God and Stephen Hawking

[Guest shiloh357]

Here we have two cases which are mutually incompatible: either people who never heard of Jesus can be saved or they can't. Salvation is not fuzzy, either you suffer forever or you don't. The only logical justification I can see of evangelizing and sending missions in remote and dangerous parts of the world, is that they can't be saved without hearing the good news. But if they can't, then we will have a whole lot of people who will spend eternity in the fire for reasons outside their control and free will, just because they died before meeting the first missionary; and if they had this control and free will, then we would not need missions in the first place. Maybe I am seriously blind, but this appears to me simple and logical, and, according to some theologists, God follows the rules of logic.

They did exercize their free will. They could have chosen to allow the natural world to lead them to the knowledge of a Creator which would have eventually led them to Savior. But they didn't do that. So they are without excuse. They made their choice and chose to ignore the natural revelation of the Creator.

They are not being judged for what they did not hear. They are being judged account of the natural revelation they chose to ignore. It was within their control to seek the creator of all they see around them. Instead they chose to worship the creation.

And yes, you are seriously blind.

[Botz]

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Hi Viole,

I think one of the things we have to understand about the Character and nature of G-d, is that He is just, no one will be banished from His presence who should be enjoying life everlasting. I don't think it is possible to work it all out, even from what is recorded in the Bible because when we look at things through our eyes we make judgments that do not include the whole picture because we are not G-d and not privvy to or capable of grasping the enormity of His Majesty and the utter righteousness of all His judgments. This is evident with some of the things that happened in the Old Covenant writings, not least the eradication of all human life except 8 people....or the methods for ridding Canaan of some of the pagan tribes.

We have to trust that He loves us, and that He expresses that love through giving us His Son, and through Jesus extends the opportunity to us to know Him and be saved.

Thoughtfully. Botz

Hi Botz,

I understand your point. But if we defuse difficult doctrinal questions by admitting that we must trust and everything will be okay, then I do not really see the purpose of having a field like theology. And if some of God's characteristics and motivations are unfathomable, how do we know that any of our doctrines are correct?

Hi Viole,

I am not advocating trust in place of everything. What I am saying is that there are places that we can get to in our search for truth that are beyond the scope of our understanding, our sciences, even our theology and in the case that we are looking at, one can only go so far and then no further....so we have to work with what we have got or what has been recorded and revealed (Scripture). As a Believer, I have come to a position of trusting G-d completely....I understand from this that He is Holy, Righteous, Just, Faithful and True and as such will never do something that goes against His revealed character.

It could be that He saves us all at the end, and just motivates us, through the Bible, to live as good as possible on this earth. Who knows? You will say that God does not lie, but I might retort that what looks like a lie is not a lie, really, and that we must trust Him because we cannot possibly understand Him. What motivates you in thinking that our concept of justice is not equivalent to God's one, but the concept of lie is?

It is reasonable to think of the possibility of Universal salvation...but even a cursory reading of the Bible, clearly demonstrates this is not on the menu.

I think by and large we all understand what justice is...and we are human beings made in the image of G-d...therefore we are like Him....it is simply that the buck stops with Him, He is the final Arbiter, and we have proven over the centuries that we have a massive capacity to get things wrong and foul things up, because although created in His likeness....we are sinners, and much of the good and potential in us is suffused with sin, we do things for wrong motives and for selfish outcomes etc.

I am not trying to demonstrate internal inconsistencies in the general concept of a deity. I can, for instance, imagine a deity who is not just.

So could anyone of us Viole....but we aren't called to live this present reality from the confines of our imagination.

But if we apply words like justice, then we have to attach a certain meaning to the word; a meaning that we share, otherwise we have to redefine the word. We can say that everything that God does is just, by default; but that would be as meaningful as to say that everything God does is jshfbvjhdbfnkdjnksk.

Er..ok, I think I follow your train of thought.

Here we have two cases which are mutually incompatible: either people who never heard of Jesus can be saved or they can't. Salvation is not fuzzy, either you suffer forever or you don't. The only logical justification I can see of evangelizing and sending missions in remote and dangerous parts of the world, is that they can't be saved without hearing the good news. But if they can't, then we will have a whole lot of people who will spend eternity in the fire for reasons outside their control and free will, just because they died before meeting the first missionary; and if they had this control and free will, then we would not need missions in the first place. Maybe I am seriously blind, but this appears to me simple and logical, and, according to some theologists, God follows the rules of logic.

