Does God ever not keep His promises?

[Overaged]

Overaged: Shane insinuated that the sort of person who would ask the questions I have been asking is on the side of Satan. That's very clear in his post. In my opinion that is completely over the line for this forum and should have been moderated, but it wasn't so I had to respond. It's a 'control trick' because it tries to make the question go away by attacking the motives of the questioner, rather than addressing the question. Anyway, I think I've said all I need to on that issue.

[Bravus]

I meant to post this earlier, but have been busy:

When I say others 'mischaracterise' my views, I do not mean to say that they do so maliciously. I belive they do so because they fail to understand.

The long post above exemplifies that perfectly.

Further efforts to clarify are probably pointless, because they'll be read as 'excuses' instead.

But let me just clarify one thing: that my evidence on this point is 'subjective and circumstantial' is exactly what I *am* saying! I posted yesterday about people having 'different (experiential) realities'.

It is in that context that I can say that we can disagree and yet both be honest: we are reflecting our different subjective experiences.

My claim that I am being honest does not logically imply that I think anyone else is being dishonest.

[Woody]

Well said Bravus. I appreciate what you have said. I also appreciate that you seem to have taken the heat instead of me. But I fear if you bow out now ... they will turn their sights on ME. Stay and take the heat man.

[John317]

When I say others 'mischaracterise' my views, I do not mean to say that they do so maliciously. I belive they do so because they fail to understand.

Everyone can say the same thing, of course, and it would be more or less true for everybody, don't you agree? That's because language is always only an approximation of what we mean. Some people get closer to expressing what they mean, but it is still an approximation and never quite precise.

[Bravus]

True: and it's not something I ever meant to make big deal of. I mentioned it in passing and Overaged took it up.

It's worth noting that I said 'our imperfect human understanding of God', not 'your imperfect understanding of God'. If you know me at all you know I include myself in that more than anyone else.

[John317]

[LifeHiscost]

My claim that I am being honest does not logically imply that I think anyone else is being dishonest.

"Are you imply" or "quite implying" very seldom is about the one accused of making the implication. When saying it, it is assumed the one who feels the implication has the ability to read the others mind. Not! More often than not the original thought has touched a sensitive nerve in the one offended or perhaps even angered the defender.

The "implication" could really be either the enemy of souls making accusation of a reality or perceived reality, or in some cases, the Holy Spirit drawing up someone short on needed correction while the person making the supposed "implication" is totally innocent of any intent or desire to correct the other party.

"This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.

Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens,

“It has come at last—

salvation and power

and the Kingdom of our God,

and the authority of his Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters

has been thrown down to earth—

the one who accuses them

before our God day and night.

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb

and by their testimony.

And they did not love their lives so much

that they were afraid to die."

God blesses!

[Dr. Shane]

Originally Posted By: Shane

I think of God's promises as spiritual laws. They are the consequences of certain actions but there are exceptions.

How would the following scripture fit into this portion of your post Shane?

2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

I see no conflict between what I posted and that text.

[Dr. Shane]

Originally Posted By: Shane

What would be the motive for wanting to say a promise has not been kept? is.

The kind of person who earnestly and authentically believed, obeyed, sought God's face... and over time and experience was forced by reality, reluctantly and painfully, to recognise that God simply does not do what the Bible claims he will do.

[Dr. Shane]

My wife is struggling with this issue right now. She has a health problem. And in accordance with the instruction in James 5, she asked for an anointing so she could be relieved of miserable pain. Well, nothing happened. Wouldn't that raise questions in your mind whether God keeps His promise or not?

Pastor Mike Tucker had a sermon about this not too long ago. He said he had to repent for his concept of God. The only unconditional promise God gives us (as faithful believers) is salvation. If we serve God so that He will give us something, that is selfish service which itself is SIN. We are to serve God because we love Him. That's it. If He blesses us we praise Him. If He doesn't bless us, we still praise Him. It is not about us. It is about Him.

[Dr. Shane]

Then God is/was safe in promising anything & everything, knowing that He doesn't have to keep ANY of them because He knows/knew that NO ONE could keep the law perfectly, and that His promises are just carrots on a stick.

