I then responded with my own argument as follows (this was deleted by unknown person about 5 minutes after I posted it, hence, you no longer wonder why I cross post to my blog here).
Barry Jones1 second ago
Turek's "ripple-effect" argument is not convincing to anybody except the predominantly Christian audiences that are already desperately searching for anything that will help them feel better about their own faith.
Furthermore, the ripple-effect could be used to justify immorality. How do you know that God didn't want my stealing a car yesterday to play an integral role in the reason why African Bush tribes will hear the Christian gospel next year?
You can tell yourself that the evil act remains evil even if God can use it for a greater good, but since many allegedly "evil" acts also produce morally good effects (the morally bad murder of a family member caused the good of the surviving family becoming Christian in faith), then how the hell do you know which effect determines the moral status of the act and which effect doesn't?
Is rape evil because it hurts the woman, or good because by ripple-effect it causes Eskimos 5,000 miles away to hear the gospel for the first time 5 years later?
Is rape bad because it hurts the woman, or good because it taught her to be more careful about walking home late at night?
Is pedophilia bad because it hurt the child, or good because it came to the attention of a vigilante who later gunned down that pervert before he could molest more kids?
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You will say "the ends don't justify the means", but I really have to wonder how many tears you'd cry if you found out the local pedophile who was recently released on parole was gunned down by unknown person. Gee, that murder wasn't in conformity to American legal ideals, so you just won't be able to come in to work for a few days while you "get over" it, eh? NOT.
It’s out of my wheelhouse, but how would you square with notion of natural disasters being the work evil spirits per certain church fathers and suggested at present by Greg Boyd and some others? In that case, natural evils would be in the same category as moral evils. And, in the case of moral evils, while it seems that God, being both all-powerful, would be obligated to prevent every such instance, it seems also to be the case that God exercising exhaustive constraints on every and all kinds of evil to also be undesirable or unfeasible (people being forced into marked inaction or having that inaction filled in by divine puppetry). Particularly if God is obligated to prevent mental evils such as undue hatred, envy, and so on. Or if we account for the fact evils of omission or positive duties.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, but did I fail to follow-up on the Angel of the Lord related post, or is there some approval process for publication on this blog. I couldn’t find out a way to contact you outside the comments. Sorry and thanks.
Deletecontacting me by comments at this blog is fine.
DeleteAlso, I'm an atheist, so I do not believe natural disasters are caused by any "spirit" or "spiritual" thing.
But read Ezra 1:1, God is quite capable of causing people to have a change of heart whenever he wishes.
Read about Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, your god is not above overwhelming people with some brightly lit magic show to scare them into changing their mind and converting. So today's Christians are not biblically correct when they attempt to paper over the problematic question of why god doesn't overwhelm a person's freewill.
Finally, in any other case, a person's willful choice to limit the amount of effort they put into rescuing a loved one from disaster, necessarily shows that a limit to their love for such person. So since God obviously isn't doing his best to convert today's unbeleivers (read the bible, God is quite capable of doig more to convince than simply causing other people to mention certain books or YouTube videos), there is necessarily a limit to how much "love" God has for today's unbeleivers, which therfore disrupts any doctrine that his love is "infinite". So before we even really start in with the biblical problems, the first problem needing resolution is that most of today's Christians misrepresent God as eternally loving toward unbelievers. For this reason unbeleivers can construe such doctrinal error as a proof that the preacher has ZERO inspiration from the true Christian god, and they are accordingly reasonable to turn away completely from the entire message.
Unless you disagree with 1st Cor. 2:14 and expect unbelievers to be able to figure out, while in a state of unbelief, which form of Christianity is the "right" one, something that would seem to call for a very great spiritual ability that most professing Christians do not even have...how could unbeleivers be expected to know spiritual things better than the "Christians"?
RE: “But read...”-“...from the entire message”
ReplyDeleteCould you develop your point on the inspiration of preachers? Are you reckoning that if God were, it would be the case that true representatives of God (preachers) here, would be under the total inspiration of God? Or maybe just in the case of the infinitely loving God? It doesn’t seem that preachers not being wholly inspired would be an issue if God were not loving in the way you reckon preachers call him.
Sorry for being long-winded on this point, I’m just having trouble dishing out the issue.
RE: “Unless you disagree with...”:
Here I’m disinclined to find an issue. I’m unaware of any particular obligation being placed on unbelievers besides “Repent and believe in Christ (as raised, as lord)”. Inasmuch as the writer here is talking to believers, and inasmuch as those believers are not reckoned spiritual, it seems fleshliness is not an absolute impediment to that obligation. Can you explain further if I’m missing something? I get it as an after the fact justification for your disbelief, having become inclined against a belief aNd so finding fault in it, but not as one that would lead to disbelief. Unless it is in your case? If
I could get a better grasp of how you came to your position, that would also be helpful in talking.
Again, I apologize for my long-windedness and delay, and thank you for responding.
Sorry, but I can't make heads or tails out of what you are asking. Is English your primary language?
DeleteMy apologies for both my delay in responding to you and for the lack of clarity in my response.
ReplyDeleteYes, English is my first language, however, I don’t talk to others much (even online) so I have some issues with communication.
To be brief, much like you don’t know what I’m asking you, I don’t know what your arguing to me. I’ll try to be clearer starting now.
1.) Are you arguing that the “all-loving” God does not exist or that any God does not exist?
2.) How is the divine inspiration of preachers relevant here?
3.) Could you further expand on your reading of I Cor.?
This point would be especially helpful to me. I don’t believe salvation is contingent upon
the spiritually-taxing accepting a very particular form of Christianity, only on repentance and belief in the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul seems to place these basic requirements on a less spiritual level.
Thanks for responding, and my apologies for any confusion I may have caused.