Another response to Wellspring

It seems David Rietveld penned a reply to my commentary on his “Victorian Bushfires” post. It has taken me sometime, but here is my reply:

Re wellspring of fallacies

An unnamed critique of my ‘blog’ re the Victorian bushfires appears on a website entitled “Godless business: believe us or go to hell”. Thanks for the comments, genuinely. We are all looking for the simple clarity on the other side of this complex issue, and dialogue is part of the way forward.

You are welcome for the commentary. I too think these are important issues that need to be discussed and brought to their logical conclusion. I believe our future hinges on making decisions based on real data to solve real problems. What we really to determine is the authenticity of the claims you and other speakers of religion around the world make. I believe any descent position can withstand any criticism or critical analysis.

For the record; while I may not overtly advertise my identity on the internet. My name is Andrew Skegg and I am freely contactable. Indeed, I am a native Tasmanian and am open to face to face meetings should we decide, once I return home after completing a work contract here in New South Wales.

Let me respond to the critique. My initial comment was that I was a believer in a sovereign benevolent God who was trying to understand the Victorian bushfires from a Christian worldview. The critique says:

If there was an all powerful being looking out for his followers we might expect to see a greater ratio of the faithful making it to safety, verses those who “choose” to reject his undying love. This data is almost certainly unobtainable, but on the surface it appears the fires trapped and killed people indiscriminately.

I agree – the fires killed indiscriminately. In fact I made that very point. What conclusion can one draw from indiscriminate bushfires? I suggest it is that God did cause them so as to incinerate his enemies.

This is a reasonable conclusion. God could easily destroy his enemies through the use of targeted heart attacks or strokes. In fact, he is really not limited to natural means of wiping people out and a quick read of the Old Testament can, well, testify to this.

People died and or lost property who were adherents to all faiths. I do not understand the suggestion that evidence of less Christian dying would be proof of a ‘god’.

The salvation of sufficient numbers of Christians above those of other cults in proportion to the general population of the area would be statistically relevant evidence of the Christian GOd.

Christians need not fear death, and do not see it as the end. Jesus did not resist those who killed him. St Paul says that to die is to gain, and that death has lost its sting.

Indeed. This is one of the primary tools many religions use to take the fear out of death. We all wonder what happens after we die. We are afraid of our own mortality. Some cling to hopes of reincarnation to ward of the grim reaper. Other believe they are going to another plane of existence to live forever with their all loving creator. Other still believe death merely marks the point in time the wondrously complex biological machinery of your body finally break down and ceases to function at all.

Not all of these claims can be true, so the trick is to determine which of them (if any) are the truth. How might we go about determining such a thing?

Of course those Christians still alive who lost loved ones in the fires may well be sad, even angry at God at present. Understandably so. But Christians are not expecting vindication or ultimate blessing or justice to be dispensed in its entirety in this life. On the contrary, Jesus says following him involved taking a cross and suffering in his name.

In my initial blog I also suggested that because of the incarnation (that is Jesus becoming human and experiencing and human life with all its failings) that we have a God who can sympathise with us.

He could use his omniscience to see this?

Further, I said this is a great distinctive of the Christian faith. The response was:

However, to claim that this is a singular Christian trait is highly offensive to anyone of any other faith, or indeed those of no faith at all. Just because I do not believe in a great and all powerful spy camera in the sky does not mean I have no empathy for others – quite the contrary.

I did not claim only Christians are empathetic. On the contrary. In fact I said all people, Christians and believers of other faiths, could love, care and forgive.

Does your statement extend to those who have no faith?

In the Christian worlds view we believe all of humanity is made in a God’s image. Thus all have some capacity to reflect God’s character.

Humanity is capable of some horrendous things – how do we determine which actions are reflections of God and which are not? A quick read of the Old Testament seems to show a God capable of terrible atrocities, so I think I am justified in stating that similar actions performed by Christian are also reflections of God’s character.

The point I was making is this: that of all the world’s faiths, and that would include atheism, only the Christian faith has a God who becomes man and dwells with us. Therefore the Christian God can understand, can appreciate what we are going through like no other god. I can understand that the comparative nature of this statement may offend some. Personally, in times of great trial, I find the knowledge of God who has experienced my world first hand incredibly comforting.

Atheism is not a faith – it is the lack of religious faith.

Many other religions claim their God’s have descended to Earth and taken on human form. This characteristic is not limited tot he Christian faith.

In the next section the critique asks some really vital questions. Regarding why God burnt Sodom and Gomorrah and its residents and surrounding farmlands. He or she writes:

Why doesn’t God take the high road and guide his precious children back into the light? Why does he need to destroy the city now – what’s the rush for a being who lives outside of space and time? Why was God really keen to rush those people into Hell to begin their ever lasting suffering that day? How do you reconcile this behaviour with the notion of an all loving God?

