A Dose of Common Sense
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“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
-Epicurus
These are questions that man has wrestled with and religion has tried to answer for millennia. In America today, the most popular religion is Christianity and the God of this religion is very unique. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and ‘omniloving’ but yet humans are allowed to have free will and control their own destiny. One of the basic tenets of Christianity is also the belief in Jesus Christ who died for the sins of mankind so they could live in heaven for eternity if they believe in the Lord. Christianity is a very popular religion because it has a happy afterlife for believers, a sense of eternal justice and solace, and seemingly intuitive moral code. However, after a thorough look through the Bible with a critical mind, some of these ideas are brought into serious question. These issues are so extreme that there is only one conclusion to make: The idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, ‘omniloving’ Christian God contradicts reflection and logical thought and therefore the existence of a God with such qualities is impossible.
Christians believe in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Mathew 7:12) and the Ten Commandments but what is forgotten or ignored by believers in Christ are the other morals exhibited and taught in the Bible: morals that are not so pleasing or intuitive to our feelings about right and wrong. Christians also believe that their God is a god of love and not only that but , as C.S. Lewis puts it, “God is Love”(17). Lewis compares this love to that of an “artist to and artefact”(30), “a man for a beast”(31), “a father to a son”(32), and “a man’s love for a woman”(33). It is clear although when looked closely God does not exhibit any of these types of loves.
The Christian Old Testament is filled with examples of questionable ethics and God’s pecular sense of love; beginning at the first book of the Bible, Genisis. In this book there is a man named Abraham who is considered to be the starting point of the monotheistic God of Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam. One day God says to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me." Obediently, Abraham begins to lead his son to the mountain and Isaac asks his father, “I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?" Abraham answers chillingly, “God himself will provide one,” reminiscent of a horror story beginning to come to the bitter climax.
Once at the top of the mountain, Abraham binds his son and places him on the alter. He picks up his knife to kill his much-loved son when God suddenly changes his mind and brings an angel down to stop Abraham. God says that he just wanted to know if Abraham was truly an obedient servant to Him and through this horrendous act Abraham has proven himself.
Imagine what the consequences would be for this act if done today: child abuse, attempted murder, kidnapping, not to mention the ethical sins. More importantly, consider what this tells us about God and his ethics. He toys with people, even His favorite prophet, with the things that are most important to them and, at the last moment will reveal that it’s all just a test. At best this is a bad practical joke, at worst and most realistic this is sadistic.
Although, one can make an argument that God saves face because he stops Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice. It is clear however when looking farther in the Bible that He does not always change his mind. In Judges 11 there is man name Jephthah that asks the Lord give him a military victory and in return he will sacrifice the first person to walk into his tent. God gives Jephthah the great victory and who is the first person to go into his tent to celebrate the triumph? It is Jephthah’s only daughter “dancing and playing the tambourine.” He is crushed by her arrival but he knows that he must keep his end of the bargain with God. The daughter is given two last months to live, two months that God could have reconsidered as he did with Abraham, but alas, she is finally was sacrificed by her father.
What kind of love is God demonstrating during these two stories? It is clearly not the love for a piece of art or a pet as neither of these have the power of thought. Then it must be either that of a father’s love for his son or a husband’s love for his wife. Imagine a father telling his son to kill one of his brothers, letting him almost carry it out, but at the last moment recanting. Or envision a husband to making a deal with his wife to give her a new house but in return she must murder their only daughter. These two examples don’t correspond with Lewis’ categories of love either. God’s love looks more like disinterest, manipulation, and contempt.
Admittedly both of these cases of child sacrifice are small compared to the whole human population because they only affect several people. Perhaps God is good to humans on the whole but in personal circumstances sometimes things go wrong. Yet once again there are examples in the Bible that undermine this. Take for example Moses and his followers committing genocide to the Medianites. Moses’ army easily kills all the Medianite men and burn down there cities, but out of mercy the soldiers leave the women and children alive. This mercy angers Moses, who commands them to “kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately,” (Numbers 31: 17). This fate is not just reserved for the Medianite’s but God also commands Moses to eradicate the Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Hittites, Canaanites, and Amorites. But isn’t this just Moses’ commands and not from God? Surely not everyone should commit genocide. Conversely, when we look to Deuteronomy 13 we see that it is not an order just to Moses but to all Christians to kill those who believe differently and that this order comes directly from God.
