Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Fighting against the God of the Bible may not mean fighting against God.

Mike Gene discusses Craig Hicks' Militant Atheist Meme at his blog, where I left the following comment:

"I wonder if it would help if we made a distinction between the God of the Bible (or any other major religion) and an Anselmian God. An Anselmian God is a being a greater than which cannot be conceived. Such a being would be morally perfect, and therefore could not be sadistic, misogynistic, or homophobic. If Hicks came to believe that such a God existed, would he still fight against this Anelmian God? Or would he make a distinction between the Anelmian God, in whom he believes and tries to worship, and the God of the Bible (or other major religions), whom he does not believe in? 
Now Christians believe that the God of the Bible is the Anselmian God. I for one, occasionally have trouble defending that belief, especially when it comes to some of the things that the God of the Bible supposedly commanded or did in the Old Testament. So I can understand why Hicks or others wouldn’t believe that the God of the Bible could be the Anelmian God. And I can understand why they wouldn’t want to worship the God of the Bible, even if they were willing to worship the Anselmian God. The challenge for us Christians is to explain how it is possible that our God of the Bible really is the being, a greater than which cannot be conceived."

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