Snoopy on the Psalms

[BetteTheRed]

All of us deserve God’s justice; none of us deserve God’s mercy.

I believe the opposite. Godde made us as we are, flawed in some major ways, greedy, selfish, self-serving, while simultaneously loving and hospitable. So Godde, having created us screwed up to start with, owes us mercy, not justice.

 

[unsafe]

Godde made us as we are, flawed in some major ways, greedy, selfish, self-serving, while simultaneously loving and hospitable. So Godde, having created us screwed up to start with, owes us mercy, not justice.

This statement you make here ---
-----You think that cause you want to think that -----

God Made Adam and Eve perfect and gave then free will to choose ----His Creation chose wrong and rebelled against His will for them -----So you can't blame God for the wrong decisions that Eve and then Adam made ----

there were 2 trees in the Garden ---the tree of good and evil which was forbidden for them to eat from and the tree of Life which they could have eaten from and that would have saved them but they chose to disobey God's order and they created the flaw in us ----not God

 

[Waterfall]

Well, that's just wyrd.

Ditto

 

[BetteTheRed]

there were 2 trees in the Garden ---the tree of good and evil which was forbidden for them to eat from and the tree of Life which they could have eaten from and that would have saved them but they chose to disobey God's order and they created the flaw in us ----not God

Not exactly how I see that story. Do you have children, unsafe? I'm not being nosy, I wonder if you're familiar with what happens when you tell a child not to touch something.

 

[Mystic]

I believe the opposite. Godde made us as we are, flawed in some major ways, greedy, selfish, self-serving, while simultaneously loving and hospitable. So Godde, having created us screwed up to start with, owes us mercy, not justice.

Duh, the Creator "owes" us nothing and is even entitled to decide that the human evolutionary experiment must be abandoned as a failure.
Your statement overlooks the Christian distinctive that the Creator is a God of "grace," which is by definition "UNMERITED favor." Worse, it presumes a projection of an anthropomorphism on God cruder than its fundamentalist counterpart--a bizarre irony for a professed panentheist like you.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:7-8)."

Here God reminds us of His unknowable mystery and issues a stern warning against deducing God's "ways" and "thoughts" from our moral agenda.
By implication, God's virtues can only be imperfectly assigned by reflection on His gracious acts such as the deliverance of Israel from slavery.. Thus, God's response to Moses' request for His name is understandably evasive: "Tell them I will be whatever I will be has sent you (Exodus 3:14)." In antiquity people often deduced a god's essence or character from His name.

 

[unsafe]

I wonder if you're familiar with what happens when you tell a child not to touch something.

Eve and Adam were not Children ---they were created adults and were cleaved together --they made a bad choice all on their own and fell from God's Grace and were Disciplined ----and it was passed on to us through Adam's bad choice ----so Let me ask you ---Do you have Children and discipline them when they touch what you told them not to touch --or do you just look the other way and allow them to go down the wrong path ----

 

[paradox3]

Psalm 10 opens with a poignant lament: "Why Lord, do you stand so far off?" (v. 1) Is there anyone among us who has never felt this way?

Verses 2 - 11 lament the actions of the wicked. The psalmist pleads, "Rise up, Lord! O, God, strike him down. Do not forget the oppressed." (v. 12)

Then he poses a great question. "Why does the wicked man reject God?" (v. 13)

Why indeed? How do you explain it?

In verse 14, the psalmist turns to praise and speaks as one with deep faith. But he still needs to remind God to break the arm of the wicked and evil man.

 

[paradox3]

The psalmist poses two questions which might not be answerable. Today I find myself appreciating his lament.

Why God do You stand so far off? Why are there wicked people who reject You?

Many find explanations in the Adam and Eve story as we discussed yesterday. And the article shared by @unsafe reminds us we are accountable to God. It is not the other way around.

Still. These are two great questions.

 

[Waterfall]

"Why does the wicked man reject God?"
Is this a moment of self reflection (the God within us?)
Is God standing back to let him consider this, while he asks God to do what he desires from God's intervention?

 

[Waterfall]

Eve and Adam were not Children ---they were created adults and were cleaved together --they made a bad choice all on their own and fell from God's Grace and were Disciplined ----and it was passed on to us through Adam's bad choice ----so Let me ask you ---Do you have Children and discipline them when they touch what you told them not to touch --or do you just look the other way and allow them to go down the wrong path ----

I have children, I don't purposefully set them up for failure either if I know their nature.
The Garden of Eden must have a better explanation than this, in my mind anyway...God sounds very human sometimes.

