religions and dialogue
This essay by Philip Jenkins can stand in for many, many books and articles — and cocktail party conversations — about interreligious dialogue. People have been making just this kind of argument for more than a hundred years now. It goes like this: “As trade and technology shrink the globe,” “teaching different faiths to acknowledge one another's claims, to live peaceably together side by side, [is] a prerequisite for human survival.” Now, it’s not at all clear what Jenkins means by “acknowledge”? Must we agree that all religions have equally valid (or invalid) claims upon us and there is no reasonable way to choose one in preference to another? He doesn’t quite say that, but he does lament the way the Catholic church has “cracked down on thinkers who have made daring efforts to accommodate other world religions.” And makes the old the-Church-must-change-or-die argument: “Many Christians are coming to terms with just how thoroughly so many of their fundamental assumptions will have to be rethought as their faith today becomes a global religion.”
So, familiar stuff. I just want to make one point, which I have developed at greater length elsewhere. What always fascinates me about these arguments is that, in their focus on how proponents of different religions can get along, they invariably forget to raise the issue that for most religious believers is the central one: truth. If “intolerance” of other religions means denying that they are equally valid means of accessing the divine, that’s only a bad thing if all religions are equally valid means of accessing the divine — but that is just the point at issue. The constant and never-questioned assumption of people like Jenkins is that, if there is a God, that God will be tolerant and open-minded and accepting of a great variety of ways of trying to get to Him or Her or It. But as far as I can tell, the only reason for believing in so all-embracing a God is that we’d prefer to. Looking around at the world — the natural world as well as the human world — I do see some reasons (none of them definitive, of course) for believing in a God, but I don't see much warrant for believing in a God who is nice.
If there is an omnipotent god, then he wants (all things considered) members of different religions to kill one another. “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.”
— beamish · Dec 20, 04:15 PM · #
Alan, another good post. You write: The constant and never-questioned assumption of people like Jenkins is that, if there is a God, that God will be tolerant and open-minded and accepting of a great variety of ways of trying to get to Him or Her or It.
To be fair, I think you misstate the assumption. It’s not an assumption about God’s positive attributes that drives most of these arguments, but rather an acknowledgment of human limitations and fallibility in capturing His/Hers/Its essence.
— JA · Dec 20, 04:34 PM · #
JA, I think the assumption you rightly identify is not an alternative to the one I mention, but an accompaniment to it.
— Alan Jacobs · Dec 20, 05:42 PM · #
What’s interesting in Jenkin’s article is that I believe he fundamentally misunderstands or misreads the cross growing out of the lotus motif.
In traditional, premodern Christian iconography (still used in the Orthodox church), the cross grows out of a skull, or there’s a skull at the base of the cross. It’s Adam’s skull; because Christ is the new Adam. But this does not suggest that Christ is equal to Adam; rather that he’s the fulfillment of Adam. If the same iconography holds for the lotus, then perhaps these instances read “the cross fulfills the lotus,” hardly the lesson that Jenkins believes it teaches, but one that Pope Benedict might agree with.
Religious dialogue without the fuzziness and niceness can only take place from a vantage point that people like Frithjof Schuon enunciate in “The Transcendent Unity of Religions.” Short of this perspective, it strongly tends towards a vague relativism that only achieves anything by giving up nearly everything.
— PDGM · Dec 20, 06:33 PM · #
PDGM, I think you’re right about Jenkins’s misreading — and that’s not the only one in that essay. The history there is incredibly sloppy. But I didn’t want to get into all that in a blog post.
— Alan Jacobs · Dec 20, 07:18 PM · #
Ever wonder if Jesus cared about which kind of God we’d prefer?
