The God Zoo

[Cheerful Charlie]

Doing some philosophical theology.

The Moral Nature Of Man Argument

If God creates us, God must design us, That includes or moral
nature. God designs our moral nature. God is stated dogmatically to
have indeed created us. And God is perfectly morally good. God has
only three choices for out moral nature.

1. Create us with a bad moral nature
2. Create us with an indifferent moral nature
3. Create us with a good moral nature

Why is there moral evil? If God created us, why did God not choose 3.? To create us with a good moral nature? God then either not good, or cares about us, or does not exist and did not design and create us. Since Christianity claims by trustworthy revelation of the Bible that God is good, just, fair, merciful and compassionate, a God that is none of these cannot be the God of Biblical revelation.

We can in principle have no free will. Our free will is constrained by our moral nature. Number 2., an indifferent moral nature does not give us free will, it only guarantees moral failure on our part. Theology cannot claim we have free will to eliminate the Problem of Evil unless theology is prepared to abandon Christianity, Bible and claimed authoritative revelation of the Bible.

William C. Barwell 4-18-2020

-------------------------

How many other reasons to not believe in the Grand Gods of the Grand Theologies do you want?

 

[Learner]

No free will ... was that by your "freethought".

Out of the options I say option 3 and so, to extend a little further, can someone with a good moral nature be tricked into doing otherwise?

 

[remez]

Atheism isn't a metaphysical stance but a psychological state.

Them I must be an atheist bc I lack a belief in your assertion.

We humans all look at the world and none of us humans see the handiwork of God... I'm talking about before the interpreting starts, to make a point of how simple atheism is. Atheism doesn't require all the interpreting of the evidence that theism does.

Ok by your reasoning and definition babies and slower toddlers (when “we” all were blank slates) are atheistic….but so are rocks and trees. I can live with that.
So when the big questions of interpretation begin to mature in life….like…. where did this universe come from? And why is it so fine-tuned? Is there an objective purpose in life? The bigger whys, hows, whens and whats…arise with maturity and thus by your reasoning atheism can play no role.
But….
I find that rather insulting to atheists, but I’ll let those that object redress your pov themselves.

Yes. My active beliefs are other than atheism.

And can whatever that worldview is better explain reality as we observe it?
We’ll really never know, bc you seem unwilling to proclaim and defend your worldview. Afraid to face the burden?

You think you see it because your education included thinking in the terms of an ancient mythological tradition. Ancient theists thought it took intention for anything to happen and so they projected a god. Modern theists continue indulging this same anthropomorphizing impulse.

That is an empty subjective assertion. You provide no support. Why should I find your arbitrary subjectiveness compelling?

... I see plenty of scientific evidence that supports a transcendent creator.

And children see scientific evidence that Santa Claus puts presents under a tree. The presents exist, their existence must be explained, the more self-serving that the explanation is the better, the list of possible present-makers can be trimmed down to who seems most likely. After all, mom and dad have their limits; even kids know only a supernatural being can ride a sleigh in the sky and fit down the chimney.

The children were taught to interpret the evidence that way. And so long as they value the meaningfulness their Santa provides, they'll keep doing it.

Of course they do. But children, as they mature, revise their worldview to match reality. So how your Santa reasoning account for the reality of mature reasoning adults abandoning their skepticism or apathy for theism to explain the incredible observations of reality? This Santa meme so lacks a mature perspective of observed reality. It simply comes across as an immature attempt to slight theism as simplistic but only reveals the simplistic reasoning of the reasoner.

We've been over why your interpreting is unconvincing before.

Yes and we have been over why your counters are unconvincing as well.

But it in no way eliminates theism.

I'm not an atheist because I've eliminated all reasons that all theists have ever presented for theism. I'm an atheist for not having been convinced by what's been presented to me.

I’m fine with that until you offer some faulty reasoning to counter theism. It then becomes my duty to defend theism by refuting or rebutting your counter.

