It's been a while since someone has challenged God in this community, but I don't have much to offer in that respect, so I'll continue in the way it's been going until someone does otherwise
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Given that, according to the mainstream tenets of the Christian faith:
God created humans, flaws, doubts and all God demands faithful obedience from humans God has decreed that those who don't believe will be tormented for all eternity
Therefore it seems to me he has a moral obligation to lay the facts on the table, and conclusively prove himself. Otherwise we can only assume he created humans as they are in order to torment them for all eternity. And if you are going to plead free will, then I counter that forcing an uninformed choice on a being predisposed to seek proof is essentially no choice at all.
Well, first off, that is, I think, a rather different question than the one you first posted. You asked why the Christian God, if some being did exist under those parameters, should prove his existence to me
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Well, first off, that is, I think, a rather different question than the one you first posted. You asked why the Christian God, if some being did exist under those parameters, should prove his existence to me.
I asked specifically as a follow-up to the statement that, should the Christian God prove His existence, the reader would not serve or worship Him. In your case, I took your actual response to one of my original posts. So that is exactly what I'm asking.
Yeah, pretty much what you said.
So - assuming the Christian God exists - it would serve no real purpose to prove it to you.
Going on a bit of a tangent but...iohanneAugust 20 2010, 03:28:54 UTC
Your first point concerning the tenets of the Christian faith clearly indicates that you misunderstand the idea of the Fall.
The other two points indicate that you seem to hold an incomplete idea concerning the nature of God as the source of all goodness and the implications in His relations with humanity.
Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...raven_moonAugust 20 2010, 03:48:31 UTC
Actually, no, I don't. The Fall is the result of free will, something which God allowed his creations to possess and exercise. Furthermore, by choosing to not correct the doubt/sin/free will 'glitch' after the fall, he did, if you hold that he allows persons to be born (in the womb I knew you, et. al.) even of only by omission, allow man to be born with doubts, flaws, etc. (all resulting from the faculty of free will, which God did actively give man) intact.
If you are referring, vis a vis my 2nd & 3rd points to a Thomistic idea of God as the source of good (esse), and evil as merely the lack of or distance from that good, OK, sure. The point still hold, however. The fact remains, there is a choice (call it good/evil, worship/reject, or whatever terms you prefer). The results of this choice are, for the reasons stated above, predisposed to fail to yield the desired result. This failure is due (largely, if not exclusively) to a lack of certainty and clarity about the desired result. That lack of certainty exists because he is either
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Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...anti_nietzscheAugust 21 2010, 14:21:53 UTC
That depends which variant of christianity you believe in. I am a proponent of Universal Reconciliation, for example. In my book hell is pretty much reduced to a purgatory, and that in the end anyone will be saved, including the devil. And if you call this situation to be due to God's grace and love for us, then it is acceptable and good, there doesn't need to be rebellion and we can learn, like Apostle Paul, that grace is sufficient. I guess what you are peeved at is the idea of judgment and damnation. But if you keep in mind the temporal nature of purgatory then not even damnation to purgatory is really so bad. I got a whiff of purgatory when my dad died last week, and it was actually pleasing - though this has to do with if we will have to regret a lot or just a little from our life on Earth. A Hitler suffers immensely in purgatory when the scales are removed from his eyes and he has nothing in his memories of life which could soothe him in the face of his manifold, satanic sins. But again, in the system of Universal Reconciliation
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Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...raven_moonAugust 21 2010, 14:48:29 UTC
That depends which variant of christianity you believe in. I am a proponent of Universal Reconciliation, for example. In my book hell is pretty much reduced to a purgatory, and that in the end anyone will be saved, including the devil.
Well that's lovely. However, particularly vis a vis the discussion at hand, we really can't call that mainstream. Naturally there are variants among followers of any ideology; however in discussion, one must arrive at a baseline of what is generally the case, otherwise there is nothing to discuss.
While I appreciate the value of your approach as a more enlightened adaptation of Christian theology, bringing it up in this context seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur.
Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...anti_nietzscheAugust 22 2010, 04:57:24 UTC
Well according to my studies, when christianity started out UR was mainstream belief, around 70% of christians believed it. Church fathers like the famous Origen believed it. There were 6 major christian centers in the ancient world ... 1 believed in Eternal Torment, 1 believed in annihilation of the wicked, the other 4 all believed in UR.
Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...raven_moonAugust 22 2010, 15:38:19 UTC
Something went wrong in history.
...I agree with that statement on SO many, many levels....
And yes, "Christianity" didn't begin at all like it is now. I get into all manner of discussions about early belief and practice, from Paul onwards. Most folks cannot handle the fact that modern Christianity is largely a product of the papacy of the middle ages. They see the 'dominant' form of Christian doctrine today, and somehow reverse engineer it back to being the way 'it's always been.'
Re: Going on a bit of a tangent but...raven_moonAugust 22 2010, 16:36:26 UTC
True, they did. As much as they hated the papacy though, the Lateran councils in the 10th-13C really cemented a lot of what was to be official doctrine. Not to mention the development of canon law that came from the rediscovery of Justinian's Codex Iuris Civilis, which, in addition to forming the basis for canon law, also lent a good deal of structure to the doctrinal canon. It is true, however, that a lot of the core theology of it came from Augustine and the Patristics, together with early medieval scholastics and reformers like Bernard, Anselm, and Abelard, filtered through the later 'high' scholastics and the Lateran & Papal decretals.
Nevertheless, it's certainly been a work in progress for most of it's life, something I wish more people recognized. It becomes a lot harder to defend X bit of theology as somehow inviolable when you can trace its origin in the context of its historical setting....
God created humans, flaws, doubts and all
God demands faithful obedience from humans
God has decreed that those who don't believe will be tormented for all eternity
Therefore it seems to me he has a moral obligation to lay the facts on the table, and conclusively prove himself. Otherwise we can only assume he created humans as they are in order to torment them for all eternity. And if you are going to plead free will, then I counter that forcing an uninformed choice on a being predisposed to seek proof is essentially no choice at all.
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You turn around say, "Jesus, you're a ponce. And 'Father'? A right git."
What's the difference?
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I asked specifically as a follow-up to the statement that, should the Christian God prove His existence, the reader would not serve or worship Him. In your case, I took your actual response to one of my original posts. So that is exactly what I'm asking.
Yeah, pretty much what you said.
So - assuming the Christian God exists - it would serve no real purpose to prove it to you.
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The other two points indicate that you seem to hold an incomplete idea concerning the nature of God as the source of all goodness and the implications in His relations with humanity.
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If you are referring, vis a vis my 2nd & 3rd points to a Thomistic idea of God as the source of good (esse), and evil as merely the lack of or distance from that good, OK, sure. The point still hold, however. The fact remains, there is a choice (call it good/evil, worship/reject, or whatever terms you prefer). The results of this choice are, for the reasons stated above, predisposed to fail to yield the desired result. This failure is due (largely, if not exclusively) to a lack of certainty and clarity about the desired result. That lack of certainty exists because he is either ( ... )
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Well that's lovely. However, particularly vis a vis the discussion at hand, we really can't call that mainstream. Naturally there are variants among followers of any ideology; however in discussion, one must arrive at a baseline of what is generally the case, otherwise there is nothing to discuss.
While I appreciate the value of your approach as a more enlightened adaptation of Christian theology, bringing it up in this context seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur.
(edited for tag fail)
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Something went wrong in history.
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...I agree with that statement on SO many, many levels....
And yes, "Christianity" didn't begin at all like it is now. I get into all manner of discussions about early belief and practice, from Paul onwards. Most folks cannot handle the fact that modern Christianity is largely a product of the papacy of the middle ages. They see the 'dominant' form of Christian doctrine today, and somehow reverse engineer it back to being the way 'it's always been.'
*le sigh*
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Nevertheless, it's certainly been a work in progress for most of it's life, something I wish more people recognized. It becomes a lot harder to defend X bit of theology as somehow inviolable when you can trace its origin in the context of its historical setting....
Reply
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