Monday, August 29, 2011
Reducing God
"God is not great". Have you heard this before? Perhaps from a close friend, from an enemy, or from Christopher Hitchens 2007 book god is not Great. This is not usually thought to be an empty solution to a contradiction in God's attribute without any backing, but that is what it inevitably reduces to. "Ah!" you say, "but God has shown he is not good, look at all the evil in the world! Does not a similar cause produce a similar effect?" Oh how quick we are to point fingers, to push the guilt off of ourself, to find another to blame. That is not my argument, but it's a valid point. My argument is this: if given the oppurtunity to do evil, and we do, is that evil? Of course! If given the oppurtunity to do good, and we do not, are we evil? No! In the book of Job, Satan comes up to God and tells him that the only reason Job is following God's word is because God has blessed his sock's off! And God says essentially, go ahead and take away my blessings and see what Job does! Do you get it yet? Is it not true that christianity believes that God has not so much said "yes" to evil as he has said occasionally "no" to blessings bestowed on us: Health, wealth, and family? Have we made the monumental mistake of reducing God to not only to the natural, but to an even lower unhuman standard? How crucial a mistake! For we consider ourselves justified when we say "no" to giving a homeless man money, and we see God as not being justified for saying "no" to that man's blessings. I suggest that we think of God not even merely from a natural perspective, but a supernatural one.
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1 comment:
That, my friend, was incredible! Perfect! What an interesting topic and you chose great sources to backup your writing. Your method of explaining the common question from a non-christian, "If God is real, why do he allow bad things to happen to us?" is spectacular! Kudos :)
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