And again…. How does the “evidence” of a universe that plausibly began to exist mean that theism has no evidence? You simply assert there is no evidence.

There's lack of convincing evidence, to be more clear than I was with the "lack of evidence" statement.

Thank you. I’m fine with you stating that you find my evidence and reasoning uncompelling. Where I object is when you assert I have no evidence or reasoning.
Further…..
Should you venture further to assert fault with my reasoning, it then logically opens the door to discuss our differences in reasoning. I’m fine with the notion we disagree. I’m only trying to attempt to show that my reasoning for theism is better than your reasoning against. That is the burden we each share.

The point about what humans don't see in nature was that the evidence for God doesn't look like evidence for God until after a person has somehow found a mythology reasonable.

I really didn’t find theism reasonable until I really began to explore the questions that my observations of the universe forced upon me. Yes I was exposed to theism as a child. I was also exposed to atheism (there is no God). It was my search to answer questions about this universe that tipped scales from my apathy about theism to embracing theism.
So ….
Why is that wrong?

You need to defend your assertion. Specifically tell me how a past finite universe does not support a transcendent creator.

It's an interesting conjecture but I'm waiting for better than some strained armchair philosophy before I'll consider anyone to have a plausible explanation for this universe. I don't commit to beliefs very readily.

Neither do I. From within theism there are some beliefs I don’t commit to. Ex…. I don’t espouse a young earth or global flood bc they don’t match what I observe in nature.

Is your God immanent too, or just transcendent? If he's immanent then let's see something more direct. Show God's within the universe before asserting he's there in the beyond. Maybe he'd be more believable then.

How would you show that the Mona Lisa had a painter with that line of reasoning? If you can’t show the painter in the painting then you should conclude there was no painter.

 

[remez]

An atheist is one who does not believe in God or gods. It does not matter if that atheist has good reasons for not believing, bad reasons for not believing, or offers no reasons at all for not believing.

It is that simple.

Ok, lets keep this simple then......

If you are not required to have good reasons or any reasons at all for what you believe
Then
Why do you insist that theists need to have good reasons for what they believe?

Not all atheists even care. I myself am a strong atheist. Basic claims about God made by theists have little support for them. And create some rather ugly little problems for theology's claims about God. I care about that because theology is basically wrong about everything. And theology leads to stupid religions doing stupid things. And that is important.

So theists need to have to have good reasons bc you, an atheist, badly reason that theology always leads to people doing stupid things.
I agree some theists claim stupid things. But that does not render theism wrong. Stupid people do stupid things whether they’re theists or atheists.
But specifically regarding

Basic claims about God made by theists have little support for them. And create some rather ugly little problems for theology's claims about God.

Only when misperceived and misrepresented by atheists with bad reasoning skills. Example….

Doing some philosophical theology.

The Moral Nature Of Man Argument

If God creates us, God must design us, That includes or moral
nature. God designs our moral nature. God is stated dogmatically to
have indeed created us. And God is perfectly morally good. God has
only three choices for out moral nature.

1. Create us with a bad moral nature
2. Create us with an indifferent moral nature
3. Create us with a good moral nature

Why is there moral evil? If God created us, why did God not choose 3.? To create us with a good moral nature? God then either not good, or cares about us, or does not exist and did not design and create us. Since Christianity claims by trustworthy revelation of the Bible that God is good, just, fair, merciful and compassionate, a God that is none of these cannot be the God of Biblical revelation.

We can in principle have no free will. Our free will is constrained by our moral nature. Number 2., an indifferent moral nature does not give us free will, it only guarantees moral failure on our part. Theology cannot claim we have free will to eliminate the Problem of Evil unless theology is prepared to abandon Christianity, Bible and claimed authoritative revelation of the Bible.

William C. Barwell 4-18-2020

-------------------------

How many other reasons to not believe in the Grand Gods of the Grand Theologies do you want?

