Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays, the sadistic god, and why god 'couldn't' create people perfect

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled 

Why didn't God create us in heaven?

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Some people ask why God didn't begin at the end. Begin with the goal. The question is ambiguous.

Ok, then you just met a skeptic who doesn't ask god to begin at the end, but why god apparently doesn't think creating people with inability to sin is better than the current state of affairs he is always bitching about. If you create an environment that causes you to murder people because they are always pissing you off,  we don't need to run our "you dumb-fuck!" reaction through the filter of Calvinism and presuppositionalism before we can be reasonable to consider our reaction reasonable.

1. Technically, "heaven" is the intermediate state, a disembodied, postmortem state between death and the general resurrection.

But it also allegedly existed before the world (the 'heaven' created in Genesis 1:1 isn't the place where god lives, but the "firmament" or whatever can be seen in the sky).

So is the question why didn't God create us after we died? But of course, God can't create us after we die, inasmuch as we must already exist in order to die.
 2. Is the question why didn't God created us in a disembodied state? But that's not an ideal condition. There are many benefits to embodied experience.

Then apparently you think God did not want angels to live in an ideal condition, because they are disembodied.  The same with the evil spirits which your fairy tales say are waiting for final judgment.

There are also many disadvantages to embodiment.  The body requires food, thus the search for food will create trouble in a planet full of bodies competing for food.  How many sins of stealing would be preempted by creating us without need to eat (disembodied state or some other).  The body has sexual desire, and this creates sinful situations. How many sins could have been preempted if god created people without sexual desire via disembodiment or some other state? 

My studies in theology forever put the lie to "god cares".  God deliberately creates situations that cause people to sin, making your god not much different from those prison guards who put two rival gangs in the same yards, knowing fights will inevitably arise.  If we conclude the guards get entertainment out of seeing people kill each other,  we are also reasonable to say your god, so much like these guards, also gets entertainment out of watching people kill each other.  Why do you waste your time using human reason about God, as you always do, if god's goodness is absolutely beyond any possibility of being proven wrong with human reason?  Nothing good on cable?

And your god is like the stupid prison guard who "bitches" about the violence and commands the inmates to stop, while knowing it won't stop until the guards physically intefere.  The simple-minded sunday school version of god that persisted in the masses since the 1st century is contradicted on nearly every page of the bible, unless you are willing to say your god is a sadist...which you'd find support for in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, with v. 63 specifying god will "delight" to horrifically harm people for their sins just as much as he "delighted" to give them prosperity when they obeyed.

In that respect, the question suffers from popular confusion by theologically illiterate people who think heaven is the ultimate goal of human existence.

Then you must think apostle Paul was theologically illiterate, he told people to set their minds in heaven, NOT on earth.  Colossians 3:2.  In biblical parlance that meant avoiding planning for future daily life (Matthew 6:25), which apparently meant specifically that true followers of Christ should not obtain employment to feed and clothe themselves (v. 26, prohibiting efforts to sow and reap).  How much did Jesus demand people stop living for this world?  He promised salvation and abundance to those who gave up custody of their kids  (Matthew 19:29), and he viewed the death of one of his follower's fathers as too unimportant to pay any attention to (Matthew 8:21-23).

Your apparent implication is that because god created us on an imperfect world, our living through the bullshit of this earthly existence is just as important as is reaching the heavenly goal.  But even Paul ventured into Gnosticism, hating his own mortal body and wishing to be separated from it (Romans 7:24).

You die, go to heaven, and live there forever. But that's not Christian eschatology.

Skeptics are only under an obligation to shove you in a corner with questions you cannot answer.  They are not obligated to taper their questions in a way that makes it easy for you to get answers from biblical eschatology.  We are open to the possibility that Christian theology is often self-contradictory. 

3. Is "heaven" being used as a synonym for the final (earthly) state, i.e. the new Eden/new Jerusalem? But God already created Adam and Eve in an Edenic earthly state. They fell.

And under your Calvinism, they only fell because God intended them to fall...yet in Genesis 3 he acts like he never suspected they'd fall and that they let him down (the interpretation most likely held by the original and mostly illiterate farm hands such stories were originally intended to be heard by).  What a deceptive bastard for you to plan and facilitate the Fall, but to act like it is contrary to your purpose.  Not a whole lot different than the prison guards who deliberately put two rival gangs in the prison yard at the same time, then complain and bitch and impose discipline when the fights inevitably ensue.  Fuck those guards, they wanted  this to happen...leaving them no rational basis for bitching.  So FUCK your god, he wanted Adam and Eve to fall, leaving himself no rational basis for bitching.  And yet he curses the earth because of the Fall, every bit like the employer who fires an employee for engaging in unforeseen misconduct.

What...does God reprimand people for doing what he wanted?  "Hey son, I noticed you took out the garbage in exactly the same time and manner as I commanded.  Shame on you, go to your room!'  LOL.
If your god is that far departed from human reason, why do you even bother trying to "explain" this pretentious fuck to anybody except other 5-point Calvinists?

4. Perhaps the question is why didn't God create us perfect? Skip the journey and cut straight to the destination.

Sounds like a plan, except that there would be no "journey" to worry about if he created people perfect.

i) If so, that assumes the process is dispensable.

It is, see Ezra 1:1.  If God can wave his magic wand and successfully convince even idolatrous pagan kings to do his will, then he is equally as much to blame for human sin, as the dog-owner is responsible for the dog attack when they neglect to reasonably restrain the dog.

And the end-result is achievable without experience.

if God "needs" people to experience this stupid life before they can go to heaven, then he is incapable of creating them perfectly in heaven from the start, an attack on his allegedly supreme sovereignty.  Are you sure you wanna play with fire, and give the devil a toe-hold by which he can continue chipping away that the inerrancy of classical theism?

The simple fact is that there are plenty of people on this earth (usually adults) who are never meek, mild, have no sex drive, and therefore we have perfect certainty that God, if he wished  it so, could have created everybody else with the same genetic predispositions and inhibitions (including some teenagers who simply do not feel any need to party or have sex or rebel) and there would be less sin in the world than there is.  And since god apparently finds it worthwhile to ask a sinner to stop sinning, knowing the effort will not produce a perfect result, your god is apparently open to reducing the level of sin in the world, even if the reduction-efforts do a less than perfect job of it.  So you cannot falsify my thesis at this point by pretending that God is too perfect to put imperfect plans into practice.  The reduction of sin in the world would still be legitimately holy and good, even if not the perfect answer to all sin.  So your god's ability to reduce sin in the world without violating anybody's freewill still makes it reasonable to charge him with stupidity.

But is that realistic?

No, given that we are talking about a non-existent being and stupidly pretending we can draw verifiable  inferences from a pool of his attributes that Christian theologians have been disagreeing on ever since Jesus' family called him insane (Mark 3:21).

Take forgiveness. You can't experience forgiveness without prior wrongdoing.

So what's more important to god?  Protecting a little girl from rape, or putting her in situations that will eventually require that she forgive some disgusting pedophile?  How could you be reasonable to attempt human reasoning about this dogshit god of yours, if everything about him is necessarily beyond all possibility of refutation by human reasoning?  If you knew that application of algebra wouldn't solve the problem, why the fuck would you use it to solve the problem?

If you know human reason isn't going to solve the problem of others criticizing your religion, why the fuck do you employ human reason?  How many other times in your life do you intentionally use an obviously insufficient tool to do the job? Do you shave with a banana?  Put cake frosting in the radiator?

The sense of guilt, gratitude, and relief.

