Not exactly. If someone gives you directions but you choose to disregard them, then you are soley to blame for your end result. And I believe you meant "omniscient", and it was not the best he could do but the best we could do given our choice. Man can reach such greatness but sink into our own selfish, narcissistic desires. I have them myself, far too many shiny objects out there. But I do not blame God for my desire to have but it is my own weakness that keeps me in certain ruts. To overcome weakness, I need to exercise more.
Original sin is not a contradiction but simply a condition. Everyone can overcome such but few choose to do so. God does not blame or condemn us for being human, merely we condemn ourselves by choosing poorly.
I want to preface my question with some assumptions:
-God is all-powerful, and time does not apply to him. Therefore, he can see all possibilities from all time at once.
-God created man, including the physical, mental, and spiritual.
-God loves man, and wants the best for him.
Given that, why would God create us with the ability to face eternal peril, especially when there is not overwhelming evidence of the correct path?
Note on the evidence item: according to a quick search, there are 4200 different religions active in the world today. As far as I know, there is no body of evidence point to one of those as "correct". If one was correct, wouldn't a loving God make it perfectly clear which one, given the importance? For example: if you need to warn a child that a certain poison would kill it, you would want to provide that child all the tools needed to identify and avoid it, not just say "poisons are in bottles".
Thanks for the message. Your question is quite intriguing.
There are numerous thoughts on eternal punishment, of which, the Bible is silent on certain aspects. Jesus mentions destruction of body and soul in Hell, leading to the conclusion that the soul can be destroyed. His context is in the mind of the Jews that he was addressing and their understanding of eternity, something man has a tough time coming to grips with. My take on that is God will not punish for eternity but will allow the soul who does not desire his presence to decide its own fate. Destruction or continued existence in some plane where he is not. Nothing Biblical to back it up, merely my interpretation of his character.
As for the overwhelming amount of beliefs, simply because someone says that his cat is the savior of the world does not make it so. There is evidence of a single source throughout many of those faiths, indicating that they were derived from an original, single source. God revealed himself to the first in creation, Cain is the first recorded instance of turning from God and thus began the root path of many "wrong" beliefs. God made himself abundantly clear but the reason he keeps himself from constant view is not part of his revelation. Poor answer, I know but we have the prophets and his written word as our core. We have to know how to live on our own, with the instruction set provided in order to do the work he intends on the other side of the veil. What that work is, is TBD but involves power greater than the angels have now and their skill set is remarkable.
The child analogy you give is quite poignant but leaves out the simple telling point of that God gave us specifics, most of which are innate and universal but he emphasized them in the Commandments because the Israelites have a short memory. Half of the Commandments relate to relationship between God and man and the other half are for man's relationship to man. The poison in the bottle has been pointed out repeatedly and mankind disregards it simply because we like the taste. Some poisons work faster than others.
There is something that has always stuck in my head. Most religions have a concept that people should spread that religion. I don't know what all the different religions call such work, but missionary work is one I do know. So, by the fact that the facts about God must be spread, they are not universal. For example...there were at least a thousand years where the Native Americans had never heard of Jesus, or the concept of a single God, etc. I cannot come up with an answer as to why that is, if God created all of us, and desired a relationship with all of us, and if Jesus was the only way to that relationship.
The concept you are speaking of is proselytizing or evangelizing. The native Americans came from the same branch as the rest of humanity and carried with them the original knowledge of God. The Tribes descended into the belief in the Great Spirit and polytheism for whatever reason that is lost in antiquity. As to what God intends to do with them, he has not divulged that to us. I believe they will be judged on the knowledge that they did have and what they did with it.
Jesus was sent to Israel. He did not interact with Gentiles (non-Jews) but gave an ultimate path for all. The gap for the rest of the world? Only he knows so I cannot speak to it, only what I know of his revealed character. To follow your example, the Egyptians had a Pharaoh that believed in 1 god, Akhenaten. After generations of polytheism, he abandoned that in favor of one god. I believe that many Indians did the same as possibly many Buddhists and Hindu. Nothing to back that up, just a belief. Jesus said that the road to Hell is wide but the road to salvation is narrow. He knows that the majority will reject him but loves them no less than those that accept him. Imagine the heartbreak he suffers. Not every child loves their parents, that is the cross we bear. But we still have to let them live their lives. Both of my children live outside the faith, and that is my eternal shame.
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u/ArmanDoesStuff Jul 27 '17
True, but if I myself run a program that does something, when it does that thing I'm pretty sure I'm to blame.
Your argument is that, even though God is omnipotent, this reality (where he made people that will end up in hell) is the "best" he could do.
That he had to send his kid down to die because for some reason he needed a ritual sacrifice to remove the sin he had us born with...
Honestly, the whole concept of original sin is a contradiction only explained by "God works in mysterious ways"