Bad leaders: punishment from God?

Discussion in 'Speculative Reasoning' started by devilslayer365, Dec 29, 2018.

  1. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    If God personally puts EVERY leader in their position of authority (rather than merely allowing leaders to come into positions of authority on their own) does that mean when the leader does a horrible job at leading it’s because God is using that individual to punish those under authority to that person? For instance, Hitler was a murderer on a mass scale of the Jewish people living in Germany. Well, unless you believe the Holocaust was a “hoax.” Was he placed in power by God to punish the Jews?
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2018
  2. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    That's about as 0 - 60 as you can get.

    No, Hitler was not punishment for the Jews, and no, God does not personally put every leader in every position of authority.
     
  3. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    Then, what do you make of scriptures like these?...

    …he removes kings, and sets up kings…
    — Daniel 2:21

    …the Most High has power over human kingdoms. He gives them to whomever he wishes.
    — Daniel 4:17
     
  4. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    Exactly what they say, which is neither that God 'personally puts EVERY leader in their position of authority', or that 'God is using that individual to punish those under authority to that person'.
     
  5. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    So, you believe that God DOES put individuals in power...when He wants to. Just not EVERY person who ends up in power. Is that a correct understanding?
     
  6. RabbiKnife

    RabbiKnife Open the pod bay door, please HAL. Staff Member

    People do,have free will
     
  7. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    God can do whatever He wants, including putting specific people into specific positions of power

    I'm not a fatalist, and you'll quickly find that if God puts every person of authority into power, that God is engaging in quite a lot of determining, and if that's the case than He may as well determine a better world than the one we're in.
     
  8. hisleast

    hisleast FISHBEAT!

    I think it's safe to interpret from scripture *THAT* God is sovereign about leaders, but not *WHY*.
    Some real dangers when assuming why: back when I was a kid, my mom had these terrible debilitating cramps. What was clear to the entire church was that God was sovereign over our bodies. So the only LOGICAL assumption was that she had unconfessed / unaddressed sin in her life. I mean, "why else would a sovereign God allow her to suffer". Suffering = bad. Sin = bad. Therefore sin = suffering. Therefore ipso facto QED. Their (excuse me) STUPID pursuit of why caused my mom a ton of heart-ache, but her cramping problem was solved with a couple trips to the doctor.

    Bottom line: you don't know why.
     
  9. tango

    tango ... and you shall live ... Staff Member

    ... and once again hisleast cuts to the point in a way I sometimes wish more Christians did.

    It's worth considering the difference between "causes to happen" and "allows to happen". God didn't cause Job's suffering to happen, he allowed it to happen. And Scripture records Job as being righteous so it's not as if his suffering was caused by unconfessed sins whatever his so-called friends might have said.

    Sometimes people get into the mindset that every little thing that happens is the direct result of God intervening, as if God takes the active step of putting every crumb out for every songbird, and nothing happens unless God actively makes it happen. It sounds really sweet to think of a god (small g intended there) who places the berry at just the right place for the songbird to eat it. The trouble is that if nothing happens without such a god making it happen, then logically the same god took the active step of placing a tumor in my mother's body knowing what suffering it would unleash. Gee, thanks god. Perhaps it's not a surprise that I don't believe in such a god.

    It's clear that God allows things to happen that we might not like, be they tumors or otherwise. Maybe some day we will understand why, but until then we may have to accept that the best option is that we see "as through a glass, darkly".
     
  10. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    Yeah, I’ve never really appreciated individuals saying that Christians who suffer some physical ailment are doing so because they “are in sin,” or “don’t have enough faith to believe in the healing that God ALREADY provided.” I’m not sure if they say that out of ignorance or arrogance...or both. I’m of the mindset that God can, and does, provide physical healing at times. But, obviously, not for everybody. And, yes, it sounds cliche, but I believe He does it for reasons we may not understand. I don’t believe, however, that when He doesn’t provide a physical healing, that it’s necessarily due to sin in the person’s life or a lack of faith. Perhaps that applies to some individuals, but I doubt that it’s the case for all of them.
     
  11. IMINXTC

    IMINXTC Time Bandit

    In this corner of the world, leaders are created after our own image.
     
    Scooby_Snax likes this.
  12. hisleast

    hisleast FISHBEAT!

    Missing the forest through the trees. The point was: how do you propose to know God's WHY? Your first step is to assume bad leaders = punishment. To whom? For what? How could you possibly know?
    Its the same sort of reasoning those "elders" had with my mom: "She's sick, so it must be punishment".

    I have a different, even heretical view than most here. If I read anything in the Bible its how baffling and incomprehensible the bible's God is. Why does God <X> seem incurably impossible question.
     
  13. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    I suspect that's not as different a view as you might think it is, or heretical.

    I've just finished the book of Genesis (90 day reading plan for anyone interested), and what's stood out most to me this time around is:

    1) God's acts, or the acts attributed to God, seem almost nonsensical when He's dealing with human people (closing and opening wombs? circumcision? getting mad because Sarah laughed?).

    2) The people God interacts with are unbelievable (I'm not saying we're any better, but perhaps different). For example, Isaac sleeps around with four different women, two of whom are in competition to have the most children, and because they're having children they're being blessed by God, even though he's married to only two of them and sleeping with both of their servants? What in the world... And I'm worried that I'm going to sin if I utter the wrong word with the wrong intention?

    Like, what? If there was ever an example of God's love in spite of us, you don't have to read far into the Bible to find it.

    And how can we understand unless it's revealed to us, i.e., God explicitly tells us what He's doing (because beyond the religious language that is what revelation is: God, an alien intelligence, communicating with us). So if it's not revealed, we're left scratching our heads. It at least makes sense that we would find God incomprehensible, and hopefully not because He's written into the accounts incomprehensibly, but because He's literally a higher intelligence.
     
    Scooby_Snax likes this.
  14. ProDeo

    ProDeo What a day for a day dream

    John 9 - Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
    1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.
    2 And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
    3 Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

    Next question please pi-in-face
     
  15. RabbiKnife

    RabbiKnife Open the pod bay door, please HAL. Staff Member

    Nice
     
  16. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    Well, assuming God puts ALL leaders into their positions of power (and there’s actually a plausible case for why He may NOT be doing that), when bad ones get into their roles, it stands to reason that God, foreknowing everything about everybody, would know the person was going to be a bad leader. Knowing that about the person, for what other reason might He be putting them in their position? It’s a reasonable assumption (though not the ONLY one) that He’s doing it to collectively punish people for some reason. I hold out for the possibility that God places SOME people in power at times, for His own reasons, but not necessarily ALL people in power. What’s YOUR view on the matter?
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2019
  17. TrustGzus

    TrustGzus What does this button do? Staff Member

    Romans 13:1 (NRSV): Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.
     
  18. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    But is being “instituted by God” indicating that God personally handpicks those leaders or is it merely that He “instituted” the authority they have, regardless of who (and how one) actually comes into power?
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2019
  19. hisleast

    hisleast FISHBEAT!

    You seem hellbent to take the worst possible interpretation and defend it to the bitter end.
     
    ProDeo likes this.
  20. Dani

    Dani You're probably fine.

    I found in my world travels that punitively minded people tend to "worship" a punitively minded "god" they've created from their imagination, and thus they see in the Bible what they want to see. "Grace" is a strange concept to those people, and they simply cannot get their heads around it. :/
     

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