Cristina Rad, the beautiful 30-year old Romanian Atheist whose known for her hard-hitting and vitriolic attacks against Theism, has come out swinging for the fences once again, particularly this time at the Christian God (surprise, surprise). She claims to have once been a devout Evangelical Christian herself, but then turned to eventually becoming an outspoken Atheist. Unfortunately, very few people have attempted to take her to task on her arguments because of the huge fan base she has that is quick to troll and spam the dislike bar of anyone's video who even attempts to refute her claims. However, her latest video is the first I've seen where she actually tries to provide evidence against God's existence. Anyway, here it goes. The first part of the video is really all that's necessary because later she starts trying to auction off her paintings. While her paintings are nice and all, we're talking about her arguments against God's existence here. Anyway, check out the video below.
Now the first thing she says here is that a negative cannot be proven. Actually, a negative CAN be proven. For instance, we can easily prove that there is no pot of gold in my closet. I think what Cristina is trying to say here is that God's existence cannot be definitively proven or disproved. However, that has nothing to do with the proposition of His existence being either positive or negative.
Cristina continues on to say that the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim and not on the person objecting to it. However, Cristina has made it quite clear that she holds the positive belief that there is no God. We are both making knowledge claims here. Therefore, we both must accept the burden of proof. Today, I'm going to concentrate on Cristina's arguments rather than going about erecting my own for the sake of time. I'll provide arguments in favor of God's existence perhaps at a later date, but as I've stated earlier, this particular blog is about answering Atheists' claims against the existence of God rather than defending the arguments in favor of the existence of God. There are already really good sites out there for defending the truth of God's existence using arguments for His existence. Godandscience.org is good, as well as Carm.org and Reasonablefaith.org. There are many others, though.
God's Omnipotence
Cristina's first argument is against God's omnipotence. She uses the old classic Omnipotence Paradox which attempts to disprove God's omnipotence. It goes something like this:
"If God is omnipotent, meaning He can do all things, could He create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?"
Now, let's take a look at this here. If someone is omnipotent, then that means he can do anything, right? So if he can create a stone so heavy that not even he can lift it, that would mean that he ISN'T omnipotent because he couldn't lift the stone he created. But if he were unable to create a stone so heavy he couldn't lift it, this would mean that he can't do all things, therefore, isn't omnipotent either. Thus, an omnipotent being cannot possibly exist because no matter which option you choose, his omnipotence returns false. That's how the argument goes. Most Christians will quickly say that God cannot create a stone so heavy He could not lift it, but the Atheist will say "Ahah! So God can't do all things! Therefore, He isn't omnipotent!" However, is this argument true? Is God not omnipotent just because He cannot create a rock too heavy for Himself to lift? We'll see...
What's Infinity + 1?
The problem with this argument is with the Atheist's definition of God's omnipotence. The Bible says nowhere that God can do any possible thing even if that thing contradicts the very nature of God himself, and creating a stone too heavy for Himself to lift would be doing just that, just like sinning or being in the presence of evil (the Bible says God can do neither of these things, by the way). God's omnipotence is not the ability to do all things even if it contradicts His very own nature. God's omnipotence means, simply put, maximal dominion over all His creation. Because God has maximal dominion over all His creation, there's no way that any stone He creates could be one which He could not lift as that would mean that He does not have maximal dominion over it and therefore, couldn't have created it. Given this, no such stone could ever possibly exist since the very nature of such an object would be self-contradictory.
What is the True Meaning of God's Omnipotence?
As stated earlier, the real meaning of God's omnipotence is maximal dominion over all His creation. Maximal dominion over all creation does not mean the ability to do every conceivable thing even if it contradicts itself. Such an argument is absurd because no such "thing" for God to do could even exist to begin with. Logical truth is a product of God's very own nature. Therefore, God cannot do something that is self-contradictory like creating rocks that He doesn't have maximal dominion over since something that is self-contradictory cannot be true. No such rock, in any possible world, could ever exist. Some Atheists will then ask: "OK, could God create a married bachelor?" The answer would be no. The concept of a married bachelor is self-contradictory and therefore false.
God's Omniscience
Cristina attempts to debunk God's omniscience by using the Bible. The problem here immediately is that even if Cristina were able to point out problems with God's omniscience in the Bible that I fail to address here, she would have only successfully disproved biblical inerrancy, and not the existence of an omniscient God. Luckily, however, she brings up no such argument even against Biblical inerrancy. Let's take a look at some of the Scriptures she brings up.
Genesis 3:9 - But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
Genesis 3:11 - And He said, "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
Genesis 3:13 - Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
God did not ask Adam and Eve what they were doing or where they were because He didn't know; He most certainly did. In fact, the Bible makes it very clear that God prepared the death, burial and resurrection of Christ before the very foundation of the world (I Peter 1:20). Therefore, if God didn't know Adam was going to sin, he would have never prepared for it beforehand.
Anyway, God asked Adam and Eve where they were and what they did because He wanted to reveal to the audience (us, the readers) through Adam and Eve's responses that they were hiding from Him out of fear and shame after sinning against Him.
Cristina then goes on to start complaining about God punishing them for a crime He knew they would commit (in a profanity-laced drivel). Cops often know when somebody is about to commit a crime but that doesn't mean that they're going to arrest the person before he commits it or that they won't arrest him after he does!
Genesis 22:12 - Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.