That is a good example of some seriously bad reasoning. I don’t know this Barwell at all. Who is Barwell? Not knowing who he is or was, I was at first guessing he was some bad theist trying to explain morality. And that was your reasoning for presenting him.
But
That reasoning is so bad and doesn’t even come close to representing theism (straw man…old habits are hard to break)……it can only be an atheist trying to make up some straw argument to create a conflict between God and evil.

Here very briefly is the real theistic reasoning regarding co-existence of God and evil.

Philosophically what are the possible worlds the God could have created?
And why did he choose to create this one?

Well to be exhaustive here are the four possible worlds…..

1. God could have created nothing at all.
2. God could have created a world where there was no good or evil.
3. God could have created a world where we could only choose good.
4. God could have created this world where there is the possibility of good and evil and we then choose.

So why did he create this world? As anyone could correctly reason option 4, is the only world in which love is possible. So if God desired to create a world where love is the supreme ethic it would have to be this one…option 4. (that was very brief)

Your Barwell misfire would create a world without love, which stands in conflict with theism and observation.

Simple?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

W.C. Barwell is me. And the reasoning is sound if we take the Bible's claims seriously. God creates us all. And to do so he must design us. And that means our moral nature. This cannot be just brushed aside by hard headed theists who don't do logic. Free will is impossible. Free will is constrained by our moral nature, and that moral nature is determined by God if we take his creation of all seriously.

Thus all this moral evil we see in this world is God's fault. But if we take seriously the idea that there is no God, the contradiction between God supposed perfect goodness and his creation of everything is swept away. The Universe more resembles a Universe with no perfectly good creator God that one with such a creator God. Atheism is on firm theoretical ground. The Grand Gods of the Grand theologies such as Christianity is not.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Here very briefly is the real theistic reasoning regarding co-existence of God and evil.

Philosophically what are the possible worlds the God could have created?
And why did he choose to create this one?

Well to be exhaustive here are the four possible worlds…..

1. God could have created nothing at all.
2. God could have created a world where there was no good or evil.
3. God could have created a world where we could only choose good.
4. God could have created this world where there is the possibility of good and evil and we then choose.

So why did he create this world? As anyone could correctly reason option 4, is the only world in which love is possible. So if God desired to create a world where love is the supreme ethic it would have to be this one…option 4. (that was very brief)

Your Barwell misfire would create a world without love, which stands in conflict with theism and observation.

Simple?

A few counter-arguments might be:
1- Your character and purpose in life are predetermined.
2- No human can be a believer in God unless God makes it possible, on a case by case basis.
3- God chooses the believers, they don't choose him.
4- God can and does remove a human's capacity for moral judgment, and may specifically keep a human in a state of sin.

Source material for these 4 points:
1- Romans 9:11-16
2- John 6:65
3- Eph. 1:11
4- Exod. 4:21 and 7:3; Romans 9:18

Not that the Bible has a consistent message on man's moral agency.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Some more Philosphical Theology for us all

The Problem Of God's Omniscience and Creation Of All

Some theologians claim God values free will and thus allows moral evil for that reason. Early Augustine.
Most notable modern defense is Plantinga's "Free Will Defense".

This ignores the fact that the Universe, if created by an omniscient God that knows the future, must choose a
starting initial state of the Universe God creates and will know with exactitude all that happens in the
future. Free will is for us, impossible. All morally evil acts committed by any sentient being in this
Universe happens because God wills it and creates these morally evil acts.

To save God from the charge of being the author and creator of all morally evil acts and agents, theologians
have to deal with the issue of God's omniscience and creation of all. This entails hard determinism, and
destroys any attempt to hold man has free will. It destroys all theories of compatibilism. This destroys
all attempted theodicies

-----

Left for the readers exercise. What are the ramifications of dropping the dogma that God is omniscient, that God can for see the future?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

More Philosophy of Theology for us to consider

The Problem Of Actualized Free Will

To give this homely little argument a name, I will call it the problem of actualized free will evil. If God
could prevent actualizing moral evil actions and fails to, free will does not save God from sharing
complicity in that morally evil act.

