Biblical Contradictions

Originally Posted by Alter

For future ref, GD, I don't like my posts being edited.

I don't have time to respond to all of your post right now, but I'll just comment on this.

I wouldn't have to keep editing your posts together if you didn't keep double-posting. I'm not changing any content, but I am making it so that they follow the rules.

Originally Posted by Sage of Earth

Regardless of what the original text says, the translation says "thou shalt not kill", and most Christians follow the translation, yet still don't follow it.

God dictated that law to Moses. And since God knows the future, he should've written laws that will apply forever. He seems to change his mind on a whim, knowing that he'll change it again later on.

Also: "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever." Since those laws are God's word, they stand forever. You can't say they're outdated.

Sage of the Earth,

The problem is clearly that you interpret the Bible as a fundamentalist. And that doesn't even have the saving grace of you interpreting the text sympathetically (which at least even fundamentalist Christians do). In order to interpret the Bible it's good not to be a fundamentalist, but necessary indeed to interpret it sympathetically. The principle of charity when it comes to interpretation is a rule we all ought to follow when we read any text, whether it is ancient or new, published in a book or posted on a forum. It would make your attempted contradictions much more convincing, for it would give the Bible its best shot before showing it not to be worthy of belief.

Your objection regarding the law of Moses seems rather flimsy. There is no reason to think that God cannot make laws which apply for a specific period of time. Our parents do similar things. "As long as you are a child, you must get into bed before midnight," or, "As long as you are a child, you must ask my permission to do activities x,y,z." Or more likely, they just say, "you have to get to bed before midnight," and "you must ask my permission to do x,y,z" with the conditional restraint implied.

If the Mosaic law was instituted for a specific purpose or according to specific conditions, then it is natural that it would be superseded at a later point. Christian theology has generally held this to be true.

This rooted in the Pauline interpretation of law, especially in Galatians. Paul says:

Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian (Gal 3:23-25).

The theology of St. Irenaeus (~180AD) emphasizes that the period under the law, between the de-capitation of humanity in Adam's sin and the recapitulation of humanity in the second Adam, was a period of preparation. Along the lines of Paul's theology on the law, when the time came we were no longer held under the custody of the law.

Only the most rigidly fundamentalist interpretation of the prophet Isaiah can force this into a contradiction.

Originally Posted by Sage of Earth

God created us with the capability of sin. It was more than within his capability to create a race that WOULD want to obey him. He didn't. That's his folly, not ours. God has created a race knowing that it would disobey him in the future, but he has continued anyway, knowing that he would have to punish it. Thus he is not omnibenevolent.

The problem seems to be that God wanted to create a race of creatures which were "made in His image and likeness," i.e., rational creatures capable of freely loving. Since this is God's aim, it would not actually be possible to simultaneously make them obey His every decree. Compulsion and coercion seem to be mutually exclusive with freedom. The very point of Christianity is that God divinizes the will through grace so that it can freely love God to the fullest capacity. For this reason it cannot be concluded that God is not all good from the capacity in man to sin.

-Rob

Originally Posted by Bobslob

Sage of the Earth,

The problem is clearly that you interpret the Bible as a fundamentalist. And that doesn't even have the saving grace of you interpreting the text sympathetically (which at least even fundamentalist Christians do). In order to interpret the Bible it's good not to be a fundamentalist, but necessary indeed to interpret it sympathetically. The principle of charity when it comes to interpretation is a rule we all ought to follow when we read any text, whether it is ancient or new, published in a book or posted on a forum. It would make your attempted contradictions much more convincing, for it would give the Bible its best shot before showing it not to be worthy of belief.

I could interpret the Bible sympathetically, but I don't see any way to interpret "Homosexuals are an abomination, put them to death" in any way other than in the sense of "poor things, being gay like that. We better put them down." And I can't interpret "God's word stands forever" as anything other than "What God says, goes. Forever." Now this COULD be interpreted as "the Bible will stand forever", but as we might as well disregard the Old Testament for the validity it has in our lives should we wish to follow Christianity, this isn't true. As both this and my next point address your point regarding the Pauline interpretation of law, I'm not ignoring it, I've just left it ou so that I don't have to repeat myself.

Your objection regarding the law of Moses seems rather flimsy. There is no reason to think that God cannot make laws which apply for a specific period of time. Our parents do similar things. "As long as you are a child, you must get into bed before midnight," or, "As long as you are a child, you must ask my permission to do activities x,y,z." Or more likely, they just say, "you have to get to bed before midnight," and "you must ask my permission to do x,y,z" with the conditional restraint implied.

