Tag: Christianity

Dissecting Divine Hiddenness

This is one of the more feeble arguments against the existence of God I have encountered, but since I haven’t actually critiqued it before, I thought I would take the opportunity to do so now. From Wikipedia:

The argument from nonbelief (or the argument from divine hiddenness) is a philosophical argument against the existence of God, specifically, the God of theism. The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which every reasonable person believed in him; however, there are reasonable unbelievers, and therefore, this weighs against God’s existence. This argument is similar to the classic argument from evil in that it affirms inconsistency between the world that exists and the world that should exist if God had certain desires combined with the power to see them through. In fact, since ignorance of God would seem to be a natural evil, many would categorize the problem of divine hiddenness as an instance of the problem of evil.

1. If there is a God, he is perfectly loving.
2. If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.
3. Reasonable nonbelief occurs.
4. No perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and 3).
5. Hence, there is no God (from 1 and 4).

This argument is a dreadful one because it manages to be unrelated to the Biblical God as well as logically fallacious. Even if it wasn’t outright admitted in the very description, it is trivially easy to demonstrate that the argument cannot possibly apply to the Christian God by simple reference to the Bible. Contrast these two statements:

a) If there is a God, he is perfectly loving.
b) ““Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.” Hosea 9:15

Since perfect love both proscribes hatred and is not equal to conditional love, the argument clearly fails to apply to the Biblical God at the very first step. As can be readily verified, the verse from Hosea is only one of the many verses in the Bible that describe, in some detail, those whom God hates, in some cases, with a self-described passion. Therefore, it is patently obvious that the argument from Divine Hiddenness has absolutely no relevance to the Christian God.

As is so often the case, the atheist argument is dependent upon an intellectually dishonest bait-and-switch. The argument doesn’t, and can’t, apply to the Christian God, and yet is presented as an argument against the Christian God, thus relying upon the failure of the interlocutor to notice the substitution of a hypothetical and nonexistent “perfectly loving god” for the actual God worshipped and described in the Bible.

Moreoever, the argument against the imaginary “perfectly loving God” even fails in its own right for the following reasons:

1. It is false to say that God must be perfectly loving since the available evidence, both observable and documentary, indicates that God is not.
2. “No reasonable nonbelief” does not follow from “perfectly loving”.
3. There is no evidence that reasonable nonbelief occurs. There is, to the contrary, considerable evidence that most nonbelief is both unreasoning and unreasonable.

To understand how astonishingly illogical the argument is, consider the following variant utilizing the same “logic”.

1. If there are frogs, they are purple.
2. If a purple frog exists, no ribbetting will be heard.
3. Ribbetting is heard.
4. No purple frog exists (from 2 and 3).
5. Hence, there are no frogs (from 1 and 4).

Thus by the Argument from Ranine Hiddenness we are able to conclude that no frog exists, even though our conclusion flies in the face of the observable fact that something out there – though clearly not a frog! – can be heard going ribbet, ribbet. And frankly, I think I’d be more impressed with the intellectual prowess exhibited by the average frog’s ribbets than by the cretins who produced this illogical drivel.

So, I will now pose the obvious question to Smiley, who was good enough to bring this argument to our attention earlier this week. Do you still find the Argument from Divine Hiddenness to be “infinitely more convincing than any argument ever proposed by any Christian?”

UPDATE: In the interest of spelling things out more slowly for those who are too ignorant to realize that the Christian God is the God of the Old Testament as well as the New, and are too lazy to bother looking up the various other references I mentioned, I will point out the obvious. “But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” – Revelations 2:6.

The NFL on Tebow

Michael Silver, who was never inclined to be a natural Tebow fan, nevertheless put together a short and interesting history of the Denver quarterback’s remarkable season, beginning with his first start against the Dolphins:

I don’t have a problem with what Tim Tebow’s doing with [his outspoken Christianity]. I’ve seen him try to articulate why he has the belief and why he believes the things he does, in a very easy way to understand. He’s not the guy, when the cameras are put in his face, saying, you know, “Praise to God, because he supernaturally let that ball hit my receiver!” You know what I mean? But he’s up-front with it, and he makes many people uncomfortable. I do have a problem with what the Christian community is doing with his faith, that they are almost becoming a cult following. I think it’s an “us” problem, not a “him” problem.

