Why do you say "dangerous"? I have the evidence of the Bible itself saying that all scripture is God-breathed. I also have the evidence of God's Church, all true believers, virtually unanimously accepting the proposition that the Bible is GOD'S revelation from Him TO us. The Bible isn't man's holy word, it is GOD'S Holy word. Christians everywhere agree to that. What do you have on your side that would make my (our) position dangerous?
It can be debated if one can have a will without a need, in which case even the Biblical "will" of God is but an anthropomorphism. If all your needs are satisfied, what drives you?
To your first statement, how so? You are the one who is attaching human characteristics to God. The issue is "need" versus "want". God wants time to play out in a certain way so He is taking the steps necessary to ensure that. It is not because some outside force is compelling Him, or that God is lacking in some way such that He is making up for it. It is simply that God wants "this" so God is going to get "this".
We can infer into this because the Bible says we were created in His image and endowed with reason so that we may understand. But then the whole thing is thrown out the window when God says "your thoughts are not my thoughts." So, what is there to "understand?"
I'm not sure I understand the question. We will understand everything that God wants us to understand, but that will not include an exhaustive knowledge of the universe since we are finite. For one thing God wants us to understand (eventually) every jot and tittle in the Bible.
Of course, we can't imply that God's creation was a senseless act, but a determined one. Thus, if God willed evil into the world, which He hates (!), then it must be inferred that it was absolutely necessary that evil exist, and if there were a better way God would have chosen that.
Well, there may be some semantics here. I would agree that what happens is necessary for God to get what He wants, or else it wouldn't happen, and that God chose the best way to get it. I just don't want to give any impression that I think God is compelled, or cornered into anything. His will is absolutely sovereign and free, above all other wills in the universe.
But the Bible reminds us in Isaiah that it is (the Hebrew) God who creates evil (actually calamity) to happen to us. So, right from the Old Testament, Isiah tells us that God creates evil, and you are denying it. What gives, FK?
Perhaps you refer to this from the KJV:
Isaiah 45:7 : I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
I think you may have decided on one and only one view of the clause "create evil". It is meant in terms of God's sovereignty and that everything that happens is by God's design. When there is peace it is because of God. When there is war it is likewise through God's wishes. It does NOT mean that God is the author of evil. Barnes' explanation isn't bad:
Isaiah 45:7 [And create evil] The parallelism here shows that this is not to be understood in the sense of all evil, but of that which is the opposite of peace and prosperity. That is, God directs judgments, disappointments, trials, and calamities; he has power to suffer the mad passions of people to rage, and to afflict nations with war; he presides over adverse as well as prosperous events. The passage does not prove that God is the author of moral evil, or sin, and such a sentiment is abhorrent to the general strain of the Bible, and to all just views of the character of a holy God.
The totality of scriptures is absolutely clear that God is not the author of evil, but it also says that God is absolutely sovereign and in complete control of everything. To some these are mutually exclusive ideas, but it is in fact what the Bible teaches, so we must decide whether to accept what God has taught or to reject it in favor of our own views. BTW, the Isaiah verse is supported by this:
Amos 3:6 : 6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? KJV
The principle is sovereignty, not that God does evil.
But you will tell me that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. Sure he did, but what is law and the prophets?
Well, actually HE will tell you that:
Matt 5:17 : 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
I have seen different explanations on how the Law and the Prophets (and the Psalms) are divided up, but the overwhelming consensus that I have seen is that when Jesus uses these terms He is referring to the entirety of the OT.
Mat 7:12 tells us what that is, and it's not what you seem to imply. The verse says "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Wow! Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!
For your purposes that is an irrational oversimplification of the intent of the verse. Do you really reduce the entirety of the OT to "do unto others..."?
How can you believe in an omnipotent and controlling God if you also believe Matthew 7:12?!?
We obviously interpret that verse very differently. Summaries are nice and easy to use and indeed valuable, but God would have only given us summaries if that was the whole of what He wanted to give us. He obviously wanted us to have more. Summaries are a place to start, not to finish. Perhaps that is where part of the problem is.
Is this not your objection that that the "Apostolic" God is a weak God acting to accommodate men? Well, that's precisely what Mat 7:12 tells us. How come you never mention that verse?
Why do you think Matt. 7:12 has God accommodating man? I don't see that anywhere.
So, when you speak of the Law you mean Leviticus; when Orthodox Christians speak if the law, they speak of love of God, and this was unknown to the Jews.
