Question

[Craig]

Hello Ray
   I have just discovered your site and believe me I have been doing a lot of reading, thinking and praying these last few days, My wife has just  started to reading your site also. We have been members of the southern baptist church for a great part of our lives. I am in my seventy's so you can see where I am coming from. Already I have found answers to several questions on scripture that have bothered me all my life. I feel that I might have discovered the treasure in the field. Thank you for this web site.
One question for you for now. Hope that I can understand your answer. In your email that I pasted below, are you saying that God is not capable of creating CHARACTER AND LOVE instantly or that he chooses not to??? This is very important to my understanding of a lot of your writings, please reply.  Thank you

Roger


[Ray Replies to another questioner]

Dear Charles:

Of course your question makes sense--it is an excellent question. Too bad that the Christian Church does not answer it.

God is SPIRIT. God is interested ONLY in spiritual things. All this physical creation is not something that God takes great pleasure in--it is but a means to an end. Well, what does He want then? He wants CHILDREN! SPIRITUAL Sons and Daughters in HIS VERY IMAGE!

But, how does He get them? Create them? Yes, CREATE them. But how does He create them. Instantly? No. To be in the IMAGE of God means that we will have the very same CHARACTER AND LOVE of God. Character and Love cannot be created instantly; it can only be developed over a period of time under severe pressure and duress.  And so God creates severe pressure and duress, which produces GODLY CHARACTER.  Imagine creating "patience," INSTANTLY?  Why the very thought is self-contradicting. Patience by its very nature means that something must be WAITED FOR even though it is desired NOW.

God knows what He is doing. Now then, there is a second part to all this. We ourselves would never ever really appreciate the qualities of character, virtue, and love, that we will possess if we did not have to "sweat blood" to get them. There is no virtue that you can name that is not the result of overcoming some form of evil.  And so this physical, human, temporal existence is as beneficial for US, and it is to GOD.

Hope this helps your understanding a little better.

God be with you,

Ray


Dear Roger:  Although I have hundreds of unanswered emails ahead of yours, however,  since it is an interesting question and one that I can answer quickly, I will.

We need to be careful about formulating questions that tend to put God on trial. And I assure you that God is never on trial before the carnal bar of humans such as ourselves.  The Scriptures tell us that "God cannot lie" (Titus 1:2).  Should we therefore ask the question:  "Yes, but could God lie if He WANTED TO?"  I don't think that we should, seeing that God says He cannot lie, and obviously has chosen also not to lie.

Some have foolishly asked:  "Can God build a rock so big and heavy that not even HE could lift it?"  It is a self-contradicting, God-deprecating question. You have probably heard the question: "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"  One is damned no matter how he answers.

It matter not one iota whether God could have produced what He is making in humanity by some other means or by some faster means. The facts are that "God changes NOT" (Mal. 3:6 & Heb. 13:08), and therefore what He has chosen and the way that He has chosen CANNOT BE CHANGED, nor could it have been improved upon, seeing that God is ALMIGHTY, All-WISE, and PERFECT.  Therefore I try not to ask whether God could, should, or would be head of His game [plan & purpose] where he to do things differently.  Since God has already chosen to do things the way that we see them being done, that is the best way it could be done, and it is the only way that it will be done.

So it does not good to ask me whether "I" am saying this, that, or the other thing, as the only thing that matters is what God says and does. Therefore, I try not to speculate too much about things that the Scriptures are completely silent on.
God be with you,
Ray