From: utzoo!watmath!rtris
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: reasoning
Article-I.D.: watmath.4834
Posted: Mon Apr  4 11:04:52 1983
Received: Tue Apr  5 06:09:23 1983

	pur-ee!ecn-pa:scott writes:
	
		I realized that God's smarter than I am.  In other words, just
		because I don't currently understand something doesn't mean that
		it can't be true.
	
	That's an interesting thought.  Let's continue with it for a while --
	
	* Many good people suffer in this world, and many bad prosper.
	* God must have some purpose in that, which we do not understand.
	* This then is the RIGHT way for things to be, again, for reasons we
	  just don't understand.
	* There is no reason to assume that our understanding of what is right
	  in 'the next world' is the same as god's.
	
			.
			.
			.
		    ~~~~~~~~~
			.
			.
			.
	
	Yigal Arens
	UC Berkeley

I'd like to comment on the last two points I've quoted. RIGHT is a vague word.
Although I agree with it in some senses, there are many conclusions one could
draw from such a statement which I emphatically disagree with. I do not 
believe, for instance, that God INTENDED the world to be this way. But now that
man has messed things up, God is working his purposes through that, at great
cost to himself. This still does not necessarily imply (and in my opinion
doesn't) that God LIKES things the way they are in every way. I would contend
that he finds it necessary to maintain this situation, now that we have
gotten ourselves into it, because there is, to Him, no better alternative,
at this point. (Sorry for the long convoluted sentence).

Second, there IS reason to assume that our understanding of right is the same
as Gods. The Bible claims (I didn't say it was a "provable" reason) to be
God's revealed truth, and a revelation of God's character through Christ.
Using this one can know God, and thus what he thinks is right and wrong.

								Ralph.