Jar's belief statement- Part 2

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Again, this is a completely false representation of the Biblical God, who is described in the Bible as merciful to all, as taking care of all ("Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect, sending rain upon the just and the unjust"). Nobody starves because they don't choose to follow the true God. The story gives false options, portraying God as the tyrant so many here describe him to be.

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The point of the story, of course, is to say that God would not act like the Warlord. This is a story told by a missionary to someone who even now is a Christian. The story is not intended to say that God IS like the Warlord - it is intended to say that God is NOT like the Warlord, and Jar clearly takes it that way.

Yet I need only repeat your words to point out that you claimed that the Bible agreed with the moral of the story - God is "merciful to all". So it appears that the issue is not so simple as Jar's view being against the Bible. The Bible itself says that God would not act like the Warlord.

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That is true, but the story is OBVIOUSLY saying the Bible portrays him as such. It's OBVIOUSLY a parody of the Biblical God, Paul, of the doctrine of election. Are you denying that?

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It isn't "obviously" a parody at all. Nor does it seem to be about the Doctrine of Election. If it were the Warlord would arbitrarily have chosen some to be fed and left others to starve.And the Doctrine of Election runs into trouble with 1 Timothy 2:3-4. If God desires that everyone should be saved, and salvation requires Election then all must be Elected.

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Yes, you can pick and choose what you like from the Bible, and patch together some idea of God that pleases you, while rejecting what you don't like...

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As you do. At least Jar has a consistent picture of God that does not require special pleading.

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What we are discussing is this story, which gives a highly negative view of the Biblical Christian God and forces anyone not willing to question the story itself to the view of God that jar has had ever since.

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Yes we are discussing the story. And I am questioning your claim that it gives "a highly negative view of the Biblical Christian God".As I have already pointed out your claim that the story is about the Doctrine of Election is false and the Bible itself calls the Doctrine of Election into question. Surely these points - which you do not discuss - are relevant.Moreover for your claim to be true the story must at least be close enough to what you call "the Biblical Christian God" to be recognisable. But you have yet to make it clear exactly what important differences it leaves out.

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None of those specifics matters. The only point here is that there is no option offered in the story but that one, the picture of God as this petty unmerciful warlord.

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NO. As I said before the point of the story is that God is NOT a petty unmerciful warlord. The story is not attacking God.If you even wish to say that it is about YOUR concept of God then you have to show how it matches and how it differs. And that leads us to the specifics - you claimed the story is about the Doctrine of Election but that does not match, so we cannot say that it is about your idea of God on that basis. So what basis do you have ? And is that basis as Biblical as you claim ?

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T he story leads in one direction only, a particular ugly view of God that anyone would reject, and that fact alone disproves jar's claim that he was led to think it through.

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That is a clear non-sequitur. It doesn't "prove" anything of the sort.

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You have to step outside the context of the story to arrive at that view. That's a different God than the one in the story

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God isn't in the story. The point of the story is that God is NOT the Warlord.

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If you need evidence that the warlord is the traditional Christian God, it's in his requiring the people to "believe in him" and in the idea of "saving" them.

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Which is not the Doctrine of Election. It's not even in agreement with it. Which leads to an important point. Christianity does NOT have a consistent view on this matter. Nor does the Bible. You have to pick and choose. So what's wrong with emphasising the goodness of God ?

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There is nothing in the story that's accurate about traditional beliefs in any case, so why are you expecting it to be accurate about the doctrine of election?

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Got a question here. How do you know it's about the Doctrine of Election rather than about the "Traditional Christian God" ? YOu can't get that from the content of the story.

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And again, all this is really irrelevant. The point I've been making is that there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from the story and that is that the warlord is evil, and he represents the traditional Christian God, and within the confines of the story there is no other reasonable conclusion.

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And unless the story gets some important detail wrong then the conclusion it leads to is correct. But you said that the details don't matter rather than address that point. So presumably you agree with the conclusion.

