Question with 28 notes
nataliesteiner asked: Okay, well first off-God is unchanging. He exists out of time, He's present to everything at every time. God's also not trumpet my free will, you didn't take what I said to heart-He wouldn't take control of someone's life, we need to LET Him. It's as simple as respect. Yes, He COULD do all that, but that's not how love works. Love is freely given and received, otherwise it's not love! Prayer on the other hand is us giving up our free will, acknowledging that we can't do it alone, letting Him.
“God is unchanging” is a view that is held by many Christians, reenforced by the bible, but can not really be true if other aspects of the Christian god are correct. For one, if god is unchanging he could not change his mind, but he clearly does in Exodus 32:14 “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.” He was able to change his mind, and therefor must be capable of changing.
The second reason presents Christians with a paradox. If god is unchanging that means his will and his plan are unchanging which would mean prayer is useless. If god can not change, prayers will not sway or move him in any way and the entire act is fruitless. So either “god” must be able to change, or prayer is a complete waste of time. If god is unable to make any change then the world is static and the need to refer to him as a personal god is somewhat invalidated, he is no longer personal because he is unable to change or interact with anything that has not already been preordained. Free will and predestination are paradoxes.
Really though that’s not how love works? So the way it works is if I don’t love him I deserve an eternity of agony and suffering, is that how love works? The god figure as described by the bible is not a loving being, a loving being would interject to prevent people from suffering for all of eternity. That would be the moral thing to do, that would easily prevent all of this pain and suffering. It would be a complete moral abomination, to watch countless billions head to an eternity of torture that he would have the power to prevent with one action. If that is your concept of love, I feel sad that that is how you view it.