Then why would it be "wrong" for you to rape a little girl?  After all, subjecting people to sin is precisely what god does to make people draw closer to him.  Now what, Mr. Calvinist?  God will bitch at you if you fulfill his secret will?  I'm afraid at that point the problem of the stupid sadistic hypocritical god is all yours, not ours.

Then you wonder why even most Christians find your god to be a pure sadist?

So that condition can't be directly created

Sure it can, what the fuck do you think happens to the souls of aborted babies?  They completely miss out on this sinful earthly life, they go directly to heaven.  Now what?  Maybe the aborted babies who go to heaven are forever locked into a neutral existence or limbo because they got there without first living on a sinful earth?  LOL.

Or do we really need to give two shits about Steve Hays unbiblical speculations and his happiness to invoke God's mysterious ways like every other dishonest apologist does when they get cornered by their own logic?

It's a nested effect, internally related to something prior. An intervening history is necessary prerequisite.

Then what is the eternal lot of babies that go to heaven due to abortion?  Reincarnation? how hard would it be to reconcile that with the bible?  Given the sophistry already present in inerrancy-defenses, probably not that hard at all.

ii) In addition, creating everyone sinless and impeccable would preempt the lives of many people whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.

But if he created everybody perfect in heaven, there would be no need to create anybody whose existence is contingent on a fallen world.  If your god wishes to create people who are contingent on a fallen world, then tell him to shut the fuck up when he sees sin happening.  What the fuck else did he expect?  Flowers? 

They are products of chains of events involving sinful agents.

Given how little respect for human life your god exhibits in the bible already, methinks YHWH doesn't really give a fuck about whether a certain potential human's life would be contingent on sinful agents.  He kills and he makes alive.  Sadist be the name of the Lord.

But nice job at showing sin to be so "necessary" to reality that we cannot avoid it, it provides the perfect excuse (as if god's infallible foreknowledge and secret will, didn't do that job already).  But then again, you see nothing stupid about a god who sets up sinful situations, then pretends he is "angry" about it when his secret will is fulfilled in a perfect way, so I didn't write this post in the hope of convincing you.  You are completely hopeless.  You'd probably kill yourself if you found out 2nd Timothy 3:16 was talking about the copies just as much as the originals.

 I write this piece to warn others away from the stupidity of your god, your Jesus and your Calvinism.

My answer to CerebralFaith on Age of Accountability and Abortion

This is my reply to an article by CerebralFaith entitled

Addressing The Number 1 Objection To The Age Of Accountability

Posted by Evan Minton on April 09, 2015

 If you’ve read my writings, you’ll know that I believe in “The Age Of Accountability”.

Well you shouldn't.  The bible nowhere states that age explicitly or even implicitly, and it's very controversial, so that as a conservative you should pay more heed to the conservative hermeneutic  'where the bible is silent, we are silent' instead of trying to answer a question Christianity hasn't given a consistent answer to in 2,000 years. 

By the way, suppose some atheist girl reaches the age you say is the age of accountability.  then afterward she goes to church, rejects the gospel, and dies in a car accident on the way home.  Does she go to hell?

You've got serious problems if you set the age of accountabilty too high, such as 16-18, because most parents are quite aware that kids know the difference between good and evil long before that age, so it will look like you arbitrarily increase the age merely to avoid making god look sadistic.

If you agree with most Christians through the centuries that the age of accountability is somewhere between 7 and 13, then you necessarily create the high probability that many of the people in hell went there before reaching age 14. 

Can you really stomach the idea of God wanting a 12 year old girl to suffer mindless agony in eternal flames?  Or are you one of those fanatics that that thinks correct theology is more important than common sense?  Guess what happens when other people think that way?  The stupidity of flying jets into buildings doesn't slow them down at all from barging ahead anyway. Since sacrificing common sense for the sake of "theology" appears to lay a foundation for more unnecessary violence and willful stupidity, I choose common sense, and use the bible to practice kicking 80-yard field goals.

(snip)

 This blog post is meant to address the number 1 objection to the age of accountability that skeptics often bring up. They argue that if babies go directly to Heaven when they die, then it would be more moral to kill people before they ever have a chance to grow up. After all, if they’re allowed to grow up, there’s a good chance they’d sin and reject Jesus Christ as their Savior. If they reject Jesus Christ as their Savior, then they’d go to Hell. Therefore, it’s more loving to be pro-choice.

Exactly.  Well said.

This is the argument the skeptic makes; that The Age of Accountability logically entails an absurd view (i.e that infanticide/abortion is moral) and therefore, The Age Of Accountability must also be absurd. This is what’s known as reductio ad absurdum. However, if we reject The Age Of Accountability then we must conclude that God is evil. After all, it’s obviously unjust to punish someone either for something they couldn’t help, or for something they’ve never done. Babies can’t do anything sinful, so how can it be just for God to send them to Hell? So we run into a dilemma here. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t (pun intended).

Is there any way to accept The Age Of Accountability without running into this problem? Obviously, any view that logically entails the conclusion “infanticide is moral” must be rejected. Does the skeptic’s reductio ad absurdum succeed?

I don’t think it does…for several reasons.

God Is Sovereign Over Life And Death, We Are Not

The Bible explicitly tells us

 Ok, then you are not addressing the skeptic's challenge...you are merely giving other bible-believing Christians a biblical excuse to duck this challenge.  You are essentially saying that the common sense that would otherwise make the age of accountability doctrine appear to evince a sadistic god, doesn't, because the bible says thus and so...

Well, that's not very convincing to a skeptic, and they are reasonable if they consider your bible quotes at that point to constitute your surrender.

The fact is that people of normal common sense normally do refrain from having kids if their circumstances make them feel any kids born into the situation will stand a good chance of failure, hurt, misery, starvation, etc.  Refusing to have kids because of fear of their going to hell is about as "unreasonable" as the strung out crack whore who refuses to have kids because she doesn't want them to become homeless bums.

The Bible explicitly tells us not to murder innocent people (see Exodus 20:13).

 But it also tells you God is responsible for all murders (Deuteronomy 32:39).  So when a woman has an abortion, the bible requires that this is much more than merely a doctor and woman committing a murder...this is also, quite literally, God causing that baby to die.  If that is the case, then God demanding that we refrain from murder is logically equal to God demanding that he himself refrain from taking life by the act of murder.

God tells us not to kill another human being. This is one of The Ten Commandments. As such, abortion and infanticide are both moral abominations, they’re evil.

 Which would then mean God is evil since he takes full credit for all murders, Deuteronomy 32:39.

It is evil to kill a baby or anyone else for that matter.

 Then God must be evil because he chose to torture a baby with sickness for 7 days before killing it:

 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)

Minton continues:

Now, God is the author of life and as such He has the right to take life as He sees fit (See Job 1:21, 1 Samuel 2:6, Psalm 75:7, Deuteronomy 32:39).

 But that just creates a problem for you:  How can God be the one "taking" life during a murder, if the act that causes that life to be taken, is "evil"?  What exactly is God doing while the sinner is in the act of pulling the trigger?

God has a right to decide when we enter the afterlife, we do not.

 You seem to be implying that if a woman has an abortion, she is therefore sending that child into the afterlife sooner than God intended.

Is that what you are saying, yes or no?

Since He's the author of life, He has the right to take it. The Bible even says that God has ordained the date of our deaths (see Job 14:5 and Psalm 139:16). Therefore, only God can decide when a fetus or an infant comes into the afterlife. Not us. We are human beings. We are not the authors of life. God is.

 If those bible verses are theologically correct, then the reason a woman has a successful abortion is because your God decreed that this baby not live any longer than the date the abortion gets performed.  

