Cold Case Christianity: Why Would God Punish Finite, Temporal Crimes in an Eternal Hell?

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

Why Would God Punish Finite, Temporal Crimes in an Eternal Hell?

Posted: 06 Sep 2017 01:01 AM PDT

240I was interviewed recently on a large Los Angeles radio station about the existence of Hell.

Did you tell them about the liberal Christian scholars who say hell-fire in the NT is mere metaphor? 

One caller objected to the duration of punishment in Hell. From his perspective, the idea our temporal, finite sin on earth warrants an eternal punishment of infinite torment in Hell was troubling, at the very least. The punishment does not seem to fit the crime; in fact, the disproportionate penalty makes God seem petty and vindictive, doesn’t it? Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely?

Did you have any callers who objected that the bible god sometimes gets rid of sin by simply waving his magic wand, no atonement needed?  Or were the callers just a bunch of ignorant skeptics who didn't know the bible as well as I do?

Better, the OT God makes it clear that human sin is completely forgiven by means of animal sacrifice, even if the sin was one normally calling for execution, such as adultery:

  20 'Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free.
 21 'He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering.
 22 'The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him. (Lev. 19:20-22 NAU)

 The bible also says Yom Kippur completely cleansed Israel of sin:

 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. (Lev. 16:30 NAU)

But no, J. Warner Wallace believes Hell is literal and eternal, and thinks the bible doesn't have any mistakes, and so insists that regardless of how this passage reads, it cannot mean that you are "really" cleansed of sin before the Lord, because we have to account for why requires an eternal hell of torment in the NT.  Well excuse me, but biblical inerrancy is total bullshit, so you cannot get rid of Leviticus 19 by pointing out that Jesus taught a literal hell in Luke 16.

If this sexual sin was rape, the easy way to obtain divine forgiveness makes God a mysoginist prick.

If this sexual sin wasn't rape, it was likely intentional, for what sexual sin between consenting adults wouldn't be?  But then the forgiveness here for this intentional sin contradicts the explicit teaching of the bible that intentional sins cannot be forgiven:

 30 'But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
 31 'Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him.'" (Num. 15:30-31 NAU)

 26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Heb. 10:26-28 NAU)

Wallace continues:

I think it’s important to define the nature of Hell and sin before our discussion of the eternal nature of punishment can have any meaning or significance.

And good luck in your attempt to show that any Christian scholars who define hell a pure metaphor, are just spiritually dead. 

Objections related to the eternal nature of Hell result from a misunderstanding of four principles and terms:

Those objections also arise from a belief that the bible has mistakes, another presupposition you won't be refuting anytime soon, indicating that while you pretend to be writing to equip Christians to answer skeptics, the truth is, you are only writing to convince people who carry around the same basic Christian convictions that you hold.

We Fail to Understand the Meaning of Spiritual “Torment”

The Bible says those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they will suffer is described in dramatic, illustrative language. But, the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively “torturing” the souls of the rebellious.

Yes it does:

 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Rev. 14:10 NAU)

 8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Rev. 21:8 NAU)

The Revelation author was pro-Jewish and lived in the first century, where prisoners were routinely tormented or punished in the presence of, and by the authority of, the local king or other ruler.

 Jesus likened God to a king who beat his subjects:

 45 "But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk;
 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
 47 "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few.  (Lk. 12:45-48 NAU)

Why should the rational person distinguish Wallace's god who doesn't "actively" torture anybody, from the biblical god Jesus taught, who apparently throws unbelievers into a furnace of fire?  What's the difference between selectively burning a person on their body with a blow torch, and throwing them into a furnace intended to burn them without killing them?

 40 "So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.
 41 "The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,
 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt. 13:40-42 NAU)

 Jude describes the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire as "punishment"

 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7 NAU)

To make sure you cannot quibble, the bible specifies that God was hurling fireballs "from heaven" down onto these two cities:

 24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, (Gen. 19:24 NAU)

Now are you still sufficiently fundamentalist so as to admit that God does the punishing?


And the idea of God causing endless unbearable suffering is perfectly consistent with God threatening to cause parental cannibalism, kidnapping, rape and other horrific atrocities in Deuteronomy 28:15-63.  Read it, then you talk to me again about about how wrong it is to call your god a sadistic lunatic.  Is it really true that the all-powerful creator of the universe could not, during the days of Moses, think of any more humane way to successfully dissuade his people from sin, except to threaten them with horrific plights?

“Torture” is the sadistic activity that is often perpetrated for the mere joy of it.

No, "torture" is intentional infliction of pain, but whether it is inflicted sadistically goes beyond the dictionary definition:

“Torment” results from a choice on the part of the person who finds himself (or herself) suffering the consequences.

No, "torment" is the experience of anguish and pain as the result of harsh circumstances, the dictionary definition does not link the experience to the suffering person's "choices"

However, it is obvious that you've inserted "choices" into the definition of "torment" because of your arbitrary desire to blame hell's torments on those who suffer it, as required by your religion.  You have done an unconvincing job of trying to disconnect Jesus from the cause of those hellish torments.

One can be in constant torment over a decision made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone.

Immaterial, the bible god actively tortures people on earth AND in hell, see above.

