29 January 2023
It never ceases to amaze me. Someone is throwing a fit about something I wrote yesterday:
It's not that God lies by dropping false evidence for scientists to find. The lie is that scientists assume that the questions they address are so very critical for living here, that human mortal existence can be greatly improved, and that it's important to do so. And because that orientation on things is so deeply rooted in the Fall, God cannot allow them to succeed. What God has done is leave clues that should point out how wrong they are about the fundamental issues. The choice of Adam and Eve to embrace human capabilities as a valid source of discovering truth is the lie. Where that choice leads you is fundamentally wrong, so it yields wrong results.
According to the whining, I am suggesting that God set traps for unsuspecting people. The underlying assumption is that we cannot allow the idea of a God who does not bend to western moral reasoning. What amazes me most is that people take themselves too seriously. Some of the smartest and best educated people out there are somehow unable to recognize that their logical constructs are not necessarily true. These people lack the ability to step back and examine their own a priori assumptions.
Do you assume it would be unfair for God to set traps against His own children? Do you remember the first fall of manna and what God said through Moses about that? It's recorded in Exodus 16. The instructions were wholly consistent with what God said about other things in general. They were to depend on God for their daily bread ration. His rules were that they were not to save any leftovers during the week as they would spoil. But on Friday they were to set aside a Sabbath portion for the next day, and it would not spoil.
This made no sense to some of the people, so they violated the rules and had spoiled leftovers during the week, or no food on the Sabbath. Their conception of reality was violated by the miraculous nature of manna. How often throughout the history of the Old Testament did God put His people in a tight spot simply so He could show His power and faithfulness to His promises? He said quite often that such is how He operated.
Did He put the human race in a tight spot by creating a world that has evidence of events that appeared to have happened well before the Bible narrative opens? Here's the point: If He makes a promise, it will stand regardless of what the "facts" in the dirt might tell us. We can either trust His Word and do what He says, or we can stick to what we know independently. Meanwhile, He has said over and over again, that if His glory needs us alive, nothing in this universe can take our lives. And if His glory needs us to die, then nothing in this universe can keep us alive.
Do you get the idea this His glory is really all that matters? Can you absorb that well enough to construct a logical system that is more consistent with what happened in the Old Testament?
Human reason has a limited utility in the first place. It can be wholly misled even within its capabilities. Western logical assumptions are not the only system out there. It's not that God was capricious with His people, but that they were capricious about obeying Him. It doesn't matter what you make of God's moral character; we remain accountable to Him. If He says that He'll never flood the world again as a means to wipe out the bulk of human population, then you'd be a fool to prepare for global tsunamis. It won't matter what science discerns is likely.
What I find immoral is how some people will seize upon a certain idea and never make any allowance for the possibility they might be deceived. They don't go and spend time with God, in accordance with His revealed Covenant, and so they have no idea what He really requires of them. They process everything on a human level and expect God to back them up.
We'll see whose manna gets spoiled, or who goes hungry because they didn't pay attention to the Lord's Word. Yes, it will take a while. Meanwhile, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
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