I have been following and posting on a recent Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) post on Pascal’s Wager. A couple of objection to the gospel that have come up are:
If he truly loves us as much as postulated in the bible then we should all be going to heaven regardless of our mistakes.
So to sum up, being a good person all your life is not enough to get you into Heaven, you have to ACKNOWLEDGE God!!! Hey, sounds like God has an ego! Was he a rock star in his youth?? What a load of BS!
So here are my answers.
1. If God is love, why doesn’t he just forgive everyone? Why require accepting Christ?
The problem with this view is that it only acknowledges one half of God’s nature – that of love. The other half is truth/justice. This is why the scriptures say "Grace AND truth met in Jesus Christ."
You see, it is not loving to ignore justice for the man who raped and killed your daughter. If God said "look, out of love, I forgive him" you would rightly say "that is unjust!"
Love also demands justice. The Xian message is that God forgives, not by avoiding justice, but by meting out the punishment on his innocent son. This is why we are required to believe – because otherwise, we are affirming that we deserve forgiveness without justice, which is unloving and unrighteous.
2. Why does God reject the good person who has been pretty good all their lives, but will just forgive someone who is truly evil if they just "accept Jesus"?
The reason being good all your life is not good enough is because God’s generous path allows those who CAN’T be good enough to be saved from the judgment they deserve. And in order to disallow braggarts (See Ephesians 2:8-9) and the self-righteous, he says that those who try to earn forgiveness with their good works are
(a) rejecting God’s loving offer of forgiveness,
(b) misunderstanding that they are guilty like everyone else, not better than others (Romans 2:10-12),
(c) misunderstand what good really is (by comparing themselves to others instead of God himself) (Luke 18:18-24), and
(d) not realizing that, while God does not demand our allegiance, he deserves it because he OWNS us (as our creator), but does not force us to obey like robots.
Additionally, the person who is trying to earn their right standing with God through good works is actually under a terrible burden, esp. as they realize how imperfectly they keep the law. God’s offer of forgiveness through the justice meted out on Christ allows us to do good, not out of fear of not doing enough, but out of gratefulness that we don’t have to earn anything!
3. Why does God require worship? Why does He demand anything? Does he have an ego problem?
As far as God having an ego, it has oft been said of Jesus that his outrageous claims such as "if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" and "no one comes to the Father except by Me" meant that he was either a Lunatic (with a huge ego), a Liar, a Legend (people made such sayings up after he was gone to make him look more important than he actually claimed to be), or he was actually LORD, and was telling the truth. So if God really is God, all demands have little to do with ego, and more to do with the truth of the situation. That he is both creator and judge of all, and there is nothing we can do, if we are sane, other than to agree with the truth and reality of the situation.
As it is said, all failure to acknowledge reality is insanity.
