> General Discussions
God and randomness
lilitalienboi16:
--- Quote from: indianabob on October 23, 2015, 12:27:27 PM ---Just to share one person's opinion for what it is worth.
I do not believe that life is a play of infinite acts in which God has the script written out in advance so that no thing and no one can deviate from the script.
I do believe that God is sovereign and can and does exercise control when necessary to see that all things work together for those who love God.
There is a difference...
Indiana Bob
--- End quote ---
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Isaiah 14:24 The LORD Almighty has sworn, "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
Isaiah 25:1 O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Isaiah 48:3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.
John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
Ecclesiastes 3:14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
Etc etc etc...
God is very in control. He declared the end from the very beginnng, seems His plan is pretty certain and there is no deviating from the 'script.'
God bless,
Alex
Kat:
I think there is nuances of God being sovereign that require more consideration. When we say God 'controls' every single thing that happens, then that makes me wonder if that would include our sins? well of course not. I've been thinking about this and I just think that knowing "the end from the beginning," is not exactly the same as predestining everything that happens.
I mean yes God certainly is sovereign and has designed everything to be as it is, from our being too weak to resist sin and a world filled with temptations, to Satan's influence, and all this 'causes' the wretched condition of the world, so God takes full responsibility. BUT we know God did not cause the rapes and murders and other abominable acts that people commit... so how to understand this? It's easy to get confused where there are subtle difference or distinction to be made... but see if these excerpts of Ray's articles may help show what I'm trying to say.
http://bible-truths.com/lake15-C.html -------------------
“…Who works [‘operates’] ALL THINGS after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11).
“For OF Him, and THROUGH Him, and TO Him, are ALL THINGS…” (Rom. 11:36).
“And ALL THINGS are of God…” (II Cor. 5:;18).
“…calls those things which be NOT, as though they WERE” (Rom. 4:17).
“Declaring the END from the BEGINNING…” (Isa. 46:10).
“For in Him we LIVE, and MOVE, and have our BEING [Gk: ‘we ARE’—we exist]…” (Acts 17:28).
All energy, all matter, all creation, and all humans are in God. We can only “live and move… IN HIM.” And this is why:
“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his steps”(Jer. 10:23).
No man has a will that can choose contrary to what God already knows will be: “…and calls those things which be not [thoughts and deeds which have not yet been supposedly ‘freely’ thought of] as though they were [as though they already were thought of—how is that ‘freedom’ of the will?]” (Rom. 4:17).
I will repeat this until I am blue in the face, and perchance somebody out there will say, “Ah, yes, now I get it.” Once more: Since God says very plainly that He knows all things and that He knows all things before they happen, how is it then possible that anyone can think a thought which God didn’t know he would have to think? And if God already knows every thought that you must think: how are you free to not think those very foreknown thoughts and those foreknown thoughts only?
If any person in the history of the world can think one thought that God did not foreknow that he would think, then God cannot;
“call those things which be not as though they were.”
“Man’s goings [Heb: ‘steps’] are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?” (Prov. 20:24).
“The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” (Prov. 16:1).
No one can make one statement out of his mouth, unless it was first pre-ordained, foreknown, and approved of, by God!
“The Son of man [Jesus] can do nothing of Himself… without Me [Jesus] ye [all of you—all of mankind] can do nothing” (John 5:19 & 15:5].
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,3815.0.html ---
There is a whole lot more involved here than meets the eye with the word "ordained," which is used to represent nearly a dozen separate words in the Bible. When I wrote Part 2 of my "Lake of Fire' series seven years ago, I assure you that I did not have in mind that "God ORDAINED specific men to rape and cut the heads of off of specific children." That was the furtherest thing from my mind when I was specifically countering the Christian teaching that God DOES NOT KNOW IN ADVANCE what people will think or do. However, "fore-ordained," was not a proper choice of words to be used to describe God's "foreknowledge," which is something totally different from "fore-ordained."
It doesn't effect the principle of the teaching, but I will change out the word "fore-ordained"
What God "ordains" in the Bible carries the connotation of almost putting His "blessing" on the thing that is ordained. But as we cannot find anywhere in the Scriptures where God specifically ordains a specific SIN of humanity, such raping a little girl, I naturally took offense when the initial question in this little debate asked, why does God ORDAIN dirty old men to rape little children? (or words to that effect). There is a difference between God "fore-knowing" something and "fore-ORDAINING" something, although many refuse to see it.
Hence we have such doctrines as "God cannot look upon sin," which is the result of a miss-translation in the book of Habakkuk. Likewise it is untrue that the sacrificing of children to the god Molech "never entered God's MIND." The proper translation is "HEART." Is there a difference between mind and heart? Yes. Is there a difference between God not tempting any man, but yet sends temptations? Yes. Is there a difference between God "CANNOT lie" and sending a "LYING spirit?" Yes there is, but I don't have time to do a whole paper on this subject right now, because I am far behind in more important things. People have tried by the hundreds and thousands to trip me up over the years to insinuate that if what I teach regarding the foreknowledge and Sovereignty of God is true, then they present a dozen ways in which that would mean God is the AUTHOR OF SIN, or that God Himself IS EVIL. If God KNOWS in advance that people will commit certain sins, then isn't he "condoning" such sin? If they are a necessary part of His Plan and Purpose do they not work and work good. Therefore are not all these things "good?" Therefore isn't raping little children and cutting their heads off, a GOOD THING? Can you see where this kind of thinking leads?
