Theo1689
Well-known member
Where does the Bible allegedly teach that “God us a maximally loving being”?
The Mercy of the Lord Endureth Forever - Except for the Billions Burning in Hell for Eternity.
- Thread starter High Premise
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Where does the Bible allegedly teach that “God us a maximally loving being”?
"I did not say God was arbitrary." I didn't either. A better approach on your part would be to deal with what I actually communicate, rather than a straw man. I quoted Timket very carefully, and I responded to the poster's point. Please don't resort to caricatures. I was addressing the poster's point found in the following quote, "picks who to save arbitrarily." Again, please deal with what I actually write, not what you can misrepresent. Are you Timket or not? If you are not, then I was not responding to you.
"Read more carefully." In light of the above, you need to follow your own advice more closely.
"you say arbitrary so as to be condescending of God" I was quoting Timeket's words and responding to them. That poster is the one who originated the word "arbitrarily." See my quotation of the poster above, in green font. Hence, if anyone is being condescending of God, then it would be that poster. My argument is that the poster's description was both a caricature and a non-sequitur fallacy of unconditional election.
Again, I was responding to Timket. I was not responding to you, armylngst. I hope that this post clears up the confusion.
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Two questions, again:
(1) Could any theology based off the Bible, other than universalism, claim to be "maximally loving"?
(2) Where in the Bible are you getting the standard of evaluation, "maximally loving"?
-Please note that the statement, "God is love," is not the same thing as saying "God is maximally loving."
GeneZ
Well-known member
Its too deep for you to swim? Need to keep it shallow and superficial for you?
Your God sounds INSANE and unreasonably cruel. So, He creates a creature with no will that God wants to torture forever? Does it say He "created" them for punishment? The potter on the wheel is making them make up their minds. Not making their minds.
I know this argument has been raging for years. So, you stay in the shallow water. Don't worry. You will not have to learn to swim and think with depth with the Word of God. It gets too deep and you fear you may drown. Those who want to save their life will lose their life. But, if we lose our life for his sake, we will save it. Transformation in one's thinking requires dying to one's own way of reasoning. His ways are not our ways. And, God is also not dumb and cruel.
I explained how God can created men and angels as he did, and still leave their volition to be their own.
You? That's off the deep end. God just wants to torture souls? You know how dumb that sounds? Its not faith. Its dumb. Its not being faithful. Its being religiously deceived. Demons laugh at those who remain steadfast in such reasoning.
Take a look again, please...
A mystery was exposed and revealed about the Son of God in the Incarnation.
The Son has two natures. One is humanity. The other nature is Deity.
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:6-8 reveals that the Son took his human nature, and denied Himself to his right to simultaneously be manifested as God.
In doing so? He made himself to be as a man!
As a man? He was not omniscient.
That tells us something essential in understanding how God could create us without interfering with our free will.
Because, all things created were created through Him! While denying Himself to his right to omniscience, as the Soul of the Son... all things were created! Each soul he created with only one thing in mind. To have an enormous capacity to recognize and love God.
But? Each soul was to be created with its own volition. While creating each soul the Lord in his chosen state of mind, could not know who would reject him.
That is why each soul is to be held accountable before God! For no soul was created to chose for, or against, knowing God.
"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through him and for him." Colossians 1:16
Ultimately, all three of the Trinity were involved with the final way the creation came out.. But, without the Soul of God righteously working in His glory, in His magnificent unlimited genius to create? The other two of the Trinity would have nothing to create!
Create with no predetermined outcome in mind at the point of its initial creation in the Mind of the Lord. The Lord who volunteered to make himself to be as a man in his ability to not be omniscient!
Mysteries are given to us to be solved. Solved by God's grace in God's timing.
grace and peace........
Our Lord's God
Well-known member
God did not predestine these sin events?
They actually had the option not to commit these sins?
GeneZ
Well-known member
He predestined ("the wheel of the potter") testings that we all must face. It either builds character, or causes a person to choose to make evil choices.
God does not predestine sin. If He predestined sin we would all sin with the same test. The fact that some choose to not resist sinning where we resist means that a person's choice is involved.
What does God do when knowing someone will sin? Its to allow for what will be? To be what it will be. That is called a "decree" of God. Its not God making us to sin. Its God making us aware that we are sinners by nature.
In order to better understand what Jesus needed to die for, God must have us come to a point of knowing why His death was necessary. By God allowing us all to commit certain sins? Its God's way of telling us, and clarifying for us, that the Cross was essential and central to God redeeming mankind.
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However it states that God hated Esau from before he was born. In fact, later in prophecy it comes out that the reason Edom was devastated in the end is because they were descendants of Esau. Yes Esau despised his brithright, which is that he was Isaac's firstborn. It was his until he despised it.
