Caricature? Yes!

[Hee_Zen]

By -your- standard of justice, which you cannot offer any evidence for beyond emotional assertions.

Nope, by everyone’s standard of justice. Even the believers accept that justice means to give everyone his “due”.

If you read the actual account, you would have noticed that there was no innocence left in the world when God sent the flood.

Oh, those “evil” newborns!

We do not appease God to avoid his wrath, at least not most of us.

That is not the point. You asserted that the reason for the suffering is our “rejection” of God. At the very least the believers “embrace” God, and do not “reject” God and they suffer just as much as everyone else.

As for the issue of rejection, we believe that God has made himself known through His creation, and that anyone can find him if they genuinely search.

That is your belief, without any supporting evidence.

Once again, without any clearer way to state it, I tell you that GOD IS NOT HUMAN

The problem is not that God is not “human”, but that he is “inhumane”.

I still strongly encourage you to read “The Problem of Pain,” it delves into this issue in great detail.

I already looked at it, and even the most favorable reviews (giving 5 stars) admit that it is useless as an apologetic book. Actually, it is nothing but a rehashing of the “free will” defense.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Nope, by everyone’s standard of justice. Even the believers accept that justice means to give everyone his “due”.

What, precisely, is the “due” owed everyone? How is that determined?

If God creates everything and everyone from nothing, then presumably everything we have and are is not owed to us by God since we are nothing except what God made us to be. We are nothing, in and of ourselves, therefore we are owed nothing by God.

That may appear to be a bitter pill to swallow, but far from it, in fact.

What it means is that our determinable worth is not dependent upon ourselves, on our nothingness, but on the eternal Ipsum Esse Subsistens of God (Being Itself.)

 

[Gorgias]

You are welcome to give a correction. Go through the 12 arguments, and tell, which ones are not actually uttered by some (even many) apologists. I already asked you to do this, but you declined.

Right; because the premise is flawed.

After all… if I came to you on a football field, wearing hockey equipment and asking you to critique my skills as a field-goal kicker, would you do so, or refuse, since I was so clearly ill-equipped for the intended event?

This caricature is simply juvenile and stupid.

And there you’ve hit upon our critique of the caricature you’ve presented for our consideration. So kind of you to recognize why we’re not jumping at the bait…

 

[Hee_Zen]

Right; because the premise is flawed.

What premise?

It is just a list of the most frequent attempts to explain away the non-action of God considering the obvious pain and suffering experienced in the world.

I looked at the caricature presented about atheists, and gave a **detailed critique **of the errors presented. You are unable/unwilling to reciprocate this courtesy. The “excuse” that the premise is flawed is not even an empty excuse.

 

[Gorgias]

What premise?

I, and at least one other poster, have explained it already. But, if you missed it, here it is again: the premise of the “12 officers” story is that the reaction of a police officer witnessing a crime is equivalent to God’s reaction to events in our world. It isn’t, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the premise fails. And, since the premise is flawed, it’s absurd to debate the assertions that are made within its context.

It is just a list of the most frequent attempts to explain away the non-action of God considering the obvious pain and suffering experienced in the world.

Yes, but the ‘caricature’ relies on an analogy that’s flawed. Provide a better analogy, and perhaps there might be value in responding. Insist on sticking with the present flawed analogy, though… and you might consider not getting too worked up that we aren’t gonna bite.

I looked at the caricature presented about atheists, and gave a **detailed critique **of the errors presented.

Umm… your ‘detailed critique’ boils down to your assertion that it is juvenile and offensive.

You are unable/unwilling to reciprocate this courtesy.

No; you are unable/unwilling to acknowledge that we’ve done precisely that.

The “excuse” that the premise is flawed is not even an empty excuse.

You’re correct: it’s not an empty excuse – it’s a rational response.

 

[Hee_Zen]

I, and at least one other poster, have explained it already. But, if you missed it, here it is again: the premise of the “12 officers” story is that the reaction of a police officer witnessing a crime is equivalent to God’s reaction to events in our world. It isn’t, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the premise fails. And, since the premise is flawed, it’s absurd to debate the assertions that are made within its context.

