Subject: Can God Do ANYthing?
Reproduced for you reading pleasure, with permission, from Biblical Errancy, Issue #134, Feb, 1994:
Dear Mr. McKinsey, I've read a number of back issues of B. E., and I think I have a pretty good idea of what you're trying to do, but as far as I can see, in all this time, you've neglected one very important point that affects all your arguments, and that is this: God can do anything. Any Sundy-school child can tell you that.
And what does that mean? It means that God can, whenever He wants to, take a contradiction and turn it into a non- contradiction. He can take a fallacy and turn it into truth. That is only one way He can 'confound the wise'.
You can say 'Well, 'white is black' is a contradiction.' It is, unless and until God wants it not to be. Then 'white is black' is no longer a contradiction, but is gospel truth. God is more powerful than all the laws of reason and logic, and can nulify or change the rules in any way at any time. Don't ask me how He can do it. His ways are omnipotent, and beyond my understanding or yours. If he wants to turn 'up' into 'down' or say that '1 + 1 = 3' He can do it and it will make perfect sense in a microsecond. Every verse in the Bible is literally true. People like you are just too narrow-minded and have such tunnel vision that you can't accept the almightly power of an infinite and omnipotent God. Change your ways, Mr. McKinsey, and you can have a great reward at the end of your life.
Editor's Response
Dear Dr. KM, You have taken pseudo-intellectual anti-intellectualism to new heights by submitting the ultimate in religious inculcation and gibberish. I always thought Dr. Peter Ruckman's book Science and Philosophy was the most anti-intellectual composition in my repertoire, but your letter has surpassed even his absurd meanderings. This situation is made all the more tragic by the fact that your perverse thought processes and those of Ruckman are loaned an aura of respectability by a doctorate in something or other. Critiquing your letter is in a category by itself. You are among those pathetic beings who have left the realm of reason, logic, rationality, evidence, proof, data, and common sense and entered a never-never land of make believe and self-indulgent bliss. You refer to a being whose existance you can in no way prove and assert he is capable of performing deeds which you can in no way demonstrate.
As sad as it is to say, KM, you are a disgrace to every scientist, every inventor, every person who has ever tried to improve the status of mankind by demonstrating that which they allege. All you have succeeded in doing is proving that when carried to its ultimate conclusion religious propaganda is dangerous to sane minds and can only lead to a total divorce from reality not unlike that found in neurotics and psycotics. You would have humanity believe that there can be a square circle, a four-sided triangle, and a non-existant existing being. You would have us believe that God can totally, not partially, _totally_ destroy himself and then bring himself back into existence. You would have us believe that God can create a being more powerful than himself or create something too heavy for him to lift. You would have us reject the law of non-contradiction itself and have us believe that something can be itself and not itself simultaneously. You would literally have us believe that black can be white--the quintessence of inculcation, propaganda, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
Is it any wonder that you would have us accept the Bible as the inerrant word of a supreme being. It's nothing more than the logical culmination of an up-is-down philosophy that can only lead to the rejection of all contradictions per se. Once people seriously adopt your philosophy, then anything they chose to believe can be justified on the grounds that God can do anything and God is on their side. They don't have to prove by reason or demonstrate by proof; all they need do is assert and that alone is sufficient for verification. Talk about being divorced from the real world and dwelling in phantasia!
Following that stream of thought I could claim to be God and defy you to prove otherwise. After all, you said God can do anything, anything. If that's true, then I could very well be god. Even more important, my claim to be God is true until you can prove the contrary, which is impossible. How do you know for certain that I am not God; prove it. I defy you to prove that I am not God. If you were to ask me to perform some stupendous feats, I need only say that I do not choose to do so, and you were told by Scripture not to test the Lord thy God. If you say my behavior is imperfect, I would only ask you to observe the activities of God in the OT and note that they were justified as well. That settles the matter. Every one of your thrusts could be easily parried. In fact, everyone on the face of this planet could make equally incredible claims and your stance with them would be no stronger than with me.
You religionists just don't realize that you have to PROVE things. You completely ignore your own book which clearly says 'Prove all things' (1 Thess. 5:21). Merely saying or believing something is wholly insufficient. You just don't understand that when you alter or remove a basic intellectual concept, such as the law of non-contradiction, a chain reaction is set in motion that affects everything down the line. Everything is interrelated and what you think will work to your favor in one instance will operate to your detriment in others. If you can go on a wild spree, then so can I. If you can make ludicrous claims, then so can I. And mine are not only as valid as yours but equally incapable of being disproven.
The pandora's box you seek to open for yourself is also opened for all of mankind and the only limits are the imaginations of all concerned. Someone could murder the person you love most and claim they are either god or acting on God's orders, and until you proved otherwise, you would have no right whatever to punish them. How do you know they aren't being truthful? I challenge you to prove otherwise! If you took their life, you could very well be killing a physical manifestation of God and I don't need to tell you what the ultimate punishment for that would be.
Sample issue free upon request from:
Dennis McKinsey,
3158 Sherwood Park Drive,
Springfield, Ohio
45505
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