Does God make mistakes?

[missmuffet]

 

Well from my point of view you are calling The Father Evil.......   bizarrely evil at that.

And from my point of view, you are calling the Father weak.  He is not all powerful and makes mistakes.  But again, where is the logic in saying that if God isn't a certain way, he can't be real?  How is that an intelligent argument?  How come the creator couldn't be "bizarrely evil" and still be real?  Again, I didn't call him that, as I don't view him that way, but why is that impossible?  He is who he is.  You have to admit that God has done things that based on your comments don't make sense, like sending a plague on Israel because King David called for a census.  How about having the children of Israel kill every man woman and child in certain cities?  How about the idea of sentencing good moral people to spend eternity in hell because of unbelief?  Do you deny anything I said about those things?  If those things are clearly in the Bible, why is it so hard to accept my position that God makes no mistakes? 

 

Gods ways are not our ways.We can not understand what God does because.........He is God.

[Guest Butero]

 

 

 

 

Butero,  I know many people today who will not turn themselves over to Jesus' lordship because of what you teach......

To whom will they go?  Jesus has the only way to eternal life. 

 

BTW, who taught them this doctrine?  When I was a sinner, I never heard any deep doctrinal stuff like this.  I just knew there was a God, and the Bible was the Word of God.  How many people do you actually know like that, and who taught them? 

 

at least ten off the top of my head and they all come from families who were active in the church.....     My brother in law studied for several years before he decided that the bible couldn't be reality if God is what people say the Bible says he is.   And he's not dumb, he has different degrees and was a successful junior high history teacher for over 20 years before he and my sister retired...  My own sister feels the same way he does and she grew up in the church....

 

It matters a great deal to me...

 

What you are telling me is that God made Satan to rebel and take a third of the angels and then created man who would become so totally corrupt that he would have to kill all but eight, then out of that 8 would build a nation through one of Noah's decedents that would also become so corrupt that he wants to kill all them and finally let the world get to the point that those here were about to kill everything with the help of the devil.

 

Resulting in billions of deaths, and billions of people going to hell to be tormented for eternity along with this entity he created in the first place.......   and knowing up front that it would be that way.......   are you really telling me that is our God???

 

Yes, because the alternative is harder for me to accept.  I cannot accept the notion that God is anything less than 100 percent perfect.  He cannot make mistakes.  Here is how I see it.  You know people that believe that if God is a certain way, he cannot be real?  Why?  In theory, couldn't the creator be anything?  Why would he have to be loving?  I never understood that logic.  He is who he is.  People try to fashion him into something they desire him to be.  God could be mean and vicious and still be the creator.  I am not saying he is that way, but just making a point.  I can understand people saying they won't serve a God that does this or does that, but to say that if God isn't the way they imagine him, he can't be real is not logical to me. 

 

Who does the Bible say that God is?There are tons of scripture on what is God like.Have you read them?

 

I have read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation a minimum of 15 times.  I have seen how God is in scripture, and he has many different characteristics.  I have seen a loving side, and I have seen a side of vengeance and judgment. 

[Guest Butero]

 

 

Well from my point of view you are calling The Father Evil.......   bizarrely evil at that.

And from my point of view, you are calling the Father weak.  He is not all powerful and makes mistakes.  But again, where is the logic in saying that if God isn't a certain way, he can't be real?  How is that an intelligent argument?  How come the creator couldn't be "bizarrely evil" and still be real?  Again, I didn't call him that, as I don't view him that way, but why is that impossible?  He is who he is.  You have to admit that God has done things that based on your comments don't make sense, like sending a plague on Israel because King David called for a census.  How about having the children of Israel kill every man woman and child in certain cities?  How about the idea of sentencing good moral people to spend eternity in hell because of unbelief?  Do you deny anything I said about those things?  If those things are clearly in the Bible, why is it so hard to accept my position that God makes no mistakes? 

 

Gods ways are not our ways.We can not understand what God does because.........He is God.

 

Agreed.