You could escape the dilemma by saying we can cause human life to be shorter than god intended, but that turns you into a liberal, and we can't have that.  When the bible says God ordained the days you will live, it means he ordained the exact amount of days that all persons shall live, and that this decree cannot be deviated from by the sin of human beings.  Therefore if a woman has an abortion, it is because God ordained that this infant not live longer than this.

Whenever a human being takes a life, he is putting himself in the place of God.

That doesn't make your problem disappear:  When you murder somebody, this is proof that God didn't want the victim to live any longer than they did.  I'm afraid your bible is contradictory:  It tells you that God decides how long people shall live in all cases, but then tells you it is "wrong" when you commit murder.  Gee, I didn't know it was wrong to fulfill God's eternal decree!

God is the author of life and therefore only He has the right to take it.

A sentiment that makes people who are already Christian feel comfortable, but does precisely nothing to disturb the skeptical position.

God has the authority to bring His children home when He wants to.

And according to your bible and your own interpretation, he is doing that every time a woman chooses to get an abortion.  You don't have the biblical option of saying abortion cuts life shorter than God intended...so abortion is no less in fulfillment of God's will, than is the natural death of an elderly person.

The question, then, is whether only a sadistic lunatic would insist that it is immoral to carry out his will exactly the way he intended?  And the biblical answer to why God faults people for doing what he wanted them to do, is "shut up", Romans 9:20.  In light of such desperate anti-intellectual answer, I call victory.  Gee, how many other heresies can be successfully refuted by simply telling the heretic "who are you to answer back to God?" ?

We do not. God has not made us the judge over them.

That changes nothing.  Abortions only cut life short in harmony with the length of life God decreed from all eternity that such persons should have. Labeling abortion as "sin" at this points is sort of like saying "you are breaking company policy when you do what the company wants you to do".  Only in theology would such inconsistency be tolerated.

God Has A Plan For Every Human Life

It’s true that if everyone had an abortion, or killed their infants, that they would send them to Heaven, but they would also be likely radically altering the future for the worse!

 Wow, who'd a thought conforming to God's will only makes things worse! 

Yes, they (the babies) would be far happier in Heaven than they ever would be living in this horrible world, but God has plans for those babies.

And according to your earlier bible quotes, like Job 14:5, his plan for the aborted baby was that it be aborted right when it actually was.

Each human being radically effects the lives of those around them. This was beautifully illustrated in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Each human life affects the lives of those around them…either for better or for worse. Think about the possible consequences of ending the life of an unborn child. That child might have become a firefighter who would have saved many lives in a burning building, one of those lives being that of a child who would grow up to be a police officer, and that police officer would save the life of a child from a serial killer, and the child saved from the serial killer would grow up to be a scientist who discovers the cure for blindness or cancer or something. By ending the life of that unborn baby, yes you’d be sending them to Heaven, but you would also rob the world of a great gift. In this illustration, you would prevent the cure for blindness being discovered. If only you chose not to have the abortion.

Or even worse; what if the child would grow up to be the next Billy Graham? In this case, hundreds or thousands of souls who would have been saved actually end up damned because the child wasn’t able to grow up and become a preacher! So yeah, you sent that child to Heaven. But at the same time, you’d ended up sending far more people to Hell…because perhaps the only possible world where these people would have given their lives to Christ is a possible world where that unborn baby grows up and holds Billy Graham type crusades.

Would you really want to risk the souls of hundreds or thousands just to send 1 person to Heaven?

 That child might also have grown up to be a Hitler.  All of your above argument is thus defused by an equally powerful counterpoint.  Smart people don't look only at the benefits, they also consider the risks.

Think about it...do you really want gangsters, thugs, and mentally retarded people, getting pregnant?  I can be honest enough to say that whenever such women get abortions, I think this is better than their giving birth in circumstances that will more than likely result in a child that thinks gangs and violence are the highest ideals in life.  If could have my way, I'd sterilize everybody living in the "poor" section of every city.  They have no more business procreating than do the starving teens of Ethiopia.

And once again, unless you accuse married couples of stupidity for citing their poverty as a reason to avoid pregnancy (and thinking the chances are too great their child will amount to nothing) then you are forced to agree that if the couple reasonably anticipate a horrific future for the child, yes, it is better to just avoid having kids.  

Well gee, you are a conservative Christian, and thus are not permitted to have any other view of the world than the negative cynical one expressed in the NT.  See Romans 3:10 ff and 1st John 5:19.  Having kids because of the chance that they'll turn out to be good saved Christians, is about as gullible as going to Wal-Mart expecting to find high-quality products.  Possible?  Barely.  Likely?  Not in the least.

If The Swords Cuts At All, It Cuts Both Ways

Most of the time, I receive this objection from Atheists. It usually happens after I tell them that the Canaanite children went to Heaven. So this next objection wouldn’t affect the Calvinist who makes this same argument.

But for the atheist who makes this argument, I would like to tell them that they could justify abortion even on the atheistic view (in which there is no such thing as Heaven or Hell). Think about it, since we all go through great suffering in this life, every time a baby is born into the world, abort it. Why let it live? It’ll just go through a lot of suffering.

 That might be a good idea if the specific pregnant mother you are talking to lives in circumstances sufficiently comparable to the shitty state of affairs the bible says humanity and earth are currently in.  But for couples who have decent income and life-style, the possibilities of the child's suffering are quite diminished and become comparable to the risk of getting hit by a car as you walk to the store .  Most children are not born with cancer or genetic defects.  Sorry, but the reasons abortion are preferable under Christian theology, are not analogous to the reasons abortion is preferable under atheism.

This is the rationale some women have for getting an abortion in the first place (i.e “I don’t want to bring a baby into such a horrible world”).

 Yes, but I would say they lack critical thinking skills, as it would have been less drastic if they have simply used protection or been abstinent. Either way, they are using common sense.  This world is getting more and more flipped out every year.  And I see nothing wrong with atheists preferring to be childless because of how stupid, strung-out, materialistic, overpopulated, consumerist and superficial this stupid world currently is.

It’s also possible that they could grow up to be serial killers, burglars, or thugs who engage in gang violence. Maybe they should be aborted to ensure that that doesn’t happen. Oh sure, he or she COULD be next Stephen Hawking or Mother Teresa but let’s abort him or her anyway, after all, we would be doing the child a favor. The child wouldn’t have to live in a world of meaningless suffering (I don’t believe it’s meaningless on the theistic worldview by the way), and would also ensure that the next holocaust and the next 9/11 never happens. By robbing them of all the opportunities that this life has to offer, we’d be preventing them from living a life of suffering. We also might save lives just in case this fetus becomes the next Jack The Ripper. Tell me, would you seriously advocate the killing of children regardless of whether the theistic or atheistic worldview is true? I wouldn’t. As you can see, this argument, if it cuts at all, it cuts both ways.

 No, in the atheist context, aborting the child does not increase the child's happiness.  In the Christian context, it does (they go to heaven to live with Jesus forever).  Big difference.  

But regardless, whether to abort or not within the first several weeks of pregnancy, is the mother's choice.  If that were not so, you'd have to come up with laws and rules by which sub-committees could decide whether a woman's miscarriage was accidental or intentional...which would mean a shitload of money would have to be spent monitoring pregnant women every moment of their lives, given how easy it is to move, fall, or eat something that will cause miscarriage.  That's the political swamp of hopelessness you wind up in if you wish to push your "abortion = murder" sentiment to its logical conclusion.  More especially so at this point in American history, where women are conditioned to think abortion is nobody's business but their own...thus increasing the likelihood they'd put forth effort to hide their intent to disobey such laws.  Sorry, but in the current world, "abortion = murder" cannot be practically defended.

