Re: [asa] Re: asa-digest V1 #6228

Perhaps we are called to be permanently uncomfortable with the scenarios
written in Scripture. To wrestle with paradoxes and accept that, to
nonbelievers, they are just contradictions or evidence of a "nasty God"
may be fully warranted. J.P. Moreland insists that believers should
never start with Scripture when addressing a non-believer anyway. He
insists that the general revelation of God (via nature) is accessible to
everybody apart from Scripture. Otherwise (so his logic goes) the
state would have to be a Scripture based theocracy before it could do
its Romans 13 job. Since states obviously aren't / weren't, then the
general revelation (natural moral law) must be sufficient to hold people
accountable. Certainly evil was denounced (even in non-Israelite
cultures) and certainly before any law was given at Mt. Sinai. So I
think Moreland's case is strong. Jesus & scripture bring the rest of
the revelation of God -- the special revelation which finishes the job.

  Interestingly, as it bears on the objections below, Moreland also
thinks Scripture (& even God from our perspectives) should be seen as
accountable to a standard (I think I'm sharing his thoughts
accurately). Too many of us (my words now) become comfortable on the
Sovereignty side of the paradox reacting with impatience to those who
fret about all the atrocities God commands in the O.T. "Get over
yourselves we want to say --- God will do what God will do, He giveth,
He taketh away --- the death rate back then was approx. one per person,
and the death rate in our oh so sensible advanced modern times is about
well, let's see ---- one per person!" But of course this is too make
light of a serious unanswered point: the manner of death by such
apparently ruthless means elsewhere condemned ought to be disturbing to
us. Abraham argues with God over Sodom, and the passage reads like
someone who expects God to behave in a certain way, and not once does
God shut him down and say "just who do you think you're talking to?" Of
course God still ends up destroying Sodom, but there are other places in
the O.T. where God does actually change his mind after being argued
with. So I think Moreland's point actually has a sound Biblical
basis. Perhaps more than the "roll over and automatically declare God
always right" side of things. To neglect either side of this is to
miss Scriptural Truth though. To automatically question God at every
turn is to ignore the "clay in the hands of the potter" aspect of
reality.

--merv

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Received on Wed Oct 18 02:13:15 2006