The Lord's Prayer Contradicts the Higher-Purpose View

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Paidion
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The Lord's Prayer Contradicts the Higher-Purpose View

Post by Paidion » Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:42 pm

Jesus taught His disciples to pray: “Let your will come to pass, as in heaven also on earth.” Mat 6:10

The word “γενηθητω” (let it come to pass) is in the imperative mode. This is not a prayer asking God to allow His will to come to pass. This is a command that his will will come to pass on earth as it is in heaven. The implication is that His will is not always coming to pass on earth as it is in heaven, and that conditions would be better for mankind, if it were.

As far as human choice is concerned, there are two basic choices which can be made, that God’s will might come to pass.

1. People may do acts which in keeping with His will (righteous acts)
Or
2. People may refrain from doing acts which are not in keeping with His will (sinful acts)

1. Suppose people fail to perform acts according to according to His will. For example, suppose the people in “first world countries” do nothing to help those in some parts of Africa who are starving. (The great majority of people in North America actually do nothing in this respect). Then God’s will that they help the Africans is not being done, with disastrous consequences for the starving Africans.

But according to the Higher-Purpose view, God allows those Africans to die of starvation in order to achieve a higher purpose. The justification for this idea, is that God had to make the decision not to act to save the Africans, and so He must have fulfilled a higher purpose by not saving them. Though the higher purpose doesn’t help the Africans, it does help someone else, and that’s the reason God, out of love, stayed His hand. But if that were true, then God’s will was being carried out by refraining from helping the Africans, if not His “primary” will, at least His “permissive” will. But it doesn’t really matter whether it was His permissive will. For His will was done so that a higher purpose could be carried out. So what’s the difference whether God’s primary will comes to pass or not? For either way, God shows His love, by allowing the most loving consequences to come about. If the higher-purpose view is correct, there is really no way for God’s will not to come to pass. So why, in our prayers, would it be necessary to pray, “Let your will come to pass, as in heaven, so on earth”? His will (either “primary” or “permissive”) comes to pass whether we prayed that prayer or not. We cannot say that the prayer is strictly that His “primary” will might come to pass. For, in cases in which it does not come to pass, His “permissive” will does come to pass, and higher purposes are being fulfilled --- better consequences are ensuing --- than would have been the case if His “primary will” had come to pass.

Isn’t it much simpler to believe that He has only one kind of will, and that will was that the Africans might be saved from their misery, and that His intention was to bring that about through “first world” nations, but that these “first world” nations have failed, and are therefore responsible for hunger in Africa? God usually restricts His actions in the world to His moving within people, and not through miraculous intervention.

2. Suppose people act in ways which are not in keeping with God’s will. That is, suppose they sin. For example. suppose they torture others in order to extract information from them, or perhaps just for their own deviant pleasure. They may cause excruciating pain to their victims. I think those holding the “Higher-Purpose View” would agree that people torturing others would not be God’s “primary” will. But they would also say that God made a decision not to intervene, and so He must have had a higher purpose in making that decision. Again, in fulfilling that higher purpose, God acted in love, and there were better consequences than those which would have ensued had He intervened. So again, God did the best thing possible by his non-intervention, and His “permissive” will came to pass.

So, if the Higher-Purpose View is correct, nothing can happen apart from God’s will; every act which man performs will be for the best. If that act was in harmony with God’s primary will, then the consequences will be best for mankind. If that act was not in harmony with God’s primary will, but He did not intervene to prevent it, then God made a decision to “allow it” in order to fulfill a higher purpose, a purpose which was more beneficial than would be the case had He prevented it. Thus His “permissive will” came about. Indeed, it would appear that, according to the Higher-Purpose View, whatever takes place on the earth is for the best, and nothing else could possibly occur which would be any better than that which did, in fact, take place.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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steve
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Re: The Lord's Prayer Contradicts the Higher-Purpose View

Post by steve » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:02 pm

I stand by my statements on this topic, which, in my opinion have not even begun to be answered or refuted at any of these threads. I have never said that God's perfect will is always done, so there is no reason to apply the above arguments to any position of mine. Here they are:

http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=2771
http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... &sk=t&sd=a
http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=2839

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