Is God Always Good?

[revjohn]

I think the things described in the OT wouldn't have been so "bad" when it was written. Conquering an entire race of people and killing most of them didn't have the negative "genocide" attached to it back then. Way to go, whoever coined that term. You ruined it for God.

You are right. It wasn't described as "bad." If anything it was described as "just" and like it or not justice belongs to goodness as much as mercy does. None of those wiped out, fit the description of innocent. Yes, there is a definite Jewish bias in the Hebrew writings. Probably no different from the Egyptian bias in Egyptian writings.

"See? He didn't kill everybody!"

Seriously?

God doesn't exist, right? Tell me how ridiculous I am being for defending God when you are engaged in accusing someone of genocide whom you don't even believe exists. Not only that you think scripture is bad fiction. I am supposed to take you seriously when you offer up a critique of a non-existent entity from really bad fiction?

People as Emerald Ash Borers?

Do you want to make the argument that humanity universally treats its environment better?

Now you're describing people as cancer.

Just some. Some aren't cancer obviously or the analogy wouldn't work. I am not saying so and so is cancer because of what they have said or done that would have weakened the analogy and spun unhelpful tangents. And depending on who I might choose to label as a cancer I suspect you would be sympathetic.

If I suggested that you or I treat these others as cancer you may or may not have a problem with it. I suspect one would be able to find some example in humanity where you agree that the designation is apt and that the treatment appropriate. Admittedly I am drawing inferences from comments elsewhere. That said, I don't think anyone is thinking either of us are monsters yet.

In both of the above, the scary thing to me is the giving up on people and culling them as policy.

That would be scary and I don't think it is a policy. It does appear to be last-ditch and never having seen many last ditches myself I don't know what my reaction would be to knowing what I would do in a similar position. I have a better idea of what I would be prepared to do if it was someone I loved in the last ditch position.

That said, I have wrestled with a son who wanted to kill me. I know it was a mental health issue. I also knew that I had the strength and the ability to restrain him and keep us both safe. When he was strangling his sister it was a different situation and while there was no ill-will there was no concern for gentleness. I wasn't put in a position where I needed to kill. I was facing another who was willing to. We finally have that sorted out despite the best efforts of several doctors who really have no clue what they are dealing with. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not our family struggle in those days was fueled by faith because there was nothing else offered to us but great deal of shoulder shrugging and wishing they could help.

All the while we were hearing in the news of another mentally ill person being put down by the police (like a mad dog) because, apparently, there was no other choice.

You can blame that on God for not making the world and genetics more perfect.

I tend to blame governments for not investing in mental health initiatives and a certain cadre of doctors for being untrained, ill-equipped resistant to professional growth and understanding.

Between you and I nobody looks good. The big difference is you are blaming an entity you don't believe in and I am laying the uselessness of flesh and blood in its own lap.

Because I believe in the goodness of God I believe that there are solutions available to us in all of the things that God has given (which includes doctors and medicine). I do not like genocide nor do I approve of it. I can't imagine the state of mind I would have to be in to even consider it. So I wonder what was going through God's mind when God invites the children of Israel to participate in it or does it all God's self.

And that wrestling is included in the pages of scripture. Not to glorify it.

The account of the drowning of the army of Israel in the Red Sea is not something that God is said to have celebrated. The Israelites? Sure they partied hard. Why wouldn't they? Moments earlier they thought of themselves as good as dead. God is conspicuously absent in the celebrating.

Having been there as one child choked the life out of another child I can empathize with some of the emotion that rises in such confrontation. And that was just between two children. If I had millions of children and half were at the throats of the other half I cannot imagine the scale of that emotion.

And what would I do if all attempts to be gentle, or forceful failed? Reason certainly wasn't working in those days.

For a being who supposedly placed humanity so high in importance,

How high is so high? Not trying to be flippant here I am being serious. How important did God make humanity? Sure we bear the image and likeness of God. If that is purely a physical thing then we aren't top drawer. My dog hears better and smells better. My dog runs faster. Drop us both in the woods alone my dog has a better chance of getting out alive than I do and I know my campcraft and woodcraft. About the only things I do better than my dog are taste, my sense of taste is better than hers. And I am more creative and rational.

So with the right learning I can build a bomb which reduces cities and populations to ash. Or I can harness the power of radiation to eliminate a cancer cell.

Two sides of the same coin. Radiation to destroy people or radiation to destroy cancer cells. Do one I'm a monster, do the other and I am a hero.

those analogies reduce us to the worst infections or diseases, subject to the same one-size-fits-all cure.

It would if that was the only way that God dealt with people. Clearly the scripture shows that it isn't.

