Single Biggest Obstacle To Faith

[Deva]

Reading the "God Squad" column in the paper this morning I came across this statement:

 

The single biggest obstacle to faith I see is the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do. This is not what Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism teach. God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death.

- Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

Confining my coments to Christianity here -- If that is in fact the case, then why are Christians constantly praying for safety everytime someone travels somewhere? Why is God depicted in the Bible as constantly intervening in human affairs? If God is omnipotent, why can't he protect someone from "accidental death"?

 

Sorry I couldn't find the whole column online but this paragraph in particular was what was most controversial to me. It was part of an answer to someone who had lost their son in an automobile accident (he was a passenger in the car).

[florduh]

I see that statement as saying, "The single biggest obstacle to faith is seeing that it doesn't work."

 

Figured that one out a long time ago. Question is, once that fact is realized, why stay "in the faith?"

 

- Chris

[Neon Genesis]

The single biggest obstacle to faith I see is the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do. This is not what Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism teach. God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death.

- Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

 

So, I guess that verse where Jesus says "But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible" in Mark 10:27 must have been a figment of our imaginations, or how about those verses where Jesus says to ask and ye shall receive, not ask and ye shall receive what God cherry picks. Or how about the story where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Going by this logic, Jesus really died on the cross if God cannot protect others from accidental death. I mean, seriously, if Christianity does not teach God can stop accidental death, then the whole religion is a lie because if God won't protect us from accidental death, then he can't protect Jesus from accidental death. I have to agree with Florduh, why bother with God then if he's apparently useless? I guess this goes to show just how either 1)people never actually read the bible and 2)just how easy it is to take whatever the bible says and twist it around to suit their apologetics.

[par4dcourse]

My wife came up negative on a drug test, and she attributes it to all the people she called to pray for her. I attribute it to all the precautions she took, including a bottle of systerm flush and lots of vinegar and water. I told her to skip the cures next time and just pray. She replied "I'm not stupid." WTF? Did gawd magically touch your pee or not? Teflon god indeed.

[Guest debtor2grace]

“Reading the "God Squad" column in the paper this morning I came across this statement:

 

The single biggest obstacle to faith I see is the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do. This is not what Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism teach. God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death.’

- Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

Confining my comments to Christianity here -- If that is in fact the case, then why are Christians constantly praying for safety every time someone travels somewhere? Why is God depicted in the Bible as constantly intervening in human affairs? If God is omnipotent, why can't he protect someone from "accidental death"?

 

Sorry I couldn't find the whole column online but this paragraph in particular was what was most controversial to me. It was part of an answer to someone who had lost their son in an automobile accident (he was a passenger in the car).â€

 

 

It’s a strange tension, I agree. The question of God’s omnipotence and the point of supplicatory prayer (which is undeniably commanded in the NT, see below) is part of the greater conversation of free agency and the ultimate control of God over everything. For the most part, I agree with Rabbi Gellman – “the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do†– is not a Scripturally-supported Christian belief. One major point of living by and in the faith is that we are free from the fear of death, knowing that though the world means suffering (to the good and bad alike), that is not all there is.

 

On the subject of prayer, there’s texts from the Gospels that tend both ways. Here are some of them:

 

The whole discourse within Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, 6:5-13, particularly v. 8: “Therefore do not be like [babbling pagans]. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.†This suggests that prayer serves less as a means of informing God what we “need,†but rather a relational beginning point.

 

I’m not happy to put this one in, but here it (fig tree weirdness and all): “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.

And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.†(Matthew 21:21-22) I take this as implying that, in some sense, human prayer can have some degree of efficacy in the world, whether regarding physical or spiritual things, or both.

 

The familiar Luke 11:9-13 piece…Ask, seek, knock, etc… finishes with “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!†Again, as in Matthew 6, this is God as a good Father, here providing explicitly spiritual consolation.

 

A spiritual sense of the importance of prayer is suggested in Jesus’ words to the disciples in the Garden (Matthew 26:41): “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.â€

 

I’ve noticed that almost every publically offered petition is tempered by an echo of Jesus’ qualifier in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done†(Luke 22:42). As is right for the Christian attitude.

