Sumo Theologica: The Biblical Polemics of a Heavy-Set Man

(The following is my English Communications course argumentative essay. If you think it sucks, please, be gentle. Partly because I know it does suck as it is.)

The Bible has been regarded in the western world as possibly the most important book ever created. It would be suicide to write a bad review about it. Sacred, I suppose the proper term is. It has surpassed the basic rules of society and has reached the status of divine. Most likely because it is the foundation by which all Christian religions stand. Moreover, it’s the word of God (or so it says). It’s hard to dispute the word of God. It is the word of God after all. What I think is happening, in my humble mortal opinion, is that the Bible is a classic case of misattribution. God, for example, would have not inspired someone to write something like, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Unless, of course, he is a sexist God, by which case it seems he is not so perfect after all.

“All scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction and for training in righteousness,” says 2 Timothy 3:16, and if what common beliefs says is correct and the Bible is never wrong, then you’d think it would be perfect. It is not, however. I believe this because the every book which says, “The law of the land is perfect, refreshing the soul. The decree of the Lord is trustworthy,” (Psalm 19:8), also says, “The infants shall be dashed to pieces in the sight; their houses shall be plundered and their wives ravished,” (Isaiah 13:16) by God’s orders just because he’s angry. Trustworthy indeed, I suppose, and very, very touchy. I’m also sure the conservatives will love the fact that God had commanded that “if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.” (Lev 20:13). The next time I feel the pangs of divine rage, I’ll be sure to kill a homosexual, as per divine command. “…we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from having us, you received not a human word but, as truly is, the world of God.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). If that’s so, then God is cruel. You’d think what he thinks is good, we will find good also. Sexism and murder, however – not so good. Does this mean God can simply do what he wants? When he tells Moses to “Let [him] alone, that my wrath may blaze up against them and consume them” in Exodus 32:10 just because people began worshipping a golden calf, it sure seems that way. He is pleased with “proper sacrifice, burnt offerings and holocausts” (Psalm 53:21) though. Hardly the merciful God you’ve come to know and love.

It has been frequently said that one must look at the Bible in context to its time, when it was rampant to (apparently) die for transgressions and sacrificing various animals were still the fad. It would be odd, however, for God, being the infinite being that he is, to subdivide his existence into eras, just as we would. Unless he has the mind of a woman undecided in the midst of a shopping spree, one would rationally wonder why he would suddenly change standards. God, as Thomas Aquinas put in his seminal Summa Theologica, is an eternal being: he exists outside time. Therefore, one would wonder why he would change at all, change being a fundamentally temporal concept. Thus, again, one would wonder why one would need to put God’s actions into context since God should have no change from the time when he slew all Egyptian children to now when he apparently didn’t mind the Jews’ systematic murders. Context, then? Is that really the case? If God is eternal, then I suppose not. Without delving into the supernatural and assumption (as with Occham’s razor: the conclusion with the least amount of assumptions is usually the most correct), this would be illogical. Another view, of course, would be anthropocentric: man was different. It’s odd, however, for God to sanction death at the time of poor technology and poor hygiene, when the last thing they needed was people dying. So much for the supreme supplier.

There are, of course, those who say that this doesn’t matter, be in contradictory or not, the Bible is a definitive source of morality and divine guidance. This statement refutes itself, as one cannot go to a source and both be told to kill and not to kill at the same time and rationally call that source definitive. At best such a source would be considered murky, at worst, a fraud. The proponents of this apathetic argument would usually say the terribly irrational could be reconciled by the simple fact that God is so far above our own intellect that it would be useless to try and understand him, which would be quite against the point of trying to incorporate the whole habit of receiving guidance and morality from the Bible as, if God is irrational yet correct, then the correct would effectively not function in our perfectly rational world. We basically live our lives according to cause and effect: that is, if you would do something, you would expect something to come out of it. Push a rock and you would naturally expect it to move. This interaction between cause and effect is ruled by rationality derived from the laws of nature, which we harvest and predict using logic. Therefore, to do something irrational and illogical, and expect something to happen accordingly would be fruitless. It would be, essentially, denying yourself of the truth that we have gathered throughout the ages, namely called knowledge. Simply put: to swallow poison and expect to live (as according to Mark 16:18: “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them”), it simply won’t happen – no matter how much God understands this. It is irrational, it just won’t happen, and so, it won’t be applicable to us in this world, and would not be a fit source for morality.

