Rebuttal of Plugaru
1 February 2006In a recent article, Horia G. Plugaru argues that the so-called “feigned-allegiance reply”, employed to offer an explanation as to why God allows nonbelief, is faulty. 1 In the process of elucidating his own objection to FAR, Plugaru discusses other objections that have been brought up against it. In this paper I will critique Plugaru’s preferred objection, but I will also address all other objections that are mentioned. Therefore, this paper will constitute a fairly comprehensive defense of FAR as it pertains to the Argument from Nonbelief. 2
How is FAR Formulated?
Plugaru offers a formulation of FAR near the beginning of his paper. I will reprint it here:
Situation R = the situation in which the theist God clearly reveals his presence to humanity. In this paper, I will refer at situation R simply as R.
Using the above definition, FAR can be expressed as follows:
P1: If, in the case where God would actualize R, the vast majority of humans: (a) would not love him and would not sincerely appreciate everything God has done for them and (b) would consciously choose not to behave in a moral and altruistic way out of conviction and genuine goodness, then God is justified not to actualize R.
P2: In the case where God would actualize R, then the vast majority of humans very probably: (a) would not love him and would not sincerely appreciate everything God has done for them and (b) would consciously choose not to behave in a moral and altruistic way out of conviction and genuine goodness.
In fact, they would only simulate their appreciation for God and would follow his commands and behave morally much more likely out of selfish reasons—just to please God and, in this way, to be sure that God would reward them in heaven or, at least, that he would not punish them in hell.
C: Therefore, God is very probably justified in not actualizing R. [from P1 and P2 modus ponendo ponens]
I have no major problem with Plugaru’s formulation. As stated here, I would regard FAR as a good reason to disregard the Argument from Nonbelief.
Preliminary Commentary
Before he gets into the meat of his critique of FAR, Plugaru discusses what he believes are consequences of upholding FAR.
First, I think it is plausible to believe that if a person (Y) is incapable of loving, (here I suppose that Y’s emotional impotence is not caused by some sort of a psychological disorder) and of feeling sincere appreciation for a person (X) who did great acts of altruism in Y’s benefit, or, at the very least, of being grateful to X without feeling anything-out of strict moral duty-then Y is guilty of immorality.
However, Plugaru contends that the FAR implies something even worse:
Moreover, if Y is not only ungrateful to X, but in fact would hurt X or at least would be indifferent to X if Y’s selfish interest would require him to do these when he knows that he won’t get caught and punished, then Y can be considered extremely immoral. Very probably, such a person as Y would never act in an altruistic manner but rather would behave in a very immoral way.
Now, my first response to such an observation would be “so what?” The idea that the majority of humans (perhaps even all) are very immoral is a mainstream belief held by most Christians, myself included. So, on the face of it, this observation by Plugaru is not really much of a problem for the traditional Christian theist.
However, taking his claim at face value, is it necessarily true that such persons as described by Y would be very immoral? It would seem that such persons may have other flaws that lead to situation P2- stupidity, for example. If a person lacked intelligence, they may not be able to realize that somebody was helping them even when there was a fair amount of evidence that such was the case. Therefore, many persons would perhaps ignore or dislike God because, despite being fully aware of His existence and His plan, are not intelligent enough to realize that God is actually performing great acts of altruism. In any case, both consequences of upholding FAR are entirely acceptable to the traditional Christian theist, that either a.) the majority of humanity is plagued by immorality or b.) the majority of humanity is plagued by lack of intelligence . Moreover, it is clearly the case that a human could, and probably would, exhibit both flaws to at least a certain degree. Thus, a certain person’s tendency to behave in a manner described in P2 could be due in part to a lack of intelligence and in part due to immorality.
The second thing which deserves to be mentioned about P2 is that it also implies that humans are so immoral due to a highly powerful force which heavily influences them to behave in this way. A very plausible example of such a powerful influence is a certain type of inborn nature or character. In other words, FAR’s P2 implies that human choice is heavily coerced.
