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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has six panels. All of the panels take place in a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
PANEL 1
A human man, with a beard and a flannel shirt, is standing on a cloud, looking up at God, who is on another, higher cloud. (And is also much larger physically than the human guy). God is drawn in the traditional way: He has a thick white beard and is wearing white robes, and thereās a halo behind His head.
God is grinning and spreading His hands wide in a welcoming manner.
GOD: Hi there, Iām God! Good news! Because Iām so infinitely loving, good and merciful, you get to go to Heaven!
MAN: Okay!
PANEL 2
A close up of God, who as Nadine draws Him has very pretty eyes. He is smiling and pressing his palms together and looking in the direction of the off-panel human.
GOD: But if you donāt love me, Iāll throw you into a lake of burning sulfur where youāll be tormented day and night forever!
PANEL 3
God smiles down beatifically at the human, who has raised a finger to make a point.
MAN: Butā¦ Thatās horrible! And it doesnāt make sense! A good god wouldnāt torture people forever!
PANEL 4
A close up of God, with a wailing expression, as He presses the back of His hand to His forehead. He is dissolving into ash, and has already disappeared from the upper chest down.
GOD: Gasp! By pointing out a paradox youāve defeated me! Now I must turn into ash and die like in that Marvel movie!
PANEL 5
Nothing is left of God but a pyramid-shaped pile of black ash (the ash pile has a halo behind it). In the foreground, the human has mildly surprised body language, and is rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
MAN: Umā¦
PANEL 6
God, a merry expression on his face, has reappeared whole on His cloud. Heās crouching down and pointing at the human. Lightning shoots out of Godās finger, engulfing the human and instantly turning the human into a black, charred, and surprised looking skeleton.
GOD: Iām kidding!Ā Have fun suffering in the abyss forever, loser! Hah hah!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
Chicken fat is an obsolete cartoonistsā expression for unimportant but entertaining details the cartoonist slips into the cartoon.
In this cartoon, in panel one, on the lower left, we can see a little dog sniffing at the cloud itās standing on. The dog is wearing white robs and has a halo and white feathery wings.
We canāt see the cloud the dog is standing on again until panel five. In this panel, the dog is gone, but thereās a yellow puddle on the cloud where the dog was.
John 3:16 says God loves āthe whole worldā
2 Peter 3:9 says God doesnāt want āanyone to perishā
Having this desire and being all powerful and yet people ending up condemned is a contradiction
Itās actually an answer to a question that was asked back in verse four. The question was:
Itās just saying God is not in a hurry to destroy everybody. Heās not anxious to get on with it. He wants there to be plenty of time for everyone to come to grips with the fact that they arenāt very kind. That they arenāt good. That they donāt do much practical help for the sick, or the poor, or the downtrodden in this life. That they complain constantly, although their lives are much better than most. That they focus on themselves most of the time and donāt think about others very much at all, except in abstract. Practical help is rarely found in their hand.
Yes, as mentioned more explicitly in Romans 2:4. āDonāt you know his [Godās] kindness and patience is intended to lead to your repentance?ā
But this is consistent with what I posted above. God āloves the whole worldā, God ādoesnāt want anyone to perishā, but what this means in practice is heās waiting (ākindlyā) for people to repent so that he doesnāt destroy them.
So God loves maximally - or at least the Bible writers think he does - being āOmni lovingā in their view is consistent with him neither condemning nor saving people, rather giving them lots of time to repent
However this is where I said it was inconsistent with God being āall powerfulā. If God desired all people to come to a certain choice, and had all power at his disposal to achieve it, and all willingness on his part to carry it out, then the best possible case would be made to every individual in the world as to why they should repent.
But this clearly does not happen
Therefore the Bible writers are either inconsistent or flat out wrong.
I could point out many āinconsistenciesā if you like. Jesus is fully man, and fully God. Man is fully responsible for his actions, but,
As to waiting patiently, God has clearly set A DAY when things will end. Itās not infinite patience.
For inconsistencies, how about this?
With,
I suppose youāre in the same position as Job, you want an audience with God.
The Bible is a collection of writings of people wrestling with the idea of a āgoodā interventionist deity despite the innocent of the world still at times experiencing grotesque pain. The words they put in Godās mouth are, of course, inconsistent or just wrong. Scripture never makes the claim itās all error free despite fervently held views to the contrary. But those writings are still interesting in so much as they shed light on the psyche of those present at the start of a hugely influential movement.
I donāt want an audience with āGodā same way you havenāt given much thought to having an audience with Thor.