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Yes you can, and it's not an either/or. It's about the traditional Christian God's saving some and not others

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No you can't get it from the story. There is no way in principle to tell whether it gets the Doctrine of Election wrong or whether it's simply about the common idea that salvation comes from belief (faith) in God. (Which is the "Traditional" Christian view).

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The main point here is that it leads inexorably to one and only one conclusion, that the warlord is a petty evil tyrant who should save everybody but only saves those who believe in him. It doesn't matter for this point to be true whether the portrait is true or not. It is an example of a tendentious leading to a predetermined conclusion. That part remains true.

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I'll note that others have contested that. However that only deals with the Warlod in the story. The question of whether it can be applied to God - and how it applies is another matter, and you do not know how much Jar has thought on that matter.

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I consider it a meanspirited parody of the true God. And I did say why many posts back, including that the true God does not allow anyone to starve but takes care of everybody, that starvation is an inadequate representation of eternal punishment, that it leaves out the basis for salvation, that the true God died to pay for the offenses that are the cause of eternal punishment.

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But it's not about literal starvation so the question of whether God leaves anyone to starve does not enter into it (and if it was your claim that God does not leave people to starve can certainly be questioned). I agree that starvation is not nearly as bad as eternal punishment but that only makes your God even worse than the Warlord. And I don't see how God "dying" can be relevant. (I suppose it makes your God something of a masochist but how does that help you ?)

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Salvation DOES come from faith in all views, but the version you are calling traditional is just the Arminian view. The doctrine of election is just as traditional as the Arminian view.

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"Just as traditional..." by your own words. And probably a lot more common outside of Calvinism. So we are left with the question of how you know the story isn't about the Arminian view.

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However that only deals with the Warlod in the story. The question of whether it can be applied to God - and how it applies is another matter, and you do not know how much Jar has thought on that matter.

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It doesn't matter. The story itself manipulates the answer, there is no thinking involved there.

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But the story DOESN'T deal with that issue. And if no thinking were possible on that side then your own rejection of the story would be impossible. So clearly it IS possible to think about that side of things and you do not know if Jar has or not.

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Again, you are welcome to your opinion. A traditional believer is offended by the story as a meanspirited parody of the God we believe in, from which the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the traditional God is a petty tyrant

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And yet you do not dispute that any important part of the story is wrong in a way that would help your case. You do not argue that God is unable to save everyone or that He has a good reason for not doing so. So your claim that is is a "meanspirited parody" seems clearly false - you object to it not because of misrepresentation but because it reveals a truth that you do not like.

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Let's say you're right and it's about the ARminian view. Does it matter?

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It would demonstrate that your objections to the story were ill-founded. How could you honestly claim that it misrepresents the Doctrine of Election when it is in fact closer to the Arminian view ?

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Would the story approve of the doctrine of election instead? Of course not.

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That is really the wrong question. That doesn't matter. THe questions at hand are whether the story is sufficiently accurate on the views it does deal with and whether Jar thought about it.

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I am not following you.

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I stated that it is possible to think about how the story applies to God. YOu disagreed with that. Yet rather than beleiving it you call it a "mean spirited parody", If it is not possible to think about or question the story how could you come to that conclusion ?

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Oh I know he has a good reason for not saving everyone, but I don't know the reason except that in the end I will know it was necessary and good.

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Yet you didn't raise that as an objection until I mentioned it. Why not ? After all it is actually a difference that woudl put GOd in a better light than the Warlord, yet you preferred to show your God as even worse.

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Well, you like that explanation I suppose, but it's really because I know the true nature of God and know Him personally that I know the parody is false.

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It actually fits the evidence of your posts, which your explanation does not. The fact is that you didn't even manage to think of a real problem with the story until I mentioned it.

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Actually I suppose all this just reveals that human flesh judges from the ego and worldly and earthly perspectives, but God has arranged it so that He can only be known and loved through the Spirit instead, and that is only available to those who are willing to give up trusting in themselves and believe what He says over what we feel and think

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And you will never find a clearer example of "do as I say, don't do as I do" on these boards.