Is Christ cruel? (For member Schrafinator)

Whilst I disagree, in some elements, to the OP, there is a valid objection to the God created schraf specifically to sin argument. God created Schraf with freewill and all the tools at her disposal to accept Christ as her saviour.Her choice is to deny Christ. God clearly did not create her specifically to deny Christ...in fact, God only created Adam and Eve, from the original sin onwards, man was on his own. God did not specifically create Schraf, however He did send His only begotten Son to die for her sins. Schraf can either accept this, or deny this.The true argument is that God created Adam and Eve - should He have known that they were fallible and able to be so easily tempted by the Serpent? Or perhaps God created humanity for His own evolutionary ends. Only the worthy souls survive, the rest are selected for and burned.This message has been edited by Modulous, Wed, 01-June-2005 09:01 PM

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Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

This is, of course, free will versus predeterminism. If God is all powerful then He is capable of creating something which acts independently of Him, with its own free will. If He does create the souls, and it is the souls that make the decision, then He must create the souls with the capability to accept Him, and to accept Christ. He also creates souls with the ability to choose to either heed to the words of the temptor (with prior knowledge the existence of the temptor) or to ignore the words of the serpent and to re-embrace the Lord and come back to the flock.It is argued that Schraf has chosen, of her own free will, to st(r)ay out of the flock and heed the words of the subtle one.

How is that? That God is cruel for giving us the choice to damn ourselves? Would it not be better put that God is merciful to give us the choice to save ourselves? Having the free choice to accept the Word and deeds of Christ or listen to the serpent isn't free will? You'll have to show me how this isn't consistent. The Lord says "Come back to the flock, you will be forgiven, guaranteed", man says "No, you are a figment of the imagination you apparantly provided me". Man is given a choice, this man chooses to stay in sin.

And the contrary point is that if you have been exposed to the Gospel, you have the choice. Easily done. I have believed that for 10 years now, another little while should be a doddle That's the issue though. The argument is that you had a choice to accept Christ or not. You chose not to. Not because you wanted to choose not to, but because you rationalised and did not accept faith as applicable and so on. Which, it is argued, is the fallout from the Fall. Someone at some point said, here is the Gospel, the great sky God sent Himself down (as His son) to earth, healed a load of sick people, upset the authorities, and got executed...for your sins. If you are anything like me, you looked at that and went...sure, ok, whatever you say bub...before backing away slowly. You believe that no choice is involved, but that is not what is being said. You have been given a choice, whether it was concsious or otherwise. You were presented with the Gospel, and you chose not to accept it (due to its perceived inconsistencies etc).Think of Job, he started off believing and was given a sequence of very compelling reasons to not believe...despite these totally valid reasons he kept his faith. It can be viewed the same way here - you are being tested by the adversary who has used some inconsistenies in the writings of man to blind you to the Truth of God. Not my claim, Christian's claim The answer is straightforward. Faith. Unsatisfactory answer? Get used to it, you are dealing with the realms of theology here. Trying to use logic in the realms of mythos is absurd, there is a thread about it.

You aren't saving yourself from a who but from a what. Sin. The ability isn't flawed. He gave use the ability to choose. We excercise that ability fully. The ability of choice functions perfectly. We were both given the same ability. However we chose different paths. I have the ability to choose heads or tails. So do you. We can choose differently, yet the ability remains the same. Not to labour the point here, but no. Both of us made a choice, that is what the ability granted us to do...the ability was working fine. Certainly. God gave you the ability to make a choice. He gave you the tools necessary to make that choice (Gospel). The adversary attempted to subvert you from the Word, and keep you in a state of falleness. You heeded the adversary's word. We are all born fallen, we are all born to sin, we are all born with judgement looming over us. God, in His mercy has given us Christ, and the Gospel so that we might reject the adversary's sibilant, seductive whispers. If we don't, that is not God's fault, he gave you tools for salvation you chose not to use them.Let me reiterate. You were born to sin. Adam and Eve's actions condemned you to hell far more than God's did. God, in His mercy, decided that he didn't want everyone to HAVE to pay for original sin, so he sent his only begotten son to die to cleanse the sin from the world. Now you have been given the Way to overcome original sin, to overcome the legacy you have inhereted. God has shown you the Way, it is up to you to follow it, or stay right were you are. He isn't condemning you to hell, He is trying to save you from it. He can't force you along the path to salvation, you have to take it yourself.This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 02-June-2005 03:49 PM --- Adversary is a singular with a possesive, what drove me to use ies rather than 's is beyond me, but I did it every time. This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 02-June-2005 04:05 PM

