God's "Trial-and-Error" Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom

Why did God create man? Although this blog is entitled "God's Trial-and-Error Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom", God forbid that I would claim that God makes mistakes. Most probably, He does NOT. Why most probably? Isn't God perfect? Well, if we believe in revelation and revelation alone and not our personal "dignum Deo" opinions, take a look at this passage from Hebrews 10:7-13:

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

8 For he finds fault with them when he says:[c]

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
    when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
    and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
    on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
    and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
    after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
    and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
    and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
    and I will remember their sins no more.”

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Now, note the words translated as "faultless", "find fault" (derived from the Greek, memphomai, meaning "censure, blame, reproach"), and "obsolete" (Greek, palaioo, meaning "worn out and old"). Nothing can be more explicit, and if that does not, at least, hint of trial-and-error, then I don't know English nor Greek at all!

It is important to point out that even the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel, ignores the language and states:

" In the NT we find memphómenos in Heb. 8:8, where God finds fault with Israel (Italics mine) for breaking the covenant, and for this reason gives promise of a new covenant."

[NT New Testament

Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1995, c1985). Theological dictionary of the New Testament. Translation of: Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament. (580). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.]

God DID NOT find fault with Israel as the TDNT states. He finds fault with the COVENANT. This is Scripture twisting at its worst as the intent is obvious!

Regardless, it seems that God makes calculated risks and we already have proven that in another blog on Implications of Biblical Theomorphism.

God is All-Sufficient in Himself and among the Persons of the Holy Trinity, there is intense and fulfilling fellowship and love. However, God seemed desirous of embarking on a divine experiment with the end in view of expanding the coverage or scope of His love and relationships.

The following narrative highlights, among others, the Omni-Competence of God (see OmniCompetence- the Divine Attribute that distinguishes the Judeo-Christian God from the Pagan gods).

God's ultimate goal IS to create a people of faith who would be kingdom-minded and would willingly and deliberately love Him the same way He would love His creatures. Remember this goal (and NOT "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever" as the classicists claim. That "chief end of man" is NOT biblical at all. It has no foundation in Scripture. See my blog).

It seems that His very first experiment was the creation of the angels. He even had a favorite whom He made commander of the heavenly host and his name was Lucifer, the day-star. In this particular experiment, He took one of His first risks to His Divine Sovereignty: He was going to create servants who would be endowed with free will (with the intrinsic ability both to love Him or reject Him). However, it seemed that because He created a race of servants, His main criteria for relationship was loyalty and obedience, qualities that were a bit devoid of emotional elements. This must be why we seldom hear about happy or angry angels in scripture. Even when Satan was doing any of his activities, although intelligence was exercised, emotions seemed to be suppressed or non-existent. Same is true of Michael and Gabriel during their message errands.

With the fall of a third of the angels led by Lucifer, God decided to modify His creation significantly and even take a greater risk: God created MAN.

1. They would be created in God's image, and therefore have free will, the ability to love, hate, accept God, reject God, exercise faith, exercise doubt or skepticism, demonstrate intrinsic intelligence, etc.
2. They would NOT be created as servants but independent and autonomous individuals
3. They would be limited by physical bodies.
4. They would be given a choice for eternal life (The Tree of Life was in the middle of the garden of Eden).
5. They would be given a choice, and it would be the acid test to this experiment, to either remain innocent and live with God forever in the garden of Eden in a wonderful relationship between Creator and creature or become "like God" being able to distinguish between good and evil, becoming guilty due to disobedience and now being accountable for sin and hence be condemned to eternal separation from God.

Nonetheless, His objective of creating a people of faith who would love Him was not diminished. Only His method changed by modifying the type of creature He desired to have relationship with.

Of course, we now know what happened with Satan's intervention, Satan knowing fully well that these were creatures that were autonomous and capable of exercising intelligence and self-will.

But God does not give up and continues to exercise His omni-competence, sometimes actually intervening in His creative work to change the course of events to redirect towards His will but never forcing His will upon the hearts of men but continually courting them as a demonstration of His lovingkindness and tender mercies.

He had a few successes with Abel, Enoch and finally Noah when He realizes that man was generally evil when left to run his life and He even relented in creating man. This is when He finally decides to annihilate the world with a great flood by literally breaking open the windows of heaven for 40 days and nights. He exempts faithful Noah and attempts to re-create the human race through him.

After God promises never to destroy the earth with a flood again with a rainbow to remind Him, He even intervenes at Babel to create multiple languages to prevent man from being too powerful. Because He finds delight in the childlike faithfulness of Abram, He now proceeds to alter His method toward meeting His objective of creating a people of faith, to actually choose a segment of humanity through Abraham promising that this would be His chosen people. He even went through great lengths to isolate Israel especially in Egypt, to enable His chosen people to be a pure race whom He would set apart to be the people He would build a loving relationship with. It is quite important to note here that God said that the "nations" would be blessed through Abraham. Hence, God still had the whole of humanity in mind in His love and redemptive plan. However, He had to start from scratch again.

We now know that this experiment essentially failed, at least temporarily. God called the Hebrew nation, His own people harlots because they always forsook Him for other gods and other priorities. God placed them in exile to show how jealous and full of wrath He was at this demonstration of faithlessness and defiance. Although He would Himself be pained by the punishment He would mete, He also had to show that He stood for justice. Nevertheless, this experiment yielded gems like Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Gideon, Samuel, David, Asaph, the prophets, etc.

Finally, God creates His Church, a project that He prophesied about in Isaiah when He said, "...a people who have not known me..." In this final project, God would create a people of faith whom He no longer forces to be called His people in the same manner he chose the Jews. God's over-arching criterion for this people is that they willingly surrender back their independence and return God's love from their heart. His invitation to His people is no longer forced like the Jews were forced to be THE chosen people, and His invitation is open to all ("whosoever will"). This would be a people who, although He created to be independent and automous beings with free-will and the capacity to rebel or reject His love, would instead surrender back this independence to God and love Him with all their heart, mind, soul and strength.

For such is the essence of the relationship He desires. The realization that the risks He originally took in creating theomorphic man would redound to His expectations of willing submission and love.

Conclusion: I have presented a perspective on why God created man and finally the Church. Whether it seemed like a trial-and-error process or simply stages in God's unfolding revelation of His final plan to build His Church and for us to appreciate its unique attributes compared to the other stages or dispensations (this is NOT dispensationalism please), it is up to the readers to draw their own conclusions. I believe that God NEVER makes mistakes, theoretically. However, practically speaking, it is hard to declare that the millions of people going to hell without Christ is NOT some kind of mistake. However, the trial-and-error view demonstrates overwhelmingly the Omni-Competence of God while the concept of unfolding plan simply highlights His sovereignty.

This is why relational theology proposes a happy logical view where mistakes and risks are based on God's goal of demonstrating His love. From the viewpoint of classicism and Calvinism which emphasizes the sovereignty of God at the expense of His other attributes, it is quite difficult to logically justify that God did not make a mistake since millions of His beloved creatures are hell-bound. If one says that man goes to hell by his own sin, then we can go back and say that the creation of man is either a mistake or has mistakes involved from the viewpoint of absolute sovereignty at the expense of other attributes.

However, since relational theology emphasizes God's Love and that the over-arching motive for God's design and will is to demonstrate and consummate His love, we begin to see that millions going to hell is not a mistake but a risk He had to take, in the same way that He took the risk of sending His Son to not only suffer and die on the cross for our sin but to actually experience separation from God at the cross, so that we who would be redeemed would be exempted from such a tormenting experience. It costs God a LOT to build His Kingdom Project