There is an Ellen White quote (perhaps Woody can find it) that says when we pray we pray with only partial knowledge so we often ask for things that we would not ask for if we had complete knowledge. When God answers our prayers, He answers them the way we would want Him to if we had the same knowledge that He has.

[Dr. Shane]

Shane insinuated that the sort of person who would ask the questions I have been asking is on the side of Satan.

I don't find that offensive. I am quick to admit that I have found myself on the side of Satan way too many times. Whenever anyone admits they are a sinner, that is what they are admitting to. Who on this forum is going to say they are not a sinner? When we sin it is because we are led by the very same spirit that led the rebellion in heaven against Christ.

Read the book of Job. Read it several times if necessary and then tell me it is OK to make accusations against God.

[Dr. Shane]

And finally, a very important reminder of what I've consistently said, and people have consistently missed. What I'm questioning and challenging is not God but our imperfect human understanding of God. Two very different things.

I have certainly missed that point.

[Overaged]

Well said Bravus. I appreciate what you have said. I also appreciate that you seem to have taken the heart instead of me. But I fear if you bow out now ... they will turn their sights on ME. Stay and take the heat man.

LOL, Woody you are highly amusing sometimes. Don't worry; we won't be too hard on you if Bravus backs out; but I doubt that he will. He puts a lot of heart & soul into his posts here. I, for one, would NOT want to see Him back away.

[Overaged]

True: and it's not something I ever meant to make big deal of. I mentioned it in passing and Overaged took it up.

It's worth noting that I said 'our imperfect human understanding of God', not 'your imperfect understanding of God'. If you know me at all you know I include myself in that more than anyone else.

Yes; actually, your use of the word "our" is a good point, and worth ackknowledging.

[Overaged]

I meant to post this earlier, but have been busy:

When I say others 'mischaracterise' my views, I do not mean to say that they do so maliciously. I belive they do so because they fail to understand.

The long post above exemplifies that perfectly.

Further efforts to clarify are probably pointless, because they'll be read as 'excuses' instead.

But let me just clarify one thing: that my evidence on this point is 'subjective and circumstantial' is exactly what I *am* saying! I posted yesterday about people having 'different (experiential) realities'.

It is in that context that I can say that we can disagree and yet both be honest: we are reflecting our different subjective experiences.

My claim that I am being honest does not logically imply that I think anyone else is being dishonest.

But this is one of my points here; man be fair! That "long post" is half your's! All I was doing is trying to respond to each separate thing you brought up, and none of the individual responses were overly long. And what on earth has the length of the post got to do with "failure" of some kind on my part, or anyone else's? Why must you constantly try to inject some sort of "failure" into the other side which you are so assiduously "testing?" The words of your posts do mean something, and it can't always be explained by "failure" on the part of whoever you disagree with. You do realize that when you said people "fail" to understand you, that you used the word "everyone?" There is a problem with that equation. It just doesn't add up. I think that if I was to say anything bothered me about what you appear to be doing here; it is that you knowingly attack God and the Bible, and just call it "failure" on our part. Is it really?

[Bravus]

You seem determined to try to pick a fight despite my best efforts to be conciliatory. I'm just not interested.

[John317]

You make statements and then when people want to talk to you about them, you often just say you aren't interested or that the person is not "educated" enough to talk to you or that they don't understand you.

I get the impression that you aren't willing to come out and tell what your personal, firmly held convictions & beliefs are. I am saying I feel that you are not being forthright about what you believe or think.(And yes, I could be totally wrong here.) I almost never see a post where you are defending the Bible or the SDA church and its doctrines, but you are consistently attacking them or trying to show their faults and limitations. And as Overaged says, you often are saying things to "test" people. That is not being sincere and honest. It is saying things (that you may or may not even believe) just to see what kind of response you can get. And then when you get it, you have said before that it wasn't expressing your own belief but it was expressing what other people (in your opinion) claim to believe.

You've said before that you aren't a Christian but that you are a "post-Christian" and that your ideas of God aren't the views that most Christians have. Yet I don't find you clearly explaining in what way your convictions differ on the central doctrines of the church. I know you seem to support the evolutionary theory, but here again, you say that you are not sure you really believe it personally. You are merely trying to show people the way evolutionists believe, and you do this same thing with evolutionists, showing them how Christians think. Do you tell them that you are merely showing them how Christians think and are not intending to give the impresion that you yourself believe firmly in Christian doctrines?