God doesn’t leave all the dirty work to humans however, and stories of God’s personal reckoning are throughout the Christian Old Testament. Within its pages are the stories of Sodom and Gamorrah, numerous varieties of plagues, and years of horrible droughts. The Flood is the best-known story of God personally punishing countless humans where He kills the entire human race minus one family. Hitler killed millions of Jews and Saddam Hussien killed thousands of Kurds; both of these are considered horrendous, immoral acts. However, both of these are mere drops in the bucket compared to how many humans God has killed. No act of genocide can be considered moral, much less loving, and therefore through His actions, God cannot be considered moral or loving.
There is something intuitively wrong about child sacrifice (and human sacrifice in general) and the same is understood with genocide. A God that not only condones these acts but also promotes them is not a moral, loving God.
One, like Rev. Vern Lasala, Chaplain of Ohio Northern University, might object here and say that all these examples are from the Christian Old Testament and that much of what is in it should not be taken so literally. Instead, the Reverend says, look for the truth in these stories. Admittedly, this does help for many stories about God’s retribution towards evil men but it is still hard to see a good truth in the stories of child sacrifice. Perhaps God wants to see proof of obedience with the case of Abraham, but surely there has to be a limit to this. With Jephthah, there is no limit, and the lesson, if there is a lesson, is hard to see.
So far, only Old Testament examples have been given, but there is one example of God’s injustice, lack of love, and contempt for his own creature that transcends both Testaments and even is seen in a greater amount in the New Testament – Hell. This is the land for “all those who die in personal mortal sin, as enemies of God, and unworthy of eternal life, will be severely punished by God after death,”(Catholic Encyclopedia). It is referred to in the New Testament in Mark 9: 43 as the “unquenchable fire”, and the “pits of darkness” in 2 Peter 2:4. It is understood through these verses and others that Hell is the place of eternal damnation for those who don’t follow God.
This concept helps people with their desire for justice and solace that there is some eternal life, but when more closely examined problems arise. First, it seems unbalanced. A humans life can range anywhere from zero to 120 years at the maximum, and even when 120 years is compared to eternity, life is really no time at all. So to suffer forever for the sins during life is lopsided at best.
Next, the problem develops of God’s forgiveness. The Christian God is “God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness” (Nehemiah 9: 17) and Jesus, even on the Cross, has the power to forgive his enemies in Luke 23: 34. Since God is limitless in his powers it would stand to reason that he would have limitless powers of forgiveness, which would mean that everyone automatically got into heaven. This leads to a choice similar to the one in the beginning of this essay; either God is loving, limitless and there is no hell, or He is not loving, allowing him to be limitless but Hell to exist, or He is loving but is not able to forgive everything. However, the last one puts a limit to his power. The one that is chosen does not matter. What matters is that none of these correspond with the Christian idea of a loving, limitless God where there exists a hell.
The question of forgiveness is also brought up when scrutinizing the main belief of Christianity: Jesus death and resurrection on the cross. Jesus died to have our sin forgiven so we can live forever in heaven. The sin that Jesus specifically died for was original sin from Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit. This as seen before is not to be taken literally but symbolically. The irrationality of the situation is best summed up by Richard Dawkins, atheist and Oxford professor, in “The God Delusion” writing, “Symbolic? So…Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in a vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual?” (253). If God was as forgiving and powerful as proclaimed He could just say that all was forgiven without having to have his only son tortured and killed. The necessity of the crucifixion shows a God that is not all-powerful.
Another aspect of Christianity that raises questions about the qualities of a Christian God is the claim of human free will. According to the Catholic Encylcopedia,
“God has created man, has commanded him to obey the moral law, and has promised to reward or punish him for observance or violation of this law, made the reality of moral liberty an issue of transcendent importance. Unless man is really free, he cannot be justly held responsible for his actions, any more than for the date of his birth or the colour of his eyes.”
To repeat from before the characteristics being brought into question in this essay are omniscience, omnipotence, and His benevolence. The affects of free will on these three aspects must be considered when dealing with a Christian God.
