QUESTION:

A friend of my brother asked me some tough questions. He was born into a Christian family, but couldn’t accept the religion because of his belief about God. The friend wants to believe that there is something/someone out there.  Some points he made were:   God is not:  all-powerful  all-knowing  or all-loving.  He believes that God is just a more advanced creature.  He says that God cares about other people more than others (favoritism), that he kills people (ex. 7 plagues, Jericho, Flood..).  He says that God can’t predict the future (ex. Adam & Eve) and that his miracles are weak.  He also says that God doesn’t have any valor, compassion, etc…  Here are a couple questions he asked:  Why is God so weak? Why can he (the friend) imagine something more powerful than God if God is supposed to be all-powerful? Why must God go to such extreme choices? (ex. Jericho, Egypt, Flood)

Answer:

Your friend seems to start with statements then build from there. He says that God is not all-powerful. What is the basis for this statement? God created the universe. He created life. Nothing would exist if it were not for God. If your friend says that God is weak, then I would imagine he has a reason for saying this, but since he does not give a reason for this, I cannot respond to it. To me, any being who could create an entire universe is quite powerful. Weak? Really? His miracles are weak? What does this mean? This is really a meaningless statement. How can a miracle be powerful, when a miracle, by definition, is an action requiring supernatural power. Your friend needs to have more clear arguments in order for me to know how to respond. He asks why God is so weak. My answer is that he is not weak. He created the universe and he created life. My reasoning for these statements is that the universe shows signs of being created (the big bang). The evidence is that life was created by God as well, based in the almost unimaginable complexity of the simplest life form. I have written a book on this topic. Perhaps you could give a copy to your friend. It is “Is There a God?” (available at www.ipibooks.com). If your friend says God is weak–that the Creator of the universe is weak, then he would have to provide me a reason to support this claim or it is mere words.

Your friend can imagine something more powerful than God. What/who is it? Again, I cannot respond to a statement with no reason or evidence to back it up.

Your friend asks why God goes to such extreme choices. This is a vague question. What is an extreme choice? The Exodus was an extreme measure because God loved his people so much. Because his chosen people were enslaved, he went to extreme measures to set them free. Is there something wrong with this? About the flood, I would definitely agree that this was an extreme measure. According to the Bible, the reason God did this is because people had become totally rebellious and sinful.

God is so powerful that he created the universe, that he created life and, last of all, he created us with a soul and a spirit and with free will. God is so loving and powerful that he gave us a free will so that we could choose whether to love him or not. In this sense, God limits his power and sovereignty because he lets us have a choice. I suppose that one could argue that when God gave us free will, he chose to become “weak” in that his gives us the power to not obey him and to rebel against him. To me, this is not a sign of weakness, but instead it is a sign of love. Perhaps to your friend a “better” world and a more powerful God would be one where beings have no freedom and no choice.

God can predict the future. The proved this again and again when he prophesied so many things about the Messiah and many other prophecies. I have a whole book on this topic (From Shadow to Reality, www.ipibooks.com) God knows the future, but he does not predetermine it because he gives us free will. This brings me back to the flood. God gives us a choice, but our choices have consequences. God, as creator, has the right to judge us.

God does not show favoritism. All people have the opportunity for salvation. He did choose Israel, but this is because of the faith of Abraham and because of his plan to bless the world through Israel and the Messiah.

God is all-loving. Your friend says this is not true, but he gives no reason for this, so I cannot reply.

Your friend says that God is a creature.  If so, then who created God?  This really does not make any sense.

I am sorry that these answers are not completely adequate, but this is because your friend makes vague statements, so they are hard to respond to. I hope this will get you started.

John Oakes