(12-17-2017, 01:43 PM)Wallfire Wrote: I wonder, if each of us were to take responsibility for our actions and the end results of our actions, would we need God ?.
I have grown tired of hearing, "Its Gods will" and "Its the devil" when in fact its us doing it or its just life.
Freedom comes with feeling the pain of responsibility and knowing its rests on us, not God not the Devil
In many ways I agree with you - and the Bible does too. In others, I and the Bible do differ.
First, what is "the number of the beast" the Bible tells us it is "the number of man"...same, same... also, when Peter was talking to Jesus that once Jesus looked at Peter and said "Get thee behind me "Satan" you are a stumbling block to me". http://biblehub.com/matthew/16-23.htm
Therefore, is our own nature and natural instincts that is at odds with us the majority of the time, the Bible teaches this time and time again also.
Greed is perfectly natural, so is selfishness, coveting your "neighbors" stuff... nearly every sin in the Bible is fairly well natural - just a part of being human - and most of those traits come out when children are very very little. What two year old hasn't shown many of those traits at varying times?
We don't need to learn how to be selfish as children - but we do need to learn how to share our toys, how to be patient while our freinds or little brother or sister takes their turn, etc.
Being "good" even societally isn't our natural state generally speaking, it's learned behavior. Some people learn more quickly than others, some people never truly grasp it... but it's still learned.
The Bible is very clear that people will be without excuse before God... and teaches self responsibility. .. at no time does Jesus say that since Satan caused us to do something we will get into heaven regardless of what we do...
The Bible squarely puts responsibility for sin and wrongdoing on the individual - and if it wasn't our responsibility then we couldn't be fairly judged, or ever see hell.
So why have God at all? You ask, why not do away with the aspect of God since heaven and hell is based on personal responsibility of man? The Bible actually attempts to show us the why of that.
Left to our own devices we all will develop a societal definition of what good is... each society will come up with or have different definitions of what is good, but they develop them nonetheless for the best working of that society.
Some societies are cannibals, they have no problems eating human beings, but they don't eat the human beings from their own tribe, for instance, because that would be "bad" for the continuance of their society. But as a general rule, eating humans is "good"
Some societies have no problems with pedophilia, its common practice and it's "good" unless the child is damaged to the point of being unable to bear children.. then it becomes "bad", because it's bad for the continuity of their society...
All societies develop their own sense of good and bad, based on their own social values and value systems, and because people vary, so do societies.
Jesus pointed out a pagan society that helped those who were their freinds and family, gave to the poor, did "good" things... and said, don't these other people do all these things you call good?
Then He explained that God asks more of his people than just societal definitions of good... always He said we should go one step further than just societal good in effort to set themselves apart and show God to others in/as an absolute...
In the human sense of the word, there is no true good or bad, no absolutes - only what is acceptable to any given society and what is not, what is beneficial and what is not for the continuity of that society. With God, there are universal absolutes... things that are good which defy societal explaination, and things that are bad which defy societal explaination.
This is the general synopsis of the old and new testaments, and why have a God and a Satan to begin with... those are the absolutes, the extremes of the spectrum which defy human society and nature.
Jesus said "why do you call me good? Only God is good."
The old testament shows how, in ourselves, we cannot be an absolute of "good". The law existed to prove to man that just having societal rules doesn't work to bring us any closer to that absolute good even when those laws are made by God, the absolute good, because we are still subject to ourselves, and cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
Mankind will forever look for legal loopholes if you will... or create more laws to make themselves feel better.. or ignore what they dont like in secret and pretend publicly to follow all the rules... just having societal rules doesn't work to be a "good" people, in any absolute sense of the word.
And that is the point of the Bible... that there are not only absolutes, but they also rest outside of man and society. There are absolutes that are bad, and absolutes that are good, and in ourselves, in our natural human states we are unable to gauge them, and unable to follow them.
This means theft always absolutely bad, not just societally unacceptable, it makes murder absolutely bad, not just societally unacceptable - and man in his natural state cannot be good, we must both learn what is good, as well as have assistance to keep on following what is good - or we will stray from doing those absolute good things and begin gauging and following according to societal definitions rather than absolutes.
That assistance must come then from that good which we are not.. which is the point of the new testament - and the reason for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit - our comforter and helpmeet who speaks to the individual only Gods Word and helps him be closer to that which is absolutely good, God.
Life is difficult in general but we need more than just societal definitions of good... we need something better, some universal definition or rape can become acceptable, or murder and more depending on each individual society.
In short, we need God.