Benevolent God

I'll be frank, and I'm not trying to be unkind, but my opponent's writing is quite difficult to understand. I'm not sure if he even addressed all of my points or fully addressed the points he did address. I'll do my best with a response. I reject my opponents seeming desire to take up the role of determining what good and evil is as a subjective human instinct. That instinct has failed us a thousand times. The Killing Fields, Holodomor, Holocaust, Jihad, Chairman Mao's various foolish ventures, ad nauseum are all pristine examples of what happens when men make up their own rules. God's morality is quite simple, seeing how my opponent wants to bring up the Bible, Matthew 22:38: "37 And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38"This is the great and foremost commandment. 39"The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." This is a partial quotation of a passage in the Old Testament Deuteronomy 6:4,5 "4"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Philosophically the second part of Jesus' saying is extrapolated from the first part in this way: 1 John 4:20 "20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also." When God's rules are followed these horrible things don't happen. God doesn't threaten anyone. He doesn't have to. He simply informs. God let humanity know that he intends to restore creation to it's original condition. People are welcome be a part of that. If they would like to participate they have to be restored in order to live there. Jesus came and died for sins and rose from the dead for eternal life to provide the free gift of eternal life for all who would sincerely receive Jesus by faith. God allows people the dignity of choosing to not participate. He puts those people off by themselves. I believe that the reason people suffer there is because they take the ingredients of their suffering with them from this life. Their own evil, malice, arrogance, and selfishness is what makes Hell, Hell. God removes his own goodness, love, and restraining influence from that place and people will just do what comes naturally to them. I realize that's speculation. Let's put it this way; I think Hell is allot like the evil cave on Dagobah in the Empire Strikes Back. Luke comes across a spot in the jungle where there's a cave and it feels evil and cold. He asks Yoda about it and Yoda says "That place is full of the Dark Side; a domain of evil it is; and in you must go." Luke says to Yoda "What's in there?" Yoda says to Luke "Only what you take with you." I think that's what Hell is like. What's in Hell? Only what you take with you. Let's not blame the Creator for that which we do to ourselves. As for my opponents accusation that God perverts things by intervening that's not true. God created all things. He made their nature and if he intervenes He can do it without it being a perversion or distortion. He is the one who determines what the nature of the thing is in the first place. God destroying things is in no way evil. It is only wrong to destroy what doesn't belong to you. All things are God's and are from Him and held together by Him. He has every right to stop holding something together or to destroy it if he is the one who causes it to exist in the first place. There is nothing evil about it. Unpleasant maybe but not evil.