More on the "Evil God" Hypothesis

Last post I ended by introducing Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (or MTD) that focused on a definition of "good" that assumed "good for me"--that God's essential purpose was to make my life pleasant, and my purpose was to experience that pleasure.  God wants nothing more than to make me happy.

Though common today, MTD is a parody of historical Christianity.  Indeed, it is essentially anti-Christian on several levels.

Primarily, consider what Jesus said here:

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him wdeny himself and xtake up his cross and follow me. 25 For xwhoever would save his life7 will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For ywhat will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or zwhat shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 aFor the Son of Man is going to come with bhis angels in the glory of his Father, and cthen he will repay each person according to what he has done. --Matt 16:24-27

Denial of self is not the telos of MTD.  It's the paradoxical claim of Christ: to find your life, you must lose it.  To lead means to serve.  Love your enemies, not hate them.

12 When he had washed their feet and hput on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, i“Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 jYou call me kTeacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, lyou also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, mthat you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, na servant3 is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, oblessed are you if you do them.--John 13:12-17

The key to life is death, and the key of leadership is servanthood.  We are to emulate this.  Yet, again with the paradoxical claims of Christ, He Himself is a servant of all.  He is Lord, yet serves--serves to the point of death.  And not just death for nice people...death for sinners in rebellion against Him (Rom 5:8).

So...God's goodness is shown in His service, God's love is manifest in His sacrifice.

And if we stopped there, we would have MTD.  But the Bible does not stop there.  Jesus taught us, like Him, to take up our cross and follow Him, to deny our life.  To seek not our comfort, our preeminence, our comfort, our glory.  He loved us enough to reach out to us, His enemies who quite literally hated Him, hated His call of Lordship over our lives, the One who dared call us to account as our Creator.  Yet despite this, He reached out to us and pulled us from the mire.

And His love continues--not just to rescue us from a deserved fate of eternity cut off from our Creator, but to make us as He is: loving, serving, sacrificing.

And again, if we stopped there, it would be pretty good--we need to do good to others, seek the best for others, and so on.  It would certainly make for a nicer planet.  But that would reduce Christianity to simply a system of ethics (mixed in with some sentimentality of heroic deaths).

No...we need to look beyond that call to why that call was made.  As Jesus prayed:

27 s“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, tsave me from uthis hour’? But vfor this purpose I have come to uthis hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then wa voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” --John 12:27-28

Jesus here says quite plainly: His purpose was to glorify God.  That was His focus--not sentimental love for the sick, but glorifying God.  That is His telos in life. 

Jesus repeats this several times in last days of His earthly life.  Glory to God was His motto.

11 In him we have obtained zan inheritance, ahaving been predestined baccording to the purpose of him who works all things according to cthe counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be dto the praise of his glory.  13 In him you also, when you heard ethe word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, fwere sealed with the gpromised Holy Spirit, 14 who is hthe guarantee4 of our iinheritance until jwe acquire kpossession of it,5 lto the praise of his glory. --Eph 1:11-13

Paul doesn't just say "we're saved--yay!"  He outlines the purpose: "to the praise of His glory."  Twice.

And this is not something isolated in Scripture.  Over and over again God acts for His Own glory.  For example, God defeats Pharaoh for His glory (Ex 14:17-18).  God seeks His glory in His actions.

The glory of God.  What does it mean?  Why does God seek it for Himself?  Does God do so because He is an insufferable egotist?  Some have said so, and indeed explicitly state that is one of the reasons they object to the theistic concept of God.  And I will address this concern more fully in my next post, God willing.