Is God a Sexual Predator?

A professor recently tweeted that God is a sexual predator for having impregnated Mary "without her consent." I won't give this man (an apparent Satanist, I've read) direct publicity; you can find his tweet easily enough if you're interested. Here's a brief explanation on why he probably should never, ever dabble in religion again:

Mary actually does give her consent in Luke 1:38: "Let it be to me according to your word." "But," you might object, "How relevant is her consent when the angel tells her that she will conceive Jesus? Can Mary resist the will of the omnipotent God?" As the professor, himself, noted in his inane tweet, the Christian God is omniscient. So, to ask for something (e.g., consent) that you, in your omniscience, know will be given, is kind of a waste of time. Mary wouldn't have been chosen in the first place were it not for God's foreknowledge of her consent. Her very quality of being "full of grace" consists in her foreknown willingness to sacrifice herself for our salvation.

On God's Presence

"If God exists," many atheists ask us, "why doesn't he make himself present to us?"

Although this question appears reasonable, it is in reality patently absurd, and there are multiple ways to explain this absurdity. Here's just one:

There's a mode of perception proper to every object. Scents are perceived through smelling, music through hearing, food through taste, and so on. All of these can be subsumed into the broader category of objects of sensual perception.

Now, the problem with the above question is that God is a spirit, and, as such, is normally perceived spiritually, not sensually. Why can't most of us perceive him spiritually? Because most of us are spiritually blind (most are not, as Christ puts it, "pure at heart"). But this doesn't disprove God's existence any more than a blind man's inability to perceive a visual object disproves its existence.

In other words, the above question is a loaded one, since it presupposes that God has not made himself present to us. Once we understand that he has, and if we work to sharpen our spiritual perception, we will one day discover that God is indeed "everywhere present and fillest all things," as we recite in the Trisagion Prayers.

Another Foolish Atheist Meme

Here's another absurd meme.

There are times at which I think that the so-called "new atheists" should first be introduced to logic before the Logos.

Memes like this betray ignorance not only of religion, but also of the kind of logic on which sound science depends. To test a theory correctly, the scientist must ensure that there's test validity; that is, he must ensure that his test accurately measures what it’s intended to measure. By the same exact logic, if one wishes to "measure" a religion's validity, he must first "operationalize" it correctly. That is, he must understand what a religion actually teaches before he sets out to evaluate the teaching. The "new atheists" fail to do this at nearly every turn.

What religion teaches the false dichotomy that a disease is cured by either God or man? At the most, you’d need Wikipedia - certainly not a theology degree - to learn that Christians believe that God normally works through his creation, even the worst of it (after all, their own scriptures record that God's will to suffer on our behalf was partially accomplished through the treachery of one of his very own disciples). When you hear someone say, “Thank God,” do you assume that he’s claiming to have witnessed God appear and directly benefit him in some way? Of course not. Christians (and I imagine adherents of most faiths) believe that all good things come from God, either directly or (in most cases) indirectly.

On the Apparent Contradiction Between the Human and Divine Wills

God does not predestine people to be either good or evil. What he does predestine, it seems to me, is the spatio-temporal placement of good and evil people so as to ensure the fulfillment of his divine plan.

Herein, moreover, lies the key to solving the apparent paradox between free will and there being a divine plan. Suppose I decide to throw a party. I would choose to invite those who are likely to contribute to its fun, and exclude those who are not. In doing so, I would deprive no one of his freedom to either spread joy or kill it; I would simply be using my limited power to situate joyful and joyless people in such a way as to render my intended outcome - i.e., a joyous party - more likely.

Few people will think it extraordinary if my plan succeeds. Why, then, do many atheists see a contradiction between free will and there being a divine plan? If we posit a God who is omniscient and omnipotent, then we should have no difficulty in understanding how he could have an even clearer foreknowledge of those who will use their freedom to contribute to his intended outcome, as well as an even greater power to ensure that they are situated at the right place and time to cooperate with him in fulfilling his divine plan.

"Well then, who created God, dumb--s?!"

Another Facebook exchange with a good buddy of mine, who I will henceforth call "Donkey" in order to protect his anonymity. Donkey's comments were spawned by tonight's debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham:

God created the Universe first, then created man...So if God created the Universe just to show man how awesome he was...1) where was God before the Universe existed? Cleveland? 2) Isn't that kind of egotistical - "Hey look at me, I made a Universe that you two people can't understand yet, but hang on...one day you might. Unless Ken Ham gets there first."

To slightly paraphrase my remarks, I responded as follows:

I love you, Donkey, but that's a straw man - most (thinking) theists don't believe that God created the universe to show off his awesomeness (although I'd argue that this awesomeness is sometimes made manifest - for our sake, and not his - so that we might come to recognize his existence). 

As for question 1), assuming that this is a variant of the "Well then, who created God" argument, remember that most date the time-space continuum back to the big bang. When dealing with questions of causation, such as who or what created whom or what, we presuppose the existence of time. After all, a cause chronologically precedes its effect.  But if time does have a beginning, then it would be absurd to ask who or what created (i.e., caused the existence of) God prior to the Big Bang. 

Can we wrap our minds around the concept of a being without a beginning? No. But I think it's arrogant of us to dismiss something simply because we can't understand it. 

He totally converted after that. Not really.

Thoughts On Faith

"Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority.  The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority - because the scientists say so.  Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority...A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life."

- C.S. Lewis

According to Bill Maher, “faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.” Needless to say, no Christian instructed in his religion endorses this understanding of faith. Suppose some celebrity had recently confessed that he is gay, and the first place you find this reported is the National Enquirer. Assuming you know anything about this tabloid magazine, you’d likely take this story with a grain of salt. If, on the other hand, you see it reported in the New York Times (or whichever news source you typically rely on), you’re more likely to take it at its word. Why is that, if not because you have some measure of faith (gasp!) in that news source? If we didn’t have such faith, we’d doubt most of everything there is to know - not just religious teachings - since most of what we know is learned secondhand. 

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you've embraced the Christian faith.  You'd have little need to defend the truth of each and every Christian dogma (e.g., the Virgin Birth) since you can deduce its truth from the teaching of the Church (which St. Paul describes as the "pillar and foundation of the truth"). In this regard, Church teaching is a useful heuristic, fulfilling the same function that one's favorite news source fulfills - purveying knowledge that one cannot (at least easily) acquire through first-hand experience.

In short, the Christian is not thinking any less than he who accepts, on faith, the truth of what his favorite news source has reported. Sure, he might doubt the veracity of this or that story from time to time (hence, his faith is much weaker than the religious believer’s). However, this is simply because he correctly understands that journalists are fallible human beings, whereas Christians believe that God is infallible, and doubting a God who you profess to be inerrant is a total contradiction.