Christianity and Love

Great Debates
61

Gaudere, you said:
“He’s God, fercryin’outloud; he can do whatever He wants, He didn’t have to do any of this stuff at all!”

Believe it or not, I think that the statement “God can do whatever he wants” is completely untrue. Equally untrue: “He didn’t have to do any of this stuff at all!” In fact, He literally did have to.

Here’s the key point being missed. God isn’t ONLY omnipotent … He’s also PERFECT. That means He’s got perfect love. It also means He’s the perfect JUDGE.

If He were omnipotent, but NOT PERFECT … then your statement above would be completely correct. God could do anything He wanted … abuse His authority, destroy people at will, judge people unfairly, etc. But THANKFULLY, He is GOOD. He is PERFECT.

Because God has PERFECT LOVE, He doesn’t want to send anyone to hell. He loves everyone. The famous John 3:16 says “For God SO LOVED the world …”. Not the big green globe, mindya, but EACH INDIVIDUAL PERSON on that globe.

Again, if God is merely omnipotent, but imperfect, He might not love the whole world. But because He has PERFECT and fully UNCONDITIONAL love, He loves the whole world. He HAS to by the very definition of perfect love! He literally CANNOT NOT love the whole world!

Ditto His justice. He’s a perfectly just judge. If he were not, He might say, “Wellllllll … okay I think I’ll let THIS person off the hook cuz I like him, but THAT guy over there I’m gonna squash.” In other words, He COULD be just like any crooked judge on earth. But thankfully, He’s not. He’s PERFECT. The PERFECT judge. Unfortunately for us, that means He finds us ALL guilty of sin equally. Again, He HAS to find us all guilty because He’s a PERFECT judge! Were he merely omnipotent and not also perfect, He could do whatever He wanted to.

Finally … the conflict. My whole point is … as a PERFECT God, He can’t deny EITHER of these things! Yet they are in total conflict with each other. If God were ONLY loving, He’d just let everyone into heaven. Including Hitler, the devil, and people that you don’t personally like!

If God were ONLY a just judge, He’d have to send everyone to hell. The pope, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa … and all the people you look up to personally in your life!

So literally the ONLY solution that would logically work was the one God chose … to send His Son to live a perfect life, thus being a perfect sacrifice and bearing the brunt of what we deserved for our sins. Literally, when we look at the hell Christ went through on the cross,we must all look and say, “That’s what I deserved.”

So anyway, that’s my summation. No, God cannot do whatever He wants, THANKFULLY! He has chosen to limit Himself to only actions and attitudes that are PERFECT.

62

Forgive me, but why is that the only solution? I accept that God can only do what is logically possibly (under some theologies). But it makes no logical sense that God cannot accept humans into heaven, unless He incarnates Himself, gets Himself killed, and the select few who believe this somehow are OK to be in His presence. Why should God have to kill Himself to make those who believed that He did acceptable in His sight? Why does God require a perfect sacrifice to make Himself able to accept humans into heaven? God made the rules in the first place–including the one that says he must kill Himself to allow humans into heaven (else He is not omnipotent). He could have chosen other rules–ones that would allow good, yet non-Christians into heaven, or ones that would keep out Hitler, even if Hitler believed in Christ. Yet He did not. If God wanted people in heaven, yet must be a good judge, it seems like this would be a better solution than trying to fool his own sense of justice by letting in those who believe in His “death”, and keeping out those who don’t. The people who get into heaven are only those who believe, not those who try to be good; how “just” is that?

A perfect judge would only judge rightly. A perfectly loving God would not necessarily judge. You have a contradiction here, between a perfectly judging and perfectly loving God. For you say, if He judged perfectly, we would all go to Hell–yet all do not. If He were perfectly loving, all would go to heaven–yet all do not. How can He then be both perfectly judging and perfectly loving at the same time? You allow Him to find loopholes–He must judge, except when people believe Jesus died for their sins. Yet, as an omnipotent God, if He can excuse sin for one cause (believing in Jesus), He could excuse it for another–say, believing pigs cannot fly (without the aid of catapults. :wink: ) Why should He choose to only allow those into heaven who believe He did such a strange thing as to incarnate and kill Himself solely to appease His own rules?

