A Practical Guide to the Logic, Philosophy and Thoughts of Christianity

Section 1 - Article 1

Yet allow me to respond to this very valid line of questioning. I quote the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the greatest commandment of "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment". (Matt 22:37-38 KJV)

Owing to this greatest commandment, I do not believe that an individual who regularly prays to God, attends church weekly, and reads the Bible daily just because of fear of damnation, is a true lover of God. According to Proverbs 1:7 and Proverbs 9:10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. In time, that fear of God will bring knowledge of God. In knowing God and growing wise, should come growth in their love for a loving God. However, human love is imperfect. Yet, we have been shown to be capable of loving other humans, objects, and animals. So if God so wills in time, a believer who is focussed on God, can become a lover of God. And when this happens (in God's timing), the individual becomes as described in 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

As we are not capable of perfect love of God in our fallen state, we can only strive towards 1 John 4:18.

Why would an all-powerful God display such an apparent weakness, to let His followers first come to Him with logical deductions, fear, and then eventually love?

Grace.

Unlike us, God loves us even when we hate Him.

1 John 4:19: We love Him, because He first loved us.

In grace, the Lord God first loved us. Through this grace, we are given this opportunity to respond to love Him. Even in our best efforts, we have to acknowledge that even when we love God, our love (if it can be quantified) would fall short when compared to His love. We cannot match His perfect love until we are made perfect through His love. This condescending opportunity from God is the result of grace, and this grace comes from His love. Why would an all-powerful God care anything about humans? Truly, without God's grace, Pascal's wager is but a fool's wager. Our best efforts cannot be of use to God, and without God's grace, we are most certainly unworthy as affirmed by Paul in Romans 3:10-12: As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

God has to bring us to Him and He opens the path. Indeed, it is very condescending to have the all-powerful God do all these, but this is God's grace and love at work. And Pascal's wager, dependent on a logical human's rational process, is likely to be one of the many logical paths to have faith in God, then fearers of God, and eventually the lovers of God.

Fairness, Reincarnation, and Forgiveness

So now comes the question that if God loves us, why would He allow eternal damnation? Why not use reincarnation to have multiple tries? Should not such a loving God use repeat attempts? To address this, we now have to discuss fairness.

Almost no one I know in this world ever felt that the world was and will ever be fair. The world is unfair. Regardless of whether one is an atheist, religious or simply agnostic, one thing is crystal clear: the world is unfair. To deal with why it is so, great philosophies have been proposed. One such widely accepted idea is reincarnation, which teaches that this life's suffering is the result of previous or past life's sins (note: very few will question happiness and blessing, taking for granted that bliss is the default state). If one has gone through some evil times, it is considered punishment for the misdeeds of the previous life. It is all part of retribution.

Yet retribution and reincarnation have no part in Christian soteriology. As discussed earlier, given that we do not remember our previous lives, we are doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over. A loving God would not use such a mechanism, but would have to adopt a very condescending approach coupled with discipline for us to learn from our mistakes. In fact, when one is familiar with the basic tenants of the Christian faith, one comes to a relatively unfathomable point that all our sins are forgiven when one truly repents to the Lord God in full acknowledgement that the Lord Jesus was the perfect atoning substitute for the punishment for all sin. The perfect God man dying for imperfect man to forgive all sins without retribution or punishment! Talk about condescending!