The Old Testament and Evil...

[caddmannq]

Another thread brought up this subject, and I thought that it deserved a place of it's own. First off, I am no biblical scholar, don't pretend to be, and don't aspire to be. This was just what I was taught by someone who was, many years ago.

The interesting question was basically: "Why did God tell Moses to kill a man who had done something seemingly minor?" from which follows: "Why was God so harsh to people in the old testament?" from which follows: "Is God evil? Did he change?" and "Why is 'law' in the New Testament different from the Old Testament laws?"

My understanding of the answers to these questions revolves around this central point: "Be careful of what you ask for. You might get it."

So my "disertation":

From ancient times (since the fall from Eden), man had the capacity for both good and evil. He also had the God-given capacity to judge between them. Man asked for that from God, and god gave it. This came from Adam's desire to be able to judge good from evil for himself; that is, to be a man with real brains, and not just an animal with instincts to follow blindly. But with that knowledge (those "brains") came a responsibility to be good and to do good. For men to be like God, they had to know good from evil, and choose good over evil, from their own free will.

Unfortunately many men could not bring themselves to choose good over evil when it involved self-sacrifice. They would pervert the truth to make things seem good when they were good for themselves, even though evil came to others. They did not want to hold the responsibility for judging good from evil, if it meant that they had to take suffering upon themselves. They devised twisted logic to weasel away from the truth, and they lied to themselves and others to justify their actions. They did not want the responsibility to judge for themselves when that judgement must be against themselves.

So they gave up ruling their own lives in common sense ways, and asked God to give them hard and fast guidelines that they could follow; knowing full well that there would always be loopholes to exploit when the rules did not suit them. The asked God for documented laws to define their responsibilities when their hearts could not be brought to do so in goodness and common sense. They asked God for judges to interperet those laws when they could not agree in goodness on their meaning, and argued over the specifications and ramifications that might mean their own sacrifice or punishment. They asked God for Kings to rule them and enforce the laws when they could not bring enough goodness from their own hearts to follow them voluntarily.

All these things God gave them. All these burdens that man asked for because he would not sacrifice for the good of others and the love of God alone. And under all these burdens man suffered (and suffers today) because he would not sacriice for the sake of what was good, and allowed himself to do evil.

As man weaseled around the laws for his own selfish purposes, the laws were multiplied to encompass every miniscule situation of life, and the burden increased. As men learned to evade the decrees of the judges and kings, harsher and more exacting punishments were inflicted upon them to force their compliance when they would not voluntarily submit themselves to the institutions that they had asked upon themselves.

And as God continually gave man what he asked for out of mans selfishness and evil behaviour, the plight of men increased into wars and conflicts and evil actions and evil sufferings of every nature; and all because man would not use the brains that he had asked, and been granted, from God. The harshness of the Old Testament was one men brought upon themselves by ignoring the common sense requirements to love each other and to love God.

But some men still tried hard to be good, and they hated evil and suffering brought upon one man by another, and they asked God to fix the situation somehow. God knew that only man could dig himself out of the hole he'd dug himself into, from his own will and sacrifice, and that any magical fixes God might apply would be quickly disregarded, leaving man just where he was then.

But he saw that some men were willing to sacrifice themselves, and in this there was a solution. That solution was the law of the New Testament: the law of Jesus. It wasn't the law of making decisions based on the myriads of laws man had devised, but the law based on the common sense that God first gave Adam when Adam asked for it. It was the law of making decisions out of love for each other and love of God. It was a law of willful love and compassion and sacrifice, where the old law was a law of forced punishment and submission and death.

Jesus was the symbol and the method and the messenger and the teacher and the example of how that turning point in man's history could come about. God gave us a sacrifice, to teach us how and why to sacrifice in our own life. He gave it out of love, to teach us to love again. He gave it out of hope, to teach us how to hope again.

So that, my friends, is my best understanding of what has happened, and what must happen, and why there was a big change in religious philosophy of the Testaments at the time of Christ.

[Theophylact]

God Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder

[EndobioticChaos]

I'd say you did a pretty fair job of explaining it! Thanks Cadd.

[necromancer]

LMAO good link

[Juztyn]

They have pills to fix that, we should hook God up.....

[caddmannq]

Oh, Theo......

I'm so sorry you posted that. I was trying to be serious for a change & you crapped on it. Well, I guess we get what we deserve.

[osprey4]

Cadd:

You're on track but you've fallen a bit short of the mark. God didn't (and doesn't) change, but the way he chooses to deal with us does. Death is the result of all sin, but death is not always administered the same way. In the OT, God made his point by administering death immediately, in a physical sense. In the NT, we are made to understand death is not just physical but eternal as well (eternal separation from God). What Jesus Christ did was allow for those who accept him to be forgiven the second death. What he left us was an example, yes, but also his death and resurrection provides a substitutionary payment for the death we deserved because of our sin.

I realize many will not understand or agree with me on this, but this is my understanding of what the Bible teaches.

[Knothead]

Wow, Cadd! That was quite the dissertation!

I think that's one (very good) way of looking at it. This is one of those things that I've thought about, too, i.e. the seeming difference in God's "personality" in both books. Truth be told, I don't really pay much attention to the O.T., maybe unconsciously for that reason.

But there is also another possibility that I suggest...and that is that many of us are evolving, and just like a child growing up, the parent must deal with that person as it matures, and becomes more and more complex.

And I like to think that's what we, the human race, are doing. We're growing up. (Not an accident that God is referred to as "The Almighty Father" )

Also interesting was the point you made about man's ability to rationalize absolutely anything!! My ex-wife, for example, did some of the most heinous and unspeakable things, and to this very day, is convinced that every one of those acts was absolutely justified.

Maybe this (human) facility of rationalization is the actual trigger mechanism of actual EVIL? Sounds like what you're suggesting.

Very thought-provoking, Cadd!

[caddmannq]

Originally posted by JnMHayes
Cadd: You're on track but you've fallen a bit short of the mark. God didn't (and doesn't) change...

I wasn't aware that I'd stated that He did.

...Jesus... death and resurrection provides a substitutionary payment for the death we deserved because of our sin.

Yes, I mentioned that as the sacrifice that God made when I said: "God gave us a sacrifice, to teach us how and why to sacrifice..." I don't think this sacrifice "pays our bill" per se. It just gives us the most concrete example of what we must do.

Anyhow, thanks. I didn't mean really to start a religious debate (though I knew I probably would ) but as I said, I'm no biblical scholar.

And IMHO, no one needs to be. Everything we need to know about right and wrong is already inside of us. What we need to know is that goodness is God's own reward; and we need to practice it for that reason.

[caddmannq]

Thanks, Knothead. That's exactly my point, where I said that we "weasel" out of things.