God knows the end from the beginning. Before you were born, every day you had was numbered and written in a book God has in heaven. He knows your every action before you take it.
None of this feels bad, yet. None of it pinches my mind in an uncomfortable place.
God causes the rain to fall. God causes all things to work together for good. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son. Paul begins to constrain us. The bindings begin to hurt. God says "My purpose will stand. I will do all that I please." God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. Pharaoh is raised for this very purpose, that God might display his power.
I cry out: "How can God still blame me?" How are the wages for my actions death, if you knew I would choose them before I came to the choice? How can you punish me for that which I could not avoid? "Why did you make me like this?"
God whispers.
Doesn't the potter have the right to make of his clay what he will? I knit you together in your mother's womb.
It's apologetic and commanding. I fear to hear the God who rebuked Job. I fear to be the Job who didn't listen for forty one chapters of yelling.
He knows the end from the beginning. Don't let your mind escape that. Return to it. Paul didn't worry enough to need it, but I do. Good says "I am." He wasn't were, or yet to be. He is. He was is, he will be is. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow because he exists at all times simultaneously. We experience time as a long stand stretched over a chasm. God experiences time as a book he can pick up; one he created simultaneously instantaneously. An entire infinite closes itself into his solitary perception. He knit me in my mother's womb out of time, in the same action as he knit my mother in her first existence. He created a timeline in which rain fell in the same action as he created a hard-hearted pharaoh and he saw it all at the moment he made it. God saw me make every choice I will ever make by creating time. He acted every time he would ever act by creating time. He doesn't need a process, nor cause and effect, not testing nor mistakes. He did every thing he would ever do as he did the only thing he would ever do in time. His one touch was consummate.
Of course he made Pharaoh. Of course Pharaoh chose. Neither can exist together, but both exist simultaneously. Free will is predestined. He chose that you will have choices.
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I sometimes answer questions for Amazing Facts. They get this question, citing these examples and passages, frequently.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is supposed to be, simplified, that God's goodness is always the same, but people respond differently. Seeing His goodness softens some and hardens others; people choose what to do with it.
I think I liked Haluska's answer better.
I never heard Haluska's answer. Hit me.
ReplyDeleteHe talked about it in Ancient Classics during the study of the book of Job. In writing out my understanding of what he said, I've come to the conclusion that this answer may be more mine than his?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Haluska asked us to interpret Job 2:10. Job's wife says, "Curse God and die," and Job responds, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" Continuing the verse reveals to us that in saying this Job did not sin.
Haluska chose to interpret it as something like, Job knew for sure that good came from God, but he stopped with "receive evil" without adding "from God" because he didn't know where evil came from and did not want to assign blame for it erroneously.
So Haluska asks two similar but distinct questions: "Did God cause Job's suffering?" and "Was God responsible for Job's suffering?"
Then Haluska said that as the ultimate authority of the universe, God knows that "the buck stops here." God accepts ultimate responsibility for everything that has ever occurred.
ReplyDeleteBut He does so in the way a good leader accepts responsibility for the mistakes of his subordinates. He may not have made the mistake, but He was responsible for trusting the subordinate to do the right thing, and He takes responsibility for fixing the problem.
So, as you say, God made the decision to give the beings He created enough agency to make up their own minds. As part of that, He allowed their actions to have consequences-- consequences even for future generations and innocent people who had nothing to do with the mistake. That is the price of freedom.
ReplyDeleteI don't know; this is what I think. Despite God's "rebuke" of Job, the book pretty continuously tells us that Job did not sin, that Job was righteous. God actually assigns more blame to Job's friends than to Job and actually tells the friends they have to apologize (Job 42:7-9) when a cursory reading of what the friends say gives the impression that they're trying to DEFEND God.
ReplyDeleteSo ... Job must have done something right, and I think that right something was that he refused to talk with anybody but God about the stuff that was bothering him. He didn't accept his friends' answers and explanations but insisted on hearing what God had to say about it.
And then, like, he listened to what God had to say and corrected himself, and their relationship grew, and yeah ... I think what Job did right was seeking truth at its source and holding on to his honesty regardless of the pressure to be socially correct.