A God who can do anything, can't come up with a better solution that doesn't look so, well, final?

One of our human problems, when we approach the texts, is that we buy into the all or nothing argument and so we frame the solutions as all or nothing. Everyone that God strikes down is not simply struck down physically but struck down spiritually. We presume that every Egyptian soldier who perished when the waters of the Red Sea closed upon them goes to hell. The big theological problem with that is that scripture doesn't teach that.

The only place where there is such a straight line between being physically smitten by God and landing immediately in hell (here understood as the lake of fire) is in the book of Revelation. That isn't the purpose of the book and it is not a particularly helpful conclusion to lay on the rest of scripture.

Scripture posits that our final destination (cheesy b-grade slasher films notwithstanding) is either paradise or second death. All but a few will face the first death. It is as inevitable as taxes. After that there is a final judgment where God either demonstrates the love of God in acts of justice (you get what you deserve) or grace (you get better than what you deserve). None, apparently will get worse than they deserve.

If those struck down by God still find a place in paradise the question becomes how have they been harmed?

Theologically, because we are discussing God and in particular the goodness of God, we might also ask the question. If God did not intervene to bring about their destruction how much harm might they have caused and could they have fallen so far that God would not even attempt to rescue them?

Which is ultimately what Universal Salvation is arguing for.

Until we produce a theology which equates God striking individuals or nations down to God condemning those same individuals or nations to hell we are forced to entertain, even if it is only a possibility, that God may redeem all those that God has also struck down.

 

[Waterfall]

Very interesting responses, I need to take this all in before I respond later. Much to think about.

 

[crazyheart]

This whole conversation is depressing. I don't want to be depressed, I want to be uplifted

and enlightened.

 

[chansen]

I'm sorry, this is Christianity. No, you want room 12A, next door.

 

[crazyheart]

What are they discussing in 12A?

 

[chansen]

I told you once.

 

[Delightful Life]

I think a better question is why worship a genocidal maniac?

No kleptomaniac gods available?

You mean Loki?

 

[Jaebius]

I'm sorry, this is Christianity. No, you want room 12A, next door.

Yeah, @crazyheart, Christianity is depressing. You know, because life in Christ offers such dull things as peace, joy, hope, and everlasting life.

 

[Delightful Life]

This whole conversation is depressing. I don't want to be depressed, I want to be uplifted

and enlightened.

 

[chansen]

Wrong sketch.

 

[Waterfall]

Which is true.

Apart from that Christianity has always held that God is the final arbiter of what is good. Good being an umbrella term which includes right and just and not simply pleasant.

It is a nuanced understanding of good which goes beyond simplistic expectations.



In fact, the world has never been destroyed by God. Especially if we take the narrative of scripture at its most literal. Never destroyed. Some remnant is always left and what comes next is built on the foundations of that remnant. The scriptures also describe God as both Husband and husbandman.

Husbandry is the practice of keeping things healthy and productive and of necessity, it participates in reductions that appear drastic, in order to mitigate against future disaster. Before moving away from Brantford a little over a year ago the city of Brantford was on a campaign to stop the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. Part of that process was the felling of thousands of trees within the city bounds. Arborists spent the better part of the year identifying infested trees, setting a perimeter (because we know how far the little critters move once the larvae pupate) and felling target trees within that perimeter).

Thousands of trees, all of them members of the Ash family. Some infested, others not. All came down. Some city blocks were effectively denuded. Small trees, large trees, trees in front yards, trees in backyards, trees in public green spaces.

It was a sap bath. It was ugly. It was tragic (if you are partial to trees) and, it was necessary.

If it stops the spread of that invasive parasite it will have been the right and good thing to do.

Or, consider chemotherapy.

It is brutal and harsh. Nobody has ever commented on it being relaxing or refreshing. Unless they were being sarcastic. It is poisoning healthy cells and cancerous cells all at the same time in the hopes that the good cells reproduce and the cancerous cells don't.

When it works it is absolutely the good and right thing to have done and everybody who has survived cancer because of chemotherapy may still tell you that they never enjoyed it they are thankful for it because without it death would have taken them sooner.

No matter how terrifying a thing may be if it defeats or prevents something worse it must be a good.

How good? Always a matter of debate.



There are also consequences for our inactions. Alan Doyle might have a lot of company in wishing for a consequence free life but few seem to remember that Doyle also understands that a consequence-free existence is a life where nothing needs to matter. If nothing needs to matter what is the point? Where do we draw the line between what is good and what is not good?



Who says God lives free of consequence? Who says that even when God gets smitey God is pleased with it afterward?