I clipped, because I dealt with your question later on down. I did enough point labouring Obviously you can't avoid sin...you are the descendent of sinners (heh inheritance, does that mean salvation is a selection procedure, and Jesus was the random mutation? Hmm, that way madness lies). Anyway, so yeah, Adam/Eve gave mankind the knowledge of good and evil. So here we are...in a whole heap of crap because of it. God decided to help us out of the mess and did the whole Jesus saga. As I said, I already answered your question, that is why the answer was 'obvious'. You already knew how I was going to answer it because I had already answered it. A God that tries to help us dig our way out of the pit of sin we dug for ourselves by sending his only son to die for us? Pretty merciful (he could just flood the world and try again instead), and is thus loving, he is attempting to lead his flock back to paradise where it was once cast out. It isn't the decision that is important, it is the ability to make a decision. In both instances a decision is made. Therefore the ability to make a decision exists and functions perfectly regardless of the actual decision made. Hypothetically you're on the right track. I actually chose the same as you, but that's not really the point is it? So in this situation you were given the same choice I was. You gave in to temptation, whereas I didn't. You obviously made the same mistake Adam/Eve did so you don't get to go back to paradise. You did not learn. On the other hand, I learned from the mistake that Adam/Eve made and made the right choice. What gave me this ability to learn from Adam's mistake? We both have the ability, you decided to not employ it.Why did you not employ it? Because...well obviously we can go around and around on this all day. The crux is, what makes this decision, our soul or our brain. Naturally if it is our brain, then those with certain brain structures are out of luck. If it is our soul, then why would God create a soul which would not choose Him?The answer of course, lies back in our salvation model. Unfortunately you might just be crap out of luck. Sorry buddy. You were knackered to begin with, God offered a way out, but the inherent make up of who you were born as, coupled with the sinful nature of man you were surrounded by, coupled with the adversary (how many things can 'couple'?) means you're doomed to suffer because of those selfish little navel free mugs.Ah well, you would have been doomed anyway, at least God has tried to give you an option, even if you would never accept it, some would. Its more merciful to save those you can, that to let all slip into damnation?Of course, don't let that despair, you might be given other opportunities to be saved yet. Heh - well as I said, if there are 100 people drowning because you told one of them not to pull the plug out of the bottom of the boat (!!!), and they did anyway. Is it cruel to send your son down there with a message which basically reads "I told you not to pull the plug, OH look, you didn't believe me. I'll give you another chance, 3 miles north of here is an island (which cannot be seen until you are there), the tide is on its way in, I promise that if you swim towards it you will be saved"? Now, some people are inherently going to ignore your second chance, some people will accept it, and swim towards the island.That's merciful isn't it? Assuming theologically it is not possible to click ones finger to save them on the spot. Of course there isn't evidence for it. You are posting in the Faith and Belief forum, not the Science forum, what did you expect but to ultimately receive the answer "faith", wrapped in a bundle of theological mumbo-jumbo?Don't look at me, I get a sick pleasure out of playing Devil's advocate for the Holy Bible occasionally. Irony...don't you just love it.Take care Percy.This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 02-June-2005 05:04 PM

The flaw lies right there. If Schraf does believe then God would have known that to begin with. So the correct path to take would be God knows that Schraf will believe. Schraf believes. God was right.If you are talking about a God who can foresee, then God will know that one day Schraf will believe (he can foresee it).If God cannot foresee, he would not speculate in the first place on whether at some point in the future Schraf will believe or not.

The premise is, correct me if I am wrong, that "God knows that Schraf will not believe". Right? If God knows that then God must be the forseeing God and he knows then Schraf will not believe. Schraf will not go on to believe later, if God has forseen that she will not, since if she did, then God would not have foreseen it.Therefore, either God can foresee and knows that Schraf will never believe (and Schraf never will)
or
God cannot foresee and does know what Schraf will do only that which is in her heart right now.Now, there is Biblical support for the latter. Check out Job 1. God clearly did not know for sure that Job would remain faithful after all the testing. The satan clearly knew that God did not know. Therefore, God does not know how the heart's of mankind will change and what state they will be in in the future. As such, God does not know how Schraf will end her existence, only what her heart says now.

