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Re: Thoughts on Jonah (was Re: Radio Satan) and let me add pharoahto the discussion

On Mon, 3 Jun 2002 TYoder at sschwab_com wrote:
> i don't have my bible with me, nor do i know what the chapter says.
> what is the theory?

http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=ROM+9:6-24&language=english&version=NIV&showfn=on&showxref=on

   [6] It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are
   descended from Israel are Israel. [7] Nor because they are his
   descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is
   through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." (Genesis 21:12)
   [8] In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's
   children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as
   Abraham's offspring. [9] For this was how the promise was stated: "At
   the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son." (Genesis
   18:10,14)

   [10] Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father,
   our father Isaac. [11] Yet, before the twins were born or had done
   anything good or bad -- in order that God's purpose in election might
   stand: [12] not by works but by him who calls -- she was told, "The
   older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23) [13] Just as it is
   written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." (Malachi 1:2-3)

   [14] What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! [15] For he
   says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
   compassion on whom I have compassion." (Exodus 33:19) [16] It does not,
   therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. [17]
   For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very
   purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be
   proclaimed in all the earth." (Exodus 9:16) [18] Therefore God has
   mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to
   harden.

   [19] One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For
   who resists his will?" [20] But who are you, O man, to talk back to
   God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make
   me like this?'" (Isaiah 29:16, 45:9) [21] Does not the potter have the
   right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble
   purposes and some for common use?

   [22] What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known,
   bore with great patience the objects of his wrath -- prepared for
   destruction? [23] What if he did this to make the riches of his glory
   known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for
   glory -- [24] even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but
   also from the Gentiles?

> and how does it bother you?

First, re: verses 17 and 22-24, I don't much cotton to the idea that any
one of us might have been "prepared for destruction" just so God can show
off his power, or just so everyone else can be grateful that God didn't
destroy *them*.  Second, re: verses 14-18, Paul's logic seems a bit off
when he tries to defend God against the charge of making arbitrary
decisions by saying that God makes his decisions, well, arbitrarily.

Third, re: verses 19-22, there is a significant difference between people
and lumps of clay.  Lumps of clay do not have sentience and cannot talk
back, while people do, and can.  But if you look at one of the Isaiah
passages that Paul alludes to, it seems that Paul was, indeed, working
from a point of view which basically equated people with clay:

   [9] "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, 
   to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. 
   Does the clay say to the potter, 
   'What are you making?' 
   Does your work say, 
   'He has no hands'? 
   [10] Woe to him who says to his father, 
   'What have you begotten?' 
   or to his mother, 
   'What have you brought to birth?' 
   [11] "This is what the Lord says --
   the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: 
   Concerning things to come, 
   do you question me about my children, 
   or give me orders about the work of my hands? 

So here, both clay and children serve as metaphors for the idea that God
can do with his creations whatever he wants.  But we no longer accept the
idea that children have no intrinsic rights or dignity of their own; in
our culture, it is generally accepted that parents have a responsibility
to their children, simply by virtue of bringing them into the world.  So
the idea that we cannot question or disapprove of our Heavenly Parent's
plans for us does not ring true to us the way it might have rung true to
the ancient Israelites.  True, we cannot "order" God around, because we
simply haven't got the power to enforce our "orders", but that doesn't
mean we have to meekly accept everything he does.  Witness Job.

And this, of course, takes us back to _A.I._, and to the question of what
responsibility a creator may have towards his/her creations.  ("In the
beginning," says Professor Hobby, "didn't God create Adam to love *him*?"  
Implicit in Hobby's remark is that God had no moral obligations to Adam,
and thus, we have no moral obligations to any of our own creations.)

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
 "I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
      Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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