Is There A Christian Dilemma?

The "Islamic Dilemma" is a prominent theological argument that questions the internal logical consistency of the Qur'an regarding its view of previous scriptures. Simply stated, it says: 

* The Qur'an affirms the original inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Torah and the Gospel (referred to as the Injil). It often uses these texts as a baseline for its own legitimacy.

* The Qur'an contradicts these earlier texts on major theological points, such as the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the crucifixion.

Thus Islam faces an inescapable trap no matter which position a Muslim takes on the Bible
 

* If the Torah and the Gospel (as they existed at the time of Muhammad and as they exist today) are the preserved, inspired Word of God, then Islam must be false, because the Qur'an denies the core theological claims found in the Biblical texts

* If previous scriptures have been corrupted by humans and lost their original message, then the Qur'an itself is allegedly false for affirming and commanding people to follow them, and for claiming that God's words cannot be altered.

For more info on the Islamic Dilemma, see here

In any case, it now seems that critics are trying to posit a Christian Dilemma. Here's their argument:

The writings of the Bible are not inerrant, and that makes them an unreliable source of information about God and the will of God

Because Deuteronomy warns against adding or subtracting from the Law, and Jeremiah mentions the "lying pen of the scribes", the writings themselves show they're able to be corrupted and have been. This is already clear from various numerical errors and issues like Elihu being ignored in Job.

As the writings are able to be corrupted at all, they're unreliable. A person is left to pick and choose what's true or not with no way of knowing what's correct, if any of it, and even those who believe there is a way to know (e.g. sincerely asking God) seem to disagree with each other, as there are many denominations. Therefore, they are no more knowledgeable about God's existence, character and desires than those who haven't read the writings.

Since writings as ancient as Job and other writings less so, such as Jeremiah, have significant sections that are uncertain, and the originals are unknown, the extent of potential corruption, especially in the earlier writings, goes beyond less significant issues, such as the numerical errors, and into larger issues, such as information about God. Even when multiple versions of texts exist, it cannot necessarily be known which is original (if any) for each, what was or wasn't changed, and so on. From there then, it relies on God, if existent, yet ultimately, given the differences in what believers consider true, it relies on human opinion and likely preference, which does nothing for truth and unity. Tradition isn't very helpful either, as it clearly changes over time, and even the early church members didn't agree.

Supporting passages:

• Ability to remove and add:
• "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you." - Deuteronomy 4:2
• "'Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it." - Deuteronomy 12:32
• Corruption:
"Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'" - Jeremiah 7:21-23
• "'How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" - Jeremiah 8:8-9

My Rebuttal

1. Refuting the Misinterpretation of Jeremiah 8:8 ("The lying pen of the scribes")

The OP uses this verse to argue that the physical text of the Torah was corrupted and rewritten, rendering the transmission process unreliable. This completely misunderstands both ancient scribal culture and the literary context of Jeremiah.

• Reinterpretation vs. Erasure: In the ancient Near East, the "lying pen of the scribes" did not mean they were erasing Moses' words and rewriting Genesis or Exodus. Rather, it referred to the production of false administrative decrees, unauthorized legal commentaries, and deceptive interpretations (what would later be known as oral law or halakha). The religious elite were writing their own political and religious loopholes and claiming they carried the authority of Yahweh.

• The Prophet's Logical Prerequisite: Jeremiah’s entire polemic relies on the fact that an authentic, uncorrupted standard of the Law still existed and was known to the people. He asks, "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'?" If the text itself had been completely corrupted beyond recognition, Jeremiah would have no objective baseline from which to accuse them of "rejecting the word of the Lord" (v. 9). You cannot accuse someone of breaking or distorting a standard if the standard no longer exists.

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2. Refuting the Misinterpretation of Jeremiah 7:21–23 (Sacrifices vs. Obedience)

The OP claims a direct contradiction here: God says He never commanded sacrifices when He brought Israel out of Egypt, which flatly contradicts Leviticus. The OP claims this proves massive textual corruption. This error stems from ignoring ancient Near Eastern rhetorical devices.

• The Use of Semitic Hyperbole: Ancient Hebrew regularly used absolute, negating contrasts ("Not A, but B") to establish absolute priority, not literal exclusion. This is an idiom of comparative negation.

• Parallel Examples: * In Hosea 6:6, God states: "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." The second line explicitly clarifies the first: it is about priority, not a literal ban on sacrifice.

  • In the New Testament, Jesus uses the same idiom: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother... he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). Jesus is not literally demanding hatred; He is using extreme contrast to demand supreme allegiance.