 

[unsafe]

Then he poses a great question. "Why does the wicked man reject God?" (v. 13)

Why indeed? How do you explain it?

Because the Natural Man ---Woman ---who live in this wold feel they don't need God in their lives ---they believe they are already good and therefore do not feel that God can make them good so they reject the Idea that they need a God to be a good person ---they do not believe they are sinners ---they believe as long as you do good thing God's Love will save them in their end ---

Some may fear rejection from their peers if they accept God in their lives ---their status is more important and accepting God ---they also may fear persecution if they accept God in their lives --

Some see eternal things as living a boring life ----they prefer to live a life that is appealing to them which is doing whatever they like whenever they like and not having a God to answer to ---so they think -----

God wants all people to come to Him but we have free choice to accept God's call or reject it ---many refuse to accept God's pulling on their hearts to come to Him ----God wants them but they themselves choose to stay with the pull of this world to live a worldly life -----

 

[paradox3]

About that forbidden tree in the garden. What if it was an invitation from God rather than a test?

I have never been able to understand why God wouldn't want the people to grasp the nature of good and evil.

 

[Waterfall]

About that forbidden tree in the garden. What if it was an invitation from God rather than a test?

I have never been able to understand why God wouldn't want the people to grasp the nature of good and evil.

After all he supposedly created both.

 

[paradox3]

Here's a question. Would the psalmist have been familiar with the Torah? If so, he would have known the story of Adam and Eve and their exile from Eden.

What would he have thought about the narrative? Original Sin and the Fall are later Christian interpretations, no?

 

[paradox3]

After all he supposedly created both.

Good point. Also there is an argument that the forbidden fruit story explains Adam and Eve choosing the fullness of human life.

 

[Mendalla]

Here's a question. Would the psalmist have been familiar with the Torah? If so, he would have known the story of Adam and Eve and their exile from Eden.

I am not sure if the Torah as we know it today existed yet but the stories could well have already been around in oral or earlier written forms. After all, if we are talking David, it's early Iron Age but if it is a later one, it could even have been written in Babylonian period.

 

[paradox3]

In Psalm 1 the writer talks about meditating on God's commands day and night. This suggests to me that the Law was available to him in one form or another.

God gave the people a few commands in Genesis, too. So who knows?

I have read that the Torah as we know it was finalized after the Babylonian exile. But there were earlier manuscripts and an oral tradition, too.

 

[Mendalla]

But there were earlier manuscripts and an oral tradition, too

Which is what I alluded to but how old are those and how old is this psalm? I imagine that in David's day, probably only the Law itself existed in some kind of codified written form. The rest would have been oral or a patchwork of writings.

 

[Mystic]

About that forbidden tree in the garden. What if it was an invitation from God rather than a test?

I have never been able to understand why God wouldn't want the people to grasp the nature of good and evil.

The story is primary about the birth of conscience as much as the so-called Fall because it implies that God had always intended Adam and Even to eat the forbidden fruit.
Thus, 3:32 identifies 2 positive consequences of their disobedience: (1) they learn the difference between good and evil; (2) they become "like God," thus fulfilling their divinely intended atatus as creatures created "in the image of God (1:27-28)."

 

[unsafe]

About that forbidden tree in the garden. What if it was an invitation from God rather than a test?

It gave Adam and Eve Free choice -----which God wanted to give His Human creation from the start ---He gave the angels free choice before He created His 2 Humans --so free choice was already in the works -----

so it was about what choice would they make if one tree was forbidden in the whole garden ---and would they obey God's command not to eat of it ---the obeying His Command would have been the test for them in my view ----

So it was about free choice and obedience or disobedience ----

Read all here --I just posted this part

Why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden?​

Why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden? | GotQuestions.org

Why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden? If God knew that we would sin, why did He give us the possibility?

www.gotquestions.org

God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden to give Adam and Eve a choice to obey Him or disobey Him. Adam and Eve were free to do anything they wanted, except eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:16-17, “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’” If God had not given Adam and Eve the choice, they would have essentially been robots, simply doing what they were programmed to do. God created Adam and Eve to be “free” beings, able to make decisions, able to choose between good and evil. In order for Adam and Eve to truly be free, they had to have a choice.