Judging God

Renew America ^ | Reformation Day, 2013 | Dan Popp

[ReformationFan]

Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men. – John Milton

I saw an atheist's cartoon in which God is saying, "Now I will torture you forever for breaking some rules I made up – because I love you." As wrong as he is about Christian doctrine, I have to applaud the cartoonist for getting one thing right: He's holding God (or our beliefs about God) to account. Christians should do the same. When one of the pagan Gnostics invented a "good" god to replace the cranky, judgmental Hebrew deity, Christians pointed out that a god who's not just isn't truly good, because justice is good, even when we don't like it being applied to ourselves.

The problem for the atheist in judging God is that he has no place to stand. He can't have a transcendent standard of justice without a transcendent God to provide it. He's arbitrarily condemning God for being arbitrary. Still, this particular atheist is doing better than the one who tweeted, "Why blood? Can't God simply forgive?" She thinks it's unfair that she can't grab the high-voltage line without being electrocuted; whoever made up that rule is just being mean and vindictive. It never crossed her mind that justice might be a real, objective thing; that sinning may cause death as touching the power line causes death – not because someone chose that particular outcome, but because of the natures of the things involved.

[Nifster]

“For God so loved the world....”

[hellinahandcart]

read

[HiTech RedNeck]

If Christians put more effort into carrying on in a heavenly matter, there’d probably be a lot fewer of these atheists.

[HiTech RedNeck]

matter => manner

[narses]