“But the image of God that John [the Baptist] embraced was a father-image — the image of wrath, and judgment, and punishment. It was the image of a grim, censorious deity, as he does appear under various circumstances in the Old Testament… Is this the true image of God? Maybe Jesus asked himself this very question while staying with the group and John the Baptist. He had known first-hand the lives of ordinary folk in the poverty and squalor of his little town of Nazareth. He had known the stinking sweat of earning his daily bread. He understood well the inevitable frailty of of human beings caught in the grind of life. He had witnessed the woes of the sick and the lame. He had some intuition that what these downtrodden people needed, in contrast to the priests and to the doctors of the law, was something more heartening than a God of wrath, of judgment, and of punishment.” — Shusaku Endo, A Life of Jesus
— AE · Dec 20, 07:35 PM · #
The history there is incredibly sloppy.
yes.
— razib · Dec 20, 07:51 PM · #
AE, I don’t think Jesus had any interest in any god we might like, prefer, want, or think we need. His whole concern, as far as I can tell, was with the God who is.
— Alan Jacobs · Dec 20, 07:55 PM · #
Do you know the fable in Lessing’s Nathan the Wise? Would that conception of tolerance count, for you, as wishful thinking and indifference to truth?
— matt · Dec 20, 10:51 PM · #
Sorry, I didn’t see that a version of that story is in the Jenkins piece.
— matt · Dec 21, 12:28 AM · #
matt, I wouldn’t know how to treat the figures in that parable as though they were real people.
— Alan Jacobs · Dec 21, 02:33 AM · #
Fine post, Mr. Jacobs. Sorry to hear about Philip Jenkins essay; I enjoyed some of his earlier work (I haven’t read this essay yet). Mr. Jenkins apparently makes this demand for tolerance in the shadow of Muslim violence throughout the world, and yet his audience is almost exclusively Christian. Funny, I don’t know where in the world people are being slaughtered by Christians fighting in the name of the one true faith. It is hard not to take these points and conclude that if we’d all be a little less Christian maybe they’d back off on the killing.
— Douglas · Dec 21, 02:51 AM · #
Mr. Jenkins apparently makes this demand for tolerance in the shadow of Muslim violence throughout the world, and yet his audience is almost exclusively Christian.
actually, he talks about this in detail in his books. jenkins might seem like a fuzzy-feely-good-xtian in this op-ed (he’s an episcopalian), but he’s really not, and has sided with traditionalists in the ‘global south’ against the liberals in the developed world. don’t try to pigeon-hole him; i thought this op-ed was a bit embarrassing, but it isn’t totally representative.
— razib · Dec 21, 05:48 AM · #
razib is right — this is not typical of Jenkins.
— Alan Jacobs · Dec 21, 02:17 PM · #
The history there is incredibly sloppy.
Perhaps the most egregious lapse is the whole “Gosh, in the last few years, people from other religions have started bumping into each other, and now we’re suddenly faced with the issue of how to deal with that!” Which is dumb enough by itself, but here it’s paired with, “Well, actually, in the deep dark past, there was once a time when Christians, Jews, and Muslims encountered each other! I’ll bet you didn’t know that! Let me tell you about it and about how, surprisingly, they dealt with the issue exactly the way I would deal with it!”
— Michael Straight · Dec 22, 06:39 PM · #
I find people discussing details of christianity about equal to people picking apart a JRR Tolkien novel. Oh, apart for the delusion and all. Looking at something from 2000 years ago for explainations of a universe at least 13 billion years old is the height of absurdity.
— HST · Dec 24, 02:37 PM · #
Every time I see people debating the nature of God and chattering about which religion has it right, I just want to ask: How Can You Know?
With apologies to St. Peter, religions are human creations. My own, equally ignorant, assumption is that God is completely indifferent to all the rituals and dogma and debate the faithful immerse themselves in.
The reason people of one faith should deal civilly with those of another faith is the requirement to doubt.
— justcorbly · Dec 24, 04:05 PM · #
“…. I don’t see much warrant for believing in a God who is nice.”
Why would anyone worship a personal God who presides over the suffering we see in the world? (Problem of Evil and assorted excuses, etc.).
So we’re left with a Buddhist view of reality, what Nietsche called more an exercise in psychological hygiene than a religion.
