I'm going to play a skeptic. Then I'm going to witness to myself and get defensive about it. I'll use the Four Spiritual Laws as a progression to confession, keeping my feet firmly planted on the Romans Road. STATEMENT #1: God loves you and has a plan for your life. Despite the nice sentiment, my skeptical self is bothered, not encouraged, by this statement. These are the kinds of questions that immediately come to mind: 1) If God is so loving, why is the world such a horrific mess? 2) If God is so loving, why would he kill his only son under any circumstances? 3) If God is so loving, why did my mother die of cancer and my uncle lose his arm in an accident? 4) If God has a plan for my life, why doesn't he share it with me? 5) Did God have a plan for my next door neighbor's life? He's a loser. He'll die a loser. 6) Why would God make a plan knowing that I would blow it anyway? 7) Why would God make a plan for my life if, in the grand scheme, it's all pointless anyway. 8) With so many people in the world, why would he even want to know me, much less care? Imagine an ant farm the size of the Grand Canyon. Now imagine God as a zealous ant farmer, naming every ant and paying attention to each and every one of them. He loves them enough to keep tabs on their journeys to and from the surface, making sure there are no leaves or sticks in their way as they carry lumps of mud and dead things to their queen. Sometimes he puts a rock in their path to see what they do with it, or even squashes a few, but it's all part of grand scheme that no ant could understand or imagine. 
Most Christians like to answers these kinds of questions with big words. We explain that God is omnipresent, which is how he can pay attention to each one of us. He is also omnipotent, which is how he can plan each life and imbue each person with the skills and talents to accomplish those plans. But why would he use all of his omnis on little old you? Are you that lovable? As for the human chaos, we may use a parable to explain: Think of each human life as a thread in a great tapestry which God is patiently weaving throughout history. All we see in this world are the tangled mess of threads in the back, but some day, in the next world, He’s going to turn the tapestry around and show us the beautiful and complicated finished product. It's a nice parable, but is it true? How would you defend these questions?
Skeptic #1
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I don't know that I can really defend your statements... Haha. The tapestry analogy used to make sense to me, but after this last two years, concepts like that lost all meaning to me. They became trite. Something that people who have never experienced loss or tragedy say to comfort someone in the midst of a trial. Nobody could have "reasoned" God's presence into my mess. I had to experience it first hand.
Those big ol' Christian words like omnipresent and omniscient may sound fancy but they don't really hit home when a person is in need. They don't make God sound personal, reachable, love-able or intimate... at all. To me, at least.
You can try to reason with someone about the existence of God's presence until you are blue in the face - but your words will be futile unless the person is ready to hear, and the Holy Spirit is ready to move.
It's kind of timely that I just re-read the Story of the Seeds. I've become really fond of The Message translation as of late, mainly for the reason that everything I read feels "new" to me.
We talked a while ago about how perspective is everything. If all we ever got to see were the messy knots and strings in the back of our "tapestry" how would we ever hold on to hope that God could be creating something beautiful? But I have experienced that God can change the way you see and how you value the 'parts' that make up the 'whole'.
I was hoping you would comment.
Well, I didn't really address any of your questions, but just wanted to start a conversation... Obviously, there's so much more to say. :)
When I read what you had to say about salvation my first thought was my contracts professor in law school. Salvation to me is a contract. In order to make a contract you have to have three simple things: 1) an offer, 2) consideration, and 3) an acceptance. I won’t go into long details but here’s the quick break down. The offer = salvation. The consideration = a life. The acceptance = well you know what that is. I believe salvation to be that simple.
Our contracts professor was prolific at asking the class questions. The great, and very frustrating, thing that he would say every time, I’m not exaggerating about the every time part, one of us would answer one of his questions was, “by what authority are you basing your answer on?” He would never accept an answer that was based on gut feeling or a general sense of the law. The answer had to be based on a source higher than our own conjecture. I believe spiritual things are similar to the law in that there must be authority to back up a statement not just logic or conjecture. This leads me to my point… lol sorry it always takes me a long time to get there.
When talking about Salvation there are three things that have to be established. First it must be established that there is “a god”. Second, that in fact there is “one true god”. And thirdly, that the bible is the one true god’s word. This sets the basis for the authority of our arguments. We can then use the “one true god’s word” as the basis for our arguments, and say things that would sound completely retarded under our own authority, but because he said them we can stand behind them. This is also how the law works. You can say absolutely absurd things and have them carry amazing weight as long as they were said previously by an authority greater than yourself.