It's my belief that God doesn't make decisions as we understand it. He has a consciousness that touches all times simultaneously. Otherwise, predestination is inevitable (haha) and free will cannot exist. This is the explanation I can see right now. So of course God has created Satan, but in the same action of his creation, God also kicked him out of heaven and defeated him at the last day. There is no conflict for God and no worry about the liability for sin because he has dealt/deals/is dealing/will deal with it. Our limited perspective, tied interminably to temporal space, cannot but blame God for sin. So yes, pain is a problem and Why Does God Let Babies Die still agonizes us. But to God, there is no difference between giving choice to Lucifer and eradicating sin forever.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that's what I think about Job.
ReplyDeleteI like your/Haluska's explanation, but it's an in-between time explanation, almost. It feels like it might become irrelevant after the thousand years.
Additional concern: of all the infinite time in the past and all the infinite time in the future, how could up be possible for God to allow sin more than once? In that infinity will allow for every possibility at least one time, why did we get so monstrously unlucky to have been born at the astronomically infinitesimal moment when sin is innate? I would rather be born after the thousand years and just hear about sin in stories.
Well, yeah, God says He doesn't think about things the same way we do. And like, given that His ability and perspective are so much greater than ours, that seems pretty obvious.
ReplyDeleteBut I still kinda think He's willing to engage with us and to try to help us understand what we can of what He does and why. I mean, isn't that the point of self-revelation?
What do you mean, "allow sin more than once"? As in, He can allow one person to sin, but shouldn't give others the same freedom? Or, like, this one planet has the dubious privilege of dealing with it, but nobody else?
Many people I know seem to think that God has finished His work of creation, that the "no marriage/giving in marriage in heaven thing" is a "no more babies forever" sort of thing.
There was a time I wasn't sure about a future with no sin because I conflated it with a future with no growth, no change, nothing new to make it interesting.
There was a time when I was enraged at God for making me a girl, making me some sort of sub-species of humanity that was somehow worth less, less capable.
There was a time when I was angry that I had to depend on anyone else at all; I wanted most to be self-contained and not a bother, and my inability to meet all my own needs was an anathema to me.
Then of course I've looked at people who had worse lots in life than I and felt guilty for the many things I do have; there've even been times I was jealous of them because my self-pity was greater than the sum of things I could really be upset about.
I mean, why wasn't I born when Jesus was on earth, so that I could meet Him and see His miracles firsthand?
Honestly, I don't think I'm ever going to stop asking those sorts of questions. And the thing is, like, how on earth can they be answered in a way that could even begin to satisfy? Unless, as that one short story postulated, all of humanity is the existence of one individual simultaneously living out infinite scenarios (or like a video game or whatever), how can there be variety (IDIC) and yet fairness or any sort of equality?
So in the end I think ... God honors honest questions, and we shouldn't stop asking them. But we've got to be willing to accept the answers He gives. And, like, a lot of the time, the answer is, "Trust Me. I know what I'm doing." And like maybe things clear up eventually, maybe there's more to the story that we get to see, but.
I don't know; frankly I don't think being alive at this time, as myself, is "monstrously unlucky," and I'm not sure I can articulate why except to say that God took the worst thing that ever happened to the universe and made it into the most beautiful declaration of love that has ever existed, and He has made beauty of all the ashes I've given Him so far.
If I were born in a different time, in a different place (who's to say I haven't been, though?, in a way-- not reincarnation but like I am not that unique), I would not be myself. I probably wouldn't even recognize me. And, I don't know, maybe something worthwhile would be lost if I did not exist.
I mean, as globalization occurs, many cultures' unique attributes and languages are disappearing, and although I cannot articulate their value beyond that they are unique, I mourn their loss.
This comment has gotten out of hand, but everybody knows already that I talk too much, so I guess ... sorry I'm not sorry?
I asked my dad why God would give me talents as a storyteller if all the stories I've ever known are motivated by conflict. Dad made a good point: my whole job after the second coming would be to tell all creation what happened here to guarantee they understand what went wrong and why God was still right at the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteThat speaks to self-revelation of God as well as to whether sin could ever happen again. I think that sin happens once in the entirety of existence, and we had the incredible misfortune of being born into it without any choice in the matter.