Is Christianity logical? I would say no–at least, not your brand…

Welcome to the SDMB, FriendofGod. :slight_smile:

63

Here’s the thing. If God is a perfect judge and must punish all people for their sins, then why must this punishment be INFINITE for a FINITE amount of sin? How, precisely, is that justice? Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime? Shouldn’t sinners just “serve their time” in Hell and then ascend to Heaven? And what about all the times in the Bible when God punished not only the guilty party, but their wives and children as well? Case in point: the tenth plague. According to Exodus, God slew all the first born of Egypt, none of whom had anything to do with enslaving the Hebrews. At the same time, he did NOTHING to the Pharaoh, who WAS guilty. Also, God was said to have “hardened the heart” of the Pharaoh during this time. So, not only did God punish the children of Egypt for something the Pharaoh did, he took away the Pharaoh’s free will so that he had NO CHOICE but to keep the Hebrews in slavery! How exactly is that the action of a perfect judge? By the way, I do believe in Jesus and his message of forgiveness. It’s the OLD Testament I have trouble with. Therefore, I just don’t believe that these events happened. After all, that belief isn’t required to get into Heaven, even by Christian doctrine. Is it?

64

Here’s a short sweet version of what the Mormon Church believes.

Lets say tomorrow my friend Bob dies. He was a fairly good man, but he did have his favorite sins he couldn’t stop commiting, and he never repented for them. So when he dies he can go to either one of two places. Paradise, or Hotel Hell. Since he never repented for a few of his sins, he goes to Hotel Hell where he pays for those sins until the Second Coming. After the Second Coming and Judgement Day, God reviews Bob’s case. He was a good man, just liked to lie a lil too much, and one time he commited adultry. BUT he paid for those sins himself, instead of taking advantage of Jesus’s offer to pay for him. So, God decides he should go the 2nd Kingdom of Heaven (There are three, Celestial, Terrestrial, Telestial and The Outer Darkness)
So Bob goes to the 2nd Kingdom of Heaven and not to hell for all time and eternity.
Everybody goes to one of the kingdoms of Heaven, nobody spends all eternity in hell. Only a few will go to the Outer Darkness, those are the Sons of Perdition. I can safely say that NOBODY on this board could become a Son of Perdition.

65

Gaudere:

You make good points, but you’re making some assumptions that you can smooth over to tighten up that argument.

You made a lot of assumptions. I don’t believe Xians believe that God CHOSE rules to follow. And I don’t think they would agree (nor do I think you would) that he chose them out of a big list of possibilities.

Also, I haven’t seen a roster of heaven and hell recently. No one knows who’s made the cut yet. By defining God as a judge, you take away the claim that he is God (which I realize you don’t believe). You do a very good job of arguing on Xian terms, but slipped there.

BTW, is this annoying? Personally, most of my opinions have been explained, much more elegantly than I could have. I used to be a teacher, and feel that it helps when I help people tighten stuff up. If it is annoying, sorry.

66

If God didn’t choose which rules he would follow, who made the rules He must follow? Is there a Meta-God we should be worshipping? I am willing to accept the premise that logic is co-eternal with God, and that therefore He is bound by logic (I have met people who beleive in a God not bound by logic, but I don’t think this is the case here), but I can find absolutely no logical reason why God would have to sacrifice Himself to appease Himself. If God cannot be in the presence of sin, fine (I am assuming so for the purposes of this debate; I question this argument as well). But it makes no sense to say, “well, He can’t be in the presence of Sin, unless He gets Himself killed and you believe it and that’s the only way it could be done even though He presumably set up the way this whole system works.” There is no reason why it is logically impossible for God to accept any other criteria for allowing people into heaven.

Huh? I defined God as a judge because they did. We may not know who gets in, but it is generally assumed that God judges you when you die (some believe you don’t get judged until the second coming). Anyhow, God is generally presumed to exist in all times at once, so in a way he is already judging and has already judged.

No.

67

This discussion reminds me of The God Simulator.

68

I feel was a little terse, Connor, so just to clarify: no, I don’t mind advice, although if I think I’m in the right I’ll debate with you as well. :slight_smile: I like to argue.

69

This is turning out to be a truly interesting thread! Thanks for the welcome Gaudere :slight_smile:

First off, my favorite quote from you: “believing pigs cannot fly (without the aid of catapults)”. LOL! :smiley:

I love the questions you are asking. Here’s at least a partial answer to give you some interesting food for thought.

First off let me address this quote: “You allow Him to find loopholes–He must judge, except when people believe Jesus died for their sins. Yet, as an omnipotent God, if He can excuse sin for one cause (believing in Jesus), He could excuse it for another”.
This is where you’re missing one key thing, which admittedly I didn’t make very clear. And this really answers your other question as well.

