Comment on Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull by Ron.
Sean Pitman: 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.
See, here is a good example of how fear clouds the discussion and makes it almost impossible to arrive at truth.
I did not say that God causes all events in His universe to happen. That is your misunderstanding of what I am saying.
I think it is your fear that if you open your mind, and look at things from a different perspective, that Satan might get in and corrupt your thinking like He did Eve’s and cause you to be lost, that keeps you from seeing.
The issue of God’s will is actually a pretty simple point. It mostly a matter of perspective. If we can somehow get over or around the barriers, I don’t think we actually disagree that much.
Having said that, perspective is important. Sometimes taking a new perspective will help you see relationships and truths in a new more comprehensive way. It isn’t that the new perspective contradicts or destroys the old perspective, its just new, and it complements and enhances the old perspective. That is what I think is going on here. I am trying to express the same truth from a different perspective, and some people find it a little scary, because they are afraid of God. They are afraid, that if they somehow misunderstand, or allow an error crepe in, that they will be outside of God’s will and lost forever.
I am saying, that you don’t have to be afraid of that. That God can handle it if you screw up. He won’t abandon you or leave you without light and understanding. If you are wrong, He will draw even closer to to you than He was before, and reveal even more truth to you, just as he did Satan, and Adam, and Eve.
Sean Pitman: There is good reason to be fearful of rebelling against God.
I agree. Rebellion has serious consequences. But not all rebellion is incurable, otherwise Christ’s sacrifice would have no point. Sometimes, as in the case of Adam and Eve, rebellion is only the result of ignorance and fear which has a remedy in Christ.
Sometimes rebellion is the result of determined resistance in the full light of complete knowledge as in the case of Satan, in which case there is no remedy. This is an important distinction.
“You’ve got to be kiddin me!”
Nope, I am not kidding you. I am dead serious. That is the way I understand the scripture. It appears simple and straight forward to me.
“it is not true that sin is therefore “Ok” or that God wills us to keep on sinning”
Here it is again. I think it is your fear that makes you interpret the work “OK” as you have. I did not use the term “OK” to in anyway imply that it was OK to continue sinning. Of course God’s plan to deal with sin requires education and repentance. The point is though that even though you sin through ignorance, or just human frailty, you are STILL within the plan of God, because God has made a way for you to be reconciled. You are still “OK” in the sense that God hasn’t abandoned you. You have not exhausted God’s patience, resources or creativity in dealing with you. You haven’t committed an unpardonable sin, you have not yet reached the same place that Satan arrived at after determined rebellion. (And I think it does take determined rebellion to be lost. I don’t think God allows people to be lost casually.)
I think it is this fear that is the root of the problem. It is fear that makes “you” (I am using the generic you now, including the church at large) react the way you do to the teachers at LSU, and the fearful response, censoring teacher’s, creates in the system even more fear, which only exacerbates the problem.
Again, what appears to be an appropriate solution from a narrow perspective can create larger problems from a larger perspective. Perspective is important.
Table of Contents
Ron Also Commented
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Sean Pitman:
Can you think of any metafore for God in the Bible where God would not in some way be responsible for our actions? The ones that come to mind for me are: sovereign, Lord, father, shepherd, a male lover. In all of these metafores God is responsible for either instigating the relationship as in the Song of Songs, or being an advocate, protector, or supervisor. I can’t think of anywhere in the Bible where God denies responsibility. I can think of lots of places where he claims responsibility and oundard explanation is, “Oh, he didn’t really mean that, He really just allowed some one else to do it,” Satan, Pharaoh, evil king etc.
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Sean Pitman:
I think what you say could only be true if God were not a loving God.
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Sean Pitman:
“I’m not sure how many more times I have to explain this concept to you? Natural laws, created by God, work independent of God’s need for direct deliberate action.”
Sean, where do you get this idea that there is a natural law apart from God’s action? I don’t see that being taught in the Bible anywhere.
Recent Comments by Ron
La Sierra University Looking for New Biology Professor
Wesley, Please forgive me if I don’t follow what seems to me to be very tortured logic.
Truth is truth regardless of whether you believe it or not. In fact I once heard someone define reality as that which remains after you no longer believe in it.
I think you go astray in your logic when you assert that coercing belief in truth makes it no longer true. Coercion does not alter what is true, it just makes it impossible to independently verify truth. That in turn leaves us very vulnerable to the risk of deception.
For me, I would much rather take the risk of questioning and doubting truth, than the risk of believing in presumably true dogma because I believe truth will stand the test, whereas if I fail to question the truth because it has become dogma, I run the risk of unwittingly believing in the error of a well meaning clergy with no mechanism to identify the error. It is the intellectual equivalent of committing the unpardonable sin because there is no remedy.
Questioning truth has a remedy. Believing in a false dogma doesn’t. Turning truth into a true dogma doesn’t accomplish anything other than to increase the risk.
To quote Christ, “You study the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life”. It is possible that the Bible isn’t saying exactly what you think it is. The only way to know the truth of it is through questioning. Coercion prevents the questioning.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen:
Bill, Science is only a formalized extension of your own logic and senses. If your own senses and logic are not at least equal to the Bible, then ultimately you have no way of knowing what is truth. See my comment to Kent below.
“they will see that their scientific reasoning can never bring them to a correct understanding of origins.” — This seems to me to be an unfounded assertion. Why do you believe such a thing? If this were true, your proverbial rocket would never be able to find it’s way back to earth.
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Bill Sorensen: Many will stand in our pulpits with the torch of false prophecy in their hands, kindled from the hellish torch of Satan
Bill, It is Satan who is the “accuser of the brethren”. You might want to re-read your post with that in mind.
Bill Sorensen: And so they point out how “loving and tolerant” Jesus was, and refuse to acknowledge His direct challenge to the false doctrine and theology the religious leaders taught in His day.
Hmm . . . The only time I recall Jesus challenging doctrine, is when he explicitly contradicted the clear teaching of the Bible on how to observe the Sabbath. (Something to think about.)
The only time he really got angry was when the people were being robbed in the temple, when they were plotting his murder, and when they were condemning sinners.
I see the spirit of Jesus as being in direct opposition to the spirit of conservativism.
An apology to PUC
“If the goal of the course is “to prepare future pastors for dilemmas they may face in ministry while strengthening the students’ faith in the Adventist Church and its core beliefs,” we would think that there would be evidence within the lecture to demonstrate this was actually happening.”
The course did exactly what it was advertised to do. The fact is that the pastors are going to have to meet the scientific evidence as it stands. Dr. Ness nor any other biology professor can give evidence for our belief in a short creation and a world wide flood because there is no evidence.
If there is evidence we could stop with the polemics and discuss the evidence.
Creeds and Fundamental Beliefs
BobRyan: Is it your claim that if we reject atheism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Mormonism, etc and insist that our own voted body of doctrines be promoted “instead” that we have a “creed”?
Bob, The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that we should not reject Catholicism, Hinduism, Mormonism or any other “ism” out right. Certainly not on the basis of an extra-Biblical creed, but we should always listen to everyone with courtesy and respect remembering that Jesus was the light that lights “every man” who comes into the world, and Jesus has sheep who are “not of this fold”. So we should approach every “ism” with an open mind to find the truth that Jesus has especially revealed to the that community. We don’t have to accept everything they say, and we certainly don’t have to give up what we believe without reason, but we need to be open to what God might be trying to teach us through his other children. Light shines in both directions.