You say that you've had to change your beliefs. OK, that is all fine, but you seem to be moving all over the place and to be unsure of exactly what it is you do believe.

[Bravus]

Nice: now, rather than protect the poster being abused, the moderator chooses to pile on. Have fun, I'm out of this thread. If I felt I would get fair treatment I'd be happy to respond on substance.

[Dr. Shane]

You seem determined to try to pick a fight despite my best efforts to be conciliatory. I'm just not interested.

I am not sure if that was directed at me but my last post was admitting that I missed a point that you said you made repeatedly. Such an admission on my part is in essence pointing out that I was off-base.

However I do not look to "pick a fight" with anyone rather I look for a healthy exchange of ideas. Even if *you* were not accusing God of anything, there are many people that do and given the doctrines of some Christian denominations, I can certainly understand why. We have many lurkers here and I am typically writing for them and not trying to address anyone specific on the forum.

If someone doesn't trust the God of the Bible, I would like to know which god they do trust. Or perhaps they just don't believe in any god. As I study comparative religions, the Bible seems to be head and shoulders above any other religion's holy book(s).

[John317]

Bravus, I 'm sorry if I said anything to make you feel that I am joining in any abuse of you. I really did not mean to do that. I am merely trying to find out what you believe and think.

Please send me a PM with the post# of the messages you believe were abusing you. I will go through this whole thread and look carefully for those which do.

Let me know which statements I made which are unfair or abusing you. I will delete them, even my entire post if you think that's the right thing for me to do.

[Bravus]

Sorry, should have been clearer. We're cool, Shane, I read and understood your earlier posts.

Read back over the past half-dozen or so of Overaged posts and my responses, and I think any fair-minded person will see me bending over backward to avoid giving offense and him bending over backward to take offense anyway.

I'm here for a conversation, and when the conversation is no longer enjoyable I'm completely within my rights to withdraw from it.

Edit: John317, I wrote this post as you were writing the one above, but it really responds anyway. Your own post was actually not that bad taken in isolation, but was unfortunate in the context of Overaged's on-going attacks. I just felt a bit beleagured. Give me a little while to chill out and I'll respond in detail to the points you raised.

[John317]

I can understand that. I probably should have written it at a different time. I'm sorry. It's just that the thoughts came to me at that point. If I didn't hold you in high esteem intellectually, I wouldn't have written that. I'm genuinely interested in what you think, especially since I know next to nothing about evolutionary theory and science. :-)

[Bravus]

You make statements and then when people want to talk to you about them, you often just say you aren't interested or that the person is not "educated" enough to talk to you or that they don't understand you.

I would like to see a quote of me *ever* saying that someone is not educated enough to talk to me: I'm horrified by the very concept of saying that, and certain I've never done so.

As I said, I'm here for a conversation. If I was at a post-church potluck and the conversation turned mean, I'd excuse myself, and I do the same here. I'm under no obligation to stand around and be abused.

I'm also uninclined to go over and over the same old ground, and sometimes bow out for that reason. Maybe others want to and my reluctance to play annoys them, but again, the only obligations are those of courtesy - and courteously bowing out of a boring conversation is still courteous.

Quote:

I get the impression that you aren't willing to come out and tell what your personal, firmly held convictions & beliefs are. I am saying I feel that you are not being forthright about what you believe or think.(And yes, I could be totally wrong here.)

On that point, let me do a slight remix by pulling a quote from the end of your post up:

Quote:

You say that you've had to change your beliefs. OK, that is all fine, but you seem to be moving all over the place and to be unsure of exactly what it is you do believe.

Yes! That's exactly it! I'm not sure how many different ways I can say 'tentative', 'developing', 'humble', 'confused', 'trying to learn', 'not sure' and so on. People keep on projecting their own certainty onto me, but I'm far from certain, and say so as often as I can.

All I can do is tell you that if my views seem diffuse it's simply because they are. You seem to be assuming that I have a rock-hard, clear and certain set of beliefs that I could state clearly but I'm deliberately obfuscating, but that's not it at all... I'm doing the best I can to be as clear as I can.