I am not suggesting that God has no foresight.The issue was raised right at the beginning of the debate (by the seeming conservative Christian, robinrohan) when he mentioned Boethius Message 38, and Calvin. The argument (and its critisism). I don't think Boethius was making the argument robinrohan thought he was, maybe he was I don't know. Boethius' argument is essentially that God knows all future events, but he does not cause them by knowing them. The free will is still intact, even if God knows what is coming. In some ways this solution plays out like a tragedy play. Maybe that's why Jesus wept :-p

Nor did I say you or anyone in this forum did. I was summarising the link I posted, so technically Boethius set up the strawman. Maybe it wasn't a strawman back in his time? Maybe it isn't a strawman at all. All it seems to be saying is that since God's foreknowledge doesn't cause the event then the event must be caused by something else. If He has foreseen it what can He do about? It has to happen. Which is why I said "I don't think Boethius was making the argument robinrohan thought he was"

Hmm, I'm sure I responded to this critique. Did it get deleted? I heard you loud and clear. I also responded. You asked a question, then answered it yourself. You took the answer to your own question and then said "[I'm saving myself from God]...[a]nd not for living a bad life, but for not worshipping him."Since that was entirely contradictory to what I was saying I addressed it. The first issue was that you were saving yourself from God. I questioned that, its a valid objection to your statement I believe. Do you think otherwise?I then went on to say, that you are doomed to sin. Regardless of the manner of your life, something out of your control has doomed you (Romans 5 - note verse 19 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."). Totally unfair situation, and God isn't happy about it either. He came up with an idea...a loophole if you will that will allow you back into paradise. The problem is, you have to accept Christ, and if you aren't inclined to do that, God can't help you. (Romans 6 covers this, especially towards the end verse 17 "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." (The Gospel, I assume))I thus addressed the entirety of your statement. Please accept my apologies if you think I was quoting you out of context (For those who aren't paying attention, but are now curious as to what we're talking about, it was Message 115 which I responded with Message 120).I didn't intend to make out like you were saying something you weren't intending to say. I was under the impression that I "had responded to what [you] actually intended to communicate". Apparantly I didn't. In the subsequent posts have I managed to respond to what you actually intended to communicate? If not, perhaps you can rephrase it, it clearly isn't getting through to me for some reason. At what point is a God who is trying to save your soul from damnation a God who is placing people in harm's way? Skipping over the fact that God put a lot of people in harm's way, including his most faithful subjects (ie Job). The God I characterized at no point intimidated anyone into worshipping him. The God I was characterizing sees mankind in a lot of trouble, and has tried to get as much of mankind out of that trouble as he can.If I somehow characterized a different God I made a mistake. Please point me to it, so I can make a suitable retraction.Incidentally, if my post was deleted, could whoever did it give me some help with it to make it non-deletable. It is possible that I hit preview and then closed the window in a fit of being distracted by the missus. In which case I'm a moron.This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 02-June-2005 09:46 PM

Hehe, it also implies I may be a moron, but I'm cunning, since I manage to convince her to hang about despite my shortcomings Anyway, thanks for the deletion advice. I thought the msg numbers might provide a clue, which is why I realized I might just not have posted it somehow. I find that the best way to understand your opponents or a contrary opinion is to argue from their position. I have actually changed my opinion on several important issues by doing this, and I find its one of the best ways to challenge my own beliefs, as well as the beliefs of others. It might not be fair to the Christians, but I'm trying to be fair. The something that was out of your control wasn't God's doing though. It was Eve then Adam's doing. So it was cruel and selfish of them to distrust God and kicked out of paradise. I was struggling however, to try and justify how God wouldn't be cruel to set up a system where a Fall was possible. I think I managed it.God created man. He wanted man to obey him...after all God gave man a great gift - a soul and a body, its only fair that it come with stipulations. God was perfectly capable of creating a man that was forced to obey him. God decided that forced obedience is not obedience at all. God gave man Free Will, and presented man with the opportunity to defy his word by giving him breakable terms and conditions. He made it clear that punishment for breaking those terms and disobeying God would be harsh.Man subsequently disobeys God, and God has to enact the harsh punishment and cast man out of paradise so that he can live with his new children, sin and death.When mankind was ready to hear the New Testament and the method of salvation, and the instructions on how to be let back into paradise he sent His only begotten Son to the earth to teach it, and live it. This He did. I suppose this means that God timed it so that the maximum number of people possible that could be saved, will be saved.Merciful, no? He wasn't forced to let us back into paradise, he wasn't forced to send His son to die for our sin so that we might have eternal life. He did anyway. Not so much 'risk my wrath' as pay the price of your inherited sin (which is the wrath of God (John 3:36 (the wrath of God abideth on him, I read abideth as meaning "to remain on". He is angry at your disobedience, but he will forgive you if call upon Him))). It's your choice as whether you want to return to paradise or live in sin. God has given you the choice...he hasn't forced you against your will to Obey Him and bow down to Him.I leave you with verses nine and ten of Chapter 5 from 1 Thessalonians:
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

