Comment on Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull by Sean Pitman.
@Ron:
It is much like when my teenagers started driving. It was not my will that they have an accident, but I knew that it was almost certain that they eventually would, so I got them an older SUV to drive instead of my Lexus, and I bought insurance, sent them to driver’s school, and did my best to make them defensive drivers. My will and desire that they learn to drive, included the possibility that they would have an accident, so when they had an accident, it was not outside my will, or you might say, planning. I was prepared for it.
Again, knowing something will happen or having a plan prepared for an eventuality isn’t the same thing as willing or causing an event to happen.
There is a key element here that you’re missing. You’re arguing as if God causes all events in His universe to happen – that they are the direct result of His action and will. This simply isn’t true. God does not cause little girls to get leukemia an die. This is not God’s will. God did not cause Lucifer to rebel and cause Himself and many who follow his example to be permanently lost. God does not cause the wicked to be wicked nor does He cause or will or desire their self-destructive behavior.
I think, this is an important perspective to have, because it takes a huge burden off of people when they sin. They know that they are still within God’s will, that he has a plan and can take care of it, that he still loves them, and that it is OK. They don’t have to go away and hide from God, because it is OK. God still loves them. They are still OK with God. He has a plan. He can take care of it. They are still within His will.
While God most certainly loves the sinner and has set up a plan of salvation, it is not true that sin is therefore “Ok” or that God will us to keep on sinning when we continue to sin. It is God’s will the we “go and sin no more” (John 8:11).
God never tempts anyone or wills anyone to sin (James 1:13). That is never His will or desire. Sin isn’t something to be trifled with. It is very serious when we continue in deliberate rebellion against God. Many of those that go down this path will never return to God and will suffer eternal death. This is not God’s will for them.
Again, having a plan or knowing the future isn’t the same thing as causing or being responsible for the action of the free will agent who rebels against the will of God.
So, applying the same principles to Adam and Eve’s case shows us that it wasn’t the eating of the apple, or sin, per se’ that necessitated Christ’s death, it was their fear that caused them to run away and to try to justify themselves that necessitated Christ’s death.
You’ve got to be kiddin me! The Bible couldn’t be more clear here. Are you telling me that God was lying when He told Adam and Eve that, “In the day you eat thereof, you will surely die”? (Genesis 3:3) It was the actual act of going against the Word of God that was in violation against the Royal Law that put Adam and Eve in rebellion against God. They would have self-destructed at that point, beyond all hope, if it had not been for Jesus stepping into the breach and offering His life for theirs.
There is good reason to be fearful of rebelling against God. Such rebellion always leads toward self-destruction and death. If it did not, sin would not be so bad…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
Consider the following comments from the E.G.. White Estate regarding the origin of disease, suffering and death:
Suffering, other than sickness due to neglect of physical laws, is also caused by Satan and not the deliberate intervention of God. On many occasions she reinforced the teaching of Jesus on this point…
Her teachings regarding the cause of death, as well as suffering, flowed from the big picture of the great controversy between God and Satan:
“It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God’s law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God—as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin… Sickness, suffering, and death are [the] work of an antagonistic power. Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer.”
Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 471. and The Ministry of Healing, p. 113
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mol/Chapt7.html
So, again, neither the Bible nor Mrs. White see diseases, like childhood leukemia, as being the result of a deliberate act or intervention of God…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Where talking about the ability to detect the need to invoke intelligent design to explain various phenomena that exist in nature – regardless of if the intelligent agent is God or your wife or some alien from Zorg.
The loaves of bread that Jesus made by Divine power were the obvious result of intelligent design. They looked like regular loaves of bread that your wife might make. No one could tell the difference by looking at them if they were placed side-by-side. Yet, one loaf would have been made by God and the other by your wife. The fact is that God can make what humans can make. What would be obvious, however, is that both loaves of bread required intelligence to produce. In other words, they weren’t the product of mindless process of nature or natural laws that had no access to deliberate intelligence.
In short, just because your wife’s intelligence is “natural” doesn’t mean that all natural processes have access to intelligence or that every natural phenomena requires intelligence to explain beyond the basic non-intelligent laws of nature.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
So, you think that if God is directly responsible for the death of anyone that He is therefore the direct cause of all sickness, disease, death, and destruction? Every natural disaster is God’s doing? – a miracle of Divine design and creative power?
Do you not see the difference between the miracle of something like Lazarus being raised from the dead and a tornado wiping out an entire town the other day in the Midwest?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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