I [God] will smash them one against the other, fathers and sons alike. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.…
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.
—Jeremiah 13:14, 1 Samuel 15:3–4
Science seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars have proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine. As an epileptic, I had flashes of vision that I knew to be a mere neurological defect: had the visions and raptures of the saints also been a mere mental quirk? Increasingly, God seemed an aberration, something that the human race had outgrown.
—Karen Armstrong, A History of God
We’ve discussed how difficult it is to understand how the biblical God might be omniscient and at the same time appear to change His mind or repent of (i.e., regret) His actions. Think about it, and you’ll see this can create various paradoxes. Other biblical enigmas arise as God apparently changes His character through time. Do you think God changed as He evolved from the Old Testament “angry” God (who tells the Jews to show no mercy and kill infants) to the New Testament God more predisposed to mercy and love? Can God change?
One of the most clear examples of God’s changing His mind occurs in 2 Kings 20:1. God tells King Hezekiah, “Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” A few lines later, God changes His mind and tells the prophet Isaiah, “Go back and tell Hezekiah … ‘I have heard your prayer and see your tears. I will heal you.’” And Hezekiah recovers.
Here are some other examples of God apparently changing His mind. We’ve discussed a few of these, but I include them here for thoroughness:
• The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:6–7)
• Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.… [However] When God saw what they did and how they changed their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. (Jonah 3:4 and 3:10)
• I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. (1 Samuel 15:11)
• Then Abraham approached the Lord and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?… What if there are fifty righteous people in the city [Sodom]?… Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” (Genesis 18:23)
• “I [God] have seen this people [who made the golden calf], and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.” [Moses responds to save his people] “Your name will be profaned among the Egyptians, and your word to the fathers will fall.”… Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. [Instead of destroying the whole people, God tells the sons of Levi to kill 3,000 men and sends a plague among the people.] (Exodus 32:9–35)
• “Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done.” (Jeremiah 26:3)
• “If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I repent over the disaster I have inflicted on you.” (Jeremiah 42:10)
B. BIBLICAL SUGGESTIONS THAT GOD IS OMNISCIENT
Although the Bible does not use the word omniscient, there are many lines that suggest God sees or knows all:
• The Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. (1 Chronicles 28:9)
• For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:20)
• Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)
• I know what is going through your mind. (Ezekiel 11:5)
• Now we can see that you [Jesus] know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God. (John 16:30)
• The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)
• My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. (Jeremiah 16:17)
• Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?… Do not I fill heaven and earth? (Jeremiah 23:24–25)
• Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:13)
Here are hints of God’s knowledge of the future:
• [David says] … your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)
• This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. (Acts 2:23)
• For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called. (Romans 8:29)
• [God’s elect] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. (1 Peter 1:2)
• He indeed was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1 Peter 1:20)
• [God] make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. (Isaiah 46:10)
• Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you. (John 21:17)
• Known to God from eternity are all His works. (Acts 15:18)
• God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. (1 John 3:20)
C. THIRTY EXAMPLES OF GOD ENTERING THE TIME STREAM AND AIDING MASS KILLING
A five-second summary of the entire Old Testament: “I, God, am angry at you Jews for worshipping other gods, and, therefore, I will have your enemies destroy you.”
—Anonymous
Generally not known to most of my colleagues, and perhaps to most people, is the fact that the biblical God frequently aided in mass exterminations of people.1 Of course, the one well-known example is God destroying the entire population of Earth, except for Noah’s family, during the flood. His paradoxical love for and disgust with His chosen people provides ample room for fertile debates. Some have argued that in the face of so much killing by God, the question of humans’ free will becomes particularly problematic. What is the essence of free will if God is always punishing infractions? Consider a ruler who says, “You are free to choose A or B, but if you choose B I will kill you instantly.” While it’s technically true that you are free to choose, any traditional association of personal freedom is abruptly decoupled from the notion of free will. For example, if a religious minority were persecuted and not permitted to practice their religion today, we would say they were not “free” to practice their religion, although technically they would be “free” to make the choice and suffer the consequences—such as death, torture, or imprisonment.
According to the Bible, God’s most frequent method of coercing or punishing the Jews is to have their enemies triumph over them. For example, we are told that the reason Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians is that God was angry and therefore brought the Babylonians to kill the Jews—men, women, and children:
But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians [Nebuchadnezzar], who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. (2 Chronicles 36:16–17)
In other words, the biblical reason the Jews are exiled from Judah and the Temple is destroyed is that this is God’s judgment upon a rebellious people. Similarly, we find:
I [God] am going to bring disaster on this place and its people—all the curses written in the book that has been read in the presence of the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all that their hands have made, my anger will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. (2 Chronicles 34:24–25)
Before we delve into the killing, the following scene from Ezekiel is perhaps the most anti–free-will statement in the Bible. God is speaking to the Israelites, who prefer (freely choose) a different way of life than what God proscribes:
“You say, ‘We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the world, who serve wood and stone.’ But what you have in mind will never happen. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will rule over you with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath.… I will take note of you as you pass under my rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge you of those who revolt and rebel against me.” (Ezekiel 20:32–35)
If humans do have free will, there certainly seems to be significant coercion related to the choices we make.
