This is the final disagreement post with Bart Ehrman's God's Problem, although I have a few more to close the discussion out about this book. Disagreements with chapter nine are many so hang on.
1. More politics --the book is obviously written before the surge which worked and ended the main problems in Iraq.
2. Bart restates his idea that God's discipline of the Israelites was too harsh but the question remains: how do you discipline a nation without doing something that effects the nation as a whole?
3. God held responsible, mankind let off the hook again.
4. Bart decries this world as a good world God has created. My point is this -- this is not the world as God created it --it is a world that stands as it is because we have ruined it. I don't believe God made the best possible world he could make but one in which free creatures could grow and develop in their relationship with him. We destroyed that with sin.
5. Bart continues to rely on a Reformed/Baptist/Classic view of God's nature in his criticism and states that the God of the Bible is incompatible with the world as it is -- but not all view of God do this but Bart never explores them. When talking about God being all powerful he uses classic definitions but not Biblical ones.
6. God does suffer in a sense because of sin -- he grieves over it, gets angry over it, and gets disappointed with sin and human beings. To say God does not suffer in some sense is not Biblically true. This doesn't make God any less God as Bart would assert but it odes make him a person. Bart makes a leap of logic here on p. 274 that he cannot back up -- that the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament cannot be the same because the way of dealing with the problem of evil is different. The problem is he never really proves that the Bible's answers to the problem of evil contradict each other as he claims.
7. Bart does not think that some suffering is redemptive but the problem is that he dos not have God's perspective on the event. How does he know for certain that there is no redemption in events for sure -- is he God?
8. Suffering is only a test of faith if it is faith that causes the suffering-- this is a point Bart seems to miss.
9. Bart talks about the gift of life we have -- but who or what is it a gift from? Ironic that when you get rid of God you don't really have anyone to say life is a gift from anymore.
10. Bart ultimately shows a lot of pride -- he does not want to admit that in the grand scheme of things - -he might just be a peon after all. After a final reading i can also say there is a lot of self righteousness to someone who wants to call God to account but sees no problem with himself or his own contributes to the problem of evil.
Next: Wrap Up #1 -- Over Reliance on Classic Theology
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Engaging God's Problem -- Disagreements with Chapter Five
Chapter 5 of God's Problem by Bart Ehrman's has some problems chief among them is his assumption that god does not intervene in human affairs.
1. Bart makes the statement that if God heals -- why does he not do so today -- heard that before and my response is he does -- I have grown up in Pentecostal churches -- when a person says they have cancer and that the doctors (more than one) have confirmed it and then that person is prayed for and they come back and don't have cancer -- confirmed by the same doctors you have to think something is up. It sounds like Hume when I listen to him on this. "I don't believe in miracles because I don't want to believe in miracles". In addition, he has this -- "God should heal all the time without conditions" attitude.
2. Ehrman talks about being committed to truth and integrity -- but if their is no God to be accountable to about truth then what difference does it make?
3. I think Bart over thinks Grace in pages 128-129 -- he talks about how if a person thanks God for food isn't that person condemning God for not feeding others. Here's the thing -- famine often happens because of short sighted agricultural methods or deliberate starvation of human beings by others -- either through malicious intent or apathy. He quotes the United Nations about the 850million starving stats as well. Yes, I am sure that the UN does not have ulterior motives in saying such things seeing they use such numbers to get more aid from other nations.
4. Why is it that when people want to blame God for everything, they always say that the problem in question is too big for humans to handle? Maybe their just looking for a personal excuse?
5. Says government should do more, quite frankly they cause more problems than they solve.
6. Assumes God always gets his way -- if God's will and his kingdom are a done deal and cannot be messed up than why in Jesus instructions to us in prayer does he ask us to pray that God's will be done and His kingdom come. Seems a strange thing to pray for if both just are and cannot be messed with -- another over reliance on classical theology.
7. Pharoah's hardened heart -- it is not hard to push a person a little harder when they have already demonstrated hardness in the first place. I would also point out for the record that the Egyptians were holding the Israelis as slaves. On the one hand he condemns Solomon for such a practice but here he is saying poor Egyptians forced to be victims of plagues when they are doing the same thing. The Egyptians were not nice people and the people who disobeyed the Passover had some control if they only believed enough to obey.
8. Going back to David's child -- David's own words kind of put this in perspective -- "I will see him again" The fact is what is better -- to live here suffering the stigma of sin and being a bastard child or Paradise. Here is Ehrman's saying poor child, but then turning about and say to be on this planet is suffering -- anybody else see the contradiction.
9. Bart assumes that Paul influence how the gospels are written -- he has no evidence of this other than more higher critical theories but were going to proceed as if it is fact anyway.
10. The Bible does not claim all suffering is redemptive like Ehrman attests on p. 155 (bottom). in fact I would say that sinful suffering is many times senseless and the Bible says this as well.
Next: Agreements with Chapter Six
1. Bart makes the statement that if God heals -- why does he not do so today -- heard that before and my response is he does -- I have grown up in Pentecostal churches -- when a person says they have cancer and that the doctors (more than one) have confirmed it and then that person is prayed for and they come back and don't have cancer -- confirmed by the same doctors you have to think something is up. It sounds like Hume when I listen to him on this. "I don't believe in miracles because I don't want to believe in miracles". In addition, he has this -- "God should heal all the time without conditions" attitude.
2. Ehrman talks about being committed to truth and integrity -- but if their is no God to be accountable to about truth then what difference does it make?
3. I think Bart over thinks Grace in pages 128-129 -- he talks about how if a person thanks God for food isn't that person condemning God for not feeding others. Here's the thing -- famine often happens because of short sighted agricultural methods or deliberate starvation of human beings by others -- either through malicious intent or apathy. He quotes the United Nations about the 850million starving stats as well. Yes, I am sure that the UN does not have ulterior motives in saying such things seeing they use such numbers to get more aid from other nations.
4. Why is it that when people want to blame God for everything, they always say that the problem in question is too big for humans to handle? Maybe their just looking for a personal excuse?
5. Says government should do more, quite frankly they cause more problems than they solve.
6. Assumes God always gets his way -- if God's will and his kingdom are a done deal and cannot be messed up than why in Jesus instructions to us in prayer does he ask us to pray that God's will be done and His kingdom come. Seems a strange thing to pray for if both just are and cannot be messed with -- another over reliance on classical theology.
7. Pharoah's hardened heart -- it is not hard to push a person a little harder when they have already demonstrated hardness in the first place. I would also point out for the record that the Egyptians were holding the Israelis as slaves. On the one hand he condemns Solomon for such a practice but here he is saying poor Egyptians forced to be victims of plagues when they are doing the same thing. The Egyptians were not nice people and the people who disobeyed the Passover had some control if they only believed enough to obey.
8. Going back to David's child -- David's own words kind of put this in perspective -- "I will see him again" The fact is what is better -- to live here suffering the stigma of sin and being a bastard child or Paradise. Here is Ehrman's saying poor child, but then turning about and say to be on this planet is suffering -- anybody else see the contradiction.
9. Bart assumes that Paul influence how the gospels are written -- he has no evidence of this other than more higher critical theories but were going to proceed as if it is fact anyway.
10. The Bible does not claim all suffering is redemptive like Ehrman attests on p. 155 (bottom). in fact I would say that sinful suffering is many times senseless and the Bible says this as well.
Next: Agreements with Chapter Six
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