You still misunderstand (on purpose, probably). The “reaction” of God is nonexistent. The “reaction” of the officers is nonexistent. In this respect it is not an analogy, it is an exact equivalence.

The tale enumerates the different “explanations” that the apologists give when confronted by the problem of evil. The “free will” defense, the “there cannot be good without evil”, the “minor pain here pales in contrast to the eternal bliss in heaven”, the “opportunity to grow spiritually”, the “you are just too stupid to understand”… and so on. You may not like the wording the author chose, but the descriptions of the “excuses” are accurate. If you wish to prove that the analogy is “flawed”, you need to show that the author’s words distort the actual arguments beyond recognition. That you did not do, and cannot do. So you try to create a smokescreen by proclaiming: “faulty” - without explaining where the distortion becomes “too large”.

Umm… your ‘detailed critique’ boils down to your assertion that it is juvenile and offensive.

It would be nice if you actually read what I posted. It was a lot more than that. In post #40 I replied:

I am not familiar with any atheists who advocate the usage of guns to slaughter school children. Nor did I find examples of atheists who are “transvestite prostitutes”. Or the ones who habitually shoot up drugs… all these and more are the utterances of SOME (not all!) believers. Satanists? Atheists do not believe in “Satan”. Only believers do.

On the other hand, there atheists who are members of ACLU, and accept that the primates (not “monkeys”) and humans share common ancestors. Nothing wrong with that. Do they have a high school diploma? Many probably do. And so do believers. What of it?

The caricature attributed actions to atheists, which simply are not there (advocating guns to kill schoolchildren - for example). Now that is a “faulty” description. Besides the caricature is not an analogy, it is a brazen distortion of reality.

You’re correct: it’s not an empty excuse – it’s a rational response.

Obviously you needed to leave out the crucial word: “not EVEN an empty excuse”, in order to create a reply which you considered “witty”.

So, follow the steps I took. Show where each of the arguments becomes a “distortion” of what the apologists say. That is the kind of rebuttal I would take seriously.

 

[Gorgias]

You still misunderstand (on purpose, probably). The “reaction” of God is nonexistent. The “reaction” of the officers is nonexistent. In this respect it is not an analogy, it is an exact equivalence.

It would be “an exact equivalence” if the officers’ role and responsibilities vis-a-vis citizens were equivalent to God’s role and responsibilities to humanity. They aren’t equivalent, and that’s why we assert that the comparison is flawed and the value of the analogy is nil.

The tale enumerates the different “explanations” that the apologists give when confronted by the problem of evil. The “free will” defense, the “there cannot be good without evil”, the “minor pain here pales in contrast to the eternal bliss in heaven”, the “opportunity to grow spiritually”, the “you are just too stupid to understand”… and so on.

Yes, that much is plain. But, given that they’re provided in a context that doesn’t reflect the relationship between God and humanity, the ‘excuses’ aren’t illustrative of anything.

If you wish to prove that the analogy is “flawed”, you need to show that the author’s words distort the actual arguments beyond recognition.

No: one may attack an argument either in its assertions or in its very premise. We’re suggesting the latter, and therefore, there’s no need to tear down each assertion: if the premise fails, then the argument fails.

The caricature attributed actions to atheists, which simply are not there (advocating guns to kill schoolchildren - for example). Now that is a “faulty” description.

‘caricature’: remember your discussion of what it is? “A distortion of something, with the intent to enhance the most pertinent features, to make it more readily recognizable.” The pertinent feature being expressed there, I’d assert, is the notion (often expressed by atheists) that there is no objective moral standard that is imposed by God; the implication, then, is that there can be no assertion of actions that are a priori ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ for all persons. The distortion, then, is that things that we’d all consider immoral, can’t be asserted as such (since no objective standard exists); therefore, “shooting schools” isn’t ‘immoral’, per se. In other words, it’s a caricature. You like caricatures, remember?

