lab@ihlpf.UUCP (07/28/83)
#R:qubix:-39900:ihlpf:22600028: 0:1390
ihlpf!dap1 Jul 27 13: 2:00 1983
Larry,
What do you mean they (Adam and Eve) were perfect UNTIL they disobeyed God?
If they disobeyed God, they were not perfect. That's like saying my new car
was perfect in every detail until it fell apart the day after I bought it. If
it falls apart the next day, then it wasn't "perfect" when I bought it.
Second, I said I couldn't ACCEPT such a God. If there is such a God, then
you're right, it wouldn't be my place to tell him how to act. Still, that
doesn't preclude me from not accepting him as an all loving being who deserves
all the adulation I can muster. As far as imposing my own standards on him,
whose standards would you have me use? As I have pointed out before, you're
implication is that "good" is defined as precisely whatever God does. Thus
God is good. Well, sure, but so what? Now good has lost any connection to
what most people usually think of as "morals" or "ethics" so unless you also
define "ethical" to be an adjective applying to all acts of God, then we
still don't have an "ethical" God. I could claim that I was perfect where,
of course, perfect means "The state of being Darrell Plank" and it wouldn't
mean a whole lot. The fact that God is "merciful" or "good" under your
definitions of the terms may be true, but it doesn't tell me anything at all
about God himself.
Darrell Plank