Where was God in the Tsunami?
A few weeks ago, a great Christian Scholar came to Kensington Community Church to answer the question "Where was God in the Tsunami?" Here is a brief summary of his response.
He opens the speech by opening the discussion not just to the tsunami but all evil in the world. He asks questions like: How could an "all good and all powerful God, create a world that is for a good many people a nightmare that they cannot awake?" How can the world be so evil, if God could stop it if he wanted to stop it?
He goes on to talking about the Universe, looking at the stars he realizes that there is a good, but he cannot believe in a God that allows the nightmare of "meaningless bloodshed" to continue on earth. He can only believe in a God that is on the "inside" of the human condition, not just sitting in heaven looking down. Then he heard a voice that said, "what kind of God do you think Christianity preaches, that is what the cross is all about?" God became a human, and died a hellish death, therefore God is not somewhere "up there" he is in "the mess." This means the problem of evil is a problem for us and for God since he has experienced that. This act by God, is one thing that separates Christianity from other religions.
Traditional answer of Why Evil Exists:
God has a specific God and divine reason for everything that happens in this world. If God is all powerful, he says he could stop it if he wanted to, but he chooses not to. If he is all good, then it must be a good thing that he does not intervene. It must be a good thing that a child was raped in the basement. Greg does not buy this. He quotes The Brothers Caramasa that says "Any cause that requires the sacrificing of children to glorify God, you have a moral obligation to not accept it." Greg feels it tarnishes God's character, and makes him not all good. Also, it does not run in harmony with free will. If all we do is part of "God's plan" we must not have free will.
Next answer
1. God is a God of Love. Love Love Love Love Love.
Sound reasonable I can buy that.
2. Love requires choice. Angels and Humans have free will. Love cannot be pre programmed.
If someone is preprogrammed, the deeds are not morally virtuous.
He then goes on to talk about his wife. He say if he could control his wife with a micro chip, and it makes her be the perfect wife, would it be genuine love? Since she has not other option to do the opposite the acts are not loving. He says since he programmed the micro chip, he is only loving himself. It is better to have imperfect love than preprogrammed love. Love requires a person to choose it.
3. God gave angles and humans distinct domains of responsibility.
We have say so. What we choose impacts the world. We are responsible to each other. We can love and harm others.
4. In genesis God gave humans and Angels the responsibility of earth. What we do impacts the world and the animal kingdom.
5. When a free agent misuses free will, all that they are responsible for suffers.
African proverb, "when the elephants fight, the grass suffers." Then he says when politicians have an affair, the country suffers, international relations suffer. We impact whatever is below us.
Why does God not just take free will away?
Revise the wife's microchip, it will not control if she loves him, but it will stop her from doing things unloving. It is no different than the original. If we can only choose one way, it is not free will.
6. Nature as we find it, is not as God created it. Nature is corrupt due to angelical abuse.
Satan was the angel entrusted with all of matter. When he rebelled against God, during this epic, matter itself is corrupted. "If the world was not was not a fallen place besieged by enemy forces, we would not have earthquakes and tsunami's."
1. Genesis 1-3 Nature was not as it is right now. It had no violence. The whole animal kingdom was not red and tooth and claw, they would all eat vegetation in a peaceful world.
2. New Testament. Romans 8 The entire creation groans like a woman in labor pains. Waiting for the time when God restores things to the way they should be. Nothing is as it should be. Every square inch of the cosmos is claimed by Satan and God, and nothing is as it should be.
Where did we get the idea that there is a standard that transcends nature?
3. Hebrew 2 14 Satan is the lord of death. Keys to death. Everything is winding down. In the end all energy will be used up and the universe will reach equilibrium. We decay, we get older, we are in a losing game, natural now, not natural in New Testament. Death was not part of the design. No reason why we are winding down, and not going in the other direction.
4. Jesus is the son of God. ( a lot of good reasons he cannot get into now) All of it actually happened. Jesus diagnosed illness and diseases as being in demonic in origin. He never said, "God has a plan, this is part of God's plan." He called them victims of demons. You were not meant to be like this. As a race we are being whipped flogged and oppressed, that is why people are sick and deformed.
