God the judge, determinism, and free will

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Well I haven’t even addressed any of the moral implications for strict determinism when it comes to the human mind and whether or not we can choose only to do what is determined. If our thoughts and actions are strictly determined then we need to shut down all the court systems and release everyone from prisons because no one can in any way be held accountable for their actions and are therefore not guilty. We have no right to imprison anyone if they don’t really have the ability to choose. So from a purely practical matter, this idea of determinism when it comes to the human mind has some rather serious legal implications.

However to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think there has been a successful “determinism” defense made in court.

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In some Christian theology

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Made a point earlier that may have gotten lost awaiting approval. But I think we need to radically rethink God’s judgment, less as an evaluation of what God has made, and more as a decision on how to course-correct a world that has gone astray… Judgment, in the bible at least, always seems to be about the latter…

Take God’s judgment of Babel. Babel = Babylon = Empire. What God sees here is an attempt to get everyone spouting the same thing, whatever it is that Babel wants. In other words, God sees a closed system. A stunted history that can’t move forward (under such a regime as Babel everyone is a replication of the same and new things can’t enter…). Thus God “judges” Babel, the result being a scattering of its people and a re-opening of history to the new. God’s judgment is not so much an evaluation of Babel (indeed, God leaves the tower in tact) but a decisive move to get people speaking differently again, opening up new struggles as they try to understand, yes, but also the way to progress…

We see the same judgment again with Egypt, who would not let Israel go, but wanted to keep it trapped within its closed realm of the same… We see Solomon issue such a judgment himself in the case of the two mothers, when he calls for the sword to “open up” the future for the child brought before him by identifying which of the mothers would truly support its life…

Again and again, God’s judgment is less an evaluation of what God has made and more a decisive act to keep history moving, and supportive of life of every kind…

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Some Christian theologies align with what you suggest. The view that is similar to how a positive parent judges their childrens actions. A postive parent judges actions with a growth mindset.

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Nice positivist spin on it, but…

Sounds a bit different than, “Babylon, you have become too stagnate, so I am going to have to ruffle your feathers.”

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Well, in all fairness, I was putting a spin on an earlier tale! :slight_smile: So while I think Babel is Babylon, I wouldn’t want to equate God’s judgment in Genesis with Jeremiah’s judgment here…

Again, God doesn’t destroy Babel there, but only scatters its people. Jeremiah is declaring something a bit harsher than this… Making Babel an outright desolation… Partially due to scattering its people, sure, but also through the annihilation of whatever Babylon puts up in defense.

Even so, I don’t think it was that Babel was stagnant (and needed its feathers ruffled), but that it was actively eradicating difference in the world, and building an even higher tower to extend its sway… In both cases, Genesis and Jeremiah, the judgment, although more severe in Jeremiah, serves the same purpose: to reopen history to difference by breaking an oppressive regime that would annihilate it.

It could almost be read that Babylon didn’t learn its lesson in Genesis. Was recalcitrant. And so even harsher measures were required to get history back on track (to fulfilling the mandate of Genesis 1: the multiplication of living things - including gays, the transgendered, blacks, and differences of every kind). The tower this time had to be destroyed…

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You’re saying that God wants more murderers, thieves and fornicators? So that there is a variety of people? :-"

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No. These things are more consistent with Babel: forces that would destroy difference and constrict history. Except the fornicators. :slight_smile: I have my hunches, but not sure why these get such a bad rap!

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Granted, Mesopotamia (aka Babylon) was a “Secular” amalgamation, not really any different than modern day secularism, proposing to make all things gray (seeking the Abyss in the name of “equality”, peace making security, and global authority). But the reasoning concerning its annihilation seems very different than your version, which frankly seems merely a personal slant and rationalization. Clearly in Jeremiah, God was pissed off, not merely helping Mankind along.

So you are referring more to Genesis where we have;

Wherein it seems that the ONLY reason for scattering them was to PREVENT their ability to accomplish.

