Why Would God Care What We Believe?

[ElCodeMonkey]

Let's assume the typical Christian orthodox of Jesus dying for our sins is true and that we must believe in him to be saved. I don't care to prove that it's true or not in this thread--we''ll just assume it is--but rather WHY does God care what we believe? Why would God be so intent on ensuring we believe something rather than only being intent on ensuring what we physically do with our lives? I'm not looking for "it's both" or the like, I'm wondering why God cares about the former at all. Why would our thoughts even matter to God and not only our actions?

[marco]

Why would our thoughts even matter to God and not only our actions?

Whether God exists or not, he is the projection of what humans imagine. His anger, sorrow, mercy and conversations with nomads are attributions, just like Michelangelo's painting of him. He is easy to imagine with long hair and a stern countenance. If we expect his anger, he'll be angry; demand mercy, he'll be merciful and he might even be the fount of love if that's what we want. He is the servant of man's imagination and if man makes him care, he cares.

[ttruscott]

If, for the sake of argument, Jesus did indeed die to "pay for" our sins, then how is that sacrifice appropriated for any given indidual?

Your questions have no easy answer... PCE accepts that everyone put their faith in Him as their saviour (or rejected Him) before they were conceived as human and that His death was not the start of salvation but merely the legal necessity; ie , if you put your faith in Him before the foundation of the world all salvation arose from that time on, not just from the time of His death. As John suggested in Jn 3:18, believers who are sinful are NOT condemned for their sin (in all time) but unbelievers are condemned for their unbelief ALREADY.

Problems solved...

[ttruscott]

Is this an adequate comparison to why you believe God cares what we think? He wants our emotional investment in him?

Yes, indeed. IN fact I consider that in its deepest meaning of communion, our marriage to HIM is the whole purpose of our creation.

[ElCodeMonkey]

Is this an adequate comparison to why you believe God cares what we think? He wants our emotional investment in him?

Yes, indeed. IN fact I consider that in its deepest meaning of communion, our marriage to HIM is the whole purpose of our creation.

Okay, great. So if God wants this emotional connection, what does this have to do with believing Jesus is God or that Jesus died for sins? This is different than believing "God is love and I oh so love him and his loving qualities." Me, being a lover of love, and God, being love, is me loving God without knowing his name in a similar way that I could enjoy my wife loving me even if she thought my name was Fred. Can't really blame her if I never told her my name myself, of course. But it's still me she loves. She loves the qualities of what make me who I am. So why are particular beliefs such as those important? Are they somehow foundational to an emotional connection with who God is? Couldn't I still love God in a way he finds pleasing even if I have lack in one particular piece of knowledge about him? Surely we don't know everything about God anyway, so why do these particular two beliefs matter so much more than the rest of the lack of knowledge we have about God when it comes to loving him?

[ElCodeMonkey]

God made us, and he knows we need connections to be truly happy
...
Every loving parent wants to know if his child is happy.
...
God cares what we think because if our thoughts are negative it's an indication we are unhappy
...
he cares what we believe because believing falsehoods is harmful to us,

You're misunderstanding my question. I don't mean to ask why he cares what we think from a standpoint of "I like yellow" and he says "I don't care!" I mean he "cares" in that it is extremely important to him that we believe certain things to the extent of it being a make or break deal for eternal longevity. If we don't believe exactly X and Y, no matter our actions in life, these beliefs are so much more important to him than anything we could say or do. Why does he care in that way what we think or believe if, despite a lack of those beliefs, our actions are no worse off than someone who does believe those things?

[ElCodeMonkey]

It's quite simple. Our religious beliefs matter because they distinguish truth from falsehood; guidance from misguidance; sincerity from insincerity, etc. God has favoured the children of Adam(pbuh) above all other Earthly-beings with 'free will', spirituality and rationality. It is through these blessed tools and God's Guidance that we engage in the most fundamental of all actions--affirming truth and rejecting falsehood.

What good are the 'actions' of an individual who preferred his race/tribe, greedy desires and biases, over authentic revelation from God?

So all you've really said here is a mere reiteration that God cares what we think (i.e. whether in our minds we believe a truth or a falsehood). You don't explain why that actually matters. The last sentence perhaps partially explains why it might matter, but I've already stated that if the actions are equivalent from one who believes the falsehood and one who believes the lie (i.e. it's NOT indicative of behavior) why would the thought matter at all? Why doesn't he simply care for the actions themselves? Who cares if one person thinks the sky is blue and another thinks it's red? Surely there are plenty of things we believe that are right and plenty we believe that are wrong. So why is he so intently focused on us believing Jesus is God or that Jesus died for our sins? These two beliefs are in no way indicative of behavior. Find any two Christians believing those two things and you'll see a wide array of behaviors which differ from each other in some ways and match atheists in others. It's not a predictive belief. So why does God care if we believe them?

