one of chris hitchen's common objections

[jeremiah]

hey y'all, i was thinking about a something hitchens said in many of his debates with christians. i won't attempt to quote him but it went something like this:

...and then when heaven finally says "well thats enough of that" and God plops his son down in the middle eastern desert where everyone's illiterate. why couldn't he have gone where people were educated like china or somewhere else...

i think dawkins has made a similar argument. what i wanted to get your thoughts on was this; wouldn't it have been true of any place on the face of the earth at that time for the majority of the people to be unable to write or read. rome, athens, beijing(i'm assuming it existed) wasn't it only the rich who could afford to have their children taught these sophistications? i am open to correction if i'm misrepresenting his argument.

[darinhouston]

The quote seems more like a "stand-up" line to me that hardly deserves response, but it seems sort of irrelevant. Beyond that, I believe the Greek and Roman culture was pretty sophisticated at the time. Not to mention the fact that literacy was a particularly Jewish attribute if I understand my ancient history correctly.

I'll post separately, but thought you'd enjoy this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religio ... exist.html

[steve]

For centuries (until the invention of the printing press) general illiteracy was a non-issue. There was nothing available for the common man to read. To the average man, whether literate or illiterate, Christianity—like all other cultural phenomena—was passed along more by oral transmission, since it was a person of rare good fortune who could get his own copy of scripture to read.

The Jews were all pretty much literate, from what I have read. Jewish boys, at least, were schooled in the synagogues, and are said to have obtained what would be equivalent to a sixth or eight-grade education here...that is, back when a sixth or eighth-grade education here included literacy.

Hitchens is not being very original. The rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" raised the same objection, back in 1970. Judas, in his closing song wonders why God did not send Jesus at a more practical time for starting a world movement, a time, for instance, like our own, with mass communication technology. The irony of the objection is that the time and circumstances that God chose have worked out pretty well for Christianity. Without mass communication or the printed page, it spread from one person to another so effectively that it nominally claims the adherence of a quarter of the world's population.

[RICHinCHRIST]

Hitchens is not being very original. The rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" raised the same objection, back in 1970. Judas, in his closing song wonders why God did not send Jesus at a more practical time for starting a world movement, a time, for instance, like our own, with mass communication technology. The irony of the objection is that the time and circumstances that God chose have worked out pretty well for Christianity.

I agree that the pragmatic aspects of the gospel have spread far and wide according to God's timetable. However, I think the logic of this objection is more along these lines: "If God is all-loving, why did He not choose a time to reveal Christ when it might lead to less of a rejection of His message?". For instance, we could have videos on YouTube of Jesus healing paralytics or raising the dead... How could anyone doubt that? If God really loves everyone so much, why wouldn't He help those of little faith to overcome their doubts?

This question seems like a good one at surface level, because if God really intended to save as many people as possible (by any means necessary) then it would appear God could have chosen our time to reveal Christ in order to achieve that. But it seems that God has not tried to save all people by any means necessary. The means He has chosen is by repentance and faith, and He has purposefully chosen to hide Himself (in order to not violate the freedom of choice that people have). The Scriptures I think of are as follows:


One must search with all their heart to find God.

God conceals Things (including Himself), in order that people might attempt to discover Him.



Blaise Pascal once said that God has revealed enough of Himself in order to prove His existence to those who seek Him... But that He has also concealed Himself enough to be unseen by those who don't seek Him.

The reasoning behind this is two-fold. I quote an article from philosophy news.com:

"An adequate explanation for God’s hiddenness must focus on God’s intentions and not his immaterial and transcendent nature. In other words, what is God doing and why does he not do more is grounded in His will. In his book, Pensees,  the 17th century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal stated, “We can understand nothing of God’s works unless we accept the principle that he wished to blind some and enlighten others.” Thomas Morris points out Pascal’s statement in his book, Making Sense of It All and comments, “Now, it must be admitted that on first reading, this is truly a hard saying. Why would a loving and just God blind some and enlighten others?” Morris is right. It is a hard and seemingly unfair saying but Pascal and Morris may be on to something here.