• The Chronological Reality: Historically and textually, when Israel was brought out of Egypt, the first thing given at Mount Sinai was the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) and the covenant of obedience (Exodus 19–20), which contained no sacrificial laws. The elaborate Levitical sacrificial system was instituted afterward. Jeremiah is pointing out a historical fact to emphasize a theological point: God's primary mandate was relationship and moral obedience; the ritual system was always secondary and meaningless without it.

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3. The Textual Criticism Counter-Evidence

The OP asserts that because the texts could be corrupted, we have "no way of knowing what's correct." This completely bypasses the science of textual criticism.

• The Safety of Numbers: The Old Testament was not passed down via a single, fragile telephone line. It was copied across multiple geographic streams (the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Greek Septuagint).

• The Dead Sea Scrolls Proof: The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 provided manuscripts dating back to the 2nd century BCE—over a thousand years older than the previous oldest copies. When compared to the medieval Masoretic Text, the preservation was staggering. The variants discovered were overwhelmingly minor stylistic shifts, spelling differences, or copyist slips. No major narrative shifts or theological rewrites occurred. Thus proving any corruption theory invalid, or at least without any evidentiary support.
  

Summary

The "corruption" argument fails because it treats prophetic hyperbole and condemnations of bad commentary as if they were literal admissions of physical forgery. Historically and textually, Jeremiah was fighting against corrupt religious lawyers, not a corrupted manuscript tradition.

Why Didn't God Just Not Create the Evil, Bad, Unrepentant People?

This is a question that's usually asked  in regards to an eternal hell. 

I would say that if God were to preemptively withhold existence from those who would end up in hell, He would also simultaneously erase every single redeemed soul "downstream" from them. In a universe where generations are inextricably linked, simply not creating evil, bad, unrepentant people would effectively give the bad a "group veto" over the good. A just and loving Creator does not allow the rebellion of the few to cancel His plan to bless and redeem the many.

Your actions do affect others.

A single person's actions (like a smile or a scowl at the office) can start a chain reaction that alters the immediate environment and experiences of those around them. Because human lives are so deeply connected, one person's suffering or crisis provides a unique, interconnected society that allows others to develop deep moral virtues: a tragic situation forces onlookers to choose between cowardice and heroism (e.g., deciding whether to harbor a victim or deciding whether to disobey an evil order).

The Butterfly Effect of Existence

Intertwined lives allow for a ripple effect of compassion, sympathy, penitence, forgiveness, and reform that extends far down time and space. Without the initial tragedy, these profound moral responses could not actually exist. Many individuals turn to God in the aftermath of being exploited or harmed by ruthless evil people. Without that specific crisis, they may never have sought a relationship with God. Historically, the bravery of Christians facing violent persecution (orchestrated by evil regimes) has served as the catalyst for spectators and bystanders to convert.

If a person converts due to a crisis caused by an evil person, and that convert later marries and has children who also become Christians, those children would neither exist nor be saved. If the original evil actor had been "ripped out" of history. Millions of Christians who would have been born will never exist, which also erases all their downstream Christian descendants.

So while the "just don't create the evil/bad/unrepentant people" objection sounds great on the surface, it would actually have a massive ripple effect, erasing the downstream marriages, children, and believers who only exist because of the complex chain reactions of our interconnected world. In short, the rebellious do not get a veto over the existence of the good. Nor do they get a veto over God's purposes.

This seems to be what the wheat and tare parable is speaking to, at least in part; the coexistence of both forces challenges the faithful to stand firm and mature amidst difficulties. The servants ask, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" and the master responds, "No, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them." This perfectly mirrors the downstream generation argument; pulling out the "tare" physically damages or prevents the growth of the surrounding "wheat."

Best of All Possible Worlds

This concept, was originally articulated by the 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He argued that out of an infinite number of potential universes that God could have spoken into existence, this specific universe is the one that maximizes the greatest possible good with the least amount of necessary evil.

God cannot logically create a world where humans have genuine free will, yet simultaneously strip away the real-world consequences of that free will whenever it goes wrong. If He preemptively deleted every individual who would choose rebellion, there would be no one left since we have all sinned at one point.

Ultimately, a reality that allows for rebellion, yet masterfully weaves redemption and justice out of that brokenness, possesses a far greater glory than a hollow, sterile universe. A preemptive purging of the wicked would mean an accidental erasing of the repentant. The tares are permitted to grow alongside the wheat not because the Master treasures the weed [though Jesus did die for them as well], but because He guards the harvest with fierce devotion, refusing to risk a single precious grain.

If God Can’t Violate His Nature, then Moral Responsibility Makes No Sense

Here is this argument by a Redditor.

