"The unjust Judge of the Universe"

I have another atheist podcast that needs reviewing. It's not my favorite thing to write, however, this one has a serious charge, it brings into question the justice of God. I will post the link at the bottom should you want to see the full video. 

It seems the bottom line of his argument is that God is unjust in His judgment of the human race. We don't know the name of the host, he seems to want to go by DZ. The first thing you notice about DZ is his arrogance. He lets the caller open with a question, which was about creation. DZ responds with, “I don't think anything caused the existence. I think it's an endless chain of narration all the way back. There's never been nothing. . . . Hurtles all the way down, buddy.” He constantly berates his guess for having no proof for what he says, yet makes his own assertion offering no proof other than stating, “you can't get anything from nothing, so it must have always existed.” That was supposed to be enough explanation, nothing more was needed except he said so.  

Actually what he was expressing was an ancient view put forward according to Wikipedia by Aristotle who stated “that everything that comes into existence does so from a substratum. Therefore, if the underlying matter of the universe came into existence, it would come into existence from a substratum. But the nature of matter is precisely to be the substratum from which other things arise. Consequently, the underlying matter of the universe could have come into existence only from an already existing matter exactly like itself; to assume that the underlying matter of the universe came into existence would require assuming that an underlying matter already existed. As this assumption is self-contradictory, Aristotle argued, matter must be eternal.” I'm sure we all understand now!

To the question at hand, is God unjust? Most of the misunderstanding relating to God's justice comes from not knowing who God is. There is so much emphasis in the Christian community about the love of God, very little thought is put into all the other attributes of God's being. They are sometimes referred to as God's perfections. DZ ends up in the wrong place because his compass is skewed. He develops his own narrative of what justice looks like and works his way from there. He places judgment against a god created from his own mind. I know he would argue otherwise, but I think as we continue we will see clearly he is not talking about the God of the Bible. 

To examine the God of the Bible, we must go to scripture, for that is the only special revelation we have of Him outside the general revelation of creation. He is of such being, had He not chosen to reveal Himself we could never have conceived of Him in our mind. 

Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and abundant in strength;
His understanding is infinite. 

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 

Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

To understand the concept of an infinite God, let's get some help from Webster's 1828 dictionary. 

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 - Infinite

IN'FINITE, a. [L. infinitus; in and finitus, terminated.]
1. Without limits; unbounded; boundless; not circumscribed; applied to time, space, and qualities. God is infinite in duration, having neither beginning nor end of existence. He is also infinite in presence, or omnipresent, and his perfections are infinite. We also speak of infinite space.

When applying this concept to God's justice, it must be a boundless justice embodied by absolute perfection. Here we need a little more help from Mr. Webster as we consider the two concepts of justice and perfection together. 

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 - Perfection

PERFEC'TION, n. [L. perfectio.] The state of being perfect or complete, so that nothing requisite is wanting; as perfection in an art or science; perfection in a system of morals. 

5. An inherent or essential attribute of supreme or infinite excellence; or one perfect in its kind; as the perfections of God. The infinite power, holiness, justice, benevolence, and wisdom of God are denominated his perfections. 

Now that we have a slight grasp of what we are looking for, let's look at an analogy to help step us in comprehension. 

1st level, imagine if I went across the road to my neighbor's house and found a stray dog lying in his yard. For no apparent reason, I went over and kicked it. I have committed an offense to a lower creature, but very little punishment is due from that offense, the neighbor may even thank me. 

Now let's move up a notch, say I went across the road to my neighbor's house and kicked his dog for no apparent reason. It's different now, I have not only committed an offense to a lower creature, but I have also offended my neighbor, a human being, a much higher creature. My offense has now been elevated to another level, I may now face somewhat unpleasant consequences. The act is the same, but the level of offense and punishment has increased.

Once again let's move up another notch, say I went across the road to my neighbor's house and his child was playing in the yard, I walked over and for no reason kicked his child. I most certainly will now face server punishment because my offense is directly against a human being. The first level might be overlooked without damaging the demands of justice too severely. In the second level, the demands of justice, might be mitigated somewhat. But at the human level, justice cannot be overlooked nor mitigated and still remain justice. As DZ tried to allude to in the video, the punishment must match the offense. Perfect justice must match the offense perfectly. This perfect justice brings us to the last level.

Even in our society, a crime against a higher authority figure demands a greater punishment. Imagine the consequences of “you” punching a man on the street. You would be arrested for assault and go to a county jail. However, if you punch a police officer, you would be arrested for obstruction and go to jail for much longer. If you punch the President of the United States, you're going to Federal prison. In each case, the punishment escalates based no on the act but on the one the crime was committed against. If we punch (sin against) God, logically, we understand that crimes against an infinite Being necessarily escalates to an infinite level. 

