RE: The Statler Waldorf Balcony
October 18, 2010 at 4:31 pm
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2010 at 4:43 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
Yes, you are getting into pretty deep Theological stuff here, but I commend you for doing so. The reason most Chrstians cannot answer these questions today is because most Christians kind of follow a hybrid (and I believe incorrect) view of how God and man's will relate. God's common grace can effect non-believers just as easily as it can believers. It's his saving grace that only effects believers.
We see this when God hardens Pharoah's heart, he hardens his heart but still punishes him for it. I think he can do this because of the way he hardened it. The only reason Pharoah was not completely evil was because he was being "held up" by God's common grace. So in order to harden his heart, all God had to do was remove some of that common grace and Pharoah's heart became harder because he made decisions based on his fallen nature. This also gets into the different will's of God. When God has Moses tell Pharoah that God wants him to let His people go, this is one of God's wills. However, God also hardens Pharoah's heart so that he does not let His people go. This is God's other will. God essentially delays Pharoah's response so He could bring more glory to Himself which is God's purpose.
We see this in the death of Christ too. Three different groups of people were responsible for Christ's death, the Pharisees, Pilot, and the Romans. All three groups were doing what they wanted to do, and for different reasons. Yet, all three groups were accomplishing was God had ordained to happen, and yet all three groups will be punished for their actions and justly so. They will be punished because their intentions behind the actions were evil. This is the reformed viewpoint (a cliff notes version) of this issue, you would get different answers from different groups of Chrstians. However I feel this is the most consistant and satisfying position.
A little post-script though. As long as God is accomplishing his purpose he is not doing evil, so none of this can be used to call God evil. In Genesis Joseph gives us another look at how man can do something with evil intentions and yet God can ordain the same event for good. Joseph tells his brothers (after they sold him into slavery), "You meant it for evil, God meant it for good".
I like this discussion though, what are your thoughts?
(October 18, 2010 at 4:03 pm)orogenicman Wrote: Your suggestion that science does not use the operational definition of time is hogwash. Science created the operational definition of time. An operational definition of time, wherein one says that observing a certain number of repetitions of one or another standard cyclical event (such as the passage of a free-swinging pendulum) constitutes one standard unit such as the second, is highly useful in the conduct of both advanced experiments and everyday affairs of life. The operational definition leaves aside the question whether there is something called time, apart from the counting activity just mentioned, that flows and that can be measured. (wikipedia) It is the operational definition of time that was used in the special theory of relativity, and in measurements made that refuted the notion of an ether through which light travels in space. Light in a vaccuum is isometric in velocity, which means that it travels at the same velocity regardless of direction of travel. This has been verified time and time again.
To suggest that biblical scripture uses the operational definition of time is also hogwash, since it hadn't been defined during the time in which those books were written. Moses had no clock, and neither did Jesus. Making up terms to suit your argument is just plain wrong. Using the Bible as a science book is about as absurd an idea as has ever been conceived.
I think I said just the opposite. The operational definition of time is the same as the calculated definition of time- I said the Bible uses the OBSERVATIONAL definition of time. There is a big difference.
I would not expect you to understand why God did it that way because I already said He did it that way as a model for His people. They completely understood this. Yes the number 7 is a symbol for perfection, this is why 777 is used a lot to represent God and 666 is used to represent imperfection to the highest degree. God is very into symbolism, this is why He had His people sacrifice animals, and do it in a certain manner because this was all a direct symbol of the coming Messiah and Christ's atonement. Nobody was saved by these animal sacrifices, but they were used to demonstrate faith in the Messiah to come. We no longer sacrifice animals because they would be symbolizing a coming atonement that has already happened. Again, just because you don't understand the reason for someone's actions does not mean their actions never happened.