So, the question in my mind is, “does the bible actually say absurd things? Or do they only sound absurd because I don’t understand them?” With wisdom and understanding Gods statements would not sound so absurd, or as old King James likes to say “folly”. We are supposed to educate so as to facilitate understanding. But at the same time, isn’t it salvation by faith? Not salvation by the acceptance of a clear logic argument?
This being said, I do enjoy a good spiritual logic argument. I come up with them all the time and drop them on the people in my office, especially my mom, hehehe, just to make people think, and to get under her skin. Poor mommy. It seems this is what you are doing here with your blog and I love it. Is this supposed to be iron sharpening iron? Or can we say some really “absurd / foolish” things?
Here is a spiritual logic argument I used on my mother the other day. Mom asked me why I wasn’t going to church and why I was doing some things that were spiritually reprehensible. I told her the reason was because I had finally reached an understanding of the following scripture:
Revelation 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
I told mom that after reading and meditating on that scripture I became convinced and convicted that I was living a lukewarm life. And that once convicted I became nervous that I was going to get “spued”. I asked her “who in the heck wants to get spewed?!” lol “Not this guy!” And that I was currently unwilling to get “hot” so I decided to get “cold” so that I would be out of danger of the “spewing”! I told my mom, “just think of me as spiritual ice tea, really cold and yet sweet and refreshing!” My mom almost fell over. Do you think I’m wrong?
Don’t even get me started on Luke 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little. Don’t you want to love Jesus as much as you possibly can? Sin, sin away! If you use Romans 6 to refute me I’ll have to shoot you! lol
Howdy Agnostic Frank. What is your technical definition of AGNOSTIC?
After talking with Kurt last night, I realized that I was thinking of an Agnostic as someone that was willing to believe in God, but had some roadblocks to faith. I realize now that Agnostic literally means "no knowledge," referring to someone that believes that he/she can't really know about certain things. Atheism is a faith, but Agnosticism is more like a surrender. I realized that I was referring to a Skeptic, so I duly changed my posts. Thanks for this comment so I could comment back.
You questions are better than your answers. I would throw out a couple of thoughts. 1) There is no such thing as evil in and of itself. Only evil men. 2) Why did my aunt get cancer? Because the genius that thought it was a good idea to put chlorine in her swimming pool and drinking water forgot to mention that the stuff was banned from being used as a weapon in World War I because it caused such horrific deaths. Stuff like that. Course, if there was a warning label back then, she probably would have gone swimming and drank tap water anyway because she thought it would "never happen to her".
Hi Elephantman. Thanks for chiming in. I'm curious about your first thought (no evil only evil men). I thought I understood at first but as I considered your statement I could think of different interpretations and didn't want to respond to the wrong one. Would you mind explaining what you mean in more detail?
Well, I have a different take on the given statement. As a Christian, I find myself increasingly resistant to the whole "God has a plan for your life". I'm just not sure that's how it works. I don't think God will some day say: "Scott, you're going to be a Carpenter so work on your hammer swingin'". I don't know how God will reveal his "plan" for me, but I know he is more than willing to guide me. I don't find a fantastically overwhelming amount of scripture to quell this train of thought either. Now before anyone jumps at me for saying this, hear me out.
I think God's Plan is simply the following: Listen to what he says today...that's it. Would it be better for God to give me everything I needed to know about where I was heading, what route I was taking, who's coming along, what I should take etc.? I'm not sure. I'm starting to believe God's leading is in the micro steps of everyday seekage, and thusly, that becomes the macro example of a life lived well, directly in the will of God.
I feel intimidated whenever people talk about this grand and singular plan that God has. I feel like I'm going to miss it. I feel like there is this huge plan that is somewhere different out there, and if I were a better Christian I would know exactly what it was. I just think that My choice to be obedient to God everyday is more useful to him than a hugely grand scheme that he'll reveal. And this would help the skeptic who might probe with: "if God has a plan for my life, why are so many "Christians" screwing it up for themselves?". God leads us step by step, and inch by painstaking inch. We are allowed free will to obey or walk on our own. If we are obedient and strive for his breath on our shoulders in every waking moment, I don't see how it could be anything less than a fantastically orchestrated story, woven into the tapestry of God.
If I'm way off here, someone let me know. I'm halfway between gripping over the choice of words used in that saying, and complaining about my own experience lol. It has always been something that hasn't sat right with me. (sorry for the length here as well :)
It just occurred to me to add that God will reveal very specific things, and things that are very far off. I know that there aren't any rules for God. Who am I to say what he will do, or what I need to hear? Same goes for anyone else.