Besides the caricature is not an analogy, it is a brazen distortion of reality.

Amazing how offended a person gets when a caricature is leveled at him and the causes he holds dear, isn’t it?

So, follow the steps I took. Show where each of the arguments becomes a “distortion” of what the apologists say. That is the kind of rebuttal I would take seriously.

Why is it that a rebuttal of the premise (rather than the individual arguments that the premise props up) isn’t appropriate, to your perspective?

 

[Peter_Plato]

The flip side of the Twelve Officers Parable is the story of the man caught up on the roof of his house during a flood. He prays to God to save him, but each time someone shows up – in a dinghy, in a boat, in a helicopter - the man declines their help insisting that God will save him. After he drowns, he asks God why he didn’t help and God answers that he sent help three times but the man refused the offer each time.

In a very consistent way, the Twelve Officers could be viewed as God providing the woman help (twelve different, competent, responsible and duly warranted police officers) but it was their moral failure – thinking that their ideological conceptions (God) and not their own action should save the woman – that prevented them from doing so.

The parable, at ground, is making the claim that over and above the moral agency of human beings God ought to “fail safe” morality such that no moral failures on the part of human moral agents ought to be permitted by him. That is the hidden premise in the parable – that all moral responsibility should be off-loaded onto God and when moral agents fail, that entails God has failed and so we should hold him accountable.

That premise is, simply speaking, inconsistent with what moral agency is. God’s responsibility vis a vis moral agency is to provide moral agents with the capacity to act which is proportionate to their moral responsibilities. The twelve officers were competent to save the woman and could have acted to save her. They didn’t. The failure was theirs, not God’s.

The parable traffics on the all-too-human notion of excusing our responsibility for our failures in the hopes that some supreme concept of esoteric “justice” will hear our pleas that we small frail humans should not bear the burden of being moral agents – and God should be responsible even when we fail BECAUSE we do fail.

The parable has appeal to moral midgets who recognize their failings but have too much pride to admit the failings are theirs.

There is no moral requirement that says God should have made all humans impeccable and, therefore, he ultimately bears responsibility for our failures. Moral agency only requires that the agents have the capacity to fulfill what is required by the responsibilities of their moral position. To claim that autonomous moral agency must be removed by God – for him to be moral – is to insist that the whole concept of responsible moral agency, itself, is morally flawed.

 

[Hee_Zen]

It would be “an exact equivalence” if the officers’ role and responsibilities vis-a-vis citizens were equivalent to God’s role and responsibilities to humanity. They aren’t equivalent, and that’s why we assert that the comparison is flawed and the value of the analogy is nil.

Ah, so ***that ***is your objection? That God is under no “legal” obligation to interfere, while the officers are? Well, guess what? The officers are “off-duty” so there is no legal obligation for them either. (Moreover, even on-duty officers are not legally obliged to interfere - at least in certain countries. Strange, but true.) Now you may say that the off-duty officers have a “moral” obligation to help, but God has no such obligation. In which case God is immoral by his own standards. The final excuse is that God is the law-giver, so his laws are inapplicable to him. Which boils down to the principle of “might makes right”. You are left without excuse.

But your problems do not stop here. The apologists, whose attempts are depicted in the parable all “admit” that God’s inactions need to be defended. And that is why the different attempts are paraded for inspection. Your defense would qualify as the attempt of the 13th officer: “Hey, who cares? It is not my duty to defend others!”.

No: one may attack an argument either in its assertions or in its very premise. We’re suggesting the latter, and therefore, there’s no need to tear down each assertion: if the premise fails, then the argument fails.

