schweblog

I used to commonly associate myself with the Christian faith. It wasn’t until I became an adamant student of history that I began to uncover the problematic aspects of it. Studying philosophy really pushed me over the edge, though, and there’s this seeming inconsistency that I just can’t seem to get over.

First of all, let me begin by saying that I’m going to approach this from a Christian viewpoint. Many other western religions find themselves in a similar trap. In addition, just because I’ve lost all faith in Christianity doesn’t mean I’ve lost all faith in God…the jury’s still out on that one, although I think something has to exist. That’s not the issue right now, though.

The standard picture we have of God is that He’s omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and all-good (omnibeneficient?). These basic universal attributes are given to the deities in most western faiths. On the surface, the attributes don’t necessarily pose a problem, right? It’s when you delve deeper that things become complicated and problematic.

Now, we all know about evil, pain, and temptation. Murderers run around willy-nilly, people are tortured daily, and there are thousands of female midriffs being exposed to the world on any given summer day. Now, accepting the traditional “Christian” virtues and the usual taboos placed on immodest behavior, there are–admittedly–a number of factors in this world that can easily get a good, God-fearing Christian to turn away from the path of virtue and merrily skip his way down a road of greed, lust, and pre-marital sex.

I’ll lump all of these forces that could potentially cause you to stray away from God as “distractions.” Now, why does God allow these distractions to continually exist in a universe under His control? Granted, some things–like the exposed midriffs, for example–might be due to the will of other agents that have free will. For example’s sake, though, let’s take an event that was independent of any agent–the tsunami.

Now, no one had control over the tsunami–some warped genius didn’t trigger it. It was an entirely natural event that no one–except for God–could have foreseen. Thousands of innocent people died–many of them were young, several of them were probably sincere Chrisitians. To the casual Christian observer, this event could have a degree of impact on your faith. That is, it could be a “distraction”–i.e. one might think, “If God can let this happen, I doubt He’s loving, so I’m going to abandon this so-called good life and pursue a life of gluttony and lustful pleasures and forget about Him entirely.” And why not? An event like the tsunami brings forth a massively problematic issue arising from a series of deductions:

-If God is all-knowing and all-powerful and he let something like this, he clearly isn’t all-good.
-If God is all-powerful and all-good, then he clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, otherwise he would have stopped this tsunami.
-If God is all-good and all-knowing and didn’t stop the tsunami when He knew about it, He clearly doesn’t have the power to do so.

This same argument could be applied to a myriad of situations, whether it be the man questioning why God let the drunk driver kill his family or the young child wondering why God let the car hit his beloved puppy. Simply put, “evil” in the presence of God is a hugely problematic issue.

However, this isn’t really enough to break down the entirety of the religion. Some things can be explained away using the “God’s will and you’re not privy to it” argument. But a much larger question looms on the horizon–why does God even allow these things to exist/occur when He wants you to join Him? That is, why does God allow things to occur independent of free-willed agents that might cause someone to turn their back on Him?

Clearly, there are three psychological paths you can take in this world–you can question the existence of God, look into the pros and cons in hopes of making a decision (a neutral state); you can reject God entirely (a negative state); or accept Him unwaveringly (a positive state). Now, with the presence of evil comes the temptation for someone on the neutral path to turn away from God towards sin. Why does God allow this “stumbling block” to exist?

When asked, most Christians I’ve spoken to claim that evil is necessary for free will. That is, these “stumbling blocks” need to be in the way in order to establish a choice for the individual–if there was no evil, there would be no choice. This argument is ridiculous and avoids a glaringly obvious point–you can have free will and choice in the presence of merely two states: a neutral state and a positive state; I could choose to accept God or I could choose to continue to think about Him. Why would he allow stumbling blocks for the neutral person (or even the person on the positive path)? For a so-called “loving” God, He certainly seems hellbent on distracting us from the good path by allowing these stumbling blocks to exist, thus ultimately relegating us to the depths of hell.

Some attribute these stumbling blocks to the devil–Lucifer placed them there in an effort to win more souls. The same issue arises–God doesn’t really need the devil to function, so why not just snap your fingers, God, and get rid of the bastard? Why allow the devil to continually set down stumbling blocks in front of people that could very well one day place faith in you, God? It almost seems–dare I say it?–sadistic.

This is why I reject the entire “God as an active force in the universe” point of Christianity which, needless to say, leads to some very serious complications just a short way down the road. My position: God snapped his fingers and set the Big Bang in motion. By now, he’s probably on the third disc of Final Fantasy VII and has long since forgotten about us. Hopefully by the time we die and head up to the pearly gates, he’ll be at a save point and we can play some Marvel vs. Capcom.