Today we will be critiquing Mr. Vendredi's critique of the first three of the six sub-arguments of claim seven.
Sub-argument 1: God hates us and wants to kill us.
Mr. Vendredi says God's hate is proved by cherry-picking verses from the Bible and misapplying them through an abuse of anthropopaphism. To substantiate this he reads a list of verses regarding God's hatred which he pulled from Westboro Baptist Church.
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| http://godhatesfags.com/bible/God-hates.html |
He then goes on to tell his audience that the one and only attitude God has towards men is love.
I John 4:16: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Since God is unchanging and unwavering,
Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
James 1:17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
his attitude of love is also unchanging.
This love is God's unchanging essence.
Right away we have quite a few problems. God's essence is totally unknowable. To say that God's essence is love is to contradict the essence/energy distinction. Men encounter God and know him through love which is an energy of God. That would make the statement, "God is love," anthropopathic. Seems Mr. Vendredi is making the same mistake of which he accuses the atonement school.
Secondly let's quote a little bit more of that section in 1 John 4.
I John 4:10: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
I John 4:11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
I John 4:12: No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
I John 4:13: Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
I John 4:14: And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
I John 4:15: Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
I John 4:16: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
The love in this passage refers to the sending of Jesus Christ to be a propitiation for our sins. Do all men confess that Jesus is the Son of God? No. Therefore not all men have God dwelling in them nor are they dwelling in God nor can they speak of God's love.
Third is his accusation of cherry-picking these verses.
There are 19 verses in that collection from Westboro Baptist Church. And there are many more that can be pulled up. How about these few:
Romans 1:18: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Ephesians 5:6: Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Revelation of John 19:15: And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
Do these verses show an unwavering and unchanging attitude of love on the part of God toward men or do they show wrath and hatred against sin and sinners? Mr. Vendredi says that any such appareance of God's hatred is the result of human sin colliding with God's unchanging energies.
Which energies would those be? He fails to elaborate. If death and wrath are only appearances of God's hatred and simply the natural result of what happens when sin and God collide then what about the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Egypt via the plagues and the drowning of Pharaoh's army, the Babylonian captivity, and the destruction of the temple and dispersion of the Jews in 70 A.D.? What is the true meaning behind theses passages which tell us God hates and is full of wrath toward sin and sinners?
There is no discussion. Mr. Vendredi passes them by with the simplistic explanation that what appears to be hatred and wrath are so only in appearance.
Sub-argument 2: “To appease God’s hatred, we have to kill animals as proxies for ourselves.”
Before descending into more absurdity Mr. Vendredi justifies his distinction of the pre- and post-golden calf legislation by referring to the Didascalia Apostolurum and the Apostolic Constitutions. Why does he think these documents have any authority in establishing doctrine? The Church, both East and West, does not accept these books as canonical or authoritative.
The earliest mention of the work is by Epiphanius of Salamis, who believed it to be truly Apostolic. He found it in use among the Audiani, Syrian heretics. The few extracts Epiphanius gives do not quite tally with our present text, but he is notoriously inexact in his quotations. At the end of the fourth century the Didascalia was used as the basis of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions. At the end of the 4th century it is quoted in the Pseudo-Chrysostom's Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum. But the Didascalia never had a great vogue, and it was superseded by the Apostolic Constitutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didascalia_Apostolorum
The Church seems never to have regarded this work as of undoubted Apostolic authority. The Apostolic Constitutions were rejected as canonical by the Decretum Gelasianum. The Quinisext Council in 692 rejected most part of the work on account of the interpolations of heretics. Only that portion of it to which has been given the name Canons of the Apostles was received in the Eastern Christianity. Even if not regarded as of certain Apostolic origin, however, in antiquity the Apostolic Constitutions were held generally in high esteem and served as the basis for much ecclesiastical legislation. The Apostolic Constitutions were accepted as canonical by John of Damascus and, in a modified form, included in the 81 book canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_ConstitutionsMr. Vendredi's source for labelling the post-golden calf law as a second legislation that acted as a punishment for apostasy is a book used by heretics and rejected by the Church as being non-canonical. Does he realise that those books hold no weight in the Church?
Not withstanding he calls the law a second legislation and says that this is what Paul is usually referring to when he writes of the law. Thus Romans 3:20 becomes:
Romans 3:20: Therefore by the deeds of the second legislation there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the second legislation is the knowledge of sin.
If it is true Paul was writing about the second legislation and if it is true that this law is to remind Aaron and the nation of Israel of the sin of apostasy then why does he bring it up since he is writing to gentile Romans? And what about the following verse?
Romans 3:21: But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Was there a righteousness in the so-called second legislation? Or is Paul here referring to the whole shebang, ten commandments and all?
To prove that animals cannot stand as substitutes for men Mr. Vendredi quotes the story of the prophet Baalam and his donkey.
Numbers 22:32: And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
Numbers 22:33: And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.
Why would the angel sacrifice the donkey? Does Mr. Vendredi know that donkeys are unclean animals not fit for sacrifice?
Exodus 34:20: But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
The angel says he would have killed Balaam. Full stop. There is nothing about sacrificing animals in this passage or that tells us that animals cannot stand as proxies for men. In fact let me quote a story where just this thing happens and which Mr. Vendredi totally ignores.
