Dear Judy;
You once said to me "This is a good example of the confusion the newer versions of the Bible cause. If God is not in control then IYO is Satan more powerful than He is in some of these areas?"
This is a huge question because it ultimately goes back to who we say God is. I like my theology to be internally coherent, meaning that my beliefs do not conflict with one another. I also like my theology to correspond to reality, meaning that it matches what we see going on around us.
I challenged you with those two passages about David taking a census because how people reconcile them reveals who they think God is.
Now this is my understanding.
1) God is love and because love must be chosen, He gave us free will
2) For will to be truly free, God lets our choices play out in time and space. If He stepped in and stopped a wrong choice right after we make it, it's not really free will. He does have the freedom and the power to step in any time He wants. But freely chosen love has high value with Him and so He usually lets the consequences of our actions play out.
3) A lot of our choices are limited by circumstances. God fully understands how we are made and what battles we're fighting. We are the products of generations of sinners; we've sinned and we've been sinned against. Because we don't have God's knowledge, we're told not to judge. A wife beater who chose to punch the wall instead of his wife in a heated argument might have made as great a choice as someone going to a street corner to preach.
4) Ultimately moral choices boil down to love or not to love. As Jesus and Paul pointed out, if we loved God and if we love one another, we fulfill the commandments.
5) The choices made by freewilled beings and God (plus the actions of angels and demons), mesh together into a complex web that is beyond our comprehension. It takes a prophet and word of knowledge to say because of a,b and c this or that happened.
6) God promises that in the end, justice will prevail which means, to me, that all that is wrong, hurt or broken will be redeemed, restored and healed. But for now, we live in a battle zone.
Now to answer your question specifically: Not everything that happens is God's will BUT Satan is not more powerful than God. God created him, this ancient, powerful and proud creature. Job thought God took away his possessions, his family and his health (but left him his nagging wife.) He cursed the day he was born and challenged God to show up to explain. He knew he didn't deserve what he got. His friends believed God is good and sovereign so therefore Job must have sinned. In the end they had to accept something very difficult: Yes, God is good. Yes, God is sovereign. And yes, terrible things happen to good people. They aren't told about Satan.
How do I reconcile the two different accounts of who made David do what he did? I believe God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I believe He is good and He can not do evil. To do evil is to sin and God can not sin. He does not even tempt people. Therefore I can not say He made David sin so that He can punish Israel. He does not have to manufacture reasons to judge people; He judges them on what they've already done.
So how do I explain 2 Sam. 24? I, and a lot of theologians, don't know. Some people have theorized that God reveals things sequentially. Prior to their exile to Babylon, the Israelites ascribed good and bad to God. After the exile, they became more aware of the spiritual warfare around them. The picture of who God is becomes most clear with Jesus Christ. [Heb. 1:1-4]
Thank you, Caroline.
Jd