But the premise is sound. The point is that the “off-duty” officers have no obligation to interfere, and according to you, God also has no obligation to do it either. But the lack of obligation does not let the officers “off the hook”. It is plain, common decency to interfere when one can do it without endangering himself. That is why the officers are depicted as “fully armed”. They could interfere without any harm coming to them - just like God could do it. And if it is incorrect for them to let the events unfold, then it is incorrect for God, too. Of course there is one final excuse for God - the lack of caring, the lack of “love”. If God does not care, then there is no obligation to interfere. But this “excuse” is never presented. The apologists try to **reconcile **God’s inaction with God’s alleged “love”. Hence all the attempts depicted in the parable. And the parable shows the inadequacy of those attempts.

So, if you wish to assert that the parable is “incorrect”, you need to go after each and every one of the “defenses”, and show that they are NOT presented by the apologists. Good luck.

‘caricature’: remember your discussion of what it is? “A distortion of something, with the intent to enhance the most pertinent features, to make it more readily recognizable.” The pertinent feature being expressed there, I’d assert, is the notion (often expressed by atheists) that there is no objective moral standard that is imposed by God; the implication, then, is that there can be no assertion of actions that are a priori ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ for all persons.

And herein lies either the dishonesty or the stupidity of the believers. There is no such “implication”. Even if one does not accept that God is the “law-giver”, it does NOT follow that anything goes. Moreover, most of the believers understand and accept that atheists can act in a morally upright fashion. Their foundation is not God’s command, but the fully rational and secular “concept of reciprocity”.

The distortion, then, is that things that we’d all consider immoral, can’t be asserted as such (since no objective standard exists); therefore, “shooting schools” isn’t ‘immoral’, per se.

Yes, objective standards exist (based upon the principle of reciprocity), but they are not “absolute”. In a sense it is sad that there still is a moratorium on discussing atheism. If we could discuss it freely then (maybe, just maybe) your kind of error would disappear. Though I doubt it. It is too deeply ingrained that atheists like to eat babies for breakfast.

In other words, it’s a caricature. You like caricatures, remember?

Yes, I sure do. The more scathing, the better. But at least there needs to be a **kernel **of truth in them.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your defense would qualify as the attempt of the 13th officer: “Hey, who cares? It is not my duty to defend others!”.

The thirteenth was already claimed by you when you absolved the twelve officers of any moral failures because those failures all redound to God.

It isn’t a question of “who cares,” it is a question of subsidiarity – those in the position to act are the ones who SHOULD act. In this case, the twelve officers SHOULD HAVE acted. They didn’t.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, objective standards exist (based upon the principle of reciprocity), but they are not “absolute”. In a sense it is sad that there still is a moratorium on discussing atheism. If we could discuss it freely then (maybe, just maybe) your kind of error would disappear. Though I doubt it. It is too deeply ingrained that atheists like to eat babies for breakfast.

There is no moratorium on discussing ethics or the grounds for ethical beliefs. You are using the ban on atheism to avoid broaching a topic – morality – that could easily be used to turn these claims of yours on their heads. I, for one, would be quite amenable to explore what grounds for moral beliefs you could come up with and how those alleged grounds might sustain claims that morality could be obligatory, how moral priorities would be determined without proper definitions of the “good,” or how morality could exist without a clear grasp of the inherent teleology in things.

I think you are blowing hot air because you know reciprocity is a very weak basis for morality, although it sounds tenable superficially. I’d be happy to address it, though.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Moreover, most of the believers understand and accept that atheists can act in a morally upright fashion.

The real question isn’t whether atheists CAN act in a morally upright fashion, the question is whether atheists can muster any logistically sound reasons FOR acting in a morally upright fashion. THAT is the issue.

Atheists such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin were acting, as consistent with their atheism as the mildest pacifist. That is the problem. There are NO consistent grounds for morality to be found in metaphysical naturalism (AKA atheism.)

Reciprocity stands a snowball’s chance in a volcano of supporting a robust morality. Moral imperatives, to be determinably “moral,” MUST be obligatory and binding on all moral agents. Otherwise, you don’t have morality. There is no way around that. If you don’t have obligation you don’t have morality. FULL END STOP.

Reciprocity, by itself, doesn’t get you there.