We Fail to Understand the Insignificance of Sin’s “Duration”

If someone embezzles $5.00 a week from their employer’s cash register they will have stolen $260.00 over the course of a year. If they’re caught at the end of this time, they would still only be guilty of a misdemeanor in the State of California (based on the total amount of loss). Although the crime took a year to commit, the perpetrator wouldn’t spend much (if any) time in jail. On the other hand, a murder can take place in the blink of an eye and the resulting punishment will be life in prison (or perhaps the death penalty). The duration of the crime clearly has little or nothing to do with the duration of the penalty.

And according to Leviticus 16 and 19, supra, sins in general and the sin of adultery in particular cease their duration upon sacrifice of an animal.  If the Book of Hebrews in the NT teaches that sin is not "fully" dealt with by animal sacrifices, then the author got it wrong, since full expiation and cleansing before the Lord is exactly how Leviticus' originally intended recipients would have taken those words, and it is what they signify in their immediate contexts anyway.  The whole business of Jesus fulfilling the animal sacrificial system with his own death is total bullshit...how could Jesus "forgive" sins during his earthly ministry as he is alleged to have done (Mark 2:10), if after such forgiveness, the sin still required some type of sacrifice?  But the theological problem of Jesus needing to die for previously forgiven or previously atoned-for sins, is yours and yours alone.

We Fail to Understand the Magnitude of God’s “Authority”

If your sister catches you lying about your income last year, you might lose her respect. If the IRS catches you lying about your income last year, the resulting punishment will be far more painful. What’s the difference here? It certainly isn’t the crime. Instead, we recognize the more authoritative the source of the code, rule or law, the greater the punishment for those who are in violation. If God is the Highest Authority, we should expect that violations of His “laws” would result in significant punishment(s).

No, see Leviticus 19:20-22, supra.  If a slave-owner has sex with his female slave after she had been betrothed to another man, the slave-owner who committed this adultery is spared from the mandatory death penalty because the slave-girl wasn't "free" (she wasn't important enough by god's standards to infuse the sexual act with that much importance or significance), and he will obtain divine forgiveness by nothing more than his giving a sacrificial animal to the priests for slaughter.

Oh, and don't miss the fact that no matter how many times you read that passage, the slave-girl in question is never penalized or punished in any way, despite the fact that, if you deny this act was rape, she consented to the sexual liaison and therefore was no less guilty than the man and thus just as needful of expiation as the man.  So either a) she isn't penalized because the sex act described here was rape (in which case the man obtained divine forgiveness for rape by simply allowing one of his animals to be slaughtered, showing that the god of the OT thinks rape does not require the man to suffer any punishment beyond giving up an animal, when in fact the man being a slave-owner implies he was rich and could afford to give up several animals without feeling any financial sting), or b) she consented and was guilty of adultery as much as the owner, but God for whatever reason finds it unnecessary to address her part in the sin.

We Fail to Understand the Depth of Our “Sin”

Finally, it’s important to remember the nature of the crime that eventually leads one to Hell. It’s not the fact you kicked your dog in 1992. It’s not the fact you had evil thoughts about your teacher in 1983. The crime that earns us a place in Hell is our rejection of the true, living, eternal God.

On the contrary, the bible says people are judged for all of their acts and words, not just the act of rejecting the gospel:

 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
 33 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
 34 "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
 35 "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
 36 "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
 37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt. 12:32-37 NAU)

  27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. (Matt. 16:27 NAU)

  12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. (Rev. 20:12-13 NAU)

 No, "according to their deeds" cannot be whittled down to "only because they rejected the gospel".

The rejection of God’s forgiveness is not finite. People who reject Jesus have rejected Him completely.

First, that's just plain stupid.  If I reject my neighbor because I don't like his morals, that doesn't mean I'd just stand there and do nothing while watching him drown, or refuse his offer of money if I needed it to avoid being evicted.  What are you going to say next?  That we only reject the light lest our evil deeds be exposed?

Second, those authentically born-again spiritually brothers in the faith you call 5-Point Calvinists believe that God has predestined people to do all that they end up doing, including their sins, which makes God's sending unbelievers to hell even more atrocious, since the only reason they desired to sin was because God forced them to desire this.

Then there's Ezekiel 38:4, where God describes his sovereign forcing of a foreign people to attack Israel, by saying he will put a hook in their jaws and draw them against Israel, and ch. 38 and 39 go on to say God will then punish by great slaughter these foreign nations for doing what he forced them to do.

Wallace, who are you trying to impress here?  The people who already believe everything you say (gee, real toughie there)?  or the skeptics and atheists who agree with most Christian scholars that bible inerrancy is total bullshit?   Given how obscenely weak your theology is, I'd say you've chosen the low-road, and you intend more to make Christians feel confident that their beliefs are true, and less to convince skeptics of the alleged error of their ways.

They have rejected Him as an ultimate, final mortal decision. God has the right (and obligation) to judge them with an appropriate punishment.

Don't call God a punisher unless you credit him with the torments the sinners experience in hell.  Sorry, Wallace, but you are not going to reconcile the biblical picture of God as tormentor, with the modern Christian belief that God doesn't himself torment anybody.  Again, read the most depressing news in the world in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, then come back here and tell me God doesn't inflict torment and torture.

To argue that God’s punishment does not fit our crime is to underestimate our crime.