Genesis 22:7: And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Genesis 22:8: And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Genesis 22:12: And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Genesis 22:13: And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
This famous incident is a prefigurement of Christ, the lamb of God, being offered up and sacrificed in our stead. For Mr. Vendredi to ignore this story and to use the story of Balaam and his donkey to prove that animals cannot be proxies for men is not even cherry-picking. It is madness. It is not sane. It is terrible hermeneutics.
Then just to show how puerile and childish his mind is Mr. Vendredi breaks off on a tangent and snickers at the outdated Biblical language in the following verses:
II Peter 2:16: But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
II Kings 9:8: For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel:
Jeremiah 49:32: And their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their cattle a spoil: and I will scatter into all winds them that are in the utmost corners; and I will bring their calamity from all sides thereof, saith the LORD.
Now one begins to understand why the whole series of podcasts is chock full of the lewdest and most childish forms of humour.
Sub-argument 3: "When we fail to appease God with blood or when we displease him in some other way he inflicts temporal punishment on us."
Mr.Vendredi dismantles the prooftext for this argument by presuming to dismantle the story of Uzzah which is used to bolster this claim of God inflicting temporal punishment.
II Samuel 6:6: ¶And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it.
II Samuel 6:7: And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.
God did not kill Uzzah. The description of Uzzah's death is phenomenological. From the standpoint of the onlookers it appears that his death is the result of God's anger. In reality his death is the byproduct of human interaction with divine energies. Which energies are those? And if those divine energies are what killed Uzzah then how is logical to say that God did not kill Uzzah? Mr. Vendredi does not say. In fact he ignores the whole telling of this incident as it occurs in 1 Chronicles 13-15. He also ignores the reaction of David who was most displeased and afraid for God having made a breach upon Uzzah.
II Samuel 6:8: And David was displeased, because the LORD had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the place Perez–uzzah to this day.
II Samuel 6:9: And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and said, How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?
Silly David. If he only knew that what he saw, God striking down Uzzah, was not real. It was only his perception.
Mr. Vendredi tottally ignores the passages in 1 Chronicles 15 where David says explicitly that God struck down Uzzah and caused a breach because they did not seek God after the due order
I Chronicles 15:1: And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent.
I Chronicles 15:2: Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath the LORD chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him for ever.
I Chronicles 15:12: And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
I Chronicles 15:13: For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.I Chronicles 15:14: So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel.
I Chronicles 15:15: And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD.
Is David still wrong here? Is he working from a faulty perception that it was God who killed Uzzah? Mr. Vendredi fails to touch these passages which tell us that God's law must be obeyed. The order he has set up must be followed. The nation of Israel as well as Uzzah disobeyed the law by not transporting the Ark at God had commanded and that is why God struck him down.
He then goes on to tell us that Uzzah had good intentions when he reached out his hand to stabilise the Ark and keeps from falling. He does this by quoting from Matthew 5 verses where Christ says:
Matthew 5:22: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Matthew 5:28: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
This proves that God looks at the intention of the heart. Uzzah's intentions were good therefore God could not have killed him. If God was in fact angry with him and did in fact kill him even though he had good intentions then God is schizophrenic. Never mind the holiness of God and his law. Never mind the fact that God set up a specific way to transport the Ark which David neglected. Even the Jews who run Hollywood know that messing with the Ark is a big no-no.
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| Don't mess with the Ark |
Perhaps Mr. Vendredi has never heard the saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Let's take a look at two stories where a man had good intentions.
First in 1 Samuel 13.
I Samuel 13:11: ¶And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash;
I Samuel 13:12: Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the LORD: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.
I Samuel 13:13: And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever.Second in 1 Samuel 15.
I Samuel 15:19: Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
I Samuel 15:20: And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
I Samuel 15:21: But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.
I Samuel 15:22: And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
I Samuel 15:23: For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
In the first story Saul offers a burnt offering with the greatest of intentions. In the second he saves alive the spoil with the good intention of sacrificing the sheep and oven to the Lord. Both times Samuel and the Lord are angry at Saul for breaking the commandment of the Lord. His good intentions do not matter one whit because despite his intentions he is disobedient to the commandment. Mr. Vendredi does not discuss this story and passes it right on by as he does so many other passages which contradict his assertions.
The rest of the podcast deals with the objection that temporal punishment does not happen in this life. The wicked prosper and righteous perish. An objection made from the beginning.
Jeremiah 12:1: Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
It is a hard question and one not easily answered. We know why Job suffered but Job never learns the answer. We do know suffering happens in this life and as Solomon says:
Ecclesiastes 9:2: All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
Does the prosperity of the wicked men that there is no temporal punishment in this life? No. In fact not all wicked men prosper. Some wicked men are very poor. Some righteous men are very rich. It is not enough to see the prosperity of the wicked and think God does not punish sin in this life.
There is death in it's multitude of forms. Plagues, famines, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, war, accidents. All things come alike to all.
Romans 8:22: For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.The wicked do not have it easy in this life no matter how at ease they appear.
Proverbs 13:15: Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard.
Then there is chastisement which God pours upon his people.
Hebrews 12:5: And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Hebrews 12:6: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews 12:7: If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Hebrews 12:8: But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Hebrews 12:9: Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Hebrews 12:10: For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Is there a difference between chastening and punishment? If so then what is it and if not then why not?
But none of this is discussed by Mr. Vendredi. He passes it by like ships that pass in the night.
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