Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 12/11/01 2:39pm
In reply to:
Biff
's message, "God and the Individual" on 12/11/01 1:04pm
>>Your second point is interesting! ... and somewhat
>>reminiscent of the discussion here a while back about
>>whether babies go to heaven or not.... if you just
>>can't understand! ... how can god blame you for not
>>knowing?
>
>I hate to drag this one up again, but I had some
>thoughts about it.
>
>Some use the concept of "age of accountability" to
>answer that question. There are indications of this
>concept in the Bible, enough to make a good case for
>it. Others argue that no person who would have found
>salvation through Christ dies before they are able to
>make the decision (i.e., if a baby dies and goes to
>hell, that individual would have gone to hell even if
>they had lived their full life expectancy). But
>personally, I don't care one way or the other.
>
>It seems to me, and I haven't researched this yet,
>that the age of accountability concept is a response
>to modern individualism. Over the past couple of
>centuries we've developed the idea that each
>individual is responsible for his/her own behaviour
>and nothing more. That doesn't seem to be the
>prevailing idea through history, and I theorize that
>it does not adequately explain God's actions.
>
>Collective responsibility seems to be much more
>prevalent through history. From God's perspective, all
>of mankind has been tragically tainted with sin. If
>this means that people who die before making a
>decision about beliefs go to hell, then that is how it
>is.
>
>Many would question the justice in that. But I do not.
>Did all Nazis kill Jews? No, but we continue to hold
>them all responsible to this day. Was the entire
>Taliban responsible for the WTC disaster? Of course
>not, but we hold them guilty by association and
>consider it justice to kill a large percentage of
>them, even if some women and children die in the
>process. In the Bible, check Judges 19-20, when the
>entire tribe of Benjamin was held responsible for the
>rape of one woman.
That’s not entirely what happened. When the Israelites marched over and asked to hand the guilty parties over (the wicked men who raped and brutally murdered a woman) the Benjamites would not listen and decided to fight against the Israelites instead (see Judges 20:12-14). I don’t think the war against the Benjamites would have taken place if they had handed over those evil men. The situation is similar to the terrorist attack on September 11th. We demanded that Afghanistan hand over the terrorists, and they refused. I honestly don’t think the battle would have taken place if they granted our requests. So it wasn’t that they are taken blame for the sins of others, it’s because of their other actions (willfully harboring terrorists, willfully harboring murderers and rapists).
>I believe that we as a society are responsible for the
>actions of our people. When one man kills another, we
>have done something to make the act possible and even
>justifiable in the killer's mind. That doesn't excuse
>his behaviour, for to let it go furthers it. But
>something in our society has taught him to be who he
>is.
>
>So, if God holds mankind collectively responsible for
>its actions, then that is his nature.
I don’t believe that’s exactly his nature. I am a strong believer in the idea that “the soul who sins is the one who will die.” One nice example is the notion of people being punished for the sins of their ancestors (IIRC, it was somewhat popular back then). See Ezekiel 18:20 and Deuteronomy 24:16.
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