"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'” - Matthew 28:18-20
Generally believed to be a later forgery, since it isn't in the earliest and best copies of Matthew.
When I was a Christian, I was a universalist in that I believed salvation was universal. The only way for me to reconcile the idea of a loving God and Hell was to do away with Hell. I went so far as to say that no matter what your actions were, you were forgiven because God is awesome and that seemed like an awesome thing to do.
I don't think I ever subscribed to the "all religions are aspects of the one true religion" thing though. There are religions which make mutually exclusive claims, and I could never accept the "blind men describing an elephant" type explanations.
"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'” - Matthew 28:18-20
Generally believed to be a later forgery, since it isn't in the earliest and best copies of Matthew.
When I was a Christian, I was a universalist in that I believed salvation was universal. The only way for me to reconcile the idea of a loving God and Hell was to do away with Hell. I went so far as to say that no matter what your actions were, you were forgiven because God is awesome and that seemed like an awesome thing to do.
I don't think I ever subscribed to the "all religions are aspects of the one true religion" thing though. There are religions which make mutually exclusive claims, and I could never accept the "blind men describing an elephant" type explanations.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Matthew 28 being a forgery.
I think you are somewhat on the right track with respect to a loving God and hell. I think you are correct on the idea that a loving Father would not actively seek the damnation of his children no matter how sinful they really are.
The way I reconcile it is to confront, acknowledge, and embrace the not so palatable Biblical teaching that not everyone is a child of God.
In John 10 Jesus says he laid down his life for the sheep. He also says in John 10 that the Pharisees are not his sheep. Put the two statements together and you'll find that Jesus said he did not lay down his life for them.
Furthermore, we see in John 8 that Jesus calls the Pharisees children of the devil. Jesus denied that such men were children of God. In John 17, when Jesus prayed the prayer often known as the "high priestly prayer" we see that Jesus loves the sheep in a way that he does not love the world:
"I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." -John 17:6-10
Jesus does not pray for world. Only those given to the Son by the Father are children of God. Those who are not given to the Son by the Father are children of the devil, and will be thrown into the fires of hell with the devil and his angels. That is the consistent picture that I see painted throughout the entirety of scripture.
As for the blind man elephant thing...I am with you. What amazes me is the same people who like to trot that argument out for all religions refuse to see how it applies to the gospels.
I have been reading the thread, and I read your entire post.
Then why did you address the beginning of my post, ignoring the rest of it that explained my statement?
It is one of those things where you pick your battles I guess. I understand your logic, but it would take a lot of effort to explain to you why and how I see it differently. I'll try, though, to make it as short as possible. I suppose the best way to put it is man is naturally evil. This is what the bible teaches, and there are people who will say their respective belief system is biblical/Christian/etc and deny this fact, but that just shows their ignorance of biblical teaching.
The idea that man is good and occasionally does bad things is just not part of a consistent biblical anthropology. Here are some examples:
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." -Genesis 6:5
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good
who are accustomed to do evil." -Jeremiah 13:23
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:9
"Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man." -John 2:23-25
Do you see the consistency from Genesis all the way through the gospels on this? And Paul simply echoes what these people had been saying for thousands of years in Romans and Ephesians.
If you are talking to a man who fits the description of Genesis 6:5 are you doing him a favor or disservice by telling him about Jesus? He's going to go to hell anyway because his works are evil, so the guy has no hope apart from Jesus. And then you have to ask yourself the question if you are any better than the guy in Genesis 6:5? If you think you are better, then you are probably falling in the same trap that the Pharisees did, which is pride. If you think you are the same, then what are you going to do about it?
I think the worst thing a person can do is tell someone that they can be good enough to not need Jesus. I know you believe that, but I am here to tell you that you believe that because your heart is deceitful and lies to you just as Jeremiah 17:9 says it does.
If you follow the metaphor in Jeremiah 13:23 would you tell a leopard that it can change its spots? Now imagine if the leopard depended on your advice for its eternal salvation. The worst thing you can do is point towards the path of destruction and tell a person to follow that path to eternal salvation.
Except your position is inherently contradictory, cloudman.
If humanity is to be taken as inherently evil, and there is no means of redemption save that which solely comes from Jesus alone, then by what means is it reconcilable that God is all-powerful, that God is benevolent, and that people are damned?
Simple answer: It isn't. If any man is condemned over any other, it is inconsistent with the principle expressed in your second post.
The way I reconcile it is to confront, acknowledge, and embrace the not so palatable Biblical teaching that not everyone is a child of God.
Which is an absurdity.
It cannot be stated that God loves the world or humanity if God condemns the world and humanity. It cannot be stated in the same breath that the same God who would leave the 99 sheep behind to save the one who is lost and who is a God of eternal redemption is the same God as one who would just give up on the majority of humanity. That is entirely contradictory.
You have correctly stated that damnation and love are mutually exclusive. However, this is an indication that the idea of damnation is incompatible with a good, just, and loving God, not a call to find some loophole that would allow you to hold onto the idea that God is good despite damning a bunch of people.
Except your position is inherently contradictory, cloudman.
If humanity is to be taken as inherently evil, and there is no means of redemption save that which solely comes from Jesus alone, then by what means is it reconcilable that God is all-powerful, that God is benevolent, and that people are damned?
Simple answer: It isn't. If any man is condemned over any other, it is inconsistent with the principle expressed in your second post.
The way I reconcile it is to confront, acknowledge, and embrace the not so palatable Biblical teaching that not everyone is a child of God.
Which is an absurdity.
It cannot be stated that God loves the world or humanity if God condemns the world and humanity. It cannot be stated in the same breath that the same God who would leave the 99 sheep behind to save the one who is lost and who is a God of eternal redemption is the same God as one who would just give up on the majority of humanity. That is entirely contradictory.
You have correctly stated that damnation and love are mutually exclusive. However, this is an indication that the idea of damnation is incompatible with a good, just, and loving God, not a call to find some loophole that would allow you to hold onto the idea that God is good despite damning a bunch of people.
High roller, so I am trying to understand what you see as a contradiction here. What is so contradictory about man being totally deserving of damnation and God being omnipotent and benevolent? If God is benevolent, then God will pursue justice. God's benevolence is reflected through justice in the damnation of sinners. God's benevolence is also reflected in the justice of redemption that Jesus paid for on the cross. Whether a person is a child of God or not every sin receives it's just punishment.