Plugaru argues that this is the case because it would otherwise seem quite odd that the majority of the human population be so predisposed to behaving immorally. I would have to say that this seems reasonable. However, I must point out that the “powerful influence” could just as well be a factor of the world we live in, rather than a factor within our personality. Assuming that humans are all born morally neutral, certain factors in this world may tend to compel immorality to a certain degree. For example, the existence of wholly good pleasures in the world we live in, such as food, drink, sex, and so on, could be factors that compel most humans to be immoral. It is important to note that God can hardly be blamed for these things, since the pleasures afforded by good food, good drink, and loving sex are surely things that increase the goodness of the world. At least, I presume that most humans appreciate the fact that we have them. But the potential consequence is, quite unfortunately, that someone may then wish to attain more food, etc. than their fair share, thus leading to suffering, inequality, and immorality in the world. However, this outcome need not be thought of as an internal problem, but rather an external problem that tends to make even morally neutral beings immoral at the end of the day.
Other Attacks on FAR
Plugaru discusses some other attacks on FAR by Steven Conifer and Theodore Drange. His only purpose is to demonstrate that her own attack on FAR is unique, but my purpose here will be to respond to the arguments Conifer and Drange supply.
Steven Conifer
Conifer has four objections to FAR. I will consider them in turn.
1. The majority of persons on this planet already believe in God and are susceptible to the claim that they believe in and obey God only for selfish reasons.
This response seems totally useless. First of all, this doesn’t seem to explain why we should reject FAR at all. Even if Conifer is correct here, FAR is still on solid ground- all this objection manages to do is shed doubt on the goodness of persons who are already theists. This clearly does not address the issue. Secondly, the FAR problem is not necessarily the only reason why God does not provide more evidence for His existence. The reasons God has for this are probably complex and multifarious, as I have argued in my own response to the Argument from Nonbelief (located HERE).
2. An omniscient God would know who was insincere in their belief and actions, and so there is no reason for Him to withhold from complete revelation to all humans. God has nothing to fear of being tricked.
It is true that God is not susceptible to being fooled by insincere followers. However, it does not follow that it would be in God’s best interest (and humanities best interest) for Him to reveal Himself fully and completely to everyone. First of all, it would seem then that many of those persons who were unbelievers but may have become sincere believers through a spiritual journey would be motivated to become an insincere believer on the spot. This would jeopardize their happiness and their salvation. Secondly, if God (and, consequently, humanity) gains nothing from providing full revelation, then why should we assume that He would provide it? Thirdly, we must remember that FAR is not the only reason God may have for withholding from full revelation.
3. It is only fair for God to reveal to us his moral expectations so that we have a chance to follow them. There are so many differing beliefs, even amongst Christians, about what is right or wrong that it is impossible to know which view is correct.
This objection actually strays into the Argument from Moral/Religious Confusion, which I evaluate HERE (upcoming). In any case, Conifer assumes here that God has made it unreasonably hard for us to determine what is moral and what is not. This, I believe, is a very mistaken assumption. Many Christians believe (myself included) that the Holy Spirit helps us to know what is truly right and what is truly wrong. It is only through our own sinful nature that we fail to distinguish between the two. Moreover, most issues that are debatable are relatively minor compared to big issues. For example, most rational human beings consider it to be a moral abomination to torture children, or to kill an individual in cold blood. There may be a good deal of disagreements, but there are also quite a few general agreements that practically everyone affirms.
In addition, Christians maintain that God has provided us with His Word, preserved in the Bible. It is true that there can be disagreements on what the Bible means, but this could be for a variety of reasons. For example, it could be because some people don’t spend enough time investigating how the Bible should be interpreted. Or, it could be because some humans project their own thoughts onto the Bible and make it say what they want it to say. Whatever the case, God has provided humanity with a comprehensive moral code, implanted in our minds and written in the Bible, so that a full revelation as suggested by Conifer would neither be necessary nor particularly helpful.
Even so, I find it completely acceptable, and even likely, that God has left much up to us. I believe that God expects us to use our minds to ascertain truth in many circumstances, including our moral decisions, and I think that this is a very good thing. If God made life a “walk in the park” so to speak, then humans would have much less opportunity to develop as moral and spiritual agents.
4. God could just reveal that He exists rather than revealing what He expects from us, in order to remove the possibility that humans perform moral acts for selfish reasons.
However, if God provided a ridiculous amount of evidence for His existence it is very possible that immoral people would change their ways only because they know that God exists. In such a scenario they would develop belief in God but not love and respect of God- which would endanger their salvation and potentially the salvation of others. And now we run into other reasons God may have for not revealing himself fully. It seems that, despite Conifer’s criticisms, FAR is a plausible addition to any argument which attempts to explain why God allows nonbelief.