I think that feelings are very useful. Since high school, I've tried very hard not to shun people or disrespect them for their feelings. I get disgusted sometimes because I feel like I see through the feelings to their selfish motivations, but intellectually I try to shut that off as often as I can. Because nobody else has ever been you, and nobody else will ever know exactly what you're feeling. Why, then, would you expect yourself to (in a moment of self-doubt or pity) negate your own feelings merely because another person has had feelings? I mean, even if those feelings are somehow more potent to your eye, or more important, or perhaps more logical, you still feel the way you do and there's a level of validity that no human can question. I think not eating well just because children starve is idiotic. I also think we should stop buying food and instead donate to those who don't have what we have. I'm a mixed bag of parts and I think that's acceptable. To live any other way would be to find perfection or abomination, and I'm physically incapable of that.
But here's the thing, finally: I think you are avoiding the conceit of my post. I feel like you are dancing around the true thought here, making excuses or juxtapositions to avoid the real problem. If God lives through time as we do, but sees the future perfectly, there can be no free will. Any choice I may seem to have cannot exist because I cannot make a choice that I will not make. God knows, therefore I do, therefore I have no true choice.
The only way I can logically have choice and a God that knows the future is if God cannot move in time, but instead experiences time the way I experience a sheet of paper--from above, all points simultaneously. He has to be thus, or otherwise I have no ability to do anything I will not do. So. Do I have freedom?
I like the idea that we shouldn't starve ourselves because other people are starving; I've had to come to that conclusion with work, and anyway, like, that's what they say on airplanes.
ReplyDeleteThat God experiences time differently from we do is pretty obvious and well established; that He is outside time is a biblical concept (Isaiah 46:10; 2 Peter 3:8; Titus 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:9), and many people far smarter than I have discussed this in much better ways than I can.
So do we have free will?
Well, like ... if we don't, God's a liar, is the worst being in existence, and Satan was right.
So.
The thing is, that's something you've got to decide for yourself. I don't want to do what Job's friends did and try to explain for you what only God can answer in a way that can satisfy.
Of course, like, despite what people say, Job didn't get a good answer when he asked God basically the same question. He just got several chapters of, like, "Look at Me, look at Who I am and what I do, and tell Me I'm wrong."
Which is not an answer but is basically the essence of faith. I mean, isn't that the point of our existence? Like, we're supposed to examine the facts of what has happened to us, to our world, and what God has done, and decide whether or not we can trust Him?
Here are a bunch of Bible verses on the topic:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/free_will
I find this verse especially interesting:
"So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?' But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?'" (Romans 9:18-20).
To me, this verse seems to support BOTH God's predetermination AND our free will (in general, I think the Bible basically does). Perhaps it is a false dichotomy.
So like, that's pretty much exactly what you said, and I don't get why I had to repeat it.
ReplyDeleteNo, all right, I think I get it. I just don't enjoy it. I sometimes forget you don't like haiku. Stupid of me.
DeleteI've read Romans 8-11, and it's troubling. It's why I wrote this post, you know? Because if predterminists are correct, then Satan is right, and yet the Bible tells us that the predeterminists are correct and yet Satan loses. So, who can say?
ReplyDeleteRomans 8:29 is reassuring to me because it combines the "predestined" with "foreknew."
ReplyDeleteI sometimes have trouble surrendering to God because I can't quite believe that He knows better for me than I do. But He knows me, right, knows me better than I can know myself. In earlier verses, the Holy Spirit searches my heart and interprets my prayers for me. In later verses, He makes me more than a conqueror and loves me in a way that even death cannot beat.
So like ... God doesn't have to ask for our trust. Or our love. He has the power to manufacture beings who are incapable of both and yet happy. He holds all the cards and He doesn't have to show them to us, but He does.
In my experience, I travel along in my relationship with God until I hit a wall, and God says, "Trust me just a little bit more."
Maybe we're all Sisyphus-- maybe we cannot choose our destinies, but we can choose to love them or hate them?
Maybe I'm unique in this, because Jessica didn't like thinking about it, either. But there's something so utterly terrifying about this and I just don't feel like I've communicated its gravity. This, along with a few other issues, is really important. It's not like asking if God can make a rock he can't pick up.
ReplyDeleteI just don't want to see you going down the road I went down, is all.
ReplyDeleteIt's unanswerable. It can really screw a person up.