By disobeying God, Adam and Even brought sin and death to man. God did not bring sin and death to man, man did. We are not held accountable for it, it exists and we are born to it. Its a terrible calamity that Adam and Eve's disobedience has brought to the world. Fortunately, God is merciful and is totally willing to forgive us. Sounds great to me.If God had forced Adam and Eve to obey, that would be cruel.
If God had forced Adam and Eve to disobey, and then punished them for it, that would be cruel.
If Adam and Eve disobeyed God, but God still gave their descendants a chance to return. Not only that, but showed them the way too...that is merciful.God does not make us born in sin. We are born outside of paradise, we have to be born out of paradise, because mankind was evicted from paradise for his disobedience. However, they are allowed back in. Mercy.Club manager for nightclub sees that everyone is breaking a rule (I don't know, maybe they leave a drink on the pool table, or vomit on the carpet), so he kicks them all out. He then says, listen, if you accept my rules, you can come back in - otherwise, you stay outside of the club forever.Is that cruelty? Its not a vendetta though. To repeat, our ancestors were kicked out of paradise. It stands to reason that because they were outside of paradise, everyone born of them would also be born out of paradise. Since we are out of paradise, our eternal souls are a bit stuck really. However, if we want to get back into paradise we can do. Hurrah! Very loving and very merciful. Sin and death is disobedience to God, in the same way that cold is the absense of heat. You have the theology backwards though. If you lead a great life, then that's great. However, the life you lead is still outside of paradise, so outside of paradise you shall remain.Just to clarify my position here, sin and death = outside of paradise. Holiness and eternal life = inside of paradise.Perhaps I should repeat it: "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation".You seem to think that God has appointed us to wrath. You must be thinking of a different God to the Christian one, because the Christian God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation.There really isn't anymore that can be said. I understand your position:1. Punishing someone who has not done anything wrong is cruel
2. God punishes us for not doing anything wrong
3. God is cruel.Am I right? Perhaps I should repeat once more:
"God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation". That is the Christian God, right there, as defined by Christianity.

Thanks faith, I was hoping I was representing things properly, if someone like yourself had said otherwise, I would have bowed out of the argument and conceded to Percy's statement about not doing Christians a favour.Is it just an intellectual exercise? Not just, it has two other reasons. One, I don't like misrepresentations presented about any subject. Most of the time I wouldn't know, but I have a fair (but imperfect) grasp on Christian theology, so if I see a theological argument that doesn't make sense according to my understanding, I might say something. I suppose that is tied in with the intellectual side of it, but it has another edge to it. Doing the text justice, I believe.The second is a spriritual matter. Though I refer you to Matthew 6, and say no more.

Hi Brian,
Thanks for the reply, you raised some good points. Let's see. First of all you objected to the analogy. Fair enough, the analogy isn't perfect. The number is irrelevant. As long as there were x members in the club, and x members broke the rules, and x members were kicked out. In fact, even that doesn't have to be the case really, but we'll leave that, since its not important.To compare. If Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel whilst still in the Garden of Eden, then Eve ate the apple, gave it to Adam, who gave it to Cain who gave it to Abel....would that change the Fall significantly? Adam and Eve were briefed on the rules, and the penalty for those rules. They knew what was right "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat" and they knew what was wrong "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it" (Genesis 2:15-16)In the analogy we could say "The Lord Manager commanded the punters saying, Of every table in the premises thou mayest freely place thy drink: But of the pool table, thou shalt not place thy beverages." Quite right, so let's extend the analogy to slightly unrealistic levels. Our punters HAVE to go out to a night club once darkness falls. There are only two, maybe three (depending on your theology) different night clubs in town. We know about Club Paradise, but there is also Club Hell, and Club Purgatory might an option too. If you aren't going to play by the rules of Club Paradise, you only have two options. Now, if the the Club Paradise manager, sent his son onto the streets, to live and die the rules of Club Paradise as an example to the punters...the Club Paradise manager would clearly hold the punters in high regard, and would really want their custom. I actually brought this up back in Message 25:

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The true argument is that God created Adam and Eve - should He have known that they were fallible and able to be so easily tempted by the Serpent?

