The Great Controversy, if it only worked

There is an interesting conversation over on the Spectrum Blog under the article written by Herbert Douglass entitled The Great Controversy.

The conversation in the comments is not between others and Mr. Douglass but with the various views set forth on this unsatisfactory notion of the place of evil in the world if it is ruled by a loving God. Adventist have long thought they had the answer with what they often call the Great Controversy Theme or Motif. Though it is exceedingly rare to find anyone actually spell out what they mean by the Great Controversy theme or motif. Herbert Douglass does spend a small portion of his article describing what he believes the GCT (Great controversy Theme). He sums it up as freedom. God's love demands the gift of freedom because love only exists in the reality of freedom to choose.

The central issue in the Great Controversy between God and Satan is “freedom.”  Over that mysterious word, that word that has summoned unspeakable courage, honor, and unselfishness in its defense, the well-being of the universe has been wrenched and jeopardized.  Why did God risk all on freedom?

The problem I see with the GCT is that it requires us to make concrete, mythological Biblical stories. In this case Herbert Douglass mentions both Eden and Lucifer. Lucifer by tradition being Satan rather then the metaphor for the king of Babylon actually found in the Bible in Isaiah 14. Thus the foundation of the GCT is based upon what to many seems an allegorical creation story of Eden in perfection and metaphor's about one in a series of opponents of Israel in the book of Isaiah. The foundation therefore is a bit weak. But what about the overall philosophy of freedom and love being the root cause of evil.

That sounds bad doesn't it, but that is what this theory says. Because of love God gives the freedom to people to do whatever they want. So people can choose to be cruel. This theory does not explain how diseases and pathogens infect and shorten our lives, nor why the animal may stalk and kill the child on the edge of the village or why the storm or famine causes desolation. So the GCT is not really even that specific on what evil is. A literal reading of the book of Genesis does not let God off the hook for such things. God curses the ground and then with a flood because man is wicked he kills off everything but what is put in the ark. Yet somehow the GCT is all about love and freedom.

If one were to hold to the literal Eden story then when the two people disobeyed God they started events rolling that could not be stopped until billions were affected. Instead of God explaining to them about choices and consequences and that there was an evil being God had created and allowed the freedom to lie and deceive about anything and everything and that there were such things as facts and that God could in fact present a case for why His ways were better. He cursed them and kicked them out of Eden. Which kind of throws the whole love and freedom thing on the bonfire pretty early. It is rather like your 3 year old disobeying you and you kick him out of the house. Do you really think anyone is going to believe that what you did was out of love?

Herbert Douglass actually acknowledges this problem in his article when he writes:

The risk of granting freedom was not only that God should have a forever heartache.  He would also put Himself on trial. He became One charged with the meanest, most unfair accusations that could be leveled against our Holy Lover.  For millennia, it has seemed that Satan with his accusations has been winning.  More people, it seems, have believed Satan’s lies about God than those who have had faith in His Word, His promises, His trustworthiness. All this trading sad, self-destructive independence for genuine freedom will be covered in lessons to come.

Sounds like because of the rash act of not talking about the problem but kicking them out of Eden God opened Himself up to even more charges. So these people through the millennia don't know the truth of the situation yet somehow they are supposed to now judge God Himself as if He is on trial. They can't tell the difference between true and false yet they are supposed to judge God! Fat chance. Perhaps if God gave them all the data they need to judge, reveal to them the complexities of history and the very thought process of God maybe they could make some kind of judgment, though we have to assume then that what God grants them in knowledge is in fact true and if the question is what God says is true then we being dependent upon God for all this information are back to square one, why believe what He says or shows. Maybe He is just manipulating us?

I wish there was some unified theory of Evil and God. But there is not. Is a volcano evil or a prion or virus? Or are they part of a natural scheme to maintain an indefinitely functioning life cycle of an entire planet filled with life. That is what I tend to think, but then I don't subscribe to the literal nature of the Genesis stories. If those things are the results of curses by God...then the GCT just does not work at all. But like any theory there is elements of truth in the GCT. People do choose to love and they do chose their actions. Those actions will be good and evil. Sometimes evil may even cause something good to happen and sometimes good might in some way promote evil. So we can't simply disregard the importance of freedom. But as with any religious teaching there will be those who disagree and they will even abandon freedom. God did it, such as good old Calvinism, God chooses some to be saved and some to be lost.

The real question when one searches for reasons to understand God and evil is going to come down to what will your theory do for you and others in the here and now. That unfortunately is a judgment call for each individual. However much we may want to declare our truth, we are ill prepared to document the evidence for our truth. We don't like that, we want to think we have special truth that we can share and of course the other religions and denominations and philosophies have the same desire. It is uncomfortable to actually know so little. But honestly that is where we are.

