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Dymphna82
Guest
If they wish to surround themselves with us, then they should probably go to church.
Why do believers use one set of rules for Humanity and another set of rules for God?
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Bohm_Bawerk
Guest
I’m not insulting anyone. Quote exactly where I was insulting any poster or your “Father”. The emboldened parts in my original post are analogies which fit under the question (e.g. distinction between a deadbeat dad and God).It seems to me that if you came in here, insulting our Father, calling him names and making derogatory remarks, then not insulting you would be charity. Gee, I wonder who taught charity.
If you have taken my original post to be insulting, then I am offering you sincere apologies. That was not my intention at all.
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tonyrey
Guest
Please don’t make them feel unwelcome. It would spoil our fun if they didn’t come!If they wish to surround themselves with us, then they should probably go to church.
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Bohm_Bawerk
Guest
Whenever I make a post, I always think about possible responses. The questions you’ve asked are the exact same one’s I thought beforehand.
St. Thomas Aquinas posits that we can know God through analogy. This was a break away from the traditional apophatic theology that described God “in the negative”. Aquinas postulated two forms of analogy, the one relevant to the thread being “analogy of attribution”. And because analogy of attribution pertains to what both have in common (e.g. the statement “God is good” and “Equities Christi is good”) it is therefore appropriate to ask why believers attach one set of rules to God and another to Humanity, which defies all Thomist philosophy of religious language. In fact, if we really want to delve into this question more deeply, it boils down to the historical “Euthyphro Dilemma”, which is orientated around the simple question of Is whatever action taken by God morally good simply because it is undertaken by God? For instance, if God wiped half of humanity from the face of the Earth tomorrow, can you really say boldly that God’s action was good? You may say “Yes”, but that’s only because you know it is unlikely to happen. But what about the prospect of aborted/miscarried children being sent to Hell because they are unbaptized, and whoever is not baptized (explicitly or implicitly, e.g. by desire) will be sent to Hell. This is the logic underlying Catholic theology. Some theologians have said we should entrust these children to God’s mercy, indicating that God’s actions are not good simply because he is God.
Not only that, but the examples you posted are awry. Humans (i.e. believers) are supposed to live up to God’s standards. That is the purpose of them being here on Earth. For God to not follow the standards he has set for humanity is to not show a good example. You can not be a deadbeat dad and command your followers to be a good parent. Doesn’t Jesus condemn the Pharisees for this precise reason: “So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Matthew 23:3).
In contrast, children are supposed to be children and adults are supposed to be adults. They do not have to pretend to be adults. They do not have to “live up” to be adults. That is where the key distinction lies between why there are different rules for adults and children; humanity and God.
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tonyrey
Guest
Non sequitur! God’s actions are good because God is Love, i.e. Goodness in action…
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
This may sounds a bit silly but I’ve never been able to get a clear answer on what an “answered prayer” is. Last time I engaged in a conversation about this (had to do with the “power of prayer”) I got back what seemed to be a standard response about all prayers are answered with “yes”, “no”, or “wait.”
To that I had responded that if I interpret any event that is in favour of what was being petitioned as a “yes”, anything that terminates the possibility of what was being petitioned as a “no”, and the lingering state of neither occurring as a “wait” then it is impossible for any prayer offered to any deity or non-deity (such as a wishing well, rabits foot, or jug of milk) to ever be unanswered.
Might have to start a thread about it one day.
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danserr
Guest
First off, one poster already pointed out that why one set of rules and one for parents? I don’t think the problem you tried to raise with this really worked, since you claimed that this cant apply here because we are supposed to imitate God. But this seems misguided because aren’t children also supposed to imitate and learn from their parents? That being said, I think most of your examples are badly misguided. You are trying to show that God is inconsistent, by supposedly giving parallel circumstances, but the circumstances you give are pretty poor comparisons.
1). As for lying, your real question is not really about lying, but “why don’t we always get what we pray for when the bible seems to promise we will.” I deny your interpretation of the Bible. So does common sense. Frankly this would turn God into a coke machine, and prayer would simply be a matter of dropping the required change in the machine. I find this idea theologically intolerable. More, the same person who said “what you ask in prayer you will receive” later prayed that the same cup should pass from him. It did not. Of course, in the end He got something better, but it was only after His death of crucifixion at which point it must have seems as if his prayer would never do any good. Also when the gospels were written down later, the writers still included both sections, the part promising prayer would be answered and the part where it was not. Perhaps the evangelist felt that the real meaning and importance of the passage lay elsewhere.