Prayer regarding security and safety (‘traveling mercies’) is a natural activity, and - if nothing else - affirms to oneself that loved ones are being cared for and watched over by God. The New Testament writers and the early church didn’t see the issue of tragedy and death as signs against God (persecution was expected); I’m sure they mourned over a dead child as we do, and came to terms with the loss on a personal level with regards to God – as we also do.

 

Of course, the prevailing Classical / Augustinian (i.e., Neo-Platonist) theology finds it imperative to affirm the absolute control of God over all things. Everything happens for a reason, there is nothing outside of God’s control. Moreover, all things work together for GOOD at the directive of God. That’s really problematic when it comes to theodicy (it’s hard to “assert eternal Providence and justify God’s ways to men†in a world where children die of violence, starvation and neglect). There’s many things under Heaven that seem to allow no good at all…some things that seem unredeemable, unjustifiable.

 

The Augustinian model has its problems (and no one’s really dealt with the problem properly since then, in my opinion), but I don’t really like the alternative either (Gregory Boyd’s God at War is a pretty radical return to a ‘warfare mentality,’ allowing for free human and spiritual agents in the world). I just like Augustine, even though his Christianity is more Hellenistic than Judaistic...what did Nietzsche call Christianity but “Platonism for the masses�

[Legion]

I’ve noticed that almost every publically offered petition is tempered by an echo of Jesus’ qualifier in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done†(Luke 22:42).

I largely view this as a nod to the idea that we may not have control and security.

 

If I have faith then that is supposed to protect me from something, right? What does it protect me from?

[Ouroboros]

Debtor,

 

That's all good what you have to say, but how come you don't know the exact answer, but have to look at different possible alternatives? Why isn't the "facts" and "truth" obvious, if God so "obviously" exist, and it's so "obvious" that Jesus supposedly existed? Wouldn't the matters and paradoxes about God's omnipotence and influence on human life be just as clear and evident if it all were true? Why doesn't the Bible contain a whole chapter laying it all out and explaining why and how? Shouldn't God have inspired Paul to write about that, to answer the future generations questions, instead of letting some semi-Christian apologists/philosopher use almost-but-not-quite-satisfying reasoning a long-long-long time later? And yet the question is still in the air...

 

Doesn't the Bible also state something like "when two or three are gathered in my name, I will be with them, and whatever they bind in Heaven will be bound on Earth"... something like that (from the top of my head). Does it mean that God has control or not, when people pray? It should be evident in the consistent results if this was true, but there isn't. So is the answer that this quote doesn't cover everything? God gave a promise he won't keep? I'm confused. Why would God allow such categorical promise in the Bible, and yet, we hear excuses that God doesn't do crap to help humans...

[Neon Genesis]

It’s a strange tension, I agree. The question of God’s omnipotence and the point of supplicatory prayer (which is undeniably commanded in the NT, see below) is part of the greater conversation of free agency and the ultimate control of God over everything. For the most part, I agree with Rabbi Gellman – “the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do†– is not a Scripturally-supported Christian belief. One major point of living by and in the faith is that we are free from the fear of death, knowing that though the world means suffering (to the good and bad alike), that is not all there is.

See my above post.

 

On the subject of prayer, there’s texts from the Gospels that tend both ways.

Translation: I don't know the truth about God anymore than anybody else does and my post is really a waste of time, but don't let me know that.

 

I take this as implying that, in some sense, human prayer can have some degree of efficacy in the world, whether regarding physical or spiritual things, or both.

Translation:God cherry picks which prayers he feels like answering and prayer is really worthless.

 

 

I’ve noticed that almost every publically offered petition is tempered by an echo of Jesus’ qualifier in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done†(Luke 22:42). As is right for the Christian attitude.

Translation: God only answers the prayers of "real Christians." If your prayer wasn't answered, then you weren't a "real Christian."

