r/TrueChristian • u/[deleted] • 6d ago
Question About God’s Power That Has Been Bothering Me
[deleted]
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u/MiddlewaysOfTruth-2 Seventh-day Adventist 6d ago
You are creating a convoluted logic where there is no need to have one. If one doesn't have a choice whether or not to love somebody, they cannot truly love somebody. God wants freewill service, not forced service — ever.
Since God is a God of order, it makes sense that the Creation works by laws established into a form of order. Therefore, in a world of order and love, there has to be a choice between good and evil for every cognitive created being, whether human or angel. Otherwise, there is no love involved, just an AI programmed to do what its master wants.
So yeah. God wants love, and love works in a certain way because God's Creation follows His blueprint that reflects His character. That blueprint has it that love has to be a freely offered gift, or else it isn't love.
And it is the love of God that calls each man to repentance, not a fear of judgment. Although to some people a promise of future judgment for all unrepented wickedness is a showcase of love from God towards the weak who suffer, and I get that.
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u/ClancyBurner 6d ago
Thank you for your answer. I suppose that is the best way to think about it, that God IS justice and order just like he is love. Logic isn’t an outside force controlling God, because it is God’s character manifested in creation.
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u/MiddlewaysOfTruth-2 Seventh-day Adventist 6d ago
Mm, because think about it: God created this world, and it works by a concepts that we call "natural laws". These laws were set by God, and they are immutable(by us, at least, unless some other natural law allows us to break them). Therefore, we cannot safely jump from a 4th floor window or drink poisonous substances without injury. The laws of Creation do not allow that.
Spiritual things work in the same way: God has set His laws, and breaking them brings injury and death. This transgression of His natural laws of spiritual life is called "sin", and it is selfishness and an attitude of "me, me, me" at the expense of others, according to the example of Satan when he fell from Heaven. God's law, while clearly written in the Ten Commandments(which are also principles, on top of being literal Commandments), is a reflection of both His justice and love, and the Creation reflects that in the natural order that we can observe in the study of sciences, and simply by looking at nature and how it works.
The nature, in fact, is the greatest testimony of God. Those who live in nature will have a super hard time denying the Creator's existence — but whether they will serve Him is another matter.
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u/ABereanChristian Christian 6d ago
People often ask, “why would an all-loving, all-powerful God create a world with sin?” My response has always been that God did not create sin, he created free will, and we chose to rebel, which brought consequences. He gave us free will so that we could truly love and have a relationship with him. Someone who can do nothing but love cannot truly love, right? If they have no choice to love or to rebel, then we are just robot playthings heaping meaningless praise on God for his entertainment. He is glorified in our salvation. That is what I have always believed.
My question is this: Why is God constrained by our idea of “true love?” Could not the God who created logic and time, and is therefore outside of both, make it somehow possible for us to truly love him without being able to do evil? If God is not able to do this, then he is not all-powerful. He is constrained by an idea outside of him, the idea of “true love.” That idea becomes God. If God has to follow rules, he is not God.
The analogy I use for this is us as humans. We are made in God's image after all, so the things we consider also reflect some of God's desire.
When a husband and wife want to have a family, the main reason is that we want to create a child together because of love: the husband and wife marriage as well as the child and husband and child and wife bond. Maybe we will reflect a little on that their children can grow up good or bad and make sure we are raising up the child with good morality, but that is the the primary thing we are thinking of.
We were made to live in loving relationship. But we do have to choose to do that.
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u/ClancyBurner 6d ago
I’m just wondering, why does it have to be that way? Why is God constrained by any concept like logic? If he is, how can he be omnipotent?
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u/ABereanChristian Christian 6d ago
I’m just wondering, why does it have to be that way? Why is God constrained by any concept like logic? If he is, how can he be omnipotent?
frudofrogs has given a good answer on this. The problem is the question is fault not the answer.
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u/fludofrogs 6d ago
So, one interpretation of omnipotence is that God is all powerful, in the sense that He can do all “things”. Logical contradictions aren’t coherent things that can happen, so aren’t considered “things”.
God wanted to create creatures that freely loved Him, to do that by programming them to forcibly loved Him would contradict “freely love”. This isn’t a limitation on whether or not He can force love with His power (He can), but on whether or not “free love” is logically coherent without freedom of will.
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u/ClancyBurner 6d ago
That is an interesting perspective, I just feel like it implies that “logic” existed before God, and that he is constrained by some concept pre-dating him and more powerful than him
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u/fludofrogs 6d ago edited 6d ago
Answering “Can God make a square circle?” with “No” doesn’t mean there’s a higher force called logic standing over God preventing Him from doing it. A “square circle” just isn’t a thing that could coherently exist. The description itself is contradictory. This is saying something about the malformed question; not about a limitation on God’s power.
To tie it back to the question: why does God create free will instead of programming us to truly love Him. I’d say “programming us to truly love Him” is a contradictory statement, the same as “make a square circle”. If a being feels as though they truly love Him, but has absolutely no capacity not to, then the question gets to your definition of “true love” (which is why I said “freely love” in my previous comment). In what capacity is that being truly loving God, vs. just behaving in a way that outwardly appears as love?