I'm not saying they can't last only temporarily, but as I stated either here or elsewhere, God knows what will happen in the future as he is omniscient. Therefore he knows that he will change his mind. Therefore he has instituted several laws which involve killing of people because of completely arbitrary rules that he has set in place for no good reason, which are only to last for a comparatively short while. You could argue that there was a good reason to have these rules in place, but then if it was such a good reason, why can't it still apply? If it was ever actually a good thing to kill homosexuals, then logically it must be inherently good, and so for him to relinquish our right to do so would mean that he wants us to tolerate something that is bad. Otherwise he just randomly decided one day to change his mind on what was good and what was evil, completely arbitrarily. Even though he knew in the past that he would do this in the future.

Why not just bring Jesus to the people earlier, thereby making those rules unnecessary? Why make those laws at all when they are brutal? I don't see why they were necessary to begin with, and just because God says so is not a reason. This is one of my many argument's against God's omnibenevolence, and since God's existence relies on his three qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, this adds to my overall argument against his existence.

On top of this, he has created people with the capability of breaking his laws, knowing the laws that he is going to set in the future, and knowing that they will have to be put to death as a result of his rules. People have DIED because of God's inability to make his mind up, even though he knows full well what his decisions are well in advance of making them.

The problem seems to be that God wanted to create a race of creatures which were "made in His image and likeness," i.e., rational creatures capable of freely loving. Since this is God's aim, it would not actually be possible to simultaneously make them obey His every decree. Compulsion and coercion seem to be mutually exclusive with freedom. The very point of Christianity is that God divinizes the will through grace so that it can freely love God to the fullest capacity. For this reason it cannot be concluded that God is not all good from the capacity in man to sin.

What's to say we wouldn't have freedom? We would be free, just we wouldn't have this innate compulsion to sin. He has created us as rational entities that WANT to sin, as opposed to rational entities that DON'T want to sin. And if we are sinners, and we are created in his image and likeness, and this is the reason that we are sinners, it follows that he must also be a sinner. But of course, he says he isn't, and so he's exempted himself from the rules which apply to us, just because he says so. An exercise of arbitrary power.

He has created us, knowing that in the future this compulsion would then drive us to sin, which would lead us to be punished because he couldn't work out the flaw in our programming which makes us sin. If he can't work out the flaw, he is not omnipotent. If he didn't know how to work out the flaw, or didn't know that we were going to sin as a result of the flaw, he is not omniscient. If he both could work out the flaw, and knew how to, or knew that we were going to sin as a result of it, but chose to make the mistake regardless, then he is not omnibenevolent.

Originally Posted by Sage of Earth

I could interpret the Bible sympathetically, but I don't see any way to interpret "Homosexuals are an abomination, put them to death" in any way other than in the sense of "poor things, being gay like that. We better put them down." And I can't interpret "God's word stands forever" as anything other than "What God says, goes. Forever." Now this COULD be interpreted as "the Bible will stand forever", but as we might as well disregard the Old Testament for the validity it has in our lives should we wish to follow Christianity, this isn't true. As both this and my next point address your point regarding the Pauline interpretation of law, I'm not ignoring it, I've just left it ou so that I don't have to repeat myself.

It seems to me that something like "God's word stands forever" means something equivalent to God's promise is eternal and unfailing, and that He will not break the covenant. This seems to also be, roughly, Paul's point in Galatians.

"Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant... God bestowed [the covenant] on Abraham through a promise (Gal 3:16,18).

I think that's it.

I'm not saying they can't last only temporarily, but as I stated either here or elsewhere, God knows what will happen in the future as he is omniscient.

True.

Therefore he knows that he will change his mind.

Orthodox monotheism does not hold that God changes His mind.

Therefore he has instituted several laws which involve killing of people because of completely arbitrary rules that he has set in place for no good reason, which are only to last for a comparatively short while.

I can't help but see this as a bit of a non sequitur. I'm not quite sure how the "therefore" follows from what's before it.

You could argue that there was a good reason to have these rules in place, but then if it was such a good reason, why can't it still apply?

Use your imagination. That's like asking, "if there's a good reason to have a curfew at 14 years old, why can't it still apply at 35?" I don't need to prove the good reason, only show that such a change in discipline does not entail a contradiction (purely a defense).

If it was ever actually a good thing to kill homosexuals, then logically it must be inherently good, and so for him to relinquish our right to do so would mean that he wants us to tolerate something that is bad.

Your logic is choppy. "If it was ever actually a good thing... then logically it must be inherently good." Now, in the first instance you say just "good." In the second you say "inherently good."