Like Dilfer, I have no problem with Tebow whatsoever. I still very much doubt his long-term future as a starting NFL quarterback, but I like him, wish him well, and have thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment he and his team provided last year. He is an excellent role model as a person, a player, and a competitor, but he is not a theologian, a prophet, a pastor, or a proof of the existence of God.

There is no reason why Christians shouldn’t cheer for men like him and Jeremy Lin and wish them continued success. But rather than pray for their sporting success, pray for their ability to resist the temptations that will inevitably be presented to them. It doesn’t matter if the world that the world sees Christians are good athletes. It does matter that it sees they remain strong men of good character, regardless of what fate throws at them.

Kurt Warner: “Often we want to focus on the individual and the great things he’s done, kind of like Tim Tebow, and rightfully so. But the thing you always notice in the Bible is that the result of those things is other people believing.”

Mailvox: an ironic failure of reason

Smiley reaches a logically erroneous conclusion:

So how is the average person who did not have the same experiences as you, and does not find the logic convincing, supposed to believe? Elsewhere, you, like most christians, indicate that non-christians intentionally choose hell over heaven as though they deep down know that christianity is true.

This also seems at odds with a claim you made once, that you believe that it is rational to not believe in Christianity. So if it is rational, how can one be held accountable for not believing?

The Divine Hiddenness argument against the existence of the biblical god, uses that precise fact, as its core. I find that infinitely more convincing than any argument ever proposed by any Christian.

1. God sincerely wishes with all his heart to believe in him (I know VD’s God is much more cruel and indifferent than most Christians’ ideas, but he still does desire every individual human to believe in him)

2. It is rational to not believe in God

3. So there is no biblical God

Most Christians deny 2. But they are wrong. And you, VD, appear to agree.

First, it is both absurd and petty to avoid capitalizing a proper noun. Regardless what one thinks of Marxism, Buddhism, or Christianity, they all merit capital letters. This is basic punctuation. Second, I think this is a very common and reasonable line of thought which nevertheless reveals several logical errors on the part of the questioner.

The answer to the first question is simple. Observation. Even if we do not have certain experiences ourselves, we can reach valid conclusions by observing the effect those experiences have had on others. Indeed, this is both how science operates as well as being one of the primary forms of transmitting Christian beliefs from its inception; the observed transformation that took place in the life of Saul, to say nothing of the cowardly disciples, no doubt played a large role in the subsequent beliefs of others, just as an observed transformation in one of my friend’s lives made a major impact on my own thinking about Christianity.

To say that non-Christians choose Hell over Heaven is not quite the same thing as saying that “they deep down know that christianity is true”. While some consciously do make such a choice, most do so by rejecting the choice, but of course, the refusal to make a decision is tantamount to making a negative decision when a choice must be made. Also, what most Christians actually mean in this regard is not that most non-Christians deep down subscribe to the Nicene Creed, but rather that they understand, deep down, that they are flawed and fallen beings in need of salvation from their sinful nature.

As the vulgar expression has it, they are aware there is a Jesus-sized hole in their hearts. While one can certainly quibble about the size and shape of the hole if one wishes, it would be very difficult for anyone with any experience of humanity to altogether deny its existence, even though the materialist has no choice but to do so. This, of course, is why so many people instinctively, and correctly, reject material reductionism regardless of whether they possess religious faith or not.

Now to get to the errors.

A. To say that it is rational to not believe in the tenets of Christianity is not tantamount to saying that it is justifiable to not believe in those tenets. Nor does it mean that belief in Christianity is irrational. (For the sake of the pedantic, I will point out that I used “belief in Christianity” in the sense of “being a Christian”; obviously it would not be rational to insist that Christianity does not exist.)

