No, that equation does not always hold true in the physical world as it does in math. For example, If God is Jesus and Jesus is a man then it does not follow that God is a man. God is love but not all love can be said to be God.
Our Moral God
- Thread starter Clete
- Start date
It is wrong to say love is God because love is variable, not a fixed entity. There are different types of love - some good and some bad. Here is good love:
Song of Solomon 1:2
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
Song of Solomon 4:10
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices
Here is bad love:
Ezekiel 23:17
And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.
Lon
Well-known member
Just arguing with Caino, who is like Russell in that both think 'good' must meet their 'outraged' measure of good. For them, a God that commands ANYBODY to kill another, is automatically 'evil.' There is no way to argue against such a point: They have NO ROOM for a policeman, father protecting his children, or Soldier. All of them are evil and 'end of story.' You can't even talk rationally to somebody that has become the sole proprietor of good and evil: That person has become 'god' and 'good.'
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone." Mark 10:18 Matthew 19:17 Luke 18:19 If only God is good, alone, then men have no ability, whatsover (Him being good ALONE) to qualify what 'good' is, yet many like Russell and Caino think they are the 'good' ones
AND presume to tell God how 'good' He must be, before they will 'judge' Him good. That is a HUGE ouch!
Lon
Well-known member
God is good, because His actions follow His nature, all He does is good. While any action may 'seem' like it isn't good, we cannot/do not judge a pure Being's motives, especially when He is all-wise as well Romans 16:27. Actions always comes from love. It may never be understood 'how' but that isn't the answer. It isn't 'situational' ethics: God doesn't have situational ethics, He is always good. "How then could He..." "How then can He..." Are 1) representation of not being 'proprietors' of what is good (had to ask). It is rather saying "I don't know what good is, it doesn't look like what I think good is supposed to look like." and 2) put us in our proper place: Asking instead of judging or demanding. We are not on 'par' with God. He is alone, stands alone, is Holy alone, is good alone. "NO ONE is good, BUT God." Either that is true, or it is a lie, then who are we, who are not good, to try and qualify or quantify what is God's alone???? 
Clearly, there are good people on earth but only because those good people are under the influence of God's Spirit.Just arguing with Caino, who is like Russell in that both think 'good' must meet their 'outraged' measure of good. For them, a God that commands ANYBODY to kill another, is automatically 'evil.' There is no way to argue against such a point: They have NO ROOM for a policeman, father protecting his children, or Soldier. All of them are evil and 'end of story.' You can't even talk rationally to somebody that has become the sole proprietor of good and evil: That person has become 'god' and 'good.'
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone." Mark 10:18 Matthew 19:17 Luke 18:19 If only God is good, alone, then men have no ability, whatsover (Him being good ALONE) to qualify what 'good' is, yet many like Russell and Caino think they are the 'good' ones
Oh yes it absolutely does follow that God is a man! God, THE CREATOR GOD, became a man, lived a sinless life, laid down His life in payment for the sins of the entire human race, past present and future. He then took His life up again after having been in the grave for three days and then, being in His glorified human body, ascended into Heaven where He remains a man to this day and forever more!
If you deny this then you are not a Christian at all, which goes the entire distance toward explaining your behavior on this website.
I already said that there is more than one kind of love and that if you change the context then you change the subject that it is easy, if your goal is to intentionally misconstrue and to be intentionally disagreeable then there's plenty of room in the English word "love" to make that happen. It does NOTHING to refute a single syllable of what I said.
It is embarrassingly pathetic that this post counts as your most responsive.
I already said that there is more than one kind of love and that if you change the context then you change the subject that it is easy, if your goal is to intentionally misconstrue and to be intentionally disagreeable then there's plenty of room in the English word "love" to make that happen. It does NOTHING to refute a single syllable of what I said.
When the bible says that God is love, the word it uses is agape, not eros or philia. Therefore, your post here was a waste of time. Did you even bother to read my post where I already made this point? If so then you knew this post wasn't relevant and once again prove yourself to be an INTENTIONAL liar.
Also, God is alive. He existed through eternity past as a Spirit and then He created and then He became a man and then He was dead and then He rose from the dead. Doesn't sound like a "fixed quantity" to me! His character and personality are fixed but He is not. God is alive, personal, relational, loving and righteous. He is not the stone idol of Plato, Augustine and Calvin.
Clete
Last edited:
If you think that "either [it] is true, or it is a lie" that God is alsways good AND that we have no ability to make that judgment then on what basis do you say that He is always good?God is good, because His actions follow His nature, all He does is good. While any action may 'seem' like it isn't good, we cannot/do not judge a pure Being's motives, especially when He is all-wise as well Romans 16:27. Actions always comes from love. It may never be understood 'how' but that isn't the answer. It isn't 'situational' ethics: God doesn't have situational ethics, He is always good. "How then could He..." "How then can He..." Are 1) representation of not being 'proprietors' of what is good (had to ask). It is rather saying "I don't know what good is, it doesn't look like what I think good is supposed to look like." and 2) put us in our proper place: Asking instead of judging or demanding. We are not on 'par' with God. He is alone, stands alone, is Holy alone, is good alone. "NO ONE is good, BUT God." Either that is true, or it is a lie, then who are we, who are not good, to try and qualify or quantify what is God's alone????