Many theists dodge to problem of evil by claiming God gives us free will and thus, all moral evil is our doing and not God's. God sits back and let's us do what we will, even if it is evil.

However, consider this all too common scenario. John kidnaps, tortures, rapes and kills Jane. Why does John's free will count, but not Jane's who does not want to be tortured, kidnapped and killed? It seems to me, God that is supposedly good, compassionate and just would stop John. Not change his free will, John made his choice, freely. But change his ability to bring harm to Jane.

A God who does not prioritize free choices and prevents harm from morally evil choices does not seem to me to be good or just. God could very well prevent actualization of evil actions, but credit John with evil desired but halted so increasing the amount of mercy, compassion and justice in the world. There is no point in allowing the evil of John to be actualized.

This basic idea seems to me to doom all free will theodicies. It makes the God that supposedly exists now seem
exactly like what we would expect if there was no God at all, not a good God.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The Moral Nature Of Man Argument

If God creates us, God must design us, That includes or moral
nature. God designs our moral nature. God is stated dogmatically to
have indeed created us. And God is perfectly morally good. God has
only three choices for out moral nature.

1. Create us with a bad moral nature
2. Create us with an indifferent moral nature
3. Create us with a good moral nature

Philosophically what are the possible worlds the God could have created?
And why did he choose to create this one?

Well to be exhaustive here are the four possible worlds…..

1. God could have created nothing at all.
2. God could have created a world where there was no good or evil.
3. God could have created a world where we could only choose good.
4. God could have created this world where there is the possibility of good and evil and we then choose.

So why did he create this world? As anyone could correctly reason option 4, is the only world in which love is possible. So if God desired to create a world where love is the supreme ethic it would have to be this one…option 4. (that was very brief)

Your Barwell misfire would create a world without love, which stands in conflict with theism and observation.

Simple?

Number 4 is impossible. God cannot create man with no moral nature. That is for brainless creatures like jelly fish. And we see little love in this world from some Grand God. Infants dying of painful cancers, parasites, bacteria, viruses and fungi. Savage wars by stupid Islamic radicals whom God does not correct. God seems to be either non-existent or AWOL from his duty station. The Hiddeness Of God Problem.

 

[Learner]

A few counter-arguments might be:
1- Your character and purpose in life are predetermined.
2- No human can be a believer in God unless God makes it possible, on a case by case basis.
3- God chooses the believers, they don't choose him.
4- God can and does remove a human's capacity for moral judgment, and may specifically keep a human in a state of sin.

Source material for these 4 points:
1- Romans 9:11-16
2- John 6:65
3- Eph. 1:11
4- Exod. 4:21 and 7:3; Romans 9:18

Not that the Bible has a consistent message on man's moral agency.

Argument 1. Your character and purpose in life are predetermined.

You reference: Romans 9:11-16.

The context with those verses IS ... God gives Judgement as the highest Judge.



Argument 2. No human can be a believer in God unless God makes it possible, on a case by case basis.


You Reference: John 6:65. The verse before that doesn't reflect your argument here because the verse John 6:64 highlights both believers and non believers in the same scenario. The context,shows that God CAN put any individual with purpose in Jesus's path along His journey:

John 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.




Argument 3. God chooses the believers, they don't choose him.

You reference: Eph. 1:11: which contains the word predestinated.

Reading the following verses 12 and 13, the context to argument 3 is that, once you believe... you AUTOMATICALLY inherit the Kingdom. That bit is predestinated.

12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also

after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise[/B],



Argument 4. God can and does remove a human's capacity for moral judgment, and may specifically keep a human in a state of sin.

You reference: Exod. 4:21 and 7:3; Romans 9:18.


There are other references to the hardened hard that show context:

Exod 7: 14, And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

Exod 7:21-22 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the Lord had said.


Exod 8 : 31 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one.

32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.


