apologeticsIt seems a lot of religious people claim to know what god wants us to eat and wear and who can marry whom and so on.
At the same time when you point to something that seems unreasonable of God to, like asking that guy in the bible to sacrifice his son, or saving one passenger in a plane crash while letting everybody else die, they start saying that we as humans can’t understand it. Ie. god works in mysterious ways.
Has anyone seen a religious person try to defend this contradictory position and was their defense “interesting” or just some standard meaningless blah blah?
The correct religious response to this perceived inconsistency, assuming we are talking about Fundy Christianity here, is that God exists beyond our mortal understanding of time. While God is described as being benevolent, the reality of this statement isn’t easily understood by a single human. What seems good and just to us here, may not be the big picture. And perhaps what you see as a punishment is in fact a gift.
They get their belief in what God wants from us from the Bible. This is ultimately what you are having trouble swallowing.
The short answer? The Bible is the only truth. What seems complex and complicated - what seems contradictory or illogical fits into a plan that is larger than one person.
What good can come from a plane crash? Well, this is weighted. Is death bad? Is suffering bad? You bring with this question your own beliefs about what is right and wrong. Perhaps one of these people would otherwise go on to torture and kill as many babies? Or perhaps go on be seduced by the devil and become part of his dark army.
Of course, this is all cyclical reasoning. It all hinges on the Bible being absolute truth. It comes down to “The Bible is true, so everything in it is true, and the Bible says the Bible is true.”
You can’t simply argue with their logic. Christianity, beyond the primary fallacy that the Bible is 100% fact, is completely and totally internally consistent when practiced as proscribed. (In the many ways it can be proscribed.)
It’s internally consistent to imagine that operatives could receive clear instructions while still being kept in the dark about the big picture, ultimate objectives, and actions taken at the top.
I do not think Christians know what God wants them to do. If they did, they would not go to church every week to listen to explanations of Bible. They are constantly learning, never getting there. They know only a small fraction of what God wants them to do, and even in that they are confused. When facing a complex moral dilemma, they are in trouble like anyone else, and their opinions differ based on how you persuade them. Even Pope’s opinions change over time!
There’s an interesting parallel to this question, against the “incompetent design” argument, so I beg of everyone to allow me to draw this parallel.
The so-called “intelligent design” argument of how we came to be generally posits that life is too complex not to have a designer. Although it’s not the ideal response to this argument, incompetent design holds that if life was designed, then the designer certainly didn’t do it intelligently. Ironically, some of the places in life that are so often trumped up as evidence for design (the “thumb” of a panda or the human eye come to mind) are “designed” so poorly, that it causes one to question the intelligence of the so-called designer.
Theists often counter this argument by pointing to the book of Job in the bible.
For those not familiar with this book, Job was an extremely pious, devout, “god-fearing” man. And god and satan are talking about things and satan kind of challenges god for the right destroy his life. And so god lets satan do so. A test of Job’s faith, of course. And by “destroy his life,” I mean:
– destroying all of his possessions
– killing all of his children
– covering Job’s skin with boils
(Note that this is the only passage in the bible where we see satan doing anything to humans whatsoever…)
Job, when praying to god, asks why he has let this happen, and god responds angrily by saying “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
In other words, god essentially gets the right to claim a higher “right” of judgment because he and only he created the universe, so who are we to question why he does things? This passage, in and of itself, is probably the primary reason why theists tend to use the “god works in mysterious ways” argument when they’re backed into a wall for their claims of a closer understanding of god’s will.
And, you’ve got to admit, it is a conversation killer. Where do you go from there? It’s emotionally unsatisfying, weak, and, if you’re ever involved in a discussion or a debate with a theist who ends up resorting to that line, it’s pointless to continue. They’ve found their scapegoat and it’s, well, untouchable.
With respect to Christianity, the Bible only talks about what God did, and not what his motives or general methods are. It does talk about his wishes for humanity (10 commandments, Leviticus, etc.) Therefore the answer is that the two are simply unrelated.
I figured I would also add this answer. However it isn’t a very good one. But you just asked for defenses. Not good ones.
A major confusion about God being good and yet letting bad things happen is a restriction on God’s power.
Omnipotence is simply the ability to do anything that CAN BE DONE.
Which suggests that perhaps stopping the plane crash was simply impossible for some reason.
However, this argument serves to remove all the power of God. After all, what use is a deity that cannot do the impossible?
Bad things happen because man has rejected God. Even though God has given every man intelligence and an ability to distinguish right from wrong, man has chosen to do wrong. The consequences are devastating. Sin brings death and destruction, and finally Hell. God never intended for it to be that way, but he gave man the ability to choose to disobey. I’m not sure we could have a meaningful relationship with Him otherwise.
We like to blame God for the bad things that happen. “Why did God allow such and such,” “how could he be so cruel?” Ultimately, every bad thing we see happen is the result of sin. Perhaps not directly the sin of the passengers on the plane that crashes, but sin is at the root nonetheless.
Sin is the root cause of all of man’s woes, and all sin can be traced back to the Garden where the first man chose to disobey God. Before that sin, we see what God truly intended for man. Unbroken fellowship with God, freedom from sin and its curse–death. Blaming God for the tragedy in the world is like blaming GM when a drunk drives a Cadillac into a crowd of padestrians.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Romans 5:12
And,
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiel 18:4
As to God’s goodness, that is often misunderstood. If a guilty rapist and murderer was brought before a judge after having been found guilty, then asked the judge, “Your honor, I know I’m guilty, but I know you are a good judge and so you’ll let me off the hook.” No, if that is a good judge, he’ll put that guy away for life or give him the death sentence. God giving man the just consequences of his sins is proof His goodness.
Edit - addressing knowing / unknowing:
If the question is more toward how can believers claim to know God’s will and yet not have an answer to explain certain things, I guess I don’t see the conflict. God does offer knowledge to those that seek Him in His word:
Psa 119:130 The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
In many cases, believers don’t really spend the time seeking God that would help them understand things. But, there will always be details that we cannot explain. This is true for the atheist/evolutionist also. I just watched an episode of Nature where they confessed that scientist have no idea how certain Canadian area turtles are able to freeze completely and thaw without dying.
So while a Christian can know a great deal of what God’s will is:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine John 7:17
God never said He’d explain every detail of life. The “will do his will” implies that there needs to be a willingness to obey. We can know the principles and precepts without needing to explain every minute detail of the universe.
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