Well, He might have stayed longer, but you know, we killed him.

Drum5343 said:

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God did give us his instruction and message himself. And then we stripped, beat, tortured, and killed him for it.

"But the author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses"

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To be clear, your proposal is that he gave his instruction in person to those living 2000 years ago . . . a couple of whom recorded his messages decades after he had already been stripped, beat, tortured, and killed, yes? It may have been direct instruction from God to his disciples, but not to you or me. (This is assuming you subscribe to something like Buster's account of the Bible as being divinely inspired rather than the literal word of God).

Drum5343 said:

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But if God were completely reducible, with no possibility for misinterpretation, to a single sentence, He wouldn't be much of a God.

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Sure, I certainly agree and I don't want to suggest that we should have any expectation to fully understand such a God, if such a God exists. But, should it not be within God's means to communicate his message and revelation to humanity in such a way as to (at a minimum) limit the amount of misinterpretation.

its not that I expect the Christian God to give us a fully comprehensive understanding of himself, its that I expect the Christian God to give us a fully comprehensive understanding of what he means for us to understand. Is it not apparent that his message is lost on humanity when 2/3 of all humans alive reject Christianity mostly from cultural and geographic bias and the remaining 1/3 continues to fracture and argue on Biblical meanings both big and small? If I did believe in a personal God, I might find it insulting to suggest, given the current distribution of beliefs, that this is the best that God can do to reveal himself.

Drum5343 said:

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Well, He might have stayed longer, but you know, we killed him.

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This will sound like a strange question, but would you have preferred that he not have been killed?

kurt vonnegut said:

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Drum5343 said:

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But, should it not be within God's means to communicate his message and revelation to humanity in such a way as to (at a minimum) limit the amount of misinterpretation.

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Yes.

But, he would have had to create a different type of human. We will re-write, misinterpret, filter, emphasize, de-emphasize, cherry pick and every other known trick / bias you can think of to get a piece of language to say what we want it to say. The problem is with humans more so than the text.

But, one major point of Jesus's teaching is that perfectly following a perfect rule-book will never lead to a better life. Love for love's sake is the goal. If the rule book is the standard for getting there, people wanting to grow close to God will just emphasize better and more stringent following of the rule book, to the exclusion of love, justice, mercy and service.

Matthew 23:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spicesmint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the lawjustice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat (the smallest of all unclean animals) but swallow a camel (the largest of all unclean animals).

Human's don't need a better rule book. In my view, we tried that with the OT law, and it didn't work. Quickly outdated, and emphasizes the wrong type of behavior. The message is not hard. Doing right is what is hard.

I reject your proposition that there could be a perfect book that humans would not manipulate to their advantage. Humans are just incapable of not doing that.

Nice post JJMT. You can tell it takes me a while to put a post together.

JJMt said:

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But, should it not be within God's means to communicate his message and revelation to humanity in such a way as to (at a minimum) limit the amount of misinterpretation.

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Is the misinterpretation due to God's failure to communicate clearly and simply, or rather due to man's insistence on misinterpreting a clear and simple message? Surely the 10 commandments were both clear and simple, yet man immediately started twisting, reinterpreting, mangling, and creating exceptions to them. Mankind is a screwed up race, and we can take the clearest, simplest, and most straightforward message and make it complex - usually to satisfy some agenda or ulterior purpose that we have.

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Regarding your first question - thats why I argue that mankind needs 'Dick and Jane' level instruction. To give us something with the breadth and depth of the Bible is to invite misinterpretation.

No one, for example, contends though shall not kill on the reading of Exodus chapter 20 verse 13 alone. . . . But when you read the other 31,101 verses and, as you mention, mankind is bound to find ways to justify anything or argue for nuance, subtlety, and exceptions.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Drum5343 said:

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Well, He might have stayed longer, but you know, we killed him.

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This will sound like a strange question, but would you have preferred that he not have been killed?

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Not a strange question. I mean, it's kind of a hard question to answer. But yes, I think I would prefer if we had not put God to death.

