As I began to share in Part 2 of 5 of the Blame and Praise Debate, four humanists replied to my original comment and attempted to challenge the Christian worldview. Humanist DG was the first to reply, as I shared in my previous post. The second humanist to reply was OJ, who presented a bizarre summary of “God’s plan” by listing supposed “Steps” one through nine (except he forgot to list a Step 5). OJ’s comment is nothing more than a question-begging epithet, which is “using biased (often emotional) language to persuade people rather than using logic.”[i] Below is Part 3 of 5 of the debate which includes OJ’s comment along with my rebuttal.
OJ:
God's plan:
Step 1: Exist for literally infinity.
Step 2: Create a vast universe with billions of billions of stars and planets.
Step 3: Wait 10 billion years.
Step 4: Dedicate the entire universe's purpose to one of the billions of billions of planets.
Step 6: Create a species, knowing full well all of their future actions.
Step 7: Get angry when the species does what you knew they would do when you created them.
Step 8: Punish them.
Step 9: Call yourself a good god.
Oh and saying the universe came to exist doesn't really make sense. Time began with the universe. It started existing rather than was created.
Me:
[OJ]: I don’t believe you understand God’s plan since several of your “steps” are false or distorted. For example, your Step 3 says “wait 10 billion years.” You won’t find 10 billion years in the Bible. Now, you might mock the biblical age of the earth/universe, but we can have that debate separately, and I can point you to arguments from PhD scientists who defend biblical creation very well (see https://answersingenesis.org/ or http://www.icr.org/). As for Step 4, the universe is dedicated to God’s glory (Psalm 115:16, Psalm 19:1, etc.), not ultimately to planet Earth. Steps 6 through 8 represent a self-refuting argument from any humanist who ever gets married and has children. Humanists get married knowing that there is a high divorce rate, and they have children knowing that they will eventually rebel against them to varying degrees. Yet, they choose to do these things out of love, which again, is a concept that the humanist has to “borrow” from the Bible (1 John 4:10). How do you account for love in a materialistic, evolutionary worldview? Is it just chemical reactions? If so, then in your worldview, why should a family member of yours ever have any more value than a jar of mayonnaise? Aren’t both items just material in the atheistic, evolutionary worldview? As for Step 9, you are essentially claiming that God is not “good.” Let me ask you this then: how do you define “good” in a materialistic, evolutionary worldview? Again, this is a biblical concept (Mark 10:18) that you are forced to “borrow” from the Bible, regardless of whether or not you are familiar with the Bible.
As for your last comment, I assume you must believe that the universe came from nothing. When have we ever observed *something* come from *nothing*? That doesn’t make sense. You must have an uncaused cause. In the biblical worldview, God is the uncaused cause. What’s the uncaused cause in your worldview?
I did not see any further comment from OJ. I hope and pray that he and the other humanists will come to truly know God’s Plan as written from Genesis to Revelation.
There seems to be a common trend among these humanists to attack God’s character as a way to supposedly discredit the Bible and justify themselves. In general, the wickedness of the human heart can often lead people to condemn God in order to justify themselves. As God says in the book of Job,
Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? —Job 40:8 (ESV)
God’s Word clearly says that Job was a righteous man because of his repentance and faith (Job 42:7-8, Ezekiel 14:14), and yet, he had to be disciplined with the above question. Therefore, even as Christians, we must keep our hearts guarded to always uphold the authority of God’s Word which informs us that only God is perfectly holy, righteous, and just (Mark 10:18, Revelation 4:8), and so are His ways/plans:
The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. —Deuteronomy 32:4 (ESV)
[i] Dr. Jason Lisle, Discerning Truth, Exposing Errors in Evolutionary Arguments, (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2010), 35.