Sharry has some great questions to try and tackle. If you guys get the chance, take a stab at some answers (don’t worry, you don’t have to back everything up with scripture).
1. why do bad things happen if God existed?
I know it’s something about God’s grace and love He gives each of us choices. And He planned everything before we were born and through these bad events, we see that we need God and that He exists. but evan was telling me that God does not ever have bad intentions or plans planned, so i don’t understand how God could already plan everything out but not plan the bad things and yet they happen…it really doesn’t connect for me.
2. what is UP with the trinity?!?!
i don’t think Jesus EVER said he was God or him and God and holy spirit were one, so where did the trinity idea come from?! is it just the writers of the Bible making it up? if they were then we’d be believing the wrong thing!
April 27, 2009 at 6:42 am |
For the first question, Bad things happen because God lets them happen. God used every detail, good or bad, for good. God uses the hardships to mold us and help us grow. Bad things happen because we are not perfect. Even though were not perfect and we sin, God still loves is and lets is live. If God got rid of all things that weren’t perfect, we’d all not be here. Kris also pointed out that we might not have the right view of whats good and what’s bad.
for the second question, your right, the bible doesn’t say anything about the trinity. but jJohn 1:1-4. says that the word was with god and the word was god and the word came down and became flesh. jesus is the word and is God. but that still says nothing about the father, the son and the holy spirit being one God. well maybe somewhere else it does but I can’t think of it right now… im on my phone right now so I hope that everything is spelled right.
-Phil
April 27, 2009 at 7:21 am |
1. Sometimes even I ponder about this. But God lets bad thing happen I guess not because he wants to see us suffer but to test us; to see even if in personally troubling times we look up to him or hope for the best. Think of Job, to help you get my idea.
2. The idea of the holy trinity I believe was made by humans. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all mentioned in the Bible but it did not talk about the three as a trinity as Phil said. Whoever thought of the trinity somehow saw that the three were related, the same, interconnected, etc.
Best of wishes,
Brian
April 27, 2009 at 2:20 pm |
1. I think bad things happen because we are sinful people. But i think whats more important is that realizing that when we go through struggles or hardships its for our good. in hebrews 12:1-13 it talks about this. but umm from verses 10-11 it states “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness an dpeace for those who have been trained by it.”
2. yes the word trinity is never stated in the Bible. But the concept is certainly there, i do not think it is something made up by humans but something God intended for us to know and come to realize from reading His Word. in Genesis 1:26 the word “we” is used why would it be used if it was just refering to one person? then again in Genesis 3:22 the word “us” is used. in matthew 28:19 (the great commission) it states the “the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” why is this used if the three were separate? and this doesnt just happen once in the Bible, theres more verses that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being one.
okay umm i dont know if this helped but hopefully it did
April 27, 2009 at 10:33 pm |
1. yeah i pretty much agree with what everyone else has said. God gives us these moments for us to learn from and to make us more dynamic. Because how can you really enjoy goodness and peace if you’ve never felt pain or sorrow, how can you know and feel loved is if you’ve never been unwanted. If you want to think of it in more scientific terms think of Newton’s third law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For all the pain and sorrow you’ve suffered you’ll know you’ll experience that much love and mercy. God gives us these moments so that we can delight in him and praise him for the loving Father he is.
And it is just that, God is our Father, he lets us fall down and scrap our knees so we’ll learn and help others who’ve also fallen like us. For me i actually feel blessed for all the bad times in my life b/c He’s opened a door for me to reach out to others who’ve also gone through experiences like i have and that b/c i’ve shared those hard times they’ll open up to and i can show them the healing and peace i’ve found in God.
2. Sorry i know i’m long-winded so i’ll keep this short. Something that leaders have told me is that “there’s a little bit of truth in everything even though it may not be all true.” God has allowed us to think this for a long time and although people coined the term the ‘trinity’ essentially it points out something important about God. If it were obviously false then God would have done something about it, but He hasn’t. so just think about it.
April 28, 2009 at 5:08 pm |
I don’t think God planned anything with any bad intentions. But he made things with the potential for bad things to occur. So he created humanity to be good, made in His image. But he also gave us free will. This allowed us to have the potential of good and bad. So we mess up sometimes and God allows it. But he never planned for us to mess up, we kind of did that on our own.
