{"id":22406,"date":"2010-08-13T11:08:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T19:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=22406"},"modified":"2010-08-13T12:59:34","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T20:59:34","slug":"did-g-d-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=22406","title":{"rendered":"Did G-d Do It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Genesis 45:5, Joseph tells his brother, don’t be distressed for selling me as a slave, for it was G-d who sent me ahead of you to provide.<\/p>\n

In a 1995 lecture on this, Dennis Prager says: Joseph says it was not you who sent me here but G-d. G-d’s hand is in all of it.<\/p>\n

If G-d did it, what responsibility do the brothers have for having done it? Are they guilty at all?<\/p>\n

I don’t have a beautiful answer for you. Did G-d do it or the brothers or some melange of the two? G-d wanted Joseph in Egypt.<\/p>\n

I never had a problem with the concept that G-d knows the future and we have free will. I can drive down the freeway and see the traffic is stopped in the opposite direction by an accident. So I know that all the drivers coming up to the accident will soon be stopped. They have free will but I know their future in this respect.<\/p>\n

If I were in the medieval Christian world as a Jew, and they were all yelling at me for being a Christ-killer, I would’ve said, it wouldn’t have helped, they would’ve just gotten angrier, but I would’ve said that on purely logical grounds, blame me all you like, but if the Jews didn’t kill him, you would have no religion. Because G-d sent his only son by classical Christian theology to be killed. If he had died in a nursing home, this story would be very different. You don’t die for people’s sins in your sleep. You die for people’s sins by being killed by bad people sinning. <\/p>\n

Secular life has its own arguments against free will — genes, environment, parents, health. A purely secular view of humanity argues that you have no freedom. <\/p>\n

Only if you believe in G-d, can you believe that humans have free will. <\/p>\n

I don’t believe that everything we do is because of genes and environment. <\/p>\n

The more secular the society, the less people are likely to blame criminals. If all we are is genes and environment, then it is not right to blame a rapist. It is not right to blame a murderer.<\/p>\n

It is the more religious in society who are the most advocative of punishing criminals. <\/p>\n

A religious person in Judeo-Christian culture tends to hold that people are responsible for their behavior. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Genesis 45:5, Joseph tells his brother, don’t be distressed for selling me as a slave, for it was G-d who sent me ahead of you to provide. In a 1995 lecture on this, Dennis Prager says: Joseph says it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,4,590],"tags":[23253,29761,2191,13795,23254],"class_list":["post-22406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-dennis-prager","category-torah","tag-brother-don","tag-dennis-prager","tag-freeway","tag-genesis","tag-melange"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t