I pointed out in a previous post that it would good if you read the post, and then responded, as opposed to just responding on the fly without seeing what's coming first. You often do this in the middle of a sentence even.

You said this is indeed what you do, that you read the whole post first. If this is the case, I can't imagine why you would write the sorts of things you do. Like here you are write, "Great. My question was “where exactly”?? I.e., page and paragraph #." when I did this very thing just afterwards.

Surely if you had read the post, you would have seen that I cited the reference, and there would have been no need for this comment.

These sorts of comments are all over the place, and make the task of dialog much more difficult than it need be.

I've made a note of a number of issues that I'll ask you about, and hopefully you'll be interested in pursuing further. I can't possibly go through all of this, and it doesn't appear to me that there are really that many issues that we're discussing, but that there's a lot of repetition.

If there's any particular thing you'd like to discuss, I'd invite you to make reference to that.

NJK, you appear to have a viewpoint that has God responsible for all that happens. I may be reading you wrong, however, so I'd like to have you elaborate.

Here's a specific case to examine:



How do you understand this verse, particularly in reference to the Lord creating evil?

Following along this same path, you wrote:



Here you are saying that God wanted Saul dead, and that God did something, not specified, to cause Saul to take his own life. I don't see how this harmonizes with the thought that God is not willing that any should perish and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. It seems much more in harmony with Scripture that God did NOT want Saul to die, but rather wanted him to repent. And certainly God would not act to bring about someone's suicide. How does that harmonize with Christ's character?

Be that as it may, I'm wondering if this viewpoint extends to all incidents in general. For example, when a natural disaster occurs, such as the earthquake in Haiti, to mention one at random, do you see this as being God's will? In a similar way that the suicide of Saul was God's will? Do you see that God wanted that earthquake to occur, and that God took action to see that it would happen that very day, because He wanted it done? Do you see that things can happen which are contrary to God's will?

First of all, I can't think of anything that has been debunked. The context here has to do with God's being presented in inspiration as doing that which He permits. You admit that there is inspired language depicting God as doing both of these things, and only differ with me, as far as I can tell, in terms of intent. That is, both you and I agree that inspiration says regarding the same event that God is send to have permitted the act, and to have caused the act. The difference between our views is that you view God's intent to be that the act occur, even when the "permit" language is used.

But my claim was simply that inspiration often presents God as doing that which He permits, which you are agreeing to, so that's hardly "debunking" the claim.



This whole thing here is totally unresponsive. What I said was this:



So what's being pointed out is the importance of being able to represent my view in a way I can agree to. You're not addressing this point.

I've asked you to present a summary of my view that I would agree to, and so far, you haven't done so.

Please do so.

You write, "God Himself acted to effectuate this permitting." Of course God Himself acted to effectuate this permitting, since God was the one doing the permitting! How does this assertion help "debunk" the point that God is presented in Scripture as doing that which He permitted?

Considering the EGW statement, we see the following:

"Shielded by divine power, they had not realized the countless dangers by which they were surrounded."

Now if God had to act to cause the serpents to attack the Israelites, then it wouldn't be the case that they were really in any danger, and it wouldn't be the case that God was protecting the Israelites against danger. The only way that God's removing His protecting hand could bring to the Israelites' attention the protecting care of God would be if God were actually protecting them.

If God caused the serpents to act against the Israelites, then He wouldn't be removing His protecting hand, but using the serpents as an agent by which to accomplish an event which would not have occurred unless God took that course of action.

There are two different things being considered here:

1.God's removing His protecting hand from the countless dangers surrounding the Israelites, including the venomous serpents.

2.God causing the serpents to act in a certain way, which they otherwise would not have acted, to accomplish a purpose.

These two things aren't in harmony. If the serpents would not have attacked the Israelites had God not caused them to do so, then the Israelites were not understand any danger by the serpents, but only by God. God would have been simply removing His protecting hand against Himself in this case, as the serpents would merely be an agency of the danger that God Himself presented to the Israelites.

NJK, regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, I want to see if I have your view correct.

You believe there were two phases to the destruction of Jerusalem, a "mercy" stage, and a "no mercy" stage. In the "mercy" stage, God Himself was causing the destruction. In this stage, God limited the destruction involved. In the "no mercy" stage, God was not causing the destruction, but permitted it to occur.

So the difference of the "mercy" stage and the "no mercy" stage is two-fold:

1.God Himself was causing the destruction in the former.
2.The former was less destructive than the latter.