Now I've argued with you before high roller, and all I'll say is that your response to this is going to echo Satan's words that he used to tempt Eve in Genesis. You are going to argue that this is not justice, but what you really mean when you make this argument is that God's decrees and God's laws are no more legitimate than your own personal opinion of what justice is, which you are going to claim is the absolute definition of justice so that you can declare a contradiction. It is in this way that you have taken the same bait as Eve did, hook, line, and sinker, rejecting God's standard of justice, and instead determining in your own mind what is good and evil.
In Greek the word that is translated as "world" is kosmos. Kosmos takes on different meanings in different contexts. For someone that is looking in every tree and under every rock for a contradiction, you'd obviously jump all over Jesus words in John 3:16 and and his words in John 17 and just declare it as a contradiction. You know better than that, but you are still going to make that argument because it is the easy way out. You don't want to have to deal with Jesus as he is declared in John 17. And you certainly don't want to put John 3:16 in its proper context by reading John 3:17-18 along with it. Kosmos often refers to a collective. In order to figure out who that collective is you have to read the surrounding context. So in John 3:16 it says that God loves the kosmos, and it says that believers will have everlasting life. That tells you who the collective being referred to is. It is believers. In John 17 the collective that Jesus is speaking of is a different collective than the one referred to in John 3:16. He doesn't pray for that collective so it obviously refers to a different group of people than the group of people referred to in John 3:16.
The way I reconcile it is to confront, acknowledge, and embrace the not so palatable Biblical teaching that not everyone is a child of God.
That doesn't solve the problem for me, since there are still sentient beings being damned. This remains a non loving thing to do. It also paints God as someone who chooses not to love some of its creation.
High roller, so I am trying to understand what you see as a contradiction here. What is so contradictory about man being totally deserving of damnation and God being omnipotent and benevolent? If God is benevolent, then God will pursue justice. God's benevolence is reflected through justice in the damnation of sinners. God's benevolence is also reflected in the justice of redemption that Jesus paid for on the cross. Whether a person is a child of God or not every sin receives it's just punishment.
It's contradictory because there is nothing just or benevolent about damnation. Nobody is "deserving" of damnation.
If you are a Christian who believes that God is just, universal salvation is the only answer to this that I can see, because the alternatives require a God who commits heinous acts of evil.
It's contradictory because there is nothing just or benevolent about damnation. Nobody is "deserving" of damnation.
If you are a Christian who believes that God is just, universal salvation is the only answer to this that I can see, because the alternatives require a God who commits heinous acts of evil.
Note, this is assuming the classical definition of hell (I.E. eternal torture).
Note, this is assuming the classical definition of hell (I.E. eternal torture).
You've said that in other threads as well. May I ask what other versions of Hell you are talking about?
I know people who posit that "hell" as it were is not "eternal torture" but rather eternal separation from God. It's not exactly a rare belief, but its not exactly common either.
That doesn't solve the problem for me, since there are still sentient beings being damned. This remains a non loving thing to do. It also paints God as someone who chooses not to love some of its creation.
Jesus said that a divided kingdom will not stand. The righteous and the wicked will not inhabit the same kingdom because that would be a divided kingdom.
It's contradictory because there is nothing just or benevolent about damnation. Nobody is "deserving" of damnation.
If you are a Christian who believes that God is just, universal salvation is the only answer to this that I can see, because the alternatives require a God who commits heinous acts of evil.
I disagree. Satan's damnation is a good thing that serves the common good. And if we hear out Jesus in John 8, then we'll see that the Pharisees were deserving of damnation. If the Pharisees are children of the devil like Jesus said, then they will do the works of their father like Jesus said. That right there is sufficient grounds for damnation, and it is just and holy of God to render judgment on people who do the works of the devil.
God's damnation of sinners is not benevolent from the perspective of the individual who is damned. I agree with this notion and acknowledge this. The error occurs, though, when we make the leap that damnation is an act that is totally bankrupt of benevolence towards anyone at all.
When the U.S. Government sentences a man to life in prison is this evil and malicious? Would the benevolent thing be to just release everyone from prison and let the prisoners live among us? That would be what is fair to everyone equally, right?
The answer is obvious. To release prisoners into society would be an act that is extremely malicious to law abiding citizens. For God not to damn the devil and those who are the devil's children would be even more malicious towards God's children. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners is benevolent towards the people of God. You have to look at things from the perspective of the common good and not just the individual. Everything God does, including the damnation of sinners, brings about and advances the common good. And, ultimately, people who would not readily accept their own damnation for the advancement of the common good are being prideful and selfish because they would pursue their own personal interests at the expense of the common good.
I know people who posit that "hell" as it were is not "eternal torture" but rather eternal separation from God. It's not exactly a rare belief, but its not exactly common either.
The usual caveat that comes with that is "all good things come from God," therefore separation from God is filled with nastiness. It doesn't exactly fix the issue, since Hell is made out to be very unpleasant anyway.
God's damnation of sinners is not benevolent from the perspective of the individual who is damned. I agree with this notion and acknowledge this. The error occurs, though, when we make the leap that damnation is an act that is totally bankrupt of benevolence towards anyone at all.
When the U.S. Government sentences a man to life in prison is this evil and malicious? Would the benevolent thing be to just release everyone from prison and let the prisoners live among us? That would be what is fair to everyone equally, right?
There is such a thing as disproportionate retribution. Neutralizing a threat that you cannot otherwise deal with (something that should never come up with God) is one thing, causing unnecessary amounts of suffering to the person you've neutralized is evil.
There is such a thing as disproportionate retribution. Neutralizing a threat that you cannot otherwise deal with (something that should never come up with God) is one thing, causing unnecessary amounts of suffering to the person you've neutralized is evil.
The question I have is on what basis are you saying that the punishment is disproportionate? Is it simply because that is what is right in your own eyes?
When it comes to the existence of evil I think that the only consistent orthodox position is that evil exists for a purpose. Evil is not a problem or a threat to God. It exists within the creation in order for God to show His wrath and power.
Now I expect all of you who look for contradiction under every rock and in every tree to jump all over that statement, but again we must look at the bigger picture and see what implication this has on the common good. I will explain God's benevolence towards the people of God when God puts on display his wrath and power.