The truth is, God must judge, PERIOD. Also, He NEVER excuses sin. EVERY sin is judged and paid for one way or another. There is NEVER an exception.

The question isn’t whether God judges sin. He ALWAYS judges sin in each and every case. The question is: WHO receives that judgment - me or Jesus?

Remember on the cross when Jesus said “My God My God why hast thou forsaken me?” While on the cross, God dumped on Jesus His wrath and punishment for every sin committed by every human being throughout history. Jesus received the punishment for every sin I’ve ever committed.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that “When I sin, God just forgives me.” No. When I sin, if I have given my heart to Jesus, I can be forgiven BECAUSE God unleashed His punishment on Jesus instead of on me. Even writing that … it’s INCREDIBLY humbling to realize. It is truly astonishing the sacrifice Jesus made just so I could have a relationship with God. I never just say “God forgive me.” I say, “God, I ask for your forgiveness by the blood of Jesus.” It reminds me of why I can be forgiven.

Likewise, when I sin, if I have NOT given my heart to Jesus, unfortunately I will receive the full penalty for my sins. That is, UNLESS at some point down the line I give my life to Jesus. At that point, the punishment Jesus took for me is applied and the slate is wiped clean. Like I said it’s very humbling, because I don’t deserve that kind of love, and no one does. But God offers it anyway.

Ever heard a Christian use the cliche phrase “covered by the blood of Jesus” or some variation? That’s what it means. My sins are covered by His blood.

So to at least somewhat answer your larger question: remember that God is a perfect, just judge so He HAS to punish sin. The only way He could reconcile His love and justice was to send His own Son as a perfect substitute, offered to all free of charge. It’s truly astonishing when you get to see the big picture isn’t it?

Please let me know if that made sense or if you want anything else clarified (NOT that I claim to have all the answers, believe me I have much to learn about God and His ways myself! :D).

70

So God apparently must punish people who break His laws (sin) to be just. But He doesn’t want to, so He punishes himself instead. First Point: How is it just to punish an innocent person for the sins of another? That’s not justice; if you say to a judge, “I’ll go to jail instead of this murderer” and the judge allows that, no one would call it just. Nor can the judge go to jail for the crimes of those he judges and call it justice, if He is in no way responsible for the crime.

Second point: So God punishes Himself for your sin. It still doesn’t explain why He needs you to believe He did this, not if He is perfectly loving and wants everyone to go to heaven. He could just simply take the punishment for your sin and let you in.

71

If God ‘sent down his wrath’ on Christ for punishment of our sins, don’t you think Christ got off a little easy? I mean, we punish criminals for less crimes than the total sum of humanity’s (or Xian’s, if you prefer) sins! If this was the case, and Christ is actually being punished for our sins, I would think sacrificing him to hell would be comensurate. Don’t you think?

72

Gaudere, all I can say is you’re keeping me on my toes! :smiley: Like I said before I love these questions.

Let me answer your second point first. You said “He could just simply take the punishment for your sin and let you in.”

This gets back into this issue: yeah, God could do anything IF He weren’t perfect. But God has given us all free will. How perfect would you consider God to be if He just forced us to do whatever He wanted?

Moreso … it would totally remove the whole point of Jesus sacrifice if He just “let us in”. The whole point is not just “heaven”. The whole objective is to RESTORE FELLOWSHIP between God and man. God wants to be your best friend Gaudere, and mine. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, I can now have a love relationship with God. But what good is a love relationship if you’re forced into it? I have to CHOOSE God.

Here’s another way to look at it: Jesus is OFFERING a tremendous gift to all of mankind – forgiveness for your sins in exchange for you giving Him control of your life. It’s a GIFT … but just cuz it’s dangling out there being offered doesn’t mean I’ve received it yet. Why doesn’t God just “let us in”? Cuz He’s a gentleman. He’ll never force Himself on us. He leaves the choice up to you and me.

You might say, “That’s crazy! If that’s the case, why would anyone NOT be willing to accept the gift?” Exactly. You’ve got me. I don’t know, but many people willingly choose to not accept it. One reason is – they think THEY can run their lives better than Jesus and they don’t need His ole’ gift anyway.