His death may have been the chosen method to save us, but it is certainly not the only possible method, given that we had not killed Him.

But, really, it was inevitable that we would want to kill him.

Is there free will in heaven?

AstroAg17 said:

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Why would you try something if you knew with certainty your design would fail? There's no point, unless that failure generates something positive.

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You mean like the seeming ultimate failure of the death of God himself? I wonder what good came out of that.

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My speculation is that, yes, there will be free will in what comes next. For example, the Bible says that there will be a new heaven and earth, and that Christians will be judges in that new creation. For their to be judges, one has to guess that there will be something to judge, and thus free will would appear to be a requirement. Furthermore, judges implies that the person judging uses judgment, i.e., free will.

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And so there is sin also wouldn't you say?

JJMt said:

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Again, God tried the simple "Dick and Jane" approach initially.

First, he said simply don't eat of the fruit of a specific tree.

When we screwed that up, he said keep these 10, simple commandments.

When we screwed that up, God added more examples, illustrations, and explanations to make it crystal clear that the problem wasn't God or his commandments, but was us.

The core of Christianity, on which almost all Christians agree, ain't all that complex. Rather, and unfortunately, Christians tend to major on the minor, and allow those minor points to create divisions. However, in difficult times, Christians tend to put their differences aside and renew their focus on the common essentials of the Christian faith.

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If God created us, gave us free will, and is 'all-knowing', then it stands to reason that he knew we would 'screw up'. I think that to suggest that we are the problem rather than to suggest that the instruction is the problem is to suggest that God does not understand humanity or that God intentionally gave instruction with full knowledge that it would be misunderstood or disregarded by the majority of humans to ever live.

kurt vonnegut said:

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JJMt said:

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Again, God tried the simple "Dick and Jane" approach initially.

First, he said simply don't eat of the fruit of a specific tree.

When we screwed that up, he said keep these 10, simple commandments.

When we screwed that up, God added more examples, illustrations, and explanations to make it crystal clear that the problem wasn't God or his commandments, but was us.

The core of Christianity, on which almost all Christians agree, ain't all that complex. Rather, and unfortunately, Christians tend to major on the minor, and allow those minor points to create divisions. However, in difficult times, Christians tend to put their differences aside and renew their focus on the common essentials of the Christian faith.

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If God created us, gave us free will, and is 'all-knowing', then it stands to reason that he knew we would 'screw up'. I think that to suggest that we are the problem rather than to suggest that the instruction is the problem is to suggest that God does not understand humanity or that God intentionally gave instruction with full knowledge that it would be misunderstood or disregarded by the majority of humans to ever live.

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I think the answer, from a Christian standpoint, is that yes, God intentionally gave us instructions knowing we would misunderstand and disregard it. I would say, reading the OT, it's obvious that the Jewish people understood God's commands quite well, but chose to do otherwise. Just like we do today.

If God respects our free will, what possible instruction is there that he could give us that would not be misinterpreted or disregarded?

Also, apologies to OP. Thread derailed.

AstroAg17 said:

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The plan has failed already for every person in hell, hasn't it? I doubt a positive end game would provide solace for the people who didn't make it that far.

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Can't really say the plan has failed if they have chosen to not follow the plan.

AstroAg17 said:

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So you believe everyone in hell made a conscious choice to go there? There has never been sincere disbelief?

Also, do you believe those who didn't hear the gospel go to hell? I don't know much about your beliefs.

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Yes. That's the way I understand it. Everyone who is in hell chose to be there through rejection of God in someway. I think I'm in line with Catholic theology here.

AstroAg17 said:

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The plan has failed already for every person in hell, hasn't it? I doubt a positive end game would provide solace for the people who didn't make it that far.

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Thought about this some more.

You see the failure of OT people as a "failure" of God's plan for them. I see it different.

God's plan has never failed, because he is perfectly faithful to his covenants. Human beings are not. So God remakes his covenant again and again in the OT. "I will be your God and you will be my people." Human beings never held up their end of the bargain.