We were created such that there is no thing that can supremely and eternally satisfy us other than God himself. You may not agree with that statement, but that is the starting point on which my explanation stands. And if it is true, then my conclusion will necessarily follow. So if God's design for humanity is that supreme satisfaction is only possible through knowing Him, then it necessarily follows that the prosperity of God's children is proportional to their knowing God. If this is true, then it would also be true that it is in the interest of the common good that the people of God know every aspect of God's character, including God's justice and wrath.
The thing you are missing here is that if we cheapen and diminish God's standard of justice and God's wrath, then we also begin to have a cheapened and diminished understanding of the finished work of Christ, which involved Jesus taking the wrath and just punishment in the place of his people. There is no other way around it: God's love is only as deep as his anger and wrath. Why is this so? Because God's greatest demonstration of His love for His people was pouring out his wrath on His Son. If you cheapen the wrath you cheapen and diminish the love demonstrated by God in the most loving act God has ever done for anybody at anytime in the history of the universe.
This is why hell must be unimaginable incomprehensible eternal suffering. It is only in this way that we can know that God's love for us is equally unimaginable incomprehensible and eternal. It is of the greatest importance that God's people know how incomprehensibly deep the love of God really is. And it is for this reason that God seeks the goodness of His people by subjecting His vessels of wrath to unimaginable suffering.
Has this thread now turned into how can we reconcile an all good God with eternal damnation?
If so let me chime in with my personal reconciliation.
If God creates us with free will, he must also create a world capable of dealing out the consequences of exercising that free will.
Free Will breathes life to morality. It allows conscious actors to choose between good and evil, and the necessary consequences that will result.
God is good, but he has created a universe where one will reap the consequences of their actions
Hell is the absence of God. Some see it as a pit of fiery lava. I see it as a place where we are forever captured in our own darkness, the guilt of our own deeds condemning us. We create our own hell when we are unable to overcome the evil which we sowed with something greater.
Have you ever seen someone truly depressed, mired in their own darkness and suffering? That to me is hell. They are imprisoned by their own hearts.
God is all good because no matter what your sins you may be forgiven(save for one sin). Any darkness can be emerged from. Anyone can be released from the personal prison of one's own darkness, but you must choose to do so.
Where any sin can be forgiven, where the consequences of sin still exist, infinite mercy can be reconciled with perfect justice.
"Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" --Ezekiel 18:23
"Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!"
Ezekiel 18:30 - 32
There is no other way around it: God's love is only as deep as his anger and wrath. Why is this so? Because God's greatest demonstration of His love for His people was pouring out his wrath on His Son. If you cheapen the wrath you cheapen and diminish the love demonstrated by God in the most loving act God has ever done for anybody at anytime in the history of the universe.
I think I understand. He only hits me because He loves me.
Wait, this was supposed to be moral, right? Not an abusive relationship?
High roller, so I am trying to understand what you see as a contradiction here. What is so contradictory about man being totally deserving of damnation and God being omnipotent and benevolent?
If the only difference between those who are saved and those who are damned is God's grace, which comes from God and has absolutely no bearing on what the people who receive God's grace do (because no man can redeem himself), then there is no reason God should not then save every human being.
Therefore either God does save every human being, or he does not.
If he does not, he either cannot or will not.
If he will not, he is not benevolent.
If he cannot, he is not omnipotent.
Therefore, omnipotent, benevolent God will save everyone, and damnation does not exist. It is the only logically consistent outcome.
If God is benevolent, then God will pursue justice. God's benevolence is reflected through justice in the damnation of sinners.
No it is not. There is no justice in punishing a person for an eternity.
God's benevolence is also reflected in the justice of redemption that Jesus paid for on the cross. Whether a person is a child of God or not every sin receives it's just punishment.
I believe the reason why we call it redemption is that one is spared from punishment. That's the entire point, isn't it?
So why not redeem everybody? Again, can't or won't. If can't, not all-powerful. If won't, not benevolent.
Now I've argued with you before high roller, and all I'll say is that your response to this is going to echo Satan's words that he used to tempt Eve in Genesis.
There is no Satan in Genesis.
There is a serpent, but to equivocate the two is a tradition that came later, and is both anachronistic and erroneous.
You are going to argue that this is not justice, but what you really mean when you make this argument is that God's decrees and God's laws are no more legitimate than your own personal opinion of what justice is, which you are going to claim is the absolute definition of justice so that you can declare a contradiction. It is in this way that you have taken the same bait as Eve did, hook, line, and sinker, rejecting God's standard of justice, and instead determining in your own mind what is good and evil.
Wait, are you arguing that I cannot know good and evil by referencing a story in which mankind takes the knowledge of good and evil?
For someone that is looking in every tree and under every rock for a contradiction,
cloudman, the Bible contradicts itself constantly and your logic contradicts itself even more. Neither is hard to spot flaws in.
Regarding "Hell is the absence of God": People, this does not actually diminish Zaphrasz's point. He's saying Hell, a place where people suffer the worst fate ever, is unjust. Saying Hell is the absence of God doesn't do anything to contradict that point. All you're doing is just redefining what "worst fate ever" means.
This is why hell must be unimaginable incomprehensible eternal suffering. It is only in this way that we can know that God's love for us is equally unimaginable incomprehensible and eternal.
No, it's not the only way. God is omnipotent, He could've made another way.
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"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." --Carl Sagan
The standard Christian premise is that God's grace, given through faith in Jesus Christ, is the only way for people to attain the eternal reward that is Heaven. Reason being that, of course, there is no way for us fallible, limited, ignorant human creatures to live righteously enough to actually deserve Heaven.
Seems reasonable. However, the inverse holds true as well. There is no way for us fallible, limited, ignorant human creatures to live wickedly enough to actually deserve the eternal punishment that is Hell. None of us can completely, deliberately and with full knowledge abandon all the virtues. Even Hitler was kind towards some people.
Consequently it stands that, if Heaven is the unmerited gift of God's grace, then Hell is the unmerited curse of God's fury (emphasis on unmerited). If anyone wants to believe in such a capricious and volatile God, I suppose they must be welcome to it; but it is a potentially dangerous and schizoid theology.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
So why not redeem everybody? Again, can't or won't. If can't, not all-powerful. If won't, not benevolent.
I don't think your conclusion is well thought out here. If you are going to take the position that particular redemption, as opposed to universal redemption, necessitates that God is not benevolent, then how would you explain God's grace towards those that God redeems?
If God is not benevolent, then everyone would go to hell and he wouldn't save anybody. So again your supposed contradiction is not a contradiction at all. Particular redemption is consistent with a benevolent God. It just isn't consistent with a God who is equally benevolent towards everybody.