The same argument that the atheist uses against advocates of The Age Of Accountability also can be used against him.

In conclusion, I don’t think that the view that all babies go to Heaven logically entails abortion and infanticide being good things.

 But under normative reasoning, we usually do conclude an act is 'good', if one of its effects is guaranteed to produce a good, or if its good effects outweigh its bad effects.  That's why you think having a job, feeding your kids, making them go to school, and allowing doctors to operate on them, are "good" things.  These can also and often do produce bad effects, but these are outweighed by the good intended effects. 

At this point Romans 8:18 kills your argument.  If the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory of the afterlife, it only stands to reason that the sins of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the morally good results those sins will achieve in the afterworld.

Now you can simplistically quote the bible and pretend that it makes sense to call murder a sin while acknowledging the other biblical truth that murder always achieves God's will for the victim, but in doing so you'll be ceding victory to the skeptic, and you'll only be giving an answer that makes Christians feel better about their current theological presuppositions, you won't be giving an answer that would intellectually compel the skeptic to change his mind.

As long as your theology guarantees a good outcome for all aborted babies, you are neglecting the more important spiritual/eternal perspective (aborted fetuses go to heaven)  when you act as if the temporal/earthly perspective (abortion = murder) is all that counts in the moral analysis.  Under Christian theology, abortion produces more good than evil (i.e., a child's guaranteed eternal salvation in heaven outweighs the temporal sin of murder).

It's funny but the NT even supports that type of reasoning.  It would be sinful for Paul to become cursed of God merely to save Israel, yet Paul, while allegedly inspired by God, expressed exactly this sentiment:

 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, (Rom. 9:3 NAU)

The same with Jesus' death:  It didn't matter to God that the death was the unjust murder of an innocent man, God ordained that the greater spiritual benefits to mankind should be conferred in that specific sinful fashion:

  23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. (Acts 2:23 NAU)

 27 "For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. (Acts 4:27-28 NAU)

Minton continues:

They are still very much bad. God still prohibits human beings taking the life of other human beings (Exodus 20:13), This is one of The Ten Commandments.

 To repeat: your bible is contradictory.  If babies die exactly when God's prescribed number of days for them runs out, then God is no less involved in the abortion than the mother and doctor.  In fact all they doing is fulfilling God's will by preventing the baby from living longer than God intended.  Chuck your theological bullshit in the garbage, and such embarassing inconsistency disappears.

As such, abortion and infanticide are both moral abominations, they’re evil.

 They are also acts that fulfill God's will for every fetus involved.  God is rather stupid to bitch about people who do the very things he wants them to do.

It is evil to kill a baby or anyone else for that matter.

 Then God was evil for killing David's baby (2nd Samuel 12, supra).

Now, God is the author of life and as such He has the right to take life as He sees fit (See Job 1:21, 1 Samuel 2:6, Psalm 75:7, Deuteronomy 32:39). God has a right to decide when we enter the afterlife, we do not.

 That sounds like you are saying when a mother aborts a baby, she is causing the child to enter the afterlife sooner than God intended.

Is that what you are saying, yes or no?

Demolishing Triablogue: Calvinist Steve doesn't like God's ways

This is my reply to an article by Calvinist Steve Hays entitled

Friday, October 05, 2018

Must we earn the right to be heard?

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Tim Keller said:

    Because the church has got so many of its own skeletons and so much coverup of sexual abuse and so on, I don't know how we can adjudicate…right now we don't have any kind of credibility for a lot of reasons…As the church tries to speak publicly to social issues…we have to do it with repentance. 

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/october-web-only/tim-keller-politics-news-midterms-united-states.html

That's true at the level of public perception, which makes it necessary to correct that misperception. I disagree with how Keller frames the issue. Christians don't need to apologize for "the church". I'm not "the church". I don't speak for "the church". And I shouldn't be saddled with what "the church" did before I was born. Moreover, I don't control "the church". I'm just one guy.

Sounds like the kind of reasoning atheists use to accuse the bible-god of injustice for causing later humanity to be infected with original sin that nobody else was responsible for except Adam and Eve.  I'm afraid your western sense of individualism is quite opposite from the earliest detectable Hebrew views set forth in the OT.  We have to wonder what David and Bathsheba's baby was telling itself as God tortured it to death for 7 days because of David's sin, a sin the baby himself obviously wasn't responsible for:

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.
 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. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!"
 (2 Sam. 12:13-18 NAU)

 Maybe the baby was telling himself I shouldn't be saddled with what my dad did before I was born.  It's nice to know the one Calvinist on the internet who mistakes his blog for having an actual life, is so caught up in word-games he can't even tell any more when the crap he believes contradicts biblical teaching.

It suffers from a fallacy of personification, as if the church is just one thing, as if the church is identical in time and space, so that whatever was done at one time or place somehow transfers to "the church" at another time or place. 

 It does:

 26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
 27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:26-27 NAU)

Sorry, Steve, but your modern individualist viewpoint is quite contrary to many passages in the bible that presuppose corporate responsibility.  That's tragic because it is Calvinists who would need to specialize in that doctrine, given their belief that Jesus' didn't just die for sinners, but that his death actually saves all for whom it was intended, which is not everybody (i.e., Limited Atonement).

"The church" is an an abstraction. That's a necessary abstraction for ease of reference, but it's becomes an overgeneralization when individual distinctions in time, place, and person are swallowed up by an indiscriminate category.

If you were spiritually mature, you'd care less about linguistic gymnastics and more about obeying 2nd Timothy 2:14.   Don't miss the "solemnly" in that passage, apparently, Paul thinks it VERY important that Christians abstain from wrangling words.  You don't have a choice...which should be music to the ears of a fatalistic hyperCalvinist like you, who believe in a god who predestined you to love the sins that he wanted you to also feel bad about.  You'll excuse me if I think a mean little boy torturing ants is an appropriate analogy to your god and humanity.

I don't speak and act as a representative of "the church". My positions should be evaluated by whether they are right or wrong, true or false, backed by reason and evidence, rather than fallacious guilt-by-association, which is a lazy anti-intellectual shortcut.

 On what other basis did God punish David's baby for sins the baby didn't commit, except the stupid doctrine of original sin which arises out of guilt by association?  Apparently if you had been one of the young boys among the prisoners of war which Moses required death for (Numbers 31:17), you would have said Moses has engaged in fallacious guilt by association.  Sorry, Steve, but your Calvinism is far to cavalier for any smart atheist bible critic like myself to think it the least bit threatening to what I believe.  If God predestined you to do whatever you do, it logically follows he'd want you to praise him for making you do whatever you happen to end up doing.  Only in Calvinism is it "wrong" to praise God for the way his absolute sovereignty actually works.  I think you are looking into a mirror when you accuse others of anti-intellectualism.

You can get out of that by saying the male babies Moses ordered killed had also participated in the previous sexual sin at Peor, but only at the price of opening ancient pedophilia-doors you'll be later wishing you hadn't opened.  That's right Steve, just continue mistaking your blog for real-time human contact, and you'll sink deeper and deeper into that I-run-away-from-challenges-because-I'm-afraid-of-winning delusional mire that you apparently can't clean off the bottom of your shoes.

