Sunday, December 10, 2023

God murders babies, God unjustly kills babies is a fallacious argument.

 Thesis:" The God murders babies, God unjustly kills babies" argument is a fallacious argument.

For this argument "murder" and "unjust killing" are the same thing; but feel free to argue otherwise.

This argument attempts to juxtapose God's attributes of Love, Justice, Holiness, Mercy, Benevolence, Moral integrity, and etc against His actions, showing that there is an internal contradiction in Christianity. Hoping to conclude that the attributes that Christian's say God has are invalidated by God's actions and thus showing that either God doesn't have those attributes, God doesn't exist, or the Bible is wrong in its portrayal of who God is.

As to why I think this is a fallacious argument:

1) Because life is a gift from God, it is God who gives all humans - all living creatures in fact - life and breath and everything else (Gen 2:7; Isa 42:5: Acts 17:25; 1 Tim. 6:13)

2) Whether that life last for 1 second or 100+ years it is a gift and no one is entitled to it or to any amount of time on earth; this is due to the fact that God is sovereign [i.e. God is Lord or King] - He has the power, wisdom, and authority to bestow upon anyone any length of time on earth. If one is gifted a short life, there is nothing unjust about that since God is not obligated to gift anyone any amount of time.

For example: God grants person A, X amount of time on earth; person B, Y amount of time on earth; person C, Z amount of time on earth. If X is the least amount of time, what complaint can person A lay at God’s feet since He is under no obligation to grant anyone life, let alone a certain amount of time?

The person who poses this argument must show that humans somehow are entitled to a certain amount of time on earth. This cannot be merely assumed to be true; it must be argued for. But they would do well to read Luke 12 - no one knows when their "soul is required of you" nor is there anything one can do to add a single hour to his span of life.

Possible objection 1: God isn’t just granting people different lengths of time on earth, He is ending their lives.

From our perspective, yes. However, God is omniscient and thus knows exactly how much time one will have on earth and has known from eternity past. So when God grants Person A, B, and C life, He knows that it’s only for a certain amount of time.

Possible objection 2: you can't be an omnibenevolent entity while killing children

The problem with this is that it conflates omnibenevolent with "only-benevolent"; confusing a perfectly loving God [who has other attributes such as Holiness and Justice, and etc which come into play as well as our sins] with one who is constrained to “only love”, even in the face of evil God is constrained to only love – i.e. God’s standards of Holiness are meaningless since He cannot condemn any act as wrong [since that would be deemed as unloving] nor can He mete out a just punishment for wrong doing since that would be “unloving”. In such a world one would have unchecked, wanton evil perpetrated amongst all humans. An "only-benevolent" God isn't a Christian doctrine and this is a strawman argument [Substituting a person’s actual position with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version in order to refute it]

Possible objection 3: It’s not about being entitled to some amount of time on earth. The well-being of conscious creatures is a fundamental moral axiom. There can’t be any merit in any moral system which doesn’t value conscious well-being and strive to minimize conscious suffering.

This assumes that the well-being of conscious creatures must entail a long life. This also assumes that God doesn’t value conscious well-being and strive to minimize conscious suffering. It also seems to be conflating omnibenevolent with only-benevolent [see above]

The "God murders babies, God unjustly kills babies" "argument" that atheists and other assorted critics use is fallacious as it is based on the mistaken belief that humans are entitled to a certain amount of time on earth, but that idea isn't found in the Scriptures thus their attempt to show an internal contradiction is ill-founded.

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