Judging God - a necessity?

[Nimeniton]

This morning I read the following under the caption: Divine Con??: under the ‘Ask an Apologist’ section

“Did God set up Adam and Eve to fall from grace so that He could send Christ to save us? I really can’t see God say, " I didn’t see that coming" Please help because this thought is replaying in my mind almost constantly”. by Mele

"*Hi,

God is not your size. He’s not even a bigger version of you. So stop trying to psyche Him out. He is infinite. You are passing judgement on His determinations from a very limited human perspective. Recognize how great He is. This always brings one to silence.

He loved His creatures enough to become one of them and suffer and die for them to show them in a way they could somewhat grasp, that His love for them is greater than anything they can imagine. To refuse to acknowledge such love is to con oneself"* by Fr. Vincent Serpa,O.P.

The assumption here is that God is beyond our judgment and that we lack the ability to judge God. However,Christians including Catholics seem to make such judgments about God all the time. For example, someone may justify an immoral action on the grounds that God told them to do it. Another person will tell them that did not come from God but Satan or a disturbed mind. It seems , therefore that we (or at least some people) are capable of judging what is Godlike and what is not.

Mele’s question would have been better put if he asked if the story of the fall really came from a good God. After all, it seems it is possible for a human to judge what comes from God and what does not. Again the church decided which Gospels to accept into the Bible as being divinely authored and which not to accept. This implies judgment of what comes from God and what does not.This implies that it is possible (at least for the chosen few) to decide what God is likely to say, Gospel of John, or not to say, Gospel of Thomas.

In the Gospel of Infancy Thomas says: *3 The son of Annas the scholar, standing there with Jesus, took a willow branch and drained the water Jesus had collected. (2)Jesus, however, saw what had happened and became angry, saying to him, “Damn you, you irreverent fool! What harm did the ponds of water do to you? From this moment you, too, will dry up like a tree, and you’ll never produce leaves or root or bear fruit.”
(3) In an instant the boy had completely withered away. Then Jesus departed and left for the house of Joseph. (4)The parents of the boy who had withered away picked him up and were carrying him out, sad because he was so young. And they came to Joseph and accused him: “It’s your fault - your boy did this.”

4 Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, “You won’t continue your journey.” (2)And all of a sudden, he fell down and died. * etc etc

The church judged that this did not come from God. If the church can judge what comes from God then they must have a means of recognising which actions he is likely to do or not. They are able to make a moral judgment with regard to the divine. Surely then just as it is possible to judge the actions of the God portrayed in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas so then it is permissible to judge the actions of the being who is portrayed as God in Genesis.

 

[King_Lazy]

Yes, we, as people, can judge whether something is godlike or not based on its congruity with moral law and what God has revealed about Himself already.

The Church, guided by God Himself, was able to discern truth from falsehood with regard to the Gospels. The non-canonical gospels may be useful as historical documents, but they are filled with both truth and error and are not worthy of belief.

We cannot judge a man’s motives, however, let alone God’s. And while man’s motives can be good or evil, we have no way of truly knowing. We know, however, that God’s motives can only be good.

And while we can understand a man’s motives, we are incapable of fully understanding God’s. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.” (1 Cor 3)

As for the question about Adam and Eve and their fall from grace, indeed God knew that they would. Perhaps it is that any corporeal creature will rebel against its Creator. But He chose to create us anyway and to offer us a way to turn back from our rebellion.

 

[grannymh]

The church judged that this did not come from God. If the church can judge what comes from God then they must have a means of recognising which actions he is likely to do or not. They are able to make a moral judgment with regard to the divine. Surely then just as it is possible to judge the actions of the God portrayed in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas so then it is permissible to judge the actions of the being who is portrayed as God in Genesis.

To better understand the workings of the Catholic Church, one needs to accept (not necessarily believe) that the Catholic Church is based on the fact that Jesus Christ is God.

 

[Nimeniton]

Yes, we, as people, can judge whether something is godlike or not based on its congruity with moral law and what God has revealed about Himself already.

.

Well, I would agree so far as whether something is congruent with the moral law. (We can’t say what God has revealed about himself until we know how to identify him). We would then have to agree as to what constitutes the moral law. If we accept for the purpose of argument that the moral law is absolute i.e the same for all people at all times and that the Catholic church believes certain moral edicts from the Old Testament come from God then we could start to see if there is some base of agreement on what is the moral law.

For example, would you take the ownership of another being (the restriction of their freedom) to be immoral no matter how well they are treated otherwise. And would you agree that some people should be treated as slaves but others never? i.e some races are superior to others?

Now read this verse from the Bible

*However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. * (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) attributed as a saying by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

This quite clearly states that slavery is acceptable and that non Jews are acceptable to be taken as slaves but Jews are not. Now do you believe this command came from a godlike being - does it conform with moral law? The only way I have seen such Bible verses defended is by reducing God to a moral relativist - i.e God gave moral commands that were suitable to the people of that time.

 

[King_Lazy]

For example, would you take the ownership of another being (the restriction of their freedom) to be immoral no matter how well they are treated otherwise.

