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From: bobb@tekfdi.UUCP (Robert Bales)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Does the Bible show God's evil?
Message-ID: <505@tekfdi.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 00:05:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekfdi.505
Posted: Mon Sep 15 00:05:27 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 23:26:44 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 68
Keywords: Bible, God's evil, justice
Xref: linus net.religion.christian:4657 talk.religion.misc:104


There are two issues involved in the discussion of whether the Bible shows
God to be good or evil:

	1). What does the Bible say?
	2). Is the Bible true?

Much of the discussion of these issues is combined; however, I'll separate
them, as much as possible. This posting discusses the first of these.

Paul Zimmerman originally claimed that the Bible record of specific incidents
(the flood, the sacrifice of Isaac, the trials of Job, and the destruction of
the Caananites) showed God to be evil. When I pointed out that the Bible says,
for example, that those destroyed in the flood were altogether evil, Paul (and
others) responded that the latter statement was simply God's weak excuse to
cover His evil act.

This gets into the area of #2. With regards to #1, it is totally irrelevant.
The Bible says the flood was justified punishment. If you believe that God
is good, the Bible says the flood was justified punishment. If you believe
that God is evil, the Bible still says the flood was justified punishment.
(At least, neither Paul nor anyone else claimed that the Bible did not say
this. They simply want to discount the statement.) You may not believe it,
but neither you belief nor even whether the statement is true or false has
any bearing on what the statement is. Thus, while we may discuss whether or
not God is evil, the statement that the Bible says He is evil is provably
(and proven) false.


Paul would discard parts of the Bible record. In another posting, he says:

> If we are to accept the Bible for what it really says, and not just for
> what God says it says, we can come to no other conclusion than that God
> exists and is evil.

In my posting on the subject, I quoted the Bible, chapter and verse. I don't
see how you can get  any closer to "what it really says" than that!  The
point is "what God says it says" in in the Bible, and hence is also "what it
really says." And even if the two really were different, there would have to
be some basis for distinguishing the two. Paul gives NO OTHER basis than the
ASSUMPTION that God is evil and His words cannot be trusted. This analysis of
the Bible is highly circular: it produces as a conclusion what it has assumed
as a premise. (Paul also says my arguments are circular. However, my argument
here does not assume God is benevolent. It assumes only that the words of the
Bible reresent what the Bible says.)

To sum up, I said:

>> When all of the Bible record of these incidents is read, it becomes clear
>> that this record does not indicate that God does or did evil.

To which Paul responded:

> How so? All you have offered is contorted rationalizations that serve as
> poor justifications for God's act that damage people's lives.

How so? I think Paul's postings best answer this question. The face that, in
each of the specific cases we discussed, Paul questions and discounts large
portions of the Bible record is the best proof that "ALL of the Bible record"
does not support his position. If the Bible supported his position,
he would not say that God is rationalizing and lying in it. Instead, he would
insist that it was true and would not change a word of it.

As far as whether or not what the Bible says is "contorted rationalizations,"
that pertains to what I have called area #2 and is part of another discussion.

	Bob Bales,
 	Tektronix