And although God could have caused Bathsheba to miscarry early after her adultery with David so that the child conceived would never experience any torment, God did not.  And although God could have simply caused the born baby to die immediately, he did not, but struck the child, so that it suffered a tormenting  sickness before finally expiring after 7 days:

 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)

To argue that a teenager stealing a pack of bubblegum deserves to be roasted alive in hell in screaming mindless agony forever, indicates you deny those parts of the bible that delimit God's power and holiness.  It also tells me you think God's plan to deal with sin is perfect, when in fact you should know from Genesis 6:6-7 and Exodus 32:9-14 that God sometimes discovers later that his original plan was less than perfect.

Your belief that people "deserve" hellish torments forever for temporal sins also indicates you reject those parts of the bible that teach that God was capable of getting rid of somebody's sin by simply waving his magic wand, as he apparently did in the case of David's adultery with Bathsheba:

 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." (2 Sam. 12:11-14 NAU)

If God is capable of just "removing" even sins otherwise requiring death, such as adultery, then you need to stop pretending that God's holiness "demands" that he punish sin.  He "needs" to punish sin about as much as a morbidly obese woman "needs" to eat ice cream. 

How do you expect this senseless rambling of yours to strike the fear of God into the hearts of unbelievers, when it is clear you simply reject any biblical teaching on God that doesn't fit the traditional conservative Evangelical understanding of sin and punishment?

The Bible describes Hell as a place where those who have rejected God will suffer the torment of their decision.

It also says they will suffer burning from fire and brimstone, see Revelation, quoted supra, and the last I checked, there is no logically necessary connection between stealing a candy bar and being burned by fire and brimstone, which means somebody else is responsible for forcing the sin and the punishment to be connected to each other, and since God is the one who punishes sin, it is God who is causing the fire and brimstone to burn the sinner.

It is only jailhouse lawyers like Wallace who would try to explain away the video showing his client murdering another person with a gun, by arguing that it was the bullet, not the client, who "caused" this death.

It’s an appropriate punishment given the magnitude of God’s ultimate authority and the mortal opportunities for each of us to choose otherwise in this life.

Then arbitrarily exempting adulterers from the death-penalty is also consistent with God's nature, 2nd Samuel 12, supra, in which case there is room in God's "nature" to simply eternally avoid punishing a sin.  Your portrait of a God whose nature mandates that he punish sin, reflects less from the bible and more from your choice to be a modern-day fundamentalist intent on selling books to the people who already believe everything you believe.

I'm not exactly quaking in my boots over J. Warner Wallace's pitiful attempts to justify the doctrine of literal torment in a literal Hell.  To quote one of my favorite songs from Deicide, fuck your god.

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article:

 Why Would a Good God Behave So Badly?  

Posted: 16 Jun 2017 04:00 AM PDT

I have many unbelieving friends who laugh when I claim the God of the Bible is both all-powerful and all-loving. As they read through the Old Testament, they point to a variety of passages and episodes where God seems to be anything but loving. They cite passages, for example, where God seems to command the pillaging and killing of Israel’s enemies with great brutality.

they should have pointed out the passages where God specifies that he will take "joy" in causing men to rape women, and causing parents to eat their own children, such as:

 15 "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

 16 "Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

 30 "You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.

 53 "Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you.

63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:15-63 NAU)

 "Delight" in both cases is the same word, whether in Hebrew or Lxx, so you won't be escaping this one on linguistic grounds.  And good luck finding a Christian commentary that provides any argument that might favor your position.  Indeed, if God really meant his threats to inflict horrific torments, to be taken seriously, then he does indeed delight to inflict such things no less than he delights to prosper those who obey.

 How can a God who would command the brutal destruction of Israel’s enemies be called moral or loving?

Easy, he isn't moral or loving in the modern American sense, he's only moral and loving in the ancient Semitic sense.

It’s easy for us to judge the words and actions of God as if He were just another human, subject to an objective standard transcending Him. But when we judge God’s actions in this way, we are ignoring His unique authority and power.

Not really, god admits in Genesis 6:6-7 he sometimes regrets his own decisions, so with precedent like that, you cannot dismiss the possibility that god is such an asshole in the OT because that was back when he had less moral maturity.  I don't believe in biblical inerrancy, so I couldn't care less that you can find another bible verse that says God is infinitely wise.  Inerrancy is so disputed even among spiritually alive people, that spiritually dead people are smart to dismiss it as speculative, and refuse to use it as tool of interpretation, and therefore, to insist we can know what Genesis 6 means without reconciling it with everything else in the bible.

While great work has been done by Paul Copan (Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God), describing the proper context of these passages in the Old Testament,

I've already refuted them; their exegesis of 1st Samuel 15 (where King Saul is dispossessed by God precisely because Saul did not completely destroy the kids as the ban had required) is foolish, and completely ignores the reason why those kids were ordered killed:  their great-great-great-great grandfather Amalek had attacked the last of the Israelites as they exodused from Egypt, an event that took place more than 400 years before Saul's time.  That is, the reason that current generation of Amalekite kids was ordered slaughtered is not because they were obstinately holding on to parts of the promised land God wished to give to Israel, but because they were corporately guilty of an ancestor's sin.  In which case they wouldn't stop deserving death merely because they fled the land. 

and by Clay Jones (Killing the Canaanites: A Response to the New Atheism’s “Divine Genocide” Claims), describing the view God held toward the sin of Israel’s neighbors,

"Genocide" merely muddies the waters.  The problem is that this god gives every appearance of thinking his plan for Israel to go around killing off pagans is his "best" plan, when in fact he could have achieved his goal without causing children to suffer, by waving his magic wand. And his employment of an imperfect plan argues there is no god to discuss, this is just godless ancient Hebrews who are mischaracterizing their military strategies as if they were commands of God.  NOthing more significant than the modern fundie who justifies his bombing of an abortion clinic by saying "God told me to do it".

