Contradictions?

It is common to hear people claim that the Bible has contradictions in it and therefore can’t be trusted. Some examples are – God commands “Thou shall not kill” but also commands the Israelites to sometimes kill people. In the New Testament accounts of young men or angels at the empty tomb, sometimes they are said to be one and sometimes two. Most of these apparent contradictions can be resolved with a deeper study but even if they could not be, the fundamental aspects of the Bible are not in peril.

In contrast to this, most of those who reject any attempt to explain such conflicts, are Atheists who hold two contradictory ideas that, in the words of Norman Geisler, present a “Fatal Flaw” that undermines their own arguments against God’s existence. (Specifically the God of the Bible). Before spending time trying to address alleged contradictions in the Bible, it seems reasonable to ask these critics about the contradictions which reside in their own minds.

As Geisler documents in his book “The Atheist’s Fatal Flaw”, virtually every champion of Atheism - including Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Barker, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and numerous others – hold the following contradictory ideas simultaneously:

1.      An all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful cannot exist alongside moral evil. In other words, because God does not intervene to fix the problem or moral evil, he is immoral and thus, as an essentially moral being, he is non-existent.

2.      Because human autonomy is vital, it would be immoral for God to intervene in the affairs of humans if it in any way suppresses self-rule.

Do you see the clear contradiction in these two ideas? If one truly believes God has an obligation to prevent moral evil, it makes no sense to simultaneously believe that God would be immoral to prevent such evil when it interferes with human free will. Pick one idea and abandon the other but holding both thoughts at the same time is clearly contradictory and illogical.

And it gets worse. Most of these Atheists hold other contradictory ideas related to the above. For example:

A.    Because God has created everything, he is responsible for everything including human evil.

B.     It would be immoral of God to pardon humans from the evil they do because that would be relieving them of their personal responsibility.

Do you see the conflict between two ideas? God is supposedly responsible for everything, including evil, but he would be immoral to pardon evil people because they are responsible.

Finally, they often use a double standard concerning what is moral and immoral. Examples:

a.       It is immoral for God to punish evil people because - as in point “A” above - God is responsible for everything.

b.      It is moral for humans to punish evil people because - as in point “B” above - people should be held responsible for their actions.  

c.       It is immoral for God to pardon evil people because - as in point “B” above - people should be held responsible for their actions.

d.      It is moral for humans to pardon people because it is compassionate.

These contradictory beliefs are not minor but part of the foundation and thinking that Atheism rests on. They actually gives credence to Bible statements that “the fool has said in his heart that there is no God” and “as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind”.

When such a person asks me to address an alleged contradiction in the Bible, I’m inclined to first ask them if they have any contradictions in their own mind. Do they believe that “God should fix everything!” while also believing that “God shouldn’t touch anything!”? If they do, I don’t expect a productive discussion as logic and reason aren’t going to matter much to them.