At the moment of creation, the biblical almighty had only two options: create a world of robots or create humans with free will. Or so say illustrious biblical authors who would have us believe that the biblical almighty, an enormously powerful deity, would ever be limited to only two options.
Bressler’s has 33 flavors, the Colonel has 11 herbs and spices, but the creator of the universe has only two choices? They really don’t think much of the big guy, do they?
Imagine a SNL skit where, Moses (who is often credited for writing much of the creation narrative) is in a room, providing a verbal description of the seminal event, “And the biblical almighty had his choices before him. And they were black and white!” Meanwhile, the biblical almighty is seated at a table behind him, “Hey Moses! You do realize I’ve got this beautiful box of crayons with 128 different options to choose from, right?” Moses turns to the biblical almighty, “Shut up! I’m trying to set the hook!” Moses then throws a cloth over the box of crayons to hide it and continues with his tale, “Like I said, black and white!”
Why on earth would authors of the scriptures and their proponents intentionally short-change the abilities of the one being that, in all other biblical storylines, is all-powerful? What in God’s name were they thinking?
The shocking answer is that all of them, and I mean the biblical authors and all the religious leaders for more than two millennia, were simply hoping you wouldn’t notice their gaffe. As Saint Storfle, the patron saint of the incompetent said, “A job poorly done, is done nonetheless”.
And talk about no choice, look at religious leaders during the early years of the church. What options did they really have? The ball had started holy rolling, so to speak. Lots of “sinners” out there. Plenty of opportunities to fill pews and collection plates.
The future looked bright. Except for one, irritating little convert, let’s call her Molly, who noticed another inconsistency in their story and dared to ask the question: “How can I put my faith in a biblical almighty that is said to be both good and all-powerful, but his world is full of suffering? Is he not really good or is he not really all-powerful?”
This inconsistency is known as “The Logical Problem of Evil”. And it is a problem for biblical authors and theists who, thanks to Molly, were on the defensive and desperate to provide an acceptable response. Apologists for the biblical almighty rode to the rescues saying, “But you see, he can be good and all-powerful AND we can have suffering at the same time!” Why? Their answer is in the magic word: Free-will.
The theist response goes something like this:
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The biblical almighty decides to create the world (for his pleasure) and fill it with people. -
At the moment of creation, the biblical almighty decides he has only two options:
A. Create humans with free will, who will do both good things and bad things, which means humans will inevitably create their own suffering.
B. Create robots who are entirely dependent upon the creator for every action.
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The biblical almighty acknowledges that he cannot do both because that would be logically impossible. Alas, he must choose only one. He decides to go with Option A.
A tidy little tale to be sure. The “binary choice/logical impossibility” defense is critical for theists. Yes, it’s unethical. And, yes, it’s a misdirection to cover their collective aspirations. However, without it, the only other answer that they could provide is either, “Yeah, he’s a jerk” or “Yeah, his abilities are overhyped”. Not the best content for a sermon.
If fact, once the binary choice defense is shown to be faulty, what purpose does this not-so almighty deity serve? Answer: About as much as the bible and the religion it serves.
So. what other options did he have? I am glad you asked! Here’s a serving suggestion for Option C in the creation story. It would be a middle ground between A and B and - surprise! – if you believe in the biblical almighty, it is already being provided to humans by the on a daily basis.
Certainly, you move freely within the world, with little obvious restrictions. However, your physical movements are not infinite, they are, in fact, restricted. Even though you can imagine jumping 50 feet straight up in the air without any extra gear, you cannot physically accomplish this action. One can surmise that this was an intentional restriction imposed by the biblical almighty; a clear limitation of free-will that all humans experience without issue every day.
Since the biblical almighty provides us with these physical guardrails, it is logical to assume he can (and should) also provide us with moral guide rails. And many would argue that he already does, in which case my argument would be modified: The biblical authors wanted you to ignore that their almighty could have simply strengthened our moral guard rails instead of waving the white flag and declaring that “Yeah, human suffering isn’t an optimal solution, but it’s all I had left!”
And adding insult to injury, the authors of the bible claim that human suffering is our fault. Let that sink in. They have the gall to insist that the good and pure biblical almighty couldn’t have created suffering, so it has to be the fault of humans. Way to protect your fictional creation! Fetid dung rats!
Well, it turns out that suffering is not our fault because suffering wasn’t part of the biblical almighty’s plan because “the binary option at creation” defense is untenable, which means that the biblical almighty is nothing more than a fictional creation of a group of opportunistic patriarchs whose main focus has been to keep the “men” in Amen for approximately 6,000 years. But I digress.
I pause here to make an important distinction, while I rail at the authors of the bible for their shoddy storytelling and ethical choices, I freely admit that there may or may not be a creator or a hereafter. However, I am certain that if a creator exists, he, she or it bears no resemblance to the mountebank presented in the pages of “the good book”.
Humans are to blame for human suffering, they say? The misery in this world is real, it’s omnipresent, and the humans who experience it do not need anyone to falsely point fingers at them. As one of those humans, I say anyone who wants to build their castle on that hill can jump right the funk off!
And anyone who, after reading, wants to take issue with this revelation shouldn’t blame me. They should blame Molly!