 

 

 

 

The Augustinian model has its problems (and no one’s really dealt with the problem properly since then, in my opinion), but I don’t really like the alternative either

Translation: I don't like to think for myself.

[florduh]

The fact that prayer doesn't work is diligently ignored by the faithful. When things go bad, to say that it is "God's plan" is a cop out. When things go well, to say it is an answered prayer is a lie. We can't have it both ways.

 

Nobody has literally moved a mountain by prayer, or done greater things than Jesus did in the Bible. We live in a random world of probability and coincidence. Hard work is no guarantee of wealth or success, and the idle man can get lucky and just seem to fall into money, success and fame. If we pray for a thing it may or may not happen, exactly the same outcome as if we don't pray.

 

The obstacle to having faith in the supernatural is simply reality. None of the gods have ever delivered what they promised (perhaps because they only exist in the human mind).

 

- Chris

[Legion]

We live in a random world of probability and coincidence.

I disagree with this assertion. When I ask "why?" about many things I expect "becauses". I think it's possible to understand the world and oursleves. But control? Not now.

[florduh]

We live in a random world of probability and coincidence.

I disagree with this assertion. When I ask "why?" about many things I expect "becauses". I think it's possible to understand the world and oursleves. But control? Not now.

 

That doesn't really seem like a disagreement. I ask why and expect an answer, but often there is no answer other than "shit happens." I understand things happen because of the probabilities created by circumstances, but they're just probabilities, not certainties. No control? That was my point.

 

- Chris

[Legion]

Chris...

[par4dcourse]

One major point of living by and in the faith is that we are free from the fear of death, knowing that though the world means suffering (to the good and bad alike), that is not all there is.

I don't fear death either, debtor, any more than I fear going to sleep at night. One of my reasons for de-conversion was that I was sick to tears of being afraid of gawd.

[Deva]

For the most part, I agree with Rabbi Gellman – “the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do” – is not a Scripturally-supported Christian belief.

 

Yes, I would tend to agree. When I first read this I thought that this attitude -- performing good acts is a guarantee of protection ---is not really supported by scripture (someone correct me if not). Nevertheless, Christians go on acting as if its a fact that God gives special blessings to those who do good, and use good works as "evidence" of the salvation of the person and attaching all sorts of significance to it ---whereas its a plain fact that there are non-Christians who also do good and Christians who do bad things.

 

My main issue was with this assertion by the Rabbi that God cannot intervene to prevent accidental death. You have provided the scriptures that back me up. It is simply not true that Christianity doesn't teach this. Maybe it was just the Rabbi's personal opinon unconnected to the first sentence but -- hey it just doesn't follow.

[Guest eejay]

For the most part, I agree with Rabbi Gellman – “the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do†– is not a Scripturally-supported Christian belief.

 

Yes, I would tend to agree. When I first read this I thought that this attitude -- performing good acts is a guarantee of protection ---is not really supported by scripture (someone correct me if not). Nevertheless, Christians go on acting as if its a fact that God gives special blessings to those who do good, and use good works as "evidence" of the salvation of the person and attaching all sorts of significance to it ---whereas its a plain fact that there are non-Christians who also do good and Christians who do bad things.

 

My main issue was with this statement by the Rabbi is the assertion that God cannot intervene to prevent accidental death, and you have provided the scriptures that back me up. It is simply not true that Christianity doesn't teach this.

It's like some of those athletes who say they couldn't be where they are without god. But then what about those athletes who are just as talented and believe nothing?

[Outback Jack]

If God is omnipotent, why can't he protect someone from "accidental death"?

Sorry to derail a bit, but this line made me think of this quote...

When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if some is killed by a freak chain of events - the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there - that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.

 

Terry Pratchett - Interesting Times

 

 

(ETA - Just read my own post and realized that it looks like Pratchett is promoting god. He isn't. Actually, he's making the point that religious people don't thank their god for bad things as well as good ones.)

[Coolhermit]

It would seem that while 'god' does not prevent ALL accidental deaths - the true figure of deaths prevented will never be known.