Out of your two options the obvious one is that God is not willing to redeem everyone. God is gracious, and God is benevolent, but God's grace is not equally shown to everyone.
Jesus did argue that God is benevolent up to a certain extent to everyone. He argues this in the sermon on the mount. His argument is that the sun shines on the just and the unjust, and the rain comes and falls on the just and the unjust. So there are blessings that we all partake of right now because God shows a degree of common grace to everyone.
When it comes to the existence of evil I think that the only consistent orthodox position is that evil exists for a purpose. Evil is not a problem or a threat to God. It exists within the creation in order for God to show His wrath and power.
What? This is madness. What would you think of a man who inflicted evil on someone (of course on a much smaller scale relative to God's evil) only for the purpose of demonstrating his wrath or power? And how would your evaluation of that man vary based on how much evil he had sown in his quest to glorify himself?
If you would think ill of a man who did this in proportion to his finite, mortal evil, as I would hope that you would, then how badly would it reflect on God, who is supposedly infinitely morally superior to man, yet is the ultimate architect of every evil throughout all space and time?
There is an easy moral standard that God's behavior can be evaluated against: he has to be better-behaved than your average man, or else he surely does not qualify as God. This ought to be a reasonable premise. Yet it immediately reduces virtually all of the biblical God's behavior to an absurdity. Certainly it reduces this particular unpacking to an absurdity.
Now I expect all of you who look for contradiction under every rock and in every tree to jump all over that statement
You say that with such venom -- and yet, looking for naked contradictions is really nothing more than the bare minimum standard of scrutiny that can be applied to any philosophical position. If you're going to be dismissive of even that absolute minimum level of scrutiny, then you might as well not engage in intellection at all.
The thing you are missing here is that if we cheapen and diminish God's standard of justice and God's wrath, then we also begin to have a cheapened and diminished understanding of the finished work of Christ, which involved Jesus taking the wrath and just punishment in the place of his people.
I would question who is doing the cheapening and diminishing. I would say that it is he who portrays God, who is supposed to be the source of all goodness, as a particularly tawdry sort of despot who feels compelled to show off his power by working evil only in the name of self-glorification -- by making God morally inferior to any number of two-bit tinpot dictators here on Earth who do just the same thing only on a smaller scale. If I had to pick between your views and, say, Highroller's on the basis of which view properly glorifies God as the source of all goodness and which view cheapens and diminishes him, his would surely get the nod for proper glorification and yours would be the cheapening one.
There is no other way around it: God's love is only as deep as his anger and wrath. Why is this so? Because God's greatest demonstration of His love for His people was pouring out his wrath on His Son. If you cheapen the wrath you cheapen and diminish the love demonstrated by God in the most loving act God has ever done for anybody at anytime in the history of the universe.
Again, any reasonable belief about God's moral character must have him behaving better than the average man. If an average man "poured his wrath out" on his own son claiming it to be an act of love, would you believe him? Even if you did, would you not ask him to find a better way to demonstrate his love with the full expectation that he could easily do just thatif he so desired? God should be able to clear the same moral bar as this mere mortal.
This is why hell must be unimaginable incomprehensible eternal suffering. It is only in this way that we can know that God's love for us is equally unimaginable incomprehensible and eternal.
Lowly, mortal, morally inferior man can come up with ways of expressing his love that do not require him to demonstrate an equal amount of horror and violence and torture to balance it out. Yet God apparently can't.
What is going on here? Do people actually believe these things?
I don't think your conclusion is well thought out here. If you are going to take the position that particular redemption, as opposed to universal redemption, necessitates that God is not benevolent, then how would you explain God's grace towards those that God redeems?
I wouldn't be able to explain God's grace towards some and not all. That's the whole point. It has no explanation. For God to allow some people to enter an eternal paradise and then condemn others an eternity of suffering, and in both cases do so without any bearing on the person's behavior? That makes absolutely no sense. That's capriciousness. That's totally the opposite of just or logical.
Indeed, by your very argument, evil exists only because God created it. So people are evil through absolutely no fault of their own, but because God created evil. By your argument, a dictator that commands that the majority of his people have their houses painted red, then sentences all in his country with red houses be put to death is benevolent. Indeed, such a dictator would be more benevolent than you're arguing God is, because that dictator is sentencing his people to a finite amount of suffering.
Any tyrant can spare some. Any serial killer can leave some alive. That is not what defines benevolence. If God's grace has no finite limit, then God has the ability to save everyone from eternal suffering. If God chooses not to, that is not benevolent.
If God is not benevolent, then everyone would go to hell and he wouldn't save anybody.
Good, so you admit that throwing people to hell is not benevolent.
So why then doesn't God act benevolently toward everyone? Why then is God not omnibenevolent? Especially since, as the Gospel of John that you're fond of quoting likes to put it, God is good, and those who follow God are akin to those who turn to the light and not darkness?
Here's a thought experiment: what if a human being redeemed one more person than God does under your logic? Would that human being, that evil human being, not then demonstrate more benevolence that God does? Isn't that not supposed to be possible?
So again your supposed contradiction is not a contradiction at all.
Of course it is, because if God were benevolent, he would not condemn people to eternal suffering.
Particular redemption is consistent with a benevolent God.
Are you kidding me? Is that what you gleaned as the message from Christianity? That you should be really nice to this particular group of people right here, but absolutely cruel everyone else? That we should love our friends, but hate our enemies?
Out of your two options the obvious one is that God is not willing to redeem everyone.
Why is that obvious?
God is gracious, and God is benevolent, but God's grace is not equally shown to everyone.
Were this true then God cannot be argued to be just, good, or benevolent.
Jesus did argue that God is benevolent up to a certain extent to everyone.
Any evil man is benevolent to an extent.
What reason would God have to not be benevolent at all times always? Isn't he the ultimate good?
So why not redeem everybody? Again, can't or won't. If can't, not all-powerful. If won't, not benevolent.
If God is not benevolent, then everyone would go to hell and he wouldn't save anybody. So again your supposed contradiction is not a contradiction at all. Particular redemption is consistent with a benevolent God. It just isn't consistent with a God who is equally benevolent towards everybody.
I'd say 'benevolent' to a favored group provided they worship him and flat out evil - not even just your run-of-the-mill ordinary jerkiness, but actually the most evil thing possible in all of creation! - to the rest would just define him as evil, not imperfectly benevolent.