The situation is rather different with Catholics since they do acquire a corporate identity in a way that Protestants don't. Catholicism is fundamentally and pervasively institutional in a way that the Protestant faith is not,

 And their idea of corporate identity is more biblical than the Protestant version.  It doesn't matter if apostle Paul said divisions are good (1st Cor. 11:19), he also plainly declared, without qualification, that there should be NO divisions in the church (1:10, 12:25).  Jude 1:19 ascribes evil to those who "cause divisions".   I say Paul contradicted himself.  You ready to debate biblical inerrancy?  Or did God predestined you to think that only one reply per person was the foundation of immortality?

so Catholics can't disassociate themselves from what their denomination does in the same way Protestants can disassociate themselves from institutional Protestantism.

 Try reconciling that with Paul's metaphor that the entire body suffers when one member suffers, supra.

Of course, I also forget that as a staunch Calvinist, you believe your thoughts are infallibly predetermined.  I remember Calvinism...what a pile of demented shit that was...we are supposed to believe God predestined us to sin, but we should nevertheless live as if we think he didn't. FUCK YOU.

Carm Darn # 1: Matt Slick forgot to read v. 17

This is my reply to an article by Matt Slick entitled

Why does the Bible say houses will be plundered and wives ravished?

    "Anyone who is found will be thrust through, and anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished," (Isaiah 13:15-16).

This is simply a prophecy about what will occur.  It is a proclamation about the coming judgment of how Babylon will fall to the Medes.  If someone comments about a coming war and then states that there will be children who will be destroyed, houses plundered, and wives raped, does it mean that the one who is saying it is approving of it?  It just means that the unfortunate reality of war and its horrible consequences are easily known and even predicted.

 I think Matt forgot to read v. 17, here it is:

 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. (Isa. 13:17 NAU)

Here is it in context. It is perfectly clear from the immediate context that God is claiming to "stir up" the Medes to inflict atrocities like rape upon the Babylonians:

 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.
 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.   (Isa. 13:13-19 NAU)

If this prophecy had instead said God would be "stirring up" the Medes to deliver gifts of food to the Babylonians, the Christian apologists would not see any problem in saying God caused the Medes to do this good work.  So it is clear that the linguistic gymnastics arise solely from the apologist's dislike of the idea that god causes rape, it does not arise from anything in the grammar or the immediate context. We call that superficial method of interpretation eisogesis.

Also, Matt Slick is a Calvinist, so he would have been more honest had he said that God causes people to make all the choices that they do, including the sinful ones, such as rape.  Because of his Calvinism, Slick would not need to read v. 17, God's causing people to sin is too clear from other scriptures, so Slick would simply read that bit of theology into this text even if v. 17 wasn't there.

Cold Case Christianity: Yes, God’s Sovereignty Robs Us of Our Freedom

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Does God’s Sovereignty Rob Us of Our Freedom?

Posted: 27 Jun 2018 01:34 AM PDT

Christianity describes a God who sovereignly calls believers to repentance.

And apparently, the original Jewish church didn't realize, until Acts 11:18, that God had called the Gentiles to repentance, despite how often Jesus had previously preached repentance to the Gentiles (Matthew 4:12-17) and many gospel texts saying Jesus' popularity at a prior time was out of control and caused entire towns to trample each other just to go see him (e.g., Mark 1:45).  Only desperate inerrantists would dare speculate that those texts were only talking about towns where no Gentiles existed.

Does this mean humans are mere puppets under the direction of an all-powerful Being who controls all decisions and dictates the final outcome?

Yes.  Otherwise, you need to explain why god wanted the reader to visualize him putting a hook in a person's jaw and pulling them around, when he talks about the reason a future army "gog and Magog" decide to attack Israel.  See Ezekiel 38:4.  If those sinners had already freely decided for themselves to commit this sin, it is error to use the metaphor of "hook in your jaws" to explain.  Hooks in jaws don't exactly bring to mind images of God respecting human freewill.

You also need to explain what God was doing to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:33, if it wasn't completely overriding his freewill.  So if God can violate human freewill once, then you lose, and the "God respects our freewill" can no longer be the ultimate show-stopper you think it is when answering questions about evil.  If God has no problems violating Nebuchanezzar's freewill, God cannot have any problems violating the freewill of a rapist just before they commit their crime.  That's right, Wallace:  Daniel 4:33 is the monkey-wrench in your "true love must be free to choose" bullshit. 

And worse, sometimes true love will use force to prevent a loved one from the deadly consequences of their own rebellious stupidity, such as the father who has his 19 year old daughter involuntarily committed because she is so out of control and likely to hurt herself or others.  If true love makes plenty of room to justify use of force, then presto, you can no longer argue that God's true love for the rapist require that He just sit by and let the rapist do whatever he wants.  If God struck the rapist dead just before the act, nothing about "love" would be any more violated in this than in what God himself does many times throughout the bible, using force to overthrow and kill enemies.

Does the Christian God allow humans any freedom to choose for themselves?

Sure, some parts of the bible teach that. But those parts cannot be reconciled with the above-cited passages.  It doesn't matter if God "usually" respects human freewill...his willingness to violate it takes away any intellectual justification you have to hide behind the "god respects human freewill" excuse, as if this was some monolithic unchanging truth.

The relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will has been a topic of hot debate for two millennia; I doubt that I’ll be able to solve it in a blog post.

Good call.

But I do think the definition of free will lies at the root of the confusion and apparent dilemma.

It does.  If God infallibly foreknows what you will choose to do tomorrow, well, HE doesn't think you could possibly deviate from that forecast, because HE doesn't think his predictions can be proven wrong, so if YOU believe you have freewill, it is only an illusion you entertain because you are ignorant of what's in God's mind.  If you could know your own future as certainly as God does, you would not claim you have freedom to choose.  You would instead claim that you cannot do anything other than make the precise choices God infallibly predicts you'll make.

Most of us would like to think that we are free to make any choice possible in any given situation, but if you think about it, that’s really not the case. Even the choices you thought you were free to make were limited by your pre-existing nature (your inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes).

Good call.

Have you ever cleaned out your closet and discarded an ugly shirt, tie or dress that was given to you as a gift? Why did you throw it away? You discarded it because it was taking up space. Every day, as you decided what to wear, you were free to choose that article of clothing, but you never did. Your nature (in this case, your taste in clothing) restrained your choice. In order to understand what the Bible teaches about “free will”, we need to distinguish between two concepts of freedom:

“Libertarian” Free Will:

This view of free will maintains that humans have the ability to choose anything, even when this choice might be contrary to our nature (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes). We might call this “Unfettered Free Will”.

“Compatibilist” Free Will:

This view of free will maintains that humans have the ability to choose something, but this ability is restrained by our pre-existing nature (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes). We might call this “Self-Fettered Free Will”.

But if God knows the future infallibly, then this would restrict your freedom too. Here's the syllogism:

Premise One:  Infallible means "incapable of failing" 
Premise Two:  God infallibly foreknows that you'll steal a candy bar tomorrow.

Conclusion: Therefore, if God infallibly foreknows that you'll steal a candy bar tomorrow, your future stealing of a candy bar, is incapable of failing.

Here's the scary part:  Suppose a man rapes a child.  Did your god infallibly foreknow that this man would do this?  If so, then because the man's action was incapable of failing, the man was incapable of doing otherwise.  Sure, society as we know it would fall apart at the seams if we allowed criminals to go free since nobody can avoid making the choices they do, but then again, we've chosen to create a society that runs more on perceptions than reality.  We hold people accountable because we need to in order to have the society we wish, not because ability to choose otherwise is some proven scientific fact.

Believing a person is capable of doing otherwise might be what we need to believe to keep America's justice system running the way it does, but expediency doesn't dictate actual truth.  The wife can solve a lot of potential problems in her marriage by turning away from the evidence that her husband committed adultery, but her desire to retain consistency hardly determines actual reality.  She can have her happy marriage if she wants, but she needs to be honest and admit its only happy because she prefers perceptions rather than actual reality.