Morris proceeds to explain that there is a relationship between the human condition and God’s actions and non-actions and why God may be hidden to some but not to others. When writing about humanity, Pascal emphasized two opposite yet equally important aspects of humanity: man’s greatness and man’s wretchedness. Man has incredible skills and talents to produce amazing works and acts yet man has the capacity to produce and participate in heinous and vile acts.  Pascal wrote, “Thus it is not only right but useful for us that God should be partly concealed and partly revealed, since it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness as to know his own wretchedness without knowing God.” The point is that the human condition serves as an explanation as to why God seems to be hidden to some and not to others. It is plausible to think that God produces close encounters or provides clear evidence of Himself to those who are prepared for that encounter or evidences without becoming puffed up with pride and being able to properly handle what is revealed to them. This is commonly referred to as an existential response to hiddenness (and seems appropriate since many of the problems related to hiddenness are existential in nature).

This explanation is certainly something to consider. It seems to provide a plausible explanation for maintaining that the hiddenness of God is what should be expected if theism is true.  If this is the case, then the hiddenness of God cannot serve as a disproof for God’s existence".

[darinhouston]

Blaise Pascal once said that God has revealed enough of Himself in order to prove His existence to those who seek Him... But that He has also concealed Himself enough to be unseen by those who don't seek Him.

I think this nails it -- God found the perfect time to perfectly balance this.

[kaufmannphillips]

Blaise Pascal once said that God has revealed enough of Himself in order to prove His existence to those who seek Him... But that He has also concealed Himself enough to be unseen by those who don't seek Him.

I think this nails it -- God found the perfect time to perfectly balance this.

Cute - but don't the parables have G-d running off after one lost sheep, sweeping the house to find a lost coin? Is G-d in the business of writing people off, or in the business of searching people out?

[darinhouston]

Blaise Pascal once said that God has revealed enough of Himself in order to prove His existence to those who seek Him... But that He has also concealed Himself enough to be unseen by those who don't seek Him.

I think this nails it -- God found the perfect time to perfectly balance this.

Cute - but don't the parables have G-d running off after one lost sheep, sweeping the house to find a lost coin? Is G-d in the business of writing people off, or in the business of searching people out?

I think he has eternity in mind more than individuals. One could ask why Jesus didn't come directly after first sin to save Adam and Eve. But, then it would have lost much of its value for his greater plan.

[darinhouston]

Romans 5:6. It seems it was the right time.

[jeremiah]

hey y'all,

thanks for your thoughts. turns out i did misquote chris hitchens. since i found his statement i had in mind (which is equally unconvincing still) my guess is it only reminded me of something maybe dawkins said. ill do some looking. when or if i find it, i'll post it up. what i had in mind was during a debate with william lane craig at biola on april 4, 2009. it's actually an argument he is making against a designer, he starts out with a summary of human history and the not so fine tuned human anatomy as he sees it for a few minutes and then finishes his complaint with:

"...and for 98 thousand years or so heaven watches this with total indifference...and with 2 thousand years to go on the clock it says, actually it's time we intervene. we can't go on like this. why don't we have someone tortured to death in bronze age palestine. that should teach them, that should give them a chance at redemption. you're free to believe that, but i think the designer who thought of doing it that way is a very was a very cruel, capricious, random, bungling and incompetent one..." he then continues to criticize craig's argument offered for why jesus came when he did, by pointing to the many people who still have not heard of jesus. of course it would not surprise me if the argument i first posted was indeed by hitchens, so much of his vitriol was recycled again and again. and sadly, still is to this day. i'll keep looking...

grace and peace...

[RICHinCHRIST]

"...and for 98 thousand years or so heaven watches this with total indifference...and with 2 thousand years to go on the clock it says, actually it's time we intervene......he then continues to criticize craig's argument offered for why jesus came when he did, by pointing to the many people who still have not heard of jesus.

the 98 thousand year thing is only an opinion (I'm personally a young earther). But I guess (with absolutely no certainty) that Jesus probably won't return until much later in history (for this reason among many other speculations). To think that God would wait 4,000 years in order to culminate His redemption program... why should we expect His means of bringing out the fruition of that program as taking less than 4,000 years? Of course, no one knows the day or hour... but I'd be surprised if the OT times end up being longer than the NT times (since God was really wanting the NT to break into reality).

If the OT was just the introduction to the story... who's to say it doesn't continue for many more chapters and culminate even 2, 3, or 4 thousand years from now? This will allow the message to get out and have more of an effect (if it hasn't enough already!). I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but I have heard that at least 1/3 of the world's population has never even heard of Jesus (Gospel for Asia has said 2-3 billion...). Even a majority of those who have heard the gospel have not yet heard enough of it (in order to influence them toward salvation)...