[oak]

The discussion between Butero and other one, escapes me. As an example, "...[Love] does not insist on its own way." 1 Cor. 14:5 This as well as many other scriptural truths open up the premise that God allows His creations free will and choice. It is remarkable to have a Perfect Entity allowing its creations to not follow the true path. So, Satan was able to go against God not by God's directive but by his own choice. The same applies to us, and we can say God is not good for allowing us this freedom and not conforming us to His will by force. Ultimately God is perfect and all knowing, and people like Hitler choose to serve their own will - do you fault God for free will?

 

Finally and most importantly, Christ was crucified by the world (and resurrected) so those who believe on Him may live. What more do you want God to give? Yes there are people who can't accept a God that gives the ultimate sacrifice without earthly glory and riches. The world was and is waiting for an Alexander The Great type to come and that horror will come. In the midst of confusion and questioning, one should look upon the Cross. This should answer questions like, is God bizarrely evil or does He make mistakes etc.    

[Guest Butero]

The discussion between Butero and other one, escapes me. As an example, "...[Love] does not insist on its own way." 1 Cor. 14:5 This as well as many other scriptural truths open up the premise that God allows His creations free will and choice. It is remarkable to have a Perfect Entity allowing its creations to not follow the true path. So, Satan was able to go against God not by God's directive but by his own choice. The same applies to us, and we can say God is not good for allowing us this freedom and not conforming us to His will by force. Ultimately God is perfect and all knowing, and people like Hitler choose to serve their own will - do you fault God for free will?

 

Finally and most importantly, Christ was crucified by the world (and resurrected) so those who believe on Him may live. What more do you want God to give? Yes there are people who can't accept a God that gives the ultimate sacrifice without earthly glory and riches. The world was and is waiting for an Alexander The Great type to come and that horror will come. In the midst of confusion and questioning, one should look upon the Cross. This should answer questions like, is God bizarrely evil or does He make mistakes etc.    

I am going to try to explain this as simple as I can so hopefully you can see where I am coming from.  Lets start out with agreement.  Lucifer and all the angels and all mankind has free will.  We choose to follow God or to rebel.  At the same time, do you agree that God is all knowing, and can see into the future?  Do you agree that God knows what choices his creation will make?  If he does, and he goes ahead and makes them anyway, God being the potter and us being the clay, and he creates someone knowing they will do evil and wind up in hell, since they are created the way God made them, did they really have free will?  They made the choices, but they were created by someone in a way where they would make the choices they made. 

 

Where we find ourselves disagreeing is over whether or not God is truly all knowing?  When God created Lucifer, did he know he would rebel down the road?  Did God create men like Judas Iscariot, knowing he would betray Jesus?  Did God create good men, like John the Baptist, knowing he would point people to Jesus?  They all had free will in the sense they made the decisions they did, like Judas with the 30 pieces of silver, but since God created Judas, knowing what he would do, and the Bible even prophesies about the 30 pieces of silver, did he really have free will, or was he really created for the purpose of being the betrayer? 

 

Those who believe in absolute free will believe that God would not create anyone to do evil, and even spend eternity in hell, so he is taken by surprise when his creation does wrong.  That doesn't make sense to me, when you can find examples of a person being told exactly what he is going to do, like Peter denying Jesus 3 times.  In one way, Peter had free will and chose to do that, but if his creator knew all along what he would do, because he made him in a way where he would react in a certain manner, what free will did he really have?  Free will is really an illusion in that sense.  If I believe and trust in God, I can only do so because I was created with faith to believe, as opposed to the good moral person who lacks that faith and doesn't believe there is a creator.  I know someone like that.  She is a good moral person who just doesn't believe.  Why?  Does she just choose not to believe, or was she created without faith, knowing this will lead to eternal torment in hell? 

 

This is a tough subject, but it is important.  You either believe in a God who isn't all knowing and isn't all powerful who just makes things and hopes for the best, and is taken by surprise when there is a bad outcome, or you believe in a God who is all knowing and all powerful, and his creation is doing as he designed it would do in all areas.  I choose the latter.  I am very much interested in your further thoughts on this subject Oak. 