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So yes, you've got the core of the debate, its not that Christ is cruel for not saving Schraf, its that is God cruel for damning Adam and Eve?You bring this up again later, so I'll talk more about it then (I've interrupted your sentence)... He didn't create sin and death. I alluded to this earlier:

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Sin and death is disobedience to God, in the same way that cold is the absense of heat.

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Sin is the denial of God dominion, death is the absense of life. God breathed life into us, if we deny his dominion, then we see the logical conclusion of that - our life is our own, no miraculous infinite lives for us anymore (unless we accept Christ, then everlasting life is restored) What is his punishment? The absense of his Grace and the possibility of reconciliation? Its like saying that the punishment for turning the heating off is getting cold and how that is over the top. We turn from God, the result of sin is the natural result. No, its like being born in a prison, and the jailor saying to you. Here are society's rules: Do not murder people. Do you agree to accept these rules? If yes, you are released from prison. Just to reiterate, they knew what the rules where, and what the punishment would be. They did not know good and evil. How do you know what path was open? Maybe the only way to remain theologically consistent was to send His son to die for our sins. Perhaps there was another way, but I don't know what that would be...maybe the suffering that Jesus went through was symbolic. A way of inspiring people what Jesus went through for us, demonstrating exactly how much He loved us. If he just died, knowing he had eternal life ahead, what kind of sacrifice was that? I actually dealt with this earlier as well in Message 162,

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God gave man Free Will, and presented man with the opportunity to defy his word by giving him breakable terms and conditions. He made it clear that punishment for breaking those terms and disobeying God would be harsh.

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But to expand slightly, we do not know that God KNEW that Adam and Eve would fall. There is Biblical support to suggest that just because God can know everything, He might not choose to exercise that. See Job, God did not know if Job would forsake God if His blessing were removed. God did not know where Adam was after he ate the apple: Genesis 3: "And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where [art] thou?" and God did not know why Adam was ashamed of his nakedness "And he said, Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? "Perhaps God has chosen to not have total knowledge in some areas?Now, lets assume the opposite, maybe God does foresee all things. Perhaps he has created us all so that as many as is possible to be saved, will be saved? If he loaded the dice so that everyone was guaranteed to be saved, the whole exercise would be pointless wouldn't it? Why not allow us to hear both sides of the story, the Serpent's and the Lord's and allow us to decide which is true. Would it be unreasonable for the club manager/Head Masonor to say "Somebody broke the rules once, so now you have sign this disclaimer promising you won't break the rules, and that you accept that the Manager's word is final"? If you do not want to live in comfort, what choice do you have? There really is no alternative but to live in discomfort. Don't want to live in the Grace of the Lord? Well, living out of the Lord's Grace is Hell...your choice. Or perhaps God is saying "Choose to live in my grace, or live out of my grace forever". Where 'living out God's grace is synonymous with Hell, because living out of God's grace is torturous. God didn't choose that, its just the way it is. Living without any joy or hope is not a good thing. So if God had required that no faith was required to believe in Him, things wouldn't be so bad? I think faith is a central tenet of Christianity, I think its a necessary virtue. If you don't have that virtue, you should stop listening to the adversary's lies, and listen to the Lord God.It was mankind's lack of faith in God's word that got us in this mess. Perhaps God wants us demonstrate that we can have faith in His word again? Erm, no, He's right there, offering salvation for those that seek it. No problem, I have actually learned quite a lot from all of this. Strangely I have a new found new respect for Christianity. Personally, I don't think its faith that's needed, but a suspension of disbelief. The one thing I can't get my head around is that blasted Trinity. So He sent his Son, who was Himself, down to the World, to die for us (even though He cannot die), his last word's were to himself, asking why he had forsaken himself, and then went up to heaven to sit at his own right hand. And that doesn't touch the third part of the trinity.Maybe one day I'll get it.Anyway, thanks for your time. It's good to think!

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Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.