As for your other issue – well Gaudere, YA GOT ME! It’s an interesting issue, but I’ve never taken the time to try to explain that one in words. Let me ponder that one a while and maybe do some scripture study. Anyone else who’s a believer who’s reading this and is better-read on this subject than me, please feel free to jump in.

Finally, Conner. Jesus did not get off easy at all. Imagine having NEVER had a lustful thought, NEVER been hateful, NEVER been spiteful … and suddenly having demons of lust, hate, and spite and every other evil and perversion known to man thrust into your soul all at one time. When Jesus said God had forsaken Him, He really had. The Bible says He who knew no sin BECAME sin for us. And when we sin, demons are free to torment us in the areas we sin in. Therefore EVERY demon known to man was free to torture Jesus’ soul. I can’t even imagine the misery He went through.

73

How is he forcing us to do anything? He’s simply taking punishment for our sins, like He apparently wants to do and has already done.

He’s sacrificing Jesus becuase He wants everyone to go to heaven, right? That’s the “point” of the sacrifice, to fufill his own rules about the punishments for sin, right? To require people to believe in Jesus–when He’s has already fufilled this strange “justice” that He is required to punish Himself–keeps people out of heaven, when He claimed he wanted everyone in heaven and could do it without this requirement. Maybe God doesn’t want everybody to go to heaven; he only wants you to go to heaven if you believe He had Himself crucified. How is that perfectly loving? He’s willing to undergo everyone’s punishment for sin just to let them into heaven, but if you don’t believe He did so, you can’t come in.

Let’s say there is a person who says he is perfectly loving (suspend disbelief for a sec here). Now, he says he loves you so much, he’s going to spend all his money to buy you the cure for your painful, crippling lung cancer (you smoked a lot) even though you’re a jerk. Sounds perfectly loving to me. Then he says he won’t give you the cure unless you believe he bought it–he’s just going to hang onto the cure and watch you suffer and die. Is that perfectly loving, or is that a weird mind game? Why require such a thing, if he really is perfectly loving? Sure, it’s nice that he’s going to do it at all, but where does he get off saying he’s perfectly loving and wants to save you, he’s already bought the cure, but he won’t give it to you unless you believe a certain thing? I won’t even go into the “he won’t give you the cure unless you believe he bought it based on a confusing 2000 year old hand-written receipt that is interpreted by 500 people 500 different and contradictory ways” angle. :wink:

Again, I don’t get how not requiring a belief in Jesus to go to heaven forces anyone to do anything. If anything, the fact that if you don’t love God you go to hell seems to be doing a lot more “forcing”. If God really wanted no-strings-attached love and belief, he wouldn’t require it to save you from hell and get you into heaven. Which is doing the forcing of love and belief: “I’ll give you this cure for your disease because I love you. I want you to love and beleive in me” or “If you don’t love and believe in me, I’ll let you die a miserable death”?

He’s not forcing you to believe in Jesus, He’s simply taking the punishment for all your sins (which He’s doing anyway) and not requiring you to believe He did it to get in.

Um, I just don’t think Jesus was God. I don’t think God exists.

74

FriendofGod:

If the only way for God to allow humans into Heaven was to sacrifice His son Jesus, and the only way for humans to get into Heaven after said sacrifice was for them to believe that Jesus really was the son of God and that the sacrifice really happened – then why didn’t God announce these events better? Even the Gospels report that most witnesses to the Crucifixion had no idea that this was the son of God up there on the cross. The resurrected Jesus only appeared to a few of his disciples before ascending into Heaven. We have no one’s word other than Jesus himself, his inner circle of disciples, and a few spurious witnesses at the tomb, that this great sacrifice ever took place.

It’s almost as though God doesn’t want people to be saved and go to Heaven…

75

[smartass]Maybe its crowded.[/smartass]

Just a thought: Maybe we’re all wrong. Isn’t it possible that no one religion is correct? For example, does anyone argue that the Bible was written over a lengthy period of time when illiteracy was high and then translated between several different (and dead) languages? Do you think that they did it right? Every time? The human race is famous for screwing stuff up. Maybe we screwed this up, too. Now, this doesn’t mean that some of the teachings and beliefs are bad. Treating your neighbor like you would want to be treated is not a bad ethos for everyone to follow. But in the mix of trying to explain an inconceivably powerful being, somehing could have gotten lost in the translation, don’t you think?

I bet He’s up there ROTFLhisAO at us right now.