2). Obviously God (whom Jesus also was) had a reason for allowing Jesus to be crucified. Remember Jesus was God. What you call an example of a deadbeat dad, I call miracle. That God would allow himself to feel all the anguish of a normal human who felt abandoned by God. Claiming God is a deadbeat dad is expressly contradicted by the Incarnation and Calvary. Do you know a deadbeat dad who would do that for his children?
3). Drugs and the Garden of Eden: Be serious. God has a moral purpose in doing so that has no parellel to leaving drugs in the reach of children. In Eden, Adam and Eve needed at least one decision for which they obeyed God for no other reason than than love of him. Everything else they wanted they could do. But there would have to be the one thing as an opportunity to show love to God. A parent has no comparable reason for leaving drugs out, so there is no double standard. See the second book of CS Lewis’s space trilogy (perelandra, I think) for more on this.
4). The command for Joshua to fight and similar examples were culturally contingent commands, while the command to turn the other cheek is a more general principle we are to apply in daily life. (And some people think it is more meant to apply to daily relations between individuals than to war between nations). And common sense of course dictates that there be times we don’t apply this in the way you seem to think. If a man tries to to rape my sister, are you seriously suggesting that Jesus intends here that we stand aside and watch it happen? That seems absurd.
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jochoa
Guest
If a believer uses one set of rules for Humanity and another set of rules for God, it is only because s/he does not fully understand God’s Purpose, God’s Being, God’s Method, and/or God’s Love.
Unfortunately, I do not have the wisdom to gracefully share the alignment between God’s Rules and Humanity’s Rules. However, please consider the following.
God’s Purpose
To create and guide Fully Free-Willed Beings to Freely Choose to be Perfectly Patient, Peaceful, Kind, Happy, Motivated, Energetic, Knowledgeable, Wise, towards Others and the Self.
Let’s assume you get to be the Creator…
What kind of plan would you use to achieve this Goal? How could you give people free-will without any possibility of suffering or temptation? Would you give each person what s/he wanted or would you give him/her what they needed? What if two persons ask for conflicting things, how would you give them both what they wanted?
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Jmd96
Guest
I’ll go over your list in a moment, but in general the answer is that we have certain standards as humans because we are human. It seems to me that in many ways God is so vastly different than us (although he does anthropomorphize himself constantly in Scripture to give us an understanding of him, this anthropomorphizing culminating in the Incarnation)
This objection seems similar to the objection to miracles being “miracles break natural laws, that’s impossible”. Yes, it’s impossible for humans to break natural laws, but not for the omnipotent creator who made the rules of the game. In a similar way, objecting that God follows a different set of rules than humans is ludicrous, because God is not a human.
I hope you got something out of this rambling explanation
I think that a big part of Christian prayer is centered around aligning oneself to the will of God. And because God’s will is ultimately done, you find, the door is opened to you, and you receive. It’s not found in the the surrounding verses, but in the context of Christian theology and teaching it’s found, so “it’s all there in the manual” so to speak.
Also, have you considered the possibility that Jesus was simply using hyperbole? Hyperbolic language had a greater emphasis in ancient times, see here:
tektonics.org/gk/hyperbole.html
And this article from the same website explains this passage and others better than I ever could:
tektonics.org/lp/prayfor.html
God is the creator, he exists outside of time and knows all things from eternity. To me it seems only natural that he would have a different set of rules than flawed, created beings.
This may be hard for an atheist to accept, but hopefully it gives you a window in our viewpoint: If, by defintion God is omnicient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, then whatever he does will turn out for the best, we trust in this, we have faith (Not a favourite word for atheists I know
) in this.Our minds are so tiny compared to his, it would be akin to expecting an infant to understand precalculus, the infant’s mind simply can’t comprehend it, compared to an adult. Except imagine that on an even greater scale. It becomes apparent, at least to me, that we can’t expect to completely understand God’s will. And I’m okay with that.
No, this would not be okay for an earthly father. But if my earthly father was omniscient, omnibenevolent and omniscient, and he abandoned me, I think I’d be okay with it, because he knows what’s best. In reality, earthly fathers have limited knowledge, limited powers, and their judgement is influenced by a variety of things. That’s why there are two sets of rules.
