Our Moral God

Lon

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Utter nonsense! If this were so then it would be meaningless to say that God is good. God does not get to pick and choose when to be righteous and when to be arbitrary and an arbitrary (i.e. unjust) action would not become just by virtue of the fact that God is the one who performed it. On the contrary, if God did the unjust, He would no longer to be righteous, by definition.

What is moral for God that is different than what would be moral for anyone else has only to do with God's authority, not some sort of different standard. It is not within the purview of a Sergeant to declare war but it is within the purview of the Commander in Chief. This does not mean there are two standards of practice within the military. The same code of conduct grants the CiC more authority than it does non-commissioned officers. Likewise, God has the authority to end a person's physical life at whatever point He sees fit. All men deserve death, Hawkins, every breath we take is a mercy. God does not owe the world an opportunity for salvation and it is not out of bounds (i.e. unjust) for the Judge to call a person's debt due, especially when that debt is owed to the Judge!

Clete
Somewhat Calvinistic, btw :)
 

Hawkins

Active member
1) Is something (like humility) good because God recognizes it as good? Or,
2) Is something good because God commands that it is good (as Socrates put it, because God loves it)?

The big picture is, God's final goal is to build an eternity (we call heaven) for angels and humans to live with a God forever and ever. It's like you built a large mansion then invite all your friends and relatives to live with you. You thus need to set up rules for them to follow, say, they can't shout at night to disturb your sleep, or teach your kids to be criminals and so forth. God did the same, He set up Law followed by a Final Judgment to decide who is eligible to live with Him - a completely sin-incompatible God - in a forever realm. Law thus reflects how good God is and what humans' DOs and don't DOs are in order to live such an eternity.

God Himself is the only standard and only source of good.
 

Hawkins

Active member
Utter nonsense! If this were so then it would be meaningless to say that God is good. God does not get to pick and choose when to be righteous and when to be arbitrary and an arbitrary (i.e. unjust) action would not become just by virtue of the fact that God is the one who performed it. On the contrary, if God did the unjust, He would no longer to be righteous, by definition.

What is moral for God that is different than what would be moral for anyone else has only to do with God's authority, not some sort of different standard. It is not within the purview of a Sergeant to declare war but it is within the purview of the Commander in Chief. This does not mean there are two standards of practice within the military. The same code of conduct grants the CiC more authority than it does non-commissioned officers. Likewise, God has the authority to end a person's physical life at whatever point He sees fit. All men deserve death, Hawkins, every breath we take is a mercy. God does not owe the world an opportunity for salvation and it is not out of bounds (i.e. unjust) for the Judge to call a person's debt due, especially when that debt is owed to the Judge!

Clete

Utterly nonsense. From the very first chapter of the Bible, it is a curse (from God) that everyone needs to die once in one way or another. This doesn't reflect how bad God is, when under His absolute sovereignty that everyone is put to death for once without exception (i.e., excluding the few didn't taste death such as Elijah and Enoch). In a sense, God will put everyone to a physical death in one way or another as a result of Adam's first sin. He's job is to save the souls of the righteous.

God is a Shepherd. A shepherd will kill the wolves if it is necessary to protect his sheep! That said. The Canaanites are behind Satan's influence to stop God's salvation plan through Israel. More will die through the generations of wars between Israel and the Canaanites who outnumbered the Jews, if the majority of Canaanites were not eradicated.

Actually, a lot of "bad things" the atheists accusing of God doing in OT can be explained once you know that God's morality is soul-based! For example, God didn't kill the virgins because Midians are not as rigid as the Canaanites in terms of serving the false gods. They allow women to adapt the religions of their husbands. The virgins are thus savable by adapting Judaism through marriage with the Jews. It's not raping as the atheists put because in the ancient world all marriages are arranged. Women don't have the freedom in choosing their own husbands.
 
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Clete

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Him, Clete, we don't get to make those valuations, if Jesus was right (He was).
Contradict yourself much? How can you state in one sentence that "we don't get to make those valuations" and then do exactly that before you get to the period of the very same sentence?

If ONLY God is good (Jesus said so) then 'good' is wholly in the one that ALONE is good, yes? If such by virtue of the declaration, means we aren't 'good' thus incapable of actually valuing 'good,' we are only as good as our proximity and own image of our Creator. "Come let us reason together" the Lord says, because we have to talk to Him about what is good and what is not. If you get from God, what is good, you then can 'better' evaluate (such is the scope of all who walk with Him). God is good, simply because (it is His nature), not only can't we second-guess His motives, but we don't because we know on faith, that those motivations are pure, holy, and "good."