Theodore Drange
Theodore Drange, one of the primary defenders of the Argument from Nonbelief, has four objections to FAR. I will consider them in turn.
1. An all-powerful God could make it so that hearing and believing the Gospel does not lead to a negative response from some people.
It is not clear at all how God could do such a thing without interfering with free will- and apparently Drange doesn’t know how it could be done either! According to Plugaru, ??”Drange admits he doesn’t know how could God do that.”?? It is absurd for Drange to expect us to take his objection seriously if he doesn’t even know how it could be accomplished.
2. The idea of exclusivist salvation contradicts omnibenevolence in the first place, so it is invalid to use FAR as a response.
This just entirely begs the question. It is so far off topic that I will not deal with it here. However, I deal with the issue of exclusivist salvation HERE (upcoming), and I will recommend another article. 3
3. To quote Drange: “It seems to me that … just the nature of the gospel message itself would incline one to be favorably disposed toward a belief in it. Surely it would be “good news” for people who had recently come to believe in heaven that they will eventually go there. It seems reasonable to think that such a belief would inspire in them a feeling of gratitude, which presumably is the sort of response that God desires.” 4
It may inspire a feeling of “gratitude”, but this is not all that God wishes to achieve. He wishes to gain love, respect, and increased moral goodness. Moreover, this sense of “gratitude” could very well wear off quickly. On top of this, a full revelation from God would not necessarily imply that the person would know that they will receive eternal salvation- so this supposed feeling of gratitude may be nonexistent.
4. God might as well provide full revelation, as He has nothing to lose.
First of all, this begs the question. If God were to provide full revelation, He may lose the salvation of some individuals, and He may have to sacrifice his justness. Besides, even if Drange were right about this, there is still no reason for God to provide full revelation- as He has nothing to gain. At best, this argument would demonstrate that their is a 50% chance that God would reveal Himself completely- hardly a convincing argument. It seems like Drange is merely trying to argue that God should bow down to his own wishes.
I think it is fairly obvious that none of the above objections are very successful attempts to discard FAR. They are all highly speculative, and most are entirely counterintuitive. That said, we shall see if Plugaru’s unique objection can be a very effective counter to FAR.
Plugaru’s Argument
Plugaru’s argument is, essentially, that FAR’s P2 is implausible. Recall that P2 states the following:
In the case where God would actualize R, then the vast majority of humans very probably: (a) would not love him and would not sincerely appreciate everything God has done for them and (b) would consciously choose not to behave in a moral and altruistic way out of conviction and genuine goodness.
Plugaru maintains that it is much more likely that humans would not conform to P2- rather they would act more appropriately. He states:
t is much more likely that humans would love, sincerely appreciate God and follow his commands out of moral reasons like gratitude, conviction, the desire to be similar to him etc.
Plugaru refers to this as NAFAR’s Premise 2. It is the premise Plugaru must support in order to discount FAR. Now, it seems like Plugaru’s argument would be extremely simple to counter for the Christian theist. All it takes to defeat her argument is to uphold P2 which, I have already argued, only asks us to assume that humans suffer from a considerable amount of stupidity and/or immorality. Of course, Plugaru gives a defense of her rejection of P2, and we shall now see whether this defense can withstand critical evaluation.
Plugaru’s Defense of NAFAR
Recall that earlier Plugaru argued that P2 implied that all or most humans are extremely immoral. However, I attacked this claim, arguing that lack of intelligence could also be a factor in the human tendency to behave in a manner described by P2. This is important to remember as we analyze Plugaru’s defense.
Another important issue, seemingly overlooked entirely, is that FAR’s P2 does not have to apply to all, or even most humans in order for FAR to be a successful addition to a defense against the Argument from Nonbelief. God’s reasons for withholding full revelation are probably numerous. FAR’s P2 need only apply to some of humanity in order to be successful.
These considerations aside, what does Plugaru say to defend NAFAR? She starts off by using an analogy:
Is it true that most of us are very ungrateful and unable to appreciate our great benefactors? To see that “No” is the most plausible response to all these questions, imagine the following situation. Let us say that X donates a house to Y in, say, Beverly Hills. The house is completely furnished and it is placed in the most beautiful area of Beverly Hills. Moreover, let us stipulate that X will pay the rent for Y as long as Y will live. I think it’s safe to say that in this situation Y will love and sincerely appreciate X for all these. Even if Y is morally imperfect-like most of humanity-it is hard to believe that he (she) could be that immoral as to completely ignore or even harm X after all X has done for Y.