Feel free to talk me off of this ledge, it is not a nice place to be.

Then the Ants Sat in Judgment of the Man, God on trial?

A couple of years ago I posted an article entitled Is God on Trial? Recently Marco Belmont on HeavenlySanctuary.com posted a nice piece of continuing Adventist mythology entitled Judging the Judge.

He begins with a story which he later tells us is a parable about God, Satan, humans and angels. The key piece to interpreting his parable is supplied when he explains:

“...I'd like to submit that the judgment never needs to be the source of anxious panic because guess what? We aren't the ones who are on trial. We human beings aren't the ones being judged. The crazy thing about the judgment is that The One who is being judged is none other than Almighty God Himself. We human beings – and doesn't this just blow the mind – we humans have been assigned jury duty. When this Great Cosmic Battle between good and evil comes to a close, the question isn't “what does God think about us?” - because that question has already been answered in the person of Jesus Christ. God loves even those who hate His guts. Rather, the real question that each of us will be asked when Jesus Christ appears at the close of time will be, “What do YOU think about God?” Is He guilty of being a harsh taskmaster who enslaves His intelligent creatures by using power and might as a way of keeping them in fearful submission? That's what the reptilian con-artist Mr. Satanic Snake has suggested. Or, is God a compassionate and kind Father who loves and forgives people even when they murder Him? That's the testimony of Christ. Right now, respectfully, we are going to judge the Judge of the Judgment.”

The idea that human beings are going to judge God is such an incredible logical fallacy that it amazes me people believe it. In fact toward the end of his rather long article he destroys his whole thesis by showing that human beings are not qualified to judge God. He writes:

“...If a jury knew a person was innocent and convicted that person as guilty despite knowing the truth, that jury just judged itself as being unfit for jury duty. Likewise, when people of God – and notice I'm not directing this towards non-Christians – who claim the name of Christ but spread any sort of theology that makes God look guilty as charged – no matter how precious the words seem to sound – there is no excuse for lack of investigation and pushing our old cherished beliefs out the window – we simply announce to the entire universe that we have become unfit to make truth – specifically the truth about God's character – our standard. Even worse, our absence from the jury box is not just a loss for God, but another vote in favor of Satan and his methods. Are we guilty of saying, “God is love” and yet warn people of Christ's 2nd coming? Why would we warn people about God? You warn people when an enemy is coming, not a friend. Do we claim there is freedom in serving Christ and yet enslave our youth with exacting rules that come from gross misinterpretation of the scriptures? Do we say God accepts everyone unconditionally but turn around and suggest that He couldn't do it unless Christ first shed His blood thus taking the true message of Christ and replacing it with hedonistic paganism? Have we substituted honesty, open mindedness, and willingness with symbolism, religious rhetoric and euphemisms? Do we keep preaching the soon return of Christ somehow subconsciously implying that Christ isn't available right this second as He stands within our midst at this very moment? Have we preached on prophecy and the signs of the times so much that we've forgotten about The God of prophecy and The God of signs and The God of time? Have we Christians become so enamored with God's law hanging up in some municipal or judicial building – worrying about politics and who will represent our cherished views in parliament or senates across the globe - all the while the law of love and freedom is strangely missing from the barren wall that now encases our hearts as God begs for a group of people to free Him from the shackles of the courtroom and announce with tongues of fire, “In the case of Christ vs. Satan, we find the defendant not guilty on all accounts.” If we have answered yes to any of these questions, we have judged ourselves unfit to judge God. Thus, we have no need to worry about The Judgment, because we won't ever experience that glorious moment when one group of people will turn to our good Good and say, “we are sorry, Father, that you were wrongly accused and that an innocent God ever had to prove His goodness in the first place.”'

To simplify this rather elaborate long section of material. If you believe God is good and just, you are capable of being on the Jury that Judges God. If you don't think God is good and just, you are not suitable for the jury and therefore you won't be seated on the totally biased jury pool and only those on that jury pool are rewarded with heaven. If you ever misrepresented God in any of the numerous ways listed as questions by Marco, then you are unfit to serve on the jury...sinners need not apply could be the title of that little section.