Scott... I love it. I have recently taken on a new philosophy about this very concept myself, I've been reading a book that talks about this very thing.
I know you're dying to know what it is, so I'll just tell you. :)
You have to MOVE in order to be directed. I think if we continued to be afraid to make the right choice about what God is saying to do next, we'll miss the joy of living. But if we listen and seek His guidance as we take action in our lives, He will be faithful to guide us.
So many Christians take comfort in Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."
When we see an open parking space at Lowes, we thank God for his perfect, prospering plan. No wonder we get so confused when things go wrong. Did God leave his throne? What about these prosperous plans? I guess we'll just have to have faith...
God was speaking to Israel, the nation he called to broadcast himself to the world. God is seen through his prophets, through the rituals of the temple, and through the law. He cared for the nation, and had plans for its prosperity.
Let me put this in perspective. I run a Fine Arts Department. I have plans for it. Sometimes I hire people to assist me in those plans. If those people don't follow the plan, or are difficult to work with, they are replaced with people that do. I have general plans for each of them as concerns their department, and I put them in various positions based on their character and giftedness, but I do not think of each individual person as a plan in itself. They are all part of a larger plan.
We see evidence of this way of thinking in Jesus as he came to promote the future kingdom. The way he dealt with individuals was always in respect to the larger plan, not individual plans.
Here is the question: Do you want to be a part of God's ultimate plan, or do you want to sit around under the illusion that God has a plan for your specific life that he wants you to follow, but doesn't really advertise?
No wonder we don't often get direction from God about where we should go to dinner. Why would he care? He just wants us to seek him, discover his will for humanity through Christ in the Church, then move forward from there.
My situation is slightly different because God's plan for my life is the master plan. It's something like Truman Show. Sorry if that makes all of you feel insignificant. We don't get to choose these things.
Hahahaha. Gardner, so glad you're here. Seriously, you guys... it is so incredible that we can talk about deep stuff and laugh at the same time. It feels like it should be wrong, but at the same time... it's oh so right.
Weeenk sez:
You have to MOVE in order to be directed. I think if we continued to be afraid to make the right choice about what God is saying to do next, we'll miss the joy of living. But if we listen and seek His guidance as we take action in our lives, He will be faithful to guide us.
There's an interesting bit in Exodus.... Moses and the people are standing on the shore of the Sea, and Pharaoh's men are bearign down fast. Moses starts vamping, launching into a long harangue about how God is going to drown all the Egyptians in this here sea, just you wait. You get a sense that he's a little panicked, kind of going "come on, God, old boy, now's a good time to do something. Get to steppin'."
God replies by saying "well what are you doing standing there praying to me? Get moving! Poke your stick into the water and get to steppin' yourself."
Sometimes praying and "waiting for guidance from the Lord" is a nice sanctimonious way to avoid making a decision or doing anything.
But the problem is, sometimes Christians just move and move their entire lives and never learn to wait on the Lord. It takes wisdom to know when to act and when to wait. Look at the failure of Israel at Ai, when they just assumed God had their back after the first victory. They stopped consulting him.
In the case with Moses and the Red Sea, God had already told them what to do. There was no guessing. In our case, we often just move, hoping God will back us up, though we don't know if God is behind us or not.
My school has a statement etched into its chapel: "Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God." Apparently, it was written by William Carey.
I heartily disagree with William Carey in this case. To me, that's putting the cart before the horse. How many Chritians organizations just START after a couple of prayers lobbed up to God, then expect God to support them without an answer? We need more assurance as a Church, but I don't think a majority of people know what it means to wait on the Lord anymore.
My opinion.
I spent more than enough time acting without listening, and ended up confused and miserable. When I learned to ask and then listen for a response, I found a relationship with God that is life altering. If you want to know what any person's will is, you ask and wait for an answer. God directs, even if just to say "Jenn i don't care WHAT you make for dinner. And I love you. Now go cook cause your husband is getting hungry." Well, God isn't so chatty but I've gotten direction like that in an instantaneous heart-download. I don't ask about dinner much anymore, but I asked about those things a lot coming off the "God has a big plan for my life involving every detail" idea. He was patient with me, and seems eager to meet me even in my weakness, feeling helpless to make even so cosmically insignificant a decision as what to make for dinner. With time, I am coming to see His heart, and learn the things that are important to Him, and its joy after joy. Its so freeing to stop feeling like EVERY decision might get me off "the chosen path" He set out before I was born. If anyone reads this post and is feeling that same fatigue, let me encourage you to go to the Lord and ask Him to show you what His will is. Then wait and listen. You will almost certainly be surprised at what He does (and does not) show you!