If you mean merely good in the first part, then yes, it could be good for a purpose, i.e., instrumentally. But not inherently good, that is, in an unqualified way (like love is). So, one attempted reconciliation could be that it was a 'good' inasmuch as it was ordered towards the cohesion of the Jewish society which God was trying to separate from its pagan neighbors and establish in true religion. It doesn't follow that it is an "inherent good," that is, a good regardless of situational value.

Now, you could beg the question by saying it is an inherent good to start with, but there's no reason for anyone to accept that.

Otherwise he just randomly decided one day to change his mind on what was good and what was evil, completely arbitrarily. Even though he knew in the past that he would do this in the future.

You do a great disservice to the debate by absurdly simplifying it.

Why not just bring Jesus to the people earlier, thereby making those rules unnecessary? Why make those laws at all when they are brutal?

There are reasons which one can glean from Scripture, but the mystery is not wholly transparent. Paul will say that Jesus came in the "fullness of time."

I don't see why they were necessary to begin with, and just because God says so is not a reason.

Your lack of understanding is not equal to the falsity of a proposition.

This is one of my many argument's against God's omnibenevolence, and since God's existence relies on his three qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, this adds to my overall argument against his existence.

It's not a very good argument if you assent to its premises based on a lack of understanding. There is no contradiction in a lack of understanding, only in an understanding that two things are contradictory.

On top of this, he has created people with the capability of breaking his laws, knowing the laws that he is going to set in the future, and knowing that they will have to be put to death as a result of his rules. People have DIED because of God's inability to make his mind up, even though he knows full well what his decisions are well in advance of making them.

I find that the largest roadblock to clear discussions of the problem of evil is the almost unavoidable emotionalism which accompanies it.

What's to say we wouldn't have freedom? We would be free, just we wouldn't have this innate compulsion to sin. He has created us as rational entities that WANT to sin, as opposed to rational entities that DON'T want to sin.

The Christian view is generally that the disordering of human nature occurred because of a first sin, and that it was not native to human nature. Regardless of this, if human beings are rational creatures then when they make their decisions they ought to make them in accord with rational deliberation. If other concerns draw us to make decisions against our reason, then we can hardly blame God. e.g., rationally I know that I ought not to gorge myself with food, that it will be painful afterwards, but if I give in merely to the pleasure of eating food by ignoring the reasonable instruction to moderate my food intake, then I ought to blame myself.

Desires and pleasure have a proper function and are good in themselves, but it would be silly to attribute their misuse to God. Desires tell us that we need to eat, for instance, but without the content of good or bad. So "hungry" happens to me, and I need to eat. But it is my reason which discerns not to eat something poison (which would be bad for me), or too little or too much. We are capable of governing our actions by our reason, and so we ought to limit ourselves in accord with that governing reason. The same is true in all spheres of action. We must discern with our reason what is moral and conform ourselves to that.

And if we are sinners, and we are created in his image and likeness, and this is the reason that we are sinners, it follows that he must also be a sinner.

Distinctions are very important. I was precise when I said earlier what "image and likeness" is. I interpreted it saying that we are made rational with the ability to freely love. If it is in this aspect that we are in His "image and likeness" then we cannot say He is like us in other ways (on the authority of this biblical passage). So, it would be an error to anthropomorphize God and say because we are made in His image and likeness that He must in His divinity have a body and exist in space. Likewise, it would be an error to attribute sin to Him.

He has created us, knowing that in the future this compulsion would then drive us to sin, which would lead us to be punished because he couldn't work out the flaw in our programming which makes us sin.

Freedom of the will is not a flaw, but it does allow for man to sin. Since the sin is a result of man's agency, and not God's (and because God does not cause man to sin), responsibility for sin is man's and not God's.

If he can't work out the flaw, he is not omnipotent.

Freedom of the will is not a flaw. He could have created us without any freedom, but then love would be impossible (and He wouldn't have made us in His image and likeness). But since He wanted to enter into loving communion with us, he created us in His image and likeness, with the ability to love. The whole point of God creating man was to divinize him.

If he didn't know how to work out the flaw, or didn't know that we were going to sin as a result of the flaw, he is not omniscient.

He knew.

If he both could work out the flaw, and knew how to, or knew that we were going to sin as a result of it, but chose to make the mistake regardless, then he is not omnibenevolent.

He could not make us creatures capable of entering into loving communion with Him and simultaneously make us not free anymore than He could make a square circle. So, thankfully, this is no threat to His being all good.

-Rob

Originally Posted by Bobslob

It seems to me that something like "God's word stands forever" means something equivalent to God's promise is eternal and unfailing, and that He will not break the covenant. This seems to also be, roughly, Paul's point in Galatians.

I think that's it.

That is of course the most sympathetic light you can interpret it in, since you're inserting a new definition for "word" there. The Golden Rule of interpretation is substituting the common definition of a word for a definition which is in favour of the defendant.

