God's Eternal Purpose?

The local Church of Christ preacher had the following outline in his weekly bulletin:

God had [and continues to have] an eternal purpose (Ephesians 3:11):

      1. His very nature is purposeful (Isaiah 46:8-11; Jeremiah 4:28; 
          Ephesians  1:11)          
      2. His eternal purpose is to give eternal life (John 10:10,27,28; 
          Titus 1:1,2).

      3. This is not mere eternal existence, but eternal existence with 
          Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

 In The Beginning there was unlimited power  
      1. Defining power: “capacity to produce a desired result".
       2. Various kinds of power; physical, mental, political, legal, moral. 
          Type of power used depends on result desired.

      3. The power of God: all the power necessary to accomplish His 
          eternal purpose.

So, let me see if I've got this right. God (Yahweh) is a purposeful God. And his eternal purpose (def. The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists; something set up as an object or end to be attained), is to give eternal life to man.  And he had all the power necessary to accomplish this eternal purpose--this desired result--in fact this desired result was the purpose of man's creation.

Then why is it that only a FEW (Mt 7:13-14) will attain what this God had all the power necessary to accomplish?

Kenneth W Hawthorne 

Christian Idiocy

The utterly idiotic conclusion that must be drawn from biblical belief, especially considering the New Testament teaching that many will wind up in hell and few in heaven, Mt 7:13-14. From  *The Skeptical Review*, Mailbag 1995 / July-August:

Yet another argument that could be used in refuting the fundamentalist justification of the Bible god's orders to kill infants (that all who die before reaching the "age of accountability" get to go to heaven) is that such actions are unfair to those who die after reaching that "age."

Unlike the rest of us, those babies whom the Bible god wanted killed got to go to heaven for eternity without having to make the conscious decision to accept the right religious creeds. They had no trial period that could've jeopardized their eternal fate. Since all of us were babies before, and since babies don't have much control over what happens to them, it is an absolute travesty of justice that some have gotten to go to heaven simply because they were lucky enough to die during their infancy. It is simply a matter of chance that those of us who didn't die during infancy didn't.

Hope we can set up another debate with you. Keep up the good work.

(Mr.X, name and address withheld by Is It God's Word? blog))

EDITOR'S NOTE: [Mr. X] makes a point similar to what I have argued with fundamentalists who try to justify the Yahwistic massacres of children and babies in the Old Testament on the grounds that they went to heaven instead of growing up to become wicked like their parents. I suggest to those who make this asinine argument that instead of being so eager to send out preachers and missionaries to save the lost, churches should organize hit squads to go into maternity and pediatric wards and kill all of the innocent babies and children so that they will go to heaven instead of growing up to become wicked like their parents. They would probably send far more souls to heaven than they have been doing through evangelization methods. I might also add that rather than bombing abortion clinics and assassinating those who work there, fundamentalists should set up their own clinics and encourage women to use them. Just think how many more souls they would be able to send to heaven. As for the eternal destiny of those who participated in such baby massacres, we would think that a just, benevolent god would surely reward them for their good deeds.

The Tree Of Knowledge

Farrell Till  discovers a little problem for biblical inerrantists. From the Errancy Discussion list, Nov. 12, 1995.

RH 

It is not correct to say that in order to sin, you have to know the difference between good and evil. To sin requires that one disobey God which itself only requires that one know what God has commanded. Knowledge of good and evil doesn't enter the equation. You cannot say that Adam and Eve did not know what they were doing. They knew. Eve stated what God had commanded to the Serpent. Adam and Eve knew the consequences.

TILL 

When the spies that Moses sent ahead to Canaan returned with a report of giants being in the land, the people were afraid (Num. 14). Yahweh punished the people by decreeing that they would wander in the wilderness until they were dead, but he made an exception for Joshua and Caleb, who had not believed the report of the spies. He also made an exception for the children (v: 31). Deuteronomy 1:39 explains why Yahweh made an exception for the children: "Moreover, your little ones that ye said should be a prey, and your children , *that this day have no knowledge of good or evil,* they will I give it, and they shall possess it." Hence, we can only conclude that the Bible teaches that children are not guilty of sin if they have no knowledge of good or evil. The Genesis story of the "first sin" clearly states that eating of the tree of knowledge would make one know the difference in good or evil (3:5). After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, Yahweh said, "Behold the man is become as one of us, *to know good and evil*; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, therefore Yahweh God sent him forth from the garden of Eden" (3:22).

