How will God explain this to the saved creation?

[Lucian Hodoboc]

If the road to hell is wide and most people will end up in hell, how will God explain to the saved creation (the elect humans and the loyal angels) that His design is so good that the majority of His creation preferred to act against it?

The free will argument states that we are free to choose. If we are free to choose, then that means that we have several choices. In order to choose, we have to assess the choices and conclude that one of them is preferable to the other.

If the design God came up with for our bodies and for our world is so good, why do so many people choose to go against it? Isn't it irrational to choose something that goes against what would be the optimum design?

For example: if being kind, merciful, charitable etc. is God's design for humans, and this design is good, why do the majority of people feel pleasure from being mean, from inflicting pain unto others and from being self-centered? If monogamy is God's design for humans, and this design is good, why do the majority of people feel pleasure from fornicating outside of marriage? If peace and love is God's design, and this design is good, why do the majority of people experience pleasure in fighting, going to war, competing against each other in sports, wanting to assert dominance, and even enjoying simulated fighting such as video games?

These seem like valid questions that the angels should be asking God.

A creature whose design is good should feel good within the parameters of said design. Even if it has free will, said creature should not desire something that goes against its design. Just like we don't desire things that go against our taste buds. You won't hear anyone say that they want to use their free will to taste something that they find nasty. Because it's not about whether we can do something, but about whether something appeals to us.

 

[Frankj]

Why would God have to explain anything too his creation? Is there something that leads you to believe He answers to it instead of it to him?

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Why would God have to explain anything too his creation? Is there something that leads you to believe He answers to it instead of it to him?

Well, the frequent explanation that Christians give when asked why God didn't just remove Lucifer from existence after the latter rebelled is that the angels who remained loyal would have questioned God's motives, and that He wouldn't have been able to prove to them that Lucifer's ways led to suffering other than by allowing Lucifer to still exist.

At least that's what I've been told in Christian communities.

Are you implying that God is a dictator who doesn't care about the opinion of His creation?

 

[Frankj]

Well, the frequent explanation that Christians give when asked why God didn't just remove Lucifer from existence after the latter rebelled is that the angels who remained loyal would have questioned God's motives, and that He wouldn't have been able to prove to them that Lucifer's ways led to suffering other than by allowing Lucifer to still exist.

At least that's what I've been told in Christian communities.

Are you implying that God is a dictator who doesn't care about the opinion of His creation?

I haven't heard Christian communities making that explanation, and if they are they are in serious scriptural error for doing so.

Perhaps you should associate yourself with different 'Christians' than the ones you have been associating with. God does what he does for reasons of his own and man in not privy to those reasons and has no authority over them.

I don't imply anything, God is the maker of the universe and all that is in it (Genesis 1:1, understand it) which means it is his property and he has the absolute authority to do anything he wants with it the same as you or I would have to do anything we want with those things we make, he doesn't owe any explanation at all to anyone for what he does.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I haven't heard Christian communities making that explanation, and if they are they are in serious scriptural error for doing so.

Perhaps you should associate yourself with different 'Christians' than the ones you have been associating with. God does what he does for reasons of his own and man in not privy to those reasons and has no authority over them.

I don't imply anything, God is the maker of the universe and all that is in it (Genesis 1:1, understand it) which means it is his property and he has the absolute authority to do anything he wants with it the same as you or I would have to do anything we want with those things we make, he doesn't owe any explanation at all to anyone for what he does.

But my question is not a matter of whether reality is based on "might makes right". We all know that to be the case. My question is how will God explain, to the angels who ask Him, why the sentient creatures who were given a good design used their free will to choose the opposite of said good design.

 

[Frankj]

Maybe you should wonder why the Angels would be of a nature to be asking that of God instead of those 'sentient creatures' who made that choice?

FWIW, you might find a better answer, as well as questions, studying Jewish thinking instead of Christian thinking since they are the origin of the Christian knowledge about God in the first place.

And keeping in mind that some things are simply not knowable to man since man was not designed or intended to be able to know them.

Wish you well in your quest for knowledge, may it bring you peace and contentment.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

And keeping in mind that some things are simply not knowable to man since man was not designed or intended to be able to know them.

Why did you sign up on a Christian discussion forum if you have that worldview? No point asking questions if some things are simply not knowable to man, right?

 

[fuddy]

Lucian - your frustration with the seeming incongruity between the absolute holiness and infinite power of God as presented in the scriptures, and the seeming ineptness and coldness of a God who, though perfect in omnipotence, nevertheless somehow manages to lose a third of His angels as well as most of the humans He Himself created with His own two perfect hands, is completely understandable.

