(May 12, 2017 at 7:26 pm)Grandizer Wrote:(May 12, 2017 at 3:13 pm)SteveII Wrote: More precisely, we are talking about whether it is right for God to kill people. Since his reason for killing people is 'judgement' then I think my questions are very on point. Now, do you want to answer my questions or not (that's called 'having a discussion')?
As you just said, the OP is about whether it is right or not for God to kill people. But more precisely, it is trying to appeal to your modern humane intuition to ponder this. Would a good God (if such existed) really kill people, judgement or not? Step aside from theology for a while, and see if the OP does make a fair point.
I think its an appropriate question (otherwise I would not have responded). However the whole premise is that God owes us something. The only thing that is owed us is death apart from the grace of God. Why do we deserve death? Part of being God is being holy and just (essential attributes). His justice demands that there be an atonement for anything short of holy. Nothing created could satisfy the justice attribute of an eternal God and bridge the gap to holy so God humbled himself in the person of Jesus and made a sacrifice of eternal substance with eternal significance for all time (past, present and future).
So, when God kills someone, we see that he certainly has the right to, but that can't be all there is to it because why doesn't he just kill anyone at any time and why the whole plan of redemption in the NT? It is reasonable to infer then that there was another reason than just plain judgement -- mainly that it was for greater good or long-term consequences only an omniscient mind could calculate (as an example, motivation, or some other effect that might have taken years or centuries to realize--like the conditions that led to Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