Now let us consider mass killing and genocide. Here are some standard, commonly known examples:
• And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. (Genesis 7:23)
• Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. (Genesis 19:24)
• At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. (Exodus 12:29)
• Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. (Exodus 14:27–28)
Here are some less commonly known examples of mass murder:
• When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. (Deuteronomy 7:1,2)
• Then Moses said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. (Exodus 32:27)
• And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense. (Numbers 16:1–40)
• The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.”… Aaron stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah. (Numbers 16:21–49)
• At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them [Canaanites]—men, women and children. We left no survivors. (Deuteronomy 2:34)
• The LORD said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.” So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land. (Numbers 21:34–35)
• The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor.” Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. [God killed 24,000 Israelites who slept with Moabite women!] (Numbers 25:1–9)
You get the picture. God’s mass killings stupefy the mind. The following table shows some more body counts.
Although the Ten Commandments forbid murder, the Old Testament appears to contain numerous murders by God or aided by God in which innocent women and children are killed. How do you reconcile this conflict? Also, some scholars have wondered about the size of these numbers. It would be interesting to determine the approximate populations of the Middle East during biblical times to discover whether these impressive body counts exceed the local population numbers.
A fascinating and little-known story of the “bronze snake” occurs in the Old Testament after Moses leads his people out of Egypt. After God helps the Jews completely destroy a Canaanite town in Hormah, the Jews travel from Mount Hor along a route to the Red Sea, and they grow impatient along the way. As a punishment, God kills many of the Jews with poisonous snakes until Moses protects them by building a bronze snake atop a pole. Moses tell the people they must stare at the snake in order to live:
They spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. (Numbers 21:3–9)
Later Moses’s bronze snake, also known as Nehushtan, becomes a thing of evil:
He [Hezekiah] broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. It was called Nehushtan. [Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew for bronze, snake, and unclean thing.] (2 Kings 18:4)
The killing by God continues in the New Testament. Perhaps the most poignant example occurs during the time of the early Church, which established a community that provided for the needs of fellow Christians. The pooling of property and land was supposed to be voluntary. However, in Acts 5, God kills Ananias for giving Peter only half the money from the sale of Ananias’s land. Ananias is punished for this deception and falls down dead. Peter subsequently asks Ananias’s wife Sapphira if the money her husband had given Peter was the total amount from the sale of the land. When she says “yes,” God also kills her instantly. “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events” (Acts 5:11). Biblical scholars suggest that Ananias and Sapphira were killed not because they withheld money from the Church but rather because they lied to God. Similarly, in Acts 12:25 we find that “because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.”
D. CAN A JUST GOD SUPPORT CANNIBALISM AND CHILD SACRIFICE?
All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
In Chapter 7 we discussed the biblical mystery of the “Bridegroom of Blood”—the most perplexing story in the Bible. It takes place after God tells Moses that he must go to Egypt to lead his people out of slavery. As Moses and his family journey to Egypt, it seems that God tries to kill him.
Before discussing cannibalism and child sacrifice, let me tell you about another perplexing tale—that of Balaam in Numbers 22. When the Israelites travel to the plains of Moab and camp along the Jordan River, King Balak is terrified by the hoards of newcomers. He asks Balaam, a Mesopotamian wizard, to curse the Israelites. Something has gone wrong in the retelling, however, because throughout the story, Balaam appears to be a God-fearing man, and he does only as he is told. Balaam decides to seek God’s counsel, and is told to go with King Balak’s men and await further instructions: “That night God came to Balaam and said, ‘Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you’” (Numbers 22:20).
Balaam obeys, and God gets angry:
Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. (Numbers 22:21–22)
Obviously something is missing from the narrative. God’s anger is unexplained in light of Balaam’s following orders. Shortly thereafter, Balaam’s ass (i.e., his donkey) starts to talk to him.
Perhaps the most serious of paradoxes in the Bible relates to the question of whether or not children should be punished for their parents’ perceived sins. On the one hand, several times in the Old Testament God says children should not be punished for the transgressions of family members. For example, in Deuteronomy 24:16 we find, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” This policy is reiterated in 2 Kings 14:6. Similarly, in Ezekiel 18:20 we find,
The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.
