Katrina: God meant it for good

[made_alive]

God is so merciful to spare us in Katrina so that we might know a smigget of His infinate glory. piper was the first person i really heard tell me that God does not cause suffering without design. so i hope you guys will read this. There is no injustice with God, and even in all this He is loving and worthy of the magnification of His glory that is

Comments

[essius]

I'm not so sure God meant 'it' for anything. I think Piper and everyone else who thinks that God has some special intrinsic purpose for every event needs to read this. Let's not be superstitious. : )

[made_alive]

"For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off."-isaiah 48:9

of course theres a special intrinsic purpose for all things, and the purpose for all things is His glory. for Gods glory He pours out His wrath and for His glory He has mercy on us and restrains His wrath.

it isnt superstion to recognize Gods hand in all things even disaster, it is a biblical response.

"If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?"-amos 3:6

now heres the key to your post. you say So to say that a world is ‘the best possible’ is to say something trivial.i believe that the world is in the state that it is because God willingly subjected us to futility in HOPE of one day freeing us from this day of corruption. i believe the world is how it is because of how glorious it will be once we are set free from corruption. and that is why i say God means Katrina for good because His glory is revealed. it is revealed in this

[essius]

"For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off."-isaiah 48:9

This verse is not germane to my claim. What purpose is there in citing it?

of course theres a special intrinsic purpose for all things, and the purpose for all things is His glory. for Gods glory He pours out His wrath and for His glory He has mercy on us and restrains His wrath.

God could be glorified in infinitely many ways, so giving a general purpose to all existence doesn't nail down the specific purpose for one thing being the case and not the other. Furthermore, not everything is intrinsically valuable. What intrinsic value does Satan have? None that I can tell. All his value is instrumental. Also, there may be events that God does not will as instrumentally valuable in themselves, but which are nevertheless an inevitable byproduct of something else that serves as a means to an end.

it isnt superstion to recognize Gods hand in all things even disaster, it is a biblical response.Yes, but

[made_alive]

hmm. either im not smart or that didnt make sense, im willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. my only point in citing that scripture ["For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off."-isaiah 48:9 ] was to say that there is purpose in katrina.

For His names sake. This is not a piper thing. scripture declares it. that the true reason behind disaster is that we would look to God realizing that He is worthy of the glory that His actions bring Him.

"For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another."-isaiah 48:11

im not saying katrinas purpose is that New Orleans is being judged for there peoples actions, i am saying that we as in the human race are enslaved to corruption and while God does not find pleasure in the death of any, He acts for His own names sake, for the sake of His glory being revealed.

[essius]

there is purpose in katrina.

But this isn't clearly the case. Not everything that happens has purpose. Let me use a human analogy. I create a fridge to keep my apples cool. I use certain matter, give it a certain form, and design it according to my purpose for it. But there are certain things that are not specified in the design plan that are nevertheless a function of the way it is designed. E.g., it serves as an excellent paper weight, though that is not its purpose. It will kill a person if it falls on them, though I didn't create it with that purpose in mind. Etc

[amywayme]

no offense on your post or anything, but without me reading it can you give me at least one scripture that would support random events occuring in the universe for no reason whatsoever.

[essius]

Why would I want to do that? I never denied that things happen for a reason. Just that everything is intrinsically valuable to God. It may be that everything is somewhere on a chain of instrumental causes that lead to an intrinsic good, while not being intrinsically valuable in themselves.

But if you want the details, you'll have to read. : P

[made_alive]

steven why do you keep saying "intrinsically valuable"?

do you believe that because God did it, it must be the necessary means for His glory to be revealed?

i believe the end of all things is the praise of His glory and disasters are a means to that end. do we agree? if so i would think that we could both say that God means it for good, because it is the means to what is most valuable to God.

come on, we agree right???

[essius]

Why does anyone stick to using a special term to describe a fairly common concept? Because it is conducive to having dialogue, that's why