Though I believe, in accordance with the CC’s teaching, that Adam and Eve were real people, I believe the eating of the fruit is a metaphor for disobedience.
Recently I’ve been toying with the idea that a lot of Old Testament commands of warfare are there simply as history, not as examples God’s true will. It’s simply a record of what the Israelites believed, that God was commanding them to kill a bunch of people.
But yeah, in short, people are not God, God is not people. We are different, and thus are held to different standards in a myriad of circumstances.
I hope this helps somewhat, God bless!
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tonyrey
Guest
Tell us exactly what you would do if you were God…
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Kathryn_Ann
Guest
**Greetings,:angel1:
:angel1::
I hope this helps somehow, and wish you well in your journey. God is indeed big enough for any questions. Here is what I think:
I’m not sure we do use two different sets of rules. As to the Biblical, Old Testament quotes, The Church does not teach literalism in understanding the scriptures. The Bible was written over many centuries by mortal men inspired by God. Perhaps this example might help:
You’ll recall the “eye for an eye” instruction in the O.T., I’m sure.
It was explained excellently somewhere awhile back in a homily I heard, and began to make sense to me: In the OT days, entire villages would be murdered if one single person were harmed by another. The idea to take “only”*** one eye for an eye." then was actually a step up from such previous brutality, but of course for we of the 21st century, even one eye for one eye is barbaric!* Humans are stubborn and it took ages and ages to get through to us!
So, we grow in our understanding of God. There is a passage about God being a jealous God that Oprah said she could never understand, but I think I have an understanding of this as well:
When I was a child, a friend of mine had a mother who worked two hours or so after I and my friend would normally go to our separate homes after school. Her mother asked if I might go home with her daughter a few times a week. It soon grew to wanting me to come over every afternoon!
I asked permission, and was able to keep her company and do homework with her a few times, but then my own mother said “enough.” She said that she cherished her own time with me, her daughter, and that she was a little jealous! She wanted to be with me to welcome me home, give me cookies and milk, and ask me about my day. Jealousy, in this case, had a parental, loving intent.
Generously, and wisely, my mother asked my friend to come over occasionally to our home directly after school and on a few weekends for day outings. I grew to understand that my mother’s and my father’s thoughts and loving intents were above mine! So it is with how we perceive God.
Jesus said He came to fulfill the law, and He did this with Divine love and mercy. This love is our only rule, the only Testament between us now!
The OT may be full of some confusing ideas, but we grow in our understandings. For centuries, we sacrificed bulls and goats, then we learned that God only wanted us to draw closer to Him, and that He Himself would provide a sacrifice! His Only Begotten Son was sent in Divine love and Mercy.
Lastly, Job had many questions that were answered mysteriously by God. Basically, “Where were you” questions, "when the earth itself was formed, the Leviathan, the waters over the earth?
What does God’s answer mean here? To me, it means that the Creator and the created are in a Divine tension, between Maker and creature, God and man.*** Humility ***is the key to accepting who we are. We are not God. Out of great love, He could have stopped with creating those waters over the earth, the planets and suns! But He didn’t. Somehow, it was worth it to have a creature who questioned, unlike the simpler animals and creatures and plants and trees who would never question His reasoning.
So I believe that we don’t use one set of rules for God and one for ourselves, because we are unable to really do so. At some point, God decided to allow mortal creatures the choice to either follow Him in Faith as His children, even with all our centuries of mistakes and misunderstandings, and to love us anyway. The scarlett thread of redemption, In Christ, was there all along, “Christ slain” (and resurrected) " before the foundation of the world." Before the Fall, God the Father made a Way to reconcile us to Him. He is our hope, and through Him, there is only one rule of law, and that is love!
Kathryn Ann
:angel1::I hope this helps somehow, and wish you well in your journey. God is indeed big enough for any questions. Here is what I think:
I’m not sure we do use two different sets of rules. As to the Biblical, Old Testament quotes, The Church does not teach literalism in understanding the scriptures. The Bible was written over many centuries by mortal men inspired by God. Perhaps this example might help:
You’ll recall the “eye for an eye” instruction in the O.T., I’m sure.