I have to be honest here....I do not fully understand the ins and outs of how all this works out, but what I do know is that as a Believer I have a responsibility of sharing Jesus with people...whether they are people like yourself who are in a society where people generally have a handle on most religions and what they are about....or whether in some other place where they have never heard the Gospel and don't have a clue about Jesus....but despite my ignorance concerning G-ds plans to do with those who never heard of Him before they died, I am convinced that His judgment towards them will be through Jesus, and will be utterly righteous. I have no fears of having trusted G-d as my Heavenly Father, only to find He delights in some perverse trickery that conceals the true nature of his fiendish plans towards those whom we presume are innocent and unsaved.

How can we apply free will to reject a message we never heard of? How can we freely choose an alternative which does not belong to the set of alternatives we have at our disposal?

I have no pat answer...but I believe one day we will see for ourselves and be in awe at how He reveals His justice and His mercy...in the meantime He has demonstrated His love for us through giving us His Son.

Lol...wish I could answer with real knowledge and understanding on these things, but I'm scrabbling about in the sand a bit.

Still thoughtful though. Botz

[JustinM]

Being faithful isn't easy. I agree with Shiloh in that since we can't fully understand God, we can't very well criticize Him either for what we perceive as unjust and unfair. I am sure we all have criticized our parents at some point in our lives for what we thought was unfair, then we grew up and grew wiser and later on understood why our parents made the decisions they made.

[enoob57]

Viole, Loved One of God!

You and I have talked about the infinite of God as Who He 'IS'... as I read your effort with my Brother Botz to determine the justness of Our Lord and the rational of Scripture I am motivated to speak to you in this way:

You are, as all of us, with beginning as progeny of offspring from the originally created from the Very Hand of Our Lord. You are intelligent. You have mathematical skills of logic and equalities. You are able to ask questions that we cannot answer. As I hope you have grace in your heart to see that they are your questions as well! Any formula with a portion of it removed results in inability to formulate answers. When we sinned we destroyed within us parts of those formulas that we needed to answer to God for oursleves... accountability is fabric of life and is evidenced in the Son and showing us this while here in relation to His Father and Spirit. His (Jesus) life so outstanding that without ever doing anything in selfish motivations but in sacrifice of His desires to attend to the desires of others... His purpose was to place back into the problem the missing portion of the formula so that the problem could be resolved...

Now to blame Him for our beginning choice to have the portion of the formula to be removed by choosing a make believe portion is not one of fairness to the equation at hand or to Him Who said do not use this portion of formula! The aftermath of sin is the treatment and learning of why we need that formula... and it is received only by faith for we have never seen the original formula but it can be proved by its acceptance and working out of it's perfect logic... Love, Steven

[UndecidedFrog]

And yes, you are seriously blind.

Or maybe I am just blinded by the light

viole,

Don't forget that you and I are also corrupt, unrighteous, unjustified, citizens of the kingdom of darkness, and servants of satan.

Regards,

UndecidedFrog

[Guest shiloh357]

And yes, you are seriously blind.

Or maybe I am just blinded by the light

No, you are blinded by your darkened unbelief.

[~candice~]

OK I've thought about this for a few days. I think it is something we need to be able to answer but I always feel like I've fallen short of the mark when I try.

I have an understanding.... that my understanding of God is immature and incomplete and will be til I get to the other side. I know He is just and holy, but some things He does make no sense to me. I don't question His goodness for this, I question my understanding.

I know my ability to discern goodness, fairness, justice etc pales in comparison to His, so I EXPECT that there will be a gap between His and mine, even though I pray over time I would learn and adopt the mind of Christ and think as He does.

So I guess what I am saying is this... if you wake up one day and your idea of God doesn't challenge your morals and sense of fairness etc, then that's a good indication you have created God in your own image . He is smarter than us and if we claim we have a perfect understanding of His workings, we have dumbed Him down.

With respect to the jungle tribes / aborigines etc, a confession... I do not know enough about where He draws a line in the sand, for people who have never heard the actual name of Jesus, but have in humility acknowledged that God is real and they want to do whatever it takes to be pleasing to Him. i know that His judgment is not about people having a perfect knowledge and understanding of Him.