[a-seeker]

As I see it, a mistake (at least the kind we are considering here)  can only be committed by a being bound by time.  To make a mistake is to miss- guess an outcome; to inappropriately anticipate the consequences of one’s actions.  But God is not bound by time—

 

 At the same time, do you agree that God is all knowing, and can see into the future?

 

 

 

Even language which represents Him as “seeing ahead in the future” is slightly misleading, for to see something “ahead” you have to be “behind”—that is,  you have to occupy one of infinite points of time from which you look back into the past and forward into the future.  God’s reality is not like that.  He is not only omnipresent in space but omnipresent in time.  Thus He cannot make mistakes; and neither can we conceive that timeless reality.   Thus discussions about the justice of God in creating creatures foreseeing their ultimate ruin have a very short life-span; for they rest on a false view of God's relationship to time.  It is one of those points where we can legitimately thrown in the "it's a mystery" towel.

 

However, God has conceded not only to create but to interact with creatures like us who are bound by time.  That being so, He must communicate to us in ways that are “finite” and often highly anthropomorphic: this of course opens the door to all sorts of confusion and misinterpretation.  But the alternative language, that of philosophers and sometimes even of theologians, is not only just as misleading but more so—it involves negation, and does not replace it with anything positive.  To say that God is “infinite” tells us nothing except that He is not “finite”.  Being finite creatures we do not know what the positive side of that negative is like.  The anthropomorphic language is far more useful for the purposes of Scripture; for Scripture is not a philosophical description of God—it is a story of His interaction with a fallen people whom He created and is highly intent on saving.  Thus it must use human language which, on the one hand, positively conveys God’s will and holiness and affections (using language like “repenting”), at the risk of smuggling in other notions which are not appropriate (like making mistakes and quickly having to correct them).  I think the risk worth taking (obviously He does as well, since He wrote it).  Attempt to rewrite those passages in more philosophical language and you will find you have said almost nothing about God and using about 20 times the number of words.

 

As far as the harsher passages of Scripture (killing all of mankind by flood etc. etc.) First, I think we need to remember that the death sentence covers all humanity—the flood is not the first we have heard it issued.  It was issued in the garden.  Every person that died at the flood was going to die anyway, and that by God’s decree, and probably by fates equally or worse than water.  We are committing a fallacy (not sure what it is called) when we regard the idea of the instantaneous death of a thousand people worse than the idea of those same thousand dying horrible deaths spread out over 20 years.  Death is death, and it is usually horrible, and most certainly for those who lived before modern medicine.

 

Secondly, I for one do not feel obliged by Scripture to regard every person who has died apart from Christ as being damned.  No one comes to the Father but through Him, true; but what and how many opportunities are afforded for such blessed meetings, that is left wonderfully ambiguous.  IF a man drowned in the flood should come to know Christ, and realize from what perversity those deadly waters saved him, and learn that his death served as a moral to resound from thence forth in Scripture---or if a Canaanite should learn that his death was intended to provide a safe haven in which the Incarnate Lord could live and grow from infancy to manhood…….I wonder, would they complain that it “wasn’t fair”?

 

clb

Edited April 13, 2014 by ConnorLiamBrown

[RustyAngeL]

NO... He makes no mistakes.

[Guest Butero]

As I see it, a mistake (at least the kind we are considering here)  can only be committed by a being bound by time.  To make a mistake is to miss- guess an outcome; to inappropriately anticipate the consequences of one’s actions.  But God is not bound by time—even language which represents Him as “seeing ahead in the future” is slightly misleading, for to see something “ahead” you have to be “behind”—that is,  you have to occupy one of infinite points of time from which you look back into the past and forward into the future.  God’s reality is not like that.  He is not only omnipresent in space but omnipresent in time.  Thus He cannot make mistakes.