However, God violates this edict of personal responsibility throughout the Old Testament. In Exodus 34:7 we find, “God punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Similarly, in 1 Kings 21, we find that the angry King Ahab is not punished for his role in the death of Naboth, but that his son will suffer instead: “Because Ahab has humbled himself, I [God] will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.” In 2 Samuel, God kills David’s baby for David’s sin:
Nathan replied [to David], “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child.… He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day the child died. (2 Samuel 12:13–18)
Perhaps the most well-known example of punishment of children for the sins of their parents is in Genesis, when God punishes Eve by inflicting the pain of childbirth on all future generations of women. He punishes Adam by requiring all men to toil for their food. Following are other references to punishing future “innocent” generations:
• The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy … visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation. (Numbers. 14:18).
• A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to the tenth generation shall he not enter. (Deuteronomy 23:2)
• During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” (2 Samuel 21:1)
• Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam. (Romans 5:14)
• [God speaking to Moses] Say to Aaron: “For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the Lord by fire. He has a defect.… because of this defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary.” (Leviticus 21:21)
• The Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech’s household because of Abraham’s wife Sarah. (Genesis 20:18)
• When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall upon me and my family.” (2 Samuel 24:17)
• I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. (Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 5:9)
• I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 20:26)
I feel particularly saddened when King Darius of Persia kills the wives and children of some bad men, even though the wives and children do not seem to have sinned:
At the king’s command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lions’ den, along with their wives and children. And before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. (Daniel 6:24)
The Bible gives us no sense, from God or from Daniel, of the wrongness of torturing innocents. The only thing we hear after this act in Daniel 6 is that God “rescues and saves” and that Daniel becomes prosperous. We never weep for the children whose bones were crushed by the savage beasts.
Numerous passages in the Bible seem to indicate that God is not omniscient. Consider for example:
• I, the Lord, will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know. (Genesis 18:21)
• So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. (Job 1:12 and 2:7)
Here are some other little-known oddities:
• Beating of slaves is permitted: “If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.” (Exodus 21:20–21)
• Women must marry their rapists: “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.” (Deuteronomy 22:28–29)
Let’s end this subsection with apparent requests from God for child sacrifice, cannibalism, or rape:
• Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day. (Exodus 22:29–30)
• She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. (Judges 11:30–40) [Jephthah the Gileadite sacrifices his daughter to God.]
• Nothing that a man owns and devotes to the Lord—whether man or animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the Lord. No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death. (Leviticus 27:28–29)
• In my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughter shall you eat. (Leviticus 26:28–29)
• Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem.… I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies.… and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.… I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives. (Jeremiah 19:1–9)
• In your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. (Ezekiel 5:10)
• I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. (Isaiah 49:26)
In the Book of Numbers, we find that 32,000 captured virgin women were to be given to soldiers, and 32 of the women God wanted for Himself:
Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses. The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.… And the half, the portion of those who had gone out to war, was.… 16,000 people, of which the tribute for the Lord was 32. (Numbers 31:31–40)
Readers should consult Dennis McKinsey’s “Biblical Errancy” web site, book, and related web sites for additional examples.1
E. AQUINAS’S GOD AND MAXWELL’S DEMON
Atheist: “I don’t believe in God.”
Abdu’l-Baha: “I don’t believe in the God that you don’t believe in.”
In a 1971 issue of the journal Manifold, Tim Poston published “Aquinas’s God versus Maxwell’s Demon,” an unusual article on thermodynamics and God.1 The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in any isolated system, entropy (disorder) must always increase. (The term “isolated” is important because entropy can decrease locally at the expense of greater increase elsewhere.) The Second Law is evident in the shuffling of cards: it is easier to randomly shuffle cards out of a particular sequence than into it. As the cards are shuffled, information is lost.
The following is excerpted, with permission, from Poston’s article, which attempts to show that God’s omniscience implies the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
We consider a bit of mathematical theology, as follows:
1. God is omniscient.
2. Hence, He knows the position of every particle at every time.
3. Hence, He is observing every particle at every time. (Indeed, particle existence depends upon this observation, cf. the writings of Bishop Berkeley.)
4. Hence, He is gaining information about all parts of the Universe at all times and in all places.
5. Hence, he is increasing the entropy of the Universe in all times and in all places.
6. Hence, the entropy of the Universe increases in all times and in all places. (This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Q.E.D.)
7. Corollary 1. The Axiom of Choice implies the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
8. Corollary 2. God can raise the dead.
Proof: Death and decay involve increase of entropy. God can reverse these processes by means of sacrifice of some of His immense store, accumulated as above, of confidential information.
9. Corollary 3. God will die.
Proof: The Universe will end with a war producing chaos (The Revelation of Saint John the Divine), after which God will put it together again as chaos, after which God will put it together again as a whole using all His information. It will then remain perfect (in contrast to the present state). Hence God will cease to observe it, hence He will cease to satisfy the definition of Himself (Summa Contra Gentilla, Saint Thomas Aquinas), hence He will cease to exist.