Hardened heart clearly means being stubborn, refusing to give-in i.e. Not letting God's people go, despite what pharoah sees in front of him.

 

[ideologyhunter]

So when God says at 4:21, 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart, so he will not the people go,' and at 7:3, 'But I will harden Pharaoh's heart', you don't think it happened? The five Exodus quotations you give state that Pharaoh's heart was hardened. The two I just gave quote the Bible god taking responsibility for the hardening. Paul, in Romans 9:18, agrees with that assigning of responsibility. Quotations like these gave rise to the theology of predestination. which was a bigger deal 500 years ago, when Erasmus and Luther were arguing over it. But there are a fair number of Bible passages to buttress the doctrine. It doesn't matter much to me, but there was a time when good Christians were willing to murder each other over it.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Put His Spirit In Us

Texts that demonstrate free will as per Plantinga is not an absolute. The free will defense is based on a
straw man, that God must give us free will even if that will causes evil.

Isaiah 36:26-8
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments,
and do them.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your
God.

Isaiah 59:20-21
20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.
21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I
have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the
mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.

Jeremiah 24:6-7
6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build
them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be
their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

Jeremiah 31:33-34
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall
be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Ezekiel 11:19
19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out
of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and
I will be their God.

Ezekiel 36:26
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all
your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

1 Samuel 10:9
9 And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those
signs came to pass that day.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22
21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;
22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

----------------------

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Why did the Jews not believe Jesus was the messiah and son of God. God hardened their hearts not to.

Romans 11
³¹ Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
³² For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

 

[remez]

W.C. Barwell is me. And the reasoning is sound if we take the Bible's claims seriously. God creates us all. And to do so he must design us. And that means our moral nature. This cannot be just brushed aside by hard headed theists who don't do logic. Free will is impossible. Free will is constrained by our moral nature, and that moral nature is determined by God if we take his creation of all seriously.

You are cherry picking from the middle to twist it backwards. Freewill is not constrained by our nature. We are not forced good, bad or indifferent as in your reasoning. We have the freewill to choose good or evil. That is the theology.

Ok, the brief version didn’t grab hold
So
Let’s go back to the beginning.

Doing some philosophical theology.

The Moral Nature Of Man Argument

If God creates us, God must design us, That includes or moral
nature. God designs our moral nature. God is stated dogmatically to
have indeed created us. And God is perfectly morally good. God has
only three choices for out moral nature.

1. Create us with a bad moral nature
2. Create us with an indifferent moral nature
3. Create us with a good moral nature

Why is there moral evil? If God created us, why did God not choose 3.? To create us with a good moral nature? God then either not good, or cares about us, or does not exist and did not design and create us. Since Christianity claims by trustworthy revelation of the Bible that God is good, just, fair, merciful and compassionate, a God that is none of these cannot be the God of Biblical revelation.

We can in principle have no free will. Our free will is constrained by our moral nature. Number 2., an indifferent moral nature does not give us free will, it only guarantees moral failure on our part. Theology cannot claim we have free will to eliminate the Problem of Evil unless theology is prepared to abandon Christianity, Bible and claimed authoritative revelation of the Bible.

William C. Barwell 4-18-2020

-------------------------

How many other reasons to not believe in the Grand Gods of the Grand Theologies do you want?

Now I know you really feel like you have put together a proper representation of theological understanding. But you, like so many other atheists are cherry picking. That is why I presented the whole frame of the argument. For what purpose did God create this world? You are ignoring the impact of this upon your counter argument.

God freely created this world as a habit for man, with the purpose for man to be in a loving relationship with him. That is the proper theistic paradigm. Do you deny this? If you do then as I said before you are not being theological you are simply cherry picking.

If you agree with the theological purpose for man’s creation then the theology remains unchallenged by your cherry picking.
Bc
What were the possible worlds God could create to achieve a world where man could be in loving relationship with him?
Again….
1. God could have created nothing at all.
2. God could have created a world where there was no good or evil.
3. God could have created a world where we could only choose good.
4. God could have created this world where there is the possibility of good and evil and we then choose.

