How Does God Punish Sin?

[murlough23]

This became a matter of debate between me and my wife the other day, so I figured I'd go for a lifeline and poll the audience. We have a mutual friend who had, for a while, been making the extremely poor decision to have a romantic relationship with a married man. Now obviously we both believe that this is a sin and that there are consequences for one's sins. At this same time, this friend moved to a new city and was looking for a new job, and was having no luck whatsoever keeping herself afloat. More recently, she broke things off with the guy, and just the other day, she scored herself a pretty good job.

My wife and her parents have discussed this and they all view it as a cause-and-effect sort of thing - she gave up her sinful lifestyle, therefore God is blessing her. I took issue with this line of thinking, because it implies that everyone who makes a regular habit of committing a particular sint hat they're not repentant of will basically find that everything in their life goes wrong until they repent. I don't agree with that, because I've seen plenty of worse things happen to "good" people (there's really no such thing, but you know, people who aren't living in such egregious patterns of sin, I guess), and I've seen plenty of "blessings" given to people who are very publicly and unrepentantly sinful. So that just doesn't compute with me.

I believe that God does punish sin, but I don't think it's one of those things where every aspect of your life starts to go wrong and it's up to you to interpret it as a "sign" that you're doing something wrong. I tend to believe that we already have the instructions on what's right and wrong, and the basic concepts are plain as day and don't require interpretation of cryptic and seemingly unrelated "signs", like losing one's job when one's sins have absolutely nothing to do with one's job, for example. And I tend to believe that God gave us those instructions because God loves us, and that if we disobey, there are natural consequences to those disobediences that basically serve as our "punishments". That may just be a matter of your conscience bugging you to the point where you can't live with yourself, or it may be that sleeping around causes you to get pregnant or get some disease or become a sex addict or whatever - it may vary from person to person. But I tend to believe that the punishment fits the crime, and it's not so much God saying, "You made me mad and now I'm gonna strike you down", as it is saying, "I gave you a guideline to protect you and you went outside of that guideline, so now you get to sleep in the bed you made and hopefully you'll know better next time".

So what do you think?

[Wildcatblue7]

I was thinking about adding to that, but I'm pretty much entirely in agreement with your last paragraph.  That's been my experience (a very short one, but there it 'tis).

[murlough23]

One other thing I wanted to add - I've found in my own life that when there were times when I felt like I was being "punished", it was generally because there was something which I eventually realized God wanted me to learn, and taking something away from me that I was depending on too much was the best way for me to learn it. An example was when I had a pretty bad crush on a female friend that I couldn't let go of in college, and it bordered on obsession. Naturally, when this friend, who had already given me the "let's just be friends" spiel over a year prior, found out how I still felt, she was a bit creeped out by my obsessiveness and she withdrew a bit. With one of my best friends basically out of my life for several months, I really felt that absence and I was pretty lonely that summer (other folks were around, but I hadn't gotten close to many of them, and I actually learned to spend more of my effort on platonic friendships rather than just on trying to get a girlfriend). I kind of felt like that summer was my "punishment" for not getting over it, but not like God was some sadistic being who took pleasure in punishing me. God just knew that I wouldn't have been able to learn the valuable lesson of respecting my friend's boundaries and her wish to only stay friends unless I saw what the consequences of not letting it go would be. That "punishment" is probably while I can still claim a strong friendship with her today, because once I accepted that and moved on, she forgave me and has proven to be a strong ally ever since.

There have been other times, like right around when my wife and I got married and finances were extremely tight and the forces of the universe appeared to be totally working against me, when I wondered if I was somehow being punished by something I did. I finally pulled my head out of my ass and realized that the universe didn't have a grudge against me, and that I should take a lesson from Job's crack-pipe-inhaling friends who theorized and theologized about how he must have done something to piss God off, and realize that sometimes we're just being tested to make sure our faith in God will hold up even when we don't feel like we're being showered with supposed "blessings". I'm way more sinful than Job, probably, and I suffered way less than he did, but as far as worrying that it might be a sign that Christine and I shouldn't get married, that was just silly. If God had a problem with our relationship, He'd have shown me that through our relationship, not through my bank account.

