CADRE Comments

The New York Times always seems poised to publish any opinion piece that discredits Christianity. One such article was published on March 25, 2019 entitled “ The God Problem ” by Peter Atterton, professor of philosophy and associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University. Dr. Attenton’s article seeks to make the belief in the existence of God irrational by claiming that both God’s omnipotence and His omniscience are incoherent. I want to focus on the charge of incoherence against God’s omniscience in this post. Dr. Attenton’s charge against omniscience begins: Philosophically, this presents us with no less of a conundrum [than God’s omnipotence]. Leaving aside the highly implausible idea that God knows all the facts in the universe, no matter how trivial or useless (Saint Jerome thought it was beneath the dignity of God to concern Himself with such base questions as how many fleas are born or die every moment), if God knows all there is to know, t...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting Chapter 46, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 46, "The Children of the First Sinners".] [I ended the previous entry asking, "Why is it that other people suffer thanks to my sin? Why does God not negate the harmful, baneful results of my own actions, sparing those who find themselves standing in the paths of effect?"] The first answer I reach is: I do not know that God does let every possible baneful consequence from my actions affect other people. On the contrary: I know I find myself thanking Him, that by providential circumstance other people have been spared from suffering which might have followed from some sin of mine. This does not, by itself, provide a solution to my question, for if even one minor suffering of a victim resulted from a whole history of (otherwise silent) human sinning, then the question of why God would allow such an effect would rem...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 45, can be found here. ] [This entry starts Chapter 46, "The Children of the First Sinners".] I have argued that recorded history--even the history recorded by people who do not follow my own tradition--indicates that the tendency to act intransigently, in willful rebellion against what we perceive to be true, has been a perennial characteristic of our species. Because God would not have created us automatically in rebellion against Him (or against as much of Him as we could perceive), then our progenitors must have fallen into this state; and I think I can argue that the number of these progenitors must have been small, and the percentage of 'fallens' within that number must have been large: for the whole human race, as it stands now and as it has stood throughout history, exhibits the characteristics of sinful rebellion. [Footnote: I am not arguing this from the world...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting chapter 30, can be found here. ] [This entry continues chapter 30, "The Doctrine of Derivative Spirit".] (Repeating from the end of the previous part.) I will begin dealing with ethics soon in Section Four, after this chapter. But for now, let me go back and retell my story again; from a different historical perspective but with (I think) the same principles. God creates Nature, and allows it to go through a quasi-independent historical process; "quasi-independent", for Nature does not exist on its own resources, but upon God, and is meanwhile guided subtly by God. One purpose of God in making this Nature, has been to create derivative sentiences like (but merely 'like') Himself. Billions of what we call years pass, as God slowly edges things into place, letting Nature be Nature. God is patient, because all time and space are in His hand. He is concerned with the final ...