The traditional Christian idea of salvation rests upon the story of humanity’s fall into sin. It is a story that most Christians accept without question as showing that humanity is sinful, that we failed God, and that we need to be saved by God from our sinful nature. That’s quite a lot topack into one short story, and without question by so many too. Yet, is such unquestioning acceptance of this story really wise, really justified? Or, are there problems with this story? Did man really fail God in this story, or did God fail man?
My answer – oh, let me count the ways!
1) UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF ADAM AND EVE
Let’s start with the incident that created the whole idea that humanity needs salvation – Adam and Eve and the first sin. Now this story sounds simple and easy to understand, a real no brainer. God had told Adam and Eve the rules, what to do and what not do to. They then proceeded to do what they were told not to do.
Genesis 3: 2-11 (NIV)
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
As I said, an apparently open and shut case. But is it really?
God created Adam and Eve with free will but no knowledge. More importantly, he created them without any experience of lying, duplicity, evil, etc. The world was good and all of their experiences in it were good. They were total innocents.
Given this how reasonable was it for God to expect Eve to recognize lies when she first encountered them and after having experienced only truthfulness before. How reasonable was it for God to expect Eve to counter the arguments of Satan?
Just as a child might be talked into doing something wrong by an adult so too was Eve talked into disobeying God by Satan. Without knowledge of deception how can a person be reasonably expected to see through deception? Who is the one truly at fault here, the child or the deceiving adult who misled the child?
2) UNNECESSARILY CREATING TEMPTATION
Why did God bother to put the tree into the Garden in the first place? What was the purpose of this temptation? Especially, since being omniscient and such, he already knew what would happen; that Adam and Eve would disobey and that over the years he would wind up damning most of their descendents to everlasting torment in Hell.
Many might say that without a choice such as this there is no free will. However that brings up the whole issue of free will – did God know that Adam and Eve would make this wrong decision? If so, then there is no free will. If not, then God is not omniscient and can be surprised – who knows, maybe this would mean Satan’s defeat is not as certain as it seems.
Either way, why set up a test to begin with?
3) OVERLY HARSH CONSEQUENCES
In the human world we live, no one controls everything – we cannot control natural laws, weather, asteroids, disease, etc. We do not have total control of our relationships, of other drivers, of stray animals, of the stock market, etc. However God is not limited in this way.
God created the world. This means he can control all the conditions of the world and how it works. That includes the conditions of the fall and of humanity’s redemption. This fact brings up a whole series of related questions.
Why create the world and salvation in such that not only Adam and Eve are punished but also all of their descendents too? After all, God knew ahead of time that the vast majority of humanity would fall prey to error and temptation and so be consigned for all eternity to Hell. This makes it seem that he delights in the torment of others. Why not just have Adam and Eve die without children and start over?
Why Hell at all? Why not have those that disobey die and cease to exist while those who love the lord enter into Heaven? Again this makes it seem that God delights in the torments of those he condemns.
4) UNREALISTIC PROCESS TO ATTAIN SALVATION
To many, the way to attain salvation is simple – acknowledge Jesus as your savior. To many Christians, such simplicity shows that God truly loves us for otherwise he would have made it much more difficult. However, even this simple version has huge problems.
For one, it seems to leave out the vast majority of humanity who through the ages never ever heard of Jesus They don’t even stand a chance.
Further even those who do learn of Jesus, if they have been raised in a different religious tradition – Buddhism, Islam, Shinto, etc – they are not going to convert on first hearing about Jesus. Most people stay with the faith tradition of their family, their society, they were raised in. To have them change it takes time, exposure, and effort. To expect them to is to have a grossly unrealistic expectation as well as an abysmal knowledge of how humans think, believe, and act. Not something I would expect from an omniscient God.
Also, if God is just, then where is the justice in condemning a good man – a Mahatma Gandhi for example – to eternal hell just because he never accepted Jesus as his lord and savior? To make it even worse, had Stalin converted just before dying, confessed his sins, and sincerely accepted Jesus he would avoid hell despite the millions he killed, and instead live forever in heaven.
In summary it appears that the traditional Christian depiction of God’s plan of salvation is neither merciful nor just. He set up the world with a set of unrealistic assumptions, created unrealistic conditions, and set up a harsh and unnecessarily punitive system of salvation. Not a thing one would expect of a good and merciful omnipotent omniscient being. To me, that means that one or more of these elements are totally wrong.
Note: This is actually a reworked and recycled blog of mine first posted in 2010. I am working on a blog about creationism, however, it is research intensive and, since I am also back in class, going rather slowly. So, in checking to see what blogs of mine people are reading I came across this and found myself still liking it even though it had not been widely read at the time. So, after a bit of tweaking here and there, a blog to help fill the days between the time of now and the arrival of my new one.
[…] God’s Plan of Salvation – Neither Just Nor Merciful… Reduxhttps://badatheist.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/gods-plan-of-salvation-neither-just-nor-merciful-redux/ […]
dear Bill,
In Romans 5 – Paul offers, what I think is rather a weak argument, ‘by one sin enterd and deth to all…
Yes. owing to the sin I find myself in a fallen wurld. ‘thanks to adam and eve’. yet why do I not now find myself back in eden thanks to christ -at the instantv his deth?
was the atoning power not enuf?
Afzal, thaks for reading and commenting on my blog. And that is indeed another problem with the traditional view of salvation among Christians. It seems to me that being omnipotent and setting and controlling the stage that God could have come up with a better plan of salvation than that, if he were really an omnipotent, just and merciful god.
THE ELECTED! BY STEVE FINNELL
Can those elected by God resist that calling?
ELECT-ELECTED-ELECTION: Defined (Adjective, signifies picked out, chosen.) (Noun, denotes a picking out, selection, then, that which is chosen).
Elected means chosen. There is a view held by many that when God elects or chooses people that they cannot resist God’s calling. Israel was God’s elect or chosen people. God did not just select certain Jews to be saved and other Jews to be lost. Salvation was offered to the whole nation of Israel.
Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the people who are on the face of the earth.
The Jews were God’s elect. Did any of them ever reject that election? Yes they did; because they had free-will.
1 Samuel 8:7 The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.
They rejected God as king.
Numbers 14:11 The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?
These people were the elect of God, but they would not believe in Him. Even though they were God’s elect He did not force them to believe and obey Him. THEY HAD FREE-WILL.
Acts 7:51 “You men who are stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
Israel was God’s chosen people; they were His elect, however, they always resisted the Holy Spirit. Most of them rejected Jesus as the Christ. THEY HAD FREE-WILL.
Does God arbitrarily condemn some men to hell and elect a chosen few for salvation? NO, HE DOES NOT!
WHO ARE THE ELECT OF GOD TODAY?
Acts 10:34-43 Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him. 36……Jesus Christ….43 Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness from sins.
WHO ARE THE ELECT OF GOD TODAY? All who believe in Jesus Christ. Yes, everyone has the chance to become the elect, the chosen of God.
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
WHO ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE? WHO ARE GOD’S ELECT? EVERY JEW AND EVERY GENTILE WHO MEETS GOD’S TERMS FOR PARDON UNDER THE NEW COVENANT ARE THE ELECT OF GOD. THEY ARE ALL GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE.
GOD HAS OFFERED SALVATION TO ALL WHO BELIEVE IN JESUS THE CHRIST.
YOU ARE INVITED TO FOLLOW MY BLOG. http//:steve-finnell.blogspot.com
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have to say though that this really does not address my criticisms of God’s supposed plan of salvation. This seems more to be a purposeful blind ignoring of those problems in favor of an equally blind parroting of doctrine.