"God is Good All the Time, and All the Time God is Good"

[Hierophant]

Remember that little quip from "God's Not Dead"? I know it makes its way around Christian circles, but that movie was the first time I heard it I believe. I have actually been pondering the meaning of that statement for some time. Not exactly as put in the title, but in general, the notion that God is good....what exactly does that mean?

 

This may be a longer post because there are a lot of ideas I need to flush out, so bear with me.

 

On a side note before I get started, I want to say that I may be wrong about all of this. Right now I do not consider myself a believer, and for the first time in ages, I am able to take a step back and evaluate Christianity's claims from a more neutral mindset. I realize now it is impossible to do that when you are actually a believer. Dogma will dictate how you think to some degree, no matter how neutral you are trying to be. People who are attached to an idea are unable to be as neutral as they would like or portray themselves to be, I know from experience.

 

Perhaps my inquiry from the outside might lead me back in, maybe I will come across some piece of data that will tie it all together and it will all make sense. I doubt it, but you never know. I am not so full of hubris that I do not realize I could be missing something, or interpreting information the wrong way. Even when I was fully into Christianity, I kept changing my mind on issues because I could see them from different theological standpoints. The cognitive dissonance I got from that was overwhelming and eventually something had to give, my faith was that thing.

 

On to the issue at hand...

 

David Pawson is a British theologian and I happened across one of his YouTube videos a while back that spoke to this idea. In the video, he made the statement that either the NT or the OT only stated God was love three times (maybe it was the whole Bible, I cannot remember). I believe he was getting at the idea that God is not this loving father figure people want him to be, but he is good. I was disappointed when he never qualified what good meant. In my experience, nobody has.

 

I have to ask myself, what is behind the idea of God being good? What does that really mean, or what underlying principle is that speaking to? I nicknamed it "God's Prime Directive." This is one of the pieces of the puzzle that could tie everything together, but I believe it is missing or unknown from the Bible or church tradition. John Piper and other Calvinist would say God's purpose or underlying motivation is to seek his own glory. For those unfamiliar with what the term glory actually means, it is more or less God's characteristics and attributes. If you want to hear something really disturbing, God's glory is the reason hell and heaven exist - from a Calvinistic perspective. Those predestined to hell are to demonstrate God's justice, while those in heaven are there to demonstrate his mercy. If you whittle it down, humans are just a tool to used to achieve an end.

 

I find this notion odd. Perhaps it is true, but fundamentally speaking, it does not make sense to me. Why would a perfect being need to have a bunch of humans telling him how great he is forever, while everyone else is suffering his wrath for eternity? Does perfection not imply satisfaction? I will give you an example, when I was a teenager, I lacked self-confidence, identity, and all the other things teenagers often feel. Because of this, I would seek friendship, relationships, and validation through other people as a way to fill the gaps where I was lacking. As I got older and developed a sense of identity, I felt comfortable with who I was. I am satisfied with myself and most often, a simple thank you is fine, but beyond that, I get uncomfortable. The idea is, I am so comfortable with who I am, I do not even like to receive the praise of others beyond basic gratitude.

 

Since God is supposedly perfect in all aspects, why would he need the adoration of others? It should follow he is completely satisfied in himself and since he is the most powerful being in the universe, what could the praise of us humans (who he hates so much anyways) really do for him? Not only that, but is he really enjoying or getting satisfaction watching people suffer forever? I cannot wrap my head around either of these scenarios, it is just bizarre to me.

 

If God's prime directive is to seek his own glory, then there is no need to create and go through all of this mess. If he is eternal, he already knew the value of his glory and since he is holy (holy means unique, one of a kind, unlike anything else - in the OT, when they say "Holy, Holy, Holy," it is a phrase to mean God is so far separated from the ilk of man or angels, he is on his own spectrum), only he could actually appreciate his own value to his liking. Otherwise, who is he putting a show on for? Angels, humans? Why would he have any desire to impress us, especially when humans are constantly portrayed in a negative light all throughout the Bible?