In Christianity, God is everywhere at all times; His presence permeates throughout the universe. It has been proven by science that time and space are intricately intertwined and without one, there is not the other. It stands to reason then that outside the universe time is not a factor; it is simply non-existent. So, because God ccreated the universe, He had to be able to exist out of the universe. Since God exists outside of the universe, He exists outside the constraints of time. With the ability to be omniscient, not only in space but also time, He knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen as if it all has already happened. But how does this contradict free will? It does not by itself but when the other characteristics of a Christian God are considered, the problems are clear.
It is a safe Christian belief to have that God is omnipotent but chooses not to control everything; that He allows his creations to do what they want. With this free will people have the power to do both good and bad. Not only that but because God is omniscient he knows exactly what harmful things will happen, but he still lets these actions take place. The problem becomes clearer when considered from creation. As God contemplated creation, He knew through his omnipotence precisely what would happen during the entire time of existence; all the terror, sin, strife, and death (assumingly even Jesus’ death on the Cross) would be apparent to him as if it had already happened. Even so He created the universe as it would be. He allowed all the bad actions of free will to take place; a loving God would not.
This is not where this problem ends however. When looking at the same example of creation, it becomes evident that free will also contradicts His omnipotence. Before God created the universe He had an image in his mind of what would happen during the whole of existence and He created it. With this knowledge of what was to come, it leads to the conclusion that God made everything with a purpose, even those who sin were created to sin, and those who were not, were created not to. This contradicts the idea of free will. These two characteristics of Christianity are clearly exclusive ideas. Free will cannot exist with an omnipotent God, and vice versa.
Through careful analysis of the ethical and logical implications of an omnipotent, omniscient, omniloving God one cannot help but question the existence of a Christian God. There are numerous examples of God’s lack of morals in the Old Testament, from child sacrifice to genocide. Hell is found in both Testaments and also exhibits God’s malevolence and inability to forgive which contradicts one of the basic tenets of a Christian God. To go along with this, there is the logical impossibility of an all-powerful God and freewill. With these aspects considered it is clear that the Christian God has major issues that deny its possibility of existence. Chapman Cohen once said that “Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.” With this in mind, the reader should take these bits of fact and thought and look within to find the truth."
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
-Epicurus
These are questions that man has wrestled with and religion has tried to answer for millennia. In America today, the most popular religion is Christianity and the God of this religion is very unique. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and ‘omniloving’ but yet humans are allowed to have free will and control their own destiny. One of the basic tenets of Christianity is also the belief in Jesus Christ who died for the sins of mankind so they could live in heaven for eternity if they believe in the Lord. Christianity is a very popular religion because it has a happy afterlife for believers, a sense of eternal justice and solace, and seemingly intuitive moral code. However, after a thorough look through the Bible with a critical mind, some of these ideas are brought into serious question. These issues are so extreme that there is only one conclusion to make: The idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, ‘omniloving’ Christian God contradicts reflection and logical thought and therefore the existence of a God with such qualities is impossible.
Christians believe in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Mathew 7:12) and the Ten Commandments but what is forgotten or ignored by believers in Christ are the other morals exhibited and taught in the Bible: morals that are not so pleasing or intuitive to our feelings about right and wrong. Christians also believe that their God is a god of love and not only that but , as C.S. Lewis puts it, “God is Love”(17). Lewis compares this love to that of an “artist to and artefact”(30), “a man for a beast”(31), “a father to a son”(32), and “a man’s love for a woman”(33). It is clear although when looked closely God does not exhibit any of these types of loves.
The Christian Old Testament is filled with examples of questionable ethics and God’s pecular sense of love; beginning at the first book of the Bible, Genisis. In this book there is a man named Abraham who is considered to be the starting point of the monotheistic God of Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam. One day God says to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me." Obediently, Abraham begins to lead his son to the mountain and Isaac asks his father, “I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?" Abraham answers chillingly, “God himself will provide one,” reminiscent of a horror story beginning to come to the bitter climax.
Once at the top of the mountain, Abraham binds his son and places him on the alter. He picks up his knife to kill his much-loved son when God suddenly changes his mind and brings an angel down to stop Abraham. God says that he just wanted to know if Abraham was truly an obedient servant to Him and through this horrendous act Abraham has proven himself.
