Exactly, and this is why the Open Theist has no grounds upon which to trust God. If you can so dogmatically declare that you will never be able to view God as the Mastermind behind evil, then you'll never be able to view God as the mastermind behind the amazing and wonderful goodness that results from the evil. You'll never be able to rejoice as Joseph and Job and David and Paul did, whom all knew that the evil and afflictions that happened to them were masterminded by the Rock, whom they could trust when He says that the glory that awaits the elect far outweighs the temporary pain, suffering and evil that is in our lives and in the world. You will never be able to worship in awe of the precision of His meticulous decrees, the glorious fulfillment and fruition of every detail of His wondrous plan, orchestrated and executed precisely for the sake of His beloved through the ages.Knight said:I will never be able to view God as the mastermind behind the holocaust, 9-11 or any other terrible event that happens.
You mistakenly assume that a God who plans evil for good is an evil God. Where you get this idea is from humanism. Even logic should tell you that this is not the case. If my 8-year-old son invents a scenario in which the good Bionicle destroys the evil Bionicles, is he unrighteous for conceiving of the evil acts the evil Bionicles do? On your logic, I should punish my son for being unrighteous just because he conceived of a story with unrighteous beings (i.e. decreed the evil that evil characters do).Knight said:I believe God is righteous and not evil, I DO NOT believe God planned or even wanted those events to take place.
By "truly grieves," you mean "grieves like a human." Instead of making God the measure of what is true, you've man your own experience the measure of what is true. That is humanism, the lens through which you judge God. And therefore your God is a demi-god, created in your own image.Knight said:... I believe God truly grieves when we hurt one another. I believe God truly responds to us when we ask Him.
Yet, only two psalms prior, David writes that God authored the famine upon the land:Knight said:Psalms 107:1 Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
Ps 105:16 Moreover he [God] called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread.
David says that God sent Joseph into slavery:
Ps 105:17 He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:
David writes that it was alll according to God's master plan, the timing, the circumstances, everything:
Ps 105:18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: 19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.
David writes that God even turn the hearts of the Egyptians to hate Israel:
Ps 105:23 Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. 24 And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies. 25 He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.
So when the thoughtful, rational reader of the Psalm 105 gets to Psalm 107, he already understands that God's goodness and mercy include the fact that He masterminds and orchestrates evil for good and merciful purposes. That is a God who can be trusted. That is the Rock God of the Settled View, not the Sand God of Open Theism.
All according to God's decrees, of course.
Open Theist: "God shifts (like sand)."
Settled Theist: "God Rocks!"
Trusting in the Rock,
Jim