April 28, 2009 at 10:41 pm |
1. Why do bad things happen if God exists?
The way I see it, God’s ways are not our ways, and He has something very beautiful in mind for this world and for our lives, but we are too caught up in our circumstances and ideas of fairness to understand it very well. Sometimes bad things happen to us, but as we continue to live we discover that something very good came out of it, and that bad thing was worth gaining the very good thing. I think God’s interest is to love us, not to always make us happy or to pamper our immature and ignorant desires and views on life. What we see as bad things are an invitation from God to be transformed and discover a better way of living and thinking.
2. What is up with the Trinity?
I don’t really get it that well either. But viewing the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through the idea of a Holy Trinity helps to make more sense of the relationship of the Godhead members to each other. God is love, but how was He love before creation if there was no one else to love? With the idea of the Trinity, the Godhead members have been in perfect unity and expressing perfect love to one another for all of eternity. Through the Trinity, we can get a better idea of what true love really is.
April 29, 2009 at 5:15 am |
I don’t belive god has bad intentions or plans either. But if you think about it, what may be bad in our perspective may be viewed as good in god’s perspective. good as in.. it will later allow you to grow in your relationship with christ. good as in.. it will change your state of apathy to more compassionate. i used to bug my friend about this. especially during my rough times because i didn’t think i “deserved” anything that was happening to me. my friend told me that in the beginning we lived in perfect relationship with god. adam and eve OUT OF THEIR WILL decided to break that bond with the sin of eating the apple. We have been granted free will. the choice to choose christ and the choice not to. sometimes there are choices we make that are different than who god has called us to be. but through these choices, we have the ability to love god even more.. out of our decision. god allows us to choose him!!! so i guess when people don’t make decisions based off of who god has called them to be… bad events can occur. BUUT the beauty is that god can mold these bad events for his ultimate plan. so that it will strengthen your relationship with god or discover god’s love for you.
i dont know if that made sense.
April 30, 2009 at 5:31 am |
Wow! thanks for all the responses guys! I’m really impressed! We should do this more often. Alright, I’m gonna take a stab at these. keep in mine my answers should not be taken as gospel…
Why do bad things happen?
The simple answer is sin. Whether we like it or not, sin is in this world and crap happens. And yet, the Bible says the we have a loving and good God. And you’re right to question this. Simply put, what does it mean to have a good God? And I think then we have taken a question and unfairly put things on God that really shouldn’t be. Yes God is soverign, but as a lot of you have said he does allow bad things to happen. I do not believe that God is a control freak in that he is controlling every single thing that happens. Otherwise, the theology runs into the idea then that God would make us sin or at least write us sinning. Rather, I believe in a God that is interactive with this world. I think he probably has written some very specific things. And maybe he knows all that’s going to happen (I’m still wrestling with this one). But God is good also in that he feels with us. God is a God of the here and now and feels what we feel and can connect and empathize with us. He’s not just a distant puppetmaster. That being said, he knows that sin is in the world and that bad things will happen. He doesn’t stop all them from happening. I can think of several reasons for this.
1) The power of sin exists in the world and quite frankly, God has not put a full stop to it. He just hasn’t. Just because he hasn’t though doesn’t mean he doesn’t love or care. I think we project that onto God. But he has promised that one day, all this will end. It started with Jesus and the inaguration of the Kingdom of God. As the kingdom is emerging after Jesus started and announced it, we steadily get to the point of seeing evil vanquished. Is this something visible? I’m not sure, I think it fluctuates. But because of the resurrection, we have the power now to combat sin. And we have the assurance that evil and the bad will be vanquished eventually and that we have hope in our own resurrection and lives with God eternal. So, something I’ve just come to accept is that though God is good, not all of what happens is good. We await in expectation of God to act.
The Israelites knew that bad things happened, yet the Psalms show us that they (or at least the writer) still trusted God. A quick summary of many a Psalm is: I’m in deep crap, God. You are good God, come rescue me. yet even if you do not, I will still praise you.
