When God created the world, He declared it was good...
Many Christians define God's declaration of "Good" to mean he made everything perfect.
I see a contradiction with many Christian arguments that I have never been able to reconcile... Especially the ideology that there is no grey when it comes to black-and-white: It is either all good or all bad.
These same Christians will also say that God is all-knowing, meaning He knows the Past, Present, an Future...
This is where things get complicated for me, and all the non-Christians I know, and many Christians who I know that do not hold to traditional interpretations...
God Created everything... He created it and was happy with what He did... He gave humanity souls and freewill, in essence He gave them a choice. He deliberately created all things fallible... He created everything imperfect.
If He knows all, then He knows we were to fall... If He didn't want that, then He would have taken step to prevent it...
UNLESS, That is what He wanted all along...
According to the Eden account, the tree of knowledge was forbidden... Adam and Eve were content with that and left it alone until a tempter (the Aramaic does not refer to the devil, but an adversary, in a non-proper generic form)... The serpent came along... Even spiritual adversaries cannot act without God's permission (passive or active) in coming against one of God's children, as demonstrated in the Job account.
I want to know what people's definitions of perfect and good are, and how it relates to what they feel God defines as perfect, and I want to see people truly evaluate, IN THEIR OWN WORDS, why they believe what they do...
This is a challenge for real discussion, and a practice of opening your mind and being honest about forming your own questions, and thus reaffirming what you believe...
I don't want to see text walls of scripture, because I know what the Bible says... I have been memorizing it since I was small... I think everyone in this forum has a decent grounding in what the word says , so I sincerely request that if a verse must be referenced, please just give the reference, not the whole verse.
I want to have a discussion, not a sermon.
Many Christians define God's declaration of "Good" to mean he made everything perfect.
I see a contradiction with many Christian arguments that I have never been able to reconcile... Especially the ideology that there is no grey when it comes to black-and-white: It is either all good or all bad.
These same Christians will also say that God is all-knowing, meaning He knows the Past, Present, an Future...
This is where things get complicated for me, and all the non-Christians I know, and many Christians who I know that do not hold to traditional interpretations...
God Created everything... He created it and was happy with what He did... He gave humanity souls and freewill, in essence He gave them a choice. He deliberately created all things fallible... He created everything imperfect.
If He knows all, then He knows we were to fall... If He didn't want that, then He would have taken step to prevent it...
UNLESS, That is what He wanted all along...
According to the Eden account, the tree of knowledge was forbidden... Adam and Eve were content with that and left it alone until a tempter (the Aramaic does not refer to the devil, but an adversary, in a non-proper generic form)... The serpent came along... Even spiritual adversaries cannot act without God's permission (passive or active) in coming against one of God's children, as demonstrated in the Job account.
I want to know what people's definitions of perfect and good are, and how it relates to what they feel God defines as perfect, and I want to see people truly evaluate, IN THEIR OWN WORDS, why they believe what they do...
This is a challenge for real discussion, and a practice of opening your mind and being honest about forming your own questions, and thus reaffirming what you believe...
I don't want to see text walls of scripture, because I know what the Bible says... I have been memorizing it since I was small... I think everyone in this forum has a decent grounding in what the word says , so I sincerely request that if a verse must be referenced, please just give the reference, not the whole verse.
I want to have a discussion, not a sermon.