I would like to add the following observations about the nature of God as we consider His actions in the Old Testament:  God is the Greatest Artist If you and I were in an art class together and I suddenly grew frustrated with my sketch and decided to destroy it, you wouldn’t complain in the least.

That's because destroying inanimate objects doesn't create suffering of live creatures. 

If I stepped over to your easel and destroyed your sketch, however, you would certainly complain that I was doing something unjust. You see, the artist has the authority and right to destroy his or her own work.

You also have the right to burn all of your house and possession to the ground as long as you don't do it for a criminal or illegal reason.  But if you did that once per year, people would still conclude, with rational justification, that you were crazy, despite the fact that you had the "right" to do it. 

The art belongs to the artist.

And according to Genesis 6:6, the artist often screws up.  It could very well be that God today, if he exists, thinks similarly to Genesis 6:6, that is, that he regrets having been such an asshole in the OT.  Once again, that bible verse and its likely meaning will not go away just because you presuppose bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic, and you think we need to reconcile Genesis 6:6 with the rest of the bible.  Bible inerrancy, for reasons already staed, does not deserve to be exalted in our mind to the status of governing hermeneutic.  Therefore, you cannot get rid of the imperfect God that verse tells about, by smothering it with something else in the bible.  And even if bible inerrancy were true, you don't know whether Genesis 6:6 should be interpreted in the light of other bible verses, or if the other bible verses declaring God infinitely wise, need to be interpreted and delimited in the light of Genesis 6:6.

If there is a God, all of creation is His handiwork. He has the right to create and destroy what is His, even when this destruction may seem unfair to the artwork itself.

Exactly why there is no rational reasoning with Islamic extremists.  YOU might not think it fair to be injured in a suicide bombing, but Allah does.  So there's no rational reasoning with you, your religious belief becomes more important to you that common sense once you get to thinking God wanted something done a certain way.

  God is the Greatest Physician If you or I suffered a snake bite on our elbow and were miles from the nearest hospital, a doctor might advise us (over the phone) to tourniquet the arm to save our life. In doing so, we would surely sacrifice an otherwise healthy hand to prevent the venom from spreading to our heart. But the doctor understands that this drastic action is required to prevent our death.

That's because the doctor is not an all-powerful genie who can cure us with a wave of his magic wand.  Your God is.  Now back to your "his-ways-are-mysterious" excuses.

You and I might not agree with the plan, or like the outcome, but the doctor knows best.

 But the doctor of Genesis 6:6-7 admits to regretting his own decisions, so it's far from rock solid that because God is God, his choices are beyond criticism.

The treatment plan belongs to the doctor. If there is a God, all of us are His patients. He has the wisdom and authority to treat us as He sees fit, even when we might not be able to understand the overarching danger we face if drastic action isn’t taken.

Such as when a little girl dies from an STD she got due to an adult man raping her.  The truth is that your god has far more in common with fairy tales than reality, the arguments for God's existence are less than convincing and suffer the fatal religious language objection, and for these reasons, we are rationally justified to limit how often we entertain your trifling excuses, as often as we are justified to limit the extent to which we entertain Mormon apologetics. But clearly, you aren't arguing to convince skeptics, you are building your argument on presuppositions you share with other Christians.

  God is the Greatest Savior If you and I live as though our mortal lives are all we have, we’ll often become frustrated that our lives seem to be filled with pain and injustice.

Too many Christians have complained that their lives seems to be filled with pain and injustice, for you to pretend that becoming a Christian will fix that attitude.

But the Christian Worldview describes human existence as eternal.

Unfortunately, the OT contains statements that cannot be reconciled with that idea, according to other spiritually alive orthodox people such as 7th Day Adventists, which means you are a fool to expect spiritually dead atheists to figure out who is right in this in-house Christian debate.

We have a life beyond the grave.

Not if the best that can be argued toward that end is J.P. Moreland's ridiculous The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.

We live for more than 80 or 90 years; we live forever, either with God in Heaven, or separated from God for all eternity. If there is a God, He is certainly more concerned about our eternal existence than He is about our mortal comfort.

If he was as concerned about our eternal well-being as you say, he'd likely be doing ALL that he could to save us, not just the minimal bit he says is sufficient to compel faith.  When our kids are drowning, we don't do what we think is minimally sufficient to save them, we do all that we can until we either save them, or find that our best efforts weren't good enough.  I don't ask you whether God thinks He's done what is "sufficient" to make the gospel believable.  I ask you whether God is doing his "best" to make the gospel believable.  Could God have provided more convincing evidence than what 2,000 years of church history gave us?  He apparently doesn't mind violating freewill, how blown away do you suppose the Israelites were when they saw the wall of water on either side as they passed through the parted Red Sea?  God is NOT doing his "best" to convince unbelievers, hence, he is less concerned with saving unbelievers than you say.   And quit pretending that your view is "the" Christian view.  5-Point Calvinists quickly insist that God never wished to save those who end up in hell.