B. When has the rationality of an action ever excused one from accountability for it? It is perfectly rational to print your own U.S. dollars from a laser printer and one can even present a sound mainstream economic argument for doing so, complete with a utilitarian moral justification, but that will not prevent one from being held accountable should one actually attempt to buy something with them.

C. The Divine Hiddenness argument is both deeply stupid and theologically ignorant, so the fact that Smiley finds it “infinitely more convincing than any argument ever proposed by any Christian” tells us very little about anything but Smiley’s knowledge base and capacity for reason. The number of questions being begged in the argument are downright embarrassing. From Wikipedia: The argument from nonbelief (or the argument from divine hiddenness) is a philosophical argument against the existence of God, specifically, the God of theism. The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which every reasonable person believed in him; however, there are reasonable unbelievers, and therefore, this weighs against God’s existence.

I will address this argument in detail in a future post, but for now, Job 38:1-2 is sufficient to demolish it.

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?

D. As to the syllogism presented, it is hopeless from the start.

1. No. The Biblical God clearly does not “sincerely wishes with all his heart” for people to believe in His existence. In fact, such belief isn’t even enough to ensure one is not His enemy. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” And God knows perfectly well that some people genuinely don’t believe He exists. “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

2. Yes, but as was already pointed out above, so what?

3. The first step is false, the second step is irrelevant, and the conclusion is therefore false. But even if both steps had been true, the conclusion still wouldn’t follow.

Why do you believe?

Invictus asks the question at In Mala Fide:

What beliefs do you have and why? Let’s start with religion. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the world’s population was brought up in some form of religious community. If that’s you, do you still subscribe to those beliefs? If so, your reasoning should be more than just “That’s how I was raised.” As a man, able to reason and make decisions for yourself, you should have a deeper rationalization. If you’re Christian, why do you believe in God? Jesus as your savior? Is it because the Bible says so? Have you ever studied the origins of the Bible or how it was assembled by just a small group of men who basically picked what they thought should be included? What about Jesus? Is there any historical evidence that he actually existed? What about eyewitness accounts (the Gospels are hearsay at best)?
Advertisement

If these questions have you doubting your beliefs, you may have some soul-searching to do. Do some research. Find out the facts. If you’re still standing firm, you might just be stubborn and ignorant, or you might have other deeper reasons. Maybe you’ve experienced first-hand a powerful interaction with God or Jesus. Maybe you’ve witnessed a miracle or a prayer that was answered with no other explanation but God. If so, I both respect and envy you.

Since I’ve answered this question concerning why I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ before, I’ll respond with an excerpt from one of my letters to Luke of Common Sense Atheism:

Why am I a Christian? Because I believe in evil. I believe in objective, material, tangible evil that insensibly envelops every single one of us sooner or later. I believe in the fallen nature of Man, and I am aware that there is no shortage of evidence, scientific, testimonial, documentary, and archeological, to demonstrate that no individual is perfect or even perfectible by the moral standards described in the Bible. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ is the only means of freeing Man from the grip of that evil. God may not be falsifiable, but Christianity definitely is, and it has never been falsified. The only philosophical problem of evil that could ever trouble the rational Christian is its absence; to the extent that evil can be said to exist, it proves not only the validity of Christianity but its necessity as well. The fact that we live in a world of pain, suffering, injustice, and cruelty is not evidence of God’s nonexistence or maleficence, it is exactly the worldview that is described in the Bible. In my own experience and observations, I find that worldview to be far more accurate than any other, including the shiny science fiction utopianism of the secular humanists.