Even under our human laws, the severity of a crime depends, in part, on the value of the target of the offense. If a man enters a junkyard at night and smashes the headlights of a junked car, he will probably pay a small fine. But if that same man enters the showroom of a Porsche dealer and starts busting up a new 911S, he will pay a much larger fine and probably serve some jail time. The difference is the value of the crime’s target. Punishment is proportionate to the worth of the thing damaged. Though God cannot be damaged, His glory can be offended, which is the most valuable thing in existence, it is of infinite worth. If punishment is proportional, then crimes committed against God deserve an infinite penalty. DZ's imaginary god is of little value to him, therefore, the thought of an eternal punishment for any kind of offense naturally appears to him as unjust. 

DZ wants to use the biblical concept of punishment, yet he does not want to use the biblical concept of God. Instead, he creates a straw god of his own imagination and pawns that off as the God of the Bible. DZ puts forth a scenario contrasting a 13-year-old girl stealing a candy bar and a war criminal committing genocide. He then wants to know if they both are going to burn in hell forever, demanding a yes or no question! I'm not sure the caller could have answered his question, but every time he tried, DZ would stop him and demand a yes a no answer. DZ has been here before and knows how to play to his audience. 

DZ's 13-year-old girl candy bar scenario is designed to tug at your heart and create an image of injustice in your mind. It is another straw man argument to enable him to stand on the moral high ground. First, there are no 13-year-old girls who only stole a candy bar in hell, the only people who will be in hell will be wicked depraved sinners and devils. The only way a 13-year-old girl can find her way to hell is to be one of those wicked, depraved sinners.  DZ would have you think there will be people in hell who do not deserve to be there. The God presented in the Bible is an infinite God, infinite in wisdom and knowledge. He knows all there is to know about any 13-year-old anybody and knows them with perfect justice. 1 John 3:20 ESV for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 

Matthew 10: 29, Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.30, Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. 31, So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Psa 139:4, Certainly my tongue does not frame a word without you, O Lord, being thoroughly aware of it 13, Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb. 
    14, I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly; 
    15, my bones were not hidden from you, when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth. 
    16, Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.

What DZ's candy scenario does reveal is the root of the issue. Why would a 13-year-old want to steal? It demonstrates we know what is right, we by nature just don't want to do it. We all want to rebel, it's our nature, what we are, and that's the problem. There have to be restraints placed upon us for it to even be possible for a society to exist. Without the institution of laws and punishments and some means of legal justice, our existence would be a hell on earth. This is necessary because of what we are. Raise a child to adulthood without any restraints, and they will destroy themselves and everyone around them. Remember, the restraints don't change what we are, they just restrain it. Training and education helps them by their own conscience to discipline themselves and restrain their own passions, but it does not change their nature. They may not steal the candy bar at 13, but there will be a passion within them that they must restrain, or they will.

Hell is not just a place of punishment, it is a place of unrestrained passions, we are eternal beings and without the Gospel we are eternal sinners. Hell will not stop us from sinning, it will only release us to our unrestrained passions against God and against each other. Luke 13: 28, There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth without.

Weeping and gnashing of teeth typifies unrestrained passions of anger and hatred amid misery and suffering. DZ's own sense of justice is subjective, he places God on trial, yet he himself would be judged unjust by another's subjective sense of justice and culture. It is DZ's own atheism that embodies injustice, from his subjective sense of reality, every murderer, molester, and thief that lives their life without getting caught will go unpunished. The reward of their depravity will be their peace, and that is supposed to be his justice? 

DZ judges unjust a God who provides a way for a people who simply cannot stop sinning to restrain their passions, love righteousness and pass into a state of sinless existence and peace with Him upon death. The great exchange of the Gospel, where Christ took upon himself our punishment, and gave to us His righteousness, meets the demands of justice demonstrated by His resurrection, and sets the sinner free. 
 

In concluding, we can only say, DZ has no reasonable argument to bring against scripture. His argument only appears to have substance because he creates his own narrative, uses make believe stories, and straw man arguments to prove his case. He reads the scripture not to understand the text, but to substantiate his own reason. He does not understand the theology of God, but one of his own creation. Furthermore, he does not understand the hyperstatic union of Christ and how it was possible for him to provide eternal redemption for His people. 