Last edited:
The difference between God's morality and that of men is that, we are given the morality based on whether an innocent is harmed. We consider something is not moral if an innocent is hurt. God on the other hand, bases His morality on whether a soul can be saved. In order to save more souls, He can order Israel to eradicate the Canaanites or else Israel may not be able to settle down and focus on learning God's Law to bring forward God's salvation plan for today's humans. If the pace of Israel is delayed, more souls will be lost. The Canaanites are the already dead.
I just removed all the weeds in order to lay a lawn. God actually did the same by removing the Canaanites in order to lay Israel for human salvation.
I just removed all the weeds in order to lay a lawn. God actually did the same by removing the Canaanites in order to lay Israel for human salvation.
I will register only one caveat to your entire argument.
God looks at eternity and what ultimately ends up happening. His understanding and His resulting actions take in every aspect of what is going on. As He sees every aspect of everyone's life and the results of everyone's actions His view of things morally can be based on the exact same morality as taught in the Bible, yet come to a completely different conclusion than we, who only see a small fraction of the whole, can conclude morally.
Utter nonsense! If this were so then it would be meaningless to say that God is good. God does not get to pick and choose when to be righteous and when to be arbitrary and an arbitrary (i.e. unjust) action would not become just by virtue of the fact that God is the one who performed it. On the contrary, if God did the unjust, He would no longer to be righteous, by definition.
What is moral for God that is different than what would be moral for anyone else has only to do with God's authority, not some sort of different standard. It is not within the purview of a Sergeant to declare war but it is within the purview of the Commander in Chief. This does not mean there are two standards of practice within the military. The same code of conduct grants the CiC more authority than it does non-commissioned officers. Likewise, God has the authority to end a person's physical life at whatever point He sees fit. All men deserve death, Hawkins, every breath we take is a mercy. God does not owe the world an opportunity for salvation and it is not out of bounds (i.e. unjust) for the Judge to call a person's debt due, especially when that debt is owed to the Judge!
Clete
Last edited:
1) Is something (like humility) good because God recognizes it as good? Or,
2) Is something good because God commands that it is good (as Socrates put it, because God loves it)?
Marke,
In your last post you quote me as having said, ""Saying God is a man does not justify saying a man is God. " and then said nothing else.
I never made any such quote and, as stated, it would not be technically correct because a class is not defined by any single member of that class. So, in other words, you have to keep the singular and the plural separated here.
Thus...
If the singular God became a singular man then that singular man is the singular God. If A=B then B=A.
This does not mean, of course, that man (i.e. mankind) is God or even godly for that matter.
In your last post you quote me as having said, ""Saying God is a man does not justify saying a man is God. " and then said nothing else.
I never made any such quote and, as stated, it would not be technically correct because a class is not defined by any single member of that class. So, in other words, you have to keep the singular and the plural separated here.
Thus...
If the singular God became a singular man then that singular man is the singular God. If A=B then B=A.
This does not mean, of course, that man (i.e. mankind) is God or even godly for that matter.
Last edited:
So when the Satanist, who actively hates God, feeds his children and is kind to his neighbor is doing so under the influence of God's Spirit?
Who teaches you this nonsense and why would anyone believe it?
Let's do the math. God = a man, therefore a man = God. That kind of math is an error.
What seems to be good to men does not always seem good to God. A Christian farmer does good while plowing his field. A rebel against God does evil by plowing his field.
Proverbs 21:4
An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.
God the Son, Jesus, who is God, became a man. God = a Man.
The Man, Christ Jesus, is God. A Man = God.
Yes, that checks out.
No, Mark, it's not.
A = B, therefore B = A.
The Man, Jesus, IS IN FACT GOD!
No, it doesn't. A man cannot be God, but One man is God, so the analogy breaks down just like the analogy that suggests that if God is love then love is God. Perverted love is not God. The only correct analogy is that God is godly love - period.
Lon
Well-known member
Him, Clete, we don't get to make those valuations, if Jesus was right (He was). If ONLY God is good (Jesus said so) then 'good' is wholly in the one that ALONE is good, yes? If such by virtue of the declaration, means we aren't 'good' thus incapable of actually valuing 'good,' we are only as good as our proximity and own image of our Creator. "Come let us reason together" the Lord says, because we have to talk to Him about what is good and what is not. If you get from God, what is good, you then can 'better' evaluate (such is the scope of all who walk with Him). God is good, simply because (it is His nature), not only can't we second-guess His motives, but we don't because we know on faith, that those motivations are pure, holy, and "good."
What then do we do, when we see something that doesn't look 'good' but believe in faith, God is nothing but good? Answer? For me, that He is good and I'll figure it out OR wait until I see Him to have Him explain it to me, if He wishes. We are talking, at this point, about something God DID do, mostly in the O.T. Our answers are both good answers (for us respectively or we wouldn't be following Him), but mine tend to be a bit given to faith where I may not always know the answer. The reason (for me) is because everytime I've had to wrestle and ask, to date, there has been a sufficient answer from His goodness. I simply assume after that, the next issue necessarily is the same: that I'll know one day or at least know I can rest in faith regarding His character.
Lon
Well-known member
Both, because all 'our' even warped sense of good, is imago deo (OUR image that reflects Him). It doesn't mean we get it right, it simply means we recognize what is good to some extent and greater extent as we grow closer to Him (not sure if I answered what you were wanting, just a meaningful attempt).