Determinism.....

[solarwave]

Solarwave,

The problem I see with your idea (that God shifted his paradigm) is that God is timeless so there should be no reason to change his interactions with us. How does it make sense that God needed to kill anyone... ever? How does it make sense to avoid the need of killing people by killing himself to appease himself?

Actually my explaination would be quite different from the one you gave (which I had to delete from this post to make it shorter).

God doesn't change but the way He acts changes. This is because the situation changed. If God didn't change His actions because the situation is different then egypt would still have the 10 plagues on it since God wouldn't realise what He wanted to do had been done. Obviously it is Jesus who changed the circumstances. The point of the Law before Jesus was to show sin for what it is. God is just and the price for sin is death. So the fact that we are here after our sin is by Gods goodness, and so God is justifed in killing someone whenever He wants. By the way the animal sacrificies before Jesus did not save them, they were just a symbol of faith before Him, since they were really saved by Jesus too. Someone had to be judged for the sin, so it was put on Jesus and He took our punishment not us.

As for me I would say the end doesn't always justify the means and that morality can be black and white even if it isn't obvious. By that I mean there is a right and wrong action, we just need to figure it out.

Rhizomorph13: We are now in grace (because of Jesus) so not under the Law and so I dont believe God judges people by killing them now. Also the people God used in the bible to judge His people are still not seen as good.

And yet, the only thing that is keeping me from shooting you in the head and taking your purse... is that it wouldn't be 'right' by me.

A serial killer would think otherwise. Morals are completely subjective... but that doesn't make them just... nor does that make them honorable.

The fact that some people have different morals doesn't prove that some of them arn't wrong because of a absolute moral law.

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Tiberius: Well I am more of an absolutist than relativist and for me I would have to save the many not the few. Killing the few may be bad but isn't it the lesser of two evils.