— Nick · Dec 24, 04:30 PM · #
Just a couple quick points on Jenkins’ history: he talks about Eastern Christians in a past tense – like they lived in some utopia that was tragically extinguished. First of all: the Mongols did not destroy the Eastern Christian community, but rather many Mongols themselves (including Kublai Khan’s mother) were Christian. Rather, the Nestorians, or Church of the East, still exists today, and has managed to inflict a schism upon itself concerning matters over patriarchal succession – sounds not all that different from European Christian history. The Church of the East furthermore spoke with Pope John Paul II in 1994, and reached an agreement with the Catholic Church stating that, in effect, there was just a misunderstanding concerning Latin-Aramaic translation, and that the two were essentially in theological agreement. So much for syncretism.
On a larger note, I would just like to state while I think interreligous dialogue is important, I would agree that the goal should not be a watered-down set of commonalities. We can, and should, try to respect and learn about others’ belief systems, but without the obligation to adopt them as our own. That is a disservice to ourselves and to others. No one – no one – has an absolute lock on truth, whether in religion, or science or anything else. However, learning about different belief systems in any of these spheres can potentially help us to see the world from different points of view, and this can only be a good thing. At the very least it will better sharpen our own understanding of us as individuals. Understanding multiple theories has proved useful in physics: see Newtown and Einstein. True, they both were MORE right than Ptolemy, but that’s another discussion…
— Kochevnik · Dec 24, 04:36 PM · #
The odds that God is nice are quite small. The odds that God is a Roman Catholic are not much better.
— C. Wolsey · Dec 24, 04:43 PM · #
“but I don’t see much warrant for believing in a God who is nice.”
Very true. What baffles me is how anyone who can make this obvious observation can continue to “worship” such a hideous entity. It seems to me that the only rational stance for a believer is extreme hatred and disgust towards the evil entity that we call “God”
My own feeling is that the only entity in the universe that deserves to be tortured is God. If Jesus returns to earth, one would hope that humanity would have the good sense to treat Him far worse than he was treated the first time. The Romans displayed far more mercy towards him than I would have.
— LarryM · Dec 24, 05:26 PM · #
“If Jesus returns to earth, one would hope that humanity would have the good sense to treat Him far worse than he was treated the first time”
Oh I know. That bastard and his whole “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “love thy brother” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” stuff!!! HE’s the problem!!!
But to tie all this back into Christo-Buddhism, LarryM’s comment does mesh with the whole “if you meet the Buddha, kill him” thing.
— Derg · Dec 24, 05:44 PM · #
The good news for Christians is that all God expects from the goyim is:
1. Prohibition of Idolatry: You shall not have any idols before God.
2. Prohibition of Murder: You shall not murder.
3. Prohibition of Theft: You shall not steal.
4. Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity: You shall not commit adultery.
5. Prohibition of Blasphemy: You shall not blaspheme God’s name.
6. Dietary Law: Do not eat flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
7. Requirement to have just Laws: You shall set up an effective judiciary to enforce the preceding six laws fairly.
Admittedly, 1 is generally violated by all those crosses, but otherwise you’re mostly in good shape, since it says nothing about perverting the true religion into a false one.
— Mike · Dec 24, 06:41 PM · #
We’re still talking about this? Really? Because obviously the only reason to believe in any particular God is because you “prefer” to. That goes for all religions and no religion. The default state of the human mind is ignorance; indeed, when it comes to that which is beyond observation, it’s the only honest one. That’s not to say that belief is useless, but it’s never anything but a preference.
And if there is a God, the evidence is not that God is “nice” or “mean” but that He is simply indifferent. Which means that we create meaning for ourselves. Which means that any God out there is our projection, not empirically observable. So since God is our preference, if we must have a God, let’s have a God that gets us somewhere instead of dividing us.
— DavidG · Dec 24, 07:03 PM · #
“Looking around at the world…I don’t see much warrant for believing in a God who is nice”?
“Looking around at the world” is not the best way to do theology, though it’s obviously popular among people who believe in a mythological God who places evidence about divinity in the world. Hermann Cohen, following Plato, put it better: God is not known from empirical evidence in the world, but as the Good who transcends the world.
