Whispers

I am still going back and forth with christian friends debating about the existence of God etc. I particularly was interested in the responses of believers in the strange contradictions between thge old and the new.

The old seems to show an angry god, who demonstrates vengance, wrath, anger, jealousy and violence. The new shows Jesus teaching abouyt love, compassion, and forgive your enemies. When I raised this, I was e-mailed the following as a response to some of my points...

>
> The Old Testament law was only a partial revelation of the will of God;
> Jesus came to complete the Law--Mt. 5:17, 21-22, 27-28, 38-48etc.
> Jesus says that Moses' Law was given taking into account the hardness of
> the people's hearts, Mt.19:8 and a lot of the harshness of the punishments
> reflected the need to keep order in a nation of over 2 million many of
whom
> did not have much real faith in God-- without that, they wouldn't have
> remained linked to God at all, (see all the subsequent history of drifting
> into idol worship), and the whole exercise of choosing a people to host
> God's Son and salvation would have been a non-starter. Jesus' attitude to
> the punishments of the Law is seen in the way that He deals with the woman
> caught in adultery in John 8. Only God is perfect and therefore fit to
> administer punishment for sin but His preferred option is mercy and
> forgiveness although He will not allow evil to persist and triumph in the
> end if people will not accept His mercy.
> Deut.5:9 talks of the consequences of generations persisting in evil,
> (the consequences of one generation's sin affecting the descendants--
> children and grandchildren learn their parents' ways etc), but Ezekiel 18
> makes it abundantly clear that God does not punish those who repent for
any
> of their ancestors' sins.
> The context of Isa. 45:7-8 is that God is ultimately in control of all
> events, not that He creates or approves of evil which the Bible explicitly
> says He does not and which derives from the free will choices of
originally
> perfect angels and men.
> The Bible is not a book of precision, scientific-style logic but of
> commonsense meanings and if we approach it to nit-pick details, we will
miss
> the point which is all about God's love and mercy expressed in Jesus who
is
> the Truth. Truth is a person not a set of facts and knowing the Truth is
> through a relationship with the real, living Lord, not by our insight or
> understanding.

Any comments on the above?

spacedOut

Does the OT say that? Or is this one person's opinion?

Well, since the "Word" has always existed, then God must have known that the people's hearts would harden. Seems like God could have adjusted his human design with that foreknowledge.

Tell that to the victims of the flood, the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, the first born of the Egyptians, the Amalekites, the Midianites, and all the other people who were slaughtered with the God's approval in the OT.

So, which is right? Do the effects of sin pass from generation to generation or don't they?

Actually, Isa. 45:7 does specifically say that God created evil.

Such commonsense as "kill all witches"; "fear God or go to hell"; "we are bought with blood"...

I'm sorry, but I don't live in the fantasy world that your friends obviously inhabit. I don't understand how one could take leave of their "insight and understanding" to believe in an ancient fairy tale. While this blind faith may provide some sort of comfort, it is not how I choose to live my life.

Pyrrho

Your characterization of the New Testament is wrong. Jesus endorses ALL of the laws of the Old Testament explicitly in Matthew 5:

Jesus also speaks many times, with evident approval, of people burning in Hell forever. The "love, compassion, and forgive your enemies" stuff is just a ruse.

beastmaster

Seems a tad hasty to me to say that an antinomian Jesus is "wrong." Better to say that Jesus is artfully ambiguous about whether he is pro-Law or anti-Law. As straightforward as Mat. 5 may seem, we see plenty of other places where Jesus defies the Law. Moreover, Romans is aswim with theological backflips trying to refute accusations of Xn antinomianism, suggesting that many people interpreted Xnty, based on oral tradition and writings, as being anti-Law.

The various visions we have of Jesus are designed to advance 1st and 2nd Century Xn apologetics, and we therefore end up with a conflicting and conflicted Jesus character, including on the question of antinomianism.

theophilus

No, you choose to live your life based on the fairy-tale that your limited, fallible, easily decieved reason is sufficient to make sense of human experience - without a shred of evidence that that is true.

theophilus

There is no way you could possibly know that. This is the opinion of some contemporary "expert" which you have imbibed uncritically. In other words, you believe this by faith.

Pyrrho

No, what is said in Matthew 5 is not ambiguous at all. If Jesus in other places contradicts himself, that is a reason to believe that he did not know what he was talking about. It can also be said that, according to the faithful, Jesus was not bound by the same rules that bind us. But without bringing up specific examples, we cannot say much about what you have in mind.

In any case, Jesus says in Matthew 5, in the clearest possible terms, that one is to obey all of the laws. That much we can be sure of.

spacedOut

Yes, you have a point. I do live my life based on my individual, fallible human intellect. I freely admit that I am agnostic about most things in this universe. However, I do find my existance more self-fulfilling and satisfying as a skeptic than when I chose to believe in the supernatural.

Pyrrho

So, instead of trusting your 'fallible reason', you instead choose to believe that which is unreasonable?

Jobar

Whispers, et al., I think this discussion would be more suited for our Biblical Criticism forum.