It was explained excellently somewhere awhile back in a homily I heard, and began to make sense to me: In the OT days, entire villages would be murdered if one single person were harmed by another. The idea to take “only”*** one eye for an eye." then was actually a step up from such previous brutality, but of course for we of the 21st century, even one eye for one eye is barbaric!* Humans are stubborn and it took ages and ages to get through to us!
So, we grow in our understanding of God. There is a passage about God being a jealous God that Oprah said she could never understand, but I think I have an understanding of this as well:
When I was a child, a friend of mine had a mother who worked two hours or so after I and my friend would normally go to our separate homes after school. Her mother asked if I might go home with her daughter a few times a week. It soon grew to wanting me to come over every afternoon!
I asked permission, and was able to keep her company and do homework with her a few times, but then my own mother said “enough.” She said that she cherished her own time with me, her daughter, and that she was a little jealous! She wanted to be with me to welcome me home, give me cookies and milk, and ask me about my day. Jealousy, in this case, had a parental, loving intent.
Generously, and wisely, my mother asked my friend to come over occasionally to our home directly after school and on a few weekends for day outings. I grew to understand that my mother’s and my father’s thoughts and loving intents were above mine! So it is with how we perceive God.
Jesus said He came to fulfill the law, and He did this with Divine love and mercy. This love is our only rule, the only Testament between us now!
The OT may be full of some confusing ideas, but we grow in our understandings. For centuries, we sacrificed bulls and goats, then we learned that God only wanted us to draw closer to Him, and that He Himself would provide a sacrifice! His Only Begotten Son was sent in Divine love and Mercy.
Lastly, Job had many questions that were answered mysteriously by God. Basically, “Where were you” questions, "when the earth itself was formed, the Leviathan, the waters over the earth?
What does God’s answer mean here? To me, it means that the Creator and the created are in a Divine tension, between Maker and creature, God and man.*** Humility ***is the key to accepting who we are. We are not God. Out of great love, He could have stopped with creating those waters over the earth, the planets and suns! But He didn’t. Somehow, it was worth it to have a creature who questioned, unlike the simpler animals and creatures and plants and trees who would never question His reasoning.
So I believe that we don’t use one set of rules for God and one for ourselves, because we are unable to really do so. At some point, God decided to allow mortal creatures the choice to either follow Him in Faith as His children, even with all our centuries of mistakes and misunderstandings, and to love us anyway. The scarlett thread of redemption, In Christ, was there all along, “Christ slain” (and resurrected) " before the foundation of the world." Before the Fall, God the Father made a Way to reconcile us to Him. He is our hope, and through Him, there is only one rule of law, and that is love!
Kathryn Ann
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
That’s too big of a question and sounds like something worthy of a thread of its own.
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DCNBILL
Guest
I am breaking your rules but I believe one should first point out a more serious question prior to asking this one.
Why do scientists use one set of rules for the physical chemistry and then another completely different set of rules for quantum mechanics?
Because man is not God.
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Trevor_Stamm
Guest
Hello again, Bohm.
Your objection will be, “not so, if I had more of my prayers answered when I was Catholic it would’ve strengthen my faith and love for God.” On the contrary, Scared Scripture also instructs, “Pray without ceasing”. Remember St. Monica who prayed eighteen years for the conversion of her son, St. Augustine, who then became one of the greatest Saints and Doctors of the Church. I answer that, faith, in it’s truest and fullest sense, is the key. Observe our Blessed Mother, explained in the Catechism:
I ask you, how strong was your faith?
Even fathers will let their children fall sometimes to have them experience the pains of falling and learn how to get back up.
“This state enjoyed by man depended on the submission of the human will to God. That man might be accustomed from the very beginning to follow God’s will, God laid certain precepts on him. Man was permitted to eat of all the trees in Paradise, with one exception: he was forbidden under pain of death to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eating of the fruit of this tree was prohibited, not because it was evil in itself, but that at least in this slight matter man might have some precept to observe for the sole reason that it was so commanded by God. Hence eating of the fruit of this tree was evil because it was forbidden. The tree was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not because it had the power to cause knowledge, but because of the sequel: by eating of it man learned by experience the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience.”
Most likely any reply will not suffice for you, but in any case I hope this somewhat helps.
