Thursday, August 2, 2018

Frank Turek's Bible Error # 1: God cannot allow sin to go unpunished?

I received this in the mail today:
From: Frank Turek <Frank@crossexamined.org>
Date: Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 7:07 AM
Subject: Q&A: How were people saved before Jesus?
To: ---------

Since God is infinitely Just, He cannot allow sin to go unpunished. That’s why God had to punish Jesus in our place. But what about those who lived before Jesus. How were they saved from punishment? Here is a very short answer to that question:
Turek's video for this is here.  Turek is wrong.  The bible makes many statements indicating that God can leave sin unpunished:

First, you know the story:  King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and got her pregnant:
 3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
 4 David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house.
 5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, "I am pregnant." (2 Sam. 11:3-5 NAU)
David tried to cover it up by having Uriah come home from battle and sleep with Bathsheba (v. 6-12).
 
When this plan didn't work, David had Uriah placed at the front of a battle to ensure he would be killed, and he was:
 14 Now in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
 15 He had written in the letter, saying, "Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die."
 16 So it was as Joab kept watch on the city, that he put Uriah at the place where he knew there were valiant men.
 17 The men of the city went out and fought against Joab, and some of the people among David's servants fell; and Uriah the Hittite also died. (2 Sam. 11:14-17 NAU)
 God's penalty for adultery and murder was death:
  10 'If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
(Lev. 20:10 NAU)

 17 'If a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.
(Lev. 24:17 NAU)
Sometime after David committed these two sins, the prophet Nathan confronts David as guilty of murder and adultery, and David admits his guilt;  the problem being that Nathan then says God has taken away David's sin, meaning, God has exempted David himself from the otherwise deserved mandatory "punishment" of death for these crimes:
 7 Nathan then said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.
 8 'I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!
 9 'Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.
 10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'
 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick. (2 Sam. 12:7-15 NAU)
Of course, Turek will pounce on the fact that God struck David's baby and made it sick and eventually killed it (i.e., God caused the child to be sick for 7 days before killing it, otherwise known as unnecessary torture of babies)
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. (2 Sam. 12:15-18 NAU)
But even assuming torturing the baby should be seen as "punishing" David himself, God has exempted David from an otherwise twice-richly deserved and mandatory death penalty, apparently through no other mechanism than God's choice to decree it so.

Turek's error is in thinking systematic theology is the key to apologetics.  Sorry, Turek, but most of the people in your audience are not inerrantists.  You will get nothing but yawns of disapproval when you start in with that 
the-book-of-Hebrews-says-Jesus'-sacrifice-reached-
back-into-the-OT-sins-and-atoned-for-these-too
  shit.  If you could just admit that you do your apologetics stuff more to sell books to people who already believe everything you believe, and less to convince non-Christians, it would clear up a few questions about your motives.  If you wish to employ arguments that leave bible critics and atheists "without excuse", you need to either stop pretending the bible is the end of the argument when you debate them, or first establish the bible's theological reliability before you flood them with all of your classical theist assumptions that many Christians don't even accept.

Turek's belief that God cannot allow sin to go unpunished also contradicts the teaching in the book of Revelation that after judgment day, God will forever encourage the unredeemed sinners living outside the holy city to continue sinning:
 10 And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
 11 "Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy."
 12 "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
 13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
 15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.   (Rev. 22:10-15 NAU)
And you never knew that God instructed pedophiles to forever continue molesting children until just now, amen?

How can it make sense to refer to God as infinitely righteous (as Turek routinely does), if God sometimes gets to the point of encouraging pedophiles to continue practicing their filthy sins?  Righteousness that is "infinite" would NEVER tell sinners to continue sinning, would it?

If it would, how can infinite righteousness be meaningfully distinguished from finite righteousness?  The mere use of the word "infinite" doesn't resolve the philosophical problem.  Yet Turek is a master at getting people to think clever twists of words constitute some type of eternal vindication of biblical theology.

Finally, that God can allow sin to go unpunished is clear from that drug-induced hallucination recorded for us in Isaiah 6:
 1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
 3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."
 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.
 5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven."

 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"    (Isa. 6:1-8 NAU)
 Even assuming this is supposed to mean Isaiah's sin was "atoned" for, that is irrelevant.  Turek said God cannot allow sin to go unpunished.

Isaiah admitted his sinfulness (v. 5)...and Isaiah's sins were subsequently taken away by a bizarre flying creature touching Isaiah's lips with a hot coal from heaven's stove.

Ok...so since God allegedly cannot allow sin to go unpunished, then who was punished for Isaiah's sin here?

The stove?


--------------------Update:

Here's a screenshot of my cross-posting my response here to Turek's YouTube video for this:












1 comment:

  1. "the-book-of-Hebrews-says-Jesus'-sacrifice-reached-
    back-into-the-OT-sins-and-atoned-for-these-too"

    if x in ot days believed in sacrifice of y, why does x still get punished for crime z ? did the guy who was stoned to death for breaking the sabbath believe in the sacrifice of y, if yes, he still god punished. + if the ot law breakers believed in sacrifice of y, then wouldn't that imply corruption ? if y's sacrifice is covering all years, then didn't god set up a justice system which in reality is corrupt ?

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