Further, there's nothing in the context of that quote from Isaiah 40 which suggests that they're referring to a promise.

Orthodox monotheism does not hold that God changes His mind.

Yet he has.

I can't help but see this as a bit of a non sequitur. I'm not quite sure how the "therefore" follows from what's before it.

I suppose therefore might've been the wrong word to use there, I was just typing the way I think. Basically that's summing up the points before it.

Use your imagination. That's like asking, "if there's a good reason to have a curfew at 14 years old, why can't it still apply at 35?" I don't need to prove the good reason, only show that such a change in discipline does not entail a contradiction (purely a defense).

No, it's nothing like asking that at all. One set of people in the past have to obey a set of rules that another set of people in the future don't. That's not the same as instituting one set of rules for a child until he grows up, as the difference between a child's physical and mental faculties is not the same as the difference between a set of people's physical and mental faculties at one time, and the difference between a set of people's physical and mental faculties later.

Your logic is choppy. "If it was ever actually a good thing... then logically it must be inherently good." Now, in the first instance you say just "good." In the second you say "inherently good."

If you mean merely good in the first part, then yes, it could be good for a purpose, i.e., instrumentally. But not inherently good, that is, in an unqualified way (like love is). So, one attempted reconciliation could be that it was a 'good' inasmuch as it was ordered towards the cohesion of the Jewish society which God was trying to separate from its pagan neighbors and establish in true religion. It doesn't follow that it is an "inherent good," that is, a good regardless of situational value.

Now, you could beg the question by saying it is an inherent good to start with, but there's no reason for anyone to accept that.

God choosing one society over another at that time is like if a parent were to choose one of his children over the rest. If God loves all of his creations, he wouldn't choose favourites.

Further, if God is omnibenevolent, it follows that if he decides something, it must be good. Therefore at first, he says "kill gays", or in the case of those Jews, "kill all yer neighbours". This means that it was good because he said so. Then he went back on his word as Jesus by saying "love thy neighbour". Therefore meaning that this must also be good. However, two contradicting ideas being good is not possible.

You do a great disservice to the debate by absurdly simplifying it.

That's how it is. If you think there's something deeper to it, please elaborate on where you think I've gone wrong. If the above is said elaboration, I've addressed it.

There are reasons which one can glean from Scripture, but the mystery is not wholly transparent. Paul will say that Jesus came in the "fullness of time."

So God was unable to send Jesus down before that?

Your lack of understanding is not equal to the falsity of a proposition.

Yes it is. As I've stated multiple times in this thread, to try to say that there is an explanation that we don't understand, when there are logically only a certain few outcomes, is not a valid claim. It is an excuse disguised as an argument for God's existence.

Either God didn't know he'd have to go back on his word, making him not omniscient. Or God couldn't kill all the gays himself, or make it so that gay people couldn't exist, making him not omnipotent. Or he just created gays to suffer, making him not omnibenevolent. Any other outcomes that I haven't addressed are also ones which either argue against God's supposed qualities, or against his existence entirely.

It's not a very good argument if you assent to its premises based on a lack of understanding. There is no contradiction in a lack of understanding, only in an understanding that two things are contradictory.

See above. Trying to hold that two things are contradictory is trying to hold that black and white are one and the same colour. The very fact that two things are contradictory mean that either one, or the other, is not possible.

I find that the largest roadblock to clear discussions of the problem of evil is the almost unavoidable emotionalism which accompanies it.

What? You think that the fact that I'm pointing out that people have suffered because of God's indecision is emotional? Firstly I don't see why that dispels the argument, and secondly as a personal rebuttal of your statement I'm not an overtly emotional person. I'm simply following logic when I make the argument.

The Christian view is generally that the disordering of human nature occurred because of a first sin, and that it was not native to human nature. Regardless of this, if human beings are rational creatures then when they make their decisions they ought to make them in accord with rational deliberation. If other concerns draw us to make decisions against our reason, then we can hardly blame God. e.g., rationally I know that I ought not to gorge myself with food, that it will be painful afterwards, but if I give in merely to the pleasure of eating food by ignoring the reasonable instruction to moderate my food intake, then I ought to blame myself.

In order for there to have been a first sin of humanity, a human must have committed it. If this sin occurred even before humans, then it would have to have been God's fault.

Human beings are rational creatures with irrational impulses, which basically lead us to what God likes to call sin. The fact that you take pleasure from gorging yourself on food is not your own fault, since it's the physical make-up of your body that results in said pleasure. There is the possibility that you could be built NOT to take pleasure from such excesses.