Our practical experience tells us that we don’t make choices that are completely unfettered (unrestrained) by our nature. There is a local Volkswagen dealership in our area that specializes in manufacturing pink Beetle convertibles. That’s right: Pink. They make them one at a time and sell dozens each year, all to young women, according to the sales manager. I can honestly say that I would never purchase that car, and if I was given one, I would sell it. While I clearly have the freedom to purchase it, my nature (my inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes) prevents me from doing so. While I consistently choose what I want freely, I would never freely chose the pink Beetle. My will is “self-fettered”. I bet you’re just like me. Many of us would never choose to order an anchovy pizza. Many of us would never choose to cut our hair in a “mullet” hairstyle. Our natures (our inclinations, desires, likes and dislikes) restrain us.

But I can imagine you doing a publicity stunt and eating an anchovy pizza while you get your hair cut into a mullet while driving down the road in a pink Beetle...if you thought doing so would increase sales of your book.  Now go have a private talk with your marketing director, and ask them whether the time has come to start taking bigger risks in order to keep the attention of today's attention-deficit "Christians".

The Bible recognizes God’s sovereignty and man’s “fallen” nature (our inclination toward rebellion and the denial of God’s existence).

But it doesn't recognize any sympathy for the fact that our fallen natures aren't our fault.  God's constant bitching about sin leaves the distinct impression that he doesn't think the fallen nature can be blamed for sinful choices.   It also leaves the distinct impression that God is less like an educated dictator and more like an irrational person who can solve a problem facing them, but who prefers to just back and bitch out it.  If you ask me, God is a dumbass, who needs to shut the fuck up and start taking action.

And don't be deceived.  The fallen nature of man is not the inevitable by-product of Adam and Eve's choice to rebel.  You forget that the God answered the Fall with a "curse".  It was God who decided that the earth should become a fucked up place requiring lots of human strain and effort to enable survival:


If God is free, then he could have chosen not to curse the world or humanity, in which case Adam and Eve's sinning wouldn't have had much more cosmic effect than what happens when a three year old steals a cookie before dinner.  Sin? Yes.  Inevitable degradation of the rest of humanity?  No.

16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.
 18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;
 (Gen. 3:16-18 NAU)

Wallace continues:

We see descriptions of this reality in Jeremiah 13:23, Mark 7:21-22, Romans 3:9-12, and Romans 8:6-8. The Bible also teaches, however, that humans have the freedom and ability to choose the things of God, including the salvation offered through Jesus Christ.

A theory that cannot be reconciled with the puppet-notion that is absolutely necessitated by God's infallible foreknowledge.  If God infallibly foreknows that Billy will hear the gospel but will always reject it unto death, then Billy doesn't have the freedom to deviate from his infallibly foreknown conduct, which would otherwise mean Billy doesn't have sufficient freedom to prove God's predictions wrong.  Remember, whatever is infallibly foreknown is incapable of failing.  That's the dictionary definition for "infallible".  Google it.

This ability to choose is described in passages like Joshua 24:15, John 7:17, and John 7:37-39. So, how do we, as fallen humans inclined to deny God, have the ability to choose God?

That question is utterly irrelevant to people who reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.  The Bible teaches God's full sovereignty and man's freedom to choose, because it contradicts itself.  Only inerrantists find the least bit of sense in struggling to live fully in the shadow of obviously contradictory philosophy.  Everybody else says "fuck god, he knows that I wouldn't deny him if he simply interacted with me directly the way a caring friend would."  God's appeal to our 5 physical senses has no less possibility of getting us to change our minds, than the prosecutor's appeal to a juror's 5 senses:  jurors change their minds all the time when convinced the empirical facts justify doing do. If we can make sacrifices in the effort to please other human beings who interact with our 5 senses, there is no reason to think we'd do otherwise if Jesus physically appeared to us and interacted personally with us the way real friends do.  Only desperate apologists, knowing perfectly well that Jesus is no different than a fairy, blindly insist that no more effort on God's part could possibly be to our benefit.  But on the whole, people are far more prone to change their wrongful opinions so as to accord with obviously established facts, when they can tell that doing so will substantially increase the likelihood they will avert disaster.

If God had no problems parting the Red Sea to Pharaoh's notice, he should have no problems giving us infallible visions of whatever terrible fate awaits those who reject the gospel (in light of Ezra 1:1, you cannot deny that god has magically coercive telepathic ability to get people to believe whatever he wants them to believe).  Most people are sane and do not willfully defy common sense when they can tell that their intended course of action is proven to likely result in catastrophe.

Well it appears that God (in His sovereignty) works at the level of our nature rather than at the level of our choices. God changes our hearts first, so we have the freedom to choose something we would never have chosen before (because our nature prevented us from doing so). You and I then have the freedom to choose within our new nature, and we are, of course, responsible for those choices.

Only if you can prove that god has changed the nature of all sinners sufficiently so that they can freely choose a gospel call that they'd otherwise reject. You aren't going to do that, and it wouldn't matter if you did, you are never going to get around the problem of how God's infallible foreknowledge allofor our future choices to be any different than what God predicted they would be.

Demolishing Triablogue: God forced you to sin, but you still 'deserve' to be punished for it...and other dreck

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Accident of birth

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Suppose God sent to Hell everyone who was born in South America before 10am. The rest of us go to heaven. Is there any reason on Calvinism to think there is anything wrong with God holding people morally accountable for being born in South America before 10am?
    Secular Outpost Retweeted

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    Can South Americans born before 10am complain to their creator "Why did you make me thus?" Who are they that they should talk back to God? (cf Romans 9:20)

    Stephen J. Graham
    @sjggraham
    I'm asking whether it makes any moral sense for God to hold someone accountable for something beyond their control. I don't think the issue is about divine command ethics.

I wouldn't normally comment on some random tweet by an atheist, by since this was retweeted by Jeff Lowder at the Secular Outpost, I'll bite:

i) God wouldn't be holding folks morally accountable for when and where they are born, but for their sin.

But under Calvinism, God caused them to sin no less than he caused them to be born in certain times and places.  Your attempted distinction is illusory.

For instance, if an arsonist trips a silent alarm, and the police arrest him before he had a chance to get away, he wasn't held accountable for his poor timing. That's an incidental circumstance.

But if the police caused him to commit arson,it wouldn't make sense to hold him accountable.  Yet police causing him to commit arson is more analogous to the Calvinist god who causes people to sin.  Your attempt to justify the way God holds us accountable, fails.

ii) Since many South Americans are Christians, it would be morally wrong for God to damn them.

That is not consistent with the bible.  Jesus did no sin (in your fable), yet God struck the shepherd.  The baby born to David and Bathsheba hadn't don't anything to deserve death, yet God "struck" that child and forced it to endure a miserable sickness for 7 days before it died.   No inerrantist has ever said Apostle Paul's sins were probably the reason God sent a "messenger from Satan" to buffet him as a thorn in the flesh, yet God caused that bit of suffering nonetheless.  And you delude others with sophistry anyway, since your hypothetical isn't even a logical possibility, for under your Calvinism, your divine-command theory makes it impossible for God to be wrong, ever, for any reason.  

For one thing, God would be breaking his promise to save those who trust in Jesus.

Thats' irrelevant, the pot is STILL never justified to say "why did you make me this way", regardless of what is actually true or not true.

ii) In addition, it would be wrong for God to damn those whom Christ redeemed. Since Christ atoned for the sins of Christians (i.e. the elect), there's no judicial basis for damning them.