Well, it would seem that despite God’s efforts, Mesopotamia/Babylonia managed anyway. And that really pissed off God. “It was bad enough that they were united in harmony. But now they succeed even after I tried to confuse them into disharmony, distrust, and impotence.”

It seems from the getgo that it is purely an issue of a very jealous and resentful god taking out very self-satisfying vengeance upon those who threaten his supreme authority.

I am not seeing the “just to make sure that Man progresses” theme that you are promoting. And keep in mind that there are very, very certain ways to ensure that Man made progress on his own without blind vengeance being involved. I am fully aware of these means. Honestly, how could THE God not have been?

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An injured party’s desire for retribution or repayment from those who harmed him or to demonstrate his innocence against false accusations. Vengeance demonstrates God’s righteousness in compensating the wrong with right. He takes vengeance against the murderers of the helpless ( Psalm 94:1-6 ) and enemies of his people ( Joel 3:19-21 ). The idea of vengeance is incorporated into Israel’s moral code, making them as his people accountable for their infractions. Vengeance most frequently translates the Hebrew naqam and is used of God ( Isa 1:24 ) and human beings ( Exod 20:20-21 ) in meting out legally deserved punishments. Personal vengeance from a designated family member was required to avenge an unlawful death ( Num 35:19-21 ). In cases of uncertainty over unintentional death, the perpetrator could find protection from the victim’s surviving relatives in the cities of refuge ( Num 35:22-29 ). As Israel developed from a loose confederation into a kingdom, carrying out vengeance became a state function ( Deut 24:16 ). The lex talonis, requiring “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth” ( Exod 21:23-25 ), is widely understood as prohibiting disproportionate punishment. Still basic to this principle is that wrongs had to be avenged. Without the perpetrator’s execution the land remained defiled ( Deut 19:11-13 ). Vengeance reflects a sense of justice in restoring the right. It was also a national function, as Israel retaliated against its neighbors. Samson kills three thousand Philistines for blinding him (Judg. 14-16). God is the avenger of last resort in destroying the Egyptians as Israel’s enemies ( Exod 15:1-18 ; Deut 32:35-36 ). Vengeance is approached differently in the New Testament. Government remains as the executor of divine vengeance against law breakers ( 1 Peter 2:14 ), but personal vengeance is prohibited. Jesus requires that an ethic of helping one’s enemies replace retaliation ( Matt 5:38-48 ). Similarly Paul forbids returning evil for evil and seeking personal vengeance ( Rom 12:17-21 ). This apparent dissimilarity lead Marcion in the second century, Schleiermacher in the eighteenth century, and some scholars since then to conclude that the Old Testament religion was inferior to that of the New Testament. Such a view characterizing the Old Testament as absolute demand for vengeance overlooks Joseph’s forgiving his brothers ( Gen 45:1-4 ) and David’s sparing the lives of Saul ( 1 Sam 26 ) and later Saul’s family ( 2 Sam 9:9-13 ). God does not completely destroy Israel but forgives them, preserving a remnant in spite of their transgressions ( Mic 7:18-20 ). Divine vengeance in the Old Testament is not to be understood as God’s desire for self-gratification in exacting punishment, but as an expression of displeasure over all unrighteousness to restore the original balance ( Joel 3:19-21 ). Vengeance anticipated redemption. The relative seeking revenge was called the ga’al haddam [l;a"G] ( Num 35:19 ), the avenger or redeemer of blood. This provides a necessary background for understanding Christ’s death as satisfying God’s vengeance to provide redemption. Divine retributive righteousness seeking revenge against the sinner becomes in Christ redemptive. Forgiveness rather than vengeance is the basis for Christian morality. Vengeance incapable of being placated is reserved for Christ’s and the church’s enemies who unbelievingly reject its resolution in Christ’s death.
biblestudytools.com/dictionary/vengeance/

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One thing that makes bible stories so wonderful (and divisive!) is their ambiguity. I’m convinced that it’s deliberate, and that most stories can be read in (at least!) two ways: one that reveals a God and human relationship where God is dictatorial, selfish, and not so good, and where human beings simply need to submit, and one that reveals a God and human relationship where God is cooperative and wise, and where human beings are called to partner with God to bring about the desired state. As wisdom literature, or literature that teaches us wisdom, we need to discern the right one…

