The problem with arguing with atheists

The problem with arguing with atheists is that you have to spend so much time redefining terms. In fact the problem with arguing with fundamentalists/americanevangelicals is much the same. These two camps are the ones who are having the majority of the conversations about faith and religion in the public sphere. My thesis is that they are having this conversation because they both are easy targets.

For those of us who have spent time at university and seminary as protestants (meaning professional public theologians) we find the debate about God in the public sphere to be fundamentally elementary. We are flabbergasted at the what the media hooks on to and are mortified by what comes out of people's mouths who claim to be of the Christian faith. Atheists have a field day with this because these conversations are easy targets, broad side of the barn if you will. Because of this they are the two camps skewering the definitions of faith

One of the issues that comes up often has to do with what is or what is not God's will. There seems to be a significant misunderstanding about who God is and what God is about. Little of the conversation in the public sphere has anything to with the God of the Bible or even an effective definition of a creator of the universe. 

The God of the Bible did two things at the beginning: First God created. Then God gave that creation free will. Free will is the issue that we all stumble on. In free will, God, by necessity, gave up control of creation. Why would God do this? Because God is a God of love. Our God is a "kenotic" God. A God who pours out love and love does not control or dictate or order or reject. No, our God is a God who gives and desires to be in relationship with us.

Now comes the big problem: I have free will to either accept or reject that love; that relationship. That love is given free and unmerited. I can do nothing to earn it since it is already given. This is like trying to hand money to your wife who is trying to give you a gift, how horrible an act. Yet, this is what so much of our bad theology does out there. It tries to pay God back for a gift that is already given or worse God pays us back for our bad behavior by taking the gift back. This capricious god is not the God who sent his only Son into the World, not to condemn the world, but to save it.

Now, from this point I would like to have a conversation with an atheist. Because from this point there is plenty for the atheist to object to, but it is not stupidity or insensitivity. The objection is to a God who is not in control, a God who is always forgiving and encouraging, a God who allows us to be horrible to each other.

O, Cain and Able!

Post Script: The other problem is that we all think that we are god.