by Enyalie » May 19th, 2006, 11:34 am
I just have some random thoughts in repsonse to the last few pages of this fairly off-topic thread.
Is it cruel and unusual for God to allow people to decide they want nothing to do with him? Even if it was, who are we to decide what a "good" God would do?
Choice. He gave us choice. And so allowed us to reject Him.
So if you get a dog- because they have amount of free will, any dog owner will admit- and despite all the treats and love and attention and time you give it, despite your best efforts, it just refuses to be housebroken, to sit, to heel, refuses to pay attention to you or refrain from chewing up the furniture or biting the children... despite all it's fluffy cuteness and soft brown eyes and the charming way he begs for table scraps or how happy he is to play ball, well it's gonna end up in a dog run in the yard, or you'll get rid of the beast. It would be cruel to your children and visitors not to. The dog won't like it much, and being a dog, perhaps he didn't know better. But you still put it out, in the end. And humans have the benefit of understanding, the ability to choose whether to be good or bad.
If you want a bleeding heart, teddy bear of a God who will allow any amount of badness to exist indefinitely, provided it has a scrap of lovability still flickering somehwere in it (and didn't everything lovable and good come from Him, and not from the soul He imbued it into anyway?) well, you're welcome to Him. But I prefer He expect me to become better, to reach for Him and seek Him and His grace despite my failings and allow Him to kill the badness in me. And if I choose otherwise, why should I be allowed to bring all that is bitter and hurtful and cruel and selfish in me to His realm, to hurt those people who did follow Him? And, yes, He gives us the choice. Because if we couldn't choose to walk away from Him, well then, what's the point of this relationship at all?
I believe He gives us every chance, every possible drop of grace, that we might come to Him. But to take away the other end- the consequences of refusal- that's taking away your freedom. Either He'd have to let everyone do as they wished and therefore never free anything or anyone from hurt and all the negative effects of everything bad, or He'd have to take away our capacity to choose. I'll accept the existance of Hell and seperation from God any day of the week.
Parents who refuse to discipline their children are the ones who end up with those horrid little spoiled brats that run rampant in supermarkets and restaurants everywhere. Love them, yes, love them, but don't allow them to run everything how they like it without consequence and have them turn out with a lick of decency and self control. That's a much crueler thing to do to a human- and everyone who has to put up with that spoiled human- than punishment.
In the military, any good leader is willing to discipline his people. Any beloved leader will not inflict upon those troops who are loyal and earnest the willfull and reckless behaviors of someone who just won't do what's right. It destroys morale and puts any mission at risk to allow someone who is disgruntled or rebellious to do as they please. And some people simply will not be convinced with soft explanations or gentle requests. They get put on extra duty. They get corrected. If all else fails, they get kicked out. They get incarcerated if the offense is bad enough. It would be wrong to allow such a person to continue to hurt the unit and threaten the mission.
It's called life. If it sickens you, well, I'm sorry, but better you be sickened than we insist on infecting goodness with all that's bad, twisted, selfish, demanding and crippling for all eternity.
It is sad, and it is painful that some people with good in them should go that way. And we are called not to judge, but to forgive and be graceful, to convince and teach and help heal all the hurts that we can. But final judgement will be God's, and we do not exist to tell Him who does and does not deserve his mercy. Period. We must trust in His grace and knowledge and mercy that He will do what is right- whatever that is. Even if it's casting out someone who may have had something lovable in them somewhere. You cannot know the heart of a man- He does. I say we leave it to Him to pronounce judgement in either direction.
“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart”
-C.S. Lewis