Desires and pleasure have a proper function and are good in themselves, but it would be silly to attribute their misuse to God. Desires tell us that we need to eat, for instance, but without the content of good or bad. So "hungry" happens to me, and I need to eat. But it is my reason which discerns not to eat something poison (which would be bad for me), or too little or too much. We are capable of governing our actions by our reason, and so we ought to limit ourselves in accord with that governing reason. The same is true in all spheres of action. We must discern with our reason what is moral and conform ourselves to that.

As I say, just because you can use your reason to choose NOT to do something doesn't justify the fact that you may still WANT to do it. A homosexual who chooses not to have sex with members of the same sex is still a homosexual. God could just as easily create us so that our desires and our reason line up, but chose not to.

Distinctions are very important. I was precise when I said earlier what "image and likeness" is. I interpreted it saying that we are made rational with the ability to freely love. If it is in this aspect that we are in His "image and likeness" then we cannot say He is like us in other ways (on the authority of this biblical passage). So, it would be an error to anthropomorphize God and say because we are made in His image and likeness that He must in His divinity have a body and exist in space. Likewise, it would be an error to attribute sin to Him.

"Image" would imply that we look like him. "Likeness" would imply that we behave like him. And I don't see why it would be an error to attribute sin to him, as he is supposedly the creator of everything, and yet chose to create a world in which sin exists, as opposed to one in which it doesn't.

Plus:
Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Freedom of the will is not a flaw, but it does allow for man to sin. Since the sin is a result of man's agency, and not God's (and because God does not cause man to sin), responsibility for sin is man's and not God's.

Free will is not a flaw. He could easily create us with free will without the compulsion to sin, as I have explained. Homosexuals, for example, don't choose to find members of the same sex attractive, but he created such people anyway. He could just as easily have made it so that no one was homosexual if he wanted to. He could have changed whatever it is that is inherent in our bodies that makes us want to do things that are against his rules. He chose not to.

Freedom of the will is not a flaw. He could have created us without any freedom, but then love would be impossible (and He wouldn't have made us in His image and likeness). But since He wanted to enter into loving communion with us, he created us in His image and likeness, with the ability to love. The whole point of God creating man was to divinize him.

See above. Also, Divinize who, God or Man? He reminds man every two minutes that we are subject to his will, and that if we don't listen to him we're going to Hell. As stated above, he could have created us so that with free will, we would naturally want to love him, but we would not sin. He chose instead to create a race that only too easily defies him.

You seem to think that Free Will and Sin are mutually exclusive. He could just as easily have created a race which could choose to sin if it wanted to, but just didn't want to.

He knew.

This simply furthers either the first part of the argument, or the next part of the argument, if you're so sure about that.

He could not make us creatures capable of entering into loving communion with Him and simultaneously make us not free anymore than He could make a square circle. So, thankfully, this is no threat to His being all good.

God is supposedly omnipotent. To say that he cannot do that is an argument against the possibility of omnipotency, ("can God make something so large that even he will never be able to move it?" This is a contradiction within omnipotence itself, which makes omnipotence actually impossible, but that's beside the point). It is by the laws that he has set down that there cannot be a square circle, so if he were truly omnipotent, he should be able to create a universe in which there was a square circle. Just the same as he could create a race that has the choice to sin, but not the desire to.

You say that he can't. Therefore, God is not omnipotent. Therefore God has either lied about his abilities, making him not omnibenevolent also, or God does not exist. The very fact that you use the phrase "he could not", which may as well be "cannot", proves this. If God is omnipotent, "he could not" is a phrase that shouldn't apply to him.

Also, you said earlier that "There is no contradiction in a lack of understanding, only in an understanding that two things are contradictory", which I have explained is wrong, but I'll go with it for the sake of my next point. Something being both a square and a circle is a contradiction, therefore by your own argument just because you can't undersand the idea doesn't mean it can't exist.

Originally Posted by Sage of Earth

That is of course the most sympathetic light you can interpret it in, since you're inserting a new definition for "word" there. The Golden Rule of interpretation is substituting the common definition of a word for a definition which is in favour of the defendant.

Further, there's nothing in the context of that quote from Isaiah 40 which suggests that they're referring to a promise.

The Jewish people view everything in relation to the covenant God made with Moses at Mt. Sinai. The Exodus event and the covenant at Mt. Sinai are the absolutely bedrock identifying events of the Jewish people. You can read Isaiah out of context of what Jews believed, if you want, but it won't help you to understand what he means.

It would be folly to substitute dictionary definitions for words in the Bible. Contrary to fundamentalism, the Bible cannot be understood like a newspaper can. It's not made to be picked up and read by anyone with a 6th grade reading level. It is intimately woven with the structure of belief of the Jewish people. Covenant is absolutely crucial to the Jewish people because their understanding is that God has a unique covenant with them.

