RE: On Hell and Forgiveness
September 25, 2018 at 10:01 am
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2018 at 10:46 am by SteveII.)
(September 24, 2018 at 10:14 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: If God were to appear to everybody everywhere as unmistakably real, undoubtedly a few more people would believe in God and the redemption of Christ than do now. Perhaps some who believe now would turn away, but it's more sensible to presume that more people who didn't previously turn to God then would do so than would turn away from him. The consequence of those few turning toward God would result in eternal happiness for them. The gains are thus infinite. Moreover, Steve has repeatedly said that people who believe in God are more moral than those who don't. So this is something that God could do which would be infinitely better for people as a whole, and which he chooses not to do. So God is choosing a world that is infinitely worse than the one we could have. How is a hidden God good again?
First, I don't think I have ever said those that those who believe in God are more moral than those who don't.
Second, again, as evidenced by the billions and billions of people who believe in God, it would seem that he is not hidden. The atheist is really making the argument "he is hidden from me."
Third, you claim that some sort of appearance would increase belief in God. That would increase the belief that God exists, but that is not what God wants. I think that the undercutting defeater to your argument would be that God is evident in the world and if someone wanted to find him, it is obvious they can. So, at best you express an opinion as to what God would do (which I mentioned is the place most atheist start--pasted below) and then that people would then take the further step to a personal relationship (the actual goal).
For those that don't go back a dozen pages, here was my argument:
You are talking about the concept of what should we expect God to be like or to do. To answer that, we can't start with, "well, if I were God, I would...". We have to infer our list from revealed information, the concept of God, and the natural world.
1. From the concept of God, we get he is worthy of worship. This is a foundational concept. If a very powerful being exists and he is not worthy of worship, he is not God.
2. Is it not the case that God is hidden from everyone. There are countless testimonies of people's experience of God. There are no defeaters for these billions of experiences so the claim really is: God is hidden from me when atheist demand or surmise that God would show himself if he were real.
3. God provided substantial evidence of himself in the person of Jesus and the events of the early first century. This is exactly what you seem to be asking for. God himself lived among us for 33 years and did many miraculous things culminating in the death and resurrection--with has huge existential meaning in both salvation and the possibility of a personal relationship through the Holy Spirit.
4. God provides substantial evidence of himself in nature that is easily reflected on and has been for millennium. Why is there something rather than nothing?
5. God gives everyone a sense of himself: Sensus divinitatis
6. Every bit of evidence suggests that God's purposes are personal in nature. God desires a personal relationship with each person--NOT recognition that he exists. To treat the question does God exist as a science question to be analyzed is to miss the point. Experiencing God is not a proposition that can be examined outside each person. The end purpose of God is to bring your mind to a place where it desires a relationship with God. This necessarily takes time and a different path for each person. To say it another way, knowing God exists is not the goal. Satan, demons, angels, etc. know God exists.
(September 24, 2018 at 11:47 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(September 24, 2018 at 11:36 am)Crossless2.0 Wrote: Cue the ‘God doesn’t want to violate our free will’ argument.
Somehow, acknowledgement and worship doesn’t seem to count for Yahweh unless it’s performed by people who don’t have good, compelling reasons to do so. Slavish credulity, offered as an act of “freedom” is the ridiculous alleged bottom line.
Christians want to have it both ways. They want to suggest that the evidence is sufficient to compel belief in a rational person, but at the same time claim that by providing sufficiently compelling evidence, God isn't compelling people to believe. You can't have it both ways. Either belief is a result of unreason or ignorance, or God is violating our free will by coming to earth and performing miracles and resurrections. Even Steve admits that reason alone isn't sufficient to bring a person to God. If what brings a person to God isn't reason, then belief is by definition irrational.
I never said the evidence is sufficient to compel belief. Only that such belief is rational given the evidence. There is a huge component of Christianity that revolves around experience.
(September 24, 2018 at 12:23 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: A god who kills innocent babies for no reason is greater than one who does not. I defy any Christian to prove me objectively wrong.
You conflate two things: God's actions and our moral reasoning/duties (for which you want us to judge God's actions). They are not the same thing.
That being said, God, conceived as the paradigm of Goodness, could never kill innocent babies for no reason. It would be an impossible conception of God and therefore describing a being who is not God.