F. CAN AN OMNISCIENT BEING LOSE HIS TEMPER?
Can an omniscient being, who knows the future and sees all, lose his temper? The Bible has many apparent instances of God losing his temper. Here are just a few:
• “The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he sold them into the hand of Mesopotamia’s king” (Judges 3:8);
• “The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them” (Psalm 21:9);
• “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel” (2 Kings 13:3);
• “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel” (2 Samuel 24:1);
• “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies” (Nahum 1:2);
• “The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel” (Judges 2:20);
• “See, the Lord is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For with fire and with his sword the Lord will execute judgment upon all men, and many will be those slain by the Lord” (Isaiah 66:15–16);
• “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury” (Ezekiel 13:13);
• “I will turn you over to them for punishment, and they will punish you according to their standards. I will direct my jealous anger against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and your ears, and those of you who are left will fall by the sword. They will take away your sons and daughters, and those of you who are left will be consumed by fire” (Ezekiel 23:25).
As with the numerous examples of the biblical God saying he is extremely jealous, it is easy to argue that these examples of emotions are simply metaphors so that we limited humans can learn right from wrong. However, those who take the Bible literally may wish to ponder how an omniscient God experiences emotions.
John Paulos in his remarkable book Innumeracy discusses the volume of water rained down upon the earth during the flood in the Book of Genesis.1 Considering the biblical statement “all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered,” Paulos computes that half a billion cubic miles of liquid had to have covered the earth. Because it rained for 40 days and 40 nights (960 hours), the rain must have fallen at a rate of at least 15 feet per hour. Paulos remarks that this is “certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.”
Other ecological and biological paradoxes of the flood are discussed in Chapter 17.
H. SAINT AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD
St. Augustine declared he had seen acephalic creatures, with eyes in their breasts.…
—Glasgow Herald, December 31, 1924
Love with care—and then what you will, do.
—Saint Augustine, Confessions
Saint Aurelius Augustinus Augustine was born in the year 354 and became the bishop of Hippo in Africa from A.D. 396 to 430. His mother, Monica, was Christian since girlhood. His father Patricius became Christian later in life.
Saint Augustine’s life was not always one normally associated with a saint. As a teenager, he became the unwed father of a boy he named Adeodatus. Augustine’s mother, Monica, was determined to find Augustine a proper marriage partner and get him married. Monica eventually found a “suitable” bride who was not quite of marriageable age, and dismissed Adeodatus’s mother, Augustine’s true love. The whole incident distressed Augustine, who proclaimed, “Give me chastity, but not yet!” Instead of marrying immediately, he found another girlfriend. (This chronology is not meant to disparage Saint Augustine, who was also a brilliant and spiritual man.)
Interestingly, it seems that the existence of the set of all natural numbers is sanctioned by Saint Augustine, who often speaks of the relationship between numbers and God in his book The City of God. Here he addresses God and infinity:
The answer to the allegation that even God’s knowledge cannot embrace an infinity of things:
Then there is the assertion that even God’s foreknowledge cannot embrace things which are infinite. If men say this, it only remains for them to plunge into the depths of blasphemy by daring to allege that God does not know all numbers. It is certainly true that numbers are infinite. If you think to make an end with any number, then that number can be increased by the addition of one. More than that, however large it is, however great the quantity it expresses, it can be doubled; in fact, it can be multiplied by any number, according to the very principle and science of numbers.
Every number is defined by its own unique character, so that no number is equal to any other. They are all unequal to one another and different, and the individual numbers are finite, but as a class they are infinite. Does that mean that God does not know all numbers, because of their infinity? Does God’s knowledge extend as far as a certain sum, and end there? No one could be insane enough to say that.
Now those philosophers who revere the authority of Plato will not dare to despise numbers and say that they are irrelevant to God’s knowledge. For Plato emphasizes that God constructed the world by the use of numbers, while we have the authority of Scripture, where God is thus addressed, “You have set in order all things by number, measure, and weight.” And the prophet says of God, “He produces the world according to number”; and the Savior says in the Gospel, “Your hairs are all numbered.”
Never let us doubt, then, that every number is known to him “whose understanding cannot be numbered.” Although the infinite series of numbers cannot be numbered, this infinity of numbers is not outside the comprehension of him “whose understanding cannot be numbered.”
And so, if what is comprehended in knowledge is bounded within the embrace of that knowledge, and thus is finite, it must follow that every infinity is, in a way we cannot express, made finite to God, because it cannot be beyond the embrace of his knowledge.1
I. DOES GOD MAKE MISTAKES AND LEARN?
There is evidence in the Book of Genesis that God makes mistakes and learns—which is certainly not the characteristic one normally attributes to an omniscient being.1 This mistake and learning process is most apparent in three of God’s actions: the creation of Eve to end Adam’s loneliness, the destruction of humankind through the flood and the subsequent promise never to destroy humankind again, and the destruction of the Tower of Babel. For example, after God creates Adam, He perceives a problem, a mistake of sorts. God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God remedies the problem by creating Eve to be Adam’s companion. Micah B. Harper notes, “Were God omniscient, He would have known before He created Adam that it was not good for Adam to be alone, and because Adam was to be the pinnacle of creation, He would have created Eve first.”
