JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 8:49 am
Compassionist wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 4:38 pm
If God is causing us pain and death then God is culpable. Am I the only one or are there others who feel the same way?
I dont think you are alone in your view but in my experience those that share it are mostly atheists and infidels.
The faithful recognise that God is wholely good and righteous and so if our interpretation of the expression "
hardening someones heart" results in God acting unjustly
our understanding of the expression needs to be adjusted.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESS
RELATED POSTS
In what sense did God "harden" Pharoah's heart (Ex. 7:3, 4) ?
viewtopic.php?p=838159#p838159
it is always diverting, and confirms we doubting infidels in our rejection of Bible, Abrahamic religions and the trustworthiness of Christian apologetics, to see an apologist (or his mentors) rewriting the Bible to make it say what they would prefer it to say. I shall check the Hebrew, but if the translations say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, that is what it probably means, not that God revealed that Pharaoh had hardened his own heart.
Up to 9. 12 Pharoah had hardened his own heart once the plague had stopped. After that, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and we might assume that he had hardened it himself, But 9.12 says that God did this to Pharaoh and thus we have to ask whether the first two hardenings were God's work, as well.
Look also at 9. 34 to 10.1 which makes it clear that Pharaoh's hardening of heart was actually God doing it to show his Signs and to make sport amongst the Egyptians and show Himself off. And thereafter it is impossible to tell Pharaoh's hardening of heart from God doing it to show his power and signs.
Read it yourself and come back and honestly say whether you can claim that it was not God doing it to Pharaoh and that saying it is 'God revealing what Pharaoh was doing himself' is not just reading from the 'Ghost Bible' - the one that says what Believers want it say, not what it actually does say. About slavery, about the kids slain by a bear, about Adam dying, about everything inconvenient.