Sorry, Roger, but you have a lot of explaining to do. The Bible teaches that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was what made Adam and Eve to know the difference in good and evil. Yet Yahweh punished them for something they did before they ate of the fruit that gave them this knowledge.

F. Till

God's Name

Adapted from a post by Farrell Till on the Errancy Discussion list 5-8-97:

...Ex.6:2-3 has Yahweh saying very clearly to Moses that he was not 

known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by his name Yahweh, yet there are

numerous examples in Genesis that dispute this:

Genesis 22:14 states that Abraham named the place where he was 
going to offer up Isaac Yahweh-jirah, which meant "Yahweh will provide." 
How did Abraham know to call the place this if he did not know that the 
name of his god was Yahweh? 

Genesis 24:25-52 certainly shows that Abraham's servant, who was sent 
to find a wife for Isaac knew Yahweh's name. When he encountered 
Rebekah, he "knelt bowing to Yahweh"(v:26). He said, "Praise Yahweh, 
the Elohim[God] of my master Abraham. Yahweh has led me on this 
trip to the home of my master's relatives."(v:27). Several more times 
in this passage, Abraham's god was called Yahweh. It is certainly 
strange that Abraham's  servant knew the name Yahweh, but Abraham, 
despite evidence to the contrary, presumably didn't. 

Genesis 26:22 says that Isaac dug a well and called the name of it 
Rehoboth and said, "Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will 
prosper in this land." How could Isaac have said this if he did not know 
that his god's name was Yahweh?

Genesis 26:23-25 says that Isaac went to Beersheba and "That night 
"Yahweh appeared to Isaac, and said 'I am the Elohim of your father 
Abraham.' Isaac then built an altar and "worshiped Yahweh." I guess 
we are supposed to believe that Isaac worshiped a God that he didn't 
even know.

Genesis 28:10-13 says that Jacob saw Yahweh on the way to Haran, 

and Yahweh said to him, "I am Yahweh, the Elohim of your grandfather
Abraham and the Elohim of Isaac." I guess Jacob was hard of hearing 
and didn't catch the name Yahweh.

Genesis 28:20-21 Says that Jacob made a vow that if Yahweh would take
care of him on his way back to his father that he would make Yahweh his
Elohim [God]. How could Jacob have made Yahweh his God if he didn't 
even know the name Yahweh? 

A Good Question...

                 A Good Question But Not A Good Answer Part One
                                              by Farrell Till

A reply to:Good Question ...

by Glenn Miller

The archived source of this historic written encounter between Farrell Till and inerrantist Glenn Miller did not have all of the links live, sorry. Till had a total of seven replies to Miller. Each can be downloaded in a link at the end of each reply.(kwh)

The barbaric nature of the Hebrew god Yahweh has led many former believers to reject their faith in the Bible. In "God Is Pro-Life?" I examined several biblical examples of Yahwistic barbarism that should convince reasonable people that the God-Is-Prolife slogan of anti-abortionists is biblically unsustainable, because the Old Testament is full of claims that Yahweh many times either sent destruction upon children, infants, and unborn babies himself or else ordered others to annihilate them. The barbarism of the god Yahweh, however, extended beyond the massacre of children and unborn babies to include efforts to exterminate entire tribes and nations. The Old Testament depiction of this deity should be enough to turn any morally sensitive person away from the notion that he is a loving, merciful god, but, unfortunately, it isn't. Diehard Bible believers seem determined to make all sorts of excuses to "explain" why Yahweh's commands to kill Canaanites, Midianites, Amalekites, and other non-Hebraic people were morally right.