I don’t concern myself much, if at all, with the conventional extra-Biblical dogma that you describe and in which many Christians believe. I am dubious about the concept of the Trinity as it is usually described, do not await an eschatological Rapture, have no problem admitting that the moral commandments of God are arbitrary, and readily agree that the distinction between the eternally saved from the eternally damned appears to be more than a little unfair from the human perspective. On the other hand, I know that evil exists. I have seen it, I have experienced it, I have committed it, and I have loved it. I also know the transforming power that Jesus Christ can exercise to free an individual from evils both large and small because I have seen it in the lives of others and I have felt it in my own life. Now, ever since St. Augustine wrote his Confessions, it has been customary for Christians to exaggerate their sinful pasts; Augustine was hardly the Caligula that he portrayed himself to be. I find dramatic personal histories to be tiresome in the extreme, so I won’t say more except to note that as an agnostic, I enjoyed a sufficient amount of the hedonistic best that the world has to offer across a broad range of interesting and pleasurable experiences, only to learn that none of it was ever enough. It may amuse you to learn that one girl who knew me only before I was a Christian happened to learn about The Irrational Atheist and wrote to me to express her shock: “The fact that you wrote this book proves there is a God.”

And one with a sense of humor, no less. Now, there’s no reason this would mean anything to you or anyone else who was not acquainted with me before. But it meant something to that woman, just as an observable transformation in one of my close friend’s lives made a distinct impression on me.

I certainly do not deny the experiences or revelations of those who subscribe to other religions. I merely question the specific interpretation ascribed to them by those who lived through or received them. After all, the Bible informs us that there are other gods and that those gods are capable of providing such things at their discretion. Among other things, I studied East Asia at university and have spent a fair amount of time reading the sacred texts of various religions, including a few fairly obscure ones. I have yet to encounter one expressing a religious perspective that can be legitimately confused with the Christian one, nor, in my opinion, do any of these alternative perspectives describe the observable material world as I have experienced it as well as the Christian one does. I think it is astonishing that an ancient Middle Eastern text is frequently a better guide to predicting human behavior than the very best models that the social sciences have produced despite having an advantage of two thousand more years of human experience upon which to draw.

I suspect that unless you can understand why the first book in C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy is called Out of the Silent Planet, unless you fully grasp the implications of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, you cannot possibly understand much about Christianity or the degree of difference between it and other religions. Fortunately for many Christians, intellectual understanding isn’t the metric upon which salvation is based.

Another pattern observed

One doesn’t have to be a nasty, anti-intellectual piece of work to be a Calvinist, but one can certainly observe a pattern common to the champions of the self-appointed Elect. In light of this, I have to praise the behavior of the Calvinists at Vox Popoli, as it has been absolutely exemplary in comparison with that of their historical antecedents. Consider the track record of these leading lights:

John Calvin: Responsible for the murder under color of law of Michael Servetus. Calvin was particularly outraged when Servetus sent him a copy of the Institutes of the Christian Religion heavily annotated with arguments pointing to errors in the book. When Servetus mentioned that he would come to Geneva if Calvin agreed, Calvin wrote a letter to Farel on 13 February 1547 noting that if Servetus were to come, he would not assure him safe conduct: “for if he came, as far as my authority goes, I would not let him leave alive.”

Franciscus Gomarus: A Fleming who had been in Leyden since 1594, has been described as “a rather mediocre scholar” but “a forceful defender of the Calvinistic doctrine…a man of deep-rooted faith…. He engaged twice in personal disputation with Arminius in the assembly of the States of Holland in 1608, and was one of five Gomarists who met five Arminians or Remonstrants in the same assembly of 1609. On the death of Arminius shortly after this time, Konrad Vorstius, who sympathized with his views, was appointed to succeed him, in spite of the opposition of Gomarus and his friends. Gomarus took his defeat badly, resigned his post, and went to Middelburg in 1611, where he became preacher at the Reformed church….

John Piper: Intemperate attacker of other Christian leaders and serial backtracker. “I am sitting here trying to figure out why I say things like that every now and then. I think it is a mixture of (sinful) audience titillation and (holy) scorn against my own flesh and against the devil, along with the desire to make the battle with Satan and my flesh feel gutsy and real and not middle-class pious.”

Yes, that’s probably it. You’re just too damn holy for your own good. Perhaps, I suggest merely as a possibility, he behaves thusly because he is not Elect, but rather a vessel ordained for destruction. As amusing as I find The Most Holy and Appointed Rev. Piper, what struck me most about the larger pattern was this statement by Gomarus: In response to the Court’s opinion Gomarus declared that “he would not dare die holding Arminius’ opinion, nor to appear with it before God’s judgement seat.”

