Apologetics: witnessing to atheists
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Well, yes, but can we explain the rationale for this succinct truth? What I just posted elsewhere is applicable here:
An issue frequently cited as constituting stumbling-blocks to belief in the NT God for some people is reconciling God’s power and love with the fact of evil and its consequence. A person might think that God would not permit evil, suffering and hell to exist. People who are mystified by evil and repulsed by its punishment do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is moral free will (MFW), which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image (GN 1:26-27).
MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. Thus, God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (GN 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1JN 3:8) and humanity (RM 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in wrath or cursing, death and hell (DT 30:19).
This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. Even the wrath of God is an expression of His love. Hebrews 12:4-11 offers the clue for harmonizing these two themes. This passage indicates that suffering divine wrath in this life is intended as discipline.
Suffering earthly misery should teach people their need for God's salvation to heaven, and wrath resulting from sin should teach people to repent of their hatefulness or faithlessness (PR 3:12, IS 33:14-15 RV 3:19) before they die, after which divine wrath will be experienced justly without the opportunity for repentance.
God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity; love must be evoked. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine. If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons.
Therefore, for reasons we may understand only sufficiently rather than completely, God designed reality so that experiencing His presence is less than compelling, so that even Jesus (God the Son) on the cross cried out “My God [the Father], why have you forsaken [taken God the Spirit from] me?” (MT 27:46, PS 51:11) This phenomenon is sometimes called “distanciation”, because we experience God as distant from us and “unknown” (ACTS 17:23), even though He is close or immanent, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (ACTS 17:28).
An issue frequently cited as constituting stumbling-blocks to belief in the NT God for some people is reconciling God’s power and love with the fact of evil and its consequence. A person might think that God would not permit evil, suffering and hell to exist. People who are mystified by evil and repulsed by its punishment do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is moral free will (MFW), which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image (GN 1:26-27).
MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. Thus, God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (GN 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1JN 3:8) and humanity (RM 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in wrath or cursing, death and hell (DT 30:19).
This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. Even the wrath of God is an expression of His love. Hebrews 12:4-11 offers the clue for harmonizing these two themes. This passage indicates that suffering divine wrath in this life is intended as discipline.
Suffering earthly misery should teach people their need for God's salvation to heaven, and wrath resulting from sin should teach people to repent of their hatefulness or faithlessness (PR 3:12, IS 33:14-15 RV 3:19) before they die, after which divine wrath will be experienced justly without the opportunity for repentance.
God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity; love must be evoked. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine. If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons.
Therefore, for reasons we may understand only sufficiently rather than completely, God designed reality so that experiencing His presence is less than compelling, so that even Jesus (God the Son) on the cross cried out “My God [the Father], why have you forsaken [taken God the Spirit from] me?” (MT 27:46, PS 51:11) This phenomenon is sometimes called “distanciation”, because we experience God as distant from us and “unknown” (ACTS 17:23), even though He is close or immanent, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (ACTS 17:28).
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Some atheists argue that souls may be good or have good “hearts” and merit heaven without accepting Christ’s atonement or else they do not deserve punishment because of the poor environment in which they were raised.
The NT says there is no excuse for rejecting God, but it does not consider whether a person might have a psychological reason (such as being abused as a child by an unloving “Christian” father).
What do y'all think about this argument?
The NT says there is no excuse for rejecting God, but it does not consider whether a person might have a psychological reason (such as being abused as a child by an unloving “Christian” father).
What do y'all think about this argument?