Alan,
frankiespeakin
, to go off and make of the world what he will and eventually be judged, but then throws a monkey wrench into mankind's efforts, then if mankind uses that God-given sense of justice to judge that God was unfair, then God was unfair. you've completely ignored the point that Abaddon raised. The point is that if God gave mankind a sense of fairness and justice, and then told mankindPeriod.
Alan, I think you're looking at this in a very narrow way that doesn't take into account to other factors. While it's true that God gave man a "sense" of fairness, and justice. Does that mean that every man is "fair and just" just because they can "sense" it? And that God should just let everybody do what they want because they have this "sense" of fairness and justice?
God also gave mankind "free will" which means he can choose to do good or he can choose to do bad. I think it's perfectly all right, that along with the gift of "free will" comes "responsibility". Actually I'm glad that "responsibility" comes with "free will", even though that may mean some hardships for me personally, when I don't use my "free will", "responsibly". Humans with their God-given "sense" of justice have made laws, I don't always like the laws, but I know there has to be some law and order for our benefit, society's oderliness and structure is based on it, so we've received many benefits from this God given "sense" of fairness and justice, and so I praise God for it.
I really don't think you or I are in a position in which we could it judge God as unfair. For example, do you know what "ultimate reality" is Alan? I'm sure you know what the anthropic principle is, could you design a universe that manifests anthropic principle like ours? Gods intelligence and justice is far greater than anything we humans have, we have a measure of a wisdom, that is very small comparison to that of the Creator.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect that the Creator should give us wisdom and self-sufficiency so that we could live in this universe and just forget about Him or we could just do our own thing and not be bothered by any type of responsibility towards the One who made everything possible. To expect such a thing is, the highest form of ungratefulness and is an insult to the Creator who gave us the gift of life. To my "sense" of "justice and fairness" I see it as totally right to give him the worship that he deserves.
You can't get around this by saying that God can do whatever he wants -- as if he's beyond judgment. Whatever God does, mankind can judge him on consistency and fairness -- because the Bible says that God built mankind with that ability.
Well I guess if you could somehow demote God to equal status with man, you can judge Him. But to use our "sense of fairness" we must remember God is not our equal, or should I put it more clearly we are not God's equal,.. We're not God's peers. To be "fair", we have to admit that we do not have all the facts to render a righteous decision about how "fair" God is. There are a number of ways that we to look at matter and render different opinions. I myself feel totally unqualified to render a judicial decision about how the Creator has handled things, for one thing there's too much I cannot, and do not know and so I put my hand over my mouth and avoid any type of judgments, that are negative.
Your skirting the point is a good example of why so many have given up on Christianity. You want to have faith? Then just do it. But if you want to justify your faith by appeal to logic and reason and facts, be prepared to defend your claims. AlanF
I don't think that I'm skirting the point, I'm perhaps doing a fair job at defending my beleifs, according to what my beleifs actually are, and I think they're logical, they're logical to me anyway , they may not be logical to you because you have a certainly way of looking at things that are not my way of looking at things.