5. Jesus rebukes thunder storm Mark 5. Treats it like a demon. Storms like that are not part of God's plan.
6. Curses a baron fig tree. Not the season for figs, but got one anyway.
Showed, in original creation, there will be plenty of food, famine is a direct result of the earth being sieged by demonic influence.
Ultimate Explanation.
The world is a warzone. Good cannot be explained without acknowledging God. Bad cannot be explained.
God is to put an end to this war. D Day Died on the cross.
Growing a army of light
Promise of new testament in the end God will win and Satan will loose and his reign will be forever.
I feel what Greg did here, was to take a relatively small thing like a tsunami and explain it by putting it into context of the eternal fight over "every inch of the cosmos" between God and Satan. By creating this bigger story, it is easy to explain the smaller.
I see it as one more debate between religious and science. Religion says the tsunami happened because of the war between Satan and God. Science can explain the shifting of plates, and the displacement of water that goes along with that.
In "What God Wants" Neale Donald Walsch gives an other answer. Is it possible that nuclear underground testing by India, could have somehow impacted the balance that exists between plates. This is not to say that it was the cause, but I do not think that it is out of the realm of possibilities that it impacted that balance in some way. This idea is in line with Greg's point that what we do, impacts the earth. That is pretty obvious. I can take a shovel and dig a whole in the back yard and see that my actions impacted the earth. But on a larger scale like the tsunami, global warming and the depletion of the rainforest, polluting of oceans rivers and lakes, that impact of humans (not angels) is clearly seen.
I feel to write this off as demonic influence is completely crazy. I would rather believe in answer 1 that it is part of God's plan, rather than we are in a warzone between God and Satan. In reality he gave no explanation at all, what he is asking is for people to believe his mythic story of good vs. Evil on a universal scale. When you do that, the tsunami is small potatoes.
The next segment of his speech was a question and answer with the audience. He again went on to discuss personal experiences he has had with demons. I can explain this no other way than this. You find what you are looking for. I truly believe if you want something bad enough, and hold that thought in your mind you will find it. It doesn't matter if it is wanting to join the Mafia, or wanting to find a new path to enlightenment. If ones wants to find it, you will.
He opens the speech by opening the discussion not just to the tsunami but all evil in the world. He asks questions like: How could an "all good and all powerful God, create a world that is for a good many people a nightmare that they cannot awake?" How can the world be so evil, if God could stop it if he wanted to stop it?
He goes on to talking about the Universe, looking at the stars he realizes that there is a good, but he cannot believe in a God that allows the nightmare of "meaningless bloodshed" to continue on earth. He can only believe in a God that is on the "inside" of the human condition, not just sitting in heaven looking down. Then he heard a voice that said, "what kind of God do you think Christianity preaches, that is what the cross is all about?" God became a human, and died a hellish death, therefore God is not somewhere "up there" he is in "the mess." This means the problem of evil is a problem for us and for God since he has experienced that. This act by God, is one thing that separates Christianity from other religions.
Traditional answer of Why Evil Exists:
God has a specific God and divine reason for everything that happens in this world. If God is all powerful, he says he could stop it if he wanted to, but he chooses not to. If he is all good, then it must be a good thing that he does not intervene. It must be a good thing that a child was raped in the basement. Greg does not buy this. He quotes The Brothers Caramasa that says "Any cause that requires the sacrificing of children to glorify God, you have a moral obligation to not accept it." Greg feels it tarnishes God's character, and makes him not all good. Also, it does not run in harmony with free will. If all we do is part of "God's plan" we must not have free will.
Next answer
1. God is a God of Love. Love Love Love Love Love.
Sound reasonable I can buy that.
2. Love requires choice. Angels and Humans have free will. Love cannot be pre programmed.
If someone is preprogrammed, the deeds are not morally virtuous.
He then goes on to talk about his wife. He say if he could control his wife with a micro chip, and it makes her be the perfect wife, would it be genuine love? Since she has not other option to do the opposite the acts are not loving. He says since he programmed the micro chip, he is only loving himself. It is better to have imperfect love than preprogrammed love. Love requires a person to choose it.