NP: "Cosmia", Joanna Newsom

[Wildcatblue7]

This might relate . . . somehow . . . I've always had an issue with people being convinced that God is punishing them.  More often than not, it's someone's stupid decision--yours or a friend's or a family member's or a colleague or a teacher--that was the root of the issue.  It's just repercussions.

That really makes me sound like a deist, doesn't it?  I guess I just don't think God zaps people with lightning for no reason.  Yes, He tested Job, but I don't regard that as punishment.  That's almost blessing in a (sometimes very dense) disguise . . . every test I've had, mostly depression related, made me stronger.  It sucked at the time, but wasn't something I wish didn't happen.  That hardship drove me to pursue Christ more, so how could I regard that as a punishment?  I may be in the minority on this, but it seems kind of immature to blame God for everything.  Immature may not be the right word, but I'm having extreme difficulties articulating this.

Yeah, I don't think that really had anything to do with anything, but um . . . there it is.

[murlough23]

This might relate . . . somehow . . . I've always had an issue with people being convinced that God is punishing them.  More often than not, it's someone's stupid decision--yours or a friend's or a family member's or a colleague or a teacher--that was the root of the issue.  It's just repercussions.

That's gonna be my #2 question for God when I get to Heaven - how is it that humans have the free choice to act in ways that hurt themselves or each other, and yet these things all fit into God's larger plan?

(And since you know you were gonna ask, my #1 question is going to be, "So really, what exactly was the point of creating allergies?")

That really makes me sound like a deist, doesn't it?

You mean one of those people who assumes God is a watchmaker who just set everything in motion and now just sits back and lets it all happen and doesn't intervene? My ex-girlfriend kind of thought that way. It was a very appealing thought to me when she and I were first getting to know each other. But I've since abandoned that line of thinking. And I don't think what you're saying makes you sound like a Deist, because I do believe that God intervenes in the universe on a regular basis. Whether he actively changes something in the here and now, or has just generated an earlier cause which leads to a "natural" effect in the here and now - I honestly don't know whether that matters, since God is outside of time. He could "go back" and move a molecule at the beginning of time in a way that profoundly affected the course of human history if He wanted to, and I don't see how that would differ from good old-fashioned Divine Intervention.

What we're talking about seems to be less of a belief in how involved God gets in people's lives, but more in God's motivations for allowing "bad" things to happen to people. The "traditional" view, and the view that a lot of non-Christians think Christians hold, is that you have these rules to follow and you don't ask why, and if you step outside of the boundaries, you get zapped. And I tend to look at it the way that a parent looks at teaching his young child about the world. If my child plays with matches, I'm obviously going to be upset about that. But I'm not going to generate fire and intentionally burn him with it. The fire he generates for himself will do the trick quite nicely. Same thing with the car that might hit him if he plays in the street. I tell him not to do these things and I tell him why, and hopefully he follows those instructions. If not, maybe he gets lucky and the car swerves and misses him or the fire doesn't come into contact with his skin. Maybe a good scare will suffice. And I may choose to punish him by temporarily taking away his access to the front yard if he can't stay out of the street, or hide those oh-so-intriguing matches in a very high cupboard where he can't get at them, et cetera. But my ultimate intent is that he would learn, not that he would suffer. Because making someone suffer doesn't mean a damn thing - to me, anyway - if they don't see the correlation between the crime and the punishment.

So I think it's the same with God. If I have a privilege and I abuse it, I can understand God stepping in and taking that way from me to prevent further damage. I may kick and scream at the time, but when I look back I can think, you know what, God really does love me enough to care and intervene when I've blindly got off the trail and I'm unknowingly headed for a steep escarpment. Now if I intentionally and defiantly do it enough times, I could understand Him just letting me go, but even then, I find that He doesn't. He's way more patient than I am in that regard.

every test I've had, mostly depression related, made me stronger.  It sucked at the time, but wasn't something I wish didn't happen.  That hardship drove me to pursue Christ more, so how could I regard that as a punishment?

