View Single Post
Old 19-03-2009, 07:02   #50
lucy7
Inactive
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 1,103
lucy7 has reached the bronze age
lucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze agelucy7 has reached the bronze age
Re: The existance of God

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris View Post
The painting's done. Now, let me see if I can address a couple of the points here.

First thing to say about this is that the story is offered as a simple illustration of a single point, rather than as a complete exploration of the entirety of Christian theology. It's like a parable, the sort of story Jesus used to use to illustrate his sermons. The key to understanding these sorts of things is not to try to load symbolic meaning onto elements of the story that weren't intended to carry it, but are simply there to make the story possible.

You're right, if the barber was God he would have had a different perspective. But that's not necessary for the story to function. The simple point of the story is to say that suffering in the world is due to humankind's unwillingness for it to be dealt with according to God's expertise, even though that expertise is available.

The tramp in this story is more akin to the race as a whole, rather than any individual person. While there are people in the world who don't submit to God, there will always be those who seek to aggrandise themselves at the expense of others, and hence there will always be suffering.



Your first statement assumes that conceptually, there can only be a God if he (she/it if you like) acts the way you think he should. Your second statement accepts as a given the Christian beliefs about God's loving and forgiving nature whilst at the same time ignoring the Christian beliefs about his just nature. If you indulge in pick'n'mix theology you're bound to end up with some strange flavour combinations.

How am I doing so far?


Very very well!!
lucy7 is offline