— DC · Dec 24, 07:18 PM · #
The core issue here is whether a religion (as contrasted to a belief in a single God) believes itself to be universal or particular. Islam and Christianity see themselves as universal, while Judaism is particular. All three believe in a single God, but Judaism explicitly views its religious obligations as only applying to Jews, meaning poeple born Jewish or people who freely choose to become Jewish by conversion. For everyone else, the only requirements are a set of seven moral precepts (the Noahide laws, summarized by “Mike”), most of which would cause little offense to atheists. This key distinction in religious perspective contributes to the common Christian-Islamic view of Judaism as narrow and ethnocentric, but is also the reason that no one has ever heard of a non-Jew being killed for failure to adopt Jewish beliefs or practices. Less, not more, universalizing of religion would be good for the health of the world.
— NP · Dec 24, 07:38 PM · #
“Looking around at the world — the natural world as well as the human world — I do see some reasons (none of them definitive, of course) for believing in a God, but I don’t see much warrant for believing in a God who is nice.”
This is true if God is merely another being within our world, or if he is, as Voltaire would say, created in man’s image. But if God transcends this world, one cannot draw conclusions about God’s nature by examining the world or humanity itself. A truly transcendental God would indeed likely have many, many acceptable worldly means for expressing our desire and love of God, and not be exclusively fixated on one particular historical tradition and theology. So the first “truth” issue about God is whether he is transcendental, or worldly. I think this is easy to answer, since any God who is merely a part of nature, rather than the transcendent source of it, cannot properly be defined as God.
— conradg · Dec 24, 08:01 PM · #
You write, “If ‘intolerance’ of other religions means denying that they are equally valid means of accessing the divine, that’s only a bad thing if all religions are equally valid means of accessing the divine . . . “
But, of course, that is NOT what “intolerance” means.
And to see how silly it would be to insist that it is or should be, consider that difference of opinion (a) is the normal state of mankind, (b) ordinarily involves thinking the other guy is just flat wrong, and © is something all people committed to an open society understand we have to tolerate, even when the subject of dispute is very important to us.
— Gaius Gracchus · Dec 24, 08:16 PM · #
Funny, I don’t know where in the world people are being slaughtered by Christians fighting in the name of the one true faith.
Yeah, that could never happen. Northern Ireland has been peaceful for almost a decade now.
— Mike · Dec 24, 08:22 PM · #
“they invariably forget to raise the issue that for most religious believers is the central one: truth. “
I think this might be unique to the three faiths created in the Mideast – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
With all it’s faults and evils (the caste system is a big one), Hinduism at least has never claimed that it’s god and it’s god alone is the one true god while all others are pretenders or demons – indeed, modern-day Hinduism seems to have incorporated every local tribal deity it ever encountered into it’s pantheon, and it’s not that unusual to see crosses or small portraits of Christ and also of Muslim saints on Hindu household altars next to the Ganeshes and Vishnus.
As the Hindu god Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita, “men come to me by many paths”.
The Buddha certainly acknowledged the existence of multiple gods as well, though he pronounced them irrelevant.
I’m not sure about the Far East religions, but I haven’t heard that they promote the notion of a “one, true god”, either.
— VR · Dec 24, 08:57 PM · #
Damn. No more raw oysters.
But Mike, who says God demands this of goyim, and NP who says “Judaism explicitly views its religious obligations as only applying to Jews” contradict each other. Or am I wrong about the meaning of the word “goyim”?
Put me down as one for the proposition that IF there’s a God, He/She is indifferent. Is indeed playing dice with the universe. That was Einstein’s mistake.
The whole “God is Love” crew obviously never read the Book of Job.
I’m greatly amused as well by every victorious athlete who ever thanked God for their victory. What? The other team didn’t pray hard enough? God likes you more? What?
— Cal Gal · Dec 24, 09:14 PM · #
I saw a play about this. It was funny and posed interesting questions. It was a little long though to sit through, but to read it would be fun. It was called “Harvey Projects” or something like that. You can probably read it somewhere if you look, and I recommend it.