So you’ve just given one valid translation / interpretation of this particular story, and as your analysis rightly shows, it reveals an asshole God who wants to keep control. :slight_smile:

Take a more literal translation of the story though (without personal slants, i.e., yours or mine) and it becomes a little less clear what exactly is going on… Another reading sees Genesis 11, starting off with a humankind all speaking the same, and a tower in the center drawing others in (i.e., un-scattering the people of the earth), as contrary to the mandate in Genesis 1, where humankind is called to fill the earth with all kinds of life (including, presumably, different languages, which we interestingly see at the end of Genesis 10…). Thus it is this centralization and unification (and most importantly, eradication of difference) that God wants to correct, before Babel fulfills its dream of a fully united humankind, all speaking the same…

With this reading, the goal is not peace and prosperity through an empire of the same, but peace and prosperity where differences abound, and new things are allowed to enter…

Also, God is not jealous and resentful as you say, but working towards the vision set in Genesis 1. That is, God is a God that we can believe in…

But I fully grant the validity of your reading. Like I said, it’s up to us to discern, as the ambiguity cuts right through.

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But wait. I am not the one slanting and translating, nor claiming that God is an asshole. Genesis 5-8 exactly states why Babylon was being scattered.

That is pretty straightforward. It very clearly states the reason for the scattering. It makes no inference concerning disobeying a prior command. And that would seem a rather relevant part of the story. Why leave out the very point … if that was the point? And why state that the purpose was one thing if in fact it was as you suggest instead?

Throughout the OT, it is very often expressed that there are things that God simply does not want Man to know or do, starting with that famed Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - “Just don’t go there”. We can speculate all kinds of positive or negative reasons for such concerns, but one cannot legitimately state that God merely wanted for Man to progress.

As I said earlier, there are far more sane ways to cause Man to progress than what the OT reveals. And if Babylon was coming close to having nothing impossible for them, why not have them go ahead and fill the Earth afterward? Why send incapable people out to do a job if there was an option to let them become more capable first?

And I am not aware of any story stating that Man was directed to fill the Earth with every kind of life; “the multiplication of living things - including gays, the transgendered, blacks, and differences of every kind)”. That sounds like your modern day politically correct liberal rationalization, not anything that was actually stated.

Where does it state that Man is to fill the Earth with every mutation possible?

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Every translation, including the one you presented and are insisting upon (even though you didn’t do it yourself), is an interpretation, and therefore has a slant to it. Therefore yes, you are ‘slanting’ the text, albeit indirectly. (Someone already did the hard work of discerning ‘the truth’ for you. You are just assuming they did it right.)

You want another example? Look at Job 42:6. A critical passage in that text where Job declares his final resolution… Is he submitting to God’s overwhelming presence, and his lowly status as dust and ashes, as most common translations depict? Or is he genuinely consoled by God and left feeling elevated as a creature made of dust?..

You can’t just read the verse as others have rendered it and deny the text its full range of meaning. You need to actually think through all the possibilities, what these mean for the broader text, and discern from there the truth of what is being said. That’s how scripture works.

It’s called subtlety, of which biblical scripture is rich in. :slight_smile: Again, the point isn’t to broadside us with the truth in as clear a terms as possible but to actually make us think, and figure out what is really going on. The very fact that Genesis 10 ends with all the generations of Noah and “all their languages” (carrying forward the spirit of filling the earth as per Genesis 1) and Genesis 11 all of a sudden has a humankind all speaking the same and bent on getting everyone speaking the same should tell you just how important these themes are there. God is correcting something in Genesis 11. We would be wise to see it as the reversal of what was starting to happen in Genesis 10 - recalling the all important context of Genesis 1.