Op1. No man but love still exists in the trinity. But that does not match the reality we observe around us.
Op2. You have an amoral world. If this were an amoral world we wouldn’t even be discussing this. Thus op2 cannot be this world.
Op3. You have a world of good. But man is an automaton. Love does not exist. As anyone can observe this reality has love and evil in it thus op3 is a fail.
Op4. You have this world where good exists, but the possibility of evil exists because man was created in the image of God to have the freewill to love. We in this world have good, evil and love.

Remember the purpose for this creation was to have a world in which man could freely love God. Your argument cannot account for the larger framework of the theology here. You cherry picked and started from the middle to twist it around. Thus you could make free will disappear. Which then makes love disappear. In your worlds of forced good, bad or indifference love cannot exist. Thus your contention really doesn’t address the full scope of the theology here and commits the fallacy of cherry picking.
further
In your 3 possible worlds there is no world that contains good, evil and love. Our reality has all three. So how can your depiction of theology be accurate when none of your worlds contain all three as we do observe in this world?

Now you may have other contentions (natural evil and the probabilistic) about this problem of evil. But your attempt to present a logical argument that God and evil can’t coexist….fails. The logical problem of evil is a settled issue. There is no logical inconsistency with the coexistence of God and evil. You cannot make the case for that when viewing the entire theological paradigm.

As a matter of reason you can make a case that the presence of objective evil proves God’s existence.
Here
When one posits that there is such a thing as evil, one must assume there is such a thing as good. When you assume there is such a thing as good, then you must also assume there is an objective moral law by which to distinguish between good and evil. When you assume an objective moral law, you must posit a moral lawgiver—the source of the moral law. But that was who you were trying to deny to begin with.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Morality = the rules of group living. Pure and simple. Requires no god whatsoever. Requires a minimum of two people sharing space. (Requires no holy book that tells you the skygod has often commanded genocide and allows you a three-day pass on beating your slaves to death.)

 

[Learner]

Morality = the rules of group living. Pure and simple.
Requires no god whatsoever. Requires a minimum of two people sharing space.

No dispute with you there, a variety of moralities depending on who agrees with who etc... suited for a variety of tastes (so to speak) that can change after time.

 

[Learner]

Put His Spirit In Us

Texts that demonstrate free will as per Plantinga is not an absolute. The free will defense is based on a
straw man, that God must give us free will even if that will causes evil.


----------------------

His Spirit in you .... requires you to choose to be a believer FIRST!

 

[Learner]

So when God says at 4:21, 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart, so he will not the people go,' and at 7:3, 'But I will harden Pharaoh's heart', you don't think it happened? The five Exodus quotations you give state that Pharaoh's heart was hardened. The two I just gave quote the Bible god taking responsibility for the hardening. Paul, in Romans 9:18, agrees with that assigning of responsibility.

I agree. And...would Pharaoh take responsibilty for giving cause for God's response/reaction?

Quotations like these gave rise to the theology of predestination. which was a bigger deal 500 years ago, when Erasmus and Luther were arguing over it. But there are a fair number of Bible passages to buttress the doctrine.

We may still be debating over many things in the bible between ourselves as theists but.. we discover and learn at the same time - to have better understanding today than we did back then, adding to the knowledge-collection.

It doesn't matter much to me, but there was a time when good "Christians" were willing to murder each other over it.

FIFY

They didn't understand the bit that said "Thall shalt not murder " I suppose.

 

[DBT]

The bible clearly states that God is responsible for evil in the world. As for passover, killing the innocent is neither fair or just.

 

[Learner]

The bible clearly states satan is responsible for evil, that's how it reads. As for Passover - that was the very LAST of the ten plagues after: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and then finally the killing of first born. God with His patience gave pharaoh MANY chances to let God's people go... but pharaoh kept on refusing to see God as more powerful and unfortunately let his people suffer, all because of his pride.