How many scholarly studies have there been about stress and depression in dentistry? And yet, Orin Scrivello sings that one song and the stereotype of Dentists getting into dentistry just to hurt people runs wild. But back to the studies. Strange don't you think that dentistry which has actually advanced good health (making it a good thing) is also something most of us wish to avoid isn't it. Even a routine scaling, cleaning and checking of teeth can be quite a trying 15 minutes or so and, if you aren't a very attentive flosser you probably leave bleeding and sore. Need a cavity filled or a root canal and there is one person doing their best to make sure that you don't feel pain during the procedure but man you feel it afterward.

And why is there so much stress and depression in dentistry when they actually prevent most, if not all patients from experiencing tremendous pain at some future point?

Working conditions play a huge role. Even if you know that you are preventing major pain in the future you can't feel good about creating pain and discomfort in the present.

No good deed goes unpunished right?

Scrivello isn't even a real dentist, why do we think he has insight into the minds of those practicing dentistry.



Justice is a consequence it is not in contrast to consequence. Typically justice is compared to mercy and contrasted with injustice.



God most certainly is. Is love never just? Does love give license to all manner of behaviour?

A number of years ago I spent two weeks in ICU with doctors and nurses (for the most part) attending to a rapidly spreading infection. The fact that the doctor in charge of my case was a useless dullard who was eventually made coroner because there was not much more harm he could cause is beside the point. My family doctor was in my room to see me every day. And every day he expressed as much poison from the wound in my foot as was possible. I white-knuckled the bed rails and did everything I could not to convulse and try to pull that foot away. It was agony.

Every single day we went through that for 14 days.

I never saw the doctor assigned to my case once. Not once.

Every single day my family doctor would show up, check nodes and glands to see how far the infection was spreading. Every day he would express as much poison as he could in a pathetic attempt to slow the spread of infection and when the infection climbed toward my hip he told me, quite candidly, that if things did not slow or stop soon it was going to be my leg or my life.

Hospital politics come into play and I am discharged so that I can be readmitted three days later for surgery.

The instructions given to me for those three days? Stay off the foot and get as much poison out of it as I can on my own. So, for three days I did what I had watched him do. I expressed poison from my wound and it hurt every bit as much while I was doing it as it did while he was doing it. Of course when you wind up white-knuckling your own foot you manage to get more of that puss out. Where he relented because of my pain my pain pushed me further. And I didn't do it just the once. I was up to three times a day because remember, it was my leg or my life if things didn't change.

One ridiculously quick exploratory surgery later we had the wooden sliver responsible for the infection out and antibiotics could get on with doing their thing.

So. Which doctor was the good doctor? The one who was present every day causing me pain, telling me might leg might have to come off or I might die or the stunned ass who I only saw when I had the stitches in my foot removed? And to be perfectly candid, he didn't do anything to remove the stiches that I could not have done myself.

Which doctor did good?

Now, I got to know my family doctor fairly well after that. I know that he enjoyed none of that ordeal. I suspect that in some ways he suffered as much as I did. He sent me to the hospital and it was the hospital that assigned the goof-up to my care. For 14 days he sat and watched a patient of his get worse while a colleague did nothing more than look at an x-ray. Never examined the wound, never laid hands on the foot to see if and what was awry. Never asked for a history of the event in which the injury occurred.

But yeah. 14 days knowing that every time he came into my room I was going to experience pain till I started to see white.

And I have never respected a physician more than him because of it.

And today, if I saw that idiot who nearly cost me my leg and was able to recognize him I have one good leg to stand on while I plant a scarred foot up his backside.

If I wanted to.

But lets get back to this "magical God" the God who can make all things right and never needs to punish anyone. The one who could end suffering and doesn't and is such a tremendous disappointment. Or worse, is such a monster for refusing to do what we would do if we had the power.

Baloney.

We can barely manage to treat one another with respect as it is. How quickly things would go off the rails if we had divine smiting authority the next time some jerk cut us off in traffic.

But yeah God's a monster. Sure.



Some years ago my family doctor got old, retired and passed away. His daughter went into medicine. I hope she is even half as good a doctor as he was. I have had the pleasure of having several family physicians since Dr. Henry hung up his shingle. I expect all of them did as much as he did to earn the privilege to practice medicine.

None of them really hold a candle to him. The new doctor we have is different in that regard. He actually gets things done very quickly. It has been a year since my last physical. At my age I probably should be more diligent in getting them done. I am a grampa now so I should be more attentive to my health. Previous doctors were fine not seeing me unless I felt I needed help. This new guy, apparently he spoke to my wife about not having seen me recently.