La, such drama! It’s not as if anyone was asking Gomarus to die holding Arminius’s opinion, and as events would subsequently prove, Arminius didn’t have any problem doing just that. But it is fascinating that Gomarus presented exactly the same sort of histrionic appeal to the emotions that one often sees in Piper’s writings and which a few of the lesser members of Team Calvin have also exhibited here.

But for me, the anti-intellectual aspects of Calvinism are best exemplified by John Calvin himself. A man who has genuine confidence in his intellect and his faith doesn’t respond with outrage when his errors are pointed out, much less do his best to ensure that his critics are killed. Now, one cannot dismiss a case for the poor character of its champions, but it does cause one to entertain the notion that Total Depravity may be less theology than psychological projection.

There is now scientific evidence supporting my original hypothesis that social disorders produce much atheism. So, I find myself wondering if there may be a similar causal link between this observed behavioral pattern and a belief in Total Depravity combined with the idea that one belongs to a predestined elect. None of this means that the Calvinists could not be correct, just as no amount of social autism could prove that gods exist. But it’s interesting to note how the patterns have persisted in both cases for literal centuries.

The Calvinist challenge

Markku mentioned a theory that one reason the Calvinists tend to look like such contortionists here is because I am usually asking the questions. He thinks that the non-Calvinist position will look just as contortionist if it is the one being targeted. That’s addressed easily enough, as I will entertain five questions from the Calvinists here. But choose them carefully; I don’t want any complaints that I took the easy ones and if only I’d had to answer hard ones the results would have been completely different.

So, Team Calvin can use this thread to discuss the questions amongst themselves in order to settle upon the chosen five. Be sure to specify them at the end.

A tale of two persecutions

Conrad Black notes that 100,000+ Christians are annually murdered for their faith:

Perhaps the gravest under-publicized atrocity in the world is the persecution of Christians. A comprehensive Pew Forum study last year found that Christians are persecuted in 131 countries containing 70 percent of the world’s population, out of 197 countries in the world (if Palestine, Taiwan, South Sudan, and the Vatican are included). Best estimates are that about 200 million Christians are in communities where they are persecuted. There is not the slightest question of the scale and barbarity of this persecution, and a little of it is adequately publicized. But this highlights the second half of the atrocity: the passivity and blasé indifference of most of the West’s media and governments.

It is not generally appreciated that over 100,000 Christians a year are murdered because of their faith.

On the other hand, the Financial Times laments the plight of “persecuted” atheists in the USA:

In Dallas, five of them took turns to list examples of the constant pressures of living in a religious society. One was a businesswoman in Plano, a city that’s part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis and was ranked as the fifth most conservative in America by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research. She insists that, if she came out, she would lose her business. “I’ve worked for years to get these people to trust me, to want to do business with me.” So she constantly has to bite her tongue when Plano City Council opens its meetings with prayers, which it does in defiance of the constitutional separation of church and state….

The most extraordinary story I heard was from a woman in Tuscaloosa county, Alabama. She grew up in nearby Lamar county, raised in the strict Church of Christ, where there is no music with worship and you can’t dance. She says her family love her and are proud of her, but “I’m not allowed to be an atheist in Lamar County”. What is astonishing is that she can be pretty much anything else. “Being on crack, that was OK. As long as I believed in God, I was OK.” So, for example, “I’m not allowed to babysit. I have all these cousins who need babysitters but they’re afraid I’ll teach them about evolution, and I probably would.” I couldn’t quite believe this. She couldn’t babysit as an atheist, but she could when she was on crack? “Yes.” I laughed, but it is hard to think of anything less funny.

One’s heart bleeds for these poor American atheists. While their godless counterparts are among those murdering large quantities of Christians in a number of foreign countries, dreadful Christian bigots are not letting them babysit their children and forcing them to bite their tongues. And note that the would-be babysitter even admits that the parents are perfectly justified in not permitting her to spend any unsupervised time with their children.