It's almost too ubiquitous for you to even see it. After all, the whole point of the prophetic works is to witness to God's fidelity, Israel's infidelity, and to call Israel back to fidelity. That is, fidelity to the covenant. Hence Isaiah says, "How has she turned adulteress, the faithful city, so upright!" (Is 1:21). If you've read other prophets, you'll quickly recognize the charge of adultery, which is a metaphor for abandoning God's covenant by worshiping other gods. Read Jeremiah for the most explicit usage of this theme.

Book 40 of Isaiah begins what is usually called the "Book of Consolation." Hence it begins, "Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end; her guilt is expiated" (Is 40:1-2). It begins by proclaiming that Israel has made up for her sins (the adultery) by the long exile in Babylon (e.g., see chapter 39, and description of return in 40:3-5).

It is only then that the voice cries out, "All mankind is grass... the word of our God stands forever" (Is 40:6,8). I think it's pretty clear that it wishes to juxtapose man's fickleness in abandoning the covenant, and God's firm and unwavering fidelity to the covenant. It's as if it's saying: look, you are as grass, man, who have abandoned this covenant. Do not forget that you have transgressed God's commands and have been mercifully forgiven, nor that the Lord is constant in his faithfulness to the covenant which you have so carelessly and so often violated.

But maybe I'm crazy.

Yet he has.

Everything God wills is willed with an eternal and unchanging will. There is no change of mind. While the bible often speaks anthropomorphically about God, the reality is that God does not change.

I suppose therefore might've been the wrong word to use there, I was just typing the way I think. Basically that's summing up the points before it.

Fair enough.

No, it's nothing like asking that at all. One set of people in the past have to obey a set of rules that another set of people in the future don't. That's not the same as instituting one set of rules for a child until he grows up, as the difference between a child's physical and mental faculties is not the same as the difference between a set of people's physical and mental faculties at one time, and the difference between a set of people's physical and mental faculties later.

But you dodge the question. It's not a contradiction for God to have different rules for different people in different times. This thread is about contradictions. That God enjoins different disciplines on different people at different times entails no contradiction, for His rules in those cases are targeted at those people, for those times, etc.

God choosing one society over another at that time is like if a parent were to choose one of his children over the rest. If God loves all of his creations, he wouldn't choose favourites.

God elected one nation from which to produce a savior who would save all nations. You misread and misunderstand God's election of Israel. It is not a statement that God hates the rest of mankind, or will damn them.

Further, if God is omnibenevolent, it follows that if he decides something, it must be good. Therefore at first, he says "kill gays", or in the case of those Jews, "kill all yer neighbours". This means that it was good because he said so. Then he went back on his word as Jesus by saying "love thy neighbour". Therefore meaning that this must also be good. However, two contradicting ideas being good is not possible.

"Love your neighbor" is a law out of Leviticus (see Leviticus 19:18). Granted, it is limited in scope to one's fellow countrymen. But that doesn't mean that God is condoning evil toward foreigners, for the law also says, "You shall not oppress an alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). When it comes to war against the pagan countries surrounding the Israelites, the story is different, but I don't see how it constitutes a contradiction-- it is possible that killing can be justified in a war. Killing can be and is justified in certain circumstances. If what it ends up being is that, "X, only in circumstance Y is permissible," and it is the case that, "not circumstance Y," then clearly x will not be permissible. But that doesn't mean that there are "two contradictory ideas of good." Argument from outrage (not my term, I got it from J.P. Holding) does not a contradiction make. It offends your moral sensibilities, surely. But any more than that? I don't think so.

That's how it is. If you think there's something deeper to it, please elaborate on where you think I've gone wrong. If the above is said elaboration, I've addressed it.

You said that, 'one day God just decided to change His mind on what's good and evil arbitrarily.' But I addressed this with my comments on the difference between good and inherently good. It was good for the Israelites at the time, but not inherently good (unqualifiedly). Hence, at this point when it is not good for a purpose it is not commanded. This is equivalent to saying the situations changed, God didn't. You haven't addressed this line of reasoning whatsoever.

So God was unable to send Jesus down before that?

No. God chose to send Jesus at the best time. It just isn't transparent to us why it was the best time since we don't have a God's eye view.

Yes it is.

A person's lack of knowledge or understanding about a proposition does not make the proposition false. Do you really oppose this?

As I've stated multiple times in this thread, to try to say that there is an explanation that we don't understand, when there are logically only a certain few outcomes, is not a valid claim. It is an excuse disguised as an argument for God's existence.