I doubt that he is looking forward to causing me pain or discomfort.

There is this one part of the exam I don't much care for. I expect that is on the agenda. And honestly, I'll take that over what could happen next anyday. So I have a call to make.



You think a God who refuses to punish or kill deserves heaven more? So the moron doctor I had who never once caused me pain and appeared quite content just to take a leg off later (if it didn't interfere with whatever more important thing was taking up my case time) is more deserving of a good reward than the doctor who saved my leg (albeit quite painfully)?

That is twisted.



The God I worship is always good. The God I worship isn't always pleasant and isn't always fun. The God I worship doesn't always pat me on the head and tell me I am a better minister than everybody else. The God I worship doesn't look at my screw-ups and say not to worry about it ever, that it doesn't need to matter.

The God I worship is always present. Whether I feel that presence or not.

The God I worship is the God that redeems pain and suffering in ways I cannot begin to comprehend.

The God I worship is the God who is slow to anger and quick to show mercy while never shying away from having to show either. In God's goodness and in God's wisdom God knows what is most needed and God will deliver that when it is up to God to deliver it. We like to sit in judgment over God from the secure smugness of our own self-justification.

Even though most of our circumstance is petty and we don't do a good job of managing that we feel adequately positioned to take a look at huge moments in time and point out how God screwed them up.

Hubris.



My Presbyterian forebears used to remind one another that life was grim and life was earnest. I can do dour with the best of them. When I work at it. The grace of God I have experienced, particularly through agents of God's own choosing helps me to see that even in this grim and earnest existence there are moments of joy and laughter. Those moments become precious because they never become routine.

Paradise/Heaven is subjected to many different images. There is a marked difference between Christian and Jewish images. Christianity has given rise to wings and harps (which is nonsense--none of that is supported by scripture) whereas Jewish images suggest we each get our own vineyard and we each get to plant and grow and reap with joy knowing that we have no thorns or weeds to contend with, there will be no famine to worry about, everything will produce and all of our effort extends to the quality of what is produced not its quantity.

Given a choice between those two images (one scripturally supported in our Hebrew scriptures and the other a fiction which ignores scripture) I'd take the vineyard. If I am to spend eternity doing something I would rather it be in a garden making good things grow than plunking strings on a harp.

And, trusting God to be good, maybe my vineyard will be near Dr. Henry's and we can catch up.

And if, on my way to Dr. Henry's vineyard I have to pass the vineyard of some guy who turned out to be just as bad a coroner as he was a doctor then maybe we can both rejoice that in heaven he can make a garden grow and nothing about what was needs to be remembered.

If God was not so good. Grace would not be such a scandal.

I enjoyed and appreciated your response, but at the same time, is this not the usual response from the church to explain away the horrific aspects that scripture provides of Him, because really we probably couldn't allow this sort of God into our hearts without providing God with sufficient reasoning for such atrocities, as if we're embarrassed for God? In a way, maybe we are embarrassed for God for doing such things, so we over rationalize this bad behaviour by calling it a teaching moment.Christian theology seems to require that in order to explain goodness, there must always be "the other side" that potentially will hurts us, in order to bring Goodness into the light and for us to recognize it. So God provides the way to suffer, so that we may turn ourselves toward God and cause our knees to bend through worship and obedience, but then there are those that suffer and it only causes them to turn away and reject God because it's not seen as love to allow it. For some instances you want to tell me that God must sacrifice the "bad" people in order to save the "good" people sometimes...when really, it's only the bad or not so perfect that require saving.....does God abandon them if they never bow even when forced to do so through unimaginable horrendous circumstances? According to theology, not necessarily, because.......wait for it, there's Grace....but it doesn't always stop the suffering and MAY be only provided after death and if one is lucky Grace begins while still on earth. Do we absolutely have to insist that God Himself has a dual nature that includes evil in order to explain love to us. Is pure love too potent for humans to bear while on earth, that we must turn away from it's intensity through pain and suffering in order to accept it and lessen the impact?

But if we are told God is love, why is that not sufficient? Why do we have to apply our earthly explanation that includes anthropomorphizing God, when God could indeed be a substance of some sort that when one enters into it, it just IS love. It's why I ask, are we worshiping the right God because frankly a God that includes tests and such that brings us to submission and to our knees, is that love? Should love not encourage us to stand, not kneel.....respect, not fear....?.

 

[Luce NDs]

Love is a fickle and dangerous wind ... sometimes wayward ... expect it ... as we can't control the great filiation!

You could be blown away as with blunderbuss and Canon ... a roué?