In the "no mercy" stage, Satan sought to mask what he was doing, to make God appear to be the "bad guy." In the mercy stage, Satan did not so work, since God really was the "bad guy."

Just to be clear here, you're saying that the "evil angels" of Psalm 78 were actually "holy angels," correct? (i.e., God's own angels).

Let's consider this much of the quote. Here we see the following points made:

1.Obedience means blessings; disobedience means the curse of God.
2.The curse of God is explained as follows:
a.Satan is the destroyer.
b.God permits the destroyer to accomplish his destroying work.
3.We see calamities of all sorts occurring. Why? Because the destroyer's work is not restrained.

Your comments:



The EGW quote says:



From this we see that Satan is destroying (active work on Satan's part), while God is restraining (actively preventing destruction). Yet you see this as indirect/passive work on the part of Satan. How so? What in the language used ("All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his destroying work." "Satan is the destroyer.") indicates passivity on the part of Satan?




The point is the natural disasters referred to in the EGW quote were active acts of Satan.



What in the EGW quote gives this idea?



What "things" are you talking about here? (i.e., in relation to Katrina).



Your view of Katrina is that this was a natural disaster, not caused by Satan, and God permitted it to occur to "at least tangibly build up/confirm the faith and awareness of the righteous."? Or is "these things" referring to something Satan is doing?

Do you view that Katrina occurring was God's will? (i.e., something that God desired happen, as opposed to something that He merely permitted).

Just repsonding to your arguments as they come. Indeed that is all because I have to answer the same arguments that you keep remaking such as your pervasive ‘God permits’ one. I aim to address all your objections head on and if you had actually fully taken into consideration what I had said, I would need to spin my tires and repeat myself but rather build upon those already made points. The discussion so far with you is e.g., ‘we reach level 4 and then all of a sudden as you cannot make additional countering arguments, you return back to level 1’. It is that reoccurrence that is causing me to have to repeat myself.



Really I don’t have a creedal set of principles. Indeed this can only be done from SOP statements. I let the text itself and pertinent wider exegesis guide me to what the understanding should be knowingly trusting that God and His Spirit does not and will not contradict itself. Still if you want my pointed response to your listing of “principles” look back in earlier posts. (I had already referenced them twice for you.)



Chiefly in this discussion, I believe that, if necessary, God directly does actions of judgement through whatever method the texts says occurs. Only when there is a situation of no mercy, even intermediarily, God then allows Satan to do this judgement, one which Satan actually wants to do out of personal incentive. I let you explain for yourself what you think in regards to this.

I am $1,000,000 richer because I bet with myself that you would make this spurious claim. Didn’t you see my further comments which explained why I wanted a specific page and paragraph #. You “It is Finished” referencing is way to broad especially, as I said, I do not see your specific claim “throughout” the chapter. Hence this request to specify exactly where you had seen this.



Still don’t be surprise if I just make simple redirecting comments for statements that I had already responded to. I can’t be endlessly restating myself and reduplicate my efforts for your convenience.

I already explained my view here earlier in this thread. See that response.



Simply said Saul had passed the point of no return. His delving in necromancy was probably the nail in the coffin as legislated by law. So since Saul survived the next days fighting, God took it into his own hands execute that capital punishment sentence. And who says God took pleasure in doing this. I certainly grieved Him, however, for the good of Israel it was something that had to be done and God indeed waited until there was such a Capital sin to thus justly do this. All the while mercy was being extended to Saul. However the committance of this inexcusable and moreover, God/Israel-shaming, Capital Sin could not be left unpunished. That all what proper exegesis reveals, i.e., letting the Scriptures speak for themselves, which includes the fact that “God, through an agency, caused Saul to die.” And doing this through suicide, indeed probably being suggested as the best option to Saul was the least further shaming way that this could be done, as Saul himself understood, though he was probably personally seeing it as an act of honor.



Since I do not know the GC/Behind the Scene details with the Haiti earthquake I do not know if God simply allow it or He e.g., sent an angel to move that fault line for some deemed deserved judgement. However in the Bible, as well as in the SOP we do see those behind the scenes details and thus know how directly/deliberately involve God was or not. So again, in regards to the Bible, I can only make such comments as the Bible/SOP exegetical supply those unseen developments. That is indeed why I don’t aim to have a set of ‘creedal principles’ that dictate how I should be interpreting a passage (such as you not given exegesis its due indicative weight). Exegesis requires that the text itself speak for itself.