Have fun trying to convince non-Calvinists that the branches in Christ that end up being heaved into the fire for destruction, were never legitimately growing in him.   Read John 15 without wearing your Calvinist glasses.

Admittedly, some professing Christians are nominal Christians, but I'm referring to the elect.

iii) Hence, Rom 9:20 doesn't apply.

On the contrary, if Paul's analogy in that verse of men to pots and God to potter be fitting, then it would NEVER be morally good for the pot to say "why have you made me this way".  That's the point of the analogy, the pot NEVER talks back to the potter, so to imagine this ever happening is perfectly absurd.  If Paul pushed his analogy too far, which he did, that's your problem.

iv) Sometimes we're responsible for things beyond our control and sometimes not. Depends on the example. If a mother leaves her newborn baby on my doorstep, I'm not responsible for the child in the sense that I'm not its father. And I didn't create that situation. But having been thrust into a situation not of my own choosing, I'm responsible to see to it that the newborn doesn't die on my doorstep from exposure or predation.

Unless, in your Calvinist communication with God, He tells you that he predestined you to neglect the child to the point of death.  If so, then you aren't allowed to use your freewill to overcome God's sovereign degree just so you can made the lemon you are selling look like a Ferrari to the customers.  If God is a piece of shit, say he is a piece of shit.  Don't dress him up in fear that his biblical ways will hurt your marketing prospects.  Call it like it really is.  Include "God ultimately causes all people to sin" when you evangelize, don't just limit yourself to the sugary crap western minds will likely be attracted to.  But perhaps that's too demanding?

And by the way, you didn't provide any examples of how you could be accountable for things beyond your control.  The baby on your doorstep becomes part of what you can control when you discover him or her.  Regardless, on the basis of Romans 9:20, you have no theological warrant to attempt to justify God's ways.  If people complain against god, its because he stirred them up to do this.  Nothing is more funny than a Calvnist who believes like a supralapsarian, but who argues as if he supports the libertarian notion of freewill.  And in your theological view, Paul's answer in Romans 9:20 has more divine inspiration in it than any of your own speculations. Apparently, neither you nor most Calvinist theologians actually believe the scriptures are "sufficient" for faith and practice.

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays doesn't notice he's complaining against what God wants

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

So many Christians–so few lions!

A standard objection to Christianity is whether inclusivism is fair.

That would likely come from unbelievers uninformed about what a piece of shit sadist the bible god really is.  Fairness isn't the problem.  Getting a thrill out of watching men rape children to death is.

Is it fair that so many never had a chance to hear the Gospel?

Yes, people who never heard the gospel were thus spared a miserable existence of telling themselves that cosmic mysteries can be explained by theologians who learn the ways of jailhouse lawyers.  Of course, some of us have far less tolerance for logical contradictions, so we can understand how Christians can have joy in the Lord and have no problems with the absurdity and inconsistency of their beliefs.  Mormons are a prime example.  So are Pentecostals and Calvinists.  Pretty much the whole bad except the liberal Christians who are honest enough to admit they do this shit more because its a club that facilitates social support.

This is an issue in freewill theism as well as Calvinism.

I don't see why Calvinists would give a shit.  If as Calvinism says, God wants sinners to sin, and therefore wants men to rape babies, you are probably better to focus your energies on problems obviously more serious than "what about those who never heard the gospel?"

There are familiar strategies in fielding this objection. But I'd like to remark on a neglected consideration. It's striking how frequently unbelievers respond to the Gospel with seething antipathy.

Why would it be striking?  Your god bitches at us all pissed off about our bad choices, despite his possessing coercive mental telepathy abilities, Ezra 1:1.  That's like an armed guard bitching at the robbers during a bank heist, and somehow just never getting around to using his gun.  But I have an explanation:  your god is a stupid bastard in most of his ways because he is nothing more than an idol made in the image of man, an idol that keeps changing as the years roll on and people become more civilized.

It's not as if they exclaim, "That's just what I was always waiting for! Where have you been all my life!"

And you naturally wouldn't expect unbelievers to respond that way to a God who secretly wills for them to disobey his revealed will, which is what Calvinism is all about, right?

I'm not saying nobody responds that way. But notice how many people, when exposed to the Gospel, how many people, when given the opportunity, far from welcoming the message, greet the message with implacable enmity, to the point of persecuting or martyring Christians. Silencing them. Torturing them to death. "So many Christians–so few lions!"

Unbelievers can get out of control.  But if Calvinism is the right form of Christianity, then indeed, there aren't enough lions.

It's not as if many people go to hell simply because they never had a chance to hear the Gospel. As though, had they only been given the opportunity, they'd be overjoyed and feel privileged.

Sorry Steve, you won't be blaming unbelievers for their predictable rejection of "truth", as you are a Calvinist.  If unbelievers reject the gospel message, its because God predestined them to do so, and their choice to do so is effected in that direction by God's sovereign will, which is somewhat akin to throwing a dish on the floor, then getting angry at the dish for doing what you wanted it to do (break).  I think this is the part where you insist that the Calvinist God who both "wills and wills not", is the supreme example of mental consistency, and all who disagree are merely blinded by the devil.

So often unbelievers react like drowning swimmers who fight the lifeguard: "How dare you save my life!"

Blame it on god, as Calvinists are inclined to do anyway.  And under Calvinism, God is not just a lifeguard, he is also a man-eating shark.  To be consistent with your Calvinism, you need to also say that some unbelievers are like swimmers who fight the shark.

I'm not saying this covers every case, but it's worth pondering. How frequently those who need it the most are the most antagonistic. Violently belligerent. 

Blame it on god.  You Calvinists think us unbelievers are only being violently belligerent toward your God because he predestined us to act that way, correct?  What fool wishes people would deviate from the path of perdition that God forces them to choose? 

Did you forget that you are a Calvinist?

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays helps unbelievers stop worrying about hell

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Scandinavian hell
I'd like to make a brief observation about hell. There are Christians, apostates, and atheists who get carried away with the poetic imagery.

And the more even spiritually alive people get hell wrong, the more justification spiritually dead people have to toss the entire business out the window, knowing they can only do worse if they try.

If, however, the Bible was originally revealed in, say, Iceland, the Yukon, or Scandinavia, rather than a hot dry climate like Palestine, the hellish imagery might instead draw on snow and ice, arctic temperatures, a polar vortex, and a continuous polar night.

So if the bible was originally revealed in, say, Sacramento California, 1986, the hellish imagery might instead draw on constant traffic, ceaseless urban growth and non-stop crime.  

The "geography" of hell is based on the Middle East. The "geography" of hell would vary if originally revealed in regions with different landscape and climate. The metaphors are to some degree culturebound. A tropical depiction of hell might be characterized by an abundance of nasty reptiles and stinging insects.

The problem being that your alleged God refuses to specify exactly what hell is.  Yet under Calvinism, despite God predestining me to fault him for such ambiguity, I'm still "without excuse" for doing what God forced me to do.

Calvinism makes me feel better about rejecting the gospel...there was no way I could have contradicted God's reprobative decree.  It's out of my hands, so any sense of personal responsibility on my part can only be a misleading illusion.

Cold Case Christianity: Why Make the Case for Christianity, If God Is in Control?

This is my response to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Make the Case for Christianity, If God Is in Control?

Posted: 31 Jul 2017 01:58 AM PDT 

 

I’ve written a Christian apologetics book that makes the case for making the case.

No doubt because you have perfect confidence that God doesn't need your help on anything, having already Himself written a book that you publicly profess to be not just divinely inspired, but also "sufficient" for faith and practice.  I'm getting the idea of a dad who installs training wheels on his daughter's bike, but insists to hell and back that he isn't trying to "help" her do what she wants to do by making the bike a bit "better".