 

[Bolt_upright]

I think Most High has a choice to be either one or the other but always chooses good for all end.
I'm sure those who partake in wickedness and evil dark ways that are done in secret, will not find it good on judgement day.

 

[Luce NDs]

I think Most High has a choice to be either one or the other but always chooses good for all end.
I'm sure those who partake in wickedness and evil dark ways that are done in secret, will not find it good on judgement day.

I have doubts like Tomas the flat spirit may have holes ...

 

[Waterfall]

I think Most High has a choice to be either one or the other but always chooses good for all end.
I'm sure those who partake in wickedness and evil dark ways that are done in secret, will not find it good on judgement day.

And why are you sure of that?

 

[Bolt_upright]

And why are you sure of that?

I'm not sure of anything to be honest.
For me it's because evil actually exists so, if we are created in His image and likeness. Just saying.

When Cain was ready to murder, was it not Most High who told him he must "master"the temptation and not do this evil deed?
If Most High is teacher would not Most High speak of experience?

Cheers

 

[GeoFee]

Hi,

Guessing it matters whose image/idea of God we have in view.

George

 

[Waterfall]

Hi,

Guessing it matters whose image/idea of God we have in view.

George

And if 1 John 1:5 tells us this, This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you, "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."

Why do we then insist on teaching that God is light but still allow a darkness to dwell within the Christian God that could kill us?

 

[BetteTheRed]

Problem I have with this, waterfall, is that it leads us down a rabbit hole of dualism. You can start by saying that "darkness" is the absence of light, but then we have to have a discussion about whether darkness is "bad", because darkness is nice - for sleeping, for watching the Northern Lights. And then you cannot say that "evil" is simply the absence of good. "Evil" is much more active than just "not good". And if God didn't create evil, then who did, and how many gods have we got around here anyway...

 

[revjohn]

I enjoyed and appreciated your response,

Thank you. I enjoy the discussion. Theodicy conversations are few and far between.

but at the same time, is this not the usual response from the church

When you wander the same path for centuries you tend to see the same things. If all of the things you are observing are living things (flora and fauna) you will note changes over time. Most of those changes will be flora and fauna doing what they do.

What will change little will be the inorganic bits and pieces but only because the change to the rocks along the way is the result of the elements and impact of flora or fauna.

to explain away the horrific aspects that scripture provides of Him, because really we probably couldn't allow this sort of God into our hearts without providing God with sufficient reasoning for such atrocities, as if we're embarrassed for God?

I hope that I am doing something better than explaining away. Whether I accomplish better will be up for debate.

I don't think that the horrific or terrifying aspects of God need to be explained away. I do think that we need to wrestle with them if only to try to come to grips with who God is in God's entirety. Garden path spirituality, where God is made out to be nothing more than all of the Care Bears and their cousins rolled into one proves, ultimately, to be unsatisfying. Primarily because among all of the Care Bears and their cousins there is no Justice.

One of the dangers is creating a God who is little better than an anthropomorphized ideal human. A God who even in the 10th Century BC (or BCE which is the colonializing way to render time) operates with a 64th Century AD (CE same colonizing nonsense) morality. And just to make things obvious, that 64th Century AD/CE morality is a figment of our 21st Century hubris. We cannot know what that will be because it is 43 Centuries to come.

Of course one of the interesting things about being created in the image and likeness of God is not that God must be anthropomorphized but rather that humanity represents a deithropomorphication (Don't look that up I just created the word). We have to resist the impulse to fashion God in our image while embracing that we have been created in God's image. So, we do manage to reflect God which was the intent. Because of the Fall we do not reflect God perfectly, as imperfect mirrors we distort what is actually present to be seen. Which is part of the entertainment of funhouse mirrors. The distortions we see would be horrifying if they were actual deformity of a real person, since they disappear the minute we turn our attention on the next mirror they do not pervade our thoughts and thinking.

We see in humanity, particularly in the pursuit of physics a desire to differentiate good from evil. Is that part of humanity reflecting the image and likeness of God? Some argue that to be the case. And coupled alongside of that desire to differentiate between good and evil we see further wrestling with how to promote good while discouraging evil. We see in human history that humanity can be horrifyingly cruel. It isn't always. We are typically dismissive of past horrors unless we are judging them by contemporary standards.

Which is entertaining. I mean one of the criticisms, particularly when we discuss the whole garden and tree business is that God punishes a couple who are basically ignorant and need to eat from a certain tree to gain a certain knowledge whereas when we look around none of us have that particular tree to snack on ourselves so maybe we aren't smart enough to actually understand good and evil ourselves.

Certainly, after all of our years studying it haven't found a way to beat it.