Exactly. I've been through depressions, and come out of them with stronger faith. I wholeheartedly believe that God "hides His face", so to speak, at certain times to wean us from the idea that there has to be something that we can constantly, tangibly "feel", or that life has to be constantly going in a way that feels "good" according to us, in order for us to have faith in His plan for us. It's not fun, but we come out of it with less of a dependence on the magic show and more of a sense of trust that God knows what He's doing even when He seems 100% invisible and inaudible to our human sense.

I may be in the minority on this, but it seems kind of immature to blame God for everything.  Immature may not be the right word, but I'm having extreme difficulties articulating this.

Where that gets screwy for people, I think, is that an omnipotent God is supposed to have control over everything, and therefore, how could anything happen if God doesn't want it to happen? So God may not directly "cause" things such as 9/11 or the Indian Ocean Tsunami or Hurricane Katrina, etc., be God also doesn't "prevent" those things, for whatever reason. 9/11 can pretty clearly be blamed on human sin; natural disasters cannot. (Amusingly, but also somewhat morbidly, I recently read an article that hypothesized a link between cleaner, more non-polluted air, and certain localities being more hurricane-prone. WTF?) And I don't necessarily believe that God allows these things to strike fear into everyone's hearts or teach them a lesson, other than to remind us that life is fleetingly short and everyone dies eventually anyway. We feel sorrow for "innocent" lives that are lost, and I do believe that we could do more to guard these lives from future situations like these, but ultimately, no man can guarantee that he will even wake up tomorrow. We tend to see death as the ultimate punishment, the ultimate cruelty, and in God's perspective, it totally isn't. I guess it is if someone has categorically rejected Him, but that's another issue. In that case, it was gracious that they got to live for the extent of time that they did. It's gracious that we've all gotten to live longer than we've deserved to.

You're totally on topic. Keep at it.

NP: "Simple X", Andrew Bird

[Wildcatblue7]

Oh good, I'm glad that all made sense.  And once again, I'm pretty much 100 percent with you . . . the God being outside of Time thing (which makes perfect sense since He created it and all) reminds me of an excellent chapter in Mere Christianity.  I wish I had brought that book to school, dang it.

(And my number one question . . . how did You think of platypuses?)

[murlough23]

Oh good, I'm glad that all made sense.  And once again, I'm pretty much 100 percent with you . . . the God being outside of Time thing (which makes perfect sense since He created it and all) reminds me of an excellent chapter in Mere Christianity.  I wish I had brought that book to school, dang it.

I loved that book, except for Lewis's ridiculous explanation of why men should be in authority over women. But that's a whole other story. For purposes of this thread, we'll rise above that.

(And my number one question . . . how did You think of platypuses?)

Ahem. Platypi. If you're going to interrogate the Almighty, you'd better at least get your grammar right.

EDIT: Or not. "Platypuses" is actually the official plural, so I'm an idiot. Thanks, Wikipedia.

NP: "Yawny at the Apocalypse", Andrew Bird

[Vlad!]

I think the word 'sin' gets thrown around a lot in the church, but I also think that more semantic content needs to be added. I divide sins into three types: sins against God, sins against man, and sins against common sense.

In the first category, I believe that sinning against God is often punished directly and immediately. Examples include the fall in the garden, Achin (I think that was his name; I'm too lazy to look it up) who sinned by violating God's decree and stealing from Jericho, and Ananias and Saphira who lied to the apostles. All of these had immediate punishments.

In the second category fall things such as murder, theft, and adultery. These sins violate God's commands, but those commands were given because he knew that we're stupid enough to do things like that if it's not spelled out for us not to. I believe that government was given to us for (among other things) the punishment of sins against man. God punishes sins against God, and man punishes sins against man. While God has the right to intervene in some cases, I don't think he often does, and evidence (both Biblical and experiential) bears me out on this.

In the third category are things that really only hurt ourselves. For example, cheating on a test, or lying about something. Yes, these things can hurt others as well, but often these sins hurt us more than anyone else. I believe God simply allows us to reap what we have sown in this case.

This explains why you see prosperous people who have gotten that way through cheating, bribery, embezzlement, or other things we consider sinful. These sins fall into the second or third category, so God doesn't intervene. He has relegated that authority to us. This is also why these people rarely seem fulfilled--the sins are self-punishing.

