Thank you very much for answering my questions so promptly. This is an interesting response.
Human purpose: “to accept, develop and grow Godly type love for God and others”. This is commanded in: “loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. And loving your neighbor as Christ loves you.” I do not know how you think God defines this love but what I gleam from scripture is: Love is sacrificial, selfless, decided upon by a free will agent that has likely perceived alternative choices (sin has pleasure for a season), requiring maturity, thought out, all consuming, all compelling and all motivating.
God does not just want any relationship with humans, but a loving relationship with humans. The only thing lacking for that relationship is man’s acceptance of Godly type Love and allowing that love to grow.
God’s objective is a little more derived from His actions. God is the epitome of Godly love so to be the most selfless and sacrificial it would mean God quenches His own desire to: “do all He can to help those that can love Him fulfill their objective”.
God’s and man’s objective would then explain: the Garden, Satan, tragedies, evil, sin, the universe and Christ going to the cross.
Humans may not be as depraved as you might think. We can never see a truly neutral human, because satan or his angles are always around. I am not suggesting satan is to blame for our sins, we are to blame. Most have not become so bad they can not keep from committing the next sin, but all mature adults will sin sometime and usually sooner then later. We are constantly choosing between selfless and selfish behavior and thoughts.
What is God’s objective for satan?
Does sin have an objective?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Instead of my spending a lot of time addressing and asking you questions about your response let me first give you my take on the situation. If we can understand the purpose, it might help explain a lot of other stuff.MitchellMcKain said:
Objective in the sense of purpose or objective as opposed to subjective??? Well I suppose I should assume the first since I am not sure this distinction has any meaning when we are talking about God.
As for purpose, what does the perfect infinite being do except seek to give of His infinite abundance to another? God created life as the perfect object for relationship, something with infinite potentiality to which He could give without limit of His own infinite actuality. The purpose of living things is somewhat a thing of their own determination. That is part of what free will means. But in the eyes of God our purpose is life - more and more life, realizing our greater and ultimately (eternally) infinite potentialites. Our greatest potentiality is therefore one of fully participating in the parent-child relationship we can have with God, growing in the Lord eternally.
Since taking our life (choice) from us contradicts God's purpose in creating us, we remain free to choose a lesser purpose than eternal life.
Human purpose: “to accept, develop and grow Godly type love for God and others”. This is commanded in: “loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. And loving your neighbor as Christ loves you.” I do not know how you think God defines this love but what I gleam from scripture is: Love is sacrificial, selfless, decided upon by a free will agent that has likely perceived alternative choices (sin has pleasure for a season), requiring maturity, thought out, all consuming, all compelling and all motivating.
God does not just want any relationship with humans, but a loving relationship with humans. The only thing lacking for that relationship is man’s acceptance of Godly type Love and allowing that love to grow.
God’s objective is a little more derived from His actions. God is the epitome of Godly love so to be the most selfless and sacrificial it would mean God quenches His own desire to: “do all He can to help those that can love Him fulfill their objective”.
God’s and man’s objective would then explain: the Garden, Satan, tragedies, evil, sin, the universe and Christ going to the cross.
Maybe I believe to much in satan. The Bible does not give us the story of satan or angels, so that suggests it is not needed, but we do get small pieces in sometimes apocryphal language. I do not see God intentionally creating satan to be satan, so maybe earlier angels were like humans the same as humans one day will be like angels and were given a universe to develop Godly type Love. As free will spiritual beings they could still fall away and satan made a free will decision to do that. The real question is: “Why does God allow satan to be in the Garden and roam the earth today?” It would all have to do with humans fulfilling their objective, because satan is not making God happy. God could be using satan to help humans in the long run accept Godly type Love and grow that love. God would really have to quench a strong desire to make all humans happy on earth, to allow satan to provide needy people as opportunities for those people that could love Him.MitchellMcKain said:
I guess I don't really believe in Satan. And I don't mean that do not think he exists. I do. I just don't give him any credit for anything. I ignore him. What power he has is largely because we give it to him, either by believing his lies or by making him our scapegoat. The real responsibility for evil lies with human beings. I give him no attention except to consider his role in the fall of Adam and Eve.
Unlike the majority of Christians I do not believe that the angels have authentic free will, and I do not believe in any war in heaven where angels rebelled against God before Adam and Eve's disobedience. Genesis chapter 3 is the story of the origin of evil. Evil is the creation of human beings not God and not the angels. God created the possibility for evil when He created life, for that possibility is inherent in the nature of life.
It, however, possible that Lucifer had been turning towards a darker interpretation of his purpose as a result of the darker choices of living things before Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve's obedience would have made this irrelevant. The real responsibility was theirs. They in effect created the devil when they assigned to him all the blame and responsibility for their disobedience.
Humans may not be as depraved as you might think. We can never see a truly neutral human, because satan or his angles are always around. I am not suggesting satan is to blame for our sins, we are to blame. Most have not become so bad they can not keep from committing the next sin, but all mature adults will sin sometime and usually sooner then later. We are constantly choosing between selfless and selfish behavior and thoughts.
What is God’s objective for satan?
Does sin have an objective?
Why do bad things happen to good people?