Academic Atheism

“The Definitive Case Against Christianity: Life After The Death of God” Holiday Sale!!

The depiction of the god of Genesis as ignorant, foolish, and even malicious may be the feature of Gnostic mythology that most offended other ancient Christians and still puzzles modern readers. We have already noted that philosophically inclined Jews and Christians agreed that the creator god in Genesis resembled the craftsman god of Plato’s Timaeus and was not the highest God, but the Gnostics took a much less positive view of this divine being. Their view most likely developed from passages in the Bible that portray God as ignorant and wrathful. The god of Genesis, after all, walks in an earthly garden and must ask where Adam is (Genesis 3:8–9); he concludes that his creation of humanity and animals was a mistake and decides to destroy all people, except for a single family and a few beasts (6:5–22); and he later annihilates entire cities by raining sulfur and fire down upon them (19:24–25). Such passages troubled many pious readers of the Bible in antiquity: some learned interpreters argued that these events are not literally true, but have spiritual meanings; others attributed these actions to a lower, less perfect manifestation of God, his “presence” or his “word.” The Gnostics solved this problem simply: this god is as ignorant, vain, and hostile to human beings as he appears. Therefore, he must not be truly divine, not truly God, but Ialdabaoth. Moses failed to recognize this fact, and thus Genesis, which he wrote, provides only a partially reliable account of creation, Adam and Eve, and their progeny.

The evidence is stacked against Christianity. Or, at the very least, it definitely appears that way. Either of which is a problem because again, if God has allowed Satan to engage in such widespread deception, God is complicit and is therefore, a liar. If God permits Satan to deceive people, right down to leading them astray, it is worse than mere complicity because God, being omniscient, knows the end result; moreover, being sovereign, he is actually in control of Satan and so, any and all of Satan’s lies and deceptions rightfully belong to God! If I am to believe that God manipulated reality to make it seem as though he doesn’t exist, then it is morally permissible to deny his existence. It is actually morally reprehensible to believe in a being that has engaged in deception that carries eternal consequences.