What really puts me in a rut, however, is the time-tested argument: God is infinite – that is, omnipotent in every way imaginable and unimaginable –, you simply cannot question him. If he wants something done, even if it is against every logical principle in the universe, it would be done. This would defy the principle of refutability. In terms of logic, one cannot truly prove nor disprove something which is irrefutable. If the Bible says something, and you do it, it will happen, no matter what is rational or not, because God can do absolutely anything. I admit. There is nothing any argument can do to this one, as the premise is also the conclusion: God can do everything, no matter how mind-boggling. What I would appeal to on this one, however, is the fact that God’s will, as it is “revealed” in the Bible seems completely absent in today’s world. If God can do everything, why isn’t he doing anything? Of course, the ability to do something is exclusive as to actually doing anything, but with the proposed characteristics of God as loving and supplying, one would wonder just why all of these suddenly stopped, and not simply by the lack of a Biblical age – it stopped completely. To deny this would be naïve: wars, plagues and holocausts, all these occurring without God. In the words of Epicurus: “Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.” Either he is not omnipotent, or he is malevolent, contradictory to what the Bible states. Essentially, the Bible has either made a mistake about the nature of God as all-loving, by which then it is not anymore infallible, or God, dare I say, does not exist, at least in the Judeo-Christian sense. What use then is a Bible if it is incorrect? Certainly we can’t go and revise, as no one seems to be of divine inspiration anymore.

Furthermore, there are those who say the Bible is merely metaphorical, not literal, and those passages depicting terror and those speaking nonsense things are actually stand-ins for meanings much deeper. This, however, would mean everything in the Bible could be twisted into something else, given the correct training in deceit. In today’s world where a single rose could mean love, sorrow, nature, beauty, and a lot more others, perhaps then only God himself could truly give us the meaning behind the numerous cryptic passages in the Bible. It would simply not be practical to be relativist in terms of a work as dense as the Bible, as then numerous interpretations would emerge. This, however, does not stop the people from creating numerous cults according to Biblical passages, which illustrates just how perilous this method of understanding the Bible is. Furthermore, in terms of Catholicism, there is no room for relativism: it is a purely dogmatic religion. Metaphorical justifications for the Bible, therefore, would be grossly impractical and would not lead to any truth aside from imagined ones.

And so, we are left with the premise that the Bible is simply wrong. I wouldn’t go far as to say it is the mere invention of old men growing weary of their existence and so decided to create among themselves a greater being which would validate their menial lives – but I guess I just did. The Bible is too dense, too ancient and too incredulous to avoid such claims, especially in today’s critical world. Blind faith, I suppose. No argument, however, can tamper with pure faith. One of my favorite philosophers (aside from the obvious Nietzsche, whose cynicism has certainly rubbed off on me), Søren Kierkegaard wrote in his book Fear and Trembling, “I believe nevertheless that I shall get her, in virtue, that is, of the absurd, in virtue of the fact that with God all things are possible.”

The Bible, regardless of anyone’s opinion, is objectively absurd, and it is faith in the absurd that drives men to do things which are irrational and inherently useless, but which they believe is divinely justified. There is good in the Bible, make no mistake. I acknowledge that completely. However, in today’s day and age, there need not be an ancient text for us to justify good sense, especially not one which is based upon myths more than a hundred years old. With risk offending all those in the Judeo-Christian faith, I have to say The Bible is nothing but a faulty map to good common sense and concern for mankind, and though this book contains some correct passages, it nonetheless makes the reader turn useless paths and false passageways. Turn then, I recommend, to common sense, to which the only sacrifice one needs to make is the utter murder of one’s own ignorance.