Imagine what the consequences would be for this act if done today: child abuse, attempted murder, kidnapping, not to mention the ethical sins. More importantly, consider what this tells us about God and his ethics. He toys with people, even His favorite prophet, with the things that are most important to them and, at the last moment will reveal that it’s all just a test. At best this is a bad practical joke, at worst and most realistic this is sadistic.
Although, one can make an argument that God saves face because he stops Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice. It is clear however when looking farther in the Bible that He does not always change his mind. In Judges 11 there is man name Jephthah that asks the Lord give him a military victory and in return he will sacrifice the first person to walk into his tent. God gives Jephthah the great victory and who is the first person to go into his tent to celebrate the triumph? It is Jephthah’s only daughter “dancing and playing the tambourine.” He is crushed by her arrival but he knows that he must keep his end of the bargain with God. The daughter is given two last months to live, two months that God could have reconsidered as he did with Abraham, but alas, she is finally was sacrificed by her father.
What kind of love is God demonstrating during these two stories? It is clearly not the love for a piece of art or a pet as neither of these have the power of thought. Then it must be either that of a father’s love for his son or a husband’s love for his wife. Imagine a father telling his son to kill one of his brothers, letting him almost carry it out, but at the last moment recanting. Or envision a husband to making a deal with his wife to give her a new house but in return she must murder their only daughter. These two examples don’t correspond with Lewis’ categories of love either. God’s love looks more like disinterest, manipulation, and contempt.
Admittedly both of these cases of child sacrifice are small compared to the whole human population because they only affect several people. Perhaps God is good to humans on the whole but in personal circumstances sometimes things go wrong. Yet once again there are examples in the Bible that undermine this. Take for example Moses and his followers committing genocide to the Medianites. Moses’ army easily kills all the Medianite men and burn down there cities, but out of mercy the soldiers leave the women and children alive. This mercy angers Moses, who commands them to “kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately,” (Numbers 31: 17). This fate is not just reserved for the Medianite’s but God also commands Moses to eradicate the Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Hittites, Canaanites, and Amorites. But isn’t this just Moses’ commands and not from God? Surely not everyone should commit genocide. Conversely, when we look to Deuteronomy 13 we see that it is not an order just to Moses but to all Christians to kill those who believe differently and that this order comes directly from God.
God doesn’t leave all the dirty work to humans however, and stories of God’s personal reckoning are throughout the Christian Old Testament. Within its pages are the stories of Sodom and Gamorrah, numerous varieties of plagues, and years of horrible droughts. The Flood is the best-known story of God personally punishing countless humans where He kills the entire human race minus one family. Hitler killed millions of Jews and Saddam Hussien killed thousands of Kurds; both of these are considered horrendous, immoral acts. However, both of these are mere drops in the bucket compared to how many humans God has killed. No act of genocide can be considered moral, much less loving, and therefore through His actions, God cannot be considered moral or loving.
There is something intuitively wrong about child sacrifice (and human sacrifice in general) and the same is understood with genocide. A God that not only condones these acts but also promotes them is not a moral, loving God.
One, like Rev. Vern Lasala, Chaplain of Ohio Northern University, might object here and say that all these examples are from the Christian Old Testament and that much of what is in it should not be taken so literally. Instead, the Reverend says, look for the truth in these stories. Admittedly, this does help for many stories about God’s retribution towards evil men but it is still hard to see a good truth in the stories of child sacrifice. Perhaps God wants to see proof of obedience with the case of Abraham, but surely there has to be a limit to this. With Jephthah, there is no limit, and the lesson, if there is a lesson, is hard to see.
So far, only Old Testament examples have been given, but there is one example of God’s injustice, lack of love, and contempt for his own creature that transcends both Testaments and even is seen in a greater amount in the New Testament – Hell. This is the land for “all those who die in personal mortal sin, as enemies of God, and unworthy of eternal life, will be severely punished by God after death,”(Catholic Encyclopedia). It is referred to in the New Testament in Mark 9: 43 as the “unquenchable fire”, and the “pits of darkness” in 2 Peter 2:4. It is understood through these verses and others that Hell is the place of eternal damnation for those who don’t follow God.
