From: Jay Willingham (jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com)
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 15:26:35 EDT
Re: Predetermination: God's controlling will?God allows things bad things to happen and allows Satan and his minions latitude to afflict man.
We grieve, comfort the grieving and press on trusting that all things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purposes.
Jay Willingham
----- Original Message -----
From: Howard J. Van Till
To: Glenn Morton ; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: Predetermination: God's controlling will?
I had asked:
> Did the God who controls everything do this to Josh Speer and Holly Coupe?
> Is this commonly displayed portrait of God and of God's relationship to the
> world acceptable to the folk on this list?
Glenn replied:
> My reply might be summed up in Isaiah 45:7
>
> I form the light and create darkness,
> I bring prosperity and create disaster;
> I, the LORD , do all these things.
>
> Maybe it is the Lord's will. No one likes this verse and I never see it on
> the Bible verse calendar of the day.
Nor, in my judgment, should it. Just because these words appear in the Hebrew canon adopted as part of the Christian canon must we blindly take them to be an accurate or acceptable portrait of God? I do not.
Neither would I apply these words to the tragic death of Josh Speer and suggest that God chose to end Josh's life in what appears to have been a car accident, thereby causing profound grief in the lives of Holly Coupe and others who loved Josh. God gets remarkably bad press sometimes, even in the canon.
Howard Van Till
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