What then do we do, when we see something that doesn't look 'good' but believe in faith, God is nothing but good? Answer? For me, that He is good and I'll figure it out OR wait until I see Him to have Him explain it to me, if He wishes. We are talking, at this point, about something God DID do, mostly in the O.T. Our answers are both good answers (for us respectively or we wouldn't be following Him), but mine tend to be a bit given to faith where I may not always know the answer. The reason (for me) is because everytime I've had to wrestle and ask, to date, there has been a sufficient answer from His goodness. I simply assume after that, the next issue necessarily is the same: that I'll know one day or at least know I can rest in faith regarding His character.
Answer the question Lon. Repeating your assertion doesn't count as a valid response. I am not asking you whether or not God is good. Only a fool would ask such a question. Read the question carefully and answer it directly or admit that you cannot and don't care that you cannot.

If you think that "either [it] is true, or it is a lie" that God is always good AND that we have no ability to make that judgment then on what basis do you say that He is always good?
 
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JudgeRightly

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No, it doesn't.

Yes it does.

A man cannot be God,

Jesus became "a man."

Jesus is God.

Therefore, "a man" is God.

but One man is God,

You're trying to have it both ways, Marke, and it's not going to work.

A = A.

A != !A

Jesus, a man, is God.

Therefore, a man is God.

so the analogy breaks down just like the analogy that suggests that if God is love then love is God.

See Clete's post addressing this above.

Perverted love is not God.

Supra.

The only correct analogy is that God is godly love - period.

Saying it doesn't make it so.
 

JudgeRightly

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If ONLY God is good (Jesus said so) then 'good' is wholly in the one that ALONE is good, yes?

There's a difference between actions that are good, even by evil people, and a "being" that is good.

What Jesus said was correct, and what Clete said was correct.

There is only one [being] who is good, that's God.

And yet, even evil people can do good things, as Clete described above.
 

Clete

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Utterly nonsense. From the very first chapter of the Bible, it is a curse (from God) that everyone needs to die once in one way or another. This doesn't reflect how bad God is, when under His absolute sovereignty that everyone is put to death for once without exception (i.e., excluding the few didn't taste death such as Elijah and Enoch). In a sense, God will put everyone to a physical death in one way or another as a result of Adam's first sin. He's job is to save the souls of the righteous.
You are flatly wrong. Quite close to blasphemously so.

God did not create us in order to put us all to death. We are all going to die, or have someone die in our place, because God is just! It isn't because God is sovereign and He gets to decide by fiat what right and wrong is. Adam rebelled, as have we all, against the God who is Life itself. We therefore deserve to die and will do, in one way or another. God was NOT required to save anyone at all and He would have remained perfectly righteous and just had He simply killed Adam and been done with it. If what you are saying is even half right then there was never any need for God to die for our sins to begin with! God is sovereign, right? So He could just as easily declared the death of bulls, goats and doves good enough or He could have simply let it go altogether and pretended like Adam's rebellion never happened. Maybe the "sovereign" God who can do anything he wants and get away with it could have just altered the flow of time, gone back and taken out the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from the Eden!

If you think any of that is stupidity, every syllable of it flows from your own stated premises!

God is a Shepherd. A shepherd will kill the wolves if it is necessary to protect his sheep! That said. The Canaanites are behind Satan's influence to stop God's salvation plan through Israel. More will die through the generations of wars between Israel and the Canaanites who outnumbered the Jews, if the majority of Canaanites were not eradicated.
Irrelevant to the point.

Actually, a lot of "bad things" the atheists accusing of God doing in OT can be explained once you know that God's morality is soul-based!
Warning! Here comes more blasphemy!

For example, God didn't kill the virgins because Midians are not as rigid as the Canaanites in terms of serving the false gods. They allow women to adapt the religions of their husbands. The virgins are thus savable by adapting Judaism through marriage with the Jews. It's not raping as the atheists put because in the ancient world all marriages are arranged. Women don't have the freedom in choosing their own husbands.
Outrageously foolish stupidity!

Listen, I've already written all this and so I'm going to post it but don't bother responding. I won't read it. There isn't anything anyone could say to move you an inch off your lunatic doctrine anyway. Believe what you want, that's what you do anyway.
 
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Clete

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Let's do the math. God = a man, therefore a man = God. That kind of math is an error.
You are not a Christian and will die in your sin unless you repent.

I am not kidding! Understanding that Jesus, the man, is the Creator God HIMSELF, is a necessary doctrine of the Christian faith. To deny it is to deny the faith entirely.
 

JudgeRightly

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1) Is something (like humility) good because God recognizes it as good? Or,
2) Is something good because God commands that it is good (as Socrates put it, because God loves it)?

Both, because all 'our' even warped sense of good, is imago deo (OUR image that reflects Him).

Wrong. And your answer leads to moral relativism.

The above is Euthyphro's Dilemma (as presented to the Christian)

Here is the correct answer:


Is something good because God commands it so (i.e., because He decides that a certain trait, like honesty, will be good rather than bad)? No. Scripture reinforces the judgment of the conscience that God put within man, both of which indicate that morality, like truth, is non-contradictory and could not survive even the potential of embracing immorality.

