Is God a Monster-maker?

I am trying to get to the bottom of the issues swirling around in Romans 9. One thing that comes to my attention is the issue of blame. It seems to me that when I read this my initial reaction to what I think it is saying is that it appears that God is to blame for Pharaoh's resistance to His power. And by extension it must be assumed that if that is true then God has to be blamed for many others, if not all, who resist God's overtures to them.

If I am real honest about this sequence of logic then I have to believe that the cruelty and defiance of Pharaoh was designed into him by his Creator who molded him to be the object of God's wrath; Pharaoh was set up to be the fall guy to make God look good. If that assumption is to be believed then it also stands to reason that other tyrants throughout history are likewise the creations of a diabolical Creator who shaped them in distorted ways to perpetrate their horrors on others so as to make God look good by contrast.

As horrible as this may sound, this is the unavoidable and logical conclusion if one is to believe what many religious authorities insist that Romans 9 is saying. But as I wrote about in my previous post, the assumptions that one brings to the reading of this passage have a great deal to do with what one finds here. Just camping on these words as a starting point for trying to understand how God relates to people and what He is like in character creates a great deal of tension and confusion if it is not viewed in the light of the gospel. But when the truth about God that is much more clearly presented in other passages is used to unpack this passage there will eventually be seen a unity and harmony and beauty that was never thought possible at first reading.

So one of the core questions that needs to be addressed head-on in striving to clarify this is the question already posed above. Is God a diabolical Creator who predestines some people to defy Him and become targets for His displays of angry, overwhelming force to make Him look better? Or is something else going on here that the enemy of God is afraid we will discover that will further unmask his crafty and complex lies about God and expose us more fully to the perfect consistency of God's never-ending love? Is God a monster who is afraid we will find out the truth about Him and keeps us quiet with His intimidations or are these all classic symptoms of the professional liar who is determined to make God look like his own fiendish character?

The belief that we think this passage supports will determine and effect all of our other beliefs about God. Beliefs have to fit together and be congruent with each other or they are useless and worthless except to fill up empty space. Beliefs have to be tested by following them to their logical conclusions to see what direction they are leading us. Sometimes our assumptions may deceive us as to how to trace something to its logical conclusion and we have to challenge those assumptions as well. But in this case I think it is rather clear that to accept what appears on the surface to be a description of a controlling, manipulative God who deliberately and intentionally designs some people to be lost and to wreak havoc on others in the process is completely contradictory to everything else that I have been learning about God.

So since I have to believe that this kind of conclusion is completely incompatible with the rest of Scripture and truth then I have to take a much closer look at this passage and uncover what the real meaning is and the original intention of the author. I think I am already starting to see some interesting light while sorting through the false assumptions and I want to keep digging for the gems that I am sure are waiting to be discovered here.

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