OT God pitted against NT version of God

[juliasmith]

Somebody please help. My husband is a spiritual mess but has begun to discuss God with me (he did not even believe in God a few weeks ago, so we’re making progress).

Last night he broached the subject that the OT image of God does not jibe with the NT image of God. He supports a belief now that God is not perfect because he is too emotional, that a perfect being would be devoid of emotion.

Now, he can get creative in his refusal to accept God or even religion, but this was more than I could handle. I can usually keep up, but not with this one. I know it to be a common argument among the neo-pagans of our community, but how do you answer this? It would never occur to me to call God imperfect ‘because he ordered the Israelites to kill everyone in an area they took over’.

Help, someone, please?

** and just for some clarification of what I am up against, he thinks the 12 apostles were both jewish and roman. I have to show him this morning that they were all Galilean Jews, and that even Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was a jew before his conversion. He’s not well versed.

 

[juliasmith]

Seriously, there is no one here who can help me with an argument supporting that the God of the OT is the same God of the NT? Or maybe my question was not clear in the beginning post?

 

[YinYangMom]

Have you searched the Sacred Scripture forum or Apologetics for key words like “OT vs NT God”? At least while you’re waiting for the rest of us to wake up and grab our morning cups of coffee :coffeeread:

Because your husband is not well versed you really do need to keep it basic and simple. Present enough of the story to answer the questions and make sense, but in such a way as to intrigue him to want to pick up on the rest of the details on his own - either through reading the stories himself or listening to some really good CDs from Scott Hahn, Steve Ray, or Fr. Corapi (among other great apologists with material available by CD, DVD, books or MP3s).

I, too, wrestled with your husband’s question because the OT God really comes off as brutal, demanding and controlling. It was Jeff Cavins’ The Great Adventure bible series which helped me understand and reconcile the two sides God reveals to us.

First, everything we know about God comes from his willingness to reveal to us just what it is he needs us to know at any given time in our lives. Jeff explains the personal relationship God has with us in terms of ‘family’. As parents teaching our children about fire, we do so in layers - according to their age, reason, maturity. When they’re little a stern ‘NO’ suffices. As they get a little older we start introducing the ‘good’ about fire - it helps us cook, it keeps us warm, but we still caution about the dangers when it is misused. In high school they learn about the physical properties of heat, combustion, etc. If they go into fire fighting they learn even more…but the knowledge is accumulative, it takes time to acquire.

Same with God’s revelation of who he is to us. The Israelites were the first born of God and they were surrounded by pagans with rituals which were very ‘feel good’ at the time (not unlike where we are today as a people). The OT patriarchs were asked to do some pretty serious things which were contradictory to society for the promise of a brighter future. Over time their families forgot to focus on that future and got caught up in the here and now. They stopped keeping their promises to him and as a result consequences were felt by them and future generations. Sometimes the only way to get through to the people was for God to lay a heavy hand, thus the killings, the destruction, etc. Other times, he took a gentler approach with certain prophets. But always he was with them, guiding them.

The thing to remember is if God seems extremely harsh at some points but totally calm in others, then one must go back a few chapters in the scriptures to find the reasoning behind the approach. One will find that the people brought upon themselves the hand they were dealt with the choices they made. God is just. He is fair. He is loving. He is forgiving. But even though we’re forgiven, the consequences for our actions still must be met.

Hope that helps.

 

[arvinsim]

I think there is a verse in the NT that Jesus said “I and the Father are one”.

We must also keep in mind that Jesus is BOTH God and Man at the same time. As such he has emotions.

 

[rwoehmke]

Imagine if you will, a totally pagan world. God wants to send his only son to free that world from slavery to sin among other things. If Jesus is born among a people that are totally pagan and with no Old Testament Prophecy about his coming, how would he have been received? So God chose a particular group of people and started to form and educate them to receive his son, the Messiah. Even they proved to be stiff necked and fickle and God needed to do some things that appear pretty awful to keep them pure from paganism, which often crept in by their association with pagan tribes and foreign wives. In brief God “tried a people like Gold in fire” to make at least some of them capable of accepting his son Jesus and putting his message into general practice. Once Jesus arrives it is now possible to change a world, to free the slaves from sin, to open the eyes of the non-believer, to cure those sick with sin,and so forth.

We think our modern world is not always so nice; wars, slavery, sickness, hunger, but I assure you the world before Jesus’ message spread was far more difficult to live in.

Some often ask why Jesus did not come sooner. In terms of human beings he came early on as up to the time of his birth only two percent or less of the humans who would ever exist were born.