Is something good because God recognizes it as good? Yes. Then to clarify:
● Is the standard He judges by anterior or superior to Himself? No.
● Is He Himself the standard that He judges by? Yes. Righteousness is the description of God's own nature.
● If the standard is Himself, how could God know it is valid? By the eternal concurring witnesses of the Trinity.

● How does God reveal His standard to men? This and so many other questions go beyond Euthyphro's Dilemma. But see Battle Royale VII, Does God Exist?, Bob Enyart vs. Zakath for more information, available for free online at TheologyOnline.com's Coliseum or in print at KGOV.com.

Thus the Christian answers the skeptic with a logically consistent explanation of how morality can flow from God Himself without requiring that God arbitrarily decide what kinds of traits will be considered “good,” by showing how the triune God can objectively know righteousness.


From https://theologyonline.com/threads/a-christian-answer-to-the-euthyphro-dilemma.7272/.

I recommend you fully read the entire article, but the above is the conclusion.
 

Clete

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What seems to be good to men does not always seem good to God. A Christian farmer does good while plowing his field. A rebel against God does evil by plowing his field.

Proverbs 21:4
An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.
I've seen other Calvinists post this little tidbit of stupidity. You really are just a big bag of mindless cliche and platitudes.

Do you actually believe that it is evil to plow a field? I mean the act of breaking dirt with the intention of planting a crop. Do you think that action is itself sinful?

If you do, you are without hope. Your mind is broken beyond repair to the point that you actually believe that God is unjust.

Incredible!
 

Clete

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Somewhat Calvinistic, btw :)
What I said or what I was responding too?

If the former, then you'll need to explain yourself a bit because there isn't a Calvinist anywhere in the world that would agree with a syllable of what I said in that post.
 

marke

Well-known member
Yes it does.
Jesus became "a man."

Jesus is God.

Therefore, "a man" is God.

There needs to be some clarity introduced here. God is love but God is not corrupted love. And God became "a" man, but not just any man can claim to be God.
You're trying to have it both ways, Marke, and it's not going to work.

A = A.

A != !A

Jesus, a man, is God.

Therefore, a man is God.

God became "The man" but it is not true that "a man" can become God.
See Clete's post addressing this above.



Supra.



Saying it doesn't make it so.
 

marke

Well-known member
You are not a Christian and will die in your sin unless you repent.

I am not kidding! Understanding that Jesus, the man, is the Creator God HIMSELF, is a necessary doctrine of the Christian faith. To deny it is to deny the faith entirely.
You misjudge me. I believe Jesus is God the Savior, but I do not believe that if God can be said to be a man that any man can be said to be God.
 

marke

Well-known member
I've seen other Calvinists post this little tidbit of stupidity. You really are just a big bag of mindless cliche and platitudes.

Do you actually believe that it is evil to plow a field? I mean the act of breaking dirt with the intention of planting a crop. Do you think that action is itself sinful?

If you do, you are without hope. Your mind is broken beyond repair to the point that you actually believe that God is unjust.

Incredible!
When Jesus said that without Him no sinner can do anything right, He was not lying, no matter how good the plowing of the wicked may seem to some.

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.
 

JudgeRightly

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There needs to be some clarity introduced here. God is love but God is not corrupted love. And God became "a" man, but not just any man can claim to be God.

Missing the point.

The fact of the matter is that a man, Jesus Christ, is God.

it is not true that "a man" can become God.

Straw man and red herring.

Focus, Mark.
 

JudgeRightly

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The big picture is, God's final goal is to build an eternity (we call heaven) for angels and humans to live with a God forever and ever. It's like you built a large mansion then invite all your friends and relatives to live with you. You thus need to set up rules for them to follow, say, they can't shout at night to disturb your sleep, or teach your kids to be criminals and so forth. God did the same, He set up Law followed by a Final Judgment to decide who is eligible to live with Him - a completely sin-incompatible God - in a forever realm. Law thus reflects how good God is and what humans' DOs and don't DOs are in order to live such an eternity.

God Himself is the only standard and only source of good.

Just answer the question, Hawkins. I even made it easy and posted the answer above! But I ask because I want to hear your reasoning.

1) Is something (like humility) good because God recognizes it as good? Or,
2) Is something good because God commands that it is good (as Socrates put it, because God loves it?
 

marke

Well-known member
Missing the point.

The fact of the matter is that a man, Jesus Christ, is God.



Straw man and red herring.

Focus, Mark.
Let me try the analogy again. God = a man, therefore a man = God. Anyone with any common sense can see why that statement cannot be universally true.
 

JudgeRightly

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Let me try the analogy again. God = a man, therefore a man = God. Anyone with any common sense can see why that statement cannot be universally true.

Except that it IS true, because Jesus, a man, IS IN FACT GOD.
 
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