Yes many people suffered and died, though overall a LOT fewer than could have been the case. And the mercy stories I've heard are, yes, those of just a few by comparison, but they include providential events that kept them away from the disaster, and events that helped them escape, including a woman who is sure it was an angel who held open a door for her as she was escaping from the tower. I don't know how God makes such decisions, but I'm happy to hear such stories. Usually the people then get involved in helping others.
Somehow missed this, confused it with your signature I think.
An argument is often made that if God foreknows an individuals or nations destiny before the judgement than that makes God responsible for evil as well as good. I was taught that God is good. jar always maintained that God was complete and had both good and evil tendencies as written...though jar believed that humans made up God as they understood Him. You start with the presupposition that the Bible perfectly describes God. If so, and if you believe God reveals Himself to those who seek Him, what do you think He expects modern people to do? Is the US any better than her enemies?
God is good and we make a mistake applying our standards to Him.
1 John 1:5:
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Repent and believe is what Jesus tells us to do.
The US used to be the best nation on earth because of our strong Christian heritage. That is no longer the case and we are doing things that deserve God's judgment..
Ninevah evidently knew enough about God to choose to repent. Did all of the heathen nations have similar knowledge?
That's an interesting question and I don't know. The Old Testament describes incidents where the heathen nations. or at least individuals from those nations, came to learn that Israel's God is the Creator God as opposed to all the lesser tribal gods they were familiar with. Rahab tells the spies from Israel that all Jericho is quaking from fear of them because they know what God has done for them.
There were already prophets and holy men of the true God among the heathen though. Balaam was one. Job was one. Melchizedek who met Abraham was a "priest of the most high God," so there was apparently a range of knowledge among the peoples.
And again...does God foreknow who will choose Him and who won't?
I'm a Calvinist, Phat, I believe God does the choosing and doesn't merely "foreknow" things but predestines them.
Lewis was an introduction to the overall Christian outline when I was still brand-new to the faith, in fact probably not yet really a believer. As time went on I began to realize doctrinal issues I had with Lewis. I ended up fondest of some of his other books, the more philosophical ones. Not remembering titles unfortunately, and I suppose I might have some objections to some of those now too.
I didn't know he went that far into rejecting the historicity of the entire Bible though, some things just went over my head in those early days. It's interesting that I remember a good job he did arguing with the modern scholars who call the whole thing myth, so it's surprising to find out how much of that he accepted. But now of course I completely disagree with him. there is no myth in the Bible, it's all historical.
Progressive revelation simply means that more and more knowledge of God and His plan of redemption unfolds as the Bible follows the historical events from the beginning to the present. It does not imply that it moves from myth to truth.
In order to say you don't hate the God of the OT you must have to deny that He had those tribes killed. If you acknowledge that He did it then you hate Him.
You are always talking about Jesus' "message." To me it is Jesus Himself who is what it is all about.
Progressive revelation simply means that more and more knowledge of God and His plan of redemption unfolds as the Bible follows the historical events from the beginning to the present. It does not imply that it moves from myth to truth.
The point is though that it was an inspired myth and it doesn't have to be historically true for to find truth in it. It is similar to a metaphor that way. As Lewis it is : "at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination"
Early in my trek to Christianity I thought of Adam and Eve as such a myth, an educational tale of some sort, though now I couldn't tell you what sort of "education" we might get from any such tale. Jesus treats all the Old Testament as simple truthful fact and that's the bottom line for me. We make some of it into myth because we think it too outlandish, the talking serpent, Jonah in the belly of a great fish and so on, but really all we are doing is denying that God has the power to do such things. As for Adam and Eve they don't fit with evolution. I'm not jettisoning what the Bible says for a fanciful theory that I've seen to be false.
"Finding truth in it" isn't really the point. The main problem with mythifying the Bible, Genesis in particular, is that the truth of Genesis is essential to the meaning of salvation, which is foundational to the restoration of the entire Creation. If there was no Fall then there was no Flood and no need for a Savior. No tale is going to provide a foundation for a real salvation from sin, a real crucifixion, a real resurrection, a real ascension, a real restoration of a real fallen Creation.
I suppose Jonah's sojourn in the belly of the fish isn't equally defensible, or the talking serpent either, but there's also no good reason to reject them if God be God.
I think it's pretty standard understanding of the sovereignty of God. Nothing happens without Him. We'll never understand why in most cases but in this case at least it has to be judgment on the nation. I know unbelievers have a hard time with this sort of thing, and a lot of believers do too, but just because He is in charge doesn't let the human perpetrators off the hook, their evil religion is still the reason they did it and they certainly don't know the true God.
Yes, well it's hard to get it said clearly and you aren't in any way disposed to make sense of it to begin with. But first you have to try not to think of God as a human being. God is omnipresent for one thing, everywhere at once, there is no place where He isn't, He's not remote from us in any sense, so He is present in every situation. There is no way He could NOT be in charge of the events of 9/11. But that doesn't negate how things happen in our own human sphere. People commit crimes and are guilty of the crimes.
Psalm 139:7-8 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. {"evil" in the sense of calamity or catastrophe like 9/11}
Amos 3:6 ... shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Faith says God is in everything that happens and that He can not act unjustly.
Psalm 139:7-8 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. {"evil" in the sense of calamity or catastrophe like 9/11}
Amos 3:6 ... shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
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