In “God as Father on Father’s Day” I pointed out the incongruity between calling God the most perfect Father and ascribing to God punishing actions such as are described in Lamentations. Chris offered an interesting and fairly standard response: present that which is described as an intentional punishment as if it were in fact merely […]
theodicy
C.S. Lewis’ view of hell and why it doesn’t help (much)
George MacDonald, the nineteenth century fantasy writer and universalist, was one of the most important influences on C.S. Lewis. While Lewis never adopted MacDonald’s universalism, his familiarity with MacDonald’s writing undoubtedly contributed to Lewis’ own wrestling with the doctrine of hell as eternal conscious torment, and his search for a less morally disturbing account of […]
Does God trick people into hell? Lessons from Jack Chick
When I was growing up I used to search the large tract rack in our church’s foyer. The rack had hundreds of tracts stuffed together in a haphazard mess. The goal of the search? The coveted Chick tract. Jack Chick was (and is?) a mysterious, reclusive individual who reportedly lived (lives?) in Southern California and spent […]
Tourette’s Syndrome, children and the problem of evil
In my article “The Problem of Meticulously Cruel Evil” I discussed a particular problem of evil. If the synchronicity of good events can seem to signal a benevolent deity, what is signaled by the synchronicity of evil events? The real life example I noted was a young woman who fell ill with a previously undiagnosed […]
Morriston on the evil god hypothesis
Earlier this week Walter forwarded the link to a 2004 article by Wes Morriston which nicely summarizes the problem with Stephen Law’s evil god argument. Before we get to that however, let’s recap the argument. Law argued against the existence of God (or what we can call “good god”) by pointing out that the believer in a […]
Where Stephen Law goes wrong with his evil god argument
The Atheist Missionary asked me to respond to Stephen Law’s evil god argument. His challenge came with an extended quote from Law. I’ve quoted the most important parts below: “Most people will happily conclude there’s no evil god purely on the basis of the evidential problem of good (whether or not there are other reasons […]
You can’t defend the punishment of infants for the sins of their nation so don’t try
In “Does God punish people through natural disasters?” I considered Pat Robertson’s claim that the 2010 Haiti earthquake was a divine punishment on Haiti for the nation’s past sins. While condemnation of Robertson was universal, his critics seemed to miss an important point. In short, even if Robertson lacked evidence to support his claim, there seemed […]
A second blushing attempt to rationalize babies being punished
Our second attempt appeals to the concept of imputation. To impute means to assign or ascribe a value to something. In classic reformed theology there are three senses of imputation. The one most Christians like to talk about is that of God imputing our sin to the sinless Christ. Somehow God assigns or ascribes the culpability […]
A first blushing attempt to rationalize babies being punished
Pete rushed (or at least ambled) in where most Christian theists would fear to tread by suggesting a possible explanation for six week old baby Landina being “punished” by being buried in an earthquake: I have tried thinking critically/honestly about on what grounds babies deserve to be divinely punished by God. What if all humans were […]
Does God punish people through natural disasters?
By some counts more than three hundred thousand people were killed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake while an additional three hundred thousand were injured and one million rendered homeless. The scale of human suffering is truly unimaginable. And then, even as people were still struggling for their next breath while buried in ten tonnes of concrete, along came […]
Stephen Law’s Evil God Hypothesis
There were a number of points that Stephen Law made in his book Believing Bullshit which I didn’t have time to address in my already bloated review. One of those was his so-called “Evil God hypothesis” (henceforth the EGH), a clever, if abortive, attempt to undermine theodicies (see pp. 24-27). First off, what is a […]
Do Arminians have the same problem as Calvinists?
Paul Manata offers a response to my article “Calvinism preaches a God of love, and yet…” The response was a tu quoque, an argument form which functions like this: Randal and Paul were walking home from the Barry Manilow concert when Paul was surrounded by a group of growling headbangers who were focused on his […]
On God, leprechauns and really bad analogies
My first smile this morning occurred as I walked past a looking glass and caught a glimpse of my handsome visage peering back at me. My second smile came when I read the comment of Curt Cameron (not to be confused with Kirk Cameron) in response to my discussion of protest atheism. Let’s begin by citing […]
Why did God create carnivores?
As the final installment for my ill-fated project The Crazy Things We Believe I have included chapter 1 “Why Did God create carnivores?” wherein I address such important questions as whether God will resurrect giant prehistoric centipedes and if so, will it be on the same planet as resurrected human beings? To read more click […]