I'm not asserting that any of this is correct, and I'd have trouble digging up concrete Biblical proof of this, but I have mulled this issue over multiple times, and this is the result.

[Vlad!]

Sorry, I guess I killed this thread. Feel free to keep posting as if I didn't say anything :/

[murlough23]

Sorry, I guess I killed this thread. Feel free to keep posting as if I didn't say anything :/

You didn't kill it; I was trying to collect my thoughts for a reply to your thoughtful post and I just haven't had the time to do it yet.

[murlough23]

I think the word 'sin' gets thrown around a lot in the church, but I also think that more semantic content needs to be added. I divide sins into three types: sins against God, sins against man, and sins against common sense.

Your argument is well thought-out here, but I think the disconnect for me lies in the assertion that there are sins which are not directly "against God". I believe that God values other people, and I believe that God values me. So if I commit an act which shows that I devalue someone else, or if I purposefully abuse myself, isn't that a sin against God as well? It's certainly something that God isn't happy about.

That's not to say that I don't think God will intervene, but plenty of people "get away with" extreme blasphemy today without being struck by lightning and whatnot. So I don't know if it follows from people who were struck dead in the Bible, or otherwise dealt with swiftly, that God will always do the same. Those may have just been extreme accounts that were more noteworthy.

I know that there is such a thing as the "unforgivable sin", which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and I thought that was pretty shocking for a while, where there was something you could do that couldn't be forgiven, until I realized that this is basically mocking/rejecting the very means by which God saves. So you can't be saved if you don't even believe in the means of salvation available to you. Natural consequence.

[Vlad!]

Your argument is well thought-out here, but I think the disconnect for me lies in the assertion that there are sins which are not directly "against God". I believe that God values other people, and I believe that God values me. So if I commit an act which shows that I devalue someone else, or if I purposefully abuse myself, isn't that a sin against God as well? It's certainly something that God isn't happy about.

Agreed, but I don't see that such a sin is directly against God, to use your own words. You are sinning against the person you are devaluing, and while God obviously cares about this, he has delegated the authority for punishing this sin to man (I liken this to the verse which says that God desires all to be saved--sure he does, but he has tasked us with the duty (and privilege) of evangelizing and helping bring others to the point where they are willing to accept salvation).

...plenty of people "get away with" extreme blasphemy today without being struck by lightning and whatnot.

Plenty of people get away with actions that devalue their fellow human beings, too. Some of this is due to the failings of the human justice system (something that God is not susceptible to), but some of this is because we have chosen to not make some sins into punishable offenses.

If I went out into Dolphins' Stadium right now (it's halftime at the Super Bowl as I type this), grabbed a mic, and asked God to heal a person whom I deeply care about who is suffering, I believe he wouldn't do it. Not that I think he doesn't care, but God is not a stage act, and he has chosen not to reveal himself in power in this way. Similarly, if I went out, grabbed a mic, and blasphemed God in the most reprehensible way I could think of, I also think nothing would happen (if I got electrocuted, it would probably be because I'm holding a mic and it's raining there, not because of God's smiting). Again, this doesn't mean that God doesn't care, or that he won't act eventually. I just think that dramatic displays a la the events of the Bible are no longer the way he does business.

[murlough23]

I agree about God no longer "doing business" the way that He did in the Bible, and that's not to say that God is less present nowadays; it's just that in a time where He physically appeared, walked with people in a tangible way, performed visible miracles, spoke in an audible voice, etc., people still didn't listen. So I believe His approach changed for a good reason, and He could still use the old approach, but chooses to use whatever He thinks is going to work best knowing how we'll react.

The thing is, I don't believe any of the above has to do with "categories" of sin. A sin is something that makes you imperfect, and God is perfect, so sin, and you're no longer worthy of being in God's presence. The degree to which we sin, in supernatural terms, doesn't matter, because all finite numbers pale in comparison to the infinite. The punishment for that is the same for everyone, regardless of the variety of sin, and there's only one way to be saved from it. This is one area where I see a theological issue in strikingly simple terms.