— lukej · Dec 24, 10:49 PM · #
I remember. It’s singular. “The Harvey Project”
— lukej · Dec 24, 10:51 PM · #
“Is God transcendental or worldly? If a part of the world, rather than the transcendental source of it, then it cannot properly be defined as God.”
The second question would then be, if God is transcendental-then how can anyone know anything about God?
Simple solution-annoint some one/some writing as worldly authority, hence, world religions.
But how can you have a worldly authority about a transcendental God? Can the transcendental worldly divide be bridged without destroying the nature of both sides?
Another way to ask this-can a bridge be built from the known to the unknown? If it could, would the unknown not then become the known, or the known become the unknown?
— Bobthenailer · Dec 26, 05:08 AM · #
DISTRESSED by environmental and social conditions on earth, many would love to see our planet transformed into a paradise. Yet, this aspiration is not just a 21st-century dream. Long ago, the Bible promised the restoration of Paradise on earth. Jesus’ declarations “the meek . . . shall inherit the earth” and “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” are among the most well-known passages in Scripture. (Matthew 5:5; 6:10, Revised Standard Version) Today, however, not many share a belief in an earthly paradise inhabited by the meek. For most who claim to be Christians, Paradise has been lost.
The French weekly magazine La Vie explains why belief in a paradise—whether on earth or in heaven—has been abandoned, at least in the Catholic Church: “After dominating Catholic pastoral teachings for at least 19 centuries, [the notion of a] paradise has disappeared from spiritual retreats, Sunday sermons, theology courses, and catechism classes.” The very word is said to be shrouded in a “heavy fog” of “mystery and confusion.” Some preachers deliberately avoid it because it “conveys too many images of earthly happiness.”
For Frédéric Lenoir, a sociologist who specializes in religion, the notions of a paradise have become “stereotyped images.” Likewise, Jean Delumeau, historian and author of several books on the subject, thinks that the fulfillment of Bible promises is primarily symbolic. He writes: “To the question, ‘What is left of Paradise?’ Christian faith continues to reply: Thanks to the resurrection of the Savior, one day we shall all join hands and our eyes shall see happiness.”
— jonnybullet · Dec 26, 02:10 PM · #
“Catholic belief specifies Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven.”—Catholicism, edited by George Brantl.
NOTE that in this list of possibilities for mankind, the earth is absent. That is hardly surprising because the Catholic Church, like a number of other religions, adheres to the notion that the earth will one day be destroyed. The Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique makes this clear under the entry “End of the World”: “The Catholic Church believes and teaches that the present world, as God created it and as it exists, will not last eternally.” A recent Catholic catechism also takes up this idea: “Our world . . . is destined to disappear.” But if our planet is going to disappear, what of the Bible’s promises of an earthly paradise?
The Bible clearly speaks of the future establishment of Paradise on earth
The Bible clearly speaks of a future paradise on earth. For example, the prophet Isaiah described the earth and its inhabitants in this way: “They will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating. For like the days of a tree will the days of my people be; and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full.” (Isaiah 65:21, 22) The Jews, to whom God gave these promises, were certain that their land—indeed, the whole earth—would one day become a paradise for mankind’s everlasting benefit.
Psalm 37 confirms this hope. “The meek ones themselves will possess the earth.” (Psalm 37:11) This verse is not talking about just a temporary restoration of the nation of Israel to the Promised Land. The same psalm specifies: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” (Psalm 37:29)* Note that this psalm says that everlasting life on earth is to be a reward for “the meek.” In a French Bible, a comment on this verse says that the word “meek” “has a far wider meaning than is apparent in translations; it includes the unfortunate, those afflicted or persecuted for Yahweh’s sake, humble hearts that are submissive to God.”
On Earth or in Heaven?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made a promise that reminds us of the scriptures quoted above: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5, Revised Standard Version) Once again, the earth is to be a lasting reward for the faithful. However, Jesus made it clear to his apostles that he was preparing a place for them “in the house of [his] Father” and that they would be in heaven with him. (John 14:1, 2; Luke 12:32; 1 Peter 1:3, 4) How, then, should we understand promises of earthly blessings? Are they relevant today, and to whom do they apply?
