Alan N

Just taking Psalm 145 by itself should present a problem for any reader. It reads like Habakkuk in reverse. "God, your the greatest, most powerful, bestest God ever. You provide every living thing what it needs. Your most tender mercies are bestowed on everything. Your wonderful and gracious and so on and so on. You destroy the wicked." What!? This floors me. Apart from the textual criticism that others might employ, I would only ask that you read this as you might read a letter to you from a son. "Dad, I love you, you know that, right? You're the bestest father ever....so on...you will destroy your wicked children" What!?

This polarity to me reads as self preservation. I.E. I'm protected because I love God despite his obvious wrath in the world. I'm protected as long as I extoll His virtues. I'm protected because I'm not wicked. I'm not wicked because I love God and extoll his virtues". Somewhat dubious to me. Just like Habakkuk..."why do you do what you do God? Why do you allow invaders to destroy. Why do you allow the violence and wickedness ...you will take me to heights unknown on feet like deer's feet" WHAT!?

-DM-

Punishment of the wicked by an omnipotent, compassionate, merciful, and loving "God" would nevertheless involve pity, compassion, and mercy. Thus, no matter how you slice it, dashing whole nations of people, including children who would not yet have reached an age of accountability, "one against another even the fathers and the sons together"--showing no pity and no mercy--simply does not jibe so far as I am concerned with the statement "The Lord is good to all."

No, you certainly have not ruled out that possibility.

So far as I am concerned, it is an obvious inconsistency, albeit perhaps a rather minor inconsistency considering some of the more glaring inconsistencies throughout the Bible.

The original two verses demonstrate one of the thousands of inconsistencies in the Bible, inconsistencies which to some extent explain the 20,000+ "Christian" denominations, each with its minor and/or major doctrinal differences based on which parts of the Bible they emphasize and/or how they interpret key biblical verses.

They are inconsistencies. What those inconsistencies demonstrate is somewhat open to interpretation. To me, they demonstrate that the Bible cannot be the word of a perfect, omnipotent and loving "God." Such a "God" could have, should have, and would have done a better job of it had "He" anything to do with the inspiration of a book. So far as I am concerned, therefore, attempting to explain the nature of "God" on the basis of what the Bible says is something like attempting to explain the nature of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, on the basis of what the Weekly World News tabloid has to say.

-DM-

-DM-

In my opinion, a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and loving "God" could have, should have, and would have been sufficiently concerned about possible misunderstandings to see to it that problems such as this did not exist; qualifying statements could be, should be, and would be included right with the statement "The Lord is good to all," just as Wayne Delia suggested.

-DM-

GakuseiDon

But my point is, the qualifying statement IS right there, just later on in the Psalm. So anyone reading the whole Psalm would not misunderstand. DM, after you read the Psalm, do YOU understand anything other than that the Psalm, taken as a whole, says "God is good to all, except the wicked"?

I'm a Christian, but not an inerrantist. Still, as Mike said, anyone reading the Bible wouldn't have a problem with that particular passage. Taking half a sentence out of its context - no wonder there is misunderstanding! But I don't think you can blame this one on God.

As someone said, there is nothing that omniscience can set up, that deliberate ignorance cannot overcome.

Mike, I think you can see how you will fare. I agree with you here. But, just as there are apologists who use any excuse to explain away a contradiction, there are contradictionists who use any excuse to set one up. You can't win with either. That's why I don't argue much on contradictions (pro or con) anymore.

Rodynus

Fair enough, but a better verse than the Psalm to demonstrate the contradiction is found here:

Ezekiel 18:20 The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.

and here

Deuteronomy 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

It is difficult to reconcile Ezekiel with Exodus, but I'm sure not impossible. I look forward to your attempt.

Mike(ATL)

DM, the point that God should see how this could be misconstrued and should have designed His book better is ludicrous and distracting to the only point I am trying to make at the moment. It is impossible to ask that a text of this length, dealing with so many different situations, describing so many accounts, be so uniform that you could not take 5 words out of context and compare them to another 5 words in a completely different place in a completely different situation and always have a completely consistent message.