One reason that God destroys humanity in the flood is that He saw “how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become” (Genesis 6:5). Translations of Genesis 6:5 say variously that God was sad or sorry that He created humans, which tends to imply a mistake or change of mind for God. After the flood, God also appears sorry and promises that “never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 8:11). Micah B. Harper believes that the flood is both “an attempt to rectify an earlier mistake and a mistake in itself, and the outcome of the whole happening is the education of God.” While this opinion may be controversial, it is logically apparent that if God’s intent with the flood was to stamp out evil, it did not work well, because the rest of the Bible contains descriptions of evil acts.
Equally perplexing is the story of the Tower of Babel. God interrupts the great building project and scatters humans “over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:8). In some sense, God is attempting to correct another mistake. God appears nervous about human accomplishments, saying, “This is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6). It is not clear what God is referring to. Is it the arrogance of people? Or is it their newly formed power and knowledge in general?
If God is not certain what will happen as a result of His own actions, then it appears He is experimenting and learning throughout Genesis. If He is only giving the illusion to us that He is learning, then why give us that illusion?
In the “Some Final Thoughts” section of the book, we discussed the pervasive scriptural mandate to fear God. More often than requiring love or any other emotion, the biblical God in both the Old and New Testament requires us to fear him. The paradox for humans is understanding how to both love and fear God. Although some might interpret the word fear to mean “respect” rather than “be afraid of”—reverence rather than terror—there are a sufficient number of examples of the word fear that lead us to wonder what is really meant. The frequent close association of the word fear with words like cursed, trembling, dread, and terror leads me to believe that many times the biblical God wants true fear.1 When do you think respect crosses over into the realm of terror?
• “Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.” (Psalm 90:11)
• “I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you.” (Deuteronomy 9:19)
• “The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air.” (Genesis 9:2)
• “‘Should you not fear me?’ declares the LORD. ‘Should you not tremble in my presence?’” (Jeremiah 5:21–23)
• “‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.” (Acts 7:32)
• “You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death; I have suffered your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest Friend.” (Psalm 88:6–18)
• “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:5)
• “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)
• “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.’” (Exodus 20:20)
• “Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.” (Ecclesiastes 8:13)
• “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” (Hebrews 11:7)
• “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
It is interesting that humankind’s ancient religious journey began with fear of the unknown and the attempts to control this fear through magic and placating invisible spirits. Humans had to contend with disease, famine, ruthless enemies, lightning, and floods. Religion matured, and fear evolved into faith. Fear of nature soon became replaced by fear of God.
Note that even very modern religions such as the Baha’i faith occasionally have the same elements of fear as the religions of yore. Bahaullah (1817–1892), the Baha’i prophet founder, said, “The essence of wisdom is the fear of God, the dread of His scourge and the apprehension of His justice and decree.” I suspect that the Baha’is would liken humans to children who must first fear the wrath of their parents so that they do not cross a dangerous road. Fear was perhaps necessary during the primitive stages of humanity to encourage respect. I have a hypothesis that as religions progress (e.g., Judaism → Christianity → Islam → Baha’i), the word fear is decreasingly used, and when it is used it increasingly means reverence rather than terror.
K. TWO PROOFS THAT GOD IS NOT ALL-KNOWING?
Philosopher Peter Kirby has put forth an argument, outlined as follows, that appears to limit either omniscience or free will. Do you agree with his logic? If not, what flaws do you find?
In the following eleven steps, “A” refers to any given action, for example, “I will paint my fingernails red tomorrow.” “∼A” refers to the opposite of that action, for example, “I will not paint my fingernails red tomorrow.”
1. God’s knowledge cannot be wrong.
2. God knows that I will do A.
3. If I have free will, then (I can do A) and (I can do ∼A).
4. If I can do ∼A, then it is possibly true that I will do ∼A.
5. If it is possibly true that I will do ∼A, then God’s “knowledge” that I will do A is possibly false.
6. If God’s knowledge that I will do A is possibly false, then God’s “knowledge” can be wrong.
7. Therefore, God’s knowledge that I will do A is not possibly false.
8. Therefore, it is not possibly true that I will do ∼A.
9. Therefore, I cannot do ∼A.
10. Therefore, it is false that (I can do A) and (I can do ∼A).
11. Therefore, I don’t have free will.
According to Kirby, anyone who accepts premises 1–6 will logically reach the conclusion of the nonexistence of free will. Any other person, or even God Himself, could be substituted for “I” in this argument. Kirby writes:
Some try to refute this argument by suggesting God is outside of time, whatever that may mean. However, if these same people suggest the possibility that God interacts with this universe and makes prophecy (even becoming incarnate once), it would seem that God is “inside time” from time to time, so this line of defense must be rejected. Even granting the plausibility of being “outside time,” the theist is still faced with the problem of God’s own free will. If God has free will and makes choices, then God must have a future. Does God know His own future? If so, then God is not free. If God does not know His own future, God cannot be said to be truly omniscient. If God has not future, than He is not omniscient.1
Some may reject Kirby’s argument by suggesting that because God does not force you to take a certain course, you have free will. But free will as defined in the Kirby argument has a rigorous and simple definition. Free will means the ability to do A and the ability to do ∼A. Kirby’s argument states that omniscience implies the lack of free will, not that omniscience implies that the omniscient being is making choices for you. The omniscient being could very well be powerless and unable to interact with the physical world, but this does not affect the argument.