The phrase, "Now I know" is used here by Cristina to suggest that at some point, God didn't know that Abraham had faith (feared the Lord). There are two problems with this argument. The first is that earlier in the book, long before Abraham's test of faith, God acknowledged Abraham's faith. Genesis 15:6 tells us that God counted Abram (Abraham) as righteous because of his faith. Therefore, we can conclude that God knew of Abraham's faith prior to the test. The second problem with this argument is that the Hebrew word for "know" is translated from the word Hebrew word yada, which has multiple meanings that range from simply learning something new, to certifying something to be true. In this tense, God does not mean that he's learning something new about Abraham (Genesis 15:6 tells us He already knew), but that He is certifying Abraham's faith by him passing the test. God knew Abraham believed in Him and feared Him because that's the very reason God changed Abram's name to Abraham to begin with!
Cristina then goes on to Noah's Ark, saying that God could not have "regretted creating man" if He already knew that man would be sinful. However, I don't see the logical contradiction here. I do things all the time that I know I'm going to feel bad about later, but also knew was the right thing to do. Just because God feels bad about doing something doesn't mean that He feels it was a mistake, nor does it mean that He didn't know he was going to feel bad about it. God wasn't sorry for what He did, he just felt bad about what He did because God doesn't like punishing people that sin against Him, but knows its the right thing to do.
Genesis 8 - But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
Cristina makes the mistake of suggesting that God remembering something automatically implies that at some time He forgot. However, just because someone remembers something doesn't mean that at ANYTIME that person forgot. For instance, if I were to say that someone remembered to bring his name badge to work today, that does not imply at all that the person forgot to and had to be reminded. This argument makes no sense (just like most of Cristina's arguments).
OF COURSE God would remember Noah and all the wild animals if He's omniscient. God would remember EVERYTHING if he were omniscient!
Genesis 9:14 - Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.
Cristina uses this verse as proof that every time a rainbow is in the sky, God is reminded of His covenant with man because he forgot about it. This argument is easily refutable with the example sentence:
"Every Memorial Day, we take time to remember those family members whom we lost in battle".
Certainly, this sentence in no way suggests that we have forgotten about our loved ones we have lost in battle and that every Memorial Day we have to be reminded of them because we forgot. Nor does it mean that we will ever forget about those loved ones whom we have lost either. The sentence simply implies that Memorial Day is a time we reflect upon the sacrifices our loved ones made to our country. Obviously, the word "remember" is being used in that same way by God in the fact that when He sees the rainbow, He reflects upon the covenant made between He and mankind. Cristina Rad often tries to disprove God's existence using rhetorical tricks, blatant logical fallacies and equivocations rather than honest arguments and does a very poor job here.
God's Benevolence
Of course, Cristina goes into the same tired arguments against God's goodness by bringing up the doctrine of Hell. She basically asks that if God is so good, how could He send people to Hell for disobeying His commands? The bottom line is this: BECAUSE God is infinitely good and infinitely holy, sinning against Him would warrant an infinitely severe punishment. The heinousness of a crime is measured not only by the crime but also to whom it is being committed against. If I were to slap a random person across the face, he could press charges but I wouldn't necessarily go to jail. However, if I slapped the president of the United States across the face, the charges would be far more serious. Now imagine slapping the creator of the entire Universe across the face? Wouldn't that warrant an even greater punishment? Sinning against an infinitely holy God is an infinitely heinous crime and therefore deserves an infinitely severe punishment.
Cristina makes some really bad logic later on in the video by suggesting that life being a "gift from God" can't possibly make sense because most people's lives are going to result in eternal damnation. Again, she fails to use logic here. Life is a gift, but it's up to US to decide what we do with it! Let me give you a really good example. If my mother bought me a gun for Christmas, it certainly doesn't mean that a gun can't be a genuine gift, especially if I collect guns. However, if I decided to go out and kill somebody with this gun, that doesn't mean that the gun itself wasn't a gift or that it was wrong for my mother to give me the gift. God gives people their lives and THEY decide what they will do with them. It certainly doesn't mean that God was wrong in giving us life just because He knew that WE would decide to live one in rebellion against Him. God possibly also has morally sufficient reasons for creating "vessels of wrath" (Romans 9), individuals who God knows will rebel against Him no matter what the circumstance so long as they have free will. This answers the question of why God would give us a gun, knowing that we're one day going to turn it on Him.
Conclusion
All in all, Cristina Rad's arguments are more popular than they are substantive. Her arguments have long been refuted and will continue to be. She was also working on a book at some point called "The Unreasonable God", although I'm not sure what happened to it as she possibly lost interest in writing such a book. Anyway, you can check out the rest of Cristina's videos here.
I can sure follow your arguments in the first part seeing that your definition of omnipotent means something else then hers (still not understanding what maximal dominion means then ).
ReplyDeleteThe part about the punishment.. i am sorry but i fail to see why it is just that you get a different punishment for slapping your neighbor and the president. As we disagree on that naturally the conclusions are different
But your argument in the third part about life as a gift i think is not really representing what god does.
let me make an assumptions first:
- Good knows that Sin is very very tempting and the vast majority of us can not resist it.
So imho the right example would be more like that
i make a kind of cookie (the sin ) that i know 90% of all kids can't resist eating regardless what i tell them would happen. I put the cookie in a box under the box is a little bomb that will rip a kids hand off if It takes the cookie. i make 100 such boxes.
Now i go to a school and put 100 kids each in their own room (they can not see what happens to each other as you can't see what happens with a person after death ). In each room the kid finds the open box with the cookie and a little book in which i explain that if they eat the cookie something terrible will happen but if they don't i will reward the kid with a life of wealth. Would you see me as a good person ? knowing that 90% don't have the strength to resit the cookie and get their hands riped off?
Im sorry but i hope that such a person would end up in jail.
I would not expect that the defense "but the kids had free will to take the cookie or not " would do you any good.
And yes i realize that as an adult we should have more self control but i don't think thats the point here because i would also not be good person if i played the same game with adults putting something in the box where i know 90 % of the adults will not be able to resist