His plans are grander than our plans. His eternal desires are greater than our mortal desires.

They are also occassionally errant, Genesis 6:6-7, and the "anthropomorphism" interpretation cannot be sustained by anything in the grammar, immediate context, or larger context, hence such interpretation is likely false.

 If there is a God, He is more concerned about saving us for eternity than He is about making our mortal lives safe.

Spiritually alive Christians known as Calvinists refuse to classify all unbelievers as loved by God, the way you do.  Don't expect spiritually dead atheists to correctly figure out which of you got it right.

  Christians understand that there have been times in the history of humanity when God’s chosen people (those who placed their trust in Him) were in great eternal spiritual jeopardy from those who surrounded them. God understood the risk as the Great Physician and often prescribed drastic action to cut off the threat.

He could have used his telepathic tractor beam powers and stirred the hearts of whoever he wished away from whatever sinful goal they were trying to achieve.  God has that kind of power according to Ezekiel 38:4.

God had the authority as the Great Artist to destroy what was His in the first place,

And as noted before, if you employ your "right" to destroy your stuff too many times, most people will conclude, with rational justification, that you have mental problems.  So god's having the "right" to destroy his people, doesn't insulate him from a justified charge of being the sadistic lunatic he is.  Deut. 28:63 

and He also had the wisdom and compassion as the Great Savior to do what was necessary to protect the eternal spiritual life of His creation.

Then he failed, since he could very easily have made the gospel far more believable in past centuries, to those who rejected it and apparently went to hell, and he could have achieved that goal without violating their freewill...unless you think a jury's freewill is violated when the prosecutor's evidence is absolutely unassailable?

If God failed to act in these situations, we would hardly call him all-powerful and all-loving.

There's plenty of biblical passages that cannot be reconciled with the others that teach God is all-powerful and all-loving.  God can defeat wooden chariots but not iron chariots in Judges 1:19 (inerrantists are forced to read their speculations into the text in order to "reconcile" this with other bible passages nabout God's omnipotence, and yet you shall not add to his word, Proverbs 30:6.  And I don't care what you say, burning your daughter alive because she had premarital sex (Lev. 21:9), or putting children to death by burning because they helped their father steal a wedge of gold (Joshua 7:15) has about as much chance of being reconciled with any rational understanding of love, as beating them to death does.

Cold Case Christianity: Why Would a Good God Allow So Much “Christian” Evil?

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

Why Would a Good God Allow So Much “Christian” Evil?

Posted: 14 Jun 2017 06:00 AM PDT

 Whenever I start writing about morality or the existence of evil, I almost always get an email (or two) from people who point to the historic actions of alleged “Christians”. For many skeptics, Christianity is the source of much evil in the past (i.e. the Crusades and the Inquisition). For this reason, some skeptics point to “Christian” evil as evidence against the existence of a good Christian God.

That's about as fallacious as saying the evil of the Nazis argues Hitler didn't exist.

While history may include examples of “Christian” groups committing evil upon those with whom they disagreed, a fair examination will also reveal Christians were not alone in this sort of behavior.

That's right, using religion to violently promote causes is a brain fart that infects all religions, Christianity included.

Groups holding virtually every worldview, from theists to atheists, have been mutually guilty of evil behavior. Atheists point to the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition when making a case against Christians, theists point to the atheistic regimes of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung when making a case against atheists. Death statistics are often debated in an effort to argue which groups were more violent, but all this seems to miss the point. The common denominator in these violent human groups was not worldview; it was the presence of humans.

It is also illogical.  How many people Christians killed not only cannot be used to falsify Christianity, but according to the bible, it remains a valid possibility that God inspired the Inquisition and the Crusades.  Those who think their NT god of love would never do such at thing, apparently never read Deuteronomy 28:15-63.

History has demonstrated a human predisposition toward violence.

And Jesus is no exception:

 12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. (Matt. 21:12 NAU)

(Wallace continues:)  Regardless of worldview, humans will try to find a way to justify their evil actions.

And the biblical authors were no exception, who think "shut up" is the best answer to the problem of God causing evil:

 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
 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? (Rom. 9:18-20 NAU)

(Wallace continues:)  The question is not which group is more violent but which worldview most authorizes and accommodates this violence.

Then the Christian theistic view wins, since it's pretty hard to find a stronger authorization for evil, than God's admitted "delight" in watching those who disobey him, raping each other and eating their own kids:

  30 "You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.
 53 "Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you.
  63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from th (Deut. 28:30-63 NAU)

 If that's mere "Semitic exaggeration", and you don't have solid criteria for deciding what impreccatory language in the bible is literal and which is exaggeration, you open Pandora's Box:  why isn't it mere "Semitic exaggeration" also when biblical authors talk about hell or hell fire or eternal conscious suffering in the afterworld? 

Christians who commit horrific evil toward other humans actually have to act in opposition to the teaching of their Master, Jesus Christ. The Gospels repeatedly demonstrate that Jesus came to “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79), and Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies (Matthew 5:44). Christians who have committed atrocities over the ages have had to do so in rebellion; they ignored or were ignorant of the teachings of Jesus.

