Too Absurd For Refutation

"The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation." ~Robert Ingersoll

You Do The Math

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

Herein is the problem stated in simple terms so that you may easily understand it and easily remember it. You do the math. The Bible teaches that Yahweh is:

1. All loving--He doesn't want people to go to hell.
2. All knowing--He knew most people would go to hell.
3. Complete--He didn't need to create man in this situation.
4. Sovereign--Nothing could have forced him to create man in this situation.
5. All Powerful--He could have created man like him with the inability to sin.

Men Becoming Civilized

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
~ H. L. Mencken

Trained Theological "Reasoning"

"The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian -- like a doctor of divinity."
  ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, from "Superstition" (1898)

An Omni God And His Eternal Hell? (revised 8-4-12)

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

On July 12, 2011, I presented a challenge (see here "...[God] Doesn't Want Us to Go [To Hell]" ) for readers to come up with questions that might come to mind as a result of the incompatible New Testament doctrine of an all powerful, all knowing, all wise, loving, compassionate, merciful, sovereign, complete and perfect God, who created man with the knowledge that he would be sending the vast majority (Matt. 7:13-14) of his beloved humans to his eternal hell. With consideration given to this claim from a church-of-Christ website: "God has told us about [hell] because He doesn't want us to go there".

We didn't have any takers, and after a few days I posted some questions of my own--no comments have been received on those original questions. All 15 of the original questions had been presented to the preacher from the church website before I posted them to the blog, with no response. I have replaced those questions with the following basically same 15 questions, but with many of them revised to be even more incisive, informative and thought provoking. The first 5 questions were presented in their unrevised form before the above quote from the church-of-Christ website:

1. To what purpose does the New Testament teach that Yahweh created man, knowing that he would be sending the vast majority (multiplied billions) to suffer eternally in hell? (note: the word Yahweh is a transliteration of a Hebrew word for God).

2. How do you explain that an allegedly perfect and complete God (therefore, needing nothing) would allow this ghastly eternal misery to happen for a purpose that was not necessary?

3. Do you think Yahweh made a responsible choice in allowing this horrendous eternal tragedy to happen?

4. You were asked, do you believe that it could be said, with any believability, that I loved a child I allowed to come into the world knowing ahead of time this child would be tortured for eternity? You answered, "No." Do you believe that it could be said, with any believability, that Yahweh loved billions of children he allowed to come into the world knowing ahead of time these children would be tortured for eternity?

5. You correctly said that the Creator is greater than the creature. But since Yahweh allowed this inconceivably horrific tragedy to happen to multiplied billions of children, how can it be said, with any believability, that he is better than a human who wouldn't allow even one child to come into the world knowing ahead of time that child would be tortured for eternity?

The following 10 questions were presented in their unrevised form subsequent to and with consideration given to the quote from the church-of-Christ website, "God has told us about [hell] because He doesn't want us to go there":

1. You say that "God has told us about [hell] because He doesn't want us to go there." But he didn't tell Israel in the Old Testament about hell. Does that mean he wanted them to go there?

2. Since Yahweh knew, before he created the first human, that the overwhelming majority of his flawed human creation would be going to his eternal hell, and you say he told us about hell because he doesn't want us to go there; considering the New Testament (NT) teaching that few will miss going to hell, how much different would it have been if he had wanted us to go to hell?

3. If he doesn't want us to go to hell then why did he create man in the first place, knowing the vast majority would go to hell?

4. The Bible teaches that Yahweh has the following attributes: all powerful, all knowing, all-wise, loving, compassionate, merciful, sovereign, complete and perfect. You said that Yahweh doesn't want us to go to hell. If this is true and he has these attributes, he not only wouldn't have wanted man to go to hell, he couldn't have wanted man to go to hell and could have and would have come up with a plan whereby no humans would have wound up in an eternal hell. However, the NT teaches that Yahweh didn't do this, rather, he chose to create man, knowing that he would be sending the vast majority to suffer in his eternal hell (his "ultimate will", as you have called it). What is your explanation for this obvious inconsistency?

5. If Yahweh knew that the vast majority of his weak, error prone human creation would wind up in his eternal hell if he went with the "plan of salvation" revealed in the NT, and if Yahweh is the sovereign God (def., sovereign: 6. having supreme rank, power, or authority. Dictionary.com), therefore answering to no one, he can't be forced to do anything against his nature, and if he doesn't want us to go to hell, why didn't he create only those he knew would go to heaven and avoid the catastrophe of multiplied billions of his beloved creation suffering eternally in his hell?

6. If Yahweh is the sovereign God and he doesn't want us to go to hell, why didn't he truly create man in his image with the inability to sin, and thus avert an unbelievable eternal tragedy? If it doesn't detract from Yahweh's character to be unable to sin, why would it detract from man's?

7. When a choice is made, it tells us something about what is wanted and what is valued by the one making the choice. Since Yahweh chose not to do either one of these but could have--because of his sovereignty--what is a rational person to understand about what Yahweh wanted?

8. Why do you think Christians extol the virtue of Yahweh for "...lov[ing] the world so much, that he gave his only son..."(John 3:16 Phillips Translation), when he knew that it would be a failed mission, irresponsibly allowing the vast majority of humanity to suffer eternally, when if he has all of the divine attributes the Bible alleges him to have, and if he really loved the world so much, he could have and would have willed that no human be sent to an eternal hell?