Of course, Christian theology doesn't claim that he's imperfectly benevolent - it claims omnibenevolent. For that to be true of God while Hell exists, it has to be righteous to condemn those who don't grovel before Him to Hell for eternity. That's about the most perverse definition of righteousness that I can imagine.
If I didn't think those beliefs were silly and false, I'd have to conclude that God was the most evil tyrant ever to exist, beside whom Adolf Hitler seems positively virtuous.
What? This is madness. What would you think of a man who inflicted evil on someone (of course on a much smaller scale relative to God's evil) only for the purpose of demonstrating his wrath or power? And how would your evaluation of that man vary based on how much evil he had sown in his quest to glorify himself?
You have to look at God's entire body of work. As I said earlier if we were created to find supreme and ultimate satisfaction in God, then God seeks the common good by glorifying the very thing that brings eternal satisfaction to His people, which is Himself. The tyrant glorifies himself to the detriment of the common good because he is not glorifying that which brings ultimate satisfaction to God's people. So the two are very different.
If you would think ill of a man who did this in proportion to his finite, mortal evil, as I would hope that you would, then how badly would it reflect on God, who is supposedly infinitely morally superior to man, yet is the ultimate architect of every evil throughout all space and time?
This is another one of those questions where the lazy rationalist will quickly assert a contradiction without much thought.
There is a difference between the two. The man is not omniscient. God is omniscient. What does God's omniscience have to do with this? God decreed the existence of evil. This is certainly true if God is omniscient and omnipotent. The position that I take is that God only decrees the existence of evil if the existence of evil can be controlled in such a way as to promote the common good.
In consideration of my argument lets consider the absolute worst sin known to have ever been committed by man: Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the cold blooded murder and torture of the greatest man to ever set foot on this planet. Was it evil of God to decree that Judas would sin as he did? When we look at the outcome the answer is no. Judas' betrayal played right into God's script for the salvation of His people.
That act is all I need to know to know that God is benevolent. Now when we look at the world around us there is sin and evil everywhere. It would be easy to conclude that this means that God is not benevolent, but I am convinced that you'd have to know the mind of God and everything that God has decreed in order to know that God does not control and use these acts of sin in the same way that God did with Judas' sin for the common good.
You say that with such venom -- and yet, looking for naked contradictions is really nothing more than the bare minimum standard of scrutiny that can be applied to any philosophical position. If you're going to be dismissive of even that absolute minimum level of scrutiny, then you might as well not engage in intellection at all.
My statement was directed at people who use the excuse of contradiction to dismiss that which they do not understand. If highroller doesn't understand something upon his first initial observation, then it is immediately written off as contradiction. This approach is when the rationalist has stooped to the same level of intellectual laziness that many theists often engage in when they use the God of gaps to dismiss something that they do not understand. It is lazy and presumptuous to assume that God's existence must fit within the parameters of my ability to understand Him if God exists. Do you not see how that approach drips of arrogance? If highroller doesn't understand it, then it is a contradiction in his mind. That is the arrogance of the rationalist coming through in his posts. That is not the humble way to approach something that you do not understand.
There are many things that we do not understand. I freely acknowledge that. And I don't believe in the God of gaps. Sure the existence of God provides us with many explanations that we would not otherwise have, but the existence of God as He is presented in the Bible presents our finite sinful and arrogant minds with even more difficult questions to answer. A trademark of the finite sinful and arrogant mind is that it immediately renders judgment on that which is not pleasing or palatable with itself. The idea that the God of the Bible seems so evil to the finite sinful and arrogant mind because of sinfulness, arrogance, and pride is never even given a consideration.
When the finite sinful and arrogant mind screams "contradiction" because it has found something disagreeable with its finite and sinful concept of benevolence and justice, then it needs to be called out for what it is. The mind marked by humility would be questioning and evaluating its concept of benevolence and justice. The arrogant mind says to itself that its concept of benevolence and justice is right and perfect and God is wrong if He has any other concept of justice and benevolence.
So, no I am not dismissing scrutiny at all. Scrutiny is a good thing if it is done honestly and thoroughly. When someone dismisses something as a contradiction the reasoning behind that conclusion needs to be scrutinized just as much or more than the proposition itself.
Do you see the absurdity of claiming to believe something that your mind isn't capable of rationalizing? And the fact that you can't understand it is proof that it's correct?
But, then again, if we are going to claim that understanding God can't be done with the "rationalist" viewpoint, than God is a ham sandwich.
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Then why did you address the beginning of my post, ignoring the rest of it that explained my statement?
When I was a Christian, I was a universalist in that I believed salvation was universal. The only way for me to reconcile the idea of a loving God and Hell was to do away with Hell. I went so far as to say that no matter what your actions were, you were forgiven because God is awesome and that seemed like an awesome thing to do.
I don't think I ever subscribed to the "all religions are aspects of the one true religion" thing though. There are religions which make mutually exclusive claims, and I could never accept the "blind men describing an elephant" type explanations.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Matthew 28 being a forgery.
I think you are somewhat on the right track with respect to a loving God and hell. I think you are correct on the idea that a loving Father would not actively seek the damnation of his children no matter how sinful they really are.
The way I reconcile it is to confront, acknowledge, and embrace the not so palatable Biblical teaching that not everyone is a child of God.
In John 10 Jesus says he laid down his life for the sheep. He also says in John 10 that the Pharisees are not his sheep. Put the two statements together and you'll find that Jesus said he did not lay down his life for them.
Furthermore, we see in John 8 that Jesus calls the Pharisees children of the devil. Jesus denied that such men were children of God. In John 17, when Jesus prayed the prayer often known as the "high priestly prayer" we see that Jesus loves the sheep in a way that he does not love the world:
Jesus does not pray for world. Only those given to the Son by the Father are children of God. Those who are not given to the Son by the Father are children of the devil, and will be thrown into the fires of hell with the devil and his angels. That is the consistent picture that I see painted throughout the entirety of scripture.
As for the blind man elephant thing...I am with you. What amazes me is the same people who like to trot that argument out for all religions refuse to see how it applies to the gospels.
It is one of those things where you pick your battles I guess. I understand your logic, but it would take a lot of effort to explain to you why and how I see it differently. I'll try, though, to make it as short as possible. I suppose the best way to put it is man is naturally evil. This is what the bible teaches, and there are people who will say their respective belief system is biblical/Christian/etc and deny this fact, but that just shows their ignorance of biblical teaching.
