Replies

So God just put this whole world together to just use man in such a dastardly way as to plan to create him knowing that it was just to send some of them to eternal torment in a plan to bring glory to Him! Wow! I just can’t get over that statement.

Jeepers, this sort of thing kinda reminds me of the attitude of the Olympian gods towards mankind (who these gods did not create, for the Olympian gods were "only" creatures themselves): Human beings are just so many pawns to be moved gratuitously around the cosmic chessboard to the gods' eternal vainglory, so to defeat this or that "fellow god" because one god or goddess doesn't like the human company that his or her fellow god or goddess is hanging out with.

If all that sounds like complete tripe, I invite you to read Homer's Iliad. I consider this work the single most blood-thirsty literary excursion in the history of mankind. And boil it all down, it says that human beings are but "playthings" of "the gods." Who, though comprising a so-called "divine" family, all detest and/or are "jealous" of each other, seeking eternal revenge by mercilessly using "human tools" — like Agamemnon, Priam, Achilles, Patroclus, Hector, Paris, Helen, Ulysses, et al. — to get the job of settling intra-familiar scores done. At enormous human cost in blood and treasure and even human civilization itself every time.

If this observation seems like a non-sequitur, then for heaven's sake, would somebody please explain to me how this "primitive" vision of god–man relations differs one iota from a theology that holds: "Predestination says that since God planned it, Adam was ordained to fall according to God's plan"?

This sort of thing (it seems to me) means/makes man God's "plaything," just as the Olympian gods regarded man their "plaything," to be squandered gratuitously, at will, to satisfy the insatiable demands of their their own vanity, their unlimited narcissism.

Finally, it seems to me that HarveyD's late objections to my recent writings profoundly bear on questions, not only about the character of man, but also about the character of God Himself.

Guess I better put a sock in it for now.

Thank you ever so much, dear CynicalBear, for your outstanding observations!!!

You hit the nail on the head with that one! I’ve been trying to put my finger on where the attitude they seem to have about “predestination” comes from and you are exactly right.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

This sort of thing (it seems to me) means/makes man God's "plaything," just as the Olympian gods regarded man their "plaything," to be squandered gratuitously, at will, to satisfy the insatiable demands of their their own vanity, their unlimited narcissism.

Truly, we are created for God's pleasure:

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. - Rev 4:11

God's words tell us we are adopted into His family:

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together. - Romans 8:15-17

And again,

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. - John 1:12-13

So that adoption must be pleasing to God.

But some may say that God takes pleasure in sending some men to suffer in hell.

I do not see that attitude here:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not! - Matt 23:37

Or here,

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. - 2 Peter 3:3-9

God's Name is I AM.

It reminds me of that, too.