I had a conversation recently on the topic of christian theism which has had the gears spinning in a fairly robust way in the days since. There’s a thought which occurred to me some years ago during a conversation with a christian acquaintance of mine which I think I’ve now refined into a fairly bulletproof argument against the moral character of the christian god. I’m going to try to summarize it as briefly, persuasively and effectively as I can, and I welcome any and all debate on the topic.

Alright, let’s assume for the sake of conversation that the christian god exists more-or-less as-described in the bible. He is, in this example, omnipotent and omniscient. I’m going to call him Yahweh for the remainder of this discussion for the sake of clarity and brevity. Let us further assume that hell is real, and is more-or-less as it is believed to exist by the majority of contemporary christians: A terrible place of eternal torment, and one which, in order to avoid it, one needs to be a christian and undergo certain practices and such (which vary widely from one denomination to another, and so we’ll leave that open within this dialogue).

Moreover, Yahweh is considered “good”, in a fairly conventional way; well-intentioned and benevolent. He is believed, by most christians, to basically want people not to go to hell, but allows them the freedom to choose their own choices in life, which can lead them wherever it will.

Now, assuming all of this, Yahweh knows me better than I know myself, and knows what sorts of situations I would need to be exposed to in order that I might be able to believe that he exists. Furthermore, given his unlimited power and knowledge, he knows a presumably infinite number of scenarios in which I would come to believe in him. Let us call this set of scenarios “Set A”. Any and all scenarios in which I would not ultimately come to believe in him, become a christian and thus avoid hell can therefore be called “Set B.”

Thus far, in my life, I have only been exposed to scenarios from Set B. A common christian line of thinking on this topic might produce the idea that I have in fact been exposed to many situations which MIGHT have convinced me, but I have thus far chosen not to be convinced (thus “free will”). I would argue, however, that given Yaweh’s precise and unwaveringly-correct knowledge, however, he would know that any such situation ultimately would not convince me, which places them firmly in Set B. Now, Yahweh, in this scenario, could at any point in my life up to this point, have exposed me to any of the scenarios in Set A. He has not done so, however, in that I have yet to be persuaded. He furthermore knows (again, with absolute certainty and clarity) that everything I’ve been exposed to thus far exists within Set B. He has not allowed any of the scenarios in Set A to have taken place, and taken no action to cause any of them to take place. Given this, it must be assumed that he either does not wish for me to believe in him, or is merely indifferent.

If I were to die tomorrow, never having been exposed to any of the scenarios in Set A, I would – by our earlier assumptions – go to hell and be punished forever for not believing and not becoming a christian (whatever that may entail). I would in short be subjected to eternal and inescapable torture for not having been exposed to any of the events in Set A.

An omniscient god would know that one of the events in Set A needs to take place in order for this to be avoided. If such a god decides that my lifetime should pass without any of the events in Set A to take place, he is deciding that I should go to hell, as surely as a man who sees a child wandering blindly into traffic and chooses not to stop that child is deciding that that child should die. Certainly, there is the matter of free will; allowing that child to make the uninformed decision which would lead to its own death, but where is the morality in deciding that not warning that child in a way it would understand and be able to act upon is the right thing to do? Where, more to the point, is the morality in deciding that I should go on to hell without receiving a warning in a way that I would find persuasive, when delivering that warning in a way that I would find persuasive is well within the knowledge and power of Yahweh?

Now, in this scenario, every individual person has their own personal Set A and Set B. I would make the case that in this scenario, moreover, every single person who has ever died without becoming a christian has gone their lives without any of the events in their own personal Set As taking place. In each of their cases, Yahweh knew what would persuade them and took no steps to allow any of those persuasive events to take place. To that extent, he decided that each and every one of them ought to go to hell, when he knew with absolute certainty and clarity what would have been required in order for that not to take place, and did not allow that thing to occur.

Returning for a moment to the topic of choice and free will: Even if we assume that belief is a matter of choice (which I am by no means convinced of), and that you can simply choose to believe one thing or another, this does nothing to alter this matter: An omniscient god would know in advance what I would choose in any given scenario (and never be mistaken or surprised by my choices), and thus, if there are certain situations in which I would choose to believe in him, these would still fall within Set A, and the rest, naturally, within set B. The matter of whether belief is a product of choice or not is irrelevant in this consideration, and thus the question of respecting free will and allowing people to make their own mistakes (which are also traits commonly ascribed to Yahweh) does not enter into it.

In short, Yahweh routinely decides that people ought to suffer eternally due to the fact that they have not been given access to the persuasive arguments necessary to convince them not to do so. They are made to suffer, to that extent, for the misdeeds, shortcomings and failures of those around them, including, principally, Yahweh himself.

If this is the case, then to what extent can Yahweh be considered “good”, and to what extent can the sentence of eternal damnation for those who simply do not believe in him be considered just?

I argue that there is no extent to which either can be considered true. Such a god, if he existed, would be cruel, capricious, selfish and malign, seemingly arbitrarily deciding for people whether or not they ought to suffer for events beyond their own control, but well within his own. And I would furthermore argue that such a god would be unworthy or praise, adulation or worship.

Naturally, I do not argue that such a god exists, or has any of the traits described here, but that if a christian theist believes their god has the traits described above, then the conclusion that he is anything but morally repugnant is impossible to draw from those assumptions.

And finally, a last batch from our good friend Marvin Candle...




 

So, when all is said and done... hands up, everyone who "got" the joke here. I realize that it's fairly obscure, and indeed if you're unfamilliar with The Family Circus, it's likely entirely incomprehensible, but I like to imagine that my readership is on the whole a pretty sharp bunch of cookies, and I'm wondering to what extent this translates into people understanding this admittedly kind of minimalist comedy.