3. God gave angles and humans distinct domains of responsibility.
We have say so. What we choose impacts the world. We are responsible to each other. We can love and harm others.
4. In genesis God gave humans and Angels the responsibility of earth. What we do impacts the world and the animal kingdom.
5. When a free agent misuses free will, all that they are responsible for suffers.
African proverb, "when the elephants fight, the grass suffers." Then he says when politicians have an affair, the country suffers, international relations suffer. We impact whatever is below us.
Why does God not just take free will away?
Revise the wife's microchip, it will not control if she loves him, but it will stop her from doing things unloving. It is no different than the original. If we can only choose one way, it is not free will.
6. Nature as we find it, is not as God created it. Nature is corrupt due to angelical abuse.
Satan was the angel entrusted with all of matter. When he rebelled against God, during this epic, matter itself is corrupted. "If the world was not was not a fallen place besieged by enemy forces, we would not have earthquakes and tsunami's."
1. Genesis 1-3 Nature was not as it is right now. It had no violence. The whole animal kingdom was not red and tooth and claw, they would all eat vegetation in a peaceful world.
2. New Testament. Romans 8 The entire creation groans like a woman in labor pains. Waiting for the time when God restores things to the way they should be. Nothing is as it should be. Every square inch of the cosmos is claimed by Satan and God, and nothing is as it should be.
Where did we get the idea that there is a standard that transcends nature?
3. Hebrew 2 14 Satan is the lord of death. Keys to death. Everything is winding down. In the end all energy will be used up and the universe will reach equilibrium. We decay, we get older, we are in a losing game, natural now, not natural in New Testament. Death was not part of the design. No reason why we are winding down, and not going in the other direction.
4. Jesus is the son of God. ( a lot of good reasons he cannot get into now) All of it actually happened. Jesus diagnosed illness and diseases as being in demonic in origin. He never said, "God has a plan, this is part of God's plan." He called them victims of demons. You were not meant to be like this. As a race we are being whipped flogged and oppressed, that is why people are sick and deformed.
5. Jesus rebukes thunder storm Mark 5. Treats it like a demon. Storms like that are not part of God's plan.
6. Curses a baron fig tree. Not the season for figs, but got one anyway.
Showed, in original creation, there will be plenty of food, famine is a direct result of the earth being sieged by demonic influence.
Ultimate Explanation.
The world is a warzone. Good cannot be explained without acknowledging God. Bad cannot be explained.
God is to put an end to this war. D Day Died on the cross.
Growing a army of light
Promise of new testament in the end God will win and Satan will loose and his reign will be forever.
I feel what Greg did here, was to take a relatively small thing like a tsunami and explain it by putting it into context of the eternal fight over "every inch of the cosmos" between God and Satan. By creating this bigger story, it is easy to explain the smaller.
I see it as one more debate between religious and science. Religion says the tsunami happened because of the war between Satan and God. Science can explain the shifting of plates, and the displacement of water that goes along with that.
In "What God Wants" Neale Donald Walsch gives an other answer. Is it possible that nuclear underground testing by India, could have somehow impacted the balance that exists between plates. This is not to say that it was the cause, but I do not think that it is out of the realm of possibilities that it impacted that balance in some way. This idea is in line with Greg's point that what we do, impacts the earth. That is pretty obvious. I can take a shovel and dig a whole in the back yard and see that my actions impacted the earth. But on a larger scale like the tsunami, global warming and the depletion of the rainforest, polluting of oceans rivers and lakes, that impact of humans (not angels) is clearly seen.
I feel to write this off as demonic influence is completely crazy. I would rather believe in answer 1 that it is part of God's plan, rather than we are in a warzone between God and Satan. In reality he gave no explanation at all, what he is asking is for people to believe his mythic story of good vs. Evil on a universal scale. When you do that, the tsunami is small potatoes.
The next segment of his speech was a question and answer with the audience. He again went on to discuss personal experiences he has had with demons. I can explain this no other way than this. You find what you are looking for. I truly believe if you want something bad enough, and hold that thought in your mind you will find it. It doesn't matter if it is wanting to join the Mafia, or wanting to find a new path to enlightenment. If ones wants to find it, you will.
posted by Adam @ 10:56 AM
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