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NASB | Genesis 6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 6:6 The LORD regretted that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was [deeply] grieved in His heart. |
Bible Question:
Dear Doc, thanks for your answer and sorry for mu delay I've been really bussy those las weeks. About your sentence "we do not evaluate God by what He does, we evaluate what He does, by who He is" I see a problem with that. I mean with the relation between God and "Good and Evil". There are two options: Option 1: God decides what is Good and what is Evil so it depends on His, lets say "caprice". Option 2: God sees what is Good and Evil and supports the Good. But in that case Good and Evil are logycally ANTERIOR to God! Reading your comment it seems to me that you are a supporter od the Option 1. Am I right? |
Bible Answer: Dear Bruno, Indulge me a long response in three steps. First let me state your question in easier terms. I'm not sure everybody understands words like "caprice" and "anterior." The sum of the question is this. Is morality something that God authoritative even over God Himself such that He is obligated to follow it, or is morality rather something that God has chosen and set out of His own good pleasure? The real "catch" that this question seems to give us is two troubling thoughts. On one side is the notion that there is something above God that governs his actions. On the other side we wonder if it would have been just as possible for God to perhaps have decided that murder, stealing, and survival of the fittest was "good." Could God have chosen a completely backwards set of morality, right? Alright, so there is the question. Let me continue by offering some pastoral advice on questions like this. This is a question that I suspect many Christians ponder as they mature and think more deeply about God. I myself have wondered over this before, so I would never be harsh with one who did. However, just because it is a common question does not mean that it is a good one. Contrary to popular sentiments, there are such things as bad questions. Let me give you my deffinition of a bad question. A bad question is any question that is continual pursued despite scripture not addressing it. What I am saying is that when you've managed to frame a question that no passage in scripture seeks to answer, then you've framed a poor question. Somewhere in your mind, prior to the question, you have some sort of unbiblical thinking. The best thing you can do at this point is go back to studying what scripture does say, and about what lest you wander off into speculations and eventually heresy. I repeat: when you ask a question that scripture doesn't, you know you've gone wrong somewhere. Ofcourse we typically have to study quite sometime before we realize it doesn't. Ok, now to an answer. As I ponder this I think where the question has gone wrong, is in understanding morality as something so seperated from who God is, rather than flowing from who He is. We are asking is it something prior to God that God must bow to, or is it God's invention? Neither is true. Let's find a starting point for exploring this...I suspect I'm going to reach my limit in length here so I will post this and finish in a reply to my own response. In Christ, Beja |