Either God didn't know he'd have to go back on his word, making him not omniscient. Or God couldn't kill all the gays himself, or make it so that gay people couldn't exist, making him not omnipotent. Or he just created gays to suffer, making him not omnibenevolent. Any other outcomes that I haven't addressed are also ones which either argue against God's supposed qualities, or against his existence entirely.

You start by saying, 1. "I don't see why [the rules] were necessary to begin with," and then conclude that 2. they are therefore unnecessary. From the rules being unnecessary you conclude... I'm not really sure. I think it's an argument of some sort against God being maximally good. I'm hazy on how your reasoning works.

In any case, I'll just concentrate once more on the illegitimacy of your transition from 1 to 2. To say that I cannot see, from my point of view, why something is so, is to make a far weaker claim than 2. 2, in effect, is saying that there can be no reason from anyone's point of view why that is necessary (because you say that objectively there is no reason). You can't conclude something stronger than your premise allows, just as if you had the premise, "some apples are red" you can't conclude "all apples are red."

Not only that, you've given no reason to think that these rules are unnecessary from anyone's point of view. A good reason to think that would be if you presented a contradiction (which would show the impossibility of there being a good reason). But you haven't done that. Since you are making the strong claim on this (namely, that premise 2 is true), give me a reason (other than your personal inability to understand).

See above. Trying to hold that two things are contradictory is trying to hold that black and white are one and the same colour. The very fact that two things are contradictory mean that either one, or the other, is not possible.

I'm not saying that you have to hold both to exist in the same time, way and respect. That's not possible (per the rule of non-contradiction). But you do have to understand both concepts well enough to see where they would contradict if they were both true. Hence, you've been trying to show that God can't exist by saying, "The concept of God is such that God cannot do evil" and, "act x (which God did) is evil." It requires that you have understanding of both what God is (a being which cannot do evil), and what the act is (an evil act). You find the contradiction only inasmuch as you understand both terms, not inasmuch as you lack understanding.

This is why your insistence that because you don't understand why the rules were necessary there is a contradiction is so silly. If you don't understand where the two concepts contradict, you can't assert a contradiction.

What? You think that the fact that I'm pointing out that people have suffered because of God's indecision is emotional? Firstly I don't see why that dispels the argument, and secondly as a personal rebuttal of your statement I'm not an overtly emotional person. I'm simply following logic when I make the argument.

You are arguing from outrage. "People have DIED," etc. And your continual usage of how your personal sense of moral outrage, your person moral intuition, must mean that the Bible contradicts itself. These things are easy to let seep in to argument. I'm not trying to paint myself as a saint in this regard, but I think it's worth pointing out.

In order for there to have been a first sin of humanity, a human must have committed it. If this sin occurred even before humans, then it would have to have been God's fault.

Well, the first sin of humans was committed by humans. Good thing, dodged that bullet.

Human beings are rational creatures with irrational impulses, which basically lead us to what God likes to call sin. The fact that you take pleasure from gorging yourself on food is not your own fault, since it's the physical make-up of your body that results in said pleasure. There is the possibility that you could be built NOT to take pleasure from such excesses.

I take pleasure from eating food, not from gorging. There is a distinction. My rational faculty is sufficient to tell me that I ought not gorge myself on food. There's nothing wrong with this at all. The fact is that I don't take pleasure from such excesses (e.g., stomach ache), but I do take pleasure from each individual act of eating.

At this point in the argument we're hardly in the realm contradictions. You're just arm-chair quarterbacking how you think God ought to have made things better.

As I say, just because you can use your reason to choose NOT to do something doesn't justify the fact that you may still WANT to do it. A homosexual who chooses not to have sex with members of the same sex is still a homosexual. God could just as easily create us so that our desires and our reason line up, but chose not to.

Usually the Christian explanation of the disordered desires is located at the fall, which severed the proper subordination of desires to reason.

"Image" would imply that we look like him. "Likeness" would imply that we behave like him. And I don't see why it would be an error to attribute sin to him, as he is supposedly the creator of everything, and yet chose to create a world in which sin exists, as opposed to one in which it doesn't.

You're a fundamentalist who doesn't want to be corrected on his misreadings of Scripture.

Plus:
Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Oh dear. The bible contradiction playbook can be tiring. Here's a quick explanation from J.P. Holding:

Is God the source of evil, according to these passages? In the first four verses, the word "evil" is ra. This word does indicate moral evil elsewhere. But there are meanings offered in Strong's for this word like "adversity" and words of similar nature. Ra can therefore be used in both senses.

