Moxy argues that God’s false prophet “test” in Deuteronomy gives man a chance to become aware of his bad traits, so that he might better understand the reasons for whatever punishments God might administer. I will address the issue of God making man aware of himself and his relationship to God at the end of this post.
For now, I will note that the point in contention is not whether God should “teach us anything,” as Moxy seems to suggest, but rather whether God needs to be taught anything. The main point I was making is that Deuteronomy says explicitly that God designed the false-prophet test so God might “find out” whether his people love him. It is God who is finding out something in this verse, not man.
Thus, we’re presented with the seeming absurdity of an infinitely powerful and knowledgeable god who has to make an effort to “find out” something; he has to make a test. Does not the god of the Bible--the god most Christians and Jehovah Witnesses believe in--already know what's in everyone's mind at all times? This is what makes the Deuteronomy verse nonsensical.
But, nonsense is not the same as error, which is what I’m trying to demonstrate here. The error comes when we compare what Deuteronomy is saying with what is said elsewhere in the Bible. I’ve cited two verses in John in which Jesus is said to know all things, but Moxy believes there are two problems with this.
First, he notes that John speaks of Jesus, not God. I find this objection very hard to comprehend; surely, if one can show that the Bible teaches that Jesus knows all things, then that is the same as showing that the Bible teaches that God, the father of Jesus, knows all things, too.
Moxy’s second objection is that John is not really saying that Jesus knows all things; he’s only saying that Jesus knows all things within a “specific knowledge” area. I don’t know what area of specific knowledge Moxy has in mind, but nowhere does John give any indication that he didn’t really mean “all” when he said “all.” What clue is given by John that would tell the readers that they should not think that the disciples thought Jesus knew all there was to know about everything? And why should clues be necessary, anyway; if John was truly inspired by God to write those words, God would have known that they would misleading to some, so he never would have let John write those words. Thus, if "all" doesn't really mean "all," John was probably not inspired by God.
In any case, even if Moxy shows evidence that John had only a “specific knowledge” area in mind—and not literally “all” things, what we are talking about here is whether God would have to use the false-prophet test to find out what people thought of God—whether they loved him with all their heart and soul, or not. Well, Psalm makes it clear that God does know the thoughts of man:
“The LORD knows the thoughts of man” (Psalm 94:11)
Thus, if we can believe what is said in Psalm, it makes no sense for Deuteronomy to speak of God testing man to learn his thoughts. Or, if we cannot believe what Psalm says, then which parts of the Bible can we believe, and how will we know?
Now, coming back to the point I said I’d defer until the end, a point which is not really related to the issue of whether John or Psalm contradicts Deuteronomy: Moxy speaks of what is reasonable for God to do. Is it not less arbitrary of God to let man become aware of his bad traits before they’re punished, he muses?
I agree that this, indeed, makes more sense and seems more reasonable than the alternative, which is for this god to smite dead the transgressors without warning. However, if one is going to use the “what makes more sense” argument in this case, it proves to be a double-edged sword which cuts apart the argument. Wouldn’t it make even more sense for the allegedly all-powerful god just to embed into the DNA of all of his living creations a perfect knowledge of what it takes to be whatever it is that God wants man to be? He allegedly had—and has—the power to do this. If he had done this, he wouldn’t have needed a Bible; everyone would know instinctively what to do--through their DNA, by their very nature--to please God, and they would have the god-given ability to do it, and God could have made it impossible for them not to do it.
Yeru notes that Abraham didn't know the depth of his faith, so God had to test him, but none of this would have been necessary if God had just done what he had the power to do right from the beginning of creation: embed into the DNA of man the instinctive awareness and certain knowledge of God's teachings, and the infinite faith to go with it. God had the power to do it, but he didn't; that's just one of the reasons why I don't believe the god of the Bible ever existed.
The fact that the god of the Bible didn’t do this and instead deliberately created a man which would forever be displeasing him, instead of a man which would eternally please him, is strong evidence that the all-powerful god of the Bible never existed, or if he did, he is a very perverse god indeed.
Of course, there will be those who say that mere mortal man cannot know the mind of any god, and that the mysterious ways of the god--and the reasons he authored such a confusing bible--will be made clear to those few faithful who meet with Jesus in heaven.
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