9. If Yahweh doesn't want us to go to hell, and he is infinitely "holy" and finite sinning against him is such an infinitely terrible thing deserving punishment in his eternal hell, then how could he, with all of his alleged divine attributes, put what he knew was a humanity that was so flawed and so ill equipped to react to such "holiness" in such an eternally precarious situation--a situational "test" that he knew the vast majority would fail and therefore wind up in "his infinite holiness's" eternal hell?

10. What all of this proves is that the NT has at least one major contradiction in it, and this contradiction involves the impossibility of its god Yahweh being the true God. And because of this, shouldn't a reasonable person believe that Yahweh is, in reality, merely a fictitious product of the superstitious imagination of barbaric, ancient man?

These questions, and more, must be satisfactorily answered if any rational person is expected to even begin to consider Yahweh as the true God. Yahweh's alleged divinely superlative and omni characteristics, and his eternal hell that he will allow the vast majority of his beloved (?) humans to go to are not compatible. It is the most troubling error recorded in the Bible, and it exposes the Bible (at least the New Testament--there are other reasons why the Yahweh of the Old Testament can't be God) as an obvious work of man and man only, laying bare its god Yahweh as a contradictory impossibility.

Addendum:
It is apparent that the New Testament doctrine of an eternal hell is an evolved concept. The fact that there was no warning by Yahweh in the Old Testament of such a place that man was in jeopardy of being sent to, should make this obvious to even the most closed mind (the only hint of such a place in the Old Testament occurs late, in Daniel 12:2. Pre-Babylonian-captivity Jews believed only in a shadowy existence after death in a place called "Sheol", but in Babylon they were introduced to the Persian concept of a final resurrection, followed by everlasting life for the righteous and everlasting contempt for the unrighteous). Writers of the New Testament progressed with this rather recent idea that some Jews had incorporated into their faith. But they forgot that it had not even been mentioned in the Old Testament (until the hint in Daniel). And they didn't think about the contradiction it would present between it and their god Yahweh and his alleged divinely superlative and omni characteristics. 

If anyone thinks they have reasonable answers to these questions that would successfully defend Yahweh's conduct and alleged characteristics, please, let's see them. Your silence will lead us to conclude that you don't. And if you don't, why do you remain a fundamentalist Christian?

(note: Over 3 weeks ago I sent this revised article to the church-of-Christ preacher who is quoted above,  with no reply from him as of this posting.)

"Unequivocal, Unimpeachable, Convincing Credentials?"

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

The following is a reply I made to an article on a church of Christ website. My comments are in blue and the church of Christ preacher's comments are in black (except for two quotes from Thomas Paine):

In a previous article, this writer made the statement: “The message of the Bible is such that any rational person will want to believe it.” (April 8, 2007)

And the rest of the quote was, "And, wanting to believe it, he will look for rea­sons to be­lieve rather than reasons to dis­believe." You admit that you only look for reasons to believe that the message of the Bible is true. But you only use such illogical reasoning when it comes to the Bible. You would never use such a system for investigating the truth of a claim, especially an extraordinary claim, in any other area of life. Is there any wonder that you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and that Paul and the rest of the apostles actually performed miracles to "confirm the word"?

What is the message of the Bible? It is, simply, that there is something far better in store for those who believe the Bible than that which is experienced by all mankind in this life.

There very well may be an afterlife, but is the Bible an inspired message from God concerning this possible afterlife? Because of the absence of evidence for it and the abundance of evidence against it, one must answer no. And no matter how much you want to believe that it is--if the evidence is against it--that's just the way it is and you'll have to accept it. Remember BW's Characteristics of Truth? This would be a good one to add to his list: Truth is not determined by how much you want to believe something. As usual I'm in agreement with Thomas Paine:

"I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body. I leave all these matters to Him, as my Creator and friend, and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter."(The Age of Reason)

"I consider myself In the hands of my Creator, and that he will dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice and goodness". (Private Thoughts on a Future State).

But if God can establish order in creation, He can surely suspend order in a miracle.

Of course He can. But is there any evidence that He has chosen to do this after establishing order in creation? No.

Of course, Jesus did not expect anyone to accept the reality of the resurrection on the strength of testimony alone but gave to the apostles “unequivocal, unimpeachable, convincing” credentials so that those who heard—honest or not—would have “no choice but to believe it.” (Acts 4:14-16) 

Okay, let's see these "unequivocal, unimpeachable, convincing 'credentials' " so that I would have "no choice but to believe it." But, of course, the claim is that these "credentials" (i.e., having the ability to perform obvious miracles) allowed the apostles to "confirm the word" in the first century so that it needs no confirmation today. But how can this possibly convince a rational person today? All a person has today is the testimony of biased writers (so we are back to only having testimony, and biased at that) who claim these miracles were performed. No rationally thinking person would even begin to entertain such a claim as being true from such writers. So, again, we are back to needing unequivocal, unimpeachable, convincing evidence--which, alas, is conspicuously missing. Thus, I have no choice but to disbelieve.

Kenneth