Various Bible scholars say that “the earth” mentioned in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and even in Psalm 37 is merely symbolic. In his comments in the Bible de Glaire, F. Vigouroux saw in these verses “a figure of heaven and of the Church.” To M. Lagrange, a French Bible researcher, this blessing “is, not a promise that the meek shall possess the earth on which they live, neither under the present system nor under a more perfect order, but the place, wherever it might be, which is the kingdom of the heavens.” For another, it is a “symbolic use of earthly values to speak of heaven.” For still others, “the land of promise, Canaan, is taken in a spiritual sense and represents the homeland above, the kingdom of God, the possession of which is guaranteed to those who are meek. That is also the meaning of this image in Psalm 37 and elsewhere.” But should we be quick to exclude the physical earth from God’s promises?
An Eternal Purpose for the Earth
In the beginning, the earth was directly linked to God’s purpose for humans. “As regards the heavens, to Jehovah the heavens belong, but the earth he has given to the sons of men,” wrote the psalmist. (Psalm 115:16) God’s original purpose for mankind was thus connected with the earth, not with heaven. Jehovah gave the first human couple the commission to expand the garden in Eden to cover the earth. (Genesis 1:28) This purpose was not temporary. Jehovah affirms in his Word that the earth will last forever: “A generation is going, and a generation is coming; but the earth is standing even to time indefinite.”—Ecclesiastes 1:4; 1 Chronicles 16:30; Isaiah 45:18.
God’s promises never sink into oblivion, for he is the Most High, and he ensures their fulfillment. Using the natural water cycle as an illustration, the Bible explains that the fulfillment of God’s promises is inevitable: “Just as the pouring rain descends, and the snow, from the heavens and does not return to that place, unless it actually saturates the earth and makes it produce and sprout, . . . so my word [God’s word] that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10, 11) God makes promises to humans. A certain amount of time may pass before those promises are realized, but they do not fall by the wayside. They “return” to him having accomplished all that was uttered.
Jehovah certainly “delighted” in creating the earth for mankind. At the end of the sixth creative day, he declared that everything was “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) The transformation of the earth into a lasting paradise is part of the divine purpose that has not yet been accomplished. Nevertheless, God’s promises ‘will not return to him without results.’ All the promises of perfect life on earth, where humans will live eternally in peace and security, will be fulfilled.—Psalm 135:6; Isaiah 46:10.
God’s Purpose Achieved Without Fail
The sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, temporarily disturbed God’s original purpose of making the earth a paradise. After their disobedience, they were expelled from the garden. They thus lost the privilege of sharing in the fulfillment of the divine purpose of having perfect humans reside on a paradise earth. Still, God arranged things to accomplish his purpose. How?—Genesis 3:17-19, 23.
The situation in Eden was similar to that of a man who starts to build a house on an excellent plot of land. Just as he lays the foundation, someone comes along and destroys what has been laid. Rather than abandon his project, the man takes steps to ensure the completion of the house. Even if this additional work entails extra cost, it does not call into question the advisability of the initial project.
Likewise, God made arrangements to ensure the accomplishment of his purpose. Soon after the sin of our first parents, he announced a hope for their descendants—a “seed” who would undo the damage done. In fulfilling this prophecy, the primary part of the seed proved to be God’s Son, Jesus, who came to earth and offered his life as a sacrifice to repurchase mankind. (Galatians 3:16; Matthew 20:28) Once resurrected to heaven, Jesus would become the King of the Kingdom. Primarily, he is the meek one who inherits the earth together with selected faithful ones who are resurrected to heaven to become corulers in this Kingdom. (Psalm 2:6-9) In time, this government will take earth’s affairs in hand in order to accomplish God’s original purpose and transform the earth into a paradise. Countless millions of meek ones “inherit the earth” in the sense that they benefit from the rule of this Kingdom by Jesus Christ and his corulers.—Genesis 3:15; Daniel 2:44; Acts 2:32, 33; Revelation 20:5.