That said, I do believe that while every sinner offends God pretty much the same amount, different sins will affect us in different ways - the earthly, "natural" consequences. And continuing to seen may make a person more prone to continue making sinful decisions and pull farther and farther away from thir devotion to God. So in that sense, "You violated the sanctity of marriage by dating a married man, therefore you were unable to find a job" doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since the two are unrelated (unless he's a co-worker or something, which he was a while ago, but not in the same place or field of work where she's currently employed). Neither is "You dated a married man, therefore you get struck by lightning". "You dated a married man, therefore you hurt that person's marriage and your own chances at retaining a healthy view of marriage and experiencing such a healthy relationship in the future" is a lot more realistic.

[Vlad!]

I agree about God no longer "doing business" the way that He did in the Bible, and that's not to say that God is less present nowadays; it's just that in a time where He physically appeared, walked with people in a tangible way, performed visible miracles, spoke in an audible voice, etc., people still didn't listen. So I believe His approach changed for a good reason, and He could still use the old approach, but chooses to use whatever He thinks is going to work best knowing how we'll react.

Oh, I agree. I wasn't criticizing; merely observing that this is relevant to our current discussion by pointing out that even in the case where a sin is clearly against God, sometimes the punishment may be deferred.

The thing is, I don't believe any of the above has to do with "categories" of sin. A sin is something that makes you imperfect, and God is perfect, so sin, and you're no longer worthy of being in God's presence. The degree to which we sin, in supernatural terms, doesn't matter, because all finite numbers pale in comparison to the infinite. The punishment for that is the same for everyone, regardless of the variety of sin, and there's only one way to be saved from it. This is one area where I see a theological issue in strikingly simple terms.

I don't know if I have a different theology of sin than you, or if I just see it in a different light. The way I see it, humans are sinful. This very propensity towards sin makes us imperfect. If I managed to live a life without sin, I would be like a time bomb, or a grenade that was triggered but for some reason didn't go off. This isn't something you would want in your house, not because it's already gone off, but because it could at any time. In the same way, even this hypothetical perfect me would not be invited into the Father's house, because I wouldn't actually be perfect or righteous, I would have just managed to mask my imperfection so far.

Where I differ from Catholic theology on this is that I don't see the individual sins as disjoint from the innate sinfulness. They are outward manifestations of an inner condition. However, the difference between the inner condition and the outward manifestation is that the latter may injure someone else. This injuring is not what sends people to hell. It's just a side effect, perhaps, of what does: the sin nature. The individual actions are important only insofar as that they lead to injury, and injury begs recompense. And the way God has set up the world is that the injured party is the one who decides whether or not to exact that recompense.

That said, I do believe that while every sinner offends God pretty much the same amount...

Every sinner offends God the same amount, sort of like I wouldn't accept a triggered C-4 bomb into my house any more than I would a primed grenade. But different sins offend God both in that they indicate an internal condition (which, as we have just said, is essentially the same amount) and that they might also be agaisnt God, in which case there is additional offense which God may (historically) or may not (contemporarily) punish.

Also note Luke 15:21, where the son says “I have sinned against heaven and against you”. This sin here is against the father, and also against God. So while I expressed general categories before, a sin can cover multiples of these.

Neither is "You dated a married man, therefore you get struck by lightning". "You dated a married man, therefore you hurt that person's marriage and your own chances at retaining a healthy view of marriage and experiencing such a healthy relationship in the future" is a lot more realistic.

Exactly. In this case, the sin is against another (the married man's wife) and against the sinner (as you state). Since our society chooses not to punish infidelity (except by making divorce easy to obtain in this case), the sin against “man” (the second category I listed) has been ignored. But the sin against common sense (which could also be expressed as a sin against oneself) reaps its natural reward, as you stated. I don't believe that God causes this to come about. If the woman in question leaves the relationship she's in now and enters into a fulfilling and wholesome relationship and becomes happily married, I don't think this means God is OK with her actions or that his punishment has failed. It just means that she got lucky and avoided the natural outcome of her actions, just like some criminals get lucky and are acquitted for crimes they have committed.

