Author: BOB
To: Steve, John Listening
At the time that I’ve been
writing this, three questions about God seem to be on the table for which Steve
and I have differing views.
1. Does God proactively intervene on earth to
bring punishments upon human beings as a method of preventing wrong-doing or
achieving obedience or as an expression of wrath for wrong-doing?
2. Does God proactively intervene on earth to
bring physical protection or physical miracles?
3. Does God utilize everlasting punishment,
either in terms of (a) everlasting separation from God of human beings who wish
to be with God or (b) unending torture?
Steve’s answers to all
three questions are Yes, with the caveat that the everlasting punishment is
separation and not unending torture.
My answer to the three
questions is No.
Please note, before we go
any further, that the questions that are at issue between Steve and me do
not include whether there is some form of non-eternal “punishment” or
corrective discipline that occurs outside of our current earthly existence. I
see that as a possibility. (John tends to think that this is where our soul’s
reincarnation to earth may fit in. I don’t tend to think of the afterlife soul
as preparing for a second run at life on earth; I rather tend to think that the
afterlife soul exists in another plane or planes besides this earthly one, and
that this is where we may reap some of what we sow on earth. Either point might
be true; who knows?) Also, the questions at issue between Steve and me do
not include whether God plays a role in earthly affairs by impacting the
inner psychology and outlook and courage of human beings to the extent that
human beings are willing to “let God in”.
So, to get back to the
three questions upon which Steve and I disagree...
Steve’s argument for a Yes
answer to Question 1 boils down to this:
Premise: Human parents find they need to use
punishment to obtain good behavior and obedience, and they use it successfully
and with love.
Premise: God is in many ways similar to a loving human
parent.
Conclusion: Therefore, God
uses punishment on this earthly plane to obtain good behavior and obedience
from human beings.
This argument is worth
presenting, but it is not a compelling argument. The two premises do not
establish the conclusion, because even though we may believe that the human
parent-child relationship has parallels to God’s relationship to us, it does
not prove anything about how God behaves. The “rules of the game” for God may
be quite different.
Further, I’d like to
suggest that even Steve does not find the argument he uses in this case to be a
very compelling form of argument when otherwise applied. For example, if Steve
really thought that this form of argument is compelling, then I don’t think he
would believe in God’s eternal punishment. As an illustration, let’s try the
form of Steve’s argument on the eternal separation issue:
Premise: A typical loving human parent will forgive
their child of practically anything, and would not impose an everlasting
separation from their child as punishment for past wrong-doing or disobedience
on the child’s part. In fact, a typically loving human parent would be appalled
at the very suggestion.
Premise: God is in many ways like a loving human
parent.
Conclusion: Therefore, God
would not impose an everlasting separation upon the soul of human beings as
punishment for wrong-doing or disobedience, and God would be appalled at the
very suggestion.
Now on this issue, I
actually think that the argument makes some sense, moreso than in the earthly
punishment case; but I can also clearly see that the premises do not compel the
conclusion. And, since Steve believes in eternal separation as
punishment, I’m quite sure that he can see in the eternal separation issue that
the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises, because God’s
“rules” may be different.
So, there appears to be a
bit of a conundrum here. On the parent-child punishment issue, Steve thinks
that the form of argument he offers makes sense and the conclusion is true
(while I think that the conclusion is untrue). On the eternal punishment issue,
I think that the same form of argument makes sense and the conclusion is true
(while Steve thinks the conclusion is untrue). Why?
Well, Steve suggests that I
am resistant to the power of his argument on the parent-child punishment issue
because of what “I want” to believe. Steve states, for example, that I “want God to stay out of our earthly
lives.” But this is not the case, and by focusing on criticizing what he thinks
“I want” to believe, Steve escapes from responding to the real reason for my
belief on this matter (and also avoids having to address head-on the theodicy
issue). I am resistant to Steve’s argument, which is, as we have seen, less than
compelling logically, because of the strong evidence to the contrary that I can
directly observe going on every day in the earthly realm.
Let me address these points
in some more detail.
Do I “want” to
believe that God actively intervenes so that at least at some point, certain
horrors on earth are not permitted? Yes I do. Do I want to believe that
someone or something is out there who makes sure that innocent children don’t
starve to death? Sure I do. Do I want to believe that someone or
something is out there who makes sure that what happened to the Jewish people
during the Holocaust does not happen, that evil is never permitted to go that
far? Of course I do. Do I want to believe that someone or something is
out there stopping terrorists from blowing people up? Yup. Do I want to
believe that someone or something is out there who will intervene and stop a
deranged parent from sending her car with her children into a lake, or drowning
them in a bath tub? Absolutely.
But each of us have some
limits upon what we can believe theologically in response to what we may “want”
to believe. And, if logic and experience tell me that something CAN NOT be
true, then I’m not going to believe it.
