{"id":19013,"date":"2018-05-10T11:35:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=19013"},"modified":"2018-05-10T11:35:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T15:35:09","slug":"is-god-an-unjust-judge-dialogue-with-an-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/is-god-an-unjust-judge-dialogue-with-an-atheist.html","title":{"rendered":"Is God an Unjust Judge? Dialogue with an Atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-19016 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2018\/05\/GodJudge.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"484\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">This occurred underneath my post,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2017\/10\/god-ever-judge-people-sending-disease.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"> \u201cDoes God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease?\u201d<\/a> Raymond is some sort of non-theist or atheist. His words will be in <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Is there going to be a Part Two to this post? You paint a particularly repulsive picture of God here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I have material about God\u2019s love and mercy as well. Just because I wrote about judgment, doesn\u2019t mean that that is <em>all<\/em>\u00a0I and Christians believe about God. For example:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2017\/04\/gods-valentine-us.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cGod\u2019s \u2018Valentine\u2019 to Us: Bible Passages on God\u2019s Love, Mercy, and Compassion\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>That\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0\u201cPart Two.\u201d The Bible says that God is Love and the life of Jesus illustrates that rather dramatically. The Bible also teaches that He is the judge of the world. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don\u2019t say that human judges are wicked and evil because they pass sentence (following jury verdicts) for someone to go to jail. We recognize that as due punishment for crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Or see my paper, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2015\/12\/loving-ourselves-as-god-loves-us-2.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cLoving Ourselves According to How Much God Loves Us\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201cDoes God ever judge people by sending disease?\u201d YES! You can be judged by disease because of your wickedness, or your disobedience, or because the King was wicked or disobedient, . . .<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That was true for the Egyptians (who may have been worthy of judgment as a people), but not in the case of 2 Chronicles 21:12-14, where the \u201cunfaithfulness\u201d of the people was judge-worthy; not just because the king was wicked. It says he led them into it, but they had a free will.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">. . . or so that the works of God might be made manifest in [you], or because you are righteous(!), or even just because. AND \u201cGod presents judgment as a possibly imminent catastrophe due to an unexpected death.\u201d So if there is a flood or hurricane or forest fire, and you are killed, it\u2019s because you had it coming.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I never said such a stupid and ridiculous thing. <em>You<\/em>\u00a0said it because you seem (in this instance) to be unable to make proper distinctions of category and logic. When I wrote, \u201cGod presents judgment as a possibly imminent catastrophe due to an unexpected death\u201d the meaning was clear from the passages I cited: Death can come at any time for any of us, and <em>that<\/em>\u00a0will be a personal catastrophe if we are not ready, because we\u2019ll be judged, and if we are unrepentant, we\u2019ll go to hell.<\/p>\n<p>You completely misinterpreted it. The \u201ccatastrophe\u201d was death itself, rather than saying that floods, hurricanes, or forest fires are necessarily God\u2019s judgments.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">I really really hope there is a follow up post. \u201cDoes God ever judge people by sending disease?\u201d BOY does He ever! Do people get disease or die in a catastrophe and it is NOT a judgment? We are ALL wicked with no recovery on our own, after all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I gave the examples of Job and Paul, which you alluded to above: \u201cbecause you are righteous(!).\u201d I also gave the passage of John 9:1-3 and observed that \u201cit\u2019s not the case that everyone who has a disease, has it because of 1) sin or 2) God\u2019s judgment. This will usually <em>not<\/em>\u00a0be the case.\u201d I also wrote: \u201cWhat we see above is not \u201cnormative\u201d judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">If some people are afflicted so that the works of God might be made manifest, does that mean these people, even if they are righteous, are suffering as an example for US? Forget THAT!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Suffering and the problem of evil are very serious difficulties to be grappled with and mysterious aspects of God, and require very serious treatments (which I give them in many papers). We can\u2019t understand everything, but I don\u2019t find that the above analysis is all that difficult to understand. God judges, as the Creator.<\/p>\n<p>He desires that none perish, but He does judge folks for the sins that they willingly commit. He doesn\u2019t cause anyone to sin, but He judges them for their sins.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">This post, as it stands, justifies my lack of belief in God. Better that there is no supernatural \u201cobjective\u201d moral authority than to think that we somehow deserve what suffering we get, and sometimes we DON\u2019T deserve it, but a good person\u2019s suffering is somehow a warning to US!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s virtually certain that your lack of belief in God is for many reasons besides this, though atheists often use a caricature of the biblical God to reject \u201cHim.\u201d If you can misunderstand this paper of mine this badly, I\u2019m sure there are many other doctrines of Christianity that you have<em> also<\/em> misunderstood, leading you to (in all likelihood) rejection of a <em>straw man<\/em> and not the actual thing (Christianity).<\/p>\n<p>Christianity requires a lot of study, learning, and thinking. It\u2019s not a simple religion of slogans and trite ideas. It has complexities and mysteries (as does God). But we can understand quite a bit of we are willing and open to it.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>(originally 10-30-17 on Facebook)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo credit:<\/strong>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Logo for Wikipedia policies, by\u00a0<\/span><a title=\"User:Ibrahim.ID\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Ibrahim.ID\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ibrahim.ID<\/a>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">(9-1-15)<\/span> [<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Wikipedia_policies.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/\u00a0\u00a0<a class=\"extiw decorated-link\" title=\"w:en:Creative Commons\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/en:Creative_Commons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Creative Commons<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"external text decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/deed.en\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International<\/a>\u00a0license]<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This occurred underneath my post, \u201cDoes God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease?\u201d Raymond is some sort of non-theist or atheist. His words will be in blue. *** Is there going to be a Part Two to this post? You paint a particularly repulsive picture of God here. I have material about God\u2019s love and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":19016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,172],"tags":[4308,4305,4306,4304,4307,4297,224,795,4299,176,4298],"class_list":["post-19013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-agnosticism","category-trinitarianism-christology","tag-divine-chastisement","tag-divine-judgment","tag-divine-punishment","tag-divine-wrath","tag-god-the-judge","tag-institutional-sin","tag-judgment","tag-judgment-of-nations","tag-rebellious-nations","tag-sin","tag-wicked-nations"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is God an Unjust Judge? 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \\\"This Rock\\\" (now called \\\"Catholic Answers Magazine\\\"), \\\"Envoy Magazine\\\" (Patrick Madrid), \\\"The Catholic Answer,\\\" \\\"The Coming Home Journal,\\\" \\\"Gilbert Magazine\\\" (American Chesterton Society), and \\\"The Latin Mass.\\\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \\\"The Michigan Catholic\\\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \\\"Envoy Magazine.\\\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \\\"Catholic Answers Live\\\" (twice), \\\"Faith and Family Live\\\" (Steve Wood), \\\"Kresta in the Afternoon,\\\" \\\"Son Rise Morning Show,\\\" \\\"Catholic Connection\\\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \\\"The Catholics Next Door.\\\" His large and popular website, \\\"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\\\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \\\"Envoy Magazine.\\\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \\\"index\\\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \\\"Surprised by Truth\\\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \\\"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\\\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \\\"The Catholic Verses\\\" (2004), \\\"The One-Minute Apologist\\\" (2007), \\\"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\\\" (2009), \\\"The Quotable Newman\\\" (editor: 2012), and \\\"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\\\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \\\"The New Catholic Answer Bible\\\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \\\"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\\\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \\\"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\\\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \\\"Quotable Wesley\\\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is God an Unjust Judge? Dialogue with an Atheist","description":"The Bible says that God is Love & the life of Jesus dramatically illustrates that. The Bible also teaches that He is the judge of the world. 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}