Tom, the following questions are relevant to me, which is why I am asking them:

1. Do you think God was being cruel when He drowned alive millions of men, women, and children in the Flood?

2. And, do you think God was being cruel when He burned alive hundreds of men, women, and children in the fires of Sodom?


Whatever. I've clearly addressed this question and you refuse to believe me. What more can I say to dissuade you from believing a lie?


Your comments here lead me to ask the two questions posted above (the ones you have yet to answer). Do you consider it cruel because God employed water and fire to drown and burn people alive?

Also, you seem willing to attribute to Satan the judgments of God. How is this different than what was done in the following account:

Korah would not have taken the course he did had he known that all the directions and reproofs communicated to Israel were from God. But he might have known this. God had given overwhelming evidence that He was leading Israel. But Korah and his companions rejected light until they became so blinded that the most striking manifestations of His power were not sufficient to convince them; they attributed them all to human or satanic agency. The same thing was done by the people, who the day after the destruction of Korah and his company came to Moses and Aaron, saying, "Ye have killed the people of the Lord." Notwithstanding they had had the most convincing evidence of God's displeasure at their course, in the destruction of the men who had deceived them, they dared to attribute His judgments to Satan, declaring that through the power of the evil one, Moses and Aaron had caused the death of good and holy men. It was this act that sealed their doom. {PP 404.4}

The Bible describes the punishment of the 250 men who sympathized with Korah and found fault with God: "And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense." Numbers 16:35.

Yes. The same is true of Sodom. In fact, the Bible states it quite nicely, as usual:

Matthew
24:37 But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Luke
17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed [them] all.
17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

2 Peter
2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth [person], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
2:6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned [them] with an overthrow, making [them] an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

Jude
1:5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.


God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The purpose of punishment is to satisfy the just and loving demands of law and justice. It serves as a deterrent against evil. If sin kills sinners then the record would reflect God ceasing to keep them alive supernaturally and allowing sin to run its course. However, the Bible describes God as the One who will punish and destroy sinners in the lake of fire - not sin. Such punishment is neither cruel nor torture. It is justice.

I agree with kland's points. Indeed, his example of the dictator is right on point. Do what I say, and I will greatly reward you. But cross me on one small point, and you'll be sorry; you'll suffer my wrath. This is exactly the picture that Satan presents of God, and this is Satan's own character.

But God is not like this. The rewards God promises and the punishments He describes are not things which He arbitrarily gives to those who please Him or smites those who displease Him, but are the natural outworkings of the principles of His government vs. the government of Satan, which is to say self-sacrificing love vs. selfishness. The one leads to happiness and life; the other to misery and death. God doesn't cause these things to happens, but tells us of these things things so we can make responsible decisions.

Regarding the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, as I explained previously, if you are going to ask questions out of the blue which do not have to do with what we are discussing, it behooves you to explain how these things are relevant. Regarding God's being cruel, I will say that I don't believe is ever cruel, nor ever has been, nor can be; this is not in His character. God is not cruel. He is like Jesus Christ. When we've seen Him, we've seen the Father. Did Jesus ever do anything cruel?

No. Not even when He drove out the moneychangers, which was arbitrary, to use your definition. That is, driving them out was not the natural outworking of their sin. It was something Jesus arbitrarily imposed upon them.

There is something else Jesus never did while here - He never withdrew His protection and allowed evil angels to destroy sinners. Does mean God has never done it before?

Your comments here lead me to ask the two questions posted above (the ones you have yet to answer). My questions are pertinent and relevant to your comments about cruelty. Do you consider it cruel because God employed water and fire to drown and burn people alive?

Also, you seem willing to attribute the judgments of God to Satan. How is this different than what was said and done in the following account. You seem to be saying the same thing.


The Bible describes the punishment of the 250 men who sympathized with Korah and found fault with God: "And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense." Numbers 16:35. Was God being cruel? Did He torture them alive?

No, it wasn't. Only those with a guilty conscience left. Many didn't leave. This is actually a perfect illustration of the point I've been making. Jesus did not arbitrarily do something to force them out, but what happened was that "divinity flashed through humanity," and some were driven out by that.



This is the same principle.



There's quite a number of illustrations of this. The best is probably Jerusalem:





As I've explained, if you are going to bring up questions out of the blue which seem to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, you should provide some motivations for these questions. Simply asserting that they are relevant is not an to the question as to why they are relevant. Why are they relevant?

Also, didn't I answer your questions? I said God has never been cruel.



This reminds me of a bad marriage. When having a discussion about some issue, rather than dealing with the issue, the spouse brings up something from years ago. Please, let's stay on topic!

this sounds like moses and aaron were accused of calling on satan to execute korah and company.

Cruel, no. Just, yes. Decisive, yes. Righteously indignant, yes. Judge, yes. Lawgiver, yes. Executioner, yes.

A law without a consequence would be worthless.

A law, whose penalty were executed by its enemy, would be worthless.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Sin is what causes people to die, not God. God warns us of the terrible effects of sin, of which death is the inevitable result.

That the law has consequences is made clear by the fact that sin causes death, since sin is the transgression of the law. If sin did not cause death, then transgression of the law would *not* have consequences, unless God arbitrarily did something to those who broke it.

Is sin innocuous? If so, then yes, God would have to impose consequences upon those who break the law. If no, then God doesn't need to arbitrarily add something on top of what sin already does to those who refuse to be healed of it.



The death of the wicked is not due to an arbitrary act of God, but is rather the result of their own choice. At first, the angels did not understand this, so God could not "leave" Satan to "perish," which is "the inevitable result of sin," because had God done so, this action would have been understood as Him doing the very thing that Satan accused Him of.

kland had a nice quote which touched on this idea, about the dictator.

Regardless of this point, burning people alive, while supernaturally keeping them alive to prolong their suffering, would be unspeakably cruel.

Tom,

Having people punish themselves makes about as much sense as the Buddhist belief that people will just "automagically" go to a higher or lower level of life in their next incarnation. Buddhists do not believe in God. They have no substitute for God, unless one considers oneself as the substitute.

If you ask a Buddhist where bad people go, they know that bad people go to a lower level in their next life. If you ask where the good people go, of course it's to a higher level. If you ask the Buddhist if he believes he is good, he will say yes. If you ask him if all people believe they are good, they will agree that this is probably true. But they know that not all people are good. The next question you might ask is unanswerable: they cannot answer this. "Who, then, decides whether you advance or descend in your next life?"

Buddhism has no Judge. Christianity has a Judge.

A judge without power to give sentence would be no judge.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.