Subject: God's Dice?: re Eric

[Eric Engerbretson <votive@earthlink.net>]

Title: Subject: God's Dice?: re Eric

> Subject: God's Dice?: re Eric
> 
> Dear Eric,
> 
> You say that God commands the death penalty and then say that "human 
> imperfectness" will necessarily bring about errors in judgement.  If God 
> commands a thing, one would think that it must be possible to do so. If one 
> kills an innocent person then one has not carried out God's commandment; 
> rather one has committed murder. If your god knowing full well human 
> imperfection does not supply divine inspiration for a just action as 
> supposedly (he) doesfor scripture then I cannot understand how one could 
> follow such a sadistic diety. Are we but God's dice?

Yes, absolutely, if God commands a thing, it is possible to do it.  The Bible also says God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to refute that temptation. These things are true.  But they will not be possible for all people at all times simply because God granted us free will, and some will always turn away from Him and His truth, and He will allow them to live with the consequences of their wrong choices. Americans, particularly, because of our history, culture, and practical religion of individualism, tend to expect God to deal with us entirely as individuals. We forget that we are a team, and we're all in this together.  The team may lose even though one player played his best game, and the team may win even though one player played horribly.  When a father sins, the whole family suffers-- grandchildren and their grandchildren can suffer because of the selfish sin of one father.   God has decided to give us free will, therefore He will not usually step in and clean up the messes that we make, otherwise free will would be meaningless. Would it make sense to allow citizens to vote, but then erase the results of the vote, and install the governor you had decided on before the vote?  This would seem a tedious election even to Floridians.  So the system is messy only because we are out of touch with God, not because God made a foolish commandment.


> The arugument that more innocent people are killed by recindivist crime than 
> innocent people killed by penalty of death is not a Christian argument but an 
> appeal to utilitarian ethic of the worst formulation.. I agree that arguments 
> a,b,c, that you included appear to be monstrous perversions of justice but I 
> cannot excuse them by agnosticism concerning the Divine Mind. What is the 
> connection of such a god with a God the essence of Whom is love and Whose 
> commandments are love, and forgiveness?

C.S. Lewis said: "Why do people say 'I am not afraid of God, because I know He is good.'?  Have they never been to a dentist?"

> 
> If one should ask me what I would say or do to a murderer of my children, I 
> would have to confront my human imperfections and hope to be inspired by the 
> Divine Love and Forgiveness. Ethics are often simply protestation of 
> righteousness and justification for base and evil acts. It is perhaps, in the 
> confrontation with one's human imperfection that one begins the way toward 
> enlightenment/salvation.
> 
> Mike Seeley

Couldn't agree with you more on that last sentence, Mike.  It is when we see our imperfection for what it is, and realize that it hurts, that we begin to look for a way out of it.  A way toward salvation. It is also, often simultaneously, the time when we realize that we somehow can't turn away from our imperfection in our own strength, and that if there is a God who is truly perfect and completely good, one must be somehow made to be perfect in order to be justified and spend an eternity with Him.  But who can make himself perfect? Who can declare himself justified?  Absolutely no one.  No amount of good works can make erase the results of imperfection.  That is precisely why God placed all  of our imperfection on Himself and killed it on the cross.  He chooses, due to nothing but amazing grace, to see us as perfect-- made perfect, by Christ's work. He says that is the only way to Salvation.  All other efforts are vanity.  And we will concoct all sorts of sophistries
to try to find other ways to meet God. But He has made the rules, and He will ignore us until we come to Him by His rules.

Sincerely,

Eric E.