If you think that God CAN violate his nature, or if you think he can do things like lie, then this argument isn’t directed to you.

I’m using the Principle of Alternative Possibility as my framework for moral responsibility. You are morally responsible for an action if and only if you could have made a different decision. if you could not have made a different decision, then you obviously aren’t responsible for that decision.

If God cannot violate his nature, that means it’s impossible for him to do certain logically and physically possible things like lie. I choose lying as an example because things like killing every human being on earth are apparently well within his nature, but lying somehow isn’t, in the Christian worldview.

But if there are things that are impossible for the most powerful being in existence, for the sole reason that they are not within his nature, then we must certainly be similarly bound by our nature. People get really upset when you claim that a certain decision was impossible for them to make, even if it seems physically possible, but the concept suddenly makes perfect sense to them when you talk about God’s nature.

The most common objection to this is that God’s nature is fixed, but human nature changes. But human nature only changes over time. You can’t change who you are, what you believe, or what motivates you at will, like flipping a switch. At the moment you make a decision, you are who you are, and you can’t be otherwise. So the idea that you could have made a different decision than the one you made in real life would require your nature to have been different than it was when you made the decision. The fact that you can imagine having made a different decision isn’t evidence of anything other than the ability of the human imagination to imagine impossible things.

The fact that it’s impossible for both us and God to violate our nature means that human decisions must always conform to the individual’s nature, just like God. Since we do not choose our nature, then our actions, which are directly controlled by our nature, cannot be not freely chosen.

The Rebuttal:

To refute the opening post (OP) while staying within the user’s specified framework, the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP). The premise that God acts in accordance with His immutable nature, one can expose a fatal flaw in the OP's leap from divine nature to human nature.

The OP's core argument is:

1. God cannot violate His nature (e.g., He cannot lie).

2. Therefore, actions are entirely determined/controlled by nature.

3. Humans cannot change their nature at the moment of choice.

4. Therefore, humans have no alternate possibilities and lack moral responsibility

The Fallacy of Equivocation: "Divine Nature" vs. "Human Nature"

The OP treats "nature" as a monolithic concept that operates identically in a necessary, supreme being (God) and contingent, finite beings (humans). This is a category error.  A category error (or category mistake) is a logical and semantic error where properties belonging to one concept are inappropriately ascribed to a fundamentally different concept. Examples: Questions like "What color is the number seven?" or "How much does the Pythagorean theorem weigh? are both category errors. 

• God’s Nature is Ontological Perfection: When theologians say God "cannot lie," it is not because He faces a restrictive boundary or an external constraint. It means God is the fundamental source of truth itself. A limitation only exists if there is a gap between what a being wants to do and what it can do. God’s will and God’s nature are perfectly unified.

• Human Nature is Inherently Flexible: Human nature, by definition, includes the capacity for internal conflict, deliberation, and moral variance. Unlike God, whose nature is unchangeably anchored in absolute goodness, human nature is structurally built to choose between competing desires, values, and inclinations.

Conflating "Influencing" with "Determining" (The Fallacy of the Switch)

The OP claims that because you cannot change who you are "at will, like flipping a switch" at the exact moment of decision, your nature dictates a single, inevitable output. This misunderstands how human choice works under PAP:

• Having a specific nature at T1 does not restrict a human to a single possible action. For example, a person’s nature might include both a selfish desire (to keep found money) and a moral conviction (to return it).

• Both options are entirely compatible with their human nature. The agent possesses the genuine power to elevate one desire over the other. Therefore, at the moment of choice, alternate possibilities do exist within the boundaries of that nature. The OP wrongly assumes a nature can only ever yield one logical output.

The Self-Defeating Nature of the OP's Determinism

If the OP's strict view of "nature" is true, the argument undermines its own premise regarding moral responsibility:

• If human nature strictly determines every choice, then the OP’s act of writing the post, evaluating the logic, and demanding intellectual honesty from Christians is also just an inevitable, passive byproduct of the OP's unchosen nature.

• Under this view, praise, blame, rationality, and debate become meaningless chemical echoes. If the OP believes humans are genuinely responsible for evaluating the truth of this argument, they must concede that humans possess a degree of agency that transcends rigid instinctual determinism

Summary Refutation

The OP assumes that for a choice to be free, an agent must be able to act completely outside of any nature whatsoever. But freedom does not require being a blank slate; it requires the power of self-determination that your nature allows. Because human nature inherently permits a spectrum of conflicting choices (unlike the unified perfection of divine nature), humans retain the alternate possibilities required for true moral responsibility.