When I speak of the Law and the Prophets (and the Psalms) I mean what Jesus meant, the entirety of the OT. It appears that the Orthodox ONLY work with summaries, thus rendering the totality of God's revelation irrelevant. ....... To suggest that righteous Jews did not know the love of God is unfathomable. I wouldn't even know where to start with that one.
St. Paul says that the "righteousness of God apart from the law, has been made known." (Rom 3:21)
Yes, ....... and? In context, Paul is obviously saying that this righteousness comes by faith, NOT by doing works of the Law, such as doing unto others, etc. I'm not sure what your point is.
FOREST KEEPER: For your purposes that is an irrational oversimplification of the intent of the verse. Do you really reduce the entirety of the OT to "do unto others..."?
Not only is it an oversimplification, but owing to the weak translation, the meaning of the verse has been diluted. In the KJV, the verse reads...
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." -- Matthew 7:12
Nothing about saying this is the whole of the law and the prophets.
But those who would deconstruct Christianity down into a Dale Carnegie paperback would have us think the NT just means being nice to each other.
It's a lot more; just as the OT was a lot more.
And further, the very next three sentences Christ uttered were quite specific and cautionary...
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." -- Matthew 7:13-15"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
So what is the straight and narrow gate that leads to life?
Is it upright living and good works? Is that what earns us our salvation?
No, upright living and good works are the fruits of our regeneration by the Holy Spirit. We are not saved by our own works of righteousness, but by Christ's righteousness alone, given as a "free gift" from God to His family.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." -- Romans 5:15-19"But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
Christ came and appeared to all men and nothing has been the same since. But Christ did not come merely to tell us how to behave ourselves; He came to give us the ability to behave ourselves by the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Christ didn't come to help us display our own righteousness; He came to make us righteous by infusing us with His righteousness.
Christ didn't come to show us how to redress our sins; He came to acquit us of our sins by paying for every one of those sins Himself, one-time on the cross, then graciously rising from the dead to prove it all true.
That is the law and the prophets.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all... Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." -- Isaiah 53:3-6;10-12"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
That doesn't mean God wroite it.
If a knowledge of a firefighter rescuing a child from a burning building inspires me to write a story about it, it is not the firefighter who wrote it, but I, through my sense and perceptions.
Our Natinal Anthem was inspired by a gun battle, and bombs splattering in the air, and a battered American Flag waving definatly. It took a human being (a 35-year old amateur poet Fracis Scott Key in 1814) to see this, and to be moved by the moment, and to write it in his way. Someone else might have written something else; I am sure the perception of the opposite side would not have agreed with Francis Scott's version...of the truth. Tthe song was actually made our National Anthem by the acto of Congress, 117 years later in 1931! And you probbaly thought it was our Anthem all along, didn't you? :)
What do you have on your side that would make my (our) position dangerous?
To claim that anything penned by man's hand and mind is actually God writing it.
Oh I see, we are back to not speaking the same language, FK. Look up the definition of a "want" or a "need" and you will see that it they are inseparably connected to each other.
Logically, those who have no needs want nothing (some call it a "bliss: and others just "dead").
Saying that God "wants" implies that God "needs." And that is anthropomorphism. And, we know that the Bible is full of such divine "desires" because we cannot write a book about God without introducing anthropomorphism and therefore distortion of God as He really is.
We Give Him "hands" and "ears" and "eyes" and what not, and the left and right "side," and yet He is a Spirit that fills the entire Creation, that pre-existed the Creation.
If we stick with the limited concepts and words words we have, knowing that God needs nothing, we must conclude that if God does want something, it is for no reason whatsoever!
And that would create a God who does things random ply and wihtout a purpose. So, you see, our minds and words cannot explain why whatever created this existence does what it does, because our own words are anthropomorphic.
And the Bible leads to such an anthropomorphic idea of a God, a Zeus-like figure. That's why we concentrate on the message and not the story. We need to ask ourselves: what lesson is there, what is the revealed truth? For we believe in the revealed truth of God, expressed in imperfect words and concepts of the authors of biblical books.
For one thing God wants us to understand (eventually) every jot and tittle in the Bible
Really? And I thought He is telling us that we need to love God and others as ourselves. God doesn't want us to understand. God leads; men follow. When Jesus says things so that we may understand, he is referring to "understanding" in the heart, in the spirit He taught. He gave sermons, He performed miracles. He did things. He didn't have group discussions and Bible study groups, FK.