God of Death or Love

The simplest answer to your question is to state that God is not a unidimensional personality. No more than we are uni-dimensional personalities. God is love at times. God is wrath at times. God is just(ice) at times. Just like we are.When a judge acts with justice against an offender it says nothing about the love he has for his children. When he exposes the offender to the wrath of society in his casting that offender into prison it says nothing about the love he has for his children.The Old Testament illustrates aspects of the character of God in the mode of lawgiver and law enforcer. But is also illustrates God's love for his 'children' in the care he exercised towards the Israelites.The New Testament illustrates aspects of the character of God in the mode of forgiver, redeemer, loving father of adopted children. But it also illustrates God as justice and wrath against the sin of those who have not (yet) been adopted. Of all the characters in the NT, it is Jesus who talks and warns most about the wrath of God and judgement to come.

Okay, lets have a look at your argument Its called the wrath of God. He does this to people who insist on wickedness. It results in their headlong rush towards depravity. God is under no obligation to restrain anyone from sin.As it happens, he utilises a persons sinning in the attempt to save them. So his hardening a persons heart shouldn't be seen as a strictly negative thing. The lawgivers job is to give the law and punish according to law. Handing a person over to sin is punishment for sin. I don't see the problem. He chose to eliminate sinners. What's the big deal in that? That he chose to protect and care for a particular group of sinners (the Israelites) is his affair. He had his reasons. Suffice to say that sinners have no right to life before God.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The relationship between God and a person in Adam is not father/child. One becomes a child by adoption on being placed in Christ, being born again, being declared righteous, becoming a Christian, being saved...etc.Certainly, if sin is used as a means to save a person then restraining a person from sinning is not a loving thing to do. The mechanism of God hardening someones hearts is explained here (coming from the angle that a mans heart is totally depraved in it's natural, as-born state)

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Exodus 7:3 "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."

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He is going to let Pharaoh be a figure, or a "type" of a kingdom of bondage which held the Lord's people captive, and show in Pharaoh someone who is completely rebellious against God (Which is exactly what Pharaoh (and all of us - iano) was by nature when not restrained). By God removing His hand of restraint, Pharaoh's heart is hardened to it's natural state. It's not that God made him do anything, God simply stopped restraining him and let him do what he wanted.

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Why Did God Harden Pharaoh's HeartWhat is being argued is that way we sin is by God removing or limiting his restraint on us - pure evil being our natural tendency once restraint is removed. It's God "handing us over to sin", God "hardening our hearts", God "creating evil".As to hearts softening? Well Pharaohs did, he let the Israelites go. Then his heart hardened again. I don't get how his methods didn't work. It depends upon what God was trying to achieve. Certainly Pharaoh serves as a picture of Gods patience and God's patience having limits. That a man is permitted to fall into sin as a result of the wrath of God doesn't mean the love of God cannot utilise this in the attempt to save a man. I think your mixing up the lawgiving aspect of God with the totality of God. God is love, justice and wrath. His love aims to totally rehabilitate men, His justice is blind and only seeks the books to be balanced. His wrath.... well it does what wrath does.I know plenty of American Christians who see God in complete form and who do not cherry pick as you seem to. I don't understand what you're getting at. God deals with everyone individually and is restraining this one from sin at the same time as he lets another sink into the pit of depravity. And vice versa the next day in a different area of their lives. God is not obliged to give anyone anything. Everyone has a conscience and their suppression of what that says they ought to do and not do is sufficient to condemn them on the spot. Everything else is a bonus. Besides, we all die and there is nothing to suggest that his removing folk from the game renders them eternally lost. People have been saved by the gospel long before the world heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sufficient to do something dramatic to attempt to save us from our sin. But not in the sentimental way you seem to be suggesting though.

