Gavin Rumney (author of the Otagosh blog) recently resurrected an old quote from Garner Ted Armstrong where he is talking about how vile humanity is in God's sight. This view of mankind is not a new one as the following quote from one of the most prominent leaders of American Christianity during the colonial period vividly demonstrates:
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell." --Jonathan Edwards from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html
Is such a view consistent with the following scriptures? You decide:
"Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us...So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." -- Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT)
"Then God looked over all he had made (including mankind), and he saw that it was very good!" -- Genesis 1:31 (NLT)
"When I look up at the night sky and see the work of your fingers...what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made..." -- Psalm 8:3-6 (NLT)
"You (God) made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous - how well I know it." -- Psalm 139:13-14 (NLT)
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him." -- John 3:16-17 (NLT)
"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." -- Romans 5:8 (NLT)
"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love." -- Romans 8:38 (NLT)
In the second epistle of Peter, we are informed that God doesn't want anyone to be destroyed - that he wants everyone to repent of their sins. (II Peter 3:9)
"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love - not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." -- I John 4:9-10
I think that these verses contradict the views expressed by Jonathan Edwards and Garner Ted Armstrong. What do you think?
The 3 big Yahwistic religions have been struggling, faltering (philosophically) since the Enlightenment:
ReplyDeleteI have an alternative theory for the origin of life on earth that better fits the facts:
What if life on earth is a "High School science project" of an individual from an advanced extradimensional race? The project may be being watched or may be abandoned (why some theologians say "God is Dead").
Our "creator" may have made certain predictions to be tested: like "when it (evolution) produces toolmakers, how long will it take them to achieve non-violent civilization? (half a million years going by history). And will they use flakey religions along the way (yes) from Zoroastrianism to Mormonism.