I have no objection to a question like: "Why does God allow evil in the world?" I can answer that question. But, someone asks: "Why does God ORDAIN men to rape children?" that offends my spirit..
v
We must be careful how we use words and phrases and also be careful not
to draw fallacious conclusions from Scriptural Truths. The Bible nowhere says
that God "pre-ordained" such sins. It says He has a fore-knowledge OF such
sins. Many people over the years have tried to force me into saying that God sins
and that God is evil, but I won't say it, because I don't believe it. God nowhere
says that He "ordains" sin, and so I don't say it either.
God did not "pre-ordain" me to eat Girl Scott cookies today, but I did. Man has
the ability to think, plan, create, imagine, and carry out these devised lusts of his
heart, and yes, God KNEW a long time ago just what we would do, but nowhere
does it say that God "pre-ordained" our sins. We live and operate under law. We
automatically do certain things under certain stimuli. It does not need to be "pre-
ordained."
Maybe what you are really asking is why did God create humanity so that they would
sin under all of these different stimuli? But that's a topic too big for an email. Besides,
I have covered these things many times in the articles on our site. If you look up ordain
or ordained in a concordance, you will find that God has ordained dozens of things in
the Scripture, but nowhere does it say He ordained particular sins.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2354.0.html ---
Dear Whirlwind:
You are not understanding this subject and the principle behind it. You ask: "Is it man making the choices or is it God's predestination of things?" It is BOTH. Listen: God is SOVEREIGN! Man therefore has NO FREE WILL OR NO FREE CHOICE. That's it. That's all there is to it. That IS the principle. That IS the Truth. That IS what the Bible teaches. It is not a contradiction to say that "Man makes his own choices." You and millions of other just think it is a contradiction to say man makes his own choices if indeed God is sovereign and God is behind all in His creation. It is not a contradiction. It only sounds like a contradiction for those who do not believe that "God is Sovereign, and Man has no free will."
I hardly know what else to tell you. God made man's heart. Man did not make his own heart, or his body, or his mind, or his brain, or his will, or his hopes and dreams. They are all PREDESTINATED by the foreknowledge of God. So then we don't make choices, right? NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO....WE DO MAKE CHOICES. It's just that they are CAUSED by things we can't always see. Sometimes we can see what makes our choices and some times we can't, but either way THEY ARE CAUSED. And God, not us, already knows in advance the outcome of all of those caused choices. How does He do that? He is very smart (has over a 150 IQ), plus HE IS SOVEREIGN, ALL WISE, AND ALL POWERFUL.....and don't forget LOVE.
So, does God FORCE EVIL MEN TO RAPE LITTLE GIRLS? Well, does He? Does God being Sovereign prove that God forces evil men to rape little girls? That's what evil theologians deduce from the truth of no free will. They turn the Sovereignty of God into one of the biggest evils in the universe. If God is Sovereign, then God must be EVIL, because there is so much evil in the world, and God is in control of all things, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Man makes all his own choices. Just because they are CAUSED does not mean that he does not make them. He is, in fact, CAUSED TO MAKE HIS CHOICES. But God does not directly do this. He is responsible, but He does not directly cause those choices. Things like the Devil do such things. And who created the Devil? That's right, that One Who is Sovereign and in charge of all things. Evil men like raping just like evil theologians like stealing widow's social security money. God doesn't make them do it--THEY LIKE TO DO IT. They volunteer with little outside influence. God made humanity this way. He created them spiritually weak. Eve couldn't help but sin. God has a good purpose and God will straighten it all out in the end.
-------------------------------------------------------------
mercy, peace and love
Kat
Jeff:
Aren't we just speculating at this point?
I think it's reasonable and human to do this, but it seems as though the true glory of God, is still beyond our full grasp.
We have learned "so" much through what God gave to Ray, that it seems like the Heavens have opened up, but the true glory of Christ is still a mystery to our mortal selves.
Hebrews 1:3 "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high..."
How can we possibly understand the meaning of the glory of God without actually experiencing it full on?
I just can't imagine what it means to sit at the right hand of God.
I hope and pray that we will. :)
indianabob:
Jeff's question: "where does my belief come from?"
Dear new friend Jeff,
To answer that would take a small book. :o
I've been studying this and related issues for 40 years and vacillating from one opinion to another during the learning process. So I suppose that my understanding comes from God's spirit guiding me a little at a time as personal circumstances in my life permitted.
Since we are "made in or being made in" the image of God, then quite a bit of our innate approach to situations are "similar" to the way God thinks (in a positive sense).