I try to be a nice reasonable guy so I'm sorry for the tone but there is just no reasoning with you people (at least in this thread so far), you will defend your man here to the death. It could not be more plainly obvious that both authors are talking about the same God. You keep moving the argument back to the nature of God that you find contradicting. You claim to be open to reason and discussion but here we clearly have an instance where you will just not hear anything of it. You demand that we (Christians) accept all of your arguments without a second thought but on the smallest most insignificant detail you will not concede any error on your part. For the purpose of continuing the discussion (and only for that) here I am not saying the Bible doesn't contradict itself in other places, I am not saying that the merciful yet punishing God makes sense, all I am saying is that those two original verses are not an example of biblical errancy because when taken in context the message is not contradicting.

I refuse to continue this discussion until you will concede this clearly obvious and very very small point. There is no purpose in discussing with someone who is not open to something as indisputable as this. I can clearly see that I will get the same response no matter what so it would be a waste of my time and yours.

-DM-

Yes, I understood your point. Do you understand the point that a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and concerned "God" could have, should have, and would have precluded this particular problem by putting the qualifying phrases right in the very sentence with the original assertion?

Nowhere in this Psalm does it say that "God" is not good to all or, more specifically, that "He" is not merciful to the wicked. As a matter of fact, it says in verse 8 that the Lord IS merciful. The fact that verse 20 says that the Lord will destroy "all the wicked" does not preclude his being merciful in doing so. That is obviously inconsistent with Jeremiah 13:14.

Remember, it isn't just that particular passage that we are, or were, talking about. It is that particular passage in relation to Jeremiah 13:14. The fact that Psalm 145 talks about destroying the wicked does not begin to explain his allegedly stated withholding of mercy in doing so in Jeremiah 13:14, nor does it explain the destruction of children.

Taking a Bible verse or series of verses out of context with the rest of the Bible--no wonder you don't see the inconsistencies!

Like it or not, the buck stops with this allegedly perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, compassionate, merciful, benevolent "God." Such a "God" certainly could have, should have, and would have done a better job of any book that "He" inspired.

There is nothing that nonperfect, nonomniscient, nonomnipotent human writers could write in the name of an allegedly perfect, omniscient, omnipotent "God" that apologists wouldn't attempt to explain, failing to see what should be obvious. (And I say that as a former born-again, Bible-believing, evangelical Christian who studied the Bible for years and years, having been personally discipled by his pastor, before he began to see problems that could not be readily explained away.)

Neither of you will fare well here if you see no inconsistency at all between Psalm 145 and Jeremiah 13:14.

Note that I don't call any of these so-called contradictions "contradictions." I call them inconsistencies, and although this particular one is a relatively minor inconsistency, it is nevertheless an inconsistency--one of thousands, many of which are far more serious and which are indicative of the noninspiration of the Bible by any perfect being. And I don't need to set them up: they pop out at me. In fact, in the beginning, I would have liked not to have noticed any at all.

-DM-

conkermaniac

I will admit that I am not qualified to participate in this discussion, but what I personally don't understand is how the psalm itself is not a contradiction.

Psalm 145:17
The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. <-- period

Psalm 145:20
The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.

Is that not a contradiction by itself? The author is making two distinct statements that do not agree with one another. It's like saying: "I have always been a straight-A student. Except in 8th grade, when I got a B, I am a straight-A student."

GakuseiDon

Frankly, I think that's a ridiculous position to take. The whole Bible shows God as someone who rewards the faithful and punishes the wicked. Has anyone misunderstood this? Is there anyone who thinks that God doesn't reward the faithful and punish the wicked, based on that Psalm and Jeremiah? Anyone at all? Show me that, and I'll concede you have a point. If you can't show me that, then your point is moot.

worldling

Conkermaniac is right. Like him, I am not particularly qualified, but it seems plain to me that the statement:
"God is good to all"
is demonstrably false. End of argument.