Prayer requests that are not granted are for our own benefit, in which our immediate knowledge does not yet know why. That is, if I requested to be healed of a disease and not did receive the grace, it was because if I did it would have either have a short or long term effect that would damage my relationship with God.
Your objection will be, “not so, if I had more of my prayers answered when I was Catholic it would’ve strengthen my faith and love for God.” On the contrary, Scared Scripture also instructs, “Pray without ceasing”. Remember St. Monica who prayed eighteen years for the conversion of her son, St. Augustine, who then became one of the greatest Saints and Doctors of the Church. I answer that, faith, in it’s truest and fullest sense, is the key. Observe our Blessed Mother, explained in the Catechism:
Because of her unlimited faith, her intercession at the wedding of Cana was granted, regardless that the Son’s hour has not yet come.
I ask you, how strong was your faith?
Please, explain to the forum that you know for a fact that if it happened another way, or earlier, it would’ve been more beneficial to the plan of salvation.
Even fathers will let their children fall sometimes to have them experience the pains of falling and learn how to get back up.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=127
In Compendium Theologiae, Second Treatise on Faith: Chapter 188
“This state enjoyed by man depended on the submission of the human will to God. That man might be accustomed from the very beginning to follow God’s will, God laid certain precepts on him. Man was permitted to eat of all the trees in Paradise, with one exception: he was forbidden under pain of death to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eating of the fruit of this tree was prohibited, not because it was evil in itself, but that at least in this slight matter man might have some precept to observe for the sole reason that it was so commanded by God. Hence eating of the fruit of this tree was evil because it was forbidden. The tree was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not because it had the power to cause knowledge, but because of the sequel: by eating of it man learned by experience the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience.”
If you have time, here’s Jimmy Akin’s on such things jimmyakin.org/2007/02/hard_sayings_of.html
Most likely any reply will not suffice for you, but in any case I hope this somewhat helps.
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Bohm_Bawerk
Guest
The rest of your post actually answered my question (yes, I know the dual-prophecy behind Jesus’ cry on the cross), but please don’t question how strong my faith was. I know what I was before and what I am today. I know from my own experience, after what I saw with my own naked eyes, the non-existence of God.
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tonyrey
Guest
You have not explained how you have seen the non-existence of God nor are you obliged to do so but in the absence of an explanation your assertion is worthless from a philosophical point of view…
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tonyrey
Guest
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Trevor_Stamm
Guest
Forgive me if I have offended you, it was not intended to be a derogatory question. I only asked to show that prayer is rooted in faith, obedience and self-denial with words spoken, “thy will be done”. The only thing I can say is that which St. Aquinas wrote “Obedience unites us so closely to God that it in a way transforms us into Him, so that we have no other will but His. If obedience is lacking, even prayer cannot be pleasing to God.”
I’m glad I helped in your questions.
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Bezant
Guest
Hello Bohm
It seems you assume Mathew is saying that prayers will be granted unconditionally and exactly as they were requested. There’s nothing in the verse saying “you will receive exactly what you asked for.”
Deadbeat dad: “Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years” (Exodus 12:40).
Israel, God’s people, spent 430 years (although some sources suggest 400) years in captivity. This was willingly allowed by God for no good apparent reason.
Believers will respond by saying suffering is good (a maxim that defies human nature) and that God is right for having left the Israelites in bondage for so long. If an earthly father, on the other hand, left his child and did not see him, he would be regarded as a deadbeat dad.
But that’s a questionable analogy you make between a child and a nation.
A deadbeat father only one who abandons or neglects a minor child–one who is defenseless, ignorant, and incapable of survival.
That’s not how God treated Israel. That he told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved and later freed (Genesis 15:13-14), and that Israel preserved its heritage and customs throughout that time, makes me think perhaps Israel foresaw national enslavement, at least in the early days. I may be right, I may be wrong.
In any case, Israel was not like an abandoned child, defenseless nor incapable of survival. In the last part of Genesis, when Jacob and his sons settle in Egypt, Israel’s doing well overall. Joseph is second in command and Jacob is the head of a big, prosperous family. And tribes made it through four hundred years of oppression – and were able to undo the effects of psychological slavery in only forty years by conquering lands from more powerful nations.
Bohm_Bawerk:
What I don’t understand (I am still reading through the thread, bear with) is why there should be any limits at all on God, or rather, why God should obey the rules he gave to us?
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