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God is a parent and when God's spirit is leading a human, the leading is to become like God in our approach.
Oversimplified: I let my kids try things and get hurt or make mistakes and hurt others. Sometimes there is no other way to teach. I think that God does the same with us.
-
I'm the parent: When my kids are playing outside near the heavily traveled street, they can run into traffic and get killed. Once that happens their life is over until the resurrection. I cannot correct that, so I need to be overly careful and try to protect them from their own ignorance, choices and youthful exuberance. God is not in the same situation. God can correct all human errors, when God is ready of course.
Kat offered some great commentary in her remarks. There are many nuances to the use of language and we need to either be lawyers trained in the use of language or else be very patient and careful to seek details and examples of what we are trying to communicate.
For example when the Bible says "God doesn't change" what exactly and in what circumstances does that apply to how God treats humans as they live their lives?
God did change His approach to humans after the Messiah had ascended to God's right hand. However, God's plan didn't change, it was just a revealing of that part of the plan that had not previously been revealed.
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1. When God decided to call me into His Kingdom I assume God wanted me to have a wife. So God may have had my present wife in mind and may have been training her from early childhood. But what about the great majority of souls that are not being called into the first and better resurrection? Is it necessary to believe that they too are under God's watchful eye every minute of every day and have their lives pre-planned? Or is that just one optional way of seeing it while we continue learning??
When we teach that God knows the end from the beginning I think it is better to regard that as God knowing the human character and knowing what any person would do under a given set of circumstances.
I don't think (subject to correction) that God knew Indiana Bob from eons past and had assigned me that name to live with and how many conceptions my wife would have and how many spontaneous abortions she would suffer etc etc.
However, as Kat has very ably illustrated, we are all a work in progress and will be learning until we draw the last breath. THEN when resurrected we begin learning all over again with a perfect teacher leading us full time. May that day come soon. ;D
--- Quote from: Jeff on October 23, 2015, 12:43:06 PM ---
--- Quote from: indianabob on October 23, 2015, 12:27:27 PM ---Just to share one person's opinion for what it is worth.
I do not believe that life is a play of infinite acts in which God has the script written out in advance so that no thing and no one can deviate from the script.
I do believe that God is sovereign and can and does exercise control when necessary to see that all things work together for those who love God.
There is a difference...
Indiana Bob
--- End quote ---
Where does your belief come from?
--- End quote ---
Kat:
--- Quote from: indianabob on October 23, 2015, 10:00:03 PM ---
1. When God decided to call me into His Kingdom I assume God wanted me to have a wife. So God may have had my present wife in mind and may have been training her from early childhood. But what about the great majority of souls that are not being called into the first and better resurrection? Is it necessary to believe that they too are under God's watchful eye every minute of every day and have their lives pre-planned? Or is that just one optional way of seeing it while we continue learning??
When we teach that God knows the end from the beginning I think it is better to regard that as God knowing the human character and knowing what any person would do under a given set of circumstances.
I don't think (subject to correction) that God knew Indiana Bob from eons past and had assigned me that name to live with and how many conceptions my wife would have and how many spontaneous abortions she would suffer etc etc.
--- End quote ---
The thing is Bob, I absolutely DO believe that "the great majority of souls not being called now... are under God's watchful eye every minute of every day and have their lives pre-planned." We should not underestimate what our all powerful God is capable of.... doesn't God know the exact number of hair on everybody's head? "The very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt 10:30, Luke 12:7). In His making all the laws of this creation, making humans to be exactly as He designed us to be, from the chosen few to the most wicked sinners and also designing every cause and effect of every single thing that happens... I think He not only has foreknowledge of everything that happens, but actually He is intricately working and weaving together all these things, He does control ALL things, He is sovereign and responsible.
Though I believe He is very hands on with the chosen, not so much with the world... but He is not just monitoring what is happening in this world either. He is the Great Almighty God and has put everything in place and "in Him all things consist" (Col 1:17), He is very much actively involved with His whole creation.
John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working."
Now as I was saying in the last post, I do not believe God is personally or directly causes people to do sinful things, their own weakness and lusts (that He created in us) and Satan (that He also created) does these things. If you think about it when Satan came before God and they discussed Job and God said to Satan...
Job 1:12 And Jehovah said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not lay your hand upon him. And Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah.
Do you not think that God already knew exactly every single detail that would happen with Job? God did not really just turn Satan loose on Job, He knew exactly what would happen beforehand (Omniscience), He has perfect knowledge of how things work that He created to be that way, cause and effect... what Satan would do, how Job would react... as He does in every single thing that happens. He designed this creation and has perfect foreknowledge of exactly how everything will play out, every single detail of everything... He designed everything to intentionally do exactly what it is actually doing.
Pro 16:9 A man's heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.
So God does not tempt man, nor 'causes' anybody to sin, but He certainly is absolutely Omnipotent over this creation.
Just wanted to add this to give more clarity to what I was trying to say.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
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