 

I might surmise that it the looking for absolutes and the absence of those absolutes that creates unbelief.

 

Maybe sometimes one just has to roll with the blows.

[Guest bobjr]

Reading the "God Squad" column in the paper this morning I came across this statement:

 

The single biggest obstacle to faith I see is the belief that God has agreed to protect us from evil in direct proportion to the good we do. This is not what Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism teach. God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death.

- Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

Confining my coments to Christianity here -- If that is in fact the case, then why are Christians constantly praying for safety everytime someone travels somewhere? Why is God depicted in the Bible as constantly intervening in human affairs? If God is omnipotent, why can't he protect someone from "accidental death"?

 

Sorry I couldn't find the whole column online but this paragraph in particular was what was most controversial to me. It was part of an answer to someone who had lost their son in an automobile accident (he was a passenger in the car).

 

Well Deva. I agree, that is odd. Personnally, I think that there are no accidents, yet accidents that we know to be accidents are allowed to take place in the big picture of things based on millions of choices taken place in the same time range that causes different paths in which, hence cause accidents as we know it. Religiously, I think it all comes down to that freewill notion God let us have, in lue of total disaster

[Ouroboros]

Well Deva. I agree, that is odd. Personnally, I think that there are no accidents, yet accidents that we know to be accidents are allowed to take place in the big picture of things based on millions of choices taken place in the same time range that causes different paths in which, hence cause accidents as we know it. Religiously, I think it all comes down to that freewill notion God let us have, in lue of total disaster

If there are no accidents, how can you have free will? If someone "wills" freely to lets say drive their car into a coffee shop and injure a bunch of people. Was it determined by infinite past that this would happen through his "free" will, or was it unplanned as a real, free of constraints, mind only could cause? It's the same old question of the conflict between determinism and indeterminism. A free will, to be fully free, or even partially free within a limited context, still needs a certain level of indeterminism. You can have probability in a localized freedom and resolve it, but yet you will end up with some level of "accidents".

 

--edit--

 

Okay, when someone talks about that we have free will, and at the same time say that everything is planned out and determined. It is like what is called dispositional freedom. It's a hypothetical form of freedom, where someone is free to do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't want what he's not allowed to want. Like this example:

 

A man is voting in an election. A soldier is standing next to him and forcing him to vote for candidate A.

 

Now, the man, he was planning to vote for this candidate anyway, so he is free to do what he wanted to do, but it's just a dispositional freedom, since if he wanted to not vote for this candidate, then he would have been constrained from doing so and hence being frustrated and not free.

 

Is the freedom of mind like this man? We are free to choose whatever we want, as long as we choose what is planned to be chosen?

[Guest Acorn]

A man is voting in an election. A soldier is standing next to him and forcing him to vote for candidate A.

 

Now, the man, he was planning to vote for this candidate anyway, so he is free to do what he wanted to do, but it's just a dispositional freedom, since if he wanted to not vote for this candidate, then he would have been constrained from doing so and hence being frustrated and not free.

 

Is the freedom of mind like this man? We are free to choose whatever we want, as long as we choose what is planned to be chosen?

 

Freewill spiritually. Freewill as to God let man have freewill. Man started using their freewill, intially toward the rebellion of God, or distance of one from God. So. Man is freewilled from God. The rest is history. Man spiritually born of freewill, yet regulated by history and other humans.

 

In that. This spiral of freewill evolved into something unimaginable to the human eye, kinda like the writting, programming of a computer to a person unapt to understand computer language. Though, anyone, given the time and effort of dedication toward computer dilect can eventually start to at least comprehend the basics, yet maybe not understand the entire process.

 

Spiritually, I came to this thought when Christ said to Pilate that he could not have authority over Him unless it had been given from above. At first I was a little lost in this, but after time I began to wonder if that was a deeper comment than intially read. And now, I think it was.

