One reaction I often get to questions based on the Problem
of Evil and similar inconsistencies about God is, "Who do you think you
are to think that you could understand God?! Humans are less than ants compared to
Him! It's arrogant and presumptuous of you to think you could understand why
God does what He does, and arrogant and presumptuous to reject God because you
don't understand Him!"
This is an instance of mistaking about-the-system questions
for within-the-system questions.
Within-the-system, "why would God want
sacrifices," or, "why would God write a book that looks like it was
written by multiple authors," or, "why does God allow evil in the
world" look like arrogant, presumptuous questions. Once you assume there's
a Being Who's as much greater than humans as we're greater than ants, you're
right. Who are we to think we could understand God!
But these aren't within-the-system questions. They're
about-the-system questions. Starting from the position that we don't know if
there is or isn't a God, these questions make good sense. You want me to accept
that God exists? What are the attributes of this God?
You say God wants sacrifices. Sure, it's possible that an
omnipotent and omniscient non-anthropomorphic Being wants sacrifices for
inscrutable reasons, but the more straightforward explanation is that humans,
who want things, invented this God and attributed to Him their own types of
desires.
You say that God wrote the Torah, Sure, it's possible that
an omnipotent omniscient Being could write a book that looks as if it were
written by multiple authors, but the more straightforward explanation is that
it's exactly what it looks like.
You say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnibenevolent. Sure, there could be some explanation we can't understand for
why there's evil in the world, but straightforward reasoning shows that a
tri-omni God and the existence of evil in the world are mutually exclusive.
If one assumes the questions are being asked from
within-the-system, which assumes God exists and has certain attributes, then
the argument is invalid. From within-the-system, it looks like the questions
are trying to dismantle belief in God by appealing to the supposed absurdity of
this or that attribute. "X doesn't
make sense to me, therefore it's not true." "It doesn't make sense
that God would want sacrifices, therefore God isn't real." That's an
argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy, and is bad reasoning.
But that's not how the questions are being asked. It's not,
"X doesn't make
sense to me, therefore it's not true."
It's,
"W'ere trying to determine if there is X. Y is an
attribute claimed for X. Y may be caused by A, which is consistent with X being
false, or B, which is consistent with X being true. A seems more likely than
B."
We don't know if God exists. An attribute claimed for God is
that He wants sacrifices It may be that A. God has this attribute because
people, who have desires, invented God and projected their own experience onto
Him, or B. That even though it seems odd that an omnipotent omniscient Being
wants sacrifices, God wants them for inscrutable reasons. A is the more
straightforward answer, so claiming that God wants sacrifices goes on the
"humans probably invented God" side of the scale.
And so on.