I also found it fascinating to learn that the Plano City Council opening its meetings with prayer is somehow supposed to be the equivalent of Congress passing a law to establish religion. This, in a nutshell, illustrates why many people quite rightly despise atheists and want nothing to do with them. If you consistently attempts to take a mile every time anyone gives you an inch, you shouldn’t be surprised when people learn to stop giving you any benefit of the doubt.

Exploring the evasions

Since there are few things more amusing than the fevered dancing of Calvinists in their attempts to evade the obvious readings of various Bible passages, I’m interested in hearing how they will attempt explain away what is merely one of many, many examples that contradict their assertions of perfect and complete divine foreknowledge and predestination:

Genesis 18:20-32

Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare[e] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

Questions:

1. The Lord clearly states that He does not know if what Sodom and Gomorrah has done is as bad as the outcry that has reached Him. Is He a) lying about His lack of knowledge, or b) telling the truth about it.

2. Does “if not, I will know” indicate that He does not know at the time He is speaking?

3. Do “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” and “If I find forty-five there, I will not destroy it” mean exactly the same thing?

4. Did did God change His mind in response to Abraham’s requests to reduce the number of righteous men required to save the city from 50 to 10?

5. Did God already know how many righteous men there were in Sodom when He said “if I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake”?

My expectation, of course, is that the Calvinists will resort to their usual intellectual contortions and deceitful word substitutions instead of accepting God’s Word at face value. The ironic thing is that in attempting to shore up their futile case for their concept of comprehensive Divine perfection, they transform the Biblical God into a shifty, unreliable deceiver in their own image.

Some have theorized that my contempt for Calvinist Churchianity is because I have some arrogant psychological need to justify my own autonomy. This is precisely backwards. I have no need to justify the readily observable. It is because a) I know I am autonomous, ala Descartes, b) I know my will is not in perfect accordance with God’s, and c) I know I will be held responsible for my sins that I reject the convoluted, responsibility-evading dogma of Calvinism.

The contradictions between Calvinist Churchianity and Biblical Christianity are vast in number. But the key one is this: if God genuinely wills salvation for everyone and yet everyone is not saved, then it cannot be reasonably denied that God’s will can be thwarted by His autonomous creations. I strongly suspect the core problem with Calvinism is similar to a problem that atheists often manifest with regards to Christian theology; neither group understands the significance of the difference between potential and action.

A Creator God no more has to permit His creations to thwart him than the NFL has to make a touchdown worth six points. And yet, we readily observe both. Calvinists arguing God’s will cannot be thwarted due to divine sovereignty are presenting an argument that is every bit as ridiculous as trying to argue that a touchdown cannot be worth six points because the NFL has the power to arbitrarily make a touchdown worth any number of points it prefers.

The Responsible Puppet emailed me to remind me of our previous discussion, so I’ll address one of his points now. I asked him the following question:

Exodus 3:7-10. In verse 9, God’s statement that “now the cry of the Israelites has reached me” clearly implies that it had not reached Him prior to that moment. I ask TRP, did God previously know about their suffering prior to hearing that cry?

To which he responded:

I would say that God knew before creation the exact amount of suffering the Israelites would experience. He had concern for it throughout their suffering and this quote from God states that this is the time that he is going to do something about it.

Now that’s a lot, but I suspect that you are thinking that there was some suffering that God was unaware of it until this point (if not, just correct me). If you need proof that this is not the case I’ll go back to the same psalm –

Psalm 139:4 – Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

This says that God knows what we are going to say, before we say it. Assuming that any Israelite vocalized his dissatisfaction of his treatment at the hands of the Egyptians, God knew it at that point at the latest.