This concept helps people with their desire for justice and solace that there is some eternal life, but when more closely examined problems arise. First, it seems unbalanced. A humans life can range anywhere from zero to 120 years at the maximum, and even when 120 years is compared to eternity, life is really no time at all. So to suffer forever for the sins during life is lopsided at best.
Next, the problem develops of God’s forgiveness. The Christian God is “God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness” (Nehemiah 9: 17) and Jesus, even on the Cross, has the power to forgive his enemies in Luke 23: 34. Since God is limitless in his powers it would stand to reason that he would have limitless powers of forgiveness, which would mean that everyone automatically got into heaven. This leads to a choice similar to the one in the beginning of this essay; either God is loving, limitless and there is no hell, or He is not loving, allowing him to be limitless but Hell to exist, or He is loving but is not able to forgive everything. However, the last one puts a limit to his power. The one that is chosen does not matter. What matters is that none of these correspond with the Christian idea of a loving, limitless God where there exists a hell.
The question of forgiveness is also brought up when scrutinizing the main belief of Christianity: Jesus death and resurrection on the cross. Jesus died to have our sin forgiven so we can live forever in heaven. The sin that Jesus specifically died for was original sin from Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit. This as seen before is not to be taken literally but symbolically. The irrationality of the situation is best summed up by Richard Dawkins, atheist and Oxford professor, in “The God Delusion” writing, “Symbolic? So…Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in a vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual?” (253). If God was as forgiving and powerful as proclaimed He could just say that all was forgiven without having to have his only son tortured and killed. The necessity of the crucifixion shows a God that is not all-powerful.
Another aspect of Christianity that raises questions about the qualities of a Christian God is the claim of human free will. According to the Catholic Encylcopedia,
“God has created man, has commanded him to obey the moral law, and has promised to reward or punish him for observance or violation of this law, made the reality of moral liberty an issue of transcendent importance. Unless man is really free, he cannot be justly held responsible for his actions, any more than for the date of his birth or the colour of his eyes.”
To repeat from before the characteristics being brought into question in this essay are omniscience, omnipotence, and His benevolence. The affects of free will on these three aspects must be considered when dealing with a Christian God.
In Christianity, God is everywhere at all times; His presence permeates throughout the universe. It has been proven by science that time and space are intricately intertwined and without one, there is not the other. It stands to reason then that outside the universe time is not a factor; it is simply non-existent. So, because God ccreated the universe, He had to be able to exist out of the universe. Since God exists outside of the universe, He exists outside the constraints of time. With the ability to be omniscient, not only in space but also time, He knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen as if it all has already happened. But how does this contradict free will? It does not by itself but when the other characteristics of a Christian God are considered, the problems are clear.
It is a safe Christian belief to have that God is omnipotent but chooses not to control everything; that He allows his creations to do what they want. With this free will people have the power to do both good and bad. Not only that but because God is omniscient he knows exactly what harmful things will happen, but he still lets these actions take place. The problem becomes clearer when considered from creation. As God contemplated creation, He knew through his omnipotence precisely what would happen during the entire time of existence; all the terror, sin, strife, and death (assumingly even Jesus’ death on the Cross) would be apparent to him as if it had already happened. Even so He created the universe as it would be. He allowed all the bad actions of free will to take place; a loving God would not.
This is not where this problem ends however. When looking at the same example of creation, it becomes evident that free will also contradicts His omnipotence. Before God created the universe He had an image in his mind of what would happen during the whole of existence and He created it. With this knowledge of what was to come, it leads to the conclusion that God made everything with a purpose, even those who sin were created to sin, and those who were not, were created not to. This contradicts the idea of free will. These two characteristics of Christianity are clearly exclusive ideas. Free will cannot exist with an omnipotent God, and vice versa.
Through careful analysis of the ethical and logical implications of an omnipotent, omniscient, omniloving God one cannot help but question the existence of a Christian God. There are numerous examples of God’s lack of morals in the Old Testament, from child sacrifice to genocide. Hell is found in both Testaments and also exhibits God’s malevolence and inability to forgive which contradicts one of the basic tenets of a Christian God. To go along with this, there is the logical impossibility of an all-powerful God and freewill. With these aspects considered it is clear that the Christian God has major issues that deny its possibility of existence. Chapman Cohen once said that “Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.” With this in mind, the reader should take these bits of fact and thought and look within to find the truth."
