The toleration of evil and the issue of universal sovereignty explanation fails

by gubberningbody 19 Replies latest jw friends

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  Terry

  Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority

  The way I see the issue of Evil vs God's Sovereignty is this.

  You either HAVE Sovereignty OR you do not have it.

  If you have to wait for approval of others (proving you deserve it, for instance) then it is the "others" who are GRANTING the Sovereignty.

  It becomes an elected office, so to speak.

  If you really ARE Sovereign it is a FACT that "others" must deal with. That would include evil others.

  Allowing Evil is an act which ABANDONS Sovereignty to chaos or debate.

  I am strongly convinced the mythos of Scripture is a work-in-progress as far as defining or explaining the role of Deity in dealing with Evil and Suffering.

  The best the ancient Jews could come up with is this: If we suffer Evil we must deserve it. So, that succeeds in letting God off the hook morally.

  It was a question of "deserve".

  This did not solve the problem of infants and the innocent.

  So, the theology of "original sin" had to be imputed to infants and no truly "innocent" person could enter the equation.

  But, allowing "evil" from sin to infect humanity didn't seem so great either.

  So, GRACE was invented. But, to make God morally superior in granting GRACE humanity could not be seen to "DESERVE" it.

  Christianity is a passive experience. You just have to embrace the seeming Sovereignty of God without earning it.

  Yet, even with the salvation of Christ the evil and the suffering continues. It is a storybook victory over Evil.

  What destroys, for me, the illusion that a Sovereign God exists is the presence of Evil and Suffering.

  There is no morality to a God like this.

  Permission for evil is the motor that drives the suffering. It is a compact.

  In any compromise between food and poison the one eating suffers the result.

  What Chef would permit one of the cooks to add poison to a meal and yet pretend he was in no way complicit simply by disapproving without STOPPING the serving of the meal?

  Permitting the poison of evil in any way is to commit murder.

  If we want to believe in a God who is a murderer we might want to rethink our alternatives first.
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  gubberningbody

  BB, I would suggest that the "message of Christianity" is a rather garbled mess. To quote Paul..."If the trumpet makes an indistinct call, who will get ready for the battle?". The "trumpet" of Christianity is a babel of confused, conflicted and competing voices.

  Terry, it doesn't necessarily remove the possibility of an SB, but it does make the "worship" of the same rather pointless.
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  cantleave

  Yep you've got it - another WT myth to suck in the weary and depressed souls.
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  pirata

  Thank you for your post. I had never thought of the implications of the flood/bable on the Universal Sovereignty theorem.
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  bohm

  Hey! Welcome Pirata! Feel free to write your story if you havent allready done so!
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  pirata

  Thanks bohm!
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  Terry

  Terry, it doesn't necessarily remove the possibility of an SB, but it does make the "worship" of the same rather pointless.

  I'm ignorant of what an SB is. Please enlighten me.
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  TD

  Yes. The Job story is the closet thing you will find to an explanation, but it is still lacking

  A loving father doesn't sit on the porch and do nothing while one of his children beats the brains out of the other with a golf club simply because the man across the street said, "Your children are only obeying you because you feed and clothe them."
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  The Oracle

  The Job story is absolutely lacking.

  The story is beyond absurd when you rationally examine it.

  What kind of monster would allow ten innocent people (or was it 20?) to be senselessly killed?

  The warped morality continues as the bible then seems to celebrate the fact Job remained faithful, and was "rewarded" by the monster with 10 new replacement kids and double the riches. It is warped ancient man's attempt at teaching a life lesson, and it falls woefully short.

  The lesson I learn - is that the God described in the bible is an immoral pig.

  Sooooooey!

  The Oracle
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  tripod;)

  i'm kinda of the opinion that we are in a rigged game. god knew that there was a devil and that the question of his right to rule would come in to question. adam and eve had no children until they sinned. I think that it was known that it would happen. it wouldn't be fair for children that were perfect to die for something that happened after they were born. for that matter after millions of people are born and thousands of years then the question of sovereignty needs to be answered we all then get to die? Makes sense to answer the question right out of the box.