I’m creating a thread to address this comment by Mollie:
I’ve only been familiar with your site for a few days, so I’m not sure if this is the right place to discuss what I’m about to say. If not, please direct me to a more appropriate place.
My husband thinks it’s a bad idea to debate with you guys because we come from two totally different backgrounds of thought- I believe that God exists and that the Bible is totally true and you do not. Therefore, you will not convice me of anything and I will not convice you of anything.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but ask the following questions- I don’t really want to get in a huge discussion over this either, but we’ll see what happens. In your essay above, you give the following:
Assumption (1): God exists.
Assumption (1a): God is all-knowing.
Assumption (1b): God is all-powerful.
Assumption (1c): God is perfectly loving.
Assumption (1d): Any being that did not possess all three of the above properties would not be God.How did you come to the conclusion that God only has these three qualities, or that these three are the ultimate? I can think of his holiness and justice that would slightly alter the equation.
I do not say this to be offensive, but is seems like you have built up ‘your idea’ of what God is or who He should be and then proved how he cannot be (rather than taking all he has revealed Himself to be in the Bible) .
Again- this is where the fundamental differences come into play. I believe that God HAS revealed himself in the Bible, so if you don’t take the Bible at face value- as it says it is- the Word of God, then it will be hard for me to ‘argue’ anything with you. I have come to the understanding that without God telling us about himself, through the Bible, we really wouldn’t be able to know much about him. So again, I ask, since you don’t believe in the Bible- where do you get your idea of what the ‘perfect God’ should be like?