[Celldweller7]

I believe God deals with sin in a personal manner. Dealing with each individual in His own way. I do not disagree with any of the options entirely or any of the ideas talked about in here. I believe all them are possible and possibly in current use by God, including some we couldn't think of.

I don't think God works in a strictly systemic manner. I think He prefers a far more individual treatment.

As for the lady talked about, I think both ideas are possible. I think with a little reworking both ideas can co-exist and both could take place. I believe it is possible God was supernaturally preventing her from attaining a job until she cutoff the relationship, but I also believe the fact she joined into that relationship could seriously hindered her future relationships. Perhaps stress of her relationship caused her to give poor interviews or a poor resume or make poor choices in where she looked and didn't look for a job.

It is also possible the job search was merely happenstance and would have occurred regardless of the affair.

I don't know, I'm merely very weary of turning the dealings of God into a system. There is certainly order and not chaos or randomness to God, I am not implying that. I just don't know if He is as systemic as we would like to think and instead, far more personal & individual than we could have ever hoped to imagine.

[murlough23]

As for the lady talked about, I think both ideas are possible. I think with a little reworking both ideas can co-exist and both could take place. I believe it is possible God was supernaturally preventing her from attaining a job until she cutoff the relationship, but I also believe the fact she joined into that relationship could seriously hindered her future relationships. Perhaps stress of her relationship caused her to give poor interviews or a poor resume or make poor choices in where she looked and didn't look for a job.

It is also possible the job search was merely happenstance and would have occurred regardless of the affair.

I think the fact that you can allow for the latter makes it rather foolhardy for anyone to assume the former. Punishing someone by way of a completely unrelated thing without it being apparent how the punishment is related to the crime is just a piss-poor way of doing things. Your parents might take away TV because you get bad grades, but if they're good parents, they tell you that's why you've lost that privilege.

I don't know, I'm merely very weary of turning the dealings of God into a system. There is certainly order and not chaos or randomness to God, I am not implying that. I just don't know if He is as systemic as we would like to think and instead, far more personal & individual than we could have ever hoped to imagine.

I agree. I think that God is consistent and not wishy-washy, but we don't know enough about how God does certain things to be able to predict God's actions or reasons behind them.

In general I tend to be quite wary of proclamations that "God allowed X to happen because someone did Y." Most of the time either Y is a natural consequence of X, or X is some totally unrelated thing that God was going to do regardless.

[Celldweller7]

The problem is, who says they are unrelated? Because we, in modern society have walled off various sections of life? That does not say to me that they are inherently unrelated to God. Who is to say a sin in one supposed sector of my life will not effect another sector? As far as I can see it is we who created the idea of sectors of life. I see no reason to not believe the whole thing is just life and that there are no divisions.

Once again we are getting too caught up in a systematic approach. We have our home life, job life, sex life, religious life, social life, and whatever extra ones we can think of. Do these divisions actually exist? If we come to the conclusion that they do not, then we begin to see that it is all just life, thus creating an interconnectivity among everything we do.

Which would allow for the possibility of a butterfly effect within our life. But even that is too systematic, because it says everything must effect everything else.

Perhaps her job problems occurred due to forces outside of her affair. Perhaps her job problems occurred due to natural consequences from the affair. Perhaps God supernaturally thwarted her ability to get a job until she broke off the affair. Those are all a possibility, none of them have to be the only possible way.

Perhaps both you and your wife are correct in some manner. Perhaps she will, as she goes down the road, struggle in relationships due to her affair and will have to deal with that with God. But it is also possible, while that is true, God also chose to do so more direct intervening and kept her from getting a job until she removed herself from that sin.

God doesn't have to choose one way to deal with it. God can choose from all the manners that have been suggested and He can choose to use any number of them. Not randomly of course, but according to how He sees fit.

Then again, perhaps by trying to say we are too systematic I am becoming even more systematic, only creating a more confusing system.

This one thing I do believe with certainty. That if I follow God in one 'area' of life, I believe it can effect other areas of my life, even if they seem unrelated. If I believe God's blessing, teaching, maturation of me can move without boundary then I see no reason why sin cannot do the same. Which leads me to believe life is far more interconnected than I can imagine (or would even like to imagine).