Unfortunately, this analogy contains a couple of discrepancies which, once fully examined, make P2 highly plausible.
A.) In this analogy, X is a finite being who cannot do anything with ease. Therefore, it may take X a little bit of self-sacrifice to provide a house for Y. God, unlike X, is an infinite being with unlimited power. He would be able to do such a thing without any such sacrifice involved. 5 Therefore, Y may not feel the same sense of gratitude, but would rather “expect” such a gift.
B.) In this analogy, all that X is mentioned doing is providing a house for Y. However, God, unlike X, does many things- not just to Y but to everybody. These things include allowing suffering to occur, punishing for evildoing, and answering prayers in the negative. Now, the Christian theist upholds that these sort of things are justified and for the greater good. But could we honestly expect the majority of humanity to believe this? Consider person B, who has no theistic tendencies, is given a full revelation from God, and then comes to believe that God exists. Now, with full knowledge that God, who can do anything, exists, person B may come to blame God for every single bad thing that happens in her life. Imagine that B’s son dies a painful death. Is it reasonable to suppose that this would not lead to a dislike for, perhaps even hatred for, an omnipotent God? In this case the problem would not necessarily be lack of morality in B; it could be that B lacks the intelligence to realize that God has appropriate reasons for suffering and evil.
Next, Plugaru formulates an inductive argument for NAFAR.
(A) Many highly immoral individuals strongly love and appreciate those who helped them and behaved altruistically to them (like members of their families, their people etc).
(B) God behaved (and will behave) very altruistically towards all individuals including the highly immoral ones.
(C) At the present time, some very immoral individuals do not love God simply because they do not think there exists such a being or because they never heard of him.
(D) But if R would be actualized, many (possibly most) of the highly immoral ones would very probably love God and sincerely appreciate him.
(E) If it is probable that many (possibly most) of the highly immoral individuals would strongly love and sincerely appreciate God in case he would actualize R, it is at least as probable that most of the remaining humans who are much more moral would do the same.
(F) Hence, if God would actualize R, it is probable that most humans would love and sincerely appreciate God.
Is this argument solid? I think not- for it can be attacked in many places.
What of premise (A)? Well, I think the factual basis for this claim could easily be questioned. What case examples are used in order to reach the conclusion? Also, there is really no way to know that the love and appreciation were sincere in these cases. Perhaps the criminals “loved” them because they brought them benefit. However, I will assume for the sake of argument that (A) is probably true.
And what about (B)? (B) is certainly true, but there is an important thing to mention. Although God could reveal, beyond reasonable doubt, that He exists and that Christianity is true, He could not necessarily convince others that He really does act altruistically. In fact, I think many humans would have many problems accepting that God actually acts on their benefit. Consider these complaints that God could possibly receive if everyone thought He really existed.
1.) An omnipotent, omniscient God sacrifices nothing by giving me material or immaterial gifts. I should expect that, if God is loving, such gifts should not be on short supply. But I have not received nearly enough gifts.
2.) An omnipotent, omniscient God can hear my prayers, and can answer my prayers easily, yet so many of my prayers are left unanswered.
3.) An omnipotent, omniscient God knows of my suffering, and the suffering of others. He could easily stop it, yet he does not.
4.) God has revealed to me that many people go to heaven- those that accept their savior Jesus Christ. Yet, many people around me don’t accept Him despite God’s revelation. It is outrageously cruel to send them to Hell. Furthermore, I don’t even know if I am going to Heaven, because my belief in Christ may not be sincere. It is barbaric for God to threaten me with Hell, and even more so if He actually sends me there.
5.) God has revealed to me that I am a horrible sinner. But I don’t really seem that bad. God is just overly judgmental.
6.) God has revealed all of His rules, but many of them seem unfair or too stringent. 6
These factors, among others, could very plausibly lead to a dislike of, if not an outright hatred of, God. And these speculations are very reasonable, given the fact that nonbelievers often complain about them now. 7 Why should we suppose that such complaints would end once God’s existence was known?
And what of premise©? It is in fact a modest claim. All© claims is that there are some immoral persons on the planet who do not love God simply because they don’t believe He exists or have never heard of him. Is this claim objectionable?