Okay, technically that isn't true. We do know how to beat evil. We just don't have the patience or discipline required to do it. So we blame God for that. If God didn't allow evil to exist we wouldn't have to work so hard to avoid it ourselves.

And part and parcel in blaming God is refusing to see beyond the surface or even to contemplate that there is more to see which escapes us.

And it is the tremendous stories of God venting God's spleen which we find terrifying and seek to use to prove that God is not worthy so lets not believe in God or, we ignore because it means that God is not the warm fuzzy that we crave. Both are effective forms of denial.

What is left then?

More wrestling and trying to comprehend that which is so great in scale we have a hard time wrapping our heads around it.

Where was God in the Holocaust? Where was God when millions of the people he entered into Covenant with went to their deaths? If God is so good then why didn't God stop it?

These are frequently asked questions and theologians wrestle with the answers. Generally, failing to provide answers which come close to satisfying.

The lesser asked questions are how can an evolved humanity still participate in such barbarism? 20th Century Germany for all the progress in human thought, particularly morality which is well within the domain of ethics and Germany has produced more than a few philosophers to help in that department can't arrive at a better solution than the execution of millions of people. Our human brothers and sisters can't come up with a better solution than that and worse, not only did they plan it they carried it out. Ordered hundred to participate and participate they did. And while this was going on where were the "good" humans? The ones who knew better? They were in other countries telling the Jews that they were not welcome.

Sure, we say, had we known what was going on in Germany we would have welcomed the Jews with open arms.

It is a pretty bald-faced lie but we tell it to ourselves.

Or worse, we say, "Well that was then, this is now." Conveniently ignoring the drinking water crisis on most First Nations reserves in Canada or while we step over the homeless in the streets. And why are they there? Not enough money for Mental Health supports. Raise taxes then.

Because we all are lining up to vote for the political party that promises to raise taxes.

We know what the right thing is to do. Doesn't mean we trip all over ourselves to do it.

We don't care to get our hands dirty for the most part.

And yet, God does get God's hands dirty.

In a way, maybe we are embarrassed for God for doing such things, so we over rationalize this bad behaviour by calling it a teaching moment.

Please let us not.

I'm not embarrassed for God. I'm stunned by God. Particularly in these stories where God let's loose God's wrath.

13 times in the pages of scripture we hear the narrator of the moment proclaim. "The Lord is slow to anger." Not once do we hear anyone in scripture say that the Lord never gets angry.

1 time in scripture we hear the exhortation not to sin in our anger.

What becomes difficult for us is to understand that anger can be righteous. Even when we can understand that we have difficulty with actions taken while angry being righteous.

One of the best, though most uncomfortable, texts we have looking at this issue is Genesis 18: 16-33 and God's revelation to Abraham that he intends to destroy Sodom for their sins.

It is a powerful text because in it we see a relationship that modern fundamentalism has expressly discouraged. Abraham questions and challenges God to do what is right.

Abraham bargains with God for the city of Sodom and God, surprisingly, tolerates the haggling session. Abraham manages to get God to agree that if ten righteous be found in the city of Sodom God will spare the city from the wrath of God. Even if Abraham had the courage to haggle that down to 5 it would not have been enough.

In the end only 4 righteous are able to be found. But Abraham, even if he couldn't spare the city does, apparently, make an impact upon God.

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

And the 4 righteous that are found are allowed to flee and not perish with Sodom when the wrath of God reigns down upon them.

We aren't meant to cheer that. That is no great victory for the good guys because that is not a redemption story. Yeah four righteous are spared. One of those righteous is also curious and decides to ignore a clear warning given. As clear as the warning given in the garden ages before and just as ignored. Which is something we feel we should blame God for. Not only should God give clear warnings but God should use God's infinite power to force people to follow those warnings say the people most inclined to also argue in favour of a free will.

Christian theology seems to require that in order to explain goodness, there must always be "the other side" that potentially will hurts us, in order to bring Goodness into the light and for us to recognize it.

Well, no. Christianity doesn't. Christianity doesn't require evil to exist in order for us to know what is good. Christianity assumes that good and evil exist and then progresses to explain what good is and how we recognize it. If we are poor students of scripture in particular and Christianity, in general, we will notice that Jesus, as the visible representative of the invisible God is not constantly cheery and congenial.

Jesus braids a whip, while stewing about abuses occurring in his Father's house. Beyond that Jesus applies that whip to peoples committing abuses in his Father's house. That is Jesus, taking violent action. We try to justify that by saying that he didn't actually strike anyone with the whip, which scripture doesn't say, he just used it to scare people while he turned the tables over.

As if.