 

[Hee_Zen]

So, Gorgias do you have anything else to say? The analogy between God and the officers is more than “similarity”, it is a precise equivalent. That is why all the apologists feel compelled to try to whitewash God’s lack of interference by bringing up all those excuses.

Just like the case of fifth officer, which is a “caricature” of the usual theist reply about the “clay and the pot maker” - you are inferior to God, so you are not in the position to question God… exactly as the fifth officer is depicted. That is why the parable is dismissed as a “mere caricature”… not because it is imprecise, but because it goes for the jugular, and shows how irrational the attempted explanations are.

 

[Gorgias]

Hee_Zen:

So, Gorgias do you have anything else to say?

Sure… but Sundays are kind of busy for Catholics…

Ah, so ***that ***is your objection? That God is under no “legal” obligation to interfere, while the officers are?

No, because that is simply what one of the arguments that the author places in an officer’s mouth is. My objection is that this is a completely “apples and oranges” exercise; the context doesn’t work, so the arguments fail from the gate.

you may say that the off-duty officers have a “moral” obligation to help, but God has no such obligation. In which case God is immoral by his own standards.

You have no obligation financially support children who are not yours. Does that make you immoral for not supporting others’ children? Of course not. It simply means that you have no obligation. (Note that I’m not arguing the merits of this case; just that, even in its own context, it doesn’t work.)

The final excuse is that God is the law-giver, so his laws are inapplicable to him. Which boils down to the principle of “might makes right”.

How would you formulate the meaning of this principle? (Here’s my prediction: you won’t be able to explain it in a way that both implicates God and is a valid formulation. )

But your problems do not stop here. The apologists, whose attempts are depicted in the parable all “admit” that God’s inactions need to be defended.

That’s precisely why the caricature doesn’t work: God’s actions need no defense.

And that is why the different attempts are paraded for inspection. Your defense would qualify as the attempt of the 13th officer: “Hey, who cares? It is not my duty to defend others!”.

Nope; I’m not claiming it isn’t my duty – I’m claiming that the caricature doesn’t rise to the level of requiring a response. If I didn’t feel motivated to defend the faith, I wouldn’t be here, now would I?

But the premise is sound. The point is that the “off-duty” officers have no obligation to interfere, and according to you, God also has no obligation to do it either.

I said that? Please show me where I did.

And if it is incorrect for them to let the events unfold, then it is incorrect for God, too.

I see. So, what you’re arguing is that a moral obligation that applies to an individual applies in all contexts? That assertion fails, massively – and I don’t even have to appeal to God to show that it does. It is immoral for an individual to kill someone else for a crime they assert he committed (it’s called “vigilantism”). Yet, a government may, under certain limited situations, morally utilize capital punishment. QED.

And the parable shows the inadequacy of those attempts.

Because it’s apples and oranges.

So, if you wish to assert that the parable is “incorrect”, you need to go after each and every one of the “defenses”, and show that they are NOT presented by the apologists. Good luck.

No. You would prefer that we do, but since the context is poorly-formed, the arguments are invalid, and require no refutation. Come up with a better analogy, and we’ll respond. Good luck.

And herein lies either the dishonesty or the stupidity of the believers.

Does your 12 officers analogy assert that all officers believe all of the arguments? Or is it simply that there exists an officer who asserts any given argument? By analogy, then, you’re simply asserting that some believers argue each of the arguments.

Same thing here: the caricature doesn’t assert that all atheists believe there’s no such thing as no objective morality… but some do. You, personally, might not, but some do. Therefore, the caricature works.

If we could discuss it freely then (maybe, just maybe) your kind of error would disappear. Though I doubt it. It is too deeply ingrained that atheists like to eat babies for breakfast.

Nah, I don’t believe that; this sort of sweeping generalization is just plain foolish to make. However, a lack of an objective standard of morality is an argument some atheists make. The “killing schoolchildren” example is precisely the kind of hyperbole that caricatures make.