Just my $0.02

76

Okay Gaudere, let me see if I can get through your comments:

First, you said: “He’s sacrificing Jesus becuase He wants everyone to go to heaven, right? That’s the “point” of the sacrifice, to fufill his own rules about the punishments for sin, right?”

Your second sentence is right, but the first sentence is only part of the picture. Like I said in my last post, Jesus’ sacrifice is NOT merely about getting to heaven. In fact, look at heaven as the icing on the cake. The cake is the ability to have a healthy, loving relationship with God that is impossible without the “filter” of the blood of Jesus between me and Him! God cannot let any unholy thing into His presence. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, mankind is able to get close to God again, a la the garden of Eden, which was the whole original idea of why He made us at all!

Heaven is merely the natural extension of what He wants to start with us right here on earth. Hell is merely the natural extension of what will happen to us if we choose to NOT have that relationship with Him.

Guadere, you and I were CREATED for one reason – to be close to God and to have a healthy love relationship with Him. Whenever we’re NOT walking with God, it is literally as if we have a light bulb in our soul and it’s burnt out. When we start walking with God, it’s like the lights have been turned on again.

As an aside, I’ll admit that Christians such as myself are often guilty of over-emphasizing the heaven aspect. I think we do it cuz it’s the part everyone can most quickly relate to, but we really need to explain this other stuff too.

Next quote: “How is he forcing us to do anything? He’s simply taking punishment for our sins, like He apparently wants to do and has already done.”
Remember God’s WHOLE GOAL in this > restoring relationship with us. Jesus has taken the punishment for our sins, but the application of this isn’t like an instantaneous thing that just “happens”. One of the most misunderstood aspects of Christianity is that many think that it requires nothing from the individual. Not true. I’ve heard it said this way: “Christianity is free … but it’ll cost you everything.”

Look at it this way. It’s really BOTH a free gift and an EXCHANGE. He GIVES me the free gift of eternal life, and we EXCHANGE lives. I give Jesus my life, and He gives me HIS life (ie He comes into my soul).

Let me explain it another way. Suppose salvation requires no choice on your part. Jesus dies for the sins of the world, and you are forgiven whether you know it or not, or whether you want it or not. Do you see how absurd this is? We are back to the point “If God were ONLY loving, all people would go to heaven, including Hitler, Satan, etc.” Remember that point? Same thing here! If there’s no human choice involved, we’re back to an unjust situation where everyone goes to heaven.

God would have to ASSUME that everyone would accept His gift to do what you’re saying. But as you can see, in reality, many many people choose not to accept it.

Lets put it ONE more way, and then I’m going to bed :slight_smile:
You could just as easily go the other direction. He could ASSUME that NO one will accept His gift, and then we’re back to God sending EVERYONE to hell.

Okay that’s enough for now. I’m sure you said other things in your post but I’ll look at it again tomorrow.

I’m enjoying this little chat Gaudere. I hope I’m giving you food for thought, even if you don’t agree with all that I’m saying.

77

winky99 wrote:

At least as far as the Old Testament goes, we still have the scriptures in their original Hebrew. They have been faithfully copied, verbatim, with each inkstroke and flyspeck carefully duplicated, supposedly since the time they were first written on papyrus. Certain translations into other languages over the millennia have taken more liberties than others (I’d be wary of the Septuagint Greek or the King James Version English, for example), but modern translations tend to be based primarily on this original Hebrew.

I don’t know the story of how well the New Testament has been preserved, though.

78

So when God made us, He made us so badly that not a single one of us could have a healthy relationship with Him unless He gets Himself crucified, and unless you have a relationship with Him you go to Hell. What of the Jews–are they incapable of having a healthy, loving relationship with God because they do not believe in Jesus? What of those who lived and died before Jesus came along; if a relationship with God is impossible without believing in Jesus’ sacrifice, all those people would be in Hell, right? If belief in Jesus was not absolutely necessary for people to go to heaven before, why would He have to require it now?

Boy, I guess you’ve gotta check the fine print on this one. If I said I’d give you a car if you exchange lives with me, I don’t think you’d consider the car free–I required you to do something that I wanted before I would give you the car. It’s nice, sure, but it’s not strictly “free” if there are strings attached, IMHO.

Do you really think that non-Christians genuinely believe Jesus was God, that he died for their sins, but they don’t want to accept eternal life? Is it perfectly loving to allow someone to suffer eternally just because they don’t think you’re God?