And in the real world, the
“wanting” of an active, efficient, and effective discipline-guiding and
human-protecting God or universal force runs smack up against hard cold
reality. That sort of being or force does not exist. There’s something in the
newspaper every single day of every single year that attests to the fact that
such a God does not exist. The very notion, if not clearly discredited in the
minds modern human beings before, should have been clearly swept away during
and after the Holocaust. If punishment is administered by God on this earthly
plane as guidance or deterrence, then why doesn’t this guidance or deterrence
head off evil before it fully matures?
I do not understand how, if
there is child suffering from a disease where one in a hundred children
survive, Steve and others can laud God for a miracle if one child is cured
without a sobering realization of what that says regarding the 99 that don’t
make it. I do not understand how Steve and people who think like him can fail
to see the following point. If indeed, as they believe, God is in charge of the
Department Which Provides Miraculous Cures on Earth, then God not only bears
responsibly for the miraculous cures which are affected, but also bears some
responsibility for the far exceeding number of instances in which miraculous
cures could presumably have been implemented by an omnipotent power BUT WERE
NOT. If indeed, as they believe, God is in charge of the Department of
Miraculous Survivials, then God not only gets credit for the survivors from a
destructive hurricane, tornado, flood, airplane crash, etc., but also bears
responsibility for all the human beings which could have been saved by an
omnipotent power in these events but instead were allowed to perish.
I know a senior citizen for
which this question of God’s punishment is particularly real. A wonderful
person and a believer, this senior citizen has suffered for a number of years
from major short-term memory issues and is finding little joy in life. This
senior citizen sometimes wonders aloud, “I wonder what I did in my life that
God is choosing to punish me so.” Alternatively, this senior citizen sometimes
says, “I always believed that God looks after us. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe
there’s no God.”
This is real grappling with
the theodicy question. If God exists, and if God is all good, and if God is
all-powerful and consistently exercises power for good, then how can there be
so much suffering, wrong-doing, and evil?
The atheists answer to the
question is simple. There is no God. God doesn’t exist.
Another answer is that
there is a supreme being or eternal force, but that being or force actually
isn’t “all good”. I don’t think that too many people argue for this idea.
Another possible response
is to argue that God does not intervene to provide physical protection or
miraculous cures, and there must be a good and higher reason for this
non-intervention, such as the allowance of free will and spiritual development.
This is the perspective that John Hick and many spiritual progressives (View
Three types) take, myself included. The belief is that despite all the
suffering, the wrong-doing, the evil, ultimately (beyond or outside of the
earthly plane) all will be good, and all will be well.
To move on to Question 3,
why does Steve embrace the idea of eternal separation? It appears that it is
because he wants above all else to believe in the infallible reliability of
scripture, so his theology is driven by the provisions of what he thinks is the
preponderance of scriptural testimony. Unfortunately, the necessity of going
with the preponderance of scriptural testimony is inherently at odds with the
notion of scripture’s infalliable reliability. The need to do so arises from
the fact that many passages are ambiguous or obscure in meaning and the human
authors of the Bible speak against each other and in contradiction to their own
selves with some frequency. Thus, Steve believes that this earthly life is the
tryout time for eternity, though John 5:25 says that “the dead will hear the
voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live”. And, Steve believes that
doing good is not relevant to salvation, though John 5:29 says that “the hour
is coming when all who are in their graves will hear the Son of Man’s voice and
will come out – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and
those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
Steve also argues that an
individual’s earthly life, if the basis for God’s judgement, is not a one-time
tryout, but rather constitutes multiple opportunities or a package of numerous
moments of choice. This argument doesn’t work. It does not apply, for example,
to all those human beings who live and die before they reach the age of
intellectual and emotional and moral maturity. (What happens, in Steve’s view,
to the soul of an infant who dies?) But moreover, his argument deeply
underestimates, in my view, how strongly our lives and choices are affected by
culture, environment, intellect, and chance. Just using the idea of “chance” as
an example, let’s say that there are two prison inmates and one happens to get
the chance to hear Steve spread the word, “sees the light”, repents all sins,
and is saved. Unfortunately, another inmate, who would have found Steve’s
ministry equally compelling, is in isolation or quarantine and misses out on
hearing Steve, never hears an equally compelling ministry, and never repents.
Under Steve’s theology, the first inmate goes to eternal life with God, while
the second inmate goes to eternal separation from God; but the practical
difference is that one got to hear Steve and the other didn’t. I do not see any
way, given the variability of circumstances which human beings face on earth,
that a single earthly lifetime can provide the basis for an
eternal-communion-with-God versus eternal-separation-from-God judgement. It
doesn’t matter how many daily choices are exercised by individuals during that
single lifetime.