2) If God solved everything for us… would we really need him? And would we really learn anything? This kinda goes along with the idea that if bad never happens, is there good? Yes, theoretically… but in this life, there is struggle and real faith and real grace are only exemplified if there is darkness
3) Bad things happen because sometimes indeed, they are our fault. Not all the time, but sometiems yes. A lot of the Bible shows what happens when you let sin get out of hand. I know we’re uncomfortable with the idea that God might punish us and discipline us for our wrongs, since grace covers all… but again, I think that’s a false assumption we’ve put on God. The Old Testament has no problem with the prophets saying, “Hey Israel/Judah! You’re messing up! If you don’t shape up, God will cast you into exile” ie, Israel is sinning/not living up to their identity. God sends a prophet who warns them that God is going to punish. And what do you know? He does!
Or take the Gospel of John in the NT where Jesus goes to the temple. He says, “Tear down this temple, I will build it up again.” He’s not challenging the Jews to go grab a bulldozer and wreck the temple. But he’s warning them that they’re messing up the temple by allowing a market to be there. Thus, they’ll end up messing it up… they’re already “sinning” (I use the word loosely there) and God’s just warning em of the consequences. So sometimes, God will let crap happen… and honestly, we need to be okay with that.
That being said, however, when tragedies do strike, they are often unrelated to any sin or action. They just are. God does not (I think…) have bad intentions… People like to quote Jeremiah 29.11 (For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper, not to harm you). But you have to see the context of that… the verses before indicate that it will happen AFTER 70 years of exile… So a whole generation (or 2 or 3) will not be in the promised land, but will be under the captivity of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. So it just has to be part of our understanding of God that yes, bad stuff will happen, persecutuion and suffering was almost guarnteed by Jesus. But God is ultimately good and he works for the overall good of humanity and to see us through things. We will suffer sometimes, but God suffers with us. We have hope in this life and the next that God will rescue. If he doesn’t this life, he will in the next. But God is ultimately faithful.
We need to get an accurate picture of God… the way I see it… some might view him as a distant God who isn’t involved. Some might see a puppet master casting to hell and heaven. Some might see a flowery gentle God who always is nice and fluffy and will always do “good”. And yet, I think God is all of these. The Bible I believe shows all of these (the non-involved not so much… just temporarily). We have examples in the Bible where God does not answer, examples where he does answer, examples where he offers choices, examples where he condemns and kills people, some where he’s mean, and some where he’s good and saves…. He’s complex, but ultimately we know He’s good.
OK, the Trinity…
yeah, its not in the Bible. Period. the doctrine of the Trinity was created in the early church as a means of understanding God. No where in the Bible does it say Trinity or does it really talk about this. The problem is that its a doctrine that is steeped in cultural things that we can’t see anymore (Greek/Hellenistic culture) so I can’t even explain it properly. It is better to explain what Christ is not… then as long as you hit within the realm of what it probably is… its fine. One the extreme side, God is one God… but that diminishes and confuses his roles of being Jesus and the Holy Spirit… If God is not in heaven whenn he’s Jesus, whose watching the world? How can jesus talk to himself? One the other extreme side, there are three Gods… Father, Son, HS. but obviously, he’s not… we’re monotheists as the Jews and the Bible believe. So somehow, God the father, the son, and the HS are three persons of one being. Now I’m not a fan of saying that all three were intrinsically involved in the world… Simply saying, Jesus of Nazareth I don’t think existed before Jesus. However, the logos or the wisdom of God existed. This was put down to earth in the person of Jesus. Now Jesus then has full humanity and full divinity. He also had a divine will and a human will. The human will subjected itself to the will of the father, but was not destroyed by it. So saying, I like to look at the Trinity like jobs… I am a youth pastor, a college pastor, and a member of the Compassion team. I’m never not one of those things, but depending on the situation, I am called upon to be a particular role. I’m always those 3 (barring getting fired or quitting), but I can be one of those things for a particular situation. God’s name is, as we know, I am who I am. Now in Hebrew, the present tense can also be translated in the future tense, so one can translate it as I will be who I will be. And that so fits God because he is adaptable and rescues us in many different situations. Sometimes we need God the Father, sometimes the son, and sometimes the Spirit. God can be all things and serve and save in all ways. That being said, I think that the Father is probably the primary one, and that’s where my example falls short. Other examples would be the water idea where God is like vapor, liquid, and ice… always water, just different types. Of course they can’t be all three at once, while God clearly can (though there is one state where it can be all three… but I don’t get that…). So the trinity became a way of understanding that God is one God, but with three persons… we don’t have one God and Jesus isn’t God and we also don’t have three gods.
yeah…. hope that all makes sense… that was really long