Thinking Some More About This Old Testament Stuff....

Some of these recent posts (inspired by recent reading) have really got me thinking. Even though in the past, I have alluded to the belief that God had nothing to do with the violence in the OT. That can't quite be true because it is pretty obvious...if only by his inaction...that he did. In other words, even if he did not directly order the wars and pillaging and plundering, he let it all happen and is therefore responsible for it. Ultimately, the buck stops with God. I am musing here. What follows are random thoughts that are not refined...are not thought out. Much of this blog is made up of research and random thinking. I am on a journey, an exploration. Sometimes in determining what we do not believe, we come to find out what we do believe and hold it nearer and dearer to our hearts.

At this point, I do believe that something pivotal happened in the garden...or a very early part of our human journey began there. (There is the question of pre-existence...which cannot be tackled in this post...but might make a good series at some point in the future) When we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it began the process whereby we would become acquainted with evil and by which God would make us into his image and likeness. Girard thinks the fall had to do with mimesis...mimetic rivalry....when the serpent enticed Eve by telling her that God possessed something she did not...something that would open her eyes and make her like God and that he was trying to keep it for himself. She fell prey to mimetic rivalry and the whole scapegoating process began. Tolle believes that the fall took place when we acquired the ability to think and our thoughts overtook us and alienated us from God. Tolle's beliefs are not necessarily incompatible with Girard's. Did we have a choice in the garden? I don't know. Someone who used to post on some of the same forums as I did believed that we did have an element of choice, but that if mankind had not "fallen" in the garden, they would have fallen sooner or later.

Perhaps to take us from where we were after the fall to where God wants us to be (a process that is still taking place) mankind had to go through all the wars, the OT atrocities, the sacrificial system etc. But the flaw, the weakness, the propensity toward violence and mimetic rivalry, the vengeance etc. is in the heart of man, not in the heart of God. He endures with long suffering the vessels of wrath (us) fitted for destruction. Us.

It is still hard to reconcile the God we see in Jesus with the warrior God of the OT. Perhaps, like the God Quest site proclaims, satan was the one who handed down most of the commands in the Old Testament. I am thinking, perhaps, God allowed him the liberty to direct mankind for a while. He gave satan some slack in the leash he is on, similar to the slack God gave him when he tormented Job. Granted, God called satan's attention to Job and when "prompted" gave satan permission to torment Job. God did set clear limits on how far satan could go but did not specifically say just what those tortures and torments would entail.

Or perhaps it was just mankind's carnal nature that orchestrated most of the violence in the OT...with God coming to the rescue when they got themselves in too big of a bind to get out of.

Just musing here....lots of thoughts running through my mind...including the fact that it is time to make dinner.