Is God truthful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
In our household, April Fool’s Day is a big event and the major goal is to try to trick my mother. One of the best ones I ever pulled on her was to tell her I was going to be evicted when I lived in an apartment with a roommate. This year, we tricked her into thinking I had been accepted into a school in Romania and would have to move.
Every year she says she will not be tricked that day and lo and behold…
It reminds me of this:
It is also something that comes to mind when I read this objection from Kapr about God using lying spirits, most notably in 1 Kings 22. He does give a reference to Holding’s web site where this is said:
“The alleged problem: If God finds lying to be horrible, why does he put lying spirits into the mouths of prophets and delude people?
Where is the contradiction here? It appears that this objection is asserting that the fact that God does not like lying necessarily implies that He could not use this evil for His own ends as a judgment. This is hardly a valid syllogism. One’s feelings toward something don’t have any connection with whether it is possible to use that something towards one’s own ends.
The question is one for exegesis and theology, and it is a good question that is addressed in commentaries. But as we are dealing with allegations of contradiction here and not theology, this whole point is a non-issue from the standpoint of contradictions. As such, no further discussion is required on this point.”
Unfortunately, Kapr didn’t look too closely. This article was written by an Eric Vestrup. It was not by Holding.
However, for the most part, I agree with the assessment. God is going out of His way to tell Ahab, “Look! You’re being lied to!” If God had truly wanted to lie to Ahab, all of his prophets, including Micaiah, would have said the same thing. God gave Ahab a choice and even told what the outcomes would be depending on what Ahab chose.
The same is going on I think in 2 Thess. 2 with the people who are sent a strong delusion. What’s going on? Well, if you don’t believe the truth, what will you believe? By necessity, something else. If people reject the truth, then God just lets them go further their own way. They make the choice first.
Kapr also brings up Romans 3 and asks that we read the passage slow. No one seeks God? No one understands? I consider Romans 3 an extreme picture. It doesn’t mean that man is continuously evil and hopeless. Jews often spoke in hyperbolic terms. Let’s sum it up this way. Man is extremely wicked and fallen. Kapr sadly reads it in a very fundamentalist sense.
He also brings up 2 Kings 3 where Israel was told they would win a battle, but such great wrath comes against them that they are said to flee. In reality, the sacrifice of the child of the king of Moab indicated that a plague was coming on to his city. Israel would have seen this and known it was time to get out since the plague would end the battle. It is not that wrath came against Israel, but that there was indignation and strife among the camp upon hearing about this.
Next time we will conclude our look at the book as I give summarizing thoughts.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)