Way of the Master on God's Will

Ever since I got this amazing little service known as Sirius Satellite Radio for my two hour daily commute, I picked up listening to Way of the Master Radio on Sirius Familynet (aka Southern Baptist Radio). For those who don't know, that's Kirk Cameron's (aka Mike Seaver of "Growing Pains" fame) radio program. As long as I've listened to it, I have never actually heard Kirk (wasn't his best friend on the show named Boner???), but instead I hear the equally entertaining (though far less dreamy) Ray Comfort and Todd Friel.

In any case, I have actually gained a real appreciation for the show. As a street theologian, I have never really appreciated that Protestants have seriousness and depth to their theology. However I do find some of their underlying assumptions to be faulty. They have a traditional outlook on Scripture without an understanding of what tradition is or where it came from. I can write about this later.

I found this thought interesting the other day, though (Perhaps I missed something): We do our best to interpret God's will and do it, but if something else happens, THAT was really God's will.

Part of me can accept this. What I have trouble understanding is whether he would say then if Adam's sin was God's will. I can believe that God knew, but that does not therefore make sin God's will. If the long term redemption is God's will, and God stands outside time while transcending through it, then bad things must invariably happen.

Basically, bad things happen because the world is fallen and awaiting a final consummation of the Kingdom. But, can I attribute evil to God? Since I can not, I am lead to believe that God tolerates evil because He allows people the free will to choose between good and evil, so that they may therefore be actually good. More to come.

-Steve K.

Right and Wrong

Today's passing thought...

If there is a distinction between good and evil, how do we know it? How are we able to tell the difference?

Well, morality has been inherited over time. But to strictly say that all of what we know is simply a product of some sort of moral evolution process seems to me at least to relativize and trivialize that there are indeed clear distinctions between good and evil.

Nor will I say that we have our morality simply by inheritance of edicts from the past (i.e. the Ten Commandments). I imagine that both killing and stealing were unpleasant before Moses came down from the mountain.

What I suspect is that our internal knowledge of good and evil come from an archetype, an imprinting in all human beings of the true standard by which we are intended to live. We may not necessarily live up to this standard, but it remains the same and unchanging.

For the Christian, God has created Man in his own image, the internal standard in all humanity by which we are able to discern the good from the bad. The standard is actually embodied in the person of Christ, who is not simply the archetype, but the prototype human being.

If there is no concrete standard of right and wrong, good and evil, than I don't see how one does not end up reasoning himself away into a relativism (well you may want that). However, since even atheists believe in at least some moral universals, there simply must be a foundation upon which these rest.

-Steve K.

Appraising Liberation Theologies- Rev. R.D. Andrews

"The problem is that Liberation Theology, Black Theology, Feminist Theology or any other similar theology have tended to supplant the theology of God revealed in the Law and Prophets of Israel, in the person of Jesus Christ, and continuously revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Saints in the Church. These theologies become heresies when they take part of the truth and try to make it the whole truth. It is like taking a theatrical spotlight and placing a red lens over it and then saying that whole world is red.
...
As Greek Orthodox Christians, we know well the history of oppression and suffering under the Turkocratia, the Ottoman Muslim persecution that lasted nearly 500 years. We know that the freedom fighters of the Greek Revolution in the early 1800s were mostly Orthodox Christians. While the bishops and priests certainly prayed for the freedom fighters, one does not find writings emanating from the Church encouraging armed revolution and slaughter of the Turks. The same pattern is found under Roman occupation/persecution of the first three centuries and under the Communist Regime in Russia during the 20th century. Even St. Paul’s epistles encourage patient endurance and faithfulness to God, not armed resistance, under persecution. If Greek Orthodox took the same approach as the most radical Liberation and Black theologians we would see everything through the lens of Ottoman oppression. This might motivate us to say things like “God is only the God of the Greeks!” or “Every Turk is evil!” "
- Rev. Richard Demetrius Andrews, Orthodoxy Today (full article)

God Didn't Create Hell...-Bishop Hilarion

Any person bears moral responsibility for his actions. And he will answer for the sins of his earthly life in the eternity. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that sinners in the hell are not deprived of God’s love. On the contrary, love is given equally to everyone: to the righteous in the Heavenly Kingdom and to the sinners in Gehenna. But for the righteous it becomes the source of joy and bliss while for sinners it is the source of torture.

Thus, God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves. God doesn’t send sinners to the hell, but people who oppose God’s will and revolt against God choose the hell themselves. And this choice is made in their earthly life rather than in some distant eschatological prospect. It is right here on Earth that infernal tortures and “the Kingdom of God come with power” begin.

full article