Yes, I sure do. The more scathing, the better. But at least there needs to be a **kernel **of truth in them.

There is: not all atheists believe in the ethic of reciprocity. Take Nietzsche, for example; he found the principle to be the refuge of a weak person.

 

[Hee_Zen]

You have no obligation financially support children who are not yours. Does that make you immoral for not supporting others’ children? Of course not. It simply means that you have no obligation.

If you could support all the children just by “willing” it, without even inconveniencing yourself, then it **would be **despicable not to do it. And if you would assert that you love children, and failed to help them, then you would be called a hypocrite. Just like the officers’ (and God’s) reluctance to interfere, when there is no danger for themselves.

That’s precisely why the caricature doesn’t work: God’s actions need no defense.

That is your opinion. The apologists think otherwise, that is why they spent so much time and effort to come up with the excuses. They realize that God’s alleged “loving” nature needs to be reconciled with the state of affairs we all experience. That is why so much effort has been spent on the “problem of evil” - which is the sharpest thorn in the side of Christianity.

Does your 12 officers analogy assert that all officers believe all of the arguments? Or is it simply that there exists an officer who asserts any given argument? By analogy, then, you’re simply asserting that some believers argue each of the arguments.

That is obvious. They all try to whitewash God, and so far all the excuses presented failed. If at least one of them would be successful, then it would render the “problem of evil” to be solved.

If I didn’t feel motivated to defend the faith, I wouldn’t be here, now would I?

Do you **really **think that your attempt to sweep “the problem of evil” under the rug is the way to defend your faith?

 

[Gorgias]

If you could support all the children just by “willing” it, without even inconveniencing yourself, then it **would be **despicable not to do it. And if you would assert that you love children, and failed to help them, then you would be called a hypocrite. Just like the officers’ (and God’s) reluctance to interfere, when there is no danger for themselves.

Let’s do a thought experiment:

Your child is in distress. You wish the best for them. Are you obligated to do any particular thing, or all things, in response to that distress? Or, rather, are you obligated to do what is, in your best judgment, the best possible response? Moreover, are you ‘immoral’ if you make a different choice as to course of action than others would make?

Do you **really **think that your attempt to sweep “the problem of evil” under the rug is the way to defend your faith?

I’m not trying to “sweep the problem of evil under the rug.” Rather, I’m asserting that this particular attempt to address it is flawed beyond all possibility of usability.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Let’s do a thought experiment:

Your child is in distress. You wish the best for them. Are you obligated to do any particular thing, or all things, in response to that distress? Or, rather, are you obligated to do what is, in your best judgment, the best possible response? Moreover, are you ‘immoral’ if you make a different choice as to course of action than others would make?

Make the experiment specific. As it is, it is too generic to contemplate. The parable speaks about a specific scenario, someone gets raped, tortured and killed. And the reluctance of either a human who could prevent it or God who could also prevent it. That is the bare-bones story. Presumably a human would be held in contempt if he could prevent it, but did not. According to you, God is above reproach, he needs no defense. (Which is exactly what the fifth officer says - with somewhat different words, admittedly.)

I’m not trying to “sweep the problem of evil under the rug.” Rather, I’m asserting that this particular attempt to address it is flawed beyond all possibility of usability.

That is just a cop-out. When you said that God’s actions need no defense, you rendered the whole “problem of evil” null and void.

 

[Gorgias]

Make the experiment specific. As it is, it is too generic to contemplate.

whatever.

OK: you’re teaching your child to ride a bike. You know that, in the process of learning, he’ll fall, and get scraped up. You’re able to prevent him from falling. Are you acting immorally if you let him fall, in the process of learning to ride a bike?

(Note that I’m not rehashing one of the officers’ arguments; rather, I’m refuting your assertion about action vis-a-vis immorality.)

According to you, God is above reproach, he needs no defense. (Which is exactly what the fifth officer says - with somewhat different words, admittedly.)

