Interventionist God or Non Interventionist God?
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Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Depends on how you define "interventionist" and "God" I guess.
As a pantheist, I hold that everything that happens occurs in the context of a Divine Cosmos. So, technically, everything from the Big Bang (whatever that was) on is "intervention". The problem is that is it really intervention when "God" is doing it to Godself.
It's complicated, IOW.
Process (another school of thought I sometimes have leaned to) deals with it differently. God intervenes but not directly. Beings are free actors but God "lures" (to use the term I've heard process thinkers toss out) us towards the outcome God seeks. God does not have the power to change reality on God's own, but can try to steer things in a particular direction through influence.
That's inevitable. A personal God is going to intervene based on God's plan/needs/desires. That may or may not take account of our plans/needs/desires. Depends on what you believe about our relationship to God. In my case, God is more or less a personification of the forces of nature that create and shape existence and those forces are impersonal; they don't give a flying f what we want even if they are what gives us life/existence in the first place.
As a pantheist, I hold that everything that happens occurs in the context of a Divine Cosmos. So, technically, everything from the Big Bang (whatever that was) on is "intervention". The problem is that is it really intervention when "God" is doing it to Godself.
It's complicated, IOW.
Process (another school of thought I sometimes have leaned to) deals with it differently. God intervenes but not directly. Beings are free actors but God "lures" (to use the term I've heard process thinkers toss out) us towards the outcome God seeks. God does not have the power to change reality on God's own, but can try to steer things in a particular direction through influence.
That's inevitable. A personal God is going to intervene based on God's plan/needs/desires. That may or may not take account of our plans/needs/desires. Depends on what you believe about our relationship to God. In my case, God is more or less a personification of the forces of nature that create and shape existence and those forces are impersonal; they don't give a flying f what we want even if they are what gives us life/existence in the first place.
chansen
Had a point all along
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The question also goes back to the bible and the stories of Godly intervention. Did those happen, or at least, did God intervene and people eventually got around to writing these events down, or are they metaphor as well? What if they are simply fiction?
The problem with an interventionist God, and the danger, is when people start assuming he is going to intervene again. Many Christians are waiting for just an event, for multiple reasons. Some think he will take the righteous with him. But we don't know that God ever intervened. We know that the early stories of Genesis and Exodus, at the very least, are fabrications. But the uber-Christians don't allow those thoughts because they look at the bible first and discard every bit of evidence that does not fit. And given that Genesis and Exodus are fabricated based on historical inconsistencies and geology, archaeology, and all the other ologies agreeing that there was no mass Egyptian enslavement and migration, and that if Adam and Eve had arrived 6,000-10,000 years ago, the locals would have thrown a housewarming party, even as metaphors, that opens up the entire bible to question. What we clearly don't have is a God that did things exactly as the bible describes. Does that mean there is no God at all? With the lack of evidence for one, that's the side I find myself on.
No one can look at the bible and say, "Okay, this is the point where it becomes literal!" with any confidence or evidence. No one can point to any supposed modern miracle and say, "This is evidence that God intervened!" Lots have tried. And with every failed attempt, the hypothesis looks weaker and weaker.
Not that some people don't find value in the stories. Not that there isn't any good in the bible. But there is nothing to suggest that it's true. And that's still a sticking point for me. I need things that claim to be true, to actually be true before I put value in them. Anything that puffs out its chest and demands to be taken seriously, is just something to have fun with.
The problem with an interventionist God, and the danger, is when people start assuming he is going to intervene again. Many Christians are waiting for just an event, for multiple reasons. Some think he will take the righteous with him. But we don't know that God ever intervened. We know that the early stories of Genesis and Exodus, at the very least, are fabrications. But the uber-Christians don't allow those thoughts because they look at the bible first and discard every bit of evidence that does not fit. And given that Genesis and Exodus are fabricated based on historical inconsistencies and geology, archaeology, and all the other ologies agreeing that there was no mass Egyptian enslavement and migration, and that if Adam and Eve had arrived 6,000-10,000 years ago, the locals would have thrown a housewarming party, even as metaphors, that opens up the entire bible to question. What we clearly don't have is a God that did things exactly as the bible describes. Does that mean there is no God at all? With the lack of evidence for one, that's the side I find myself on.