Atheist want to argue against God based upon their sense of morality, yet we all know how flawed we are. We know something is amiss, we are contstantly trying to overcome it, always to fail. This very knowledge of ourselves unleases our hatred toward God, and feeds our passion to do away with Him that we might free ourselves from our own guild.  The atheist must reject the concept of God, for if there is one and He is just, we are in trouble.

Thanks for reading,

David

(Your God is Imaginary) 

"The Hare cud what the Cow would"

I was recently sent another atheist podcast from a friend.  These podcasts are notorious for hosting a very knowledgeable atheist host taking calls from well-meaning but uninformed Christians. It is very entertaining for the atheist audience as the host makes sport of the willing participant. This video however is flavored with a sweeter tone. The host is very knowledgeable but gentle when articulating his view, especially since the participant appears to be a young, sweet girl trying to articulate her faith.  I will post a link to the video at the end of our discussion. The video is slightly less than an hour long, so I will not be able to review the whole video in this post, but I think we can demonstrate how misleading they can be by using a few examples. 

The host begins to try and dismantle the young girl's faith by presenting some absurd statements made by the Bible that factually are simply not true. One being the rabbit and the cud. In a couple of places, the Bible list the rabbit as an unclean animal in the list of clean and unclean based upon the fact it chews the cud. "Nevertheless, of those that chew the cud or have cloven hooves, you shall not eat, such as these: the camel, the hare, and the rock hyrax; for they chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves; they are unclean for you." (Deuteronomy 14:7) The young girl tries to answer this obvious error, however, she is left having to concede the Bible is wrong, and the audience realizes the obvious, another Christian refusing rational thinking over blind faith. 

I came across this years ago but couldn't remember how the issue was addressed. So I did a little research and discovered some interesting facts. The Hebrew phrase stated placed the rabbit accurately in the correct category. The rabbit does indeed regurgitate its food like cattle, sheep, deer, it just uses a different process. The animals that chew the cud are called ruminants, meaning they have four stomach compartments. They swallow their food into one stomach compartment where food is partially digested. Then the food is regurgitated back into the mouth, chewed again, and then swallowed into a different stomach compartment. 

Rabbits use a process called cecotrophy. (Cecotrophy) Cecotropes are small pellets of partially digested food that are passed through the animal and are then reingested. As part of the normal digestive process, some partially digested food is concentrated in the cecum, where it undergoes a degree of fermentation to form these cecotropes. They are then covered in mucin and passed through the anus. The rabbit ingests the cecotropes, which serve as a very important source of nutrition for the animal. Although the cecotropes are swallowed whole and not chewed, experts have observed that rabbits keep the cecotrophe in the mouth for a time before swallowing, the chewing motion that is seen is the rabbit kneading the cecotrophe making it easier to digest. 

The translating of this cecotrophy process into the word cud is simply a result of the Hebrew word having a broader meaning than our English word, which is now narrowly understood only as the process used by ruminants. However, the Biblical audience of the time would have understood the meaning in its fuller context.  

The result in the end is the host misleading his audience with false information. Worse, presenting himself to this young girl as being an informed authority, leading her to think something false about her faith that was indeed true, was more than a simply misleading of an audience. 

He points to the absurd statement of the sun standing still, it is found in Joshua 10:12, At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." This event would necessitate that the earth stop rotating on its axes, which he points out would be absurd, alluding to the natural catastrophic results of such a thing happening. One can certainly understand the naturalist view of an atheist concerning this one, however, if one allows for a creator, it would be a logical conclusion that the one who created the earth in rotation could stop the rotation while suspending all adverse effects with the greatest ease. That's a no-brainer. This event is also relative to the next point made by the host if it is rotating on its axes. 

The host states to this young girl that the Bible obviously suggest that the earth is flat. Of course his audience believes his statement to be true which is misleading them, and he again is misleading this young girl to believe something about her faith that is false. Such statements are derived from certain passages taken out of context. For instance, Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. The statement "four corners" are taken as a reference to the shape of the earth, but the context is in reference to four distance directions, not the shape of the earth. Other references to the "ends of the earth" are said to imply a flat earth, when again the context is of distance not shape. The Bible simply does not, nor does it have a reason, for commenting on the shape of the earth. It does state, however, in Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. For that to be possible, the earth would need to be a sphere. It speaks in similar language in Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;. 

The host of the podcast makes the statement to his audience and this young girl that the Bible speaks of the earth as being flat. However, it does not indicate it is flat or spherical, certain passages taken out of their context could be used to support both views. These views are derived from scriptures that are not addressing the shape of the earth in their context. Reading these verses to obtain support for either view can only be done by conjecture. 

Hope this was helpful,

David 

Video Link: Podcast