The fact is the judgment in the Bible is not about humans judging God after all, we can judge God now to the best of our abilities, we all have to go through life making judgments all the time who to trust and who not to trust, we apply the data and make the choices, in that respect we certainly do judge but it is restricted to our judgment about things. It is not some kind of legal all encompassing judgment of the ultimate truth or reality of a superhuman creature who dwells in the supernatural while we are restricted to the natural. Even if there was a judgment after this life of God, we would be dependent upon God for the information anyway and if you did not trust His information what are you going to do about it? So in such a vast judgment case in the sky scenario there is no point to man being the jury, no need for the finite to judge the infinite. These remnants of the old Investigative Judgment concepts must really go away as they are just as weak as the original Adventist Investigative Judgment. You cannot redefine a poor theology based upon complete misrepresented texts, that leads only to confusion the only answer is found in going back to the original presuppositions and discarding the faulty ones and rebuilding on a firmer and more logical foundation.

Is God On Trial?

One of the frequent statements made among Adventists is that “God is on trial”. Recently I posted the article refuting Clifford Goldstein article Judging the Judge. Some Adventists will even assert that this trial depends upon us, human beings for the vindication of God. Mark Finley said in Facing Revelation's Judgment Discoveries In Prophecy Lecture #9 Net 96:

“And Lucifer has charged before the whole universe that God is unfair, that God is not righteous, that God's way is not the best, that God's law is narrow and restrictive. So God is on trial before His own universe. And Satan has said that God is unfair, that God makes laws that can't be kept, that God does not desire us to be happy, that God is partial, that He plays favorites.”

In the next paragraph:

“You and I are evidence in the trial. As our lives come up before God in judgment, God says to the angels, "Could I have done anything more to save Mark Finley?"

Bob Pickle website says:

“Fourth, the idea about God proclaiming the truth about Himself is derived from Romans 3:4. In some sort of way, according to this text, God is on trial. During the judgment His character is being vindicated, and Satan's lies are being exposed. No, He isn't a vengeful tyrant. No, He isn't overindulgent. He has been loving, merciful, and just with every sinner.”

[This is a pretty funny section where Pickle tries to defend the Clear Word Paraphrase as being accurate in its representation of Daniel 8:14. Just last week I was at a lecture where a Greek scholar from Loma Linda University also pointed to this verse in the Clear Word Bible and his statement was something to the effect that here, referring to the Clear Word Bible on Daniel 8:14 was a clear example of textual corruption]

Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., in his article "THE TYPOLOGY AND THEOLOGY OF THE PRE-ADVENT JUDGMENT" offers a conflicted view if you read his captions but overall he is in the God is on trial camp.

“God Is Not on Trial. In a sense, the ones who are "on trial" in the investigative phases of the final judgment are not the saved or the unsaved, but God Himself. It is God's justice and mercy manifested in His decision to save some and condemn others that is being judged by moral intelligences…”

Then he says:

“God Is on Trial. Yet there is a sense in which God is "on trial" before His moral universe. For several reasons, God is willing and expected to give an account of His creative, redemptive, and punitive activities.”

This is one of the great contribution of the Seventh-day Adventist church, God is on trial. God is on trial before unknown moral intelligences; who we know nothing about. We have no knowledge that they are judging God or question God or God’s choices in who is saved and not saved. But we can be thankful that God is not on trial before the moral intelligences who inhabit our world. How do you think an Atheist would judge God, when he says there is no God? Or what about the Agnostic who says if there is a God He sure can’t be like the God of the Old Testament. God is not going to do too well in that type of trial. We already know the Islamic people reject the God of the New Testament, the writings were wrong and Jesus was not crucified or resurrected. Clearly those of us on earth have insufficient knowledge to judge God. We however can judge whether we believe in God or whether we choose to accept and trust God but we have no way of knowing if God is just or not in any trial type situation. We can believe it, we can accept it as a revelation of God about Himself but as the judge in a trial we are woefully lacking.

So the invention of the “moral intelligences” who examine the books of God was established. As the Bible says man looks on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart. So in the trial the moral intelligences have to depend upon God’s own truthful recording of man’s thoughts. Unless of course we give these intelligences the same supernatural powers of God. But no matter how you look at it the judges in this type of trial are dependent upon God for all information used in the judgment. This would really invalidate this trial in the eyes of any questioning being. In all this it is hard to imagine that with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that sacrificial love, that there are moral intelligences out there in the universe with questions about God. If there are however, the Bible gives us no indication of such and really since we have no Biblical basis for this alleged trial it is unwise to waste time on such speculation. As with the other views of the Investigative Judgment this view of God on trial is not held by most Christians.

There is a quote from recent book of collected essays by C.S. Lewis called God in the Dock which is good to remember when we start to think that God is on trial. The following is from Anchor for the soul:

“However, some people would rather think of themselves as being the judge of God. God is on trial. Listen to this brilliant quote by C.S. Lewis.

The ancient man approached God...as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock.

Oh! How arrogant we can be! How could we think that we could be more loving than the God, who is love? How could we think that we could be more just than the very Being who defines justice? “