 

Is the prime directive based on ethics? If so, it is lost on me. The Bible does not have one consistent ethical framework from my perspective (Again, perhaps if I knew the prime directive, it would make sense). Let's discuss a few, but not comprehensive conflicting ideas being portrayed in the Bible:

 

Starting with the one of the ten commandments, Thou Shall Not Kill (KJV). Given to Moses on Mount Sinai, it would seem fairly obvious what this implies. Shortly thereafter, God commands Israel to go kill a bunch of people; and I mean everyone gets it, man, woman, and child. There is some discussion that this commandment actually says, Thou Shall Not Murder, and that is probably right, because why would God give you a commandment and then turn around and tell you to break it? That alone should shut the King James Only advocates up, but it will not, of course. This is not my strongest example, but I wanted to mention is because King James Onlyism irritates me.

 

What about divorce, David Pawson, who I mentioned before, wrote and entire book on how the NT prohibits divorce. I did not read the book, I am sure I already know what is says. Him and other fundamentalist will rave on about Jesus' teachings on divorce, but I have to wonder if they really thought it through. The general idea is that divorce is forbidden unless there is sexual immorality in play (Matthew), but the other time it is mentioned (Mark), the sexual immorality aspect is not even brought up, the subject is brought up in the context that divorce for any reason is wrong. I have to make a note here because the church usually get this one wrong; the prohibition is really from remarrying, not just getting a divorce.

 

Back in those days, the Jews had different ideas on divorce. One school taught you could divorce your wife for just about anything and the other taught you could only divorce your spouse if she cheated. In my opinion, Jesus was just weighing in (if he in fact even said anything on the matter) on which school he sided with. That being said, nothing is ever mentioned about the wife leaving the husband. What if he was abusive (and when I say abusive, I mean abusive)? What if the husband was cheating? Strictly speaking to the specific question, when can a man divorce and remarry, how could it possibly be only that specific scenario? What if the wife started up witchcraft? What if she started doing heroin? There are tons of scenarios where it would just be a good idea to move on and I find it odd that God would consider it adultery if you did. Why? What is the prime directive here?

 

In the NT, we are taught to "forgive others, seventy times seven. If your brother or your sister has something against you, go and make peace with them before submitting your gift at the altar. Be a good Samaritan. Do good to those who persecute you and pray for them." In general, these are all really good things. But how could this possibly be something God himself believes to be good, but will not do himself; and when I say God will not do these things, I am talking about the fact that he plans on roasting the majority of all humans, and one-third of the created angels for all eternity. Regardless of how hell gets defined (which no one can prove what it is really like) eternal punishment is completely contrary to all of these ethics taught in the NT. Unless the prime directive accounts for that, but we are not sure what that is. No wonder the Christian community is all over the map, there is no one way to understand any of it. The principles conflict with the actions and the actions conflict with the principles.

 

Something I ask myself all the time is, "what if a human acted like God." Could you imagine what people would say or want to do to that human, they would rip them apart given the chance. Many of the things God does, or does not do, if done by a human would cause outrage. People would demand justice. Actually, you know what they would say, they would say this person is going to regret their behavior whenever they meet God. The things people say God is going to judge us for, and possibly punish us forever for, he does himself.

 

Why does he get a pass? Is it because he is the biggest and baddest being in the universe? Is he a cosmic bully and we are all powerless to stop him? All of these things may be true, but is it right? Should we kowtow out of fear of being punished or should we stand up for what we believe is right. Truthfully, I would rather burn standing up for what is right than walking on egg shells in heaven afraid God is a powder keg just waiting to go off. As I said all throughout this, perhaps there is some prime directive or main underlying principle that drives all this and I cannot see it; and once revealed, it would make sense of everything.

 

There is one constant theme behind the Bible and that is God does not like evil. He seeks to punish it, eradicate it, what have you. That being said, why even create a world where that was a potentiality? In theory, he could have created a world where people have free will, but the potential for evil is not there so they always do the right thing. If God is that opposed to rebellion, it would make sense he would not even let it get off the ground to begin with.

 

Any thoughts?

 

I have a few more subjects I am going to post on this forum. All kidding aside, I could write a book on all of the questions and unsolvable problems I kept running into within Christianity.