Genesis 1? “Go forth and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it…” In other words, spread an Eden across the globe where all these differences live in peace together. (When humankind decided to centralize, a la Babel, and get everyone speaking the same, sometimes a scattering is called for to get back on track with this mandate…

(We can’t just read one text in isolation, but all the texts need to cohere with the underlying spirit we would posit. In other words, your interpretation of Genesis 11, and what God is doing there, needs to cohere with Genesis 1, and what God is doing there. The spirit you would ascribe to God in Genesis 11, how do you reconcile that with the mandate God gives us in Genesis 1 in such a way that there is consistency to God’s character and actions?)

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Obviously you want to paint your own Biblical image.

It didn’t occur to you that such a command was given before Eve’s transgression, curse, and outcast? It seems to me that God intended that they spread their blessing across the world. You seem to be proposing that God’s intent was for them to go forth and spread their curse.

It reminds me of those who preach the wisdom of Eve in disobeying God in order to accomplish God’s command (not that they wouldn’t have a personal agenda in preaching such).

I run across quite a number of people who wish to paint God into their own perverse image.

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I don’t think a blessing is taken back because of a transgression. Consequences of ones own actions does not remove the blessings (good will) of another. But I could be wrong and most likely am wrong.

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What do you think a Curse is? Adham and Eve were cursed for their transgression. Judaism is very, very much about cursing (plagues and such), far less so than about blessing; "He who can destroy a nation can control a nation". Islam picked up on the same idea, but they are far less subtle about it.

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My understanding is that is about the balance of justice. There are consequences to actions.

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So is God.

There is an inherent order to learning; “learn how to stop it before you learn to make it go”, “learn how to aim it before you learn how to shoot it”,…

Ahdam was not designed to be a god. That would be like trying to use your Chevy van as a hotel. There might be some similarities, but also limits. Ahdam was designed to be merely a manager of the Garden, a gardener. But the gardener(s) discovered that by “consuming” a specific type of “fruit”, they could become a god (a determiner of all that can or cannot be, a dictator over the Garden).

So much like the US government, designed to be merely a democratic manager, with not a vote of its own, it was discover (and by the same means) that the government itself could be the only vote merely by using a specific tactic (“consuming an illegal fruit”, in their case, the FED) and thus has become a dictator and a god.

Before the corruption of the US constitutional system, it was indeed a great thing to have such constitutionalism spread across the world and “rule over the animals”. But afterward, such spreading merely aids the corruption all over the world. Strife is the consequence and curse, just as it was with Ahdam and Eve.

Babylon was dispersed for the exact reason specified in Genesis, “else they will be able to accomplish anything they choose”. But they had not first learned wisdom. Don’t you think it would be better to learn wisdom before ultimate power?

The same curses and activities by varied parties are being repeated today. With technology Man has learned to totally an entirely annihilate himself and seems to be blindly well on his way to do just that. It is very evident that Man has STILL not learned wisdom (aka “the height of philosophy”).

Adham was told that if you “partake of this fruit” and thus become a god, you will perish. Today, we hear the boast from atop the mountain of Scientism, “We WILL be gods!!” And from the United Nations, “Because this is what WE want!!”

The consequences/curse for Ahdam was a long period of suffering before perishing and being replaced by a much more sinister Godwannabe. But for the totality of homosapien, the consequences are even worse. Through great yet temporary suffering homosapian shall be almost as a god dictating all things. And then vanish entirely, never to rise again, simply too cleverly dumb to live as a species.

Man’s replacement will know wisdom before such corruptibility can take over. Man’s replacement will not seek to be God, but rather merely to attend to the Garden and know better than to consume the fruit of inappropriate power.

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Agree to a large extent. In a Hebrew context “curse” was a consequence of ones passions (primarily pride). A measure of justice rather than the result of anger or revenge or betrayal. In other circumstances “curse” refered to a future prediction of events (not directly related to present passions or the consequences of these present passions). As you describe, humans have cursed themselves and are currently cursing themselves. You, in your future prediction, are also cursing humanity.

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Or a blessing. You are not in a position to know which.

It is by a negative cast, a positive momentum is inspired.