Let’s do a f’rinstance: You have a son who is dying of smoking-related lung cancer. You have the cure and want to give it to him. The thing is, he was adopted (although he doesn’t know it); you have some old records of adoption, but he has records of his own that say he is the son of someone else. You know he’d be happier if he knew you were his father, but he simply doesn’t believe it. As a perfectly loving father, do you: a) give him the cure for his cancer anyhow, or b) withold the cure unless he believes you’re his father?

The human choice God requires is rather absurd: “You must believe I sacrificed Myself to Myself so that you don’t have to go to Hell.” Now if Hitler believes this with his last breath, he goes to heaven…but you consider him being in heaven unjust, although it’s just as easy for him to get in as Mother Teresa. The choice God requires is not a sensible: “be a good person and help your fellow man” but is instead “do you believe what I’m telling you? Do you love Me?” Doesn’t that seem a bit selfish to you–to allow Hitler into heaven if at the very end he loves God, but those who don’t believe the Bible, even if they’re decent people, get an eternity of suffering?

God is supposed to want everyone to go to heaven, even Hitler. To do this He requires that people believe in Jesus, etc. Yet, despite the fact that He wants everyone in, He does not simply announce his offer from the skies every day at noon and allow people to decide whether they wish to accept it. He allows people to reject his gift, not because they don’t want it, but because they don’t believe it exists. Why, if He wants everyone in heaven, does He not simply unambiguously tell everyone about it–not in a 2,000 year old book that is pretty much indistinguishable from other religion’s holy books, but openly and clearly?

I don’t get what you’re saying–presumably God knows who will believe in Jesus. I simply think that to create creatures because you want them to love you may be acceptable, but to let them be tortured eternally unless they love you too does not seem “perfectly loving”. To take their punishment on yourself only if they love you is neither perfectly loving nor perfectly just. If I had a child, I would love him/her even if s/he did not love me, and if I could save the child’s life I would do so, I wouldn’t simply let the kid die because s/he didn’t love me.

79

Wow Gaudere, you make some kick-ass points.
I’m sure glad you are not attacking my religion, or else I would have to change to another way of thinking, because your arguements are very logically sound.
FriendofGod, it’s very admirable that you are in this debate and standing up for what you believe etc etc. But I have the feeling that Gaurdere has done this 100 times before, and she’ll probably do it 100 times again after you pass out of her life, and you are not going to change her way of thinking one bit. IMHO, of course

80

Gaudere wrote:

<devil’s advocate mode ON>

I think this gets back to what FriendofGod was saying about God being a “perfect judge” as well as perfectly loving. You see, according to the Perfect Judge Theory, there’s another ingredient to that f’rinstance story:

Your son, who is dying of cancer, was adopted by someone who was the distant descendant of Atilla The Hun. Way back when Atilla the Hun was alive, you were alive too (remember, you’re not only a perfectly loving father and a perfect judge, you’re also immortal). Atilla the Hun was really really nasty; he did something so despicable to you, something so rotten, that you placed a curse on his entire family line (you are also omnipotent, so you can do this). Your curse was that every one of Atilla the Hun’s descendants, and anybody they adopted into their family, would die of cancer.

Now, being a perfect judge, you can’t just go and make an exception to this curse for somebody just because he happens to be your biological son. That wouldn’t be fair administration of the curse. You made the curse for all time, and you have to stick by that promise – otherwise you wouldn’t be a perfect judge. However, there is a loophole, a way out. The adopted children of Atilla the Hun’s descendants will only be subject to the curse if the adoption is reciprocal, i.e. if they agree to be adopted. If your son renounces his adoption, and admits that you are really his father, he will be freed from the curse and you can administer the cure without breaking your own judgement.

<devil’s advocate mode OFF>

The problem with the scenario I’ve just described is, of course, that you have not given your son sufficient evidence that you really are his father. You have also not given him sufficient evidence that the Cancer Curse on Atilla the Hun’s Descendants really exists. All you did was dictate a book about the curse, and the adoptive child “escape clause,” to some back-woods scribe 'way back when Atilla the Hun was around. There is no reason why, if you are omnipotent, you couldn’t continuously blare these facts in people’s ears, and make them absolutely unmistakable to everyone. In fact, if you really are “perfectly loving”, then YOU MUST MAKE THESE FACTS KNOWN in a DEFINITE, UNAMBIGUOUS MANNER TO EVERYONE. The fact that you have not done so is proof that you are not perfectly loving.