No – the objection of the fifth officer is that you couldn’t possibly understand the defense.

That is just a cop-out. When you said that God’s actions need no defense, you rendered the whole “problem of evil” null and void.

Says you. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to understand God; just that we don’t need to defend Him.

 

[Hee_Zen]

OK: you’re teaching your child to ride a bike. You know that, in the process of learning, he’ll fall, and get scraped up. You’re able to prevent him from falling. Are you acting immorally if you let him fall, in the process of learning to ride a bike?

Now maybe you will say that I am moral relativist, who believes in situational ethics, and you would be right. But I maintain that your parable is incorrect, because the difference between scraping one’s knee and being raped, tortured and killed is simply too large to try to make a case for some “equivalence”.

But I will bite. If you had the power to give perfect sense of balance to your child, then the intervention to prevent the falling is an inferior method. (You know the old adage: don’t give a hungry person a fish… teach him to fish and he will never be hungry again. In other words, don’t choose the quick and dirty intervention, work for the long haul.)

But your little parable is just a rehashing of the second officer’s excuse: “If I were to intervene all the time like I was just about to, then no one would ever be able to exercise such a virtue. In fact, everyone would probably become very spoiled and self-centered if I were to prevent every act of rape and murder.”

Nevertheless, my answer is simple: If the best I could do is interfere and prevent SOME events, then I would jump and prevent FATAL events, and allowed the minor, insignificant ones to happen.

Of course there was no need for another thought experiment. The sad reality is that rape, torture and murder are not farfetched, hypothetical scenarios, they happen every day. They are the ones that need to be examined.

No – the objection of the fifth officer is that you couldn’t possibly understand the defense.

Partially. The continuation is: “I mean, you admit you are nowhere near as knowledgeable as I am, so what right do you have to judge?” - which means that you consider God to be beyond reproach or criticism.

Says you. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to understand God; just that we don’t need to defend Him.

Says I? No, say all the apologists who bend over backwards to create some excuse for God’s inaction. They all see a need to defend God. They all realize the contradiction between God’s alleged loving nature, and the actual state of affairs. They consider the “problem of evil” to be a very pertinent issue. It is you who stand alone, and say: “God’s actions need no defense”. And that is not a very good way to defend your faith.

 

[ngill09]

Hee_zen, I’ve been reading some of your posts here and if you would, allow me to offer some constructive criticism towards your general body of work on Catholicanswers.

You seem very attached to the style of argument that goes generally as follows:

“The world would be better if it were X. God is supposed to be good, so if God existed the world would be X. Therefore, because it is not X, God does not exist.”

I think this is an exceedingly poor argument, because all religions have at the basis of their theology an explanation for why the universe is imperfect. There are a number of such in Christianity, but perhaps most powerful is the belief that this creation is not the real deal. Christians believe that there is a perfect world that God has created for us, but that we must first go through this one and meet some criteria before we can enter into it.

Moreover, God is under no obligation to give us a perfect life in this world. Nowhere does He promise that our lives will be perfect.

Aside from these two easy responses the Christian has to your arguments, it also is fairly weak stylistically as it seems to just be complaining that your life isn’t perfect.

There are some much stronger arguments out there. Personally I think the argument from Divine Hiddenness or from Non-belief is the most compelling. It is similar in form to your arguments but with some critical differences. In it, the criticism is the observation that God’s nature and direction are not knowable in a verifiable sense. There are tons of different religions out there with similar claims to religious certainty about who God is and what He wants us to do, and most of them conflict on important details. Unlike the expectation for heavenly bliss on Earth, we do have an expectation that God should make His identity and message clear to us because it is God’s primary purpose in creating us to have a relationship with us and such a relationship is impossible for most people on earth who are unaware of Him or have misapprehensions of Him through no fault of their own.

The primary apologetic for this is that all non-Christians “suppress the truth in their unrighteousness” as per Romans 1, but any non-Christian can know with absolute certainty that this is false because they know that they don’t know that Christianity is true.