That is until Jesus. As fully God and fully man, he upholds our end of the bargain for us. He is the covenant in flesh, and this covenant will never be broken by human failure.

As to why God felt the need to make minor covenants (that he knew would be broken) before THE covenant... I'm not sure. Maybe he felt that we needed the preparation of the old covenants to better understand the New Covenant.

Drum5343 said:

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If God respects our free will, what possible instruction is there that he could give us that would not be misinterpreted or disregarded?

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If God is just, then He will judge our exercising of free will based on what we understood of the implications and consequences of our actions. You don't punish and torture your children for breaking rules they don't understand unless you are a sociopath. And a reasonable God wouldn't cast his beloved creation into torment for an honest mistake. If God is all powerful, Can he reveal himself to each person individually in such a way that it would be undeniable to that person who God was and what God wanted of them? If so, this would not impede free will. It would permit us to exercise free will with better understanding of our actions and consequences.

If I 'knew' or was otherwise convinced through incredibly strong convictions that God existed and wanted me to live a certain way which was objectively good for me and would save me from eternal torture . . . I think that I might just listen.

Drum5343 said:

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Yes. That's the way I understand it. Everyone who is in hell chose to be there through rejection of God in someway. I think I'm in line with Catholic theology here.

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Its been said before, but, most of us that reject the Christian God no more choose Christian Hell than you are actively choosing to go to Islamic Hell or to be reborn as a dung beetle.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Drum5343 said:

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If God respects our free will, what possible instruction is there that he could give us that would not be misinterpreted or disregarded?

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If God is just, then He will judge our exercising of free will based on what we understood of the implications and consequences of our actions. You don't punish and torture your children for breaking rules they don't understand unless you are a sociopath. And a reasonable God wouldn't cast his beloved creation into torment for an honest mistake. If God is all powerful, Can he reveal himself to each person individually in such a way that it would be undeniable to that person who God was and what God wanted of them? If so, this would not impede free will. It would permit us to exercise free will with better understanding of our actions and consequences.

If I 'knew' or was otherwise convinced through incredibly strong convictions that God existed and wanted me to live a certain way which was objectively good for me and would save me from eternal torture . . . I think that I might just listen.

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Ok. How would he reveal himself to you? And how, after he had done so, how would he keep you from making the wrong choice when you know it's the wrong choice? Would he personally appear to you in all his might and glory and wag his finger moments before you made choices you knew were evil? Is that free will?

Because even devout Christians, who are convinced of God'a existence and power, choose on occasion to do what is evil. Should God personally appear to them every time they are tempted and convince them again of his existence and power?

And if you're saying you would never choose the wrong thing if you knew it was the wrong thing, you are one heck of a saint.

Drum5343 said:

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And if you're saying you would never choose the wrong thing if you knew it was the wrong thing, you are one heck of a saint.

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I've done plenty of wrong things and I accept the consequences of my actions where I've made informed decisions to do wrong. My whole point with this is that it seems to be an odd form of justice to hold me eternally accountable for doing wrong when I think I'm doing right.

Ghandi knew the gospels and rejected your God, is he currently being tormented for eternity? I don't think so. If there is a God, what reason do we have to think he's that sadistic?

kurt vonnegut said:

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My whole point with this is that it seems to be an odd form of justice to hold me eternally accountable for doing wrong when I think I'm doing right.

Ghandi knew the gospels and rejected your God, is he currently being tormented for eternity? I don't think so. If there is a God, what reason do we have to think he's that sadistic?

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The way I understand it, and I think this is compatible with classic Christian theology, is that you are not held eternally responsible when you did wrong but did not know you were doing wrong (the need to be "saved" aside for a moment).

As for Ghandi, I don't (and can't) know. Neither one of us truly knows his internal life and why he chose to reject Christianity.

Fascinating convo going on here. Sorry I've been absent for a while. Work and family (a one-month old now in addition three other kiddos) took me away for a bit. But I'm back and will be responding to a few posts. I know you missed me.