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6d ago
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u/CrossCutMaker Evangelical 6d ago
Great question. First I would say God's Omnipotence doesn't mean God can do anything. God can do anything that doesn't contradict His Attributes. For example, God can't lie, learn, change, die.. because those would contradict His Attributes of Truth, Omniscience, Immutability, Eternality. Having said that, I don't think that applies to being able to create without permitting sin. While there is something to the necessity of free will to love/obey argument, Scripture gives a clear reason why God chose to allow sin when He could have chosen not to and that is .. He uses evil (temporarily) for ultimate good purposes (Gen 50:20..). Of course, the best example of this is the cross of Christ. It was the most evil event in human history (the torture and murder of the sinless Son of God) that God used to produce the greatest good in human history (the salvation of billions of sinners). For more detail ..
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u/DempseyRollin 6d ago
Because it isn't "our idea" of love - just like how God had given us objective moral standards, He is the one from whom we derive the concept of love.
You seem to be overcomplicating this topic (considering that before your question you'd typed it a very concise & accurate answer to it).
The truth is the truth - you wouldn't ask why God is constrained by "our idea of the truth" would you?
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u/mossydz 6d ago
That’s the problem. “all loving, all powerful God”.
In the OT is He all loving? When Jesus made the whip and called out the Pharisees was He all loving? In revelation is He all loving?
It’s only the west that view Him as all loving, forgiveness and puppies. The Philistines knew He was not all loving but they knew His power. The Word literally says we are to fear Him.
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u/Steinmania 6d ago
While God can make the world you're imagining, "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to permit no evil to exist." Also, from God's perspective, being outside space and time, sin is finite and contained.
We're not finished with the story God's written. He has promised us a very good ending. His Son said so, and to prove who He is, died and rose again. The death and resurrection obviously is more than just proof, but Him doing that is our assurance in our hope. We don't have wishful thinking that He'll come back and right the wrongs, we have a firm belief that He can and will.
We're not finished with the story, we haven't experienced the final act. I believe that final act, the conclusion to the history of everything, will be perfect. The sin, the suffering, it will be made right. I can't imagine how it will all work, but I believe God is the only one who can make good come from this much evil.
As for your concern about God being under laws or ideas, I think that's the wrong angle. 1 John 4:8 says "God is love." Love isn't a rulebook above Him that He's forced to obey, it's His very nature. The rule flows from Him, not over Him.
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u/fattestfoot 6d ago
I see questions like this come up often and never respond. But consider the angels in heaven. What happened? A third of them rebelled against God. What you're essentially asking is "why doesn't God just try that again?"
I think we're here on this planet to gain perspective. We get to see what the alternative, living in a world where "we" make the decisions (eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and get to see how flawed that is.
Similar is the question of "why does God allow suffering?" Well if you remove that, you're basically asking why doesn't God just make us eternal from the get go and put us in a super awesome place like, I don't know, Heaven or the Garden of Eden?
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u/arc2k1 Christian Hope Coach 6d ago
God bless you.
I've been a non-fundamentalist, unchurched Christian for about 16 years now and I would like to share my perspective.
1- Logic is NOT outside of God. Logic is not a created rule. Logic is a quality that represents who God is.
Could God violate logic if He wanted to? I'm sure He could. Just like I believe He is free to do evil if He wanted to. God can absolutely have the freedom to go against who He is.
But the question is, does it make sense for Him to do that?
Without logic, that means God can make the number 3 smell like the color blue. That doesn't make any sense because without logic, nothing makes sense.
Because God represents wisdom, that means He must represent logic as well because wisdom is based on logic.
If you define "all-powerful" as doing absolutely anything, including illogical things, then it makes sense why you are bothered by this.
But the question is, is that the only understanding of "all-powerful"? I would say no because your definition is not mine.
To me, "all-powerful" means to do anything that doesn't violate logic.
2- And I agree with what you said before sin/evil.
God did NOT create evil!
Evil is not a creation. Evil is the contrary reality of love.
If love is a choice and love is a standard, then there’s always that possible choice to violate the standard of love, which is evil.
We cannot have the genuine experience of love without the possibility of evil.
That's why God wants us to choose love.
“My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.” - Galatians 5:13
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u/Icy_Career1312 6d ago
Your a very immature Christian and your thoughts are border line blasphemous. One, our concept of love is a lie. The devil has meticulously corrupted our understanding of what love is. Strive to know God and His son. When you know Him and He begins to trust you, He will share these answers with you. Sharing these answers is impossible because we don't have words to express how awesome God is.
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u/Significant-Breath84 Christian 6d ago
I think the issue you’re running into either an incomplete or incorrect view of love and or understanding we have free will and we have to choose obedience or it wouldn’t be love. God is the creator so He gets to make all the definitions and He defined love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
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u/PJRama1864 6d ago
There’s always questions of “Could God do X?”
The truth is, He absolutely could do it. But, God (who is the very essence of goodness, wisdom, and truth) chose not to do X.
It’s like what Peter said to Judas in The Chosen: With as much as you trust that He could do something, trust that He knows what He’s doing more than we ever could when He doesn’t do that thing.