I guess the underlying question here is what is the high road? Is the high road for God to guide everyone back into the light? And what if they don’t want to walk down that road? Does he force them? And if people are unwilling to respond to God, and they continue to live in ways that will harm others, as did the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, should God just wait and wait to give them more time? What about others who might be hurt in the mean time? There are huge dilemmas in seeking to address this question within the framework suggested.

Now I don’t have all the answers either. I will only make the following comments. The Christian God is not a rapist. He does not force all people to love and obey him. The Christian God exercises a great deal of self limitation, so as to give us space to respond to him.

At times the Christian God seem to exercise so much restraint it’s like he didn’t exist at all.

In fact he even makes himself vulnerable in the form of a babe, and the father allows his son to be crucified.

This is love? I would die to prevent my children from coming to harm, but I would not send one away for crucifixion to save the others. If I were an all powerful, all knowing God I surely must be able to come up with a better solution than this.

Part of God’s self limitation is that he allows us to mess up his world

Nice. He loves us so much he allows us to choose suffering in this life, and continues this for eternity if we do not meet his expectations. This is not a loving father, it’s a sadomasochistic master whom we would lock in prison if he were a real person.

He doesn’t rush in and fix everything up. He allows us to experience the consequences of our decisions. Further, the Christian God is portrayed and is to be understood as both loving and just. Not an all loving Santa Claus, nor the judgmental heavenly policeman. Both loving and justice, seen in the person and life of Christ.

Despite suggestions to the contrary, this is a point I make in my article when I say our sense of justice is also a reflection of God’s character. But anyway, the value of conversation is not to defend oneself but to further understanding. This critique takes us, most helpfully to a fundamental question. How does sin or evil or whatever you wish to call it come into our world? Clearly its there, the bushfires remind us of that. If I have understood the tenor of the critique, her/his thinking is that one cannot have a perfect loving God who has ‘created’ (in the broadest sense of the word) a world which is now broken. Even if we can agree it was humanity’s mistake, God still made us – did he not?

We brought this on ourselves due to the choices we made, so God is in the clear. Or his he?

Surely if God made us perfect, then it must have been impossible for us to sin against him (unless this is an attribute of being perfect). Given that (according to the convoluted story) Eve sinned then tricked Adam thus condemning all their descendants for all time, it becomes clear that sin IS an attribute of perfection. This certainly rings true if you read what God got up to in the Old Testament.

Of course I am being flippant – it was our choice (well, Eve’s really) and God has nothing to do with it – right? Answer me this – why can’t your God predict the results of giving us free will?

These are profound questions, and entirely worthy of our consideration. Let’s unpack the issues at stake. God chose to make humanity, according to the Bible, with the ability to be or not to be in relationship with him. Adam and Eve could maintain or to break relationship with God. Whether or not one believes in a literal Adam or Eve does not alter this point. Was it possible for God to make perfectly obedient humans who retain the ability to choose? Logic and biblical narrative suggests not.

Then what exactly makes God all powerful? We have just discovered someone he cannot achieve – making perfectly obedient humans who retain the ability to choose. These contradictory conundrums must keep you awake at night.

And if God genuinely gives humanity the ability to chose, it is appropriate for him to make a world where there are no negative consequences for wrong choices? I struggle to see such a world.

The question is my mind is this; if you are going to create children in order to love them, then why not create a world where they will be happy? Why not construct a reality where every choice leads to bliss and pleasure? Surely this is possible? Surely (as an loving father) this is what he wants for his children? I am a father, and it’s certainly what I want for my children – I guess I don’t have the same kind of love for them as God has for us.

What about a God who predicts the consequences of human freedom? As I read the Scriptures God knew what would be the consequences of human freewill. And yet he still made us.

Does that not make him evil? Does that not also require God to have created evil?

The “good book” helps us out here:

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” – Isaiah 45:7

Continuing…

To draw an analogy, and clearly I am not God, my wife and I have chosen to have children. Did we foresee that at times they would anger us, offend us, cost us, and hurt us to the point where on occasion we might think even for a moment it might be better if we had not had them? Yes, we foresaw all that, even if only in shadows. And God can foresee the future in more detail than us. But we still chose to have children. Why? Because we will love them, and we hope they will love us. Of course there are differences with God, but the point remains, God made us to be in relationship with him. He hasn’t given up on us because we reject him. On the contrary, he gives us his son as a resolution to our rejection. That is the extent of his commitment to us.

I see this argument a lot. Once question; if you could foresee with perfect clarity that one of your children will be born with a horrific disease which caused tremendous pain for his entire life, would you still go ahead and have that child? God made that decision for us and we can see the results. Millions of children around the world are born with horrible disfigurements and diseases. Many live in squalor for their entire miserable short lives and die on garbage heaps scratching out a meagre existence. God foresaw this when he created the universe and did not think to fix it. Any being capable of such an act does not deserve my respect, let alone my adoration and worship.

And God doesn’t force all to believe in his son either. But like all actions, there are consequences for believing and for not believing in his son.

Believe me, or go to hell. Some choice.