I think it is. In fact, the Christian Bible implies that it is wrong. 8 But let us assume it is right. If© is true, then there exist on the planet some persons who would love God if they were provided incontrovertible evidence of His existence (i.e., a full revelation). All this would prove is that FAR is not applicable to those persons. However, there still might exist other, wholly separate reasons for God to withhold from full revelation from these persons. Plugaru is under the false impression that FAR has to be applicable to every single nonbeliever (or at least the majority of them) in order to be cogent. This is far from the truth- as FAR only needs to be applicable in some cases in order to provide a good addition to a defense against the Argument from Nonbelief.
Now we come to premise (D), which is the most suspect of all. Should we expect a high proportion of immoral persons to sincerely love and appreciate God, especially when we take into consideration the complaints 1-6 they could construct? I think this is a highly suspect claim. At least, it seems reasonable to deny such a claim. Therefore, four of the premises in Plugaru’s argument are at least reasonable to deny. I think we are justified in rejecting his argument on these grounds.
Plugaru then develops a new argument. He says that if we question P2, then we are forced to question God’s omnibenevolence.
Why did God create us with such a strong inclination towards immorality? It is clear that if humans have this kind of inclination, than the evil things they do to each other are very grave and numerous. As a result, it is rational to think that the general suffering of humans is extremely intense. But what this conclusion does is to bring forth with the problem of moral evil which can be stated as follows: If God exists and he truly is morally perfect and omnibenevolent, than why is there so much pain and suffering in the world due to the choices and acts of humans? If the thesis assumed in O1-that humans have a very strong inclination to do evil-is accepted, then the theistic responses to the problem of moral evil become even more unconvincing than they already are.
Several plausible responses could be made to this. First, the propensity for immorality may be an unavoidable consequence of free will. Perhaps it is impossible, even in principle, to create finite beings, possessing free will, who are more virtuous than we humans are. Since free will is absolutely invaluable, God decided to create us anyway. This is actually more plausible than it may seem. Due to the fact that any sort of created beings would be “beneath” God, it is reasonable to suppose that they would strive to be as powerful or more powerful than God is. This would lead to a tendency for disobeying God, and, consequently, being immoral.
Second, we could be responsible for our own tendency for immorality. For example, if the Fall ocurred (whether Adam and Eve were real individuals or not) then it was our (or, our ancestor’s) single choice to disobey God which resulted in our fallen state, and thus our tendency to be immoral.
Third, we could be responsible for our own immorality. Every human has the chance to be a moral being, and I think quite a few succeed in being relatively moral individuals. But FAR does not imply that everyone is very immoral, or even most people. FAR would probably not apply to most Christians and to some other nonbelievers. So, there could very well be examples in this world of individuals who are relatively moral individuals. If that is the case, then it is clearly our own fault if we fail to reach a high moral standard. It seems to me that Plugaru’s argument here is merely an attempt to blame God for our own inadequacies.
Finally, I have already argued previously that the conditions present in our world may be such that a tendency towards selfishness and immorality is an unfortunate consequence. Since things like food, drink, comfort, and sex are highly pleasurable, even morally neutral beings would possibly have a tendency to attempt to secure more then their fair share of these goods. However, we certainly would not want God to take away these goods.
Next, Plugaru claims that FAR’s P2 conflicts with the “Testing Defense” and the “Unknown Purpose Defense”. These are both attempted additions to a theodicy against the Problem of Evil. However, I do not use either defense in my own theodicy (see HERE). Therefore, there is no need to respond to Plugaru’s arguments here, whether or not they are solid.
Plugaru then attempts to refute the idea that The Fall is the reason for our predisposition to immorality. Even if The Fall is an inadequate reason, I still have provided three other plausible reasons why such a predisposition is not God’s fault (see above). Still, I do not think Plugaru is effective in his critique of The Fall.
Firstly, Plugaru challenges the claim that there actually were two persons named Adam and Eve who caused The Fall. But The Fall Argument does not depend on a literal Adam and Eve. It could also be the case that there was a small group of original humans who caused the fall, and that true story is represented in mythical form in the Bible. So, even if it is true that Adam and Eve were not real persons, it is still quite possible that The Fall took place.
Secondly, Plugaru claims that God would be unjust to punish all humans for Adam and Eve’s mistake. Assuming this is true, it is not necessarily the case that God punishes us all only due to Adam and Eve. It could be that God knows that each and every one of us would make the same wrong decision if we were in their position. Therefore, Adam and Eve’s Fall may be indicative of what each and everyone of us would do. If that is the case, then our punishment is just. This argument is made even more plausible when one considers my previous writing in which I argued that any created being with free will will have a tendency to try to become as powerful or more powerful than God. It may simply be an unavoidable problem once actual free will is entered into the equation.