 

However, God has conceded not only to create but to interact with creatures like us who are bound by time.  That being so, He must communicate to us in ways that are “finite” and often highly anthropomorphic: this of course opens the door to all sorts of confusion and misinterpretation.  But the alternative language, that of philosophers and sometimes even of theologians, is not only just as misleading but more so—it involves negation, and does not replace it with anything positive.  To say that God is “infinite” tells us nothing except that He is not “finite”.  Being finite creatures we do not know what the positive side of that negative is like.  The anthropomorphic language is far more useful for the purposes of Scripture; for Scripture is not a philosophical description of God—it is a story of His interaction with a fallen people whom He created and is highly intent on saving.  Thus it must use human language which, on the one hand, positively conveys God’s will and holiness and affections (using language like “repenting”), at the risk of smuggling in other notions which are not appropriate (like making mistakes and quickly having to correct them).  I think the risk worth taking (obviously He does as well, since He wrote it).  Attempt to rewrite those passages in more philosophical language and you will find you have said almost nothing about God and using about 20 times the number of words.

 

As far as the harsher passages of Scripture (killing all of mankind by flood etc. etc.) First, I think we need to remember that the death sentence covers all humanity—the flood is not the first we have heard it issued.  It was issued in the garden.  Every person that died at the flood was going to die anyway, and that by God’s decree, and probably by fates equally or worse than water.  We are committing a fallacy (not sure what it is called) when we regard the idea of the instantaneous death of a thousand people worse than the idea of those same thousand dying horrible deaths spread out over 20 years.  Death is death, and it is usually horrible, and most certainly for those who lived before modern medicine.

 

Secondly, I for one do not feel obliged by Scripture to regard every person who has died apart from Christ as being damned.  No one comes to the Father but through Him, true; but what and how many opportunities are afforded for such blessed meetings, that is left wonderfully ambiguous.  IF a man drowned in the flood should come to know Christ, and realize from what perversity those deadly waters saved him, and learn that his death served as a moral to resound from thence forth in Scripture---or if a Canaanite should learn that his death was intended to provide a safe haven in which the Incarnate Lord could live and grow from infancy to manhood…….I wonder, would they complain that it “wasn’t fair”?

 

clb

There is a lot of what you said that makes sense, and I agree with, but I can't agree with you about the condition of those who are apart from Christ when they die.  Faith in Christ is the only way to salvation.  I do agree with you that an untimely death that leads to eternal life is better than a longer life that leads to eternal damnation.  You made a lot of good points, but there is no other name given whereby we must be saved, besides the name of Jesus Christ. 

[a-seeker]

There is a lot of what you said that makes sense, and I agree with, but I can't agree with you about the condition of those who are apart from Christ when they die.  Faith in Christ is the only way to salvation.  I do agree with you that an untimely death that leads to eternal life is better than a longer life that leads to eternal damnation.  You made a lot of good points, but there is no other name given whereby we must be saved, besides the name of Jesus Christ. 

 

 

But the bold was one of my points!

 

No one comes to the Father but through Him, true; but what and how many opportunities are afforded for such blessed meetings, that is left wonderfully ambiguous. 

 

 

 

Now if you mean that there are no opportunities to meet and accept Christ as Lord but in this life, we shall have to condemn every single patriarch, every good king (not many, granted) who "walked in the way of David" and David himself to hell.  We shall have to condemn John the Baptist to hell, who died clearly unsure of what Christ's mission was.

 

If, however, we are unwilling to admit that, then we shall have to allow that opportunities to convert are granted post-mortem.  And if for those heroes of the O.T. and even N.T.  how not for others.

 

The question is not about "what" saves a person, but "when".

 

clb

[Guest]

As I see it.... I for one do not feel obliged by Scripture to regard every person who has died apart from Christ as being damned....

 

 

As The LORD See's It

 

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6

 

This Is Deadly

 

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Mark 9:47-48

 

Serious

 

And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

 

And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

 

But the word of God grew and multiplied. Acts 12:21-24

 

Business

 

The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:35-36

 

So Let Your Light Shine

 

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

 

And Be Blessed Beloved Of The KING

 

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

 

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

 

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

 

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

 

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

 

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

 

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

 

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:4-11

 

Love, Your Brother Joe