

Yet with even deeper warrant, and which is no game. But maybe you agree anyway.

[Salvation]

Read the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Rabbi Kushner.

[taxcontrol]

LOL, how does anyone “objectively establish” a viewpoint on religion? Both Protestants and Catholics read the same scripture and come to different conclusions. Atheists wont even agree on a God, much less a scripture.

All is formed from our backgrounds, the teachings that we have been exposed to, our opinions and life experiences, thus everything about religion is subjective. The whole article is the presentation of one person’s opinion. There is nothing “objective” about it.