It’s difficult for me to say. Workers usually forego much of their freedom by selling about half or more of their waking hours to an employer. On Gumtree and craigslist you will see adverts looking for people to do unpaid domestic work in return for free food and accommodation, which has many parallels to slavery, apart from the absence of contractual obligation to do this for a specified or indefinite period of time. In business, it is common to undertake a contractual obligation to complete a project by a specified period of time, and there may be penalties for failing to do so. Remuneration in modern days is typically monetary, but it could just as easily be food and lodging. And if one should sell their freedom to a company, we may see that being traded on the open market, as we see in sports clubs. So, where the slavery, servanthood or employment is voluntary, we’d need to look at other factors to determine the morality of it. Where it is involuntary, I’d agree that it’s immoral.

And would you agree that some people should be treated as slaves but others never? i.e some races are superior to others?

All human beings are of equal value in the eyes of God, regardless of race or sex.

Lev 25:44-46

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.

This quite clearly states that slavery is acceptable and that non Jews are acceptable to be taken as slaves but Jews are not.

Well, actually, Jews could be taken as slaves too, but on more lenient terms.

Ex 21:2
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment

This idea is also spelled out here:

**Lev 25:39-43
**‘If a [a]countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service. He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers. For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.

God did hold Jews’ treatment of other Jews to a higher standard but He also revealed that there is in reality one law for the Jew and the Gentile.

Num 15:15-16
As for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before the LORD. There is to be one law and one ordinance for you and for the alien who sojourns with you.’”

Lev 24:22
There shall be one [a]standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the LORD your God.’”

And He still insisted that:

Lev 19:33-34
‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

Nimeniton:

Now do you believe this command came from a godlike being - does it conform with moral law? The only way I have seen such Bible verses defended is by reducing God to a moral relativist - i.e God gave moral commands that were suitable to the people of that time.

Well, God’s commands were generally restrictions, and if He tolerated something in one way, He quite often insisted on a higher standard among the Jews. The law of the Old Testament is essentially incomplete from a Christian perspective. It is better than what was expected in the culture before, but where God chose to tolerate something, it does not mean that He approved it.

God revealed His law gradually to an uncivilised people, where violence, sexual misconduct and slavery were ubiquitous. He would initially restrict these tendencies before revealing the fullness of His law with the coming of the Messiah. Where one may have even killed his assailant if one lost a tooth as a result of his actions, God tolerated one only to punish him in equal measure, “a tooth for a tooth.” Polygamy and divorce were tolerated but all sexual conduct limited to marriage alone. Involuntary servanthood was tolerated but God insisted on the humane treatment of slaves, Hebrew or Gentile.

With the coming of the Messiah, God’s law was fully revealed and distinctions between Gentile and Jew were done away with.

Colossians 3:9-11
Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

And so God revealed His law in a piecemeal fashion. From the Christian perspective, God’s law was the same all along. He gradually moulded uncivilised man to accept His absolute moral laws by first restricting his natural behaviour; he imposed limits on vengeance, slavery and sexual conduct, expecting less of man at first, before revealing the fullness of the law to him in Christ.

 

[King_Lazy]

Thought_Officer:

Interestingly, a lot of scripture appears God-inspired only with much apologetic defense. Many precepts appear initially puzzling or contradictory (even if they are resolved through philosophical treatment, insofar as resolution is possible). It might be an interesting thought experiment to devise ways in which the excerpt provided above from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas can be defended in a way that is congruent with Church scripture.

That would be interesting indeed, though it would be easier for an atheist to do than for me. Where the boy accidentally bumps into Jesus and is killed by him, it seems incongruent with the Christian understanding of God, who is offended by intentional misconduct. It therefore seems arbitrary, as the boy didn’t violate any moral principle, either from the absolute Christian or the relativist perspective.

 

[King_Lazy]

Thought_Officer:

Certainly this excerpt from Thomas would be insurmountable, but one can but imagine a host of reasons why the boy withered and died: he was actually of some evil persuasion, only masquerading as a boy; his offence was better contextualized in some other excluded gospel; the death inflicted was a mortal death, but not an eternal one; Jesus killed the child, but it was a game in resurrection. I’m not suggesting that these explanations satisfy, just that conceivably any interpretation could be wrought to generate better congruence between gospel tellings.

I think you give excellent examples of how this could be “explained away” - ones that I didn’t think of. It would still be difficult to fault the boy, however, because if he hasn’t reached the age of reason, his alleged misdeeds would not be punishable. But I see entirely what you’re saying. I do think the Scriptures form a consistent whole and that the Catholic interpretation of them does not rely on “cop-outs,” although you may disagree with me.

The question of the interpretation of Scripture from my Catholic perspective is also different because the authority of Scripture stems from the authority of the Church and the Faith is something external to Scripture but partly contained and expounded upon within it. The Scriptures therefore, aren’t the original source of the Catholic Faith. It seems to me to be a different sort of mindset from the one held by Protestants and from what many atheists might imagine the Catholic mindset to be.

Essentially, the Catholic Faith existed before New Testament Scripture and the canon of Scripture was decided upon because it was compatible with the Catholic Faith, i.e., the authors were inerrant in their faith when they wrote their works and so their writings, if interpreted according to the intention of the author, represent the faith of the author and the true faith. As a Catholic, I believe this decision was guided by God, and the Church has, in its authority, gone further, declaring these works to be infallible and inspired.

From my perspective, and many may disagree, the Scriptures do, even on plain reading, seem to form a fairly consistent whole, with unifying principles behind any seeming discrepancies. We can see this in that the Gospel of Thomas, for example, is much more difficult to reconcile with the existing canon of Scripture, and it was rejected precisely because it was incompatible with the Catholic Faith of the Apostles and their successors.