Next, Plugaru questions my claim that humans would hate God because He allows them to suffer:
Another response would be to say that those from S would not love God due to evil in this world. Perhaps they would suffer so much in this world that they could not possibly behave as (2) states even if R were actualized. But this response has problems of its own. Since all people-including, of course, those from S-would clearly know that an omnibenevolent, morally perfect and omnipotent being exists, they would easily understand that their suffering is not and cannot be gratuitous. They would have excellent reasons to think that their suffering is necessary, unavoidable and that it serves a good purpose-since an omnipotent and morally perfect being allows it. More importantly, in case R is made actual, they would also have excellent reasons to think that they will be more than compensated for their present suffering (in the afterlife, most probably). And it is clear that a god who would offer us the immensity and infiniteness of the joy in heaven, even if those are preceded by a (very) limited amount of time in which it is possible that we suffer, would still be a very generous and loving being which rightfully deserves our love and gratitude. Therefore, it is implausible to think that, in the case where R is actualized, such a large number of humans would be so irrational as to consider that the evils in question could justifiably stop them from loving and sincerely appreciating God for his goodness.
This, I hold, may be too optimistic a view of human intelligence. First of all, I would argue that it would be impossible for God to prove that He is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect even if He offered full revelation. It is, in principle, impossible to strictly prove any of these postulates. How could God go about proving that He is actually all-powerful? No matter what sort of power He displayed, there is always something more powerful imaginable. Likewise with the qualities of omniscience and omnibenevolence. So there could always be doubt in a person’s mind that God’s motives were actually good.
Secondly, Plugaru mentions the enticement of the afterlife as dispelling any sort of anger a person may have. But, according to my complaint 4, the issue of the afterlife is one of the things that would most cause hatred and fear. For, they won’t really know whether or not they will go to heaven, as they won’t know whether or not their belief is sincere enough. In fact, it is likely that they will realize that their belief is insincere. Therefore, they would face the threat of hell, which would cause many to have a hatred of God even if they wished to rid themselves of it. Furthermore, they will know that some of their friends and family are being similarly threatened by hell, and also that some of them may actually go to hell. This has the potential to inspire unimaginable hatred.
Thirdly, humans always tend to look at the present rather than the future. Most have trouble realizing the big picture. There is no guarantee that humans would be able to stifle their emotions and sincerely love a God who allows tremendous suffering to occur.
Conclusion:
I have analyzed Plugaru’s critique of FAR in considerable detail, and I find it to fail on many accounts. It is based on a false assumption that FAR implies that most humans are extremely immoral. Moreover, even if such were the case, Plugaru has failed to show that the charge of extreme immorality is an unreasonable one. Plugaru’s critique fails in so many places that I think the rational individual is entirely justified to accept FAR as a reasonable addition to any defense of the Argument from Nonbelief.
NOTES:
1. Horia G. Plugaru, “A New Argument against the ‘Feigned-Allegiance Reply’”, found at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/horia_plugaru/far.shtml
2. As it happens, I use a form of the FAR defense in my own response to the Argument from Nonbelief (see HERE).
3. Glenn Miller, “An Exploration in Theodicy”, found at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gr5part2.html
4. Drange, Nonbelief & Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998), p. 142.
5. This is not to imply that God never does things which require self-sacrifice. The very act of upholding creation despite the evil contained therein can be plausibly construed as a sacrifice for our benefit. Also, Christ’s death in the hands of sinners was obviously an act requiring great sacrifice.
6. Consider that many, many nonbelievers complain of God’s rules now. Why should we expect that to change due to God’s full revelation? God’s pronouncements of homosexuality, abortion, pre-marital sex, divorce, and justice would likely incite anger from people no matter what His pronouncement was. For example, those that are pro-choice would be angered if God disapproved of abortion, those that are pro-life would be angered if God approved of it.
7. In fact, these complaints can be found in this very article by Plugaru.
8. Psalm 14:1- “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”
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This is just to let you know that the Romanian name Horia is a male name. Horia George Plugaru is a “he”.
Cheers,
Alex
— Alex B. May 31, 07:23 AM #