The idea that man is good and occasionally does bad things is just not part of a consistent biblical anthropology. Here are some examples:
Do you see the consistency from Genesis all the way through the gospels on this? And Paul simply echoes what these people had been saying for thousands of years in Romans and Ephesians.
If you are talking to a man who fits the description of Genesis 6:5 are you doing him a favor or disservice by telling him about Jesus? He's going to go to hell anyway because his works are evil, so the guy has no hope apart from Jesus. And then you have to ask yourself the question if you are any better than the guy in Genesis 6:5? If you think you are better, then you are probably falling in the same trap that the Pharisees did, which is pride. If you think you are the same, then what are you going to do about it?
I think the worst thing a person can do is tell someone that they can be good enough to not need Jesus. I know you believe that, but I am here to tell you that you believe that because your heart is deceitful and lies to you just as Jeremiah 17:9 says it does.
If you follow the metaphor in Jeremiah 13:23 would you tell a leopard that it can change its spots? Now imagine if the leopard depended on your advice for its eternal salvation. The worst thing you can do is point towards the path of destruction and tell a person to follow that path to eternal salvation.
If humanity is to be taken as inherently evil, and there is no means of redemption save that which solely comes from Jesus alone, then by what means is it reconcilable that God is all-powerful, that God is benevolent, and that people are damned?
Simple answer: It isn't. If any man is condemned over any other, it is inconsistent with the principle expressed in your second post.
Which is an absurdity.
It cannot be stated that God loves the world or humanity if God condemns the world and humanity. It cannot be stated in the same breath that the same God who would leave the 99 sheep behind to save the one who is lost and who is a God of eternal redemption is the same God as one who would just give up on the majority of humanity. That is entirely contradictory.
You have correctly stated that damnation and love are mutually exclusive. However, this is an indication that the idea of damnation is incompatible with a good, just, and loving God, not a call to find some loophole that would allow you to hold onto the idea that God is good despite damning a bunch of people.
High roller, so I am trying to understand what you see as a contradiction here. What is so contradictory about man being totally deserving of damnation and God being omnipotent and benevolent? If God is benevolent, then God will pursue justice. God's benevolence is reflected through justice in the damnation of sinners. God's benevolence is also reflected in the justice of redemption that Jesus paid for on the cross. Whether a person is a child of God or not every sin receives it's just punishment.
Now I've argued with you before high roller, and all I'll say is that your response to this is going to echo Satan's words that he used to tempt Eve in Genesis. You are going to argue that this is not justice, but what you really mean when you make this argument is that God's decrees and God's laws are no more legitimate than your own personal opinion of what justice is, which you are going to claim is the absolute definition of justice so that you can declare a contradiction. It is in this way that you have taken the same bait as Eve did, hook, line, and sinker, rejecting God's standard of justice, and instead determining in your own mind what is good and evil.
In Greek the word that is translated as "world" is kosmos. Kosmos takes on different meanings in different contexts. For someone that is looking in every tree and under every rock for a contradiction, you'd obviously jump all over Jesus words in John 3:16 and and his words in John 17 and just declare it as a contradiction. You know better than that, but you are still going to make that argument because it is the easy way out. You don't want to have to deal with Jesus as he is declared in John 17. And you certainly don't want to put John 3:16 in its proper context by reading John 3:17-18 along with it. Kosmos often refers to a collective. In order to figure out who that collective is you have to read the surrounding context. So in John 3:16 it says that God loves the kosmos, and it says that believers will have everlasting life. That tells you who the collective being referred to is. It is believers. In John 17 the collective that Jesus is speaking of is a different collective than the one referred to in John 3:16. He doesn't pray for that collective so it obviously refers to a different group of people than the group of people referred to in John 3:16.
If you are a Christian who believes that God is just, universal salvation is the only answer to this that I can see, because the alternatives require a God who commits heinous acts of evil.
Note, this is assuming the classical definition of hell (I.E. eternal torture).
According to what is man deserving of damnation? God? Some principle beyond God?
If it's according to God, then God is not benevolent.
If it's according to something else, then God is not omnipotent.
I know people who posit that "hell" as it were is not "eternal torture" but rather eternal separation from God. It's not exactly a rare belief, but its not exactly common either.
Jesus said that a divided kingdom will not stand. The righteous and the wicked will not inhabit the same kingdom because that would be a divided kingdom.
I disagree. Satan's damnation is a good thing that serves the common good. And if we hear out Jesus in John 8, then we'll see that the Pharisees were deserving of damnation. If the Pharisees are children of the devil like Jesus said, then they will do the works of their father like Jesus said. That right there is sufficient grounds for damnation, and it is just and holy of God to render judgment on people who do the works of the devil.
God's damnation of sinners is not benevolent from the perspective of the individual who is damned. I agree with this notion and acknowledge this. The error occurs, though, when we make the leap that damnation is an act that is totally bankrupt of benevolence towards anyone at all.
When the U.S. Government sentences a man to life in prison is this evil and malicious? Would the benevolent thing be to just release everyone from prison and let the prisoners live among us? That would be what is fair to everyone equally, right?
The answer is obvious. To release prisoners into society would be an act that is extremely malicious to law abiding citizens. For God not to damn the devil and those who are the devil's children would be even more malicious towards God's children. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners is benevolent towards the people of God. You have to look at things from the perspective of the common good and not just the individual. Everything God does, including the damnation of sinners, brings about and advances the common good. And, ultimately, people who would not readily accept their own damnation for the advancement of the common good are being prideful and selfish because they would pursue their own personal interests at the expense of the common good.
The question I have is on what basis are you saying that the punishment is disproportionate? Is it simply because that is what is right in your own eyes?
When it comes to the existence of evil I think that the only consistent orthodox position is that evil exists for a purpose. Evil is not a problem or a threat to God. It exists within the creation in order for God to show His wrath and power.
Now I expect all of you who look for contradiction under every rock and in every tree to jump all over that statement, but again we must look at the bigger picture and see what implication this has on the common good. I will explain God's benevolence towards the people of God when God puts on display his wrath and power.
We were created such that there is no thing that can supremely and eternally satisfy us other than God himself. You may not agree with that statement, but that is the starting point on which my explanation stands. And if it is true, then my conclusion will necessarily follow. So if God's design for humanity is that supreme satisfaction is only possible through knowing Him, then it necessarily follows that the prosperity of God's children is proportional to their knowing God. If this is true, then it would also be true that it is in the interest of the common good that the people of God know every aspect of God's character, including God's justice and wrath.
