Thursday, October 23, 2008

Is God fair?

Once again I have been inspired to write a blog post (my apologies for the few weeks lacking) while I am researching for a sermon.
Is God fair? Is God full equitable? Is God impartial? Does He treat all peoples the same? And in His actions is He being fair to the parties involved one hundred percent of the time?

Obviously the New Testament makes it quite clear that God considers faith in Christ as the only stipulation and the only road to salvation. So in this way we can assume that God has no partiality toward any people group or type of person.

But, depending on your view of foreknowledge and pre-destination, it could be possible to argue that God has a pre-disposition toward certain people based on His choice of who will be saved. The depths which that thought could go are a bit astounding now that I think about it. If you have any insights, please enlighten the rest of us.

Now when it comes to God's actions being "fair" to all parties involved, we humans like to push our sense of "fairness" and what is right and wrong onto God. For instance, a common query is: "If God is fair and just, how could He allow an innocent child in Africa to die of starvation or be forced to be a child soldier and commit attrocities." I think that the main problem with this is that we are saying that there is some cosmological right and wrong, or just and unjust standard that God must follow for Him to be just and fair. But God IS the ultimate standard by which rightness and justice and goodness must be compared. God does not conform to any other standard or power outside of His own character and being. That means that we are in complete error when we ask God how He could allow X and Y to happen if He was just! Who are we to question God on a matter which we have no clear understanding of and which He has full and complete understanding and control over?

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