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

13 hours ago, TinMan said:

Why does he get a pass? Is it because he is the biggest and baddest being in the universe? Is he a cosmic bully and we are all powerless to stop him? All of these things may be true, but is it right? Should we kowtow out of fear of being punished or should we stand up for what we believe is right. Truthfully, I would rather burn standing up for what is right than walking on egg shells in heaven afraid God is a powder keg just waiting to go off. As I said all throughout this, perhaps there is some prime directive or main underlying principle that drives all this and I cannot see it; and once revealed, it would make sense of everything.

 

Because god is a character (made up of many different characters) in a fairy tale. According to the fairy tale, god is given a pass. The same is true of jesus...

 

13 hours ago, TinMan said:

There is one constant theme behind the Bible and that is God does not like evil. He seeks to punish it, eradicate it, what have you. That being said, why even create a world where that was a potentiality? In theory, he could have created a world where people have free will, but the potential for evil is not there so they always do the right thing. If God is that opposed to rebellion, it would make sense he would not even let it get off the ground to begin with.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Just say evil, if god is that opposed to evil, why then allow a situation to unfold where if god knows, being all-knowing, that evil WILL enter the picture why allow it to play out? 

 

SDA's think that it has to do with life existing out there all over the place and the earth as the only fallen planet in all of history or time. And that god allowed sin to take place for the sake of this celestial watching audience of planets who had their own gardens, and passed their own tests with their own serpents in their gardens, to watch the wages of sin play out now that some planet finally failed the test. That way no one, existing anywhere out there, can ever accuse god of being unjust or unfair, like Lucifer did. So with the accusation of Lucifer, comes this necessary show down, and, by extension, all of the mess we see now and everything going to hell in a hand basket. 

 

Until such a point in time (only god the father himself knows the day or the hour) when enough is enough, the point has been made beyond question or doubt, and he can wrap this whole up as described in the latter part of the book of Revelation with satan and his angels, death and the grave, tossed into a lake of burning sulphur. After this celestial demonstration of the wages of sin, if it every popped up again, god would then be justified in stopping it immediately without anyone being able to accuse him of being unjust...

 

Most people don't even offer answer to the first question, so I'm left to use the only answer I'm familiar with, the adventist one. 

 

How many hole's do you see in the SDA attempt at answering the question? 

[Hierophant]

Actually the argument is compelling. The glaring hole is, how do they know this to be true? Does this comes from the writing of Ellen G. White? Then you have to dig into her and what she is saying, can it be validated. All the regular problems we have now.

 

I personally like the idea and it sounds reasonable, but unless it could be validated, you could only take it on faith.

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, TinMan said:

Actually the argument is compelling. The glaring hole is, how do they know this to be true? Does this comes from the writing of Ellen G. White? Then you have to dig into her and what she is saying, can it be validated. All the regular problems we have now.

 

I personally like the idea and it sounds reasonable, but unless it could be validated, you could only take it on faith.

 

It all pretty much comes of EGW. She pulled it from non canonical sources, mainly, and then claimed to have visions about it all. She shot off through the universe, visited heaven, entered the holiest of holie's, along with the 144,000 remnant of Israel described in Revelation. 

 

Fantasies on top of fantasies, founded in pure BS, basically. 

 

But at least it's some type of response to the question of why does god allow sin to continue, bad things to happen, etc. It keeps blind members of the cult from questioning god due to this general line of reasoning. And of course regardless of sin, regardless of bad things happening, it gives them a means to think god is good all the time. 

 

William Miller, BTW, is one of my ancestors. I won't go into the details, but I'm pretty much the descendant who broke the family history with SDAism going all the way back to it's roots in the mid 1800's. It was high time that that wack job religious business came to a close in this family once and for all. 

[Hierophant]

Look at you making history. Definitely makes an interesting story. Does the family know your stance?

[Joshpantera]

4 hours ago, TinMan said:

Look at you making history. Definitely makes an interesting story. Does the family know your stance?

 

Yeah, I became the village atheist while at academy. I spoke out against the church and was shunned for doing so. But I was very stubborn about it because I knew somehow that none of it was true. It was intuitive at first. And then over time I began to discover all of the details and put it all in place. Now a lot of the family has left the church. My immediate family is completely out, eventually following my lead. My two aunts are still members, though. 

 

 

 

[Hierophant]

No kidding. Glad you made it out and was able to have a positive influence on others. I just recently stepped away from the whole thing, but I have not told my parents. I am not sure I ever will.