The Evangelical Universalist Forum

God Is A Monster At Times

Theology Biblical Theology
#41

Johnny,

Thanks for your opinion but it’s clear to me through nature and the Bible God can be a monster at times. Holy, Holy, Holy describes God. This attribute is repeated three times to stress it’s importance. It trumps all other attributes. So, while God is love it’s a Holy love. This is no mere human love. I worship God because He is Holy and therefore deserves to be worshipped. He is morally pure and has justifiable reasons for doing what He does. So, when He destroys all humanity in a flood (including children and animals) He does nothing wrong.

#42

Johnny,

Here’s what I mean by monster:

A strange, terrifying, and powerful person that cannot be controlled

#43

Hi Cole

Man you’re a tough nut to crack :smiley: .

I love you mate, but you frustrate me :smiley: . You’re so passionate and definitive about your beliefs, so committed to believing what you think you ought to believe. I just think you’re wrong. I cannot accept that God chooses to destroy children and animals, let alone miserable sinful adults, in a flood. Because that contradicts the clear Biblical teaching, and Christological example, that God is love.

And sorry to be dogmatic about this, but God ‘being holy’ does not trump his ‘being love’. If I say “I am kingly”, that means I behave like a king; I could be anybody, as long as I act like a King. If I say “I am the King”, then there is no room for doubt. I am the King.

But hey, what do I know?

Cheers

PS Just read your latest post. And yes, I would agree, by that definition then God may be ‘a monster’

Johnny

#44

Johnny,

When the Bible says Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty this is what is known as the Trisagion which means three times Holy. The significance of the repetition of the word Holy for the writers of the Bible is a literary device that is found in Hebrew forms of literature, especially poetry. The repetition for the Hebrews was a form of emphasis to call to the readers attention something that is important. We see Jesus doing this with the words, "Truly, truly, I say to you. Here the double use of truly was a sign that what He was about to say was of crucial importance. On a handful of occasions the Bible repeats something to the third degree. This elevates it to the superlative degree. For example, the dreadful judgment of God is declared in the book of Revelation, "Woe! Woe! Woe! to the inhabitants of the earth (Rev. 8:13). Only once in all of scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. The Bible says God is Holy, Holy, Holy. The Bible never says God is love, love, love. Holiness when applied to God not only means moral purity but to everything that sets God apart from His creation and His creatures. God’s love is a Holy love. It’s no mere human love. There are ways we are like God and ways we are not. We cannot be like God in every way. There is a Creator creature distinction.

#45

Holy is an adjective. Love is a noun.

If I say I am stubborn, I’m telling you something about me; I am not telling you what I AM.

If I say I am patient, patient, patient – I am telling you something about me; I am not telling you what I AM.

If however I say that I am a woman, I am telling you what I AM – certainly not ALL that I am. If I wanted to tell you that I am, as my primary essence, woman, I would say it like this: “I am woman.”

John says, “God is love.” That is WHAT God IS. Holy, holy, holy is one of His attributes, and yes – it is a very, very, very important attribute, but it does not follow that holiness is what He IS. If that were the case, the living creatures should have said, “Holiness, holiness, holiness is the Lord.” They did not say that, though, leaving the way clear for John to say, “God is love.” Otherwise the scriptures would be contradictory.

#46

Michael,

I enjoyed reading your post. I think, though, you need to ask yourself this question. What is your ultimate authority of belief? Is it St. Paul? Thomas Aquinas? Creeds? The Gospels?

To me, the only God worth believing in is one infinitely good. Any image of God or idea of him that has in it any darkness at all, I think too mean and little and small to be the real God. Do you really think we could think too good of him? That we could “over-hype” him, as it were? I don’t.

So that is my ultimate authority - my own experience (subjective, sure, but so is everyone’s and that’s inescapable and therefore moot) of what “goodness” means. And I can’t for the life of me think that a being who would be satisfied (and particularly get some sort of “satisfaction” from beholding) the eternal torment of sentient, conscious beings made in his image and therefore in some deep way very like himself could ever be “good”. If words have any meaning at all, such a being could never be good any more than a square peg could fit into a round hole. How could such a being be anything but the most hideous thought the human mind could conceive? What is the motive of such a being other than delighting in sheer malevolence and, in a sort of way, self-mutilation?

So you could quote verses and doctors of the church and creeds till the cows come home backing up eternal torment and it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’d believe in my conception of God - that is, as a being unsurpassingly all-good - if there was no Bible, or even no Jesus. Because that idea is my ultimate authority. It’s the only thing worthy enough to be the object of faith. The human mind of its own reaches into infinity; it yearns for breath from the mountaintops of eternity and the founts of very life itself. Nothing short of an infinitely good God - that is, a being perfectly beautiful in every way - can satisfy it. Man cannot live by bread alone; and his soul shall starve on low notions of the divine. Thus he eventually casts them off and looks for the real thing, the thing that can satiate his hunger.

So what, Michael, is your ultimate authority? What would you say right now is a notion too mean for you to think of God? Indeed, is there anything you would not believe? Ask yourself - what could your authority right now say (be it St. Thomas or St. Paul) that you would not believe?