No one can look at the bible and say, "Okay, this is the point where it becomes literal!" with any confidence or evidence. No one can point to any supposed modern miracle and say, "This is evidence that God intervened!" Lots have tried. And with every failed attempt, the hypothesis looks weaker and weaker.
Not that some people don't find value in the stories. Not that there isn't any good in the bible. But there is nothing to suggest that it's true. And that's still a sticking point for me. I need things that claim to be true, to actually be true before I put value in them. Anything that puffs out its chest and demands to be taken seriously, is just something to have fun with.
revsdd
Well-Known Member
I would say that God can intervene if God chooses to intervene. I believe that God has intervened. I believe creation itself was an act of divine intervention. Given my faith in Jesus as the incarnation of God, I believe that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus represents an act of divine intervention. I like the image process theology sometimes uses (which Mendalla referred to) as God "luring" us toward a particular outcome. As one who believes himself called by God to ministry, that's a way I could describe it. I also agree with chansen that it becomes problematic and possibly dangerous when people begin to expect divine intervention, because - as we see in all sorts of ways - people can then choose to act on that belief and sometimes do terrible things in the hope of somehow bringing the intervention about, or at least creating the conditions that would bring the intervention about.
airclean33
Well-Known Member
GOD an Interventionist ? You bet, For forty years of my life now . I walked with the living GOD. He always has taken care of me and help me to walk His way.
He has shown me many things , that I didn't understand before. His teaching in Love alone. No one I know, or have ever meant" can even come close to His way. The GOD I follow is with me in the night, and at morning, He walks beside me all day long. Some here think there smarter than GOD. They all are but babbling fools.
He has shown me many things , that I didn't understand before. His teaching in Love alone. No one I know, or have ever meant" can even come close to His way. The GOD I follow is with me in the night, and at morning, He walks beside me all day long. Some here think there smarter than GOD. They all are but babbling fools.
What exactly do you mean by this statement? Why was intervention needed before creation?
paradox3
Peanuts Fan
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Might need a glass of wine for this conversation . . .
revsdd
Well-Known Member
Intervention is never "necessary." In any event, intervention in the sense that it was God acting in the natural world - specifically by creating the natural world.
I understand what you're saying and agree there is a danger that some could just imagine an intervention to justify something. (eg. Constantine's justified war) And you're probably not alone in today's world that demands proof or at least a youtube video as witness.
So intervention occurred before man was created? Still not understanding.
When God doesn't intervene, such as saving a child's life, how do you explain that to yourself?
What does God's influence look like? And how do you know it's God?
revsdd
Well-Known Member
God acted to create something out of nothing even though God didn't have to create something out of nothing. That's intervention of a sort.
Anyway you're over analyzing. I believe that God can intervene if God chooses to intervene, and I believe that there are examples of divine intervention.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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I don't know because I don't currently believe it myself. Since, however, we are dealing with matters of the spirit, I'd suggest that intuition would play a part. I would also suggest that such influence may often be there without us realizing. If it existed at all which, as I said, I don't currently believe.
chansen
Had a point all along
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Forget "proof" - it would be nice to have anything resembling evidence, or indeed wasn't refuted by the evidence we do have.
And in a world where lies are believed because people want them to be true, I will happily be known as the one who does not believe simply because other people do.
Also, that kinda rhymed.
Over analyzing maybe, but it just sounds like God must have been amusing Himself and He doesn't necessarily have to have a reason to intervene.
chansen
Had a point all along
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We don't know that there was nothing. And if we presuppose there had to be nothing at some starting point, that also removes God from the equation, assuming God is something and not nothing.
The popular Christian argument is that God exists outside of time and space. Which is the sort of thing you say when you have no good explanation and you want to sound impressive.