A
Other than merely becoming indignant, and while pounding on a Bible, screaming that "God can do whatever He wants, because God is God!", how would you answer someone who asked you an honest question like this. (And, believe me, IF YOU ACTUALLY DO LISTEN, many people are asking very similar questions.)
I know many of us cannot answer such a question rationally, without just digging our heels into stubborn dogma.... so this question is not for us. It is for the few reasonable people here who care about other people.
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If you cannot find better ways of solving your problems than resorting to violence, we would be very quick to point out the underdeveloped nature of your moral compass. When, however, "God" can find no better way of solving his problems than a resorting to violence; and when his "final solution" to the problem of sin looks more Hitler-esque than holy, we are told we must call it good.
One modern, Calvinistic preacher has said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the last thing that the accursed sinner should and will hear when he takes his first step into hell, is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God, because he has rid the earth of him."
In this understanding of "God", you mustn't merely agree internally that all of God's actions are good, but must applaud him for carrying out acts that, if performed by a human, would earn them a life sentence in prison, or worse!
My friends, when your understanding of the holiness of God forces you to lay aside what you know to be moral in favor of what you know to be immoral, there is a very large problem with your concept of God's holiness. If you must, under pain of death, call the actions of a superior force "good", when everything within you knows those actions to be evil, you are not serving the Father Jesus revealed. This sounds far more like North Korea than it does the Kingdom of God.
God's holiness is manifested in his mercy, and in his unwillingness to resort to the methods we resort to. He does not valorize the actions of mad dictators and genocidal maniacs, but contradicts them. How we can condemn the actions of a Hitler, many of whose victims would be understood by the evangelical Christian as having gone straight to hell, and then turn around and praise the "God" who only intensifies what Hitler began, is absolutely beyond me.
You cannot call Hitler bad, and the one who presently tortures his "unsaved" victims' souls good, and keep your moral integrity intact. If Hitler is bad, so is the deity who takes up his mantle once the victim passes into the next life. If Hitler is evil so is hell, and, consequently, so is the "God" who stokes its flames.
I know many of us cannot answer such a question rationally, without just digging our heels into stubborn dogma.... so this question is not for us. It is for the few reasonable people here who care about other people.
*********************
If you cannot find better ways of solving your problems than resorting to violence, we would be very quick to point out the underdeveloped nature of your moral compass. When, however, "God" can find no better way of solving his problems than a resorting to violence; and when his "final solution" to the problem of sin looks more Hitler-esque than holy, we are told we must call it good.
One modern, Calvinistic preacher has said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the last thing that the accursed sinner should and will hear when he takes his first step into hell, is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God, because he has rid the earth of him."
In this understanding of "God", you mustn't merely agree internally that all of God's actions are good, but must applaud him for carrying out acts that, if performed by a human, would earn them a life sentence in prison, or worse!
My friends, when your understanding of the holiness of God forces you to lay aside what you know to be moral in favor of what you know to be immoral, there is a very large problem with your concept of God's holiness. If you must, under pain of death, call the actions of a superior force "good", when everything within you knows those actions to be evil, you are not serving the Father Jesus revealed. This sounds far more like North Korea than it does the Kingdom of God.
God's holiness is manifested in his mercy, and in his unwillingness to resort to the methods we resort to. He does not valorize the actions of mad dictators and genocidal maniacs, but contradicts them. How we can condemn the actions of a Hitler, many of whose victims would be understood by the evangelical Christian as having gone straight to hell, and then turn around and praise the "God" who only intensifies what Hitler began, is absolutely beyond me.
You cannot call Hitler bad, and the one who presently tortures his "unsaved" victims' souls good, and keep your moral integrity intact. If Hitler is bad, so is the deity who takes up his mantle once the victim passes into the next life. If Hitler is evil so is hell, and, consequently, so is the "God" who stokes its flames.