The thing you are missing here is that if we cheapen and diminish God's standard of justice and God's wrath, then we also begin to have a cheapened and diminished understanding of the finished work of Christ, which involved Jesus taking the wrath and just punishment in the place of his people. There is no other way around it: God's love is only as deep as his anger and wrath. Why is this so? Because God's greatest demonstration of His love for His people was pouring out his wrath on His Son. If you cheapen the wrath you cheapen and diminish the love demonstrated by God in the most loving act God has ever done for anybody at anytime in the history of the universe.
This is why hell must be unimaginable incomprehensible eternal suffering. It is only in this way that we can know that God's love for us is equally unimaginable incomprehensible and eternal. It is of the greatest importance that God's people know how incomprehensibly deep the love of God really is. And it is for this reason that God seeks the goodness of His people by subjecting His vessels of wrath to unimaginable suffering.
If so let me chime in with my personal reconciliation.
If God creates us with free will, he must also create a world capable of dealing out the consequences of exercising that free will.
Free Will breathes life to morality. It allows conscious actors to choose between good and evil, and the necessary consequences that will result.
God is good, but he has created a universe where one will reap the consequences of their actions
Hell is the absence of God. Some see it as a pit of fiery lava. I see it as a place where we are forever captured in our own darkness, the guilt of our own deeds condemning us. We create our own hell when we are unable to overcome the evil which we sowed with something greater.
Have you ever seen someone truly depressed, mired in their own darkness and suffering? That to me is hell. They are imprisoned by their own hearts.
God is all good because no matter what your sins you may be forgiven(save for one sin). Any darkness can be emerged from. Anyone can be released from the personal prison of one's own darkness, but you must choose to do so.
Where any sin can be forgiven, where the consequences of sin still exist, infinite mercy can be reconciled with perfect justice.
"Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" --Ezekiel 18:23
"Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!"
Ezekiel 18:30 - 32
Wait, this was supposed to be moral, right? Not an abusive relationship?
If the only difference between those who are saved and those who are damned is God's grace, which comes from God and has absolutely no bearing on what the people who receive God's grace do (because no man can redeem himself), then there is no reason God should not then save every human being.
Therefore either God does save every human being, or he does not.
If he does not, he either cannot or will not.
If he will not, he is not benevolent.
If he cannot, he is not omnipotent.
Therefore, omnipotent, benevolent God will save everyone, and damnation does not exist. It is the only logically consistent outcome.
No it is not. There is no justice in punishing a person for an eternity.
I believe the reason why we call it redemption is that one is spared from punishment. That's the entire point, isn't it?
So why not redeem everybody? Again, can't or won't. If can't, not all-powerful. If won't, not benevolent.
There is no Satan in Genesis.
There is a serpent, but to equivocate the two is a tradition that came later, and is both anachronistic and erroneous.
Wait, are you arguing that I cannot know good and evil by referencing a story in which mankind takes the knowledge of good and evil?
cloudman, the Bible contradicts itself constantly and your logic contradicts itself even more. Neither is hard to spot flaws in.
Regarding "Hell is the absence of God": People, this does not actually diminish Zaphrasz's point. He's saying Hell, a place where people suffer the worst fate ever, is unjust. Saying Hell is the absence of God doesn't do anything to contradict that point. All you're doing is just redefining what "worst fate ever" means.
No, it's not the only way. God is omnipotent, He could've made another way.
The standard Christian premise is that God's grace, given through faith in Jesus Christ, is the only way for people to attain the eternal reward that is Heaven. Reason being that, of course, there is no way for us fallible, limited, ignorant human creatures to live righteously enough to actually deserve Heaven.
Seems reasonable. However, the inverse holds true as well. There is no way for us fallible, limited, ignorant human creatures to live wickedly enough to actually deserve the eternal punishment that is Hell. None of us can completely, deliberately and with full knowledge abandon all the virtues. Even Hitler was kind towards some people.
Consequently it stands that, if Heaven is the unmerited gift of God's grace, then Hell is the unmerited curse of God's fury (emphasis on unmerited). If anyone wants to believe in such a capricious and volatile God, I suppose they must be welcome to it; but it is a potentially dangerous and schizoid theology.
I don't think your conclusion is well thought out here. If you are going to take the position that particular redemption, as opposed to universal redemption, necessitates that God is not benevolent, then how would you explain God's grace towards those that God redeems?
If God is not benevolent, then everyone would go to hell and he wouldn't save anybody. So again your supposed contradiction is not a contradiction at all. Particular redemption is consistent with a benevolent God. It just isn't consistent with a God who is equally benevolent towards everybody.
Out of your two options the obvious one is that God is not willing to redeem everyone. God is gracious, and God is benevolent, but God's grace is not equally shown to everyone.
Jesus did argue that God is benevolent up to a certain extent to everyone. He argues this in the sermon on the mount. His argument is that the sun shines on the just and the unjust, and the rain comes and falls on the just and the unjust. So there are blessings that we all partake of right now because God shows a degree of common grace to everyone.
What? This is madness. What would you think of a man who inflicted evil on someone (of course on a much smaller scale relative to God's evil) only for the purpose of demonstrating his wrath or power? And how would your evaluation of that man vary based on how much evil he had sown in his quest to glorify himself?
If you would think ill of a man who did this in proportion to his finite, mortal evil, as I would hope that you would, then how badly would it reflect on God, who is supposedly infinitely morally superior to man, yet is the ultimate architect of every evil throughout all space and time?
There is an easy moral standard that God's behavior can be evaluated against: he has to be better-behaved than your average man, or else he surely does not qualify as God. This ought to be a reasonable premise. Yet it immediately reduces virtually all of the biblical God's behavior to an absurdity. Certainly it reduces this particular unpacking to an absurdity.
You say that with such venom -- and yet, looking for naked contradictions is really nothing more than the bare minimum standard of scrutiny that can be applied to any philosophical position. If you're going to be dismissive of even that absolute minimum level of scrutiny, then you might as well not engage in intellection at all.
I would question who is doing the cheapening and diminishing. I would say that it is he who portrays God, who is supposed to be the source of all goodness, as a particularly tawdry sort of despot who feels compelled to show off his power by working evil only in the name of self-glorification -- by making God morally inferior to any number of two-bit tinpot dictators here on Earth who do just the same thing only on a smaller scale. If I had to pick between your views and, say, Highroller's on the basis of which view properly glorifies God as the source of all goodness and which view cheapens and diminishes him, his would surely get the nod for proper glorification and yours would be the cheapening one.