On the other hand, some have likened the possible conflict of free will and omniscience to the game of chess. Often each chess player knows exactly how the other will react to each move. The chess argument suggests that God similarly knows how people will react to events. Humans could make many accurate predictions if they had sufficient information. A being with infinitely accurate input information could run many simulations and make many more predictions about the future than we can. But neither the chess player nor God is causing the players to make particular moves. Using the chess analogy, in order for God to make predictions about the future, He need not even be able to see the future.
While on the topic of divine foreknowledge and free choice, let us consider the following argument by Boethius (475–524), a Roman scholar, Christian philosopher, and author of the famous De consolatione philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy). In this work he makes the following argument:
Just as when I know that a thing is, that thing must necessarily be; so that when I know that something will happen, it is necessary that it happen. It follows, then, that the outcome of something known in advance must necessarily take place.2
Edward Wierenga, professor of religion at the University of Massachusetts, has also had a long-term interest in omniscience, foreknowledge, and free will and has analyzed the Boethius passage, which he feels suggests the following argument:
1. If God knows that S will do A, then it must be the case that S will do A.
2. If it must be the case that S will do A, then S isn’t free with respect to A.
Therefore,
3. If God knows in advance that S will do A, then S isn’t free with respect to A.3
Again, this seems to take away human free will if there is an omniscient God. (In Wierenga’s analysis, to say that a being S is omniscient would mean that for every proposition p, if p is true then S knows p.) C. S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity, tackles this question with the standard notion of God being outside of time:
Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows that I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here, once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call “tomorrow” is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call “today.” All the days are “Now” for Him.4
We can analyze Edward Wierenga’s three-step argument. Let K stand for “God knows in advance that S will do A.” Let D stand for “S will do A.” Let F stand for “S isn’t free with respect to A.” Let “Nec” stand for “it’s necessary that.” Given these definitions, we can create two interpretations for the 3-step argument:
Interpretation 1
(1') Nec(If K then D)
(2) If Nec(D) then F
(3) If K then F
Interpretation 2
(1") If K then Nec(D)
(2) If Nec(D) then F
(3) If K then F
(1') is true. But the argument after (1') is invalid. The argument with (1") as its first premise is valid. It is of the form: If p then q; If q then r; If p then r. But (1") is false. According to Wierenga, just because God knows a proposition, it doesn’t follow that the proposition is necessarily true. So there are two interpretations of Boethius’s argument. Under one interpretation the argument has all true premises, but it’s invalid. Under the other interpretation the argument is valid, but its first premise is false. Both interpretations, therefore, are defective. So the Boethius argument doesn’t establish the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human free action.
L. SIXTY-FOUR WAY-OUT QUESTIONS TO PONDER
I continually plague my colleagues with questions related to spirituality. You read about some of them in Chapter 2, in which I asked friends and strangers, “What could a being do to make you believe He was God?” Other surveys are mentioned in Chapter 17. The following are additional questions for which I have solicited answers for many years. Think of these zany questions as koans that can provide hours of fun coffee-table conversations as well as serious topics for meditation. Try a few on friends.
• A being tells you that your current life is actually the afterlife, and it will last for as long as you wish. If you desire, you will not age or get sick. Does this statement bring you happiness or sadness?
• God comes up to you and says, “If you request it, I will increase the natural life span of humans to 1,000 years. Will you make such a request of me?” What is your answer?
• God comes up to you and asks, “Do you wish to know if there is life after death?” What is your answer?
• God says, “I can give you control over your dreams at night and make them as real as your experiences in life. Would you like such a power?”
• Michael, God’s warrior angel from the Bible and Koran, floats with feathered wings into your home and asks, “What is the most important question I can ask humanity and what is the best possible answer you can give?” What is the safest reply you can give? Be careful—your everlasting life hangs in the balance.
• A being tells you that God exists, but He is one among many Gods. You are urged to practice henotheism—believing in the supremacy of a single god without denying the existence of others (see “Some Final Thoughts,” which describes the henotheism of Moses and other early Jews). How does this affect your life?
• God appears before you and asks, “What is the most profound question you can ask me?”
• God says, “I will give you the ability to speak and understand a thousand languages, on the condition that every other human’s IQ is slightly diminished. Do you accept my gift?”