This is very typical of the Calvinist attempt to claim that X is not-X. As TRP has previously done, he is simply answering with another variant of “we read X to mean the opposite of X”. It is simply false to claim that a statement that something that “is happening now” means that it happened before the time specified. He then compounds this error with another substitution of the general for the specific. David is only stating that God knows what he, David, is going to say before he says it, which is presumably the result of God having searched him and knowing him, however, this knowledge is not necessarily the case for anyone else less beloved of God than the Psalmist, particularly since David specifically mentions those who are wicked, hate God, and are in rebellion against Him.

There is no perfect plan for you

Haley summarizes the Churchian message about marriage:

It seems to me that Christian media sets just as high a bar a fantasy for Christian women as the mainstream media does, if not higher just due to the fact that a staunch Christian woman is far more likely to hold out for “God’s best.” I feel like we are constantly assured that God is going to give us his Best if we just have faith and wait for it. This especially includes marriage. Don’t settle for less than God’s Best. Do you want to have a good, God-honoring marriage? Then hold out for His Best. You’re 25? You have time. You’re 30? Keep praying for God’s Best. 35? Keep trusting God to bring you his Best. 40? God’s Best doesn’t have a timetable. 45? Nothing is impossible for God, who is writing your love story. God will bring his Best to you in his perfect timing. 50? Sometimes God’s Best doesn’t include a husband, but that doesn’t mean it’s not God’s Best for you.

Whether one calls it “God’s Best” or “God’s Perfect Plan”, it is readily apparent that one could just as easily, and accurately, express the same concept using the term in sha’ Allah. As evidence, I point to the fact that inshallah-dot-com is “Muslim marriage site, serious and respectful as imposed by our beautiful religion: find love, get married.”

What many Christians, especially those of the Churchian variety simply hate to admit is that God’s Will manifestly does not control every petty detail concerning every single person on Earth. This should be obvious from the way in which Jesus Christ taught his follower’s to pray: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven”.

Either there is no need to pray at all, which contradicts the entire point of Jesus telling his disciples how to do it, or God’s will is not presently being done on Earth. His will prevails in Heaven, as it does not on Earth, just as His kingdom reigns in Heaven, as it does not on Earth. This conclusion also has the benefit of being in accord with the evil we see around us and within us on a daily basis, rather than forcing the sort of intellectual gymnastics of the sort quoted above.

The Bible is not AC/DC. Christians do not pray for the coming of something that is already there. And while it may frighten people to know God doesn’t have a Perfect Plan for them, it shouldn’t. If God trusts you enough to provide you with free will and the ability to act on your own, shouldn’t you trust that He knows what He is doing and accept the responsibility for your own decisions and deeds?

The evil of denominations

The Church is the people, not the buildings and property. But as these former Episcopalians are learning to their chagrin, and as other churches that made the mistake of joining a denomination have learned, the wolves in sheep’s clothing who presently run the dying denominations don’t hesitate to steal anything of value on which they can legally place their rapacious paws:

Tuesday night, the Fairfax Circuit Court issued its ruling in favor of the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church in litigation seeking to recover Episcopal church property, according to a report from the Diocese of Virginia. “Our goal throughout this litigation has been to return faithful Episcopalians to their church homes and Episcopal properties to the mission of the Church,” said the Rt. Rev. Shannon S. Johnston, bishop of Virginia.

The court ruled that the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia have “a contractual and proprietary interest” in each of the properties subject to the litigation. The court ordered that all property subject to its ruling be turned over to the Diocese.

The problem is the “accession language” in the contracts through which a church joins a denomination, which means that a denomination which hasn’t contributed a single dime towards the acquisition of a property or the building of a church claims complete ownership of both, contra the interests of the church members whose contributions paid for them and who actually attend the church on a regular basis. This is why no church should ever join a denomination – perhaps demonination would be a more precise term – simply because its theological principles happen to be more or less in line with those presently professed by the denomination.

This isn’t the reason that I describe myself as a Christian, not as anything else. Like every other earthly institution, church denominations are susceptible to corruption, infiltration, and the eventual abandonment of the professed mission. The Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist denominations not only don’t appear to be Christian anymore, they can’t even be reasonably described as “churches” in any reasonable manner.