Jesus also tells a few stories of things not ending well for people. The rich man and Lazarus is pretty open. Some rich dude suffering the torment of Hell. Is that a scare tactic? Is Jesus fond of that approach? Or is it a clear warning? The sheep and goats has a rather bleak ending for the goats. There is, in the parable of the wedding feast a guest dressed inappropriately who cannot explain how he came to be at the feast or why he isn't dressed for one who winds up being cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So clearly, some are punished.

Which, we can probably accept to some degree. I mean look at humanity and our penal institutions. We are generally trying to improve them so that there is a better chance for rehabilitation. Unless we have bought into the industrial prison complex then we want more prisons and more prisoners in them.

In Canada we have abandoned a death penalty. Instead we cage our most violent offenders in tiny windowless rooms which they spend 23 out of 24 hours in. Execution is too inhumane. We prove our moral superiority by subjecting our worse to a constant deprivation of all the things which make us truly human. That is how good we are.

We can't for all of our years of examination rehabilitate some individuals who we will label monsters and so we do not bring ourselves to their level by taking their lives we lock them up in what amounts to a macabre hidden zoo where the animals don't get to be looked at. Lacking the desire to smite them we dehumanize them.

Funny, don't you think, the way they don't seem to flourish under our more merciful morality?

So God provides the way to suffer

God does not. We do.

God didn't force the Holocaust. God didn't force the pogroms of the Soviet Union. God didn't force the great wars of 1914 and 1939. God doesn't force the hundreds upon hundreds of military conflicts around the globe. God doesn't pull the triggers in all the gun related fatalities in the world.

We do.

We rail at God for not stopping any of that and yet, when the power to stop any of the above was in humanity's hands it still chose to go right ahead.

The moral high ground we claim to judge God from is covered in the blood of innocents we stepped over without second thought.

so that we may turn ourselves toward God and cause our knees to bend through worship and obedience

Yeah, very little of that in scripture. One or two actual throwdowns between the Gods and their representatives on earth. Elijah and the prophets of Baal the only story that stands out in memory. It ends with the prophets of Baal being seized and executed. Which is in keeping with commands given about false prophets.

We may not like it. Might find it barbaric for our tastes. Which is good. Because we aren't them and we aren't then. We should be further along.

but then there are those that suffer and it only causes them to turn away and reject God because it's not seen as love to allow it.

Part of that is the garden path theology that makes the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith expressions of Christianity take root. We have a poorly defined theology of pain and suffering and instead seek to avoid both because they are "bad" things. It is hard to reconcile garden path theology with the theology of the cross. We know Jesus said, "take up your cross . . ." but what we really wanted him to say was, "Be happy."

Philip Yancy has several really good treatments of suffering and pain. They aren't his most popular works because they don't foster garden path thinking.

For some instances you want to tell me that God must sacrifice the "bad" people in order to save the "good" people sometimes

Don't put words in my mouth. God does not sacrifice people good or bad. God deals justly with people. And one aspect of God's sense of justice that we conveniently overlook is the whole do unto others bit. Even the Lord's prayer includes what should be, for all those who think about the words as they pray them a very uncomfortable petition.

When we pray, "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" we are asking God to be no more or less merciful toward us as we are with others. I suppose if we think we really are that good and kind we find the petition acceptable.

when really, it's only the bad or not so perfect that require saving

If we take scripture seriously the bad or the not so perfect include everyone.

Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

Do we dare trust Jesus' assessment in this matter or do we want to argue that he has missed something somewhere?

does God abandon them if they never bow even when forced to do so through unimaginable horrendous circumstances?

This presupposes a merit-based salvation and if embraced defeats the concept of grace for reward. Everyone gets what their deeds deserve. Clearly, I reject that option. Apart from that, it brings us closer to the Donatist controversy which was declared heretical and becomes a tangent that will not likely prove helpful to the conversation at hand.

According to theology, not necessarily, because.......wait for it, there's Grace....but it doesn't always stop the suffering and MAY be only provided after death and if one is lucky Grace begins while still on earth.

Grace, ultimately does bring an end to suffering. That is the promise of the coming Kingdom. No more tears from sorrow, neither hunger nor thirst. Would we be happier if that was more immediate? Sure, we would.

Do we absolutely have to insist that God Himself has a dual nature that includes evil in order to explain love to

us.

Nope. We absolutely do not. In fact, Christianity has historically rejected the notion of God having a dual nature, that God is somehow both good and evil. I'm not advocating for a dual nature of God saying that we have to take the good with the bad because that is just the way that it is.

I'm positing that humanity is not well placed to judge God on matters of good and evil. That the totality of God's goodness, when finally seen from a position which can appreciate all, will be far more evident than we see presently.