• God says, “I will give all humans the ability to turn water into wine and stones into bread, if you request it.” Do you request it?
• God says, “You now have five senses. I will give you another sense each week for a year, if you request it.” Do you request it? Why?
• You are touring a holy shrine when suddenly God appears and asks, “Which will give you more pleasure: if lightning bugs could twinkle in color, or if humans would speak kind thoughts every other time they have them?”
• You are walking through the town of Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus. You see a light in the sky, and hear God’s voice thundering down. “Which do you choose,” He asks, “sunshine could cure cancer, or the shadows of humans can do half of humanity’s work? For example, the shadow of a gas station attendant can pump gas while the attendant works on another car.”
• Would you rather have the gift of understanding or of persuasion?
• Neo-Jungian Clarissa Pinkola Estes asserts that if Mary, Mother of Jesus, were born today, “Mary would be a teenage girl-gang leader.” As shocking as this may sound, one wonders what occupation Jesus or any prophet would have if born today. Would they be involved with computers, biotechnology, or the entertainment industry, or would they be farmers and fishermen? Would a Jesus in the twenty-first century be exploring other planets and stars?
• Humans will be modified to exist on another planet. Do you choose Pluto or Saturn? Why?
• God says, “Which is best? You can bottle time and save it until you need a little extra or every human gets four loving hugs a day.”
• God says, “Which is best? Photographs and memories stay vivid through the years or all rodents achieve human-like intelligence for a week, allowing us to finally converse as equals with another species.”
• You are exploring Nazareth, the historic city of Lower Galilee in northern Israel. As you walk through a field you are accosted by seven rodents. One of the rodents whispers “Yeshua,” the name of Jesus in the Hebrew language. Another appears to be wearing a crucifix. What is your reaction? Is this experience sufficiently paranormal to alter any of your religious beliefs?
• God hands you two books. In a deep, stentorian voice, God asks, “Which book do you choose?” Each page of the first book contains the words, “This page intentionally left blank.” Each page of the second book contains the words, “This page not intentionally left blank.”
• You are walking through the world’s largest cathedral church, Saint John the Divine in New York City. Suddenly you hear a hushed voice, look up, and see a vision of the angel Gabriel. “I lay before you a blank book which you can fill at will with your own desires and each will come true; however, you cannot ask to know the future. I also offer you a book of knowledge of the future, but you must turn at most one page a day, and as you do you lose one page of memory of your past. Choose the book you wish to keep.”
• God says, “I will give humans one of the following gifts. You decide. I will give everyone unlimited money, unlimited energy, or unlimited information.”
• God says to you, “Answer this question with ‘yes’ or ‘no’: Will your next word be ‘no’?” What is your response?
• God says, “Which do you prefer: being a rich person in a poor country, or a poor person in a rich country?”
• God says, “Which do you prefer: being a dog who looks human, or being a human who looks like a dog?”
• God says, “If you request it, I will tell you whether I am real or merely the result of abnormal electrical activity in your brain’s temporal lobes.” What is your request?
• God says, “What is better for humans—people who won’t break the rules or people who will break the rules?”
• God says, “Some theologians suggest God created man, and other theologians say man created God. Which scenario gives the best chance for a fulfilling afterlife?”
• God says, “Which do you consider a greater punishment? Every time you cough, someone within a fifty-mile radius from where you now stand will die—or every time you laugh, someone at random on Earth will die.”
• If the Pope suddenly said today that the moon was made of green cheese, how many people would believe him? 1,000? 100,000? 1 million? Would this mean that the moon, in fact, is made of green cheese?
• Is the desire to believe different from the search for the truth?
• God gives you a piano. For each note you play, someone will die. What classical piece do you choose? God gives you another piano. For each note you play, someone will experience unparalleled ecstasy. What classical piece do you choose? God gives you a piano. Every time you play an E-flat note, scientists will discover a cure for a new disease. What classical piece do you choose?
• If archaeologists discovered the bones of Jesus, thereby disproving the notion of physical resurrection, would Church authorities prefer to suppress this information rather than have it become widely known?
• You are staring at a painting of the Roman Catholic saint Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917), the first United States citizen to be canonized. As you gaze into her eyes, God appears and says, “Recently, some of my creations have complained that women are subservient to men in the Old and New Testaments. Of all the creatures I have created, which animals exhibit the greatest degree of liberation for the female?”
• Sometimes creationists push to have their religious beliefs about the origin of the universe taught in public schools as science. Which version of creation do you think should be taught in schools, if any: Biblical, Babylonian, Native American, or Zulu? If none, why not?
• If God were humanoid, would God be ambidextrous?
• If you could ask one question of God, what would it be? Close your eyes and ask it now. How did that feel? Did you get an answer? Are you getting an answer as you read “these words”?
