Comments on: God’s Will Hunting, part 3: The subjects of Scripture

By: YeHaveHeard — God’s will hunting, part 4: Asking for wisdom

YeHaveHeard — God’s will hunting, part 4: Asking for wisdom — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:09:40 +0000

[...] traded back and forth between E. Stephen Burnett and Isaac M. That included last week’s column Part 3: The subjects of Scripture, and this shows the entire series so far. We continue with part 4 [...]

By: Timothy Stone

Timothy Stone — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:15:10 +0000

I would say that the problem with the idea in people’s interpretation of God “using them” the same way as characters in the Bible is not the Western individualism, as historically understood. Not to get into politics, but in the American mindset, at least, we traditionally understood that God gives us all varying talents, and it is the government’s task to stay out of the way and allow us to go as far as God will allow us.
We slowly got turned off-course into this “results-driven” idea of equality, whereby if it is not equal in every respect, it is wrong. Gradually differences in talent, station in life, and what not, were not viewed as the result of Providence, or the organic workings of men from the past onward, but as a conspiracy where the downtrodden were made that way by others “unfairly” as they see it, working off of them.
In this distorted contemporary view, the Protestant Work Ethic, and ideas of liberty are jettisoned for the “equality” that if person “x” has something, so must I. Also, that if God uses person “x”, he must use me in the same way. This is pure bilge, and not the Founders’ vision, but the idiot Progressives’ basically authoritarian vision starting in the 1880′s onward.

By: E. Stephen Burnett

E. Stephen Burnett — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:20:30 +0000

That's a source for this "system" of thinking about looking about God's will that I hadn't considered: the flip side of overly "democratic" worldview common to many in Western culture. To some extent this is the drawback of overemphasis in some Protestant circles as well: if God spoke to Moses this way, then He must typically do the same thing to Christians today. However, everyone is equal in human worth, but God does not work the same way with everyone. Very interesting ... I hope to explore this more in a future series installment.

By: P. F. Pugh

P. F. Pugh — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:00:07 +0000

It’s a particularly western American individualistic error to assume that because God worked that way in one instance, He will do so with us. That assumes that God will work the same way with every person and that simply is incorrect. God is not a respecter of persons and will work in each person’s life as He sees fit. He does not treat everyone equally and is not obligated to do so.