#47

Wow! Great post, Chris. :slight_smile:

#48

A Holy God

#49

What is holiness? All I can say is that it is everything that separates God from His creation and His creatures. It includes moral purity but is not limited to it. How about this:

What is this wondrous mystery
unfolding within me?
I have no words to name it,
for that One is above all praise,
transcends all words
my reason sees what has happened,
wishes to explain,
yet can find no words to tell you.
What it sees is invisible,
simple, pure,
unbounded in its majesty.
I have seen the totality,
received not in essence
but by participation.
As when you light a flame from a flame,
the whole flame you receive.

By St. Symeon the New Theologian

#50

Are we His creation? I’m not sure holiness separated God from His creation . . .

These are just two samples. I found many.

#51

Cindy,

The name of God defines who He is. It designates God’s reputation, character, identity, and nature. When one searches the Scriptures to find out how the name of God is described we find that out of forty-eight descriptions of the name of God, the word “holy” or “hallowed” is used twenty-three times. The other descriptions of God’s name are synonymous with the meaning of God’s holiness: glorious, excellent, fearful, good, terrible, from everlasting, great in might, wonderful, and exalted. Since the name of God is described in this way by the Scriptures, the Christian may conclude that the inherent nature of God is holy and all other attributes of God consist and are moved by this holy nature.

#52

Cindy,

We are to imitate God in certain ways. We are to be set apart and strive for moral purity (holy). Moral purity isn’t the only thing that sets God apart from His creation and His creatures though:

God is self-sufficient we are not

God is all-knowing we are not

God is infinite in wisdom we are not

God is omnipresent we are not

God is sovereign over His creation we are not

God is all powerful we are not

I’m humbled in knowing that there is a God and I’m not like Him in every way. I cannot be like God in every way. When I try to be like God in every way it leads to pride.

#53

Holy is not God’s name, though His name can be described as holy. His name is Yahweh. I call Him Abba, and no, my Daddy is not a monster. I do tremble at the thought of disobeying Him, but not because I think He’s going to torture me. Because He loves me and I love Him, and I know that His love will never allow me to stay in my sin. Whatever it takes to remove me from it, that’s what He’ll do. But He is NOT a monster.

#54

I didn’t say Holy was His name. I said it describes His name. This is a clear example of where you see what you want to see. I never said He was a monster. But that He can be a monster at times. Monster here is being understood in the sense of a strange, terrifying, powerful person who cannot be controlled. I don’t fear His punishment for my sins. That was removed at the cross. The cross is where grace and wrath meet. I’m drawn to it yet I want to move away from it. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

#55

Cole, I misread, and I apologize for misreading and for making a mistake about what you said. As for you, you automatically pronounced judgment – guilty of intentionally hearing what I wanted to hear. It never occurred to me to want to hear from you that the Lord is named “Holy.” You not only pronounced judgment on me, but you pronounced wrongly.

Furthermore, you often if not always fail to answer what I write to you. Instead you keep saying the same things over and over. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think you read my posts very clearly either – if you read them at all. I notice you do this with other people’s posts too. I’ll keep answering your posts though, as I think you pose issues that others want to know about. You yourself don’t seem to want to know anything since you already appear to know everything that you want to know – but other people reading may want to know more. That’s why I’m glad that lots of people are answering your posts, and why I will probably continue to answer them too. If you ever do feel in the mood for a discussion, we’ll be glad to discuss with you. Otherwise I guess we’ll just keep answering for the sake of others, and also just in case you should one day feel like listening and interacting.

#56

Thanks for pronouncing judgment on me Cindy

#57

I think you did it to yourself, Cole, when you said:

I said you were wrong about my intentions, and that is the only judgment I made. As for your behavior, I only told you my observations. If you read more carefully, you’ll see I took pains to make it clear that I was describing to you the way things APPEAR to me. I hope that I’m mistaken.

#58

That is a good post Chris - you sound like an old time Quaker. ‘Christ saith, the Apostles saith - but what cans’t thou say?’ - and you’ve said it according to the true light that lightens everyone who comes into the world :slight_smile: You have spoken to my condition :slight_smile:

#59

Cindy,

All people make judgments. Discernment and decision making are unavoidable and intrinsic to living. Jesus told us not to judge self-righteously or hypocritically. If I’m a drunk I shouldn’t judge and condemn another drunk. I must first remove the log out of my own eye before I set out to help another who is caught up in sin. But I don’t think we are commanded to not judge at all. When you accuse me of judging you or someone else for saying they are doing something wrong and you tell me this is wrong, I simply point out that this is a judgment you are making against me. I am being judged for judging and this is self contradictory. Of course I can be mistaken in judging someone to be wrong. But we do make right and wrong judgments all the time. It’s part of being human. So is making mistakes. Nothing you have said proves that God is loving holiness. On the contrary scripture contradicts you. God is Holy love. I think you just don’t like it when you are wrong about something and this causes you to make false accusations about me. I have my reasons for answering the things I answer and for not answering other things.

#60

I think the reasons you don’t answer are that you don’t want to, or that you haven’t read, Cole, but perhaps you have very good secret reasons to choose not to address my points. After all, you’re not obligated to do that, but it doesn’t make for very enlightening conversation if you don’t respond to the things people say to you.

I agree with you that God’s love is holy, and if that’s the case you could say that God is holy love. I don’t agree that God is holiness and that His holiness trumps His love – because scripture doesn’t teach that.