• If God had created an Earth with two identically shaped landmasses, for example two square continents, the effects on the world and religion would be profound because they would suggest the presence of a creator. What effect would the existence of a perfect square or circular continent have on religion and science?
• During the time of Moses, the Hebrews called God “Yahweh.” Though special to the Israelites, he was one of many Gods. It was Isaiah who proclaimed that Yahweh was the only God, and this was to be a Jewish secret. How would the geopolitics of today’s Earth be changed if this message had never spread throughout the world, and monotheism had never been practiced?
• In the Book of Genesis, God turns Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. What geopolitical effect would this have on today’s world if God turned evil people into pillars of salt?
• Some historians say that if there were no Saint Paul, there would be no Christianity today. Do you agree?
• God says, “I will eliminate the emotion of your choice so that you will never experience this emotion again.” What emotion do you choose?
• Some philosophers, such as George Berkeley, suggest that our senses deceive us and that we are merely creations of another Being’s thoughts. This Being is God. But what if God is only another being’s thoughts? If you consider the above philosophy possible, then could our own thoughts also spawn other beings in alternate universes? If so, what happens when we stop thinking? Is the key to survival that some being continue thinking?
• God appears before you and asks you to change places with one person in the Bible. Who would you choose?
• God walks up to you and says, “You and I are real, aren’t we?” What is your response? What is the best way to determine what things are real and what things are not real?
• Novelist S. R. Donaldson once wrote, “The dreams of men belong to God.” Does God dream? Can an omniscient being dream?
• If Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, and Confucius were gathered in a room, who would be the first to speak? What would he say?
• You died yesterday. Today, you arrive at Heaven and you find that the Waiting Room is about the size of New York State, and there are literally millions of people milling about, living in shacks with little to do all day. Angel Michael approaches you and says, “This was easier in the old days when only a thousand people died each month, but now we can hardly process the number of entrance applications. If you like, we can give you cable TV with a single channel so that you can pass the time.” What channel do you choose?
• God says, “The world is becoming overcrowded and I plan to flood it as I did with Noah. Make an ark to hold 20 people.” Who do you choose to bring with you? Your parents? A physician? A musician? Pamela Anderson Lee or Brad Pitt?
• You are entering the kingdom of Heaven. A sign on the pearly gates says, “Out to Lunch. Back in Ten Minutes.” What are your thoughts while you wait?
• Visitors from the stars descend to Earth. If you had to choose either a priest, a rabbi, or a mullah to make “first contact” with the visitors, whom would you chose?
• Beings from another dimension come to Earth and you have the choice of giving them one of four gifts: the Old Testament, a calculus book, a Beethoven recording, or a book of mystical poetry by Persian poet Rumi. Choose.
• Would you prefer there to be no God or that God be part of a hive organism consisting of numerous interconnected beings? Would you prefer one God, no God, or many Gods?
• God gives you the ability to change certain physical properties of your bedroom windows. As a result, you are able either to gaze out and watch biblical events, or to gaze out and watch the world in the year 3000. Which do you choose?
• An angel flies into a field, approaches you, and says, “In Universe One, there is ‘life after death,’ but there is no God. In Universe Two, there is no ‘life after death,’ but God exists. In which universe would you prefer to live? In which do you now live?”
• God says, “If I were to change places with you for a day, what would be your first act as a God?”
• The year is 2020. A bearded man appears on Fifth Avenue in New York City and performs miracles. He claims to be a prophet of God. While being interviewed by Peter Jennings of ABC News, he makes Peter Jennings disappear. As a result of this miracle, do you think the bearded man could start a worldwide religion with a million followers?
• It is said that taking a dose of vitamin B-12 before sleep can cause spectacular intensification of colors in dreams. B-12 can even produce colors in dreams of people who never before had polychrome dreams. If you were to have a vision of God as a result of taking the B-12, would you value the vision less because a drug was required, or would you consider the drug an aid to breaking through this world into the next?
• You are traveling through a remote part of New Guinea and find that natives are worshiping a discarded Sony PlayStation. Do you try to convince them that videogame unit is not divine?
• God says, “I can give humans the ability to fly, on the condition that humans would have to lay eggs.” Would you accept it?
• God says, “If there were one thing I could let you see me do, what would it be?”
• God says, “In order to shake things up and give humans a feeling of awe and wonder, I will turn the Earth from a sphere into the shape of a doughnut.” Do you accept?
• God says, “If you request it, I will triple humankind’s intelligence and kindness on the condition that all women will have only one ovary instead of two.” Do you make this request?
• If all human religious thought, history, and knowledge were lost in a cataclysm, what single statement would preserve the most information for the next generation of creatures?
• God says, “Why you are reading this book?” What is your response?
You make the assumption that the Bible is a “sacred book.” It isn’t. To the vast majority of the human race it’s one of many ancient mythological accounts that predated a better understanding of reality that we now call science.
—James Randi, “Twas Brillig…,” Skeptic