Glancing at the bottom of one of my posts where WordPress links to “related” posts from other bloggers, I was intrigued by the title, Please Stop Making These Arguments to Christians [Part 1]. It’s written by an atheist who finds that the general gotcha questions prevalent in the intercommunications between her side and the Christian side are not conducive to a proper conversation or debate. Listing three points overly used by atheists, she gives the general counterpoints employed by Christians, and then proceeds to suggest better objections to raise instead. Always ready to give an answer, I hope to herein respond to these updated atheistic points.

Item 1: The Problem of Evil

Indeed this one is a chestnut, but personally I think it’s still a good question. The Author of Confusion lists the general apologetic point of freewill leading to sin leading to suffering, and though simplistic, covers the basic position. Not mentioned in the blogpost, so perhaps not germane, is the fact that suffering, though at times obviously caused by sin, cannot, by natural observation, be wholly attributed to sin. When a tsunami hits some populated cost, we cannot, but by faith, say it is a result of human sin, a misuse of freewill. The suffering, however, can always be tied back to the actions of man. Man can build a dyke against the waves, or he can pocket the tax revenue and leave his constituents to their fate. In a sense the tsunami—the natural cause of the suffering—is an arbitrary act of nature or god, but in another, the failure to be ready for the tsunami is a fault of man and just as much a cause of the suffering.

However, this is all off the beaten track. There are three smaller points raised against this defense, and one major objection.

Item 1.1: Do we have free will?

This one is linked to an article which I have not read. Honestly, it seems one of those things where you have to be really, really smart to believe something so contradictory, convoluted, and lacking in common sense. We experience choice every moment of our lives, and this objection is like the words of some madman in a tinfoil hat shouting we’re all under mind control. I say, “I choose this shirt,” and in reply I’m told I only think I choose the shirt. Sure, some great conspiracy may be driving my decision, but the far more obvious solution is to say I choose. In general, any evidence of freewill I can bring will be shot down by the objection “You only think. . .” There is no need to belabor the point. If you are you have will, without will you are not.

Item 1.2: “How exactly did sin change creation? Is it an active agent with intention and creative power?”

As far as I can understand the text, i.e. the Bible, sin is not an actor, but a result. If I painted a wall red, should we concern ourselves with whether or not red is an active agent in the painting of walls? This seems either a confused jumble of words meant to convey some other actual question, or mere nonsense such as is found in the writings of Lewis Carroll.

Yet it cannot be ignored that at certain points sin seems to have volition, a will of its own. Generally though, this can be attributed to poetic language, such as sin is being compared to, say, a cat in heat, or a river monster. All in all, no exact answer can be given. These instances I take as metaphorical and not literal, but there is no real affect upon basic Christian theology whether or not sin is an agent or a result of others’ actions, as even in the metaphorical usage of sin, “[Desiring] to have you,” (Gen 4:7) it is still affirmed that Cain, “Must rule over [sin].”

To the point of how sin has changed creation, there seems to be two general answers, and they both make sense to me. The first is idolatry, and the second is idolatry taken to the greatest logical extreme. Idolatry itself is the general tendency of the human condition to prize the image of the thing over the spirit, more specifically, to replace God with god, which is to confuse the reality with the metaphor.

The Christian claim is that our very purpose, the meaning of our existence, is in a sense to look up to God. Idolatry, in this conception, is looking away from God, often to something that is metaphorically god. The greatest extent of this tendency is when the individual looks away from God, and even turns from exterior images of God, to instead worship himself. No one on earth can be free of this distorted vision of God, and therefore is separated from Him. Christ condescends to us, therefor not a metaphor, and this condescension allows for us to reconnect with God.

Item 1.3: Why the flood? Since Jesus would save everyone, why flood the world?

This seems a confusion of type. The salvific aspect of Jesus cannot be equated to the flood. Just as answerable is the question, “if two and two is four, why was Jesus born of Mary?” The flood was, as a mathematical equation leads irrevocably from premise to conclusion, the logical outworking of sin. Jesus was the method by which we were saved. I cannot find the connection between the points.

Item 1.4: Is there freewill in heaven?

This seems to be the great clincher. It is an interesting question. The Author of Confusion holds that if we posit free will in heaven we are therefore positing a perfect world with free will without sin. A contradiction is seen by the Author of Confusion: If the problem of evil is explained by the free choice of mankind, that God choosing to let us our freedom was then logically constrained to allow evil, how can Christians then turn around and say that in heaven evil is no longer and yet free will is?

In C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, an angel says something along the lines that all moments are this moment. We experience free will on earth as a series of choices, for we experience it through time. Contrasted to this, the perspective of heaven is eternal; all decisions—as they concern salvation—are really one decision, one moment.

Or said another way: We all sinned in that Adam sinned. Had we any volition in that decision? From an eternal perspective, all the sin we can see, the day to day evils of this world, were in that one moment. Likewise, the choice to repent, to realize your eyes were upon an idol and not God, to return to God from the idol, is encapsulated by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ: as Christ is that Truth which is continually dying and yet living, a burning bush not consumed, so are we called in every moment, in one eternal moment, to repent.

Free will, the series of choices we perceive, is one choice, and having been made, will continually be made in heaven. Can the saints sin? No. By definition they are those who have, as it were, already chosen. So in a sense, there is no free will in heaven, and in another, heaven is the choice itself. You cannot simultaneously choose heaven and reject it; heaven is eternal, and therefor outside the series of events known as time.

Intermission

It appears as if the sun has set upon me while the work is not yet done. I hope to cover items two and three at a more convenient time, but will endeavor a slight prelude. As far as textual criticism is concerned, it is of little import to me that the Bible developed. Christ himself developed, not just as a child grows into an adult, but as a single cell matures into an infant. I do not despise humble beginnings. Christ was criticized for having history, for being the child of a parent, raised in a city, born in a place, and those facts at times distracted from what he actually came to say. In the same way, the Bible makes certain claims, and those claims themselves should be criticized. As far as the hostility of the universe to the presence of man, it would suffice to allude to Adam’s first job, that of cultivation, and afterwards look to the great advancements of science as far as the cultivation of space may go.