You completely ignore the well-known divine atrocities of the OT, such as God's command that babies should be slaughtered and pregnant women should be forced to endure abortion by sword or "ripped up"

NAU  1 Samuel 15:1 Then Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD.
 2 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.
 3 'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" (1 Sam. 15:1-3 NAU)

 16 Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open. (Hos. 13:16 NAU)

 Copan and Flannagan, of course, say this is typical exaggeration language because the pagan nations in those days also exaggerated their divine threats and war victories.  Although I've written a strong unpublished rebuttal to this nonsense, the strongest rebuttal is the fact that we also believe a person can be guilty for allowing that which they know to be evil.  If you see a man raping your daughter, and it can be proven in court that all you did was stand there and watch, with no evidence the rapist was a danger to you or had threatened you, you become responsible for ALLOWING despite the fact that you didn't CAUSE.

As Copan and Flannagan well know, God "allows" the worst imaginable evils to take place daily in this world.  No, the "God gave us freewill" excuse doesn't work, because that doesn't get god off the hook any more than it would the owner of a dog, known to be violent, who chooses to unleash the dog and let it run loose anyway.  The owner didn't CAUSE, but the owner did ALLOW, and we still say failure to restrain dogs who bite others, makes the owner liable.  The point is that if God knew we'd do all this evil after he gave us freewill, God is not in a different moral position than the pit-bull owner who gives his dog freedom despite knowing the damage the dog will do.

So if our ALLOWING evil is not morally distinguishable from our CAUSING it, then there is no rational reason to think the matter is different with God, in which case, the undeniable fact that God ALLOWS evil, as Copan and Flannagan must admit, operates to make God just as culpable as if he had CAUSED said evil.

Indeed, what fool would say there's a moral difference between a Hitler who allows his nazis to gas Jews to death, and the Hitler who actually orders such death?  Not much!

But in an atheistic worldview (where humans are not specially designed in the image of God), there is little or no reason why any of us should feel compelled to treat other people with the respect that Jesus taught his followers to have for their enemies.

That is stupid, we are social animals, we recognize there's safety in numbers, so it only makes perfectly good sense under completely naturalistic reasoning to band together, elect leaders, vote laws over us to keep the peace, etc, so as to further promote flourishing.  Since we are civilized, that's the way we get things done, even if in nature there are less civilized life forms that get things done more barbarically.  We can obtain all the moral justification we need for our moral outlook by simply saying we were born and raised to think and act like this.  If a terrorist from another country comes to us and does criminal acts under our laws, we prosecute him because we think we are "better", but because we recognize that we need to do this in order to continue achieving our naturalistic goal of keeping the peace.  Although some atheists believe in objective morality, I don't.  The Christians are correct:  if atheism is true, then there's not going to be any objective way to prove that life in 1950's America was "better" than life under Stalin.

If the world is simply filled with species and groups competing for the same resources, and if history belongs to those species and groups who are best suited for survival and reproduction, why should we be concerned with those groups who are not “fit” enough to survive?

It is sufficient to argue that being social animals logically compels us not to just toss the sick to the side of the road and move on.  That is, we show compassion for the purely naturalistic reason that we all desire to live and flourish.  We don't need to prove that view better than the view of a psycho who wants to nuke everybody, before we can have rational justification to see things that way.

History is filled with examples of one population group replacing another in the natural struggle for resources. If atheism is true, and survival and reproduction are the only true concerns, then the struggle for resources authorizes and justifies human violence.

But we are social animals, so it's only natural that we don't automatically wish to war with each other just to weed out the weak.   

Unlike Christians, atheists can commit genocide without ignoring their worldview; atheists have the freedom to eliminate competing groups as a faithful expression of their worldview.

Indeed, America's compassion for the poor has shown the ugly consequence...the poor and degenerates and mentally ill have increased in number.  Evolution is not perfect, and we apparently evolved to have a bit more compassion than is consistent for the long-term good.  Providing for safe needle-exchange, and free STD testing, does little more than help the freeloaders flourish.  We've already decided to limit welfare more than we ever did in its' history, so apparently we are starting to discover that we need to make and enforce decisions that prioritize long-term good of the nation, over the short-term relief of suffering for individuals.  I hope we turn further and further toward meritocracy.  

God has given us the freedom to follow our own nature or to follow the teaching of Jesus.

And there you go again, talking in complete defiance of your Calvinist Christian brothers.  We can rationally dismiss your argument here until you first show the world that you and Calvinists have resolved your differences of opinion over the bible's teaching about human freewill.

Christians who have committed atrocities over the ages have simply submitted to their natural inclination rather than to the foundational teaching of the Christian Worldview:

Matthew 7:24-26

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

Not everyone who calls himself a Christian is listening to the words of Christ (Matthew 7:21). Those of us who have identified ourselves as Christians, yet have perpetrated evil, are willfully resisting or rejecting the words of Jesus.

 But Jesus overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the OT god's atrocities are too well known from Deut. 28:15 ff to need repeating here.  Your idea that the true Christian of modern times is one who doesn't commit "atrocities" simply denies large sections of the bible.

Cold Case Christianity: Why would a Good God allow Natural Evil?

