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JWeinCom on 26 December 2015
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Esiar said:
JWeinCom said:
Esiar said:
JWeinCom said:

Of course, it seems that there would be no reason for an eternal god to make laws that were temporary in the first place.  

I don't see how this makes sense (although I see your point in the rest of the post).

For example, if there is some kind of problem, a temporary law could be passed so the problem doesn't get worse, and the law would not apply once the situation is better.

I'm not saying that exact wording necessarily applies to Christianity, but it's just an example showing that an eternal God (or anyone in a position of power, really) could pass an temporary law.

In certain situations, god does give specific commands (For example in Samuel 15:3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys), but the mosaic laws are not situational.  The mosaic laws are god saying "this is the way you should live your lives".  So if this is what you *should* be doing in the eyes of an omniscient, perfect, omnipotent, and unchanging god, then this should not change at all.

You're comparing an eternal god to anyone else in a position of power, and that doesn't really work.  Like, in America we have a malleable constitution, and set of laws.  Slavery for example, was considered legal and moral by a majority in early America.  However, since we are not infallible, omniscient, or unchanging, it makes sense for us to change over time as new information emerges, new arguments are formed, and society in general progresses towards being more empathetic and smarter.  On the contrary, if god says slavery is ok (which he totally does in Leviticus), then there should be no reason that it should not be ok later.  Since god is omniscient, no argument could have changed his mind, and he could not receive any new information.  If there was some wacky circumstance that made slavery necessary, he could have instantly rectified it because omnipotent.  It is impossible that he was wrong on the issue because he is infallible. His morals by definition could not have changed. So, while humans can and should change laws, god should not have to.

I don't think slavery is a good example there. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that slavery is wrong, and it's even treated as a normal thing in the New Testament, including complete obedience to the master (Which I'm not saying that I'm fully comfortable with that). The point I was making, is how the Old Testament states that you should not eat things like pork (Deuteronomy 14:8), while in the New Testament it's fine (1 Corinthians 10:27-33), which is an example of a temporal law in the Bible.

But I do understand your point on saying that God should not need to change any laws, I just think that you're misunderstanding the situation. It says in Colossians 2:16-17 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."

Basically, some of the laws found in the Old Testament were made to be a shadow of what God's plan was. But they are no longer needed because the body casting the shadow has already come. 

I used slavery as an example because it is something that was, as you said, allowed and endorsed in the bible, but is something that we agree pretty much universally is a bad thing.  So, if you hold to the belief that god makes temporary laws,  you'd have to explain why these laws, including slavery, were in any way moral at any point in history.  

I don't think I'm misunderstanding the situation.  I get the explanation of Christ coming and taking sin on himself etc.  However, I don't think this is an adequete explanation.  Christ coming would not explain why in the old testament, murder, slavery, and rape were endorsed.  Nor does it explain the fact that the sabbath was so important that the punishment for disobeying it was murder, yet post-jesus it is not important.  I mean, that one was in the ten commandments.  One of the ten most important things, and suddenly not important.  Or why god suddenly doesn't care about shrimp and pigs being dirty anymore, etc etc etc.

To me, saying it's a shadow of god's plan is kind of a non-answer, just a step above "god works in mysterious ways".  Basically, it just says things change when jesus comes, but it doesn't do much to explain why they did, why the rules before Jesus were so utterly barbaric (although the new ones are probably even worse), what the logic behind these changes are, why god needed to sacrifice himself to himself to make those changes, and so on.  

To me it's kind of like comic book storylines.  They are logically consistent within their own continuity according to the rules of those particular universes.  But, when you try to judge them by the laws of physics and logic that exist in reality, they stop making sense.