Thinking back to the OT, there were many who would not have known of the name of Jesus, and not clearly at all seen the picture of His sacrifice and His return in the feasts and festivals etc, but had faith that God would provide, and I believe they are still saved by faith, and saved because of the work of Christ, even if they don't know His name specifically.

I am NOT saying that belief in God is enough, and I am NOT a universalist... I do not know where the line in the sand is drawn for certain, but I know that where ever He draws it, it will be a just and holy decision.

I realise this explanation may not be sufficient to you, but it is the character and nature of God that I know to be just and holy, and for me to acknowledge my limited understanding of His holiness and fairness and justness in light of my own.

God bless,

Candice

[Guest shiloh357]

Good post, Candice.

I think atheists and other unbelievers need to understand that we cannot explain the inexplicable when it comes to God. There are things about God that are simply beyond what we can explain and there are things about God that don't make sense to human reasoning and to be honest, they are not meant to make sense to human reasoning. That we cannot answer every question or provide a suitable explanation that causes God to suddenly "make sense" should not be interpreted as a victory against the claims of Scripture or the Christian faith. God is beyond knowing and just because WE cannot explain why He does what He does, not make what the Bible say any less true. We are fallible and finite humans and cannot and will never be able to fully understand, much less explain an infinite, eternal God who is beyond explanation in human terms.

There are things about God that we know well enough to be confident in. One such thing we know is that He is just and that in the end, He will make the right choices and do the right things in terms of His attributes of absolute holiness and justness. God has erected a perfect system of justice that is in accord with who He is and not in accord with how we imagine justice should look like. We cannot judge God's system from the point of reference of human reasoning. God's judgment is perfect because He is both omniscient, and omnipresent and because He is eternal. That means that He sees the big picture. He is privy to information that most of us don't have and He also has the added advantage of being able to look upon the human heart. For that reason, He is the only one suited to judge motives of individuals. We judge purely by what we see, God can see far more than we can and only God is wise enough to make the punishment fit the crime, so to speak.

God has provided mercy for those who repent, but for those who refuse to repent, there is nothing left for them but judgment, but it is a judgment they brought on themselves. God, with respect to those who don't get reached will be dealt with in a manner that is in complete accord with God's justice and righteousness. No one will be treated in an unjust manner. I cannot definitively say what that justice will look like. The Bible doesn't say. But God is always just and always righteous and we can put perfect confidence in Him to do what is right.

I would also add that the issue of what happens to those who don't hear the Gospel has no bearing on the responsibility of those who have heard and turn away from it. In fact, it will be worse for them than if they had never heard at all. God has provided a way for all men to come to Him and no one will be left out who truly seeks Him. He says:

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (Jer 29:13)

Those who truly seek God will find Him. You will never find Him while sitting back and waiting for God to make sense to you. That is not going to happen. There is a spiritual dimension to knowing God that can only be accessed through a relationship with Jesus Christ. God is not anti-rational, illogical nor anti-intellectual; but He does transcend logic, human rationality, and our intellectual faculties. One does not shut off their brain to know God; in fact, quite the opposite. God created our intellectual faculties and He wants to relate to us on both a spiritual and intellectual level. One does not cancel out the other. It is not either/or; it is both/and. There are many very intelligent, educated people who have a relationship with God through Christ and it has not impeded their intellectual pursuits in any area they work in. You just have to get past the peer pressure from those who want to make knowing God appear to be foolish or who equate faith in God with believing in Santa Claus or other such nonsense. I think there are many who know that comparisons are faulty and don't really reflect the dynamics of the Christian faith, but they are not strong enough or courageous enough to say so, and so they just allow family and friends to tell them what to think.

[Guest shiloh357]

I would also add that the issue of what happens to those who don't hear the Gospel has no bearing on the responsibility of those who have heard and turn away from it. In fact, it will be worse for them than if they had never heard at all.

Yes, but this is my point, isn't it? It is better to know nothing about this, since it will be worse when you know. Of course, that questions the purpose to mission and what we really mean with "spreading the good news".

To clarify, it will be worse for those who have heard and rejected the message of the Gospel, than it will before those who rejected the natural revelation but never heard the message.

It doesn't mean that it will go well for those who never heard. It means that those who hear the message and reject it only to find out it is true will have more to be accountable for. It will be worse for people like you because you will have to suffer the rest of eternity with the realization that it didn't have to be that way.