Engaging God's Problem -- Three Objections Part 3 -- No Answer Will Do

This is my final post on this subject and Bart Ehrman's book: God's Problem. The final issue is one of heart and not head. This is mainly because in this book I see a lot of heart and not head when it comes to addressing the problem of evil from Bart Ehrman himself. I simply believe that based on his arguments in this book no response will do or be accepted because Bart is no longer able to accept them because of his prejudice against the Bible as God's Word. He does not accept this and this is a conviction of his heart not his head.

I Have Heard This All Before
One of the great disappointments I had with this book is that there was nothing really new here. I have heard all these arguments before and all Bart really did was repackage them for the masses and thus much of his argument has an emotional, not intellectual, appeal. This is water cooler stuff given an intellectual spin but the arguments are not laid out with any new thing being forefront. This is old stuff redone. At least with his other book Misquoting Jesus there was a well laid out argument, fallacious, but well laid out.

Inability to See Other Possibilities
Bart is entrenched in his viewpoint and cannot see any other one. The freewill defense is shutdown and he never really engages it. He engages theodicy briefly but says it is basically correct but never engages objections. He sticks to his 'the Bible is not the Bible, the Reformed Baptist view of God is correct' point of view throughout.

Fallacious Argument
Bart's whole book hinges on his belief that the answers the Bible presents to the issue contradictory views on how evil is dealt with. He never really proves this and I find the reasoning he does give fallacious. Is God not big enough to have several response to the problem of suffering and evil? Can't God have a multifaceted approach to dealing with the problem?

1. Punish evil because it is a wilful act and causes suffering
2. Warn people that Sin has its Consequences
3. Wage a continuing war against evil without violating mankind's freewill including send your own Son to destroy the work of the devil -- sin
4. Oppose the forces of evil -- the devil and his minions.
5. In the End -- destroy all the supporters and practitioners of evil and sin so that the new world can be free of them -- destroying all the instigators forever in hell. Give the new mankind that survives a fresh start with a place of life where suffering ends.

I fail to see inconsistency here but a multifaceted approach to the problem of evil and suffering by God depending on the nature of the evil and suffering involved. Bart thinks not.

Avoidance of Personal Culpability
I think Bart's reasoning is personal in the sense that he is seeking divorce from his own personal responsibility for suffering. He wants man off the hook so he can be off the hook. I find this strange for a guy who is bothered by the problem of suffering but then washes his hands of it using Ecclesiastes -there is nothing man can do including me Bart Ehrman. Seems like the finger pointing of who is responsible did not stop with Adam and Eve, only Bart has the guts to point his finger at God and say 'foul'. He better hope he is right.

A Final Personal Note
All criticism aside, I feel Bart's pain. If I was going to be anything else besides a Christian, I would also embrace hedonistic agnosticism. I find atheism intellectually vacant -- you can't know their isn't a God either. You are to limited in what you know to make a judgment on that. All other religions saving Judaism seem very man reasoning to the divine to me and I thus reject them. Of course if I reject the Hebrew Scripture then Judaism is out as well. If we are to know what the divine truly is it must reveal itself to us. That gives only two possibilities for me -- Christianity with its Bible as revelation of God as he really is or a rejection of that revelation (the Bible) to agnosticism and living for myself trying to find God's revelation in the world around me. Everything points only to believe in Christ and his resurrection or 'let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die". If I wasn't a Christian I would be joining Bart for those cigars and sherry with a circle of friends to enjoy it with. As it is however, I see that suffering is our fault -- all of it and God has made an answer to it; we just continue to reject it.

Finis