That is what Gods love aims towards: attempting to save all from his justice and wrath. But seeing as he is dealing with sinners - and can utilise a persons sin in the attempt to save them - it is not his key aim to prevent a person sinning. Thus..- Because this world is a place where peoples eternal destinies are resolved. He is prepared to stay his wrath for the time it takes to achieve this. This time is called the time of dispensation (technically)- Not at all. However, God knowing that a person will finally be lost is a separate issue to his attempt to save them. The argument goes: Gods knowing of our future arises out of his occupying the future - now. And in occupying it, he observes (now) what a persons final answer will be. If I may mix my time/eternity units..It is only a persons own will that results in their being finally lost. In attempting to save them, Gods justness and fairness is vindicated. They, like anyone else, would have been saved by God except that they insisted their will be done. Incidently, this fact silences notions of appeal on the day of judgement. There are no drawing of short straws in this life: everyone has the opportunity to be saved.- Like I say, it's a persons will which prevents their salvation. It's not that God is inept or malevolent. It's that he is prepared to take "No" for an answer.- Adam and Eve had the potential for a free willed choice. And they lost it as soon as they exercised it. At that point, sin entered man and we all became slaves to sin. Our natural unrestrained state is to do evil all the time. If God took no action at all then men would all be like Hitler and worse.As it happens, the very thing that Adam and Eve ingested (which resulted in their fall) is a central tool used by God in providing everyone post-Adam/Eve with a choice. We, unlike them, are not born with a free-will. And so the set-up of the choice is such so as to suit those who have no free will. We get what they didn't have pre-choice. A conscience.- I know folk say: "chose for God" and "believe Jesus died for you" but if they genuinely think you can choose freely then they are mistaken imo. You are not expected to freely choose to believe. Rather, you'll be brought to believing by God unless you resist being brought to the bitter end. It's a little bit like fishing; it's the fishermans job to catch the fish and land it - all the fish can contribute to is his escaping being caught. In this case the fisherman is prepared to make an honourable attempt but will not dynamite the water to ensure he catches all.- As far as I can see, God does restrain just about everyone to some degree or other (perhaps a sociopath is an example of one bereft of Gods restraint?). The evidence for this would be the fact that everyone is not as evil as they could possibly be in every area of their lives. As far as I can see too, everyone resists and pulls against this restraint. The evidence for this lies in the fact that everyone is unholy to some degree or other.I don't hold that men are born with free will. Nor need they be to effectively choose for/against God.- Redeemed - but not at any price.- We have to include an element called "the persons own will" in this. It might not be a free will but it is a will nonetheless (as I have said, the choice set up for sin-enslaved wills takes account of that wills lack of freedom to chose positively for God). The mechanics of Gods efforts to save are quite remarkable but they cannot do what is impossible to do. You cannot force someone into a loving relationship when they do not want to go into that loving relationship and call it a relationship (effectively) chosen for.Omnipotence doesn't mean God can do the illogicalThat is what is going on here Jaderis, a choice set-up for sin-enslaved beings which effectively allows them to chose for/against God - even though they lack the free-will that would normally be required to chose for/against God.- God showing up to someone who hasn't been saved is God showing up to someone whose will is in the state it was born in - which is the state of rejection of relationship with God. His showing up would destroy the (effective) choice he is giving them - which would be an illogical thing to do seeing as has gone through the trouble to provide them with a choice. I say "effective" again, to underline the fact we have no free will and that the choice provided by God is designed to take account of this fact.God shows up after you are saved. Then you will believe he exists. You are not asked to believe in something for which you have insufficient evidence. Biblical faith is evidence based. Not empirical perhaps - but that's not the only kind of evidence.- At the point of being saved you have effectively chosen for God. Your choice being cast (effectively) freely, there is no overriding your will in his showing up. Its a choice made once forever. There is no going back - not even if you wanted to (you won't )- Hopefully you will be getting the picture that this is a dance between God and each individual, in which Gods will restricts itself/theirself to setting up an effective choice for the person. He is effectively putting everyman in the garden and supplying them with a balanced choice. It is up to them to chose it.The set-up for sin-enslaved individuals only requires that they don't hang onto rejection til the point where God says "thy will be done" or death. Gods aim is to silence the sin-enslaved will - not have it chose for God (which is something it cannot do). A silenced sin-enslaved will is the effective equivilent of a freewill chosing for God.- The law was given to Gods chosen-for-a-purpose people. A person can suppress and deaden their conscience and mould it into all manner of things. The law seems to have served to maintain the Israelites as fit to be the carrier-people of Gods messiah.In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins cites a piece of scientific research into morality. The research posed moral-dilemma questions to people in such a way as to circumvent the influence that religion, culture, education might have. It turns out that there is surprising unanimity of morality across the world. Down deep I mean, below the radar. Even a primitive tribe, with negligable exposure to western mores, shared a common morality.- Abraham springs to mind. The gospel is described by Paul (in the Epistle to the Romans) as "the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.." In that book he happens to use Abraham as the model of how salvation is brought about. It's not hard to see that Abraham had never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He just believed what God had told him regarding provision of an heir and had that belief credited as righteousness.Clearly, you don't have to believe in God to believe what God tells you - the two things are quite separate. If God tells you and you believe then the same applies to you as it did Abraham- I think people who have had such an experience are confusing the experience with the point of salvation. I would say that the point of salvation (or point of no return) happens earlier in proceedings and involves believing what God says - or more accurately - believing what God is attempting to convince you of (even if at that point you don't know it is God who is doing the convincing).Once completely convinced you are effectively saved. A train is set in motion by that belief which results in certain experiences and "transactions" occuring. These do vary from person to person but are part of the switchover from unsaved to saved. Although the details will vary wildly, the same mechanism applies to all.The point has be made about your own will in this - the reason why God doesn't just wave his magic wand

Cue the Flood....