And if you don't know how to listen, skip down to the God's voice posts. :)
Yeah, it is quite strange how "just do it" has creeped its way into Christianity. Everytime people "just did ________" in the Bible, without God's direction or listening for His guidance, they were confronted by donkeys, swallowed into the earth, killed, stuff like that.
I don't recall any verse that says "You have a good sense of things, why don't you just do what you'd think I(God)would do."
Jesus never even did that! And people always say "What Would Jesus Do?" Well, He did NOTHING on his own initiative(John 8:28). All over the book of John He says that He is in the Father, He doesn nothing out of the will of the Father, the words He speaks are the Father's and not His own.
Paul did not claim power in himself or in his wisdom either, but, "and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God...which things we also speak,not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit...but we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2)
I knew the thought of "well, it says we have the mind of Christ" would come up. I'm thinking that it doesn't mean "you have a brain, use it", but maybe just the opposite. If the Spirit of Christ is in us and actively living, then, we would be living the Spiritual Life by His power and wisdom, not ours. Our minds and His mind are very separate things.
That is what we are trying to get the answer to. How do we live by His Spirit and power and leading?
I hope as we all hang around this blog that He will begin (or continue to do so if it has already begun!) to teach us how to listen, how to live in Him with faith and reality. How cool to be able to be here "on the same page" (I'm SO funny!), interested in the same Lord, the same Life...
it is clear that God cannot be both omnipotent and all loving, correct? thus the "small" problem of evil. ive heard many of the theodicies and apologies for the problem of evil. however, all that i have encountered have massive holes. for instance, one of the basic explanations for evil is that God will bring about some good through the evil being done. this is a terrible approach first of all (especially for a loving God) and secondly i believe there to be situations where no good can come from the evil (e.g. a 12 year old orphan girl getting raped and murdered, etc). what are your thoughts on the problem of evil? how can you rationally make sense of this gigantic problem.
If we're only looking for rational answers and arguments, they may not be forthcoming. God does not have to explain Himself to us. The fact is that things are they way that they are, and God has spoken to us and told us that He loves the world. To seek an explanation as to how that can be possible given what we see and what we understand as "loving" is to either call God a liar (ie that he is not really loving) or to say that He cannot exist, at least not the God as revealed in scripture. Anon, I do not know where you are coming from--whether an atheist or agnostic or a believer with a sincere concern--but in any case, I would challenge you to first take God at His word that He loves the world, and second to pursue knowing Him. In time, as you walk with Him, He may give you insight into these things.
Anon, I wanted to add a little, because I think that there is something rational we can understand right now, and I didn't mean to post my last comment yet (I clicked post on accident). I think it is clear that love requires the freedom of both parties. Jesus said "if you love me, you will obey my commandments." (Jn 14:15). Implying, I believe, the opposite, that those who do not love God do not obey Him. So in the world we see a creation which God has extended His love to, and which is in general freely rejecting that love in their disobedience (which we call evil).
God allows men to commit evil for a time, in order that they have ample opportunity to turn and come to Him. And God rejoices when they do. The salvation of a man is worth more than the temporary pain he may cause. This life is short, and as Paul (the apostle) pointed out, "...our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Rom 8:18) He, having walked with God and suffered for His name, was able to see the suffering brought on him by an evil world and actually scorn that suffering. And he suffered quite a lot. He was able to gain an eternal perspective, which is what I was hinting at in my previous post.
God is is offering us something wonderful and eternal-- His love that will go from this moment into all eternity. I have suffered some things in my life by evil people that could be labeled as pointless evil, but rather than blame God for allowing those things, I am so GRATEFUL. Because I suffered, I was driven to Him for help, and found in the process far more than just help or relief of pain, which is all I could think to ask for. My Creator gave me His LOVE, which is deep, powerful, life giving. Its far above human affection, even at its best. And He is, I might add, far more faithful in His love to me than I have been to Him! He is good, far beyond what we imagine.
To say that He brings "some good" out of evil doesn't even approach reality. He uses all things to draw men to himself, especially pain and loss. And to be restored in relationship with our Creator is the greatest good I believe a human could ever know.
Anonymous,
The problem of pain (sovereignty, freedom, suffering) will be addressed in detail within the next few posts. I hope you attend the discussion.
elephantman does not understand that chlorine gas (Cl2), which was used as a weapon in WWI, is not the same as chlorine in a pool, in tap water, in table salt (which is more than half chlorine). Without chlorine you would have no nerve function.
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