[Deva]

God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death. - Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

Well Deva. I agree, that is odd. Personnally, I think that there are no accidents, yet accidents that we know to be accidents are allowed to take place in the big picture of things based on millions of choices taken place in the same time range that causes different paths in which, hence cause accidents as we know it. Religiously, I think it all comes down to that freewill notion God let us have, in lue of total disaster

 

I think we are getting all kinds of interesting remarks in this thread. I did not see this at first as a free will issue but looking at it again, I suppose it is. In questions involving Christian doctrine it always seems to come up, doesn't it? In the Christian view with God as a soverign creator of this universe, as well as ominipotent, what is an accident? Is it really possible to be "outside the will of God"? Does God limit his own free will?

 

Yes, folks, these were some of the questions that led me out of Christianity. The whole free will thing just didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't. Acorn, I agree with you when you say there are no accidents, just the appearance of such.

[Guest Acorn]

God does not and cannot protect us from accidental death. - Rabbi Marc Gellman

 

Well Deva. I agree, that is odd. Personnally, I think that there are no accidents, yet accidents that we know to be accidents are allowed to take place in the big picture of things based on millions of choices taken place in the same time range that causes different paths in which, hence cause accidents as we know it. Religiously, I think it all comes down to that freewill notion God let us have, in lue of total disaster

 

I think we are getting all kinds of interesting remarks in this thread. I did not see this at first as a free will issue but looking at it again, I suppose it is. In questions involving Christian doctrine it always seems to come up, doesn't it? In the Christian view with God as a soverign creator of this universe, as well as ominipotent, what is an accident? Is it really possible to be "outside the will of God"? Does God limit his own free will?

 

Yes, folks, these were some of the questions that led me out of Christianity. The whole free will thing just didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't. Acorn, I agree with you when you say there are no accidents, just the appearance of such.

 

 

Ok. Being a staggering Jonah like man walking around hearing God and all, if I were to preach that to someone, it might influence them to walk away from God

 

Damnit Thats why Im not a preacher

[The-Captain]

In the Christian view with God as a soverign creator of this universe, as well as ominipotent, what is an accident? Is it really possible to be "outside the will of God"? Does God limit his own free will?

 

Yes, folks, these were some of the questions that led me out of Christianity. The whole free will thing just didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't. Acorn, I agree with you when you say there are no accidents, just the appearance of such.

 

Hey! I think thats what I was thinking of when I de-converted. If God did create the universe and conceived of everything in it, nothing can exist outside of his will and knowledge right? So wouldn't we just be extensions of his thought? Which brings us back to the dead horse of the genesis of sin, existence of evil, rebellion of Satan etc, that fly in the face of the assertions of an ultimately good, just and caring God.

 

It gets kind of crazy when you follow this idea for awhile, kind of like thinking that everything may be a dream, but the dream is God's. It just doesn't make sense, the ideas of the Bible when thought out and carried through don't make sense without serious rationalization. Either that or blithe acceptance of it as "the way things are" (some xians seem to think its a virtue), I don't see that there is much difference between that and being insane.

[Guest Acorn]

It gets kind of crazy when you follow this idea for awhile, kind of like thinking that everything may be a dream, but the dream is God's. It just doesn't make sense, the ideas of the Bible when thought out and carried through don't make sense without serious rationalization. Either that or blithe acceptance of it as "the way things are" (some xians seem to think its a virtue), I don't see that there is much difference between that and being insane.

 

I vote insanity.

[Guest Acorn]

Hey! I think thats what I was thinking of when I de-converted. If God did create the universe and conceived of everything in it, nothing can exist outside of his will and knowledge right? So wouldn't we just be extensions of his thought? Which brings us back to the dead horse of the genesis of sin, existence of evil, rebellion of Satan etc, that fly in the face of the assertions of an ultimately good, just and caring God.

 

I agree though. I stumbled there looking into Satan seeking answers about that. I couldnt get passed the part of if God is God and theres a Satan that can obviously do things similar to God, why did God make Satan?

 

Job was enlightening. The conversation between God and Satan. Weirded me out. I really didnt get absolute answers until I wondered outside the Bible into other Biblical books, to fill some gaps.