Again, any reasonable belief about God's moral character must have him behaving better than the average man. If an average man "poured his wrath out" on his own son claiming it to be an act of love, would you believe him? Even if you did, would you not ask him to find a better way to demonstrate his love with the full expectation that he could easily do just thatif he so desired? God should be able to clear the same moral bar as this mere mortal.
Lowly, mortal, morally inferior man can come up with ways of expressing his love that do not require him to demonstrate an equal amount of horror and violence and torture to balance it out. Yet God apparently can't.
What is going on here? Do people actually believe these things?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I wouldn't be able to explain God's grace towards some and not all. That's the whole point. It has no explanation. For God to allow some people to enter an eternal paradise and then condemn others an eternity of suffering, and in both cases do so without any bearing on the person's behavior? That makes absolutely no sense. That's capriciousness. That's totally the opposite of just or logical.
Indeed, by your very argument, evil exists only because God created it. So people are evil through absolutely no fault of their own, but because God created evil. By your argument, a dictator that commands that the majority of his people have their houses painted red, then sentences all in his country with red houses be put to death is benevolent. Indeed, such a dictator would be more benevolent than you're arguing God is, because that dictator is sentencing his people to a finite amount of suffering.
Any tyrant can spare some. Any serial killer can leave some alive. That is not what defines benevolence. If God's grace has no finite limit, then God has the ability to save everyone from eternal suffering. If God chooses not to, that is not benevolent.
Good, so you admit that throwing people to hell is not benevolent.
So why then doesn't God act benevolently toward everyone? Why then is God not omnibenevolent? Especially since, as the Gospel of John that you're fond of quoting likes to put it, God is good, and those who follow God are akin to those who turn to the light and not darkness?
Here's a thought experiment: what if a human being redeemed one more person than God does under your logic? Would that human being, that evil human being, not then demonstrate more benevolence that God does? Isn't that not supposed to be possible?
Of course it is, because if God were benevolent, he would not condemn people to eternal suffering.
Are you kidding me? Is that what you gleaned as the message from Christianity? That you should be really nice to this particular group of people right here, but absolutely cruel everyone else? That we should love our friends, but hate our enemies?
Why is that obvious?
Were this true then God cannot be argued to be just, good, or benevolent.
Any evil man is benevolent to an extent.
What reason would God have to not be benevolent at all times always? Isn't he the ultimate good?
I'd say 'benevolent' to a favored group provided they worship him and flat out evil - not even just your run-of-the-mill ordinary jerkiness, but actually the most evil thing possible in all of creation! - to the rest would just define him as evil, not imperfectly benevolent.
Of course, Christian theology doesn't claim that he's imperfectly benevolent - it claims omnibenevolent. For that to be true of God while Hell exists, it has to be righteous to condemn those who don't grovel before Him to Hell for eternity. That's about the most perverse definition of righteousness that I can imagine.
If I didn't think those beliefs were silly and false, I'd have to conclude that God was the most evil tyrant ever to exist, beside whom Adolf Hitler seems positively virtuous.
You have to look at God's entire body of work. As I said earlier if we were created to find supreme and ultimate satisfaction in God, then God seeks the common good by glorifying the very thing that brings eternal satisfaction to His people, which is Himself. The tyrant glorifies himself to the detriment of the common good because he is not glorifying that which brings ultimate satisfaction to God's people. So the two are very different.
This is another one of those questions where the lazy rationalist will quickly assert a contradiction without much thought.
There is a difference between the two. The man is not omniscient. God is omniscient. What does God's omniscience have to do with this? God decreed the existence of evil. This is certainly true if God is omniscient and omnipotent. The position that I take is that God only decrees the existence of evil if the existence of evil can be controlled in such a way as to promote the common good.
In consideration of my argument lets consider the absolute worst sin known to have ever been committed by man: Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the cold blooded murder and torture of the greatest man to ever set foot on this planet. Was it evil of God to decree that Judas would sin as he did? When we look at the outcome the answer is no. Judas' betrayal played right into God's script for the salvation of His people.
That act is all I need to know to know that God is benevolent. Now when we look at the world around us there is sin and evil everywhere. It would be easy to conclude that this means that God is not benevolent, but I am convinced that you'd have to know the mind of God and everything that God has decreed in order to know that God does not control and use these acts of sin in the same way that God did with Judas' sin for the common good.
My statement was directed at people who use the excuse of contradiction to dismiss that which they do not understand. If highroller doesn't understand something upon his first initial observation, then it is immediately written off as contradiction. This approach is when the rationalist has stooped to the same level of intellectual laziness that many theists often engage in when they use the God of gaps to dismiss something that they do not understand. It is lazy and presumptuous to assume that God's existence must fit within the parameters of my ability to understand Him if God exists. Do you not see how that approach drips of arrogance? If highroller doesn't understand it, then it is a contradiction in his mind. That is the arrogance of the rationalist coming through in his posts. That is not the humble way to approach something that you do not understand.
There are many things that we do not understand. I freely acknowledge that. And I don't believe in the God of gaps. Sure the existence of God provides us with many explanations that we would not otherwise have, but the existence of God as He is presented in the Bible presents our finite sinful and arrogant minds with even more difficult questions to answer. A trademark of the finite sinful and arrogant mind is that it immediately renders judgment on that which is not pleasing or palatable with itself. The idea that the God of the Bible seems so evil to the finite sinful and arrogant mind because of sinfulness, arrogance, and pride is never even given a consideration.
When the finite sinful and arrogant mind screams "contradiction" because it has found something disagreeable with its finite and sinful concept of benevolence and justice, then it needs to be called out for what it is. The mind marked by humility would be questioning and evaluating its concept of benevolence and justice. The arrogant mind says to itself that its concept of benevolence and justice is right and perfect and God is wrong if He has any other concept of justice and benevolence.
So, no I am not dismissing scrutiny at all. Scrutiny is a good thing if it is done honestly and thoroughly. When someone dismisses something as a contradiction the reasoning behind that conclusion needs to be scrutinized just as much or more than the proposition itself.
But, then again, if we are going to claim that understanding God can't be done with the "rationalist" viewpoint, than God is a ham sandwich.