I don’t know how familiar you are with the stance of those who oppose the idea of the YHVH God. I am not going to presume.
My case is this: if there is no God on the scale of YHVH as stated in the Torah: One who is Creator, Almighty, and Everlasting…then the atheists have it right.
No smaller idea of god/God is useful or logical. It simply becomes a construct of the mind of man. It is only a temporary crutch which should be thrown aside at some point.
But if there is such a God as The LORD GOD, then it is very possible that He not only exists, but that we may know Him. And knowing Him, we may have a better idea of life and purpose for ourselves and our world.
Either there is a God or there is not.
And the academic discussions of everything else are only useful as entertainment in its best form; and in its worst form, a means of manipulation of others.
This is the situation.
remarks to a Liberal Jewish person:
” G-d did not really destroy a place called Sodom and he never destroyed the world with a flood. He told us that he did these things in order to teach us something.”
You are saying God is a liar. That is what this amounts to once you pull off your intellectual window dressing.
” As long as we learn this and the other lessons of the Torah then He doesn’t care whether we believe in Him or not. On the other hand if we read it and don’t learn the lessons then believing in Him will do nothing for us.”
If you don’t believe in the God Who gives the Torah, then you will not care about or believe in what the Torah says.
The Torah becomes meaningless separated from faith in God. That is why the first commandment.
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This would be my answer to all who hold liberal reconstructionist ideas on the Word of God. Let’s call it what it is: calling God a liar …. and then look to what this means for them: that they know nothing of God and cannot. It doesn’t matter, to that person, whether there is a God or not.
If scriptures cannot be trusted to give instruction of who God is and what He is like…. then what? What else is capable of standing the test of of time and culture? One would be left groping as a blind man. And that is what happens to many their whole lives through.
If there weren’t light the darkness would not hold such horror. And it is a horror to not have the life that light gives… everything would wither and die.
There are just not many answers to the big questions of Truth, Existance, and Meaning. Apathy is not an answer. It is giving up. It is the worst form of death, a slow withering death.
But we are left with this: we cannot prove God to anyone. We cannot prove that answer, because we are not given that. What we are given is faith, and faith will prove -against all odds- the truth in reality. We cannot prove that God’s Word is true in the past… we may only prove that it is true in the present and that requires faith for seeing it to the outcome on the continuum. I believe this is one reason He is described as the Living God.
There are no other choices. God is True or He is not.
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Maybe you read these things I have posted and feel you could have answered better, maybe you feel my logic is faulty or my points obtuse, but I say to you “Where are you?” I have found few in the forums who are willing to come forward for Christ. Without withdrawing into their folds of comfortable allies, or giving into intimidation tactics of browbeating.
I hear lots of critical comments about those horrible fundamentalists who give Christianity such a bad name…. but where are the compassionate yet stalwart Men and Women of God who are willing to take the affronts for Christ?
There are things we cannot change about the gospel: God requires repentence from sin. That is not very fashionable, it is not very well taken. It is true. There is sin. There is place for repentence, there is a God, there is heaven and there is hell.
And along the road to those statements and that belief there is much much discussion to be had.
It is time.
Time to get uncomfortable again, and brave, and patient in the gospel. It is time to gather the great gain of contentment in godliness and take on the armor of faith for the purpose of doing something with it. In this generation. In the present time.
do better than me… I challenge you… no, I beg you.