Now with this in mind, how do we determine the proper translation of ra in this case? The answer is simple, once we consider the literary parallel in the verse in question. Note the antithesis in the first part of the verse from Isaiah: light/darkness. The second part of the verse must also be therefore reckoned as an antithesis. The word we translate "prosperity" is a familiar one: shalom. We commonly translate this word "peace" - but it is NEVER used to indicate moral goodness, the antithesis of moral evil! We must therefore translate "ra" in terms of its specified antithesis, and that is why it is thoroughly proper to give it the meaning of calamity/disaster/adversity here...The verse from Amos offers a similar parallel, to the blowing of a trumpet -- a sign of calamitous judgment, not moral evil. The same is the case for Lamentations, where ra is placed in opposition to a word that means "beauty" or "bounty" or joy, and the verse after which asks, "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" The verse prior in Jeremiah... uses the same word for "good" in opposition.

This is a matter of understanding what it means in context, which is definitely not that God creates moral evil. Like I said, let's not interpret Scripture as fundamentalists.

Free will is not a flaw. He could easily create us with free will without the compulsion to sin, as I have explained. Homosexuals, for example, don't choose to find members of the same sex attractive, but he created such people anyway. He could just as easily have made it so that no one was homosexual if he wanted to. He could have changed whatever it is that is inherent in our bodies that makes us want to do things that are against his rules. He chose not to.

On the compulsion to sin: you misunderstand. I have a sexual drive, and hence, sexual desire. But my ability to possibly expend this desire in a married relationship does not mean that I don't have to control my sexual desire with reason elsewhere. If I'm married, I'll still have the same sexual attraction to women I'm not married to that I had before I was married. In both cases, before and after marriage, I'll still need to use my reason to regulate my action. It may be lamentable that people with same-sex attraction cannot morally act on their desires at all, but this is not in the realm of contradiction.

See above. Also, Divinize who, God or Man?

God wants to divinize man.

He reminds man every two minutes that we are subject to his will, and that if we don't listen to him we're going to Hell. As stated above, he could have created us so that with free will, we would naturally want to love him, but we would not sin. He chose instead to create a race that only too easily defies him.

Hell is exclusion from eternal communion with God, heaven is participation in eternal communion with God.

You seem to think that Free Will and Sin are mutually exclusive. He could just as easily have created a race which could choose to sin if it wanted to, but just didn't want to.

Free will and sin are not mutually exclusive. Not at all. In fact, sin requires free will, for only a free agent can sin. This is quite continuous with our sense of moral responsibility, where we only fault people who freely make actions, not the coerced or the insane.

This simply furthers either the first part of the argument, or the next part of the argument, if you're so sure about that.

God is supposedly omnipotent. To say that he cannot do that is an argument against the possibility of omnipotency, ("can God make something so large that even he will never be able to move it?" This is a contradiction within omnipotence itself, which makes omnipotence actually impossible, but that's beside the point). It is by the laws that he has set down that there cannot be a square circle, so if he were truly omnipotent, he should be able to create a universe in which there was a square circle. Just the same as he could create a race that has the choice to sin, but not the desire to.

You say that he can't. Therefore, God is not omnipotent. Therefore God has either lied about his abilities, making him not omnibenevolent also, or God does not exist. The very fact that you use the phrase "he could not", which may as well be "cannot", proves this. If God is omnipotent, "he could not" is a phrase that shouldn't apply to him.

Also, you said earlier that "There is no contradiction in a lack of understanding, only in an understanding that two things are contradictory", which I have explained is wrong, but I'll go with it for the sake of my next point. Something being both a square and a circle is a contradiction, therefore by your own argument just because you can't undersand the idea doesn't mean it can't exist.

To further my explanation about contradiction above, to understand that a "square circle" is a contradictory concept is to understand both that a square is a figure with four sides, and that a circle is a figure without sides. You must understand the properties of both objects before you can say that a "square circle" is a contradictory concept, that is, a figure with four sides, with no sides. You can only assert the contradiction when you understand where the contradiction is.

On omnipotence: Omnipotence is having all powers. Suppose there is a set of all powers. God has all of those powers. Things which are contradictory, like square circles, have no corresponding power. There is no power to do nonsensical, contradictory things, like making square circles. Since there is no power to do that, God cannot possibly lack that power. By definition God still has "all powers" (i.e., is omnipotent).

If you want to say that omnipotence is being able to do all things, the likewise I would respond that things which are inherently contradictory are really nothing (no-thing). Making a square circle is not a "thing," and so it's no contradiction that God can't do it. In the words of Scripture (taking badly out of context, in an almost fundamentalist way), "nothing will be impossible for God" (Luke 1:37).

-Rob

EDIT: Darn smilies!!!!! Sage of the Earth: none of those Spartan and scholarly smilies were intentional, in case you are wondering.