This is in reply to a post from J. Warner Wallace, entitled

Why Would a Good God Allow Natural Evil?  

Posted: 12 Jun 2017 04:20 AM PDT  251

As a police officer and homicide detective, I’ve seen my fair share of injustice and hardship.

 But because the bible says God takes personal responsibility for murder (Deut. 32:39) and causes other horrific atrocities such as rape and kidnapping (Deut. 28:15-63), you overlook the grim biblical possibility that what you call "injustice" is the work of God, in which case logically you are accusing God of injustice.

 Every time I’m asked to defend the existence of God in light of the evil we observe in our world, I take a deep breath and try to separate the emotional nature of this issue from the rational explanations I might offer.

 Then you aren't very godly.  God "delights" to inflict horrific suffering on people, such as rape (Deut. 28:30, 63) so if God delights to see men rape women (v. 30), you cannot possibly go wrong in sharing God's same attitude.

 I recognize the impotence of my rational response when trying to address to the emotional pain people experience when they suffer evil.

 Be careful that you don't automatically classify rape and parental cannibalism of children as evil, otherwise, you will be saying that God is the author of evil, since Deut. 28:15-16, 30, 53, asserts that God causes people to do those things.

At the same time, I think it’s important for us explore reasonable explanations. Natural evil is perhaps the most difficult category of evil we, as Christians, can address. It’s one thing to explain the presence of moral evil in our world (the evil actions of humans);

Correction, according to Deut. 28, supra, the man who rapes a woman just might have been caused by God to do it, you don't know, but the point is that you cannot dismiss that possibility.  You'd have been more accurate to expand your definition of moral evil from "evil actions of humans" to "evil actions of humans that God sometimes causes them to do".

it’s another to explain the existence of natural evil (earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters).  If an all-powerful and all-loving God exists, why does He permit natural evil?

And how much time should we devote to that question, if it can be shown that God doesn't likely exist? 

If God exists, it is certainly within His power to prevent such things.

No, God was incapable of overcoming certain armies because they had chariots of iron:

 19 Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots. (Jdg. 1:19 NAU)

Inerrantist scholars cannot resolve this contradiction with God's omnipotence, without inventing additional material neither expressed nor implied in the story:

In our text (v. 18a) the narrator explicitly attributes Judah’s successes in the hill country not to equivalent military power but to the presence of Yahweh. Then why could they not take the lowland? Why is Yahweh’s presence canceled by superior military technology? The narrator does not say, but presumably the Judahites experienced a failure of nerve at this point, or they were satisfied with their past achievements.

Block, D. I. (2001, c1999). Vol. 6: Judges, Ruth (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 100). 

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Most scholars think Mark was the earliest gospel, and if so, then Jesus "could" not perform miracles in the presence of unbelief:

 4 Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household."
 5 And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
 6 And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching. (Mk. 6:4-6 NAU)

Most scholars think Matthew borrowed much gospel text from Mark.  If that is true, then because Matthew changes the "could not" to a "did not", and changing Mark's "no miracle" to "not many miracles" it is reasonable to infer that the Matthew-author thought Mark's phrase could be reasonably interpreted to mean that God's power was something less than absolute:

 57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household."
 58 And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matt. 13:57-58 NAU)

(Wallace continues)  :Why wouldn’t He?  The problem of natural evil is irreconcilable unless there are necessary or good reasons for God to permit such evil.

 There aren't.  God created a perfect Eden and populated it with Adam and Eve.  If God never allowed the serpent into the garden, it is not likely the first two humans would have done anything more than remain the blissfully ignorant children they were.  And again, we need not entertain the question of natural evil too long, if a case can be made that it is unlikely that a god exists.

If God exists, it is reasonable to believe that He would design a world in which free agency is possible (this is a necessity for true love to be achievable).

You are dismissed.  5-Point Calvinists are Christians, and they deny that human beings have "free agency" the way you define it, and yet you talk as if "free agency" is a presupposition you can safely assume any reader would agree with you on.  Nope.  Atheists are not morally obligated to take sides in that in-house Christian debate.  If spiritually alive people cannot even figure out freewill, you are irrational to expect spiritually dead people to do better on the subject.

In order to understand why God might allow natural evil, we have to do our best to examine the nature of the world around us, the nature of humans and the desires of God: 
Some “Natural Evil” May Be the Result of Necessity
God may tolerate some natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of a free natural process that makes it possible for freewill creatures to thrive.

Again, your Calvinist brothers and sisters think such talk is theological heresy, you can hardly expect atheists to take side in that in-house Christian debate.  The more you depend on the "freewill" angle, the more justification you give atheists to dismiss your argument.  Atheists are smart to insist that they won't be getting involved in such debate unless Christians all agree on how the bible defines "freewill", since if we are going to convert on the basis of apologetics arguments, it's only common sense that we first make sure those arguments are biblically justified.

Scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne suggests that God has created a universe with particular natural laws that make life on earth possible so that humans with free will can exist in the first place. As an example, the same weather systems that create tornadoes that kill humans also create thunderstorms that provide our environment with the water needed for human existence.

But that's like saying that because daddy has a gun that can kill game for us to eat, it is a necessary evil that he also use it to kill innocent people.   In Deut. 32:39, god credits himself with causing all murders and death, so God's creation of stormy weather systems isn't the issue, we've discovered that the problem is god himself and his "delight" to cause parents who disobey him to eat their own kids (Deut. 28:63).