Is pure love too potent for humans to bear while on earth, that we must turn away from

it's intensity through pain and suffering in order to accept it and lessen the impact?

Perhaps.

That fits loosely with John's prolegomena

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

The reflex of the sleeper when a light is turned on is to shield their eyes and seek comfort in darkness. Which doesn't mean that we must take dark action. It means that we cannot, presently, endure the light. We either do the work of acclimating to increased light or we do our best to hide from it.

God in full God mode is hard to take. Before awful was synonymous with disgusting it meant full of awe. Now we use the word awesome.

So, when we say that the destruction of the Egyptian Army or the massacre of 185, 000 Assyrians by an angel in the dead of night is awful we can apply both meanings at the same time without diminishing either. God in action can be terrifying especially if we remember that the same root is present in the word terrific.

If our language is limited when it comes to discussions about God perhaps those limitations also extend to discussions of God's goodness.

Something C.S. Lewis gets an when he takes pains to point out that Aslan is not a tame lion.

But if we are told God is love, why is that not sufficient?

It isn't sufficient because it doesn't tell us enough. We do not know more about God when we equate God with love than we knew about God before the equation because we still haven't worked out the boundaries of what love is or isn't.

Is love just? Is love kind? Is love permissive? Is love restrictive and on and on and on. We wind up wrestling with concepts of love the same way we wrestle with concepts of love and nothing is really settled other than the fact we have some kind of trajectory to work with. If we say, God is love then we are, logically, rejecting the notion that God is unloving. Which is good, I think, but makes discussions of justice that much harder because we will seek to tie God's hands. A loving God could not do this or do that.

Why do we have to apply our earthly explanation that includes anthropomorphizing God, when God could indeed be a substance of some sort that when one enters into it, it just IS love.

Attempted above.

The substance argument is actually being forwarded presently by black lives matter and the reconciliation and truth process. We should be righteously angry about historic injustices. Angry enough to do something. If we aren't at the very least prepared to smite legislation that perpetuates abuses then we will not accomplish much good or demonstrate much love.

We could just talk about it I suppose. Our vulnerable brothers and sisters are very tired of that approach.

And what of our darling teens who survived the shooting in Parkland Florida? They have harnessed their righteous anger and they are getting things done. Are they not embodying love in all of that?

It's why I ask, are we worshiping the right God because frankly a God that includes tests and such that brings us to submission and to our knees, is that love?

God invites us to put God to the test. Ultimately the only way to prove something is real is to test it right? Even theories are tried and tested.

God rarely puts us to the test. Life will do that much faster and more often.

Should love not encourage us to stand, not kneel.....respect, not fear....?

Experience teaches what it teaches.

I never feel forced to kneel or bow in the presence of God. I always feel humbled and my response to that humbling is to present as less challenging. Male aggression is what it is. Typically it involves eye contact, the stare down is a test of wills and resolve it is where the first part of any dominance challenge begins and that is almost universal among creatures with eyes. Making eye contact is a challenge. So, bowing is one way to demonstrate that there is no intention to challenge. It is a submission. It is a willingness to make one's self vulnerable.

Kneeling is more of the same. While on my feet, even with my head bowed, I still have the benefits of leverage. With my head bowed I can still see an opponent approaching and I can still attempt evasion. Kneeling takes that away and places me firmly at the mercy of the other. I generally do not include kneeling as part of my prayer or worship repertoire. I do not believe that it is necessary. There are moments when I get a sense that prayer is appropriate and in those moments I do not hesitate to kneel. As with bowing it is a submission. It is a willingness to make myself vulnerable.

Reflecting on both I don't think either are something that God is forcing me to do so that God will then grant me some concession. I believe that they are me, communicating to God that I am at my end. I have nowhere to go, I have no plan whatever. I have exhausted all resources immediately at my disposal and I am in need of whatever crumbs of grace God might sweep from God's table.

I suppose, at that point I am attempting to bargain. I am mindful in those moments of desperation I have nothing to bargain with. I cannot offer God anything God doesn't already have and I have my faith in God's goodness tested.

God's goodness has always been proven. Not in me getting exactly what I want exactly as I want it. Truth be told, I'm batting zero in receptions to the Hail Mary prayers I have thrown up (Hail Mary here being the desperation pass and not some attempt to do things a Roman Catholic way). God's goodness has always been proven in that I do not endure that misery alone and eventually I am lent strength to climb out of that dark place of desperation and face what awaits.

God has never made things easier. God has made tough things easier to bear.

On the day of Redemption what was most needed will be given and what was distraction will be left aside.