However, we ARE (compared to God) extremely limited in our comprehension of things of this magnitude. Why? Beats me... but then, the newly germinated acorn that has just emerged from the leaf litter on the forest floor ain't got the faintest clue what that immense thing towering above it (the massive oak that is the seedlings source) is all about, either.

All I can think of is, we are just beginning. Understanding will come, more and more, as we move forward into eternity, but, for now, the indispensibly critical thing for us to do, is to trust in our Source. And for that to happen, Faith (the supra-natural kind that is God's gift to us) is that fine thread we MUST hold to. It's our lifeline through the overwhelming darkness that surrounds us 24\7.

Scripture says God gives enough of that type of spiritual perception (that measure of Faith) to carry us through all the apparent discrepancies, contradictions, and moral ambiguities that our limited minds crash up against when we ask questions like you (and I) ask ourselves about God. For me, that Faith tells me that God is, indeed, THOROUGHLY good, despite all the questions.

If you feel you don't possess that gift of Faith, try asking for it. I believe God will give you things of this nature that are sincerely asked for.

Don't quit seeking, bro.

 

[fuddy]

Again - take a 1985 model PC, interface it with a current-model supercomputer and try to access and make sense of the massive flood of info that will overwhelm the little guy's circuitry... the '85 'puter won't have any chance of processing the stuff coming at it before it explodes into a quadrillion pieces.

God is B I G

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

but, for now, the indispensibly critical thing for us to do, is to trust in our Source

Why?

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

If you feel you don't possess that gift of Faith, try asking for it.

I asked for it almost everyday, on my knees, for over five years. I asked, knocked, sought, pleaded, prayed, cried out to Him, read and studied the Bible numerous times, read Christian theology, watched Christian videos, discussed with numerous Christians etc.

Not only did faith not came, but the more I sought God, the more incoherent and absurd Christianity seemed to me.

 

[Frankj]

I asked for it almost everyday, on my knees, for over five years. I asked, knocked, sought, pleaded, prayed, cried out to Him, read and studied the Bible numerous times, read Christian theology, watched Christian videos, discussed with numerous Christians etc.

Not only did faith not came, but the more I sought God, the more incoherent and absurd Christianity seemed to me.

There is an old (American) Country and Western song that goes "Looking for love in all the wrong places ...... ".

Could just as easily been sung "Looking for God in all the wrong places" and been true for many of us.

When you pray, do you know what you are really praying for? Are you praying for something from outside yourself to just come in to you and, like Harry Potter waving his magic wand, KERPOOF!! it just happens and you suddenly have it?

That's not the way it works for most people.

Not to say it never happens that way. I'm sure there are people, as Biblically mentioned, who get struck by lightning from above and just go forth and walk on water and stuff, but I'm certainly not one of them and you don't seem to be one either.

Don't try to become something you're not, just let yourself become the perfect you that God intended you to be when he created you. Don't let the world drag you away from that no matter how much it wants to and how hard it tries.

Now Jesus said two things that are extremely important that usually don't get much mention when dealing in practical affairs of our lives, consider this one first and then I will add a second that deals with how to do it.

First, Jesus taught us to seek the Kingdom of God first and let the other things be added to it as we go along, that the Kingdom of Heaven isn't something to be looked for outside of us but something that we already have inside of us and need to recreate our lives around.

So how do we do this? Well, Jesus addressed that as well in both his words and the actions he took that put them into reality.

Jesus said to ask and it would be given, to seek it and we would find it, and to knock on the door and it would open for us. We ask in the faith that it is given when we do, we seek to find out where it is through that faith, and then we make it part of our lives by accepting it.

This is the reality of the practice of faith, that faith is something we, at least those like myself, have to develop by actually doing something and getting real results. The little things we do lay the foundation for greater and greater things as we grow in our faith.

Remember to become like a little child who an only take the steps of a child and not of an adult till he grows into one, don't try to undertake acts of great faith till you first develop it by taking very small steps first and slowly growing toward it til you reach that point. Don't try trusting in the big things till you have first learned to trust in the small ones.

The way I see it, others may say differently.

 

[fuddy]

Yup, some "get it" fast, most don't. Took me over 30 years of going through something similar to what you, Lucian, are struggling with now.

This "seek and you will find" thing is a lifelong process, kind of like detoxing from the death-based old self while gradually rebuilding your new self from the inside out.

Detoxing, wether physical or spiritual, usually makes you feel worse before you start getting better. You're working through it right now.

Maybe some of us need this hands-off approach from God, maybe the struggle to find Him is mandatory for some people, for reasons only apparent to Him.

Why trust God..? Because there isn't anything else that anyone can trust. Jesus said everyone who diligently seeks Him will find Him. He didn't say how long it would take or how frustrating it would be. Just do one thing, please - DON'T give up on it.