This is a little argument from a friend of mine, Julian. Let me know what you think:
GOD AS THE SINNER!
Substance Of A Fresh Argument
1. Before the Creation, there was only God.
2. There was no sin, sorrow or suffering — neither temporal nor eternal.
3. God created the world and gave man the ‘loving gift of free will’.
4. By his omniscience God knew that most of those wrenched into existence without their consent would be unable or unwilling in their human fallibility, to follow his rules.
5. God did not use his omnipotence to leave those ‘many’ uncreated. Nor, did he repair their defects and create them so they would use their ‘free’ will as the ‘few’ saved would do.
6. Nearly all sentient animals lived in fear and struggle for food and water; and then, for countless millions, awful suffering and death. We can be thankful that Hell is not in the Divine Plan for them.
7. (Still. can you imagine loving, gentle Jesus watching unaffected as Bambi is being eaten alive?)
8. For all those civilized who value love, justice and mercy, forgiveness for infinite cruelty which was foreknown and easily prevented, is simply impossible.
9. ‘Thank God’ there are a ton of solid reasons for knowing it is all just a nightmare of man’s invention!
*****
Christians must give an unqualified yes to 1 – 6, must they not? They can only contort about 7 and fulminate against 8.
But, is this not a far easier ground to argue to the average person, and assuredly to the young who are already more dubious, than trying a conversion on the basis of arguments long met and honed with contrived and practiced obfuscations?
Aren’t the young more likely to see this God, claimed as a “loving, just and merciful father”, as a cruel mockery of the meanings of those words?
At the very least, is it not a welcome new line of argument, simple, with self-evident aspects and maybe even interesting?
Thanks Julian! Keep ’em coming.