The same plate tectonics that kill humans (in earthquakes) are necessary for regulation of soils and surface temperatures needed for human existence.

Naw, your god is omnipotent, remember?  God can cause an earthquake while also protecting children from being killed by it, so again, the problem is not earthquakes, but god himself.  Or maybe you deny that God is all-powerful?  If so, you probably account for the omnipotence-passages in the bible by saying they are a case of typical Semitic exaggeration, which is probably correct.  In that case, I'd like to know why you don't think that view opens Pandora's Box:  I wonder how many other theologically important statements in the bible are in reality nothing more significant than typical Semitic exaggerations?  When Isaiah strongly argues for absolute monotheism (44:6), is this literally true, or just Isaiah employing typical Semitic exaggeration?

  Some “Natural Evil” May Be the Result of the Nature of Free Agency
God may also tolerate some natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of human free agency. Humans often rebuild along earthquake fault lines and known hurricane pathways, and they frequently cut corners on building guidelines in order to save money. Much of this activity results in the catastrophic loss that we see in times of ‘natural’ disaster. There are times when ‘natural’ evil is either caused or aggravated by free human choices. 

Atheists are perfectly rational to rebut you with your 5-Point Calvinist Christian sisters who insist that human freewill cannot be significant because it is God who causes people to choose they way they choose, and therefore, the problem of evil is with God himself.  If your Calvinists insist that the bible doesn't teach that humans genuinely contribute, but only react like puppets, atheists have perfect rational justification to dismiss your argument and insist God's like-minded ones get their act together first.  Otherwise, you are expecting spiritually dead atheists to correctly figure out which of the two contradictory theological systems (Calvinism, non-Calvinism) are biblically correct, and that's foolish.

Some “Natural Evil” May Be the Result of God’s Nudging
God may permit some natural evil because it challenges people to think about God for the first time.

If true then God is stupid, since all through the bible he not only "stirs the heart" of various people to successfully motivate them to do what he wants: 

1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: (Ezr. 1:1 NAU) 

but God also sometimes forces unbelievers to sin, and then punishes them for it:

  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)

 16 and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog." (Ezek. 38:16 NAU)

 21 "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother. (Ezek. 38:21 NAU)

1 "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal;
 2 and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel. (Ezek. 39:1-2 NAU)

Does literally control people like this?  Or is this semitic exaggeration?  If Semitic exaggeration, then what criteria do you use to decide when a theologically important passage in the bible is mere exaggeration?

For many people, the first prayers or thoughts of God came as the result of some tragedy.

Which doesn't count for much, since your all-powerful God can cause people to yearn for him simply by waving his magic wand:

 14 A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. (Acts 16:14 NAU)

(Wallace continues:) When our present lives are in jeopardy or in question, we find ourselves thinking about the possibility of a future life. If an eternal future life is a reality, God may use the temporary suffering of this life to focus our thoughts and desires on eternity. 

Which makes God stupid and wasteful since according to Ezekiel he can cause us to think whatever thoughts he wants us to think.  If God wants me to prioritize the spiritual side of my life, he doesn't need to step out of the way and allow me to endure horrific catastrophes, he can simply put those motives into my heart the way he allegedly did similarly to other people all through the bible.  

Some “Natural Evil” May Be the Result of God’s Nurturing
God may permit some natural evil because it provides humans with the motivation and opportunity to develop Godly character.

Which is counterbalanced by the obvious fact that half the people who experience evil don't turn to god, but become more closed to the idea that any god exists.  Again, if God would just wave his magic wand and use his telepathy on us today like he allegedly did in bible times, he would need to allow a little girl to be raped just to get her to sympathize in adulthood with other rape victims...he can cause her to sympathize with such people by putting such motives into her heart directly.

You need to be careful with the argument that says good comes out of evil.  yeah, sometimes it does, but the means don't always justify the ends.  We could fix a lot of problems by nuking America's ghettos too.  But if you think the resulting benefit didn't cancel the fact that this was murder, then you might wish to stop telling yourself that God is morally justified because his purpose is good.  The ends don't justify the means...do they?

Or are you a Republican?

A world such as this requires human beings to cooperate and peacefully co-exist in order to successfully respond to its challenges.

That preaches nice, but it is also true, according to your bible, that for thousands of years, the earth and God were doing just fine while this place was little more than a battle field where competing tribes killed each other and whoever won, was considered to be in the right.

The best in humanity often emerges as people respond in love and compassion to natural disaster.

Which makes sense from a naturalistic point of view, but creates unending problems from a classical Christian theist point of view such as yours.

It’s in the context of disaster that moral character has the opportunity to form and develop. Good character (acts of love, compassion and cooperation) must be freely chosen. God has provided us with a world that provokes us to improve our situation, care for those who are in need, and become better human beings in the process.  There are a number of ‘necessary’ or ‘sufficient’ reasons why God might create a world in which natural evil is occasionally permissible, particularly if God chooses to provide, protect and preserve the freewill of His children.

Your Calvinist brothers are as spiritually alive as you, and they deny that we have freewill.  You are a fool to expect spiritually dead atheists to figure out which interpretation of scripture is the right one.