Musing Over La-La Land

God is a perfect judge with perfect grace! There is a blinding contradiction here. If God's grace is going to spare us from what we deserve, how can He ever give us what we deserve? Alternatively, how can He be a perfect judge if His grace precludes Him from judging us fully and hence perfectly?

Here seem to be the only possibilities to resolve this dilemma: 1) one is absolutely true and the other is false. This necessarily means we are either all saved or all screwed! 2) Neither is true. 3) They are both relatively true. But of course if their individual truth is relative they can just as well both be absolute! This contradiction is but circular nonsense! (see The Duality Of Relativism/Absolutism for clarification) Which seems to be the only reasonable conclusion? I would say 2) neither is true.

Ultimately, behind this warm and fuzzy idea that a perfect God is going to save good people and condemn bad people just does not overcome the simplest of scrutiny. Apart from opinions, how is it determined who is good enough to be spared and who is bad enough to be condemned?

“It has nothing to do with being good or bad, rather, it has everything to do with being saved through belief,” it is often asserted. The problem with this is extensively dealt with in my discussion on what belief is (Obfuscating The Christian Doctrine Of Salvation), and suffice it to say, seems to come up short as a tenable explanation.

Basically, the idea behind this view is believing Jesus Christ died for our sins and hence is an atonement for all of our egregious acts and thoughts, past, present and future. But what about the person who believes “everything” as it were but is nonetheless a complete prick? Conversely, what about the person with a heart of gold who believes seemingly “nothing”? 

One might naively claim the prick does not really believe. Why? Because he does not do what he believes or at least claims to believe? Be careful here! This is a very slippery slope! If this is the standard as to what constitutes belief, we all fail miserably. None of us can even in principle do everything we claim to believe, as only Jesus could supposedly.

So using this as a measurement of belief would require a purely subjective evaluation as to what is an acceptable amount of “failure” so as to still be considered belief. Thus, in order for one's beliefs to be “genuine”, he must ultimately demonstrate said beliefs through “action”. In other words, one must “do” what he claims to believe.

That the prick does not really believe is predicated on the notion that he must “prove” he believes by “doing”! And of course the dilemma with the idea of “doing” as being paramount to demonstrating that one “truly” believes is problematic because this can only be measured on purely subjective terms.

I think what needs to be pointed out is, at the end of the day, I could not care less what somebody believes. Ultimately, what does seem to matter to me is how I am treated. If people “believe” but are jerks, do I care one iota that they “believe” this or that?

Conversely, if people believe nothing but treat me with supreme kindness and respect, do I care that they do not believe this or that? What do you think? What might God think?

The Evolution Trap: Balancing Belief In The Biblical God With Intellectual Credibility

Many are reluctant to reject evolution outright fearing they will undermine their intellectual credibility. However, it becomes problematic to posit any sort of quasi evolution because at some point, difficult lines must be drawn necessitating choices that seem to preclude any sort of "middle ground".

For many claim they believe in evolution but NOT Darwin's strictly atheistic sort. At this point, it becomes a different flavor of evolution entirely. As such, why not just fabricate another name for this distinct ideology? For instance, if one is led to believe in evolution just enough so as to avoid jeopardizing his intellectual credibility but not enough to challenge his deep-seated religious convictions, he might believe any given species can evolve but outright reject inter-species evolution. And also likely believe "man" was lovingly crafted by God Himself.

In this way, God, whatever that might mean to somebody, got the ball rolling such that evolution (of lower level organisms at least) became necessary and "man" itself was specially created "as is, ready to go right out of the box!" Strictly speaking though, this is simply "creationism" all over again. For it is "God" Who simply paved the way for lower level evolution and custom engineered "man". In essence, He created. So why not just call this "Creationism 2.0"?

Carefully reflecting upon the beliefs of Francis Collins, the current Director of the National Institutes of Health, a seemingly insurmountable obstruction to believing in both evolution and the idea of a "God breathed soul" must be accounted for. In his book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief", there is something crucial he fails to explain: if we evolved from primates, at what discrete point did "WE" attain our coveted souls?

As such, if I were to investigate my family's lineage, it seems going back far enough would produce forebears something less than human. Oh how I grieve there being no chance to meet them in the afterlife only because they lacked souls! Did God think about this?

Now if one supposes primates have souls like "US", why would it stop here? What other species might be endowed with souls as well? Might mosquitoes have them too? As such, from where do we derive our moral justification for putting OURSELVES above all other species if many of them have souls just like us?

On the other hand, one can simply appeal to the unfalsifiable stand of, "well, that's just how God wants things!" The problem with this is it explains NOTHING. This type of view prohibits any sort of critical thinking. Perhaps that's just how God wants things? My own suspicion is "God" is simply a proxy for individual egos. In which case, how does "God" want things? However YOU say.