From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 16:32:27 EDT
Re: Predetermination: God's controlling will?I'm with Howard on this one. Let's look at Isa. 45:7 in context. It occurs in an oracle in which the prophet conveys the words that Yahweh is speaking to Cyrus, Shah of Persia. The words are addressed to the Persian King. Yahweh is telling him, so the prophet declares, that contrary to his own faith in Ahura Mazda, and his Zoroastrian belief in an independent lord of darkness and evil, Ahrimam, the whole world and all that is in it is the work of the one true God of Israel, that there is no other god, that Yahweh is the creator of the world, and he is the lord of history, and therefore all events, good and evil, fall under God's sovereignty. That he, Cyrus, is God's Messiah to lead God's people home.
The notion that the God of Israel is the source of evil as well as good is not peculiar to the thought of 2 Isaiah; one finds it in Genesis and in historical texts. Eventually, this notion, that God is the source of evil as well as good, raised serious questions about the nature of God; and the unremitting suffering and evil that Israel experienced under imperial powers eventually led to a development in concepts about the source of evil in human history and life, with the development of the concept of Satan and rebel angels, and the notion that this world was under the control of evil powers. It is in this theological context that the NT authors understood the coming of the Messiah and the work of Christ Jesus.
Where does this lead me? To the conclusion that the God of Jesus, the God who is Love and Compassion, is not the author of evil, and that it is not the matter of excising a verse, as George put it, but of recognizing that our sacred witness to the mystery of God does not stand still, and it did not stand still in Holy Scripture. I do not believe that God was responsible for the death of Josh Speer, and I believe in that analogous way I speak of God that God weeps with Holly and Josh's family.
Grace and peace,
Bob
----- 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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