Biblical claims of divine honesty

Christians, particularly Creationists and presuppositionalists, have a strong tendency to claim that God does not lie. The Bible makes this claim explicitly in various passages; one can examine the idea because many biblical literalists claim that the Bible, as the word of God who cannot lie, disproves evolution and other scientific theories ipso facto. Examples of people using such claims appear in the way that Answers in Genesis advocates (for example) challenge evidences that are not eyewitness testimony while trying to keep their own hearsay as valid. Of course, all of this is complete and utter bullshit.
==The claims==
The Bible suggests that God is invariably truthful in the following passages (all quotes are from the King James Version):
* Titus 1:1-2 "Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"
* Hebrews 6:18 "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:"
==Counter examples==
In , God warns Adam and Eve that they shall die on the day they eat from the knowledge of good and evil. They eat from the tree, but don’t die that day. 
In , God mentions that He wants to take the Israelites out of Egypt permanently, but in , God tells Moses and Aaron to tell the Pharaoh that the Israelites only want to take a three day journey to make a sacrifice to Him.
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This gets repeated in and . 
In 1 Samuel 16:1-3, God tells Samuel to mislead Saul by saying he's going to make a sacrifice and conveniently omit the part where he’s going to anoint a new king.
In , Jesus tells his followers that He won’t go to a festival, only to go there in secret. 
In and , Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” It’s a pretty safe bet that the people who were standing there some two millennia ago have died since then, and to all appearances, it doesn’t look like Jesus has come back yet.
==Philosophical and moral consequences==
===Arbitrary tests of faith===
Creationists in particular have a tendency to frame the scientific evidence that contradicts scripture as "tests of faith", especially before they have a semi-coherent way of reinterpreting the evidence to fit their presuppositions. Examples of this include the hypothesis that God created starlight in transit to Earth as one possible solution to the starlight problem.For the record, both Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International at some point started discouraging people from using this argument when they noticed the flaws therein..
The problem with that is best summed up in another section of the same scripture:
:<bible book="Romans" chapter=1 verse1=20/>
Saint Paul in the epistle said that the nature of God can be known from the things that he created. What morally and philosophically would result from a God who is willing to plant false evidence as a test of faith is open to interpretation.
An additional problem with such deception is why God would need craploads of faith-testing props lying around everywhere. Remember, God created everything, including whoever planted those faith-testing props, so God is ultimately responsible for the existence of these in one way or another.
===Breaking the infinite regress===
:See also: Transcendental argument for God
In presuppositional apologetics, God is the solution to the infinite regress the apologist created in epistemology. Basically, the question "How do you know <statement> is true?" can be applied to the explanation of something ad infinitum in order to create an infinite regress, and the proposed solution is that God reveals part of the explanation down the chain to break the infinite regress. As a result, it is a necessary condition that their version of God lacks the ability to deceive in order for epistemology to be possible under presuppositional apologetics. The following is an example from Sye Ten Bruggencate:
:
The problem with such a position is clear: What do you use to check the first piece of information revealed to you (which is the Bible in most cases)? The morton's fork is applied in this case:
*The choice not to test the first revelation when it is first revealed to you implies said revelation is indistinguishable between authentic revelation and faith-testing trickery.
*The choice of having something to test the first revelation against would, by the fact itself, imply neither the first revelation nor the reference to test things against can possibly be from God.
*The third choice of testing the first piece of revelation with another revelation means either the argument becomes circular or the chain of infinite regress does not end there.
===When stuff just don't agree with each other===
:Main article: Biblical contradictions
When you have two versions of the creation story told in the same book in sequential chapters, one must wonder which one of the two versions, given the author lacks the ability to lie, is true. Other things that are up for debate includes having multiple paternal lineages of Jesus while all the time insisting Jesus is born out of a virgin.
==See also==
* Biblical contradictions
* Scientific errors in the Bible
*Failed Biblical prophecies
* Ten Commandments
* Lying for Jesus
* Creationist escape hatches
* Omnibenevolence
* Biblical flat earth claims
* How do you know? Were you there?
==Notes==
Category:Bible
Category:Apologetics and counter-apologetics