Why does God not correct wrong believers?

[marco]

We are told God is the best of fathers, never offering a stone instead of bread to a hungry son. If a father sees his child has a serious misunderstanding that might even lead him to do wrong, surely the father corrects the son?


Why then in our modern world do we have various groups adoring their God but saying contradictory things. If some are wrong why does God not issue a correction? Why do we have devout Muslims in their millions prostrating themselves towards Mecca, while Catholics look towards Rome and others to the clouds?


What can we conclude from God's seeming silence? Does he want division?

[William]

[Replying to post 5 by Tcg]

That's a cute song and all, but silence says nothing. Nothing at all.

The poetry delivered - "The Silence" is the/a name of The Entity, the focus upon deep introspection with deliverance in mind. It is not my concern that others hear nothing. Only that I do. I am surprised you did not catch that in the context of my post Tcg.

[ttruscott]

I always leave the door unlocked, Tcg - just in case. I am also aware that my deafness might be the impediment, not God's good intentions. All the same, I would still expect God to be able to communicate with the deaf - and even restore their hearing.

I do the same. For many years, I marked the unlocked door with a neon sign proclaiming, "Open for business". As you say, I may be the blind one, but I don't know how to build a brighter sign.

Having found myself to be the very best customer for my own delusions (as per Romans 1 the whole thing) I still trust the teaching of Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. meant when HE never came into to me I was not listening in the way this verse suggests I must. Iow, I now gather it was my fault, not His, though that is not how I dealt with the silence for so many years.

I'm sorry, I cannot advise....

[1213]

We have the Bible and many different interpretations. You simply assume people don't read or don't listen; many do, and find problems. The question is: why does not God make his position clear?

Please tell one example that is not clear?

[JehovahsWitness]

From the OP:

Why does God not correct wrong believers?

'Cause he ain't there to do it?

Please offer verifiable proof that confirms your claim is true and factual.

NOTE: Verifiable proof is not assumption, supposition or your personal belief, I'm asking you to prove your claim.






JW

[marco]

Please tell one example that is not clear?

Adam ate what fruit? Why was it forbidden? Why was his punishment visited upon the rest of humanity? What was the point of allowing a good man, Job, to be cruelly tortured? In what way could infants in Sodom have been bad?

What was the point of many plagues for Egypt - would one effective solution not have sufficed? Why were innocent first born children killed? What was the point of God asking for foreskins?

Why did Christ pick Judas? Why did Christ allow Jews to suffer because of him? What was the reason for God allowing torture and death for his "son"? Why are the various accounts of the "resurrection" inconsistent in detail? Who were the strangers in the tomb and what did they come for? Why did Christ go theatrically up into the air?

How can different groups extract different interpretations from the Bible if it is clear?
Is the Trinity true or not? Where is this made clear? Was Christ God or not? Where is this made clear?


Will this do? And please don't answer with your own private interpretation as though the bible were written for one person. If it is unclear, it is unclear.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 25 by marco]

How can different groups extract different interpretations from the Bible if it is clear?
Is the Trinity true or not? Where is this made clear? Was Christ God or not? Where is this made clear?

Why do you worry so much about what other interpretations of the Bible are? What does the Bible say? Read it in the context that it was written and it will tell you very clearly.

Now, God is not like us. So descriptions of these differences can be difficult to explain. Like for example, a description of the color of ultraviolet. And yet the Bible does describe things in a way that man can comprehend. This is why there is an Old Testament and A New Testament. The Old Testament can be thought of as a picture book of the attributes of God and the New Testament a deeper description of the attributes of God once the basics of God is learned. Like for example "Hear O Israel the Lord your God is one' and the use of the plural form that God uses to describe Himself. This tension is explained in the New Testament.

[William]

[Replying to post 9 by marco]

You and I are divided on GOD's gender, and likely many other things to do with ideas of GOD.

I don't think so, William. Like most folk I suppose I summon up my childhood vision of a larger-than-life being, impossibly capable of the impossible. I have really no identikit picture other than that.

I was simply referring to your use of gender when speaking about GOD, Marco.

Your idea of GOD as summarized above, is based in concept, like I wrote about to you here.

You might refer to GOD in the masculine and I in the feminine, but as long as we are both applying the golden rule in regard to our interaction with one another, that difference becomes 'besides the point.'

That's a nice reflection. We can make the silence into the silver moonlight of poets and see God's face amidst a crowd of stars. Walter de la Mare puts it:


Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;

This is a beautiful deification of the moon. I think religious people do the same for God.

I am unable to concur that one's inner musings considered to be an internalized relationship with GOD, is deifying any object.

As to 'the moon', I wrote a song called 'Tied To The Moon' many years ago... here is one verse from that;


[font=Comic Sans MS]The Light in The Dark
Everyone a great spark
Everyone of us all here together
With a small nervous cough - the wedding was off
We could all sense a change in the weather
Down came the waters -great the monsoon
Washing the soul as it cleared out the room
Drowning all Warriors in every platoon
Still tied to the blood of the moon[/font]

But we deceive ourselves. God is best known, probably, in the touch of another person that tells us we are not solitary figures.

I have argued such myself, on many occasions. It is a expression of "The Golden Rule".

The biblical God might as well wear a Hallowe'en mask; he has not been endowed with charity and love, though he is sarcastically called the God of love in much the same way as the terrible Furies were euphemistically called "the Pleasant Ones."

An effigy of darker times. Humans do have the capacity to make a dolly out of GOD and dress him up and make him do whatever they him want to do.

They are allowed to do so because there is no way in which to convince them otherwise,

I would have been a poor teacher if I had adopted this view with those students who could not see what I wanted them to see.

Your analogy is unaligned.

There is always a way to penetrate reluctant minds.