[JehovahsWitness]

If we don't believe exactly X and Y, no matter our actions in life, these beliefs are so much more important to him than anything we could say or do.

Emphasis MINE

I think it's a fallacy to believe that our actions are disconnected from what we think and who we are. Jesus went to great lengths to explain that all actions stem from the heart, meaning the inner person (his thoughts, motives, attitudes, preferences etc). God cares about what we do as ,long as what we do is a reflection of what we believe, what we feel and what we think. Thoughtless actions are just another word for stupidity and caring about actions in isolation of what we think, feel and believe is a request for hypocrisy. Ergo God cares about what we believe as well as what we do.

Why does he care in that way what we think or believe if, despite a lack of those beliefs, our actions are no worse off than someone who does believe those things?

First of all, all things being equal it is inevitable that ones actions will be worse than those that believe. Worse by Gods standards that is, as the first and most fundamental principle of divine standards is "You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart".

If something is true and one doesn't believe it, one will inevitably act accordingly. You cannot submit to a God you don't believe in, and not submitting to God and his standards is, scripturally a bad way to live. There is either truth or it's opposite ... a lie. Living a lie is never good. Like all loving parents, God wants us to live well, that means living and acting in harmony with truth. Which we can only honestly do if we believe the truth.

JW



NOTE I don't presume to speak for God what I post is based on what I believe God has revealed to us in scripture.

[Divine Insight]

I think it's a fallacy to believe that our actions are disconnected from what we think and who we are.

I don't see where anyone suggested that our actions are different from what we think.

The problem is that it doesn't require believing in a God to have good thoughts or to be a good person and have compassion and care about others. Many atheists do that just fine.

As far as I can see anyone who needs to believe in a God in order to be a good person has already exposed precisely who they are for the whole world to see.

I you wouldn't be a good person if you didn't believe in a God then how could you possibly claim to be a good person just because you believe in a God? How could that be a reflection of who you are? The former situation tells all.

If there's a God who cares about people having a desire to be good, then this God would most certainly be far more impressed by good atheists than by good theists.

A God who's worried about people being good should go out of his way to be sure that no one believes in a God.

[ElCodeMonkey]

I think it's a fallacy to believe that our actions are disconnected from what we think and who we are. Jesus went to great lengths to explain that all actions stem from the heart, meaning the inner person (his thoughts, motives, attitudes, preferences etc).

I agree for the most part that we will tend to act as we believe but you disagree with yourself in the next statement and even Paul attests to his inability to truly do as he believes at all times. This is a bit of a side note, however. I did not say they weren't linked but it highly depends on which beliefs and which actions we are referring to.

First of all, all things being equal it is inevitable that ones actions will be worse than those that believe.

Please provide evidence that one who believes Jesus is God and that he died for your sins will yield actions that God cares about that those who do not believe them would not perform.

[Anomaly]

Let's assume the typical Christian orthodox of Jesus dying for our sins is true and that we must believe in him to be saved. I don't care to prove that it's true or not in this thread--we''ll just assume it is--but rather WHY does God care what we believe? Why would God be so intent on ensuring we believe something rather than only being intent on ensuring what we physically do with our lives? I'm not looking for "it's both" or the like, I'm wondering why God cares about the former at all. Why would our thoughts even matter to God and not only our actions?

I'm taking the approach that the question can be answered for belief in both its normal (mental content held as true) and theological (faith) senses concurrently.

One way to put it would be to imagine that everything is energy. No controversy here. Next imagine that energy in all its forms and applications, exists in exactly one of two denominations of value, true or false. Here, the non-theist will allow only energy that forms empirical substances and that value proceeds only from intellectual attribution, so she may exclude herself from the rest of the answer.

Most theists will allow--some maybe only for reasons of discussion, others as a part of their personal worldview--that energy takes both empirical/natural and non-empirical/supernatural forms. Some theists will allow that value can be part of the created universe, and that the mind that creates value (assuming, as I do, that a perceiving mind is necessary for value to exist) is God.

Next, assume human agents were created with the capacity to falsify certain areas of non-empirical reality--their own essence. This sets the stage for the answer to the question in the op.

Truth and falsity are inimical, assume these adverse qualities are scattered fragmentally throughout human essence producing tensions and resistances in the intellectual processes, which in turn produce distortions or corruptions in the development of beliefs, motives, reasons, etc.

The way to remedy the corruption in a value-impaired organism that was designed to operate in the perfection of a wholly true state of being is to remove the offending value and restore said organism to that wholly true (perfect) state. God wants us to believe truly because true thinking is necessarily preceded by an inner [essential] restoration. The more we're 'restored', the greater the capacity to unite with (believe) the true. Once the mind as machine is corrected to the only state within which proper [true] content is formed and applied in act, the exhortation to believe is finished, accomplished. This is a technical reason for appropriate belief; most discussions are focused on belief as an effect and never seem to achieve much clarity. My two cents, anyway.