EDIT: I got my answer guys, God bless yall! I’ve been really struggling comprehending this question. If God knows everything, and he gave Satan permission to inflict harm on Job’s life, how is it right that his family dies because of the permission God allowed Satan to have? Wouldn’t that make God immoral and responsible for the death of innocent people?
God knew humanity would fall - the Bible tells us Jesus is the Lamb 'slain from the foundations of the earth'
He created us. Adam did sin and caused the fall. We all inherit that sin nature and cannot not sin.
So we go to hell without salvation. Jesus died for us, took our punishment. (I believe ALL of that, I was raised in the AoG)
But i'm starting to see God as someone not very pleasant. In some ways, it's like a guy who wants a woman to love him, so he cuts her brake lines and waits for her at the place where her brakes will fail, so he can swoop in, save her and she will love him and be grateful forever.
Because of this whatever-it-is, His insistence that we do things in this weird way of His, where we have free will and can sin and we gt the Fall, which resulted in untold suffering, death, as well as uncountable souls in hell. For me, it's very hard to see such a God as omnibenevolent, or very benevolent at all.
I don't want to go to hell. I don't like God. I hate the Devil and what he stands for. But I believe if I don't like God, if I'm not soo grateful for Salvation, I'll go to hell.
Any insights that are not 'shut up', or hand-wavy 'His ways are not our ways' kinds of responses would be greatly appreciated.
Lucifer stems from the Hebrew word Helel ("shining one"), a title mocking a proud King of Babylon who fell from power, which Christianity later mistranslated into a proper name for the Devil; in contrast, Jesus calls himself the "bright morning star" (the planet Venus) in Revelation 22:16, reclaiming the title as a symbol of light and resurrection, which traces directly back to Inanna, the original Sumerian goddess of Venus who embodied both the morning and evening star, wielding the ultimate cosmic power over both life-giving love and destructive warfare.
While "Lucifer" became a misunderstood name for evil through translation errors, both the biblical metaphor of the morning star and the planetary force of Venus belong to a tradition of dual light and power that originated with the supreme Sumerian goddess Inanna.
If we even include Jewish roots and all the pantheon stuff about Yahweh, there’s still so many who came before or existed prior to contact to receive words about the Lord. Are their souls eternally cast out simply because they were birthed at an inconvenient moment in history? I’ve tried to get into the faith so many times but this one question has been the largest barrier every time. If they hadn’t had the chance to save their souls, to learn of God, what makes me so different that I get an opportunity? TLDR; what happened to the souls of those who existed before the written or spoken word of God?
Exodus 22:25
Leviticus 25:35-37
Deuteronomy 23:19-20
These all directly condemn charging ANY interest on loaned money.
And further: the ancient world, even when they did permit usury, had far lower maximum interest rates than the modern world.
I would think that Christian nationalists, and religious fundamentalists would be against the practice of lending money and to this end be much more against capital markets.
Can some religious folks share how you reconcile the modern lending landscape with your religious beliefs on this topic.
I’m not trying to stir the pot. Genuinely curious what people think.
Hello Reddit, newbie here, I wanna talk about Christian theological ideas/systems surrounding Predestination.
As I understand, there are 3 main ideas that explain Predestination in the Bible: Calvinism, Arminianism, and Molinism. Calvinism is the idea that God chooses everything that happens, Arminianism is where God has foresight and can see the free choices people make and predetermines that way, and Molinism is in-between and says that God knows which situations will make the individual freely chose the end result, and so he guides history towards the right situation.
So after researching all 3, it seems like there's some holes in their theologies, and also things I don't necessarily agree with. But I've always kind of had my own idea about how Predestination works, and I wanna share that to see if there is any validity to my view. For the purposes of simplicity and clear referencing, I'm giving my idea the name "Reactive Providence"
Reactive Providence is similar to Molinism in that it has ideas from Calvinism and Arminianism, but it's also kind of the opposite of Molinism? Molinism says that God knows what choices we would freely make if in certain situations, and therefore guides us to those situations. The definition I have for Reactive Providence is "God can have a predetermined end goal, while not knowing the specific smaller choices we make beforehand. Due to God's Omnipotence, he can react to whatever choice is made to keep his end goal in mind." Because God is infinitely more powerful than us, no matter what we do, he can always have his goal be the true path. It implies free will in our choices while still having predestined events, which kinda makes sense with what the Bible says.
Now I'm sure it sounds kind of strange, but I don't think it's complete bogus? I mean, I know whether I choose pancakes or waffles for breakfast, Jesus is still going to return to earth, and I don't see anything disproving the idea that me choosing one or the other is predetermined. And there's evidence in the Bible that shows God actively responding to the choices that humanity makes, like in Jonah 3:10, 2 Kings 20:5-6, Exodus 32:14, which you could argue was predestined by God, but there's technically no evidence there to confirm that.
Sorry I know this is all kinda wordy, I don't expect to be right I just find this idea curious and I'm wondering if there's anything to say about it. Thanks!!