There are always ways in which reluctant minds can shore up any breaches.

If someone does not wish to know you, do you go about forcing yourself upon them anyway?

Occasionally instruction is permitted. One such event had me invigorated for more than two decades as I learned to understand it. I wrote of it here.

I don't believe that people WANT not to believe; I think there is no reason for them to believe.

Then you should be able to also accept that people do have reasons to believe. I have never heard anyone give any example of 'a reason that they might believe' my entire life on this planet, and don't expect I ever will, for the remainder of it.

They are not denying what they know but not knowing what others claim to know.

I claim to know I have an ongoing relationship with GOD. There is no expectation from me toward others knowing what I know in regard to that. I view such as unrealistic.

I don't think this would be the basis of any difference between us. I have no reason to assign any gender to God other than to follow convention.

Far be it for me to try and convince you to work with concepts outside of convention Marco. I am that 'poor teacher', unwilling to penetrate reluctant minds.

[ttruscott]

The clarity is right before our eyes but every theological statement CAN BE interpreted to avoid the truth and usually is.

Please tell one example that is not clear?

Adam ate what fruit?

Eating means to ingest and is is symbol for learning and communing with others all thru the bible. Eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and bad is to choose to experience sinfulness and evil for oneself. Ie, they were not created evil but chose to indulge in evil.

Why was it forbidden?

All evil is forbidden.

Why was his punishment visited upon the rest of humanity?

All those who sinned in the same manner as both Adam and Eve were brought into human life that perfectly reflects the natural and legal consequences of their choice. They followed Adam into this fallen state on earth, they did not inherit his fallen state.

What was the point of allowing a good man, Job, to be cruelly tortured?

For precisely the reason that he was a good man. GOD and Job, probably with Job as a willing accomplice, worked together to set up Satan to expose the full and true depths of his evil, that is, that he would monster the most holy old man in the world just because YHWH liked him. The whole world now knows that Satan is not benevolent, fighting for justice from an evil false god, but a psychotic jerk.

In what way could infants in Sodom have been bad?

One way that is contended by PCE Theology is that everyone is at least 6000 years old and is an accomplished sinner before being sown into the world of man for HIS purposes. We reject that we are sinners because GOD created us as humans inheriting Adam's sinfulness as a blasphemy against HIS good name.

What was the point of many plagues for Egypt - would one effective solution not have sufficed?

Each plague was a slap in the face of some of the most worshipped gods in the Egyptian pantheon. YHWH proved it was HIM in control of Egyptian life, not these false gods.

Why were innocent first born children killed?

No innocent is born on earth.
No innocent suffers.
Death is the wages of sin so death proves sinfulness.

What was the point of God asking for foreskins?

God told Abraham to circumcise himself, his household and his slaves as an everlasting covenant in their flesh, ie a reminder to them they were HIS people and under Abraham's covenant.

Why did Christ pick Judas?

The act of betrayal was to highlight the difference between the sinful elect (His sheep gone astray into sin and yes, sheep are a really stupid animal) and those who became the demons, HIS eternal enemies fit only to be banished to the outer darkness.

Why did Christ allow Jews to suffer because of him?

No sinner avoids suffering. All humans suffer. Everyone suffers for his own sin against GOD.

What was the reason for God allowing torture and death for his "son"?

A true sacrifice had to be willing, human and sinless. His torture was accepted to shine the light upon what people will do with a man who is willing to serve GOD with sinlessness, an anti-type for Job.

Why are the various accounts of the "resurrection" inconsistent in detail? Who were the strangers in the tomb and what did they come for? Why did Christ go theatrically up into the air?

Now you are just packing nits on the head of a pin... No answer to these questions will clarify GOD's position in any way...they are not theologically relevant.

How can different groups extract different interpretations from the Bible if it is clear?

It is the people themselves, the sinners who try to interpret HIS clarity that muddle things up. This is because they are full of hostility and sin and make mistakes due to that reason and because some willfully interpret the stories in the Bible wrongly, ie they tell the story badly to confuse the issue. Then there is the influence of their false god's upon them and their thinking.

Is the Trinity true or not? Where is this made clear? Was Christ God or not? Where is this made clear?

This is not asking for clarity, this is asking for absolute PROOF. The clarity of TRUTH is right before our eyes but every theological statement CAN BE interpreted to avoid the truth and usually is. It is not what is written that proves the clarity of the bible, it is our relationship with our GOD who tells us simply what is meant and our eyes are opened to the clarity of what we could not see before. That we love sin more than the truth and change that truth (even after we see it! Romans 1:20-32) for a lie so that we can continue in sin more freely is the problem, not is HIS writing style.

What does spiritual blindness mean if not to not recognize the clear truth of GOD but ignore it for one's own sinful reasons? Matthew 15:14 "Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind and if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

[marco]

[Replying to post 28 by ttruscott]

You have given YOUR explanation of what you think is meant by various items in the Bible, Ted. The question asked is why does God not correct those who, unlike you, get it wrong?


Many people believe in the Trinity, extracting that doctrine from phrases in the Bible. If they are wrong, and are humbly worshipping two extra deities, why does God not issue a clarification?


Some people see Jesus as God. They can quote from the Bible phrases that seem to say he is. But we don't know, so why doesn't God simply say what the situation is?


All you've done is give your personal interpretation of what you read. The OP asked for God's clarification, which might differ substantially from yours.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 28 by ttruscott]

You have given YOUR explanation of what you think is meant by various items in the Bible, Ted. The question asked is why does God not correct those who, unlike you, get it wrong?

AS I said recently, GOD is separating between these who are His, who can hear His voice but are sinful, from those who are not His in their sin but are indeed, condemned already.

The time will come for all to face the truth without the ability to deny it only longer and that will be after the last sinful elect repents unto holiness.