“As in Heaven, Also Upon Earth”
This salvation with two destinies, heavenly and earthly, is mentioned in a vision seen by the apostle John. He saw kings on heavenly thrones who had been chosen from among Christ’s faithful disciples. The Bible specifically states regarding these associates of Christ that “they are to rule as kings over the earth.” (Revelation 5:9) Note the dual aspect in the accomplishing of God’s purpose—a restored earth under the direction of a heavenly Kingdom made up of Jesus Christ and his joint heirs. All these divine arrangements make possible the final restoration of the earthly Paradise in accord with God’s original purpose.
Would Jesus’ model prayer make sense if the earth were to disappear?
In his model prayer, Jesus invited his disciples to pray for God’s will to take place “as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Matthew 6:9, 10) Would these words make sense if the earth disappeared or was merely a symbol of heaven? Similarly, would they make sense if all the righteous went to heaven? God’s will for the earth is clearly evident in the Scriptures, from the account of the creation right up to the visions of the book of Revelation. The earth is to become what God purposed—a paradise. This is the will that God promises to accomplish. The faithful on earth pray for the fulfillment of that will.
Everlasting life on earth is what the Creator, the God who ‘has not changed,’ originally purposed. (Malachi 3:6; John 17:3; James 1:17) For more than a century, this magazine, The Watchtower, has explained these two aspects in the accomplishing of the divine purpose. This allows us to understand the promises of an earthly restoration that are found in the Scriptures. We invite you to look into the matter further, either by having a discussion with Jehovah’s Witnesses or by contacting the publishers of this magazine.
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* While many Bible translations render the Hebrew term ´e´rets “land” instead of “earth,” there is no reason to limit ´e´rets at Psalm 37:11, 29 to just the land given to the nation of Israel. Old Testament Word Studies by William Wilson defines ´e´rets as “the earth in the largest sense, both the habitable and uninhabitable parts; with some accompanying word of limitation, it is used of some portion of the earth’s surface, a land or country.” So the first and primary meaning of the Hebrew word is our planet, or globe, the earth.—See The Watchtower, January 1, 1986, page 31.
— jonnybullet · Dec 26, 03:03 PM · #
@ Nick, Larry M., and perhaps others. A good and old question: “Why would anyone worship a personal God who presides over the suffering we see in the world? (Problem of Evil and assorted excuses, etc.).”
Sounds like it’s time for the Cathar religion to make a comeback (or some other kind of dualism). Then, at least those susceptible to the need to worship intangible beings can blame a bad one for all the evil in the world, and dream of a good one who will come fix things, sooner or later.
Frankly, despite the many virtuous actions of individual believers, it’s stunningly hard to argue that the Middle Eastern monotheisms have brought about very much good. And a careful reading of their scriptures — again, fully recognizing the moving, beautiful, and true passages found in each — leads to the conclusion that the deity they all claim as omnipotent and omniscient Creator and ruler of the world appears to be remarkably cruel. How else could a being entirely knowing the consequences of its actions possibly have created as much suffering as humans experience? Buddhism and Daoism and various others have plausible, if not very encouraging, responses to theodicy; Middle Eastern monotheisms can only talk in circles trying to avoid the problem.
— PQuincy · Dec 28, 03:35 AM · #
Yep PQuincy you need to be a student of the scriptures to have an accurate knowledge of what God wants, not what we or you or mankind wants. What happens if you break a law you pay the price big or small. The sacred trust was broken and the experiment began on self rule to which we have failed miserably. We want to blame this lousy system on someone else other than who we see in the mirror. Our selfishness and our greed along with the money God make this world a cruel place not God. He gave his only begotten son as a ransom sacrifice to the world of man to see if there is any salvation to be had and the truth is there is not much to be had. Have you ever loved someone so much that you would give your sons life in such a painful way that Jesus died? I doubt it, so you need to keep your self righteousness to your self.
— jonnybullet · Dec 29, 10:18 PM · #
tolerance < acceptance < universalism
just ask Bishop Pearson
— johnnysquire · Dec 30, 07:58 PM · #