In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards paints a picture of a cruel and ruthless god. But what is god really like? I don't know. No one really knows but we all have our established beliefs. Some believe that God is peaceful and kind while others, like Edwards, believe that God is harsh and angry.
To begin with, we don't really know if god exists and how involved he is. Some believe that God does exist while atheists don't. On another hand, Deists believe that God created the world but is no longer involved.
Looking past this first conflict opens up another conflict. God has divided people all throughout human history causing conflicts from the Crusades to the conflict of modern day terrorists and extremists. This is due to our different interpretations of God. Most of us can agree on the fact that God is omniscient, and all powerful but we try to describe God through personification when that doesn't quite fit. We can't really describe God and a theory that expresses this viewpoint is the Apophatic theology or Negative theology. This theory basically expresses that we can only describe what god is not. For example going back to the question of God's existence, we can't proof whether or not god exists so we can only say that God is not non-existent.
Religions are not endorsed by God and so we can't really assert whether one is more right than another. People often use God to support their own agenda like Edwards using an Angry God to frighten people into being religious, but really cannot prove if their interpretation is any good.
To begin with, we don't really know if god exists and how involved he is. Some believe that God does exist while atheists don't. On another hand, Deists believe that God created the world but is no longer involved.
Looking past this first conflict opens up another conflict. God has divided people all throughout human history causing conflicts from the Crusades to the conflict of modern day terrorists and extremists. This is due to our different interpretations of God. Most of us can agree on the fact that God is omniscient, and all powerful but we try to describe God through personification when that doesn't quite fit. We can't really describe God and a theory that expresses this viewpoint is the Apophatic theology or Negative theology. This theory basically expresses that we can only describe what god is not. For example going back to the question of God's existence, we can't proof whether or not god exists so we can only say that God is not non-existent.
Religions are not endorsed by God and so we can't really assert whether one is more right than another. People often use God to support their own agenda like Edwards using an Angry God to frighten people into being religious, but really cannot prove if their interpretation is any good.
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