Why I Will Raise My Children With God Part 3

   The blogger writes God is unfair, hidden, and narcissistic. The blogger continues to make moral claims about God. She says God is “unfair” and “narcissistic.” But can the blogger justify moral absolutes, such as fairness, and selflessness, given her atheism? I think not. It is as if the blogger has shot bullets with a gun, and both, she cannot have in principle, since her worldview cannot justify such things. However, it is on the basis of Christianity, she can make such claims, since moral absolutes are justified by the Absolute, omni-benevolent God of scripture. The blogger is made in the image of God although she continues in self-deception to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So we can take the bloggers assertions seriously only because Christianity is true. What do we make of her claims? First, no one is innocent, and therefore, God owes mankind only justice. To say that God is unfair is to bite the hand that provides and sustains the one that makes the claim. But more to the point, to make such a claim, one must be judging God by some moral standards that are rationally unjustifiable (e.g. moral realism, and moral relativism). Since the only necessary justifiable foundation for absolute moral standards is God’s absolute character. 

Is God selfish? No, since God is self-sufficient (in no need of anything) and morally perfect (doesn't lack any moral perfection).  Why then does he require man to repent and believe in him? Simply put, it pleased him to do so. He freely chose to condescend, and have communion with his creatures. He was not obligated to do so but he did. Mankind now is commanded everywhere to repent and trust in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for salvation.     

Why I Will Raise My Children With God Part 2

Next the blogger says, “God is not logical." She gives evidence of her claim by appealing to God’s “apparent” hiddenness during pain and suffering. She says, “Why did God allow this [pain and suffering] to happen? The blogger interprets most common answer as, “We don’t understand, so we will not think about it or deal with the issue.” I think what best illustrates the bloggers argument is when she writes, “If there is a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God who loves his children, does it make sense that he would allow murders, child abuse, wars, brutal beatings, torture and millions of heinous acts to be committed throughout the history of mankind?” I must admit with the blogger that the evil we see is devastating. The pain people go through is real and brings much sorrow. But does such evil in the world make God illogical? I think the blogger is clearly confused between epistemology and ethics. But let us overlook this fact. If God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil to exist, then there is no contradiction in saying God and evil exist. But perhaps, what the blogger is really getting at is, she expects God to intervene at every moment to remove evil.  Such a view would imply God must remove all causes of evil including human beings. Furthermore, it would remove the nomological laws of nature. Distinctions between physical laws and miracles would collapse.

Moreover, the blogger cannot account for moral absolutes, thus she is still not in a position to make moral claims against God. Even more, the atheist, cannot account for logic. Logic refers to invariable, immaterial, universal and necessary laws that human minds are obligated to conform to. They prescribe how humans “ought” to think. How can an atheist “justify” the laws of logic? Given atheism, there cannot be immaterial laws all humans “ought” to obey. But from a Christian perspective, we can effectively justify logic. Scripture teaches God is the standard of rationality. His thinking is the type that our thinking ought to be a token of. He is intrinsically logical and therefore, we are to reflect His thinking being made in the image of God.