I argue that Christians ought to embrace a more evidential, thoughtful faith and accept their duty to become Christian case-makers.

And since your Reformed and 5-Point Calvinist brothers in the faith strongly insist that the evidentialist approach to apologetics is both flawed and unbiblical, you are also involving your intended unbelieving readers in a debate that not even spiritually alive people can resolve, how irrational is it, then, to pretend that spiritually dead unbelievers could possibly find the truth here?

Many people, after reading the book and thinking about this call to become better case makers, have asked, “If God calls His chosen, can’t He achieve this without any case-making effort on our part?”

Probably because they know about bible verses which teach that God not only can, but often does, force people to do what he wants them to do, and apparently he doesn't stay up late at night worrying about whether their freewill was violated:

 4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; (Ezek. 38:4 NAU)

Sure, that "hook" is metaphorical, but the metaphor cannot be defined as irrelevant; it still brings to mind an obvious level of force overriding any contrary intent by the humans themselves.  And why would God use a metaphor that brings images of absolute force and overriding of freewill to mind, if that mental image is somehow inaccurate?

I also pondered this question as a new Christian, and I think the following analogy is helpful, although certainly imperfect.

Exactly, you could have chosen anything from the bible, but no, you are a marketing genius, you recognize like other authors that you can increase sales if you infuse personal stories into your books.  This is probably because you are aware of how strongly the Holy Spirit controls the lives of true Christians and doesn't need your help in any way whatsoever.

When my son David was a young boy, he hated mushrooms. If salvation were dependent on voluntarily ordering a mushroom pizza, David would never experience heaven because he would never, on his own accord, order such a pizza. In fact, I once took David to a pizza restaurant and cleverly removed the mushrooms from a pizza in an effort to convince him to eat it. He refused. “I can see the shape of the mushroom right there!” He knew it had been poisoned by “mushroom juice,” and no amount of effort on my part could change his mind, in spite of my best mushroom-pizza case-making efforts.

But what if there was some way to remove David’s hatred of mushrooms prior to entering the restaurant? If David no longer hated mushrooms, he would be open to my mushroom-pizza case-making efforts. Then, if I was able to make a “five-point case for the deliciousness of mushroom pizza,” David would, under his new nature (having had his hatred for mushrooms removed), choose to voluntarily order the mushroom pizza.

 I think you ate some mushrooms without pizza right before you wrote this.

In this admittedly imperfect analogy, David’s salvation was clearly dependent first on the role God played in removing his enmity for mushrooms. But once this enmity was sovereignly lifted, David was open to my case making. God allowed me to play my role as a case maker, and David responded to my effort in a way he never would have if God hadn’t first moved.

And the bible-god's ability to sovereignly override human freewill to force whatever he wants to happen, is precisely why your god is a fucking liar for pretending that we make him mad or angry.  If you can prevent your child from playing in the street, but you let them do it anyway, you have nobody to blame but yourself if they get ran over.  Nobody will listen during your parental-neglect arraingment that you issued clear warnings and the child willfully disobeyed.  They will say that if you are such a loving father, you wouldn't just stand there issuing edicts, you'd FORCE them out of the street, because true love will employ such force to protect the loved one from the consequences of their own stupidity or rebellion.

God’s incredible love for us is evident in this process.

But it's not evident when he just stands at the foot of the bed and watches as a little girl is raped to death.

God loved my son enough to remove his hostility,

Does he love little kids enough to remove the hostility of the man raping them?

and He loved me enough to disciple and encourage me. Even though God is clearly sovereign, He graciously allowed me to play a part in reaching David.

If the bible has anything to say about it, the part you played was that of a puppet.  Or so say your 5 Point Calvinist spiritually alive brothers who think your apologetics are a load of crap.

I got to make the case for what I know is true about salvation, and in the process, my confidence grew as I mastered the evidence for Christianity. God’s sovereign purposes and amazing love were ultimately expressed both in the son He called and in the son He encouraged.

Sounds like your editors and ghost writers did a good job agreeing on the best way to rouse the emotions of the Christians you market your shit to.

Demolishing Triablogue: No, Steve Hays, a theology of secondary causes does not absolve God from being the author of evil

Steve Hays argues that Calvinists can consistently deny that God is the author of evil as long as they have a theology of secondary causes:

If actor was a synonym for auctor, then to deny that God is the "author" of sin means that God is not the agent, viz, God is not the doer or performer of sin. Rather, it's the human agent (or demonic agent) who commits sin. 

In that sense, it's perfectly coherent for Reformed theologians who deny that God is the author of sin–so long as they have a theology of second causes.

Several problems:

1 - Some bible texts claim God is directly responsible for causing people to sin, such as Ezekiel 38:4, the hook-in-jaws metaphor bringing to mind a sense of absolute force.

2 - Semantic quibbles about how God doesn't personally act in the human sin are theologically suspect, a god who is as omnipresent as Calvinists typically say he is, has more intimate association with a kidnapper's crime than the kidnapper.  Or are some classical theist doctrines resting upon hyperbolic biblical language?

3 - Semantic quibbles about how God doesn't personally act in the human sin do not imply that God is somehow not culpable.  God often orders others to sin:

 19 Micaiah said, "Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.
 20 "The LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And one said this while another said that.
 21 "Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.'
 22 "The LORD said to him, 'How?' And he said, 'I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then He said, 'You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.'
 23 "Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you."
 (1 Ki. 22:19-23 NAU)

Unless Calvinists say they would absolve the mob boss from the crime of murder because he only ordered the hit, but didn't himself actually pull the trigger, then the popular moral objection to the Calvinist god authoring evil is not refuted by observing that God doesn't personally commit the sins.

4 - Secondary causes are moot for the reason explained above:  If what God himself is doing is evil, the fact that secondary agents have their part to play in the overall scheme does not take away from his own culpability.

 

5 - God appears to have carefully distinguished the evil David did, from the evil that god himself would do, to wit, causing David's wives to leave him and have polygamous sex in public with another man:

  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.
 (2 Sam. 12:9-13 NAU)

 Whether the wives had freewill is immaterial; God is claiming all the credit for causing this instance of people engaging in polygamous sex in public.

 

V. 12 doesn't make sense if it doesn't mean God is declaring himself responsible for this particular bit of evil. 

There can be no doubting whatsoever that at the end of the day, consistent Calvinism teaches that people compare to God the way puppets relate to a ventriloquist.

 

Indeed, unless one accuses Paul of premising his Romans 9 theology on hyperbole, which would nuke Calvinism off the face of the planet, then when Paul tries to support his theology by arguing that God is potter and we are the pots, he really wasn't pushing the analogy too far.

 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
 (Rom. 9:19-21 NAU)

If Paul wasn't pushing the pot/potter analogy too far, then we cannot be any more responsible for our sins, than pots can be responsible for being what they are. 

Why God paints himself as so wrathful against his pots turning out to be exactly what he wanted them to be, requires we conclude that God is as irrational as an intelligent being can possibly get:  He is angry and wrathful because his plans worked perfectly.

One has to seriously wonder at how Calvinists can go about seriously believing that God makes Christians feel guilty about doing his secret will.

If a Calvinist praised God's secret will in allowing children to be raped to death, would God accept or reject this theologically correct form of praise?  

If God is a God of truth, does that mean he accepts any and all praise that is based on actual truth, or does God require that praise of him not take into account certain actual truths?

These are questions that Calvinists, who think God secretly wills all human sin, cannot easily answer.