Quote:

I almost never see a post where you are defending the Bible or the SDA church and its doctrines, but you are consistently attacking them or trying to show their faults and limitations.

There are plenty of others to defend. As it happens, I do often defend Adventist beliefs on the state of the dead, and on a wide variety of other things. But these couple of blog posts might help to clarify this further:

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2300

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1772

Quote:

And as Overaged says, you often are saying things to "test" people. That is not being sincere and honest. It is saying things (that you may or may not even believe) just to see what kind of response you can get. And then when you get it, you have said before that it wasn't expressing your own belief but it was expressing what other people (in your opinion) claim to believe.

I'm pretty careful about characterising others' beliefs: largely I will make very general comments, or else leave it up to the reader to decide. I tend not to tell people what they think, but to ask them what they think.

I did use the word 'test', but did not say I 'test people'. I said I 'test claims'. That's quite different. People need to read carefully, because I write carefully. It's when they are determined to find fault that they do find it. I'm not saying I'm never at fault - I'm sure I often am. But it's frustrating to be castigated at length for things I never wrote or meant, because someone has read something into my posts that was never there.

Quote:

You've said before that you aren't a Christian but that you are a "post-Christian" and that your ideas of God aren't the views that most Christians have. Yet I don't find you clearly explaining in what way your convictions differ on the central doctrines of the church. I know you seem to support the evolutionary theory, but here again, you say that you are not sure you really believe it personally. You are merely trying to show people the way evolutionists believe, and you do this same thing with evolutionists, showing them how Christians think. Do you tell them that you are merely showing them how Christians think and are not intending to give the impresion that you yourself believe firmly in Christian doctrines?

I don't accept the implicit assumption here that creationism is Christian doctrine and evolution isn't, although I know that's your view. Therefore, yes, I guess it's fair to say that, although I do try to show both sides the best features of the other, and challenge poor arguments on both sides, I don't label one side as 'Christian' and the other as 'not Christian'.

And, as said above, my confusion and lack of a firm position on origins is genuine, not a strategem: there simply is not enough evidence available for me to adopt and defend a firm position.

On the 'post-Christian' label, it's a flawed one but the best I can come up with. And if I am, so what? Atheists and agnostics post here and are welcome. There is no orthodoxy test. I'm not sure why you're taxing me with being insufficiently conservative SDA in my doctrinal positions when I've never claimed to be.

Here are a bunch of blog posts in which I've wrestled with these issues, over a number of years. As I said, earlier in this very thread, I find it less interesting to talk about myself and my views than about issues and ideas, so I don't write about myself in this forum in the same way I do in my blog, but if people are curious there's plenty of evidence available and I'm not hiding any of it.

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2273

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2257

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2193

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2148

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1994 <--- most important one

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1971 <--- on topic for this thread

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1620

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1765

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1310

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=490

Hopefully that should at least dispel the notion that I'm trying to hide anything.

[Overaged]

As I said, I'm here for a conversation. If I was at a post-church potluck and the conversation turned mean, I'd excuse myself, and I do the same here. I'm under no obligation to stand around and be abused.

I'm also uninclined to go over and over the same old ground, and sometimes bow out for that reason. Maybe others want to and my reluctance to play annoys them, but again, the only obligations are those of courtesy - and courteously bowing out of a boring conversation is still courteous.

WOW. What was that you were saying to me about "long posts?"

I believe you when you say you are here for "conversation;" but going by what AND how you post; I would just add that I believe you are here for more than that. I am sorry if you find that "abusive;" but you are just proving me correct by trying to throw yet another label on me that you have no right to do. I also find some of your posts very offensive and deliberate; and I have made very deliberate efforts to restrain myself from responding the way I would like to; so if my responses here are enough to class me as "abusive;" (or any of the other characterizations you have tried to pin on me here) then that will have to be your problem. I don't want it.

The part of you that I really enjoy is infact the point you & others have made about how your beliefs are "diffuse" as you put it. I really enjoy all the many ideas you bring forth and challenge us with; but I think that sometimes you want it to be too one-sided where you just tell us that God does not/cannot keep his promises, and if we object to that then we have somehow "failed." (your words - not mine).