[murlough23]

The problem is, who says they are unrelated? Because we, in modern society have walled off various sections of life? That does not say to me that they are inherently unrelated to God. Who is to say a sin in one supposed sector of my life will not effect another sector? As far as I can see it is we who created the idea of sectors of life. I see no reason to not believe the whole thing is just life and that there are no divisions.

I get that it's all interconnected, but I'm talking about a direct correlation here. Stress and guilt over sin can certainly spill over into other areas of your life, but that doesn't mean you'll fail at all of them. Some people are quite composed and you'd never know something illicit was going on under the surface. In any event, that has nothing (apparently) to do with the availability of jobs, which was the issue at hand.

And for what it's worth, now that she has the job and she's going quite well, she's started talking to the guy again. So if the logic is "God prevented you from getting the job because you were seeing a married man", then I'd expect her to lose the job soon or perform poorly at it or something.

I'm talking about what influences what in ways that are discernable to us. I'm sure everything's inter-related in some less tangible way that only God understands. But if God's gonna take something away from us to get our attention and make us learn a lesson, then we'd better be able to correctly see the connection. I just don't think it'd be something that vague.

A sinful attitude will likely affect all areas of your life, but to learn from it and change you have to be able to see how one thing affects the other. It's not just some mystical karma thing - "You sinned, now everything will magically start going wrong." What happens when you assume that it one person's specific sins caused their (seemingly unrelated) problems is that you then backtrack when someone's having a bunch of problems and assume it's because of some secret sin they're not confessing, as if God is holding their happiness hostage or something. I just don't like that line of thought; sometimes bad stuff happens to you and it's not because of anything in particular that God's trying to tell you to change. (Though there's probably some sin in your life at that point because there's always something, but that's beside the point.) Rather, sometimes what God wants is for you to stay the course in spite of the adversity.

NP: "Shake It Off", Wilco

[Celldweller7]

After reading your latest and thinking about it, I see what you are saying.  I agree with you more now then I did earlier. I think you are right when you say that if God is going to directly intervene in a more obvious way, He will make it clealer than I was alluding to ealier.

I would say, that sometimes we won't receive clarity that God actually did something until after the fact though. I think sometimes when we screw up, God makes us go through a valley or fog before we can truly see.

[murlough23]

I would say, that sometimes we won't receive clarity that God actually did something until after the fact though. I think sometimes when we screw up, God makes us go through a valley or fog before we can truly see.

That's fair. But that's probably more due to our own obstinance than God intentionally obfuscating the truth in most cases. Some lessons are best learned through experience and easier to see in hindsight, though. But that probably still wouldn't amount to things like assuming that being jobless and engaging in an extramarital affair had a direct cause-and-effect relationship with one another.

In other words, God doesn't play Tarot Cards with us.

[Celldweller7]

That's fair. But that's probably more due to our own obstinance than God intentionally obfuscating the truth in most cases. Some lessons are best learned through experience and easier to see in hindsight, though. But that probably still wouldn't amount to things like assuming that being jobless and engaging in an extramarital affair had a direct cause-and-effect relationship with one another.

In other words, God doesn't play Tarot Cards with us.

I just discovered the quote button, I'm happy. As for what I quoted, I agree with that. We could of course add little extras to it for hours and before you know it we'd have our own little theology of discipline.

[murlough23]

I just discovered the quote button, I'm happy. As for what I quoted, I agree with that. We could of course add little extras to it for hours and before you know it we'd have our own little theology of discipline.

Heh. Probably best to leave it at what we have.

[Vlad!]

I agree with Murlough's assertion that, if God is going to punish sin directly, it needs to be obvious. I think scripture will bear me out on this.
* The army of Israel depended on God to help them win battles, when they lost, it was due to sin in their camp.
* Sometimes, God will say "if you sin in this way, I will punish you like this". So when that punishment happens after you sin in that way, I'd say it's a pretty direct relation.
* Every time I can recall in the New Testament that someone is afflicted by God directly for sin, that person knows it. However, there was the case when the pharisees brought the man who was blind (IIRC) from birth and asked "who sinned, this man or his parents?", and Jesus was like "your premise is faulty" and healed the guy.