Can you share any comment where I say he didn't have one because it was denied him from birth? (And not because he had given it away to Jacob?)
I don't have any comments in that thread. Not sure why you included it.
There is but one verse that points towards this, and in context it appears to be saying something else: 2 Peter 3 "
8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening[b] the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! 13 But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells."
Peter's audience are believers and people in the church. So one has to understand the "you" in light of that. It is not that God is forebearing towards the world, but is forebearing to the church, to the elect. Why is He forebearing to the elect? "Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." So He desires that none of the elect should perish, but that all the elect should reach repentance [before the day of the Lord]. Understand, I had not read 2 Peter in a long time, and I was reading it and the only thought I had was I didn't remember the rest of the verse, or the context surrounding the verse.
To be honest, previously I used the verse to hold to the distinction in God between Him desiring all be saved, and Him determining that many will not be saved. There is a dissonance there between the two. Can you reconcile the difference between your statement, and the stark contrast between desire and determine, to desire all to be saved, yet determine that many will not be?
That was not what I was saying. God hated Esau. It doesn't say He made Esau not believe. I don't see any connection between those two things. It isn't that God would not make Esau not believe, but that God would not accept Esau. In Hebrews it says that Esau could not find a place of repentance, even though he sought it with tears. Take that as you may, but Esau is responsible for all that he did.
GeneZ
Well-known member
That is correct. Esau was responsible for all he did. Just like we now read in Revelations about all the evil things men will do. For God already knows their choices.
If God did not know these things? On the Cross the entire sins of the whole world could not have been imputed to Jesus! For God had to know back then every sin you would commit in your lifetime 2000 years later!
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path."
Another verse in Proverbs. Also it says "establishes" a mans steps. The nuance is different than what you are saying.
"
The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps."
Have you considered understanding that this could be situations in life that ultimately shape what people do? [I am not talking about where those situations come from]. You determine to go to the beach on Friday, but a major thunderstorm comes through so you can't/don't go. Perhaps that keeps you from a car accident on the way to the beach? Perhaps God really wanted to water His plants, and go bowling at the same time. [Somehow I doubt that.]
If you mean that I am not hard core into determination/fatalism, you're right. However, you may be surprised to know just how much I am into the totality of the Sovereignty of God. For instance, I know someone who went apostate, and it is my full belief that there is absolutely no hope for them, because of what God said in Hebrews. They are done. God has shut them down. Can you say you believe something like that, that you believe in such totality of the Sovereignty of God over a man?
I think I got confused from another thread. Not sure what happened there. I was jumping from thread to thread, and may have already been dealing with this situation and saw your post. I had already been in a couple arguments about "arbitrary".
You don't have to tell me, I believe God chose everyone who would be saved before the foundation of the world. He would have to know like, everyone who ever lived before the world was even formed, in order to do that.
GeneZ
Well-known member
Do you mean he chooses who will be saved? Or, what will be granted when they believe, and chooses when they are to be born accordingly? That way, some are Bride of Christ, and others Old testament saints?
Manfred
Well-known member
And you think God cannot, yet chooses not too.
Take the log from your eye.
Manfred
Well-known member
Humble much?
Why would the other poster fear anything but God?
Manfred
Well-known member
You accuse Paul of being demon possessed?
So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Does that say God just wants to torture souls or is "God just want's to torture souls" your Strawman or Scarecrow as ReverendRV says.
Why do you inflate what is not there? What emotions are you trying to elicit?
You are merely being dishonest, and drowning in in the fear that God is just even in raising up Pharaoh, Judas, Pilate, and the Sanhedrin.
If you are lead by the Spirit of God you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh.
If you walk in your free will choice desires, you cannot please God.
Manfred
Well-known member
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Their only option is to sin. Even if they were to love their grand-babies, and rock them on their knees, that does not count as righteousness before God.
Show me the man in the flesh that pleases God....
brightfame52
Well-known member
You need to be careful what you say about the True God friend.
brightfame52
Well-known member
I said my witness sir on the Sovereignty of God in directing a mans steps. That encompasses more than you realize, for to do that [direct a persons steps] God is in control and determines what they think, will, and desire, a persons emotions, and intellect are being guided by the decree of God. Mans heart is turned, directed by God, even the greatest of men Prov 21:1
The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.
Notice the word heart here, its the hebrew lēḇ:
inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding
- inner part, midst
- midst (of things)
- heart (of man)
- soul, heart (of man)
- mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory
- inclination, resolution, determination (of will)
- conscience
All these things are in the hand of the Lord and He directs them. May God give you understanding friend.