Where do these limits on the Christian god come from? You quote the bible as saying that your god cannot lie - why not? What is preventing him/her? Is there some power above this god which restricts what he/she can do?
It’s his character that prevents him from doing so. This power doesn’t come from “above this god.” Rather, it’s an inherent part of God.
Besides, if you’re going to criticize the Christian concept of God, then it only makes sense to do so based on what the Bible says about his character. You can’t just disregard what the Bible says about him and then say, “See! This is how wrongheaded your notion of God is!”
Earlier you said, “It’s handy that theologians can simply redefine their terms to eliminate the inconsistencies!” However, it seems to me that when people jettison what the Bible says about God, they’re the ones who are redefining terms in order to fuel their criticisms.
Where do you gather that the Christian God is unable to limit, suspend, or end its omnipotence? I seem to have this vague recollection of a divine and omnipotent being making himself killable in the bible. What was his name? It’s right on the tip of my tongue…
Regardless, there still is the other problem with your explanation - even supposing that we grant that God cannot logically force someone to freely repent or to freely choose to obey him, which I am willing to do, from whence comes the assumption that God needed or wanted us to freely obey or freely repent? If God is dictated by his character, and his character is infallible, then that proves both that infallibility is possible and that it’s not a bad thing. So why choose to make us fallible, when he could make us infallible like him and avoid all the repenting and the need to obey in the first place?
For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that he can. How does this refute my claim that omnipotence does NOT mean “the ability to do anything whatsoever”?
It doesn’t. If anything, suspending his omnipotence would simply further reduce his abilities. It would not suddenly grant him the ability to do anything whatsoever, without regard for his character or for the logical consistency of the action. So your question, while certainly an interesting one, does nothing to refute what I have said.
That is spelled out in the Bible as well. It’s more than just an assumption; rather, it’s at the heart of Christian teaching.
Now you might say, “But I don’t believe in the Bible!” or “I don’t believe in God!” and that would be your prerogative. As I’ve said though, if you’re going to criticize then Christian concept of God, then you have to attack God as he is portrayed in Christianity. You can’t just jettison core Christian teachings and then attack the caricatured version of God that remains.
That’s a good questino, and one that I don’t claim to have the answers to. Why? Because I’m not omniscient and I’m not God. As a mortal human being, I recognize that there are certain aspects of God that I do not (and cannot) fully understand.
“But that’s a copout!” one might exclaim. No, it isn’t. If there is an infinite, infallible God, then it stands to reason that the reasons for some of his actions will not be immediately evident to finite, fallible human beings. This does not mean that we can know nothing at all about God, but it does mean that some of the more difficult questions will be beyond our grasp. Any fair-minded philosopher would have to acknowledge that.
“You need to prove that God would not want to make us infallible!” a belligerent skeptic might argue. That’s simply false, though. If one is to jump on this as a supposedly fatal counterargument, then it’s up to that person to prove that there can be no possible reason for God to act otherwise. Simply saying, “But infallibility is a good thing!” doesn’t cut it.
The position that the OP takes contra to is that the evil done by people in the name of Christianity outweighs any benefit that Christianity might have. The same can be said of any dogma, secular or sacred and has throughout history. The next step is what causes something else? E.g.: did Martin Luther, by his flame war with the Jews (one sided on Luther’s part as far as I know) cause the Holocaust? No cause? Only a contributing factor?
Human motivation is rather complex. But some things are more or less certain. People like Alexander of Macedon, Gaius Julius Caeser, Ghengis Khan, Attila, etc. all managed to do a great deal of damage to people who stood in their way and to people in general. Napoleon, Hitler and countless other people have continued to do the same sort of thing throughout history. Most businesses have their scattering of these people throughout them. People pursue conflicting interests and always will.
Is someone who advocates treating other people decently and like you would like to be treated responsible for others who misuse those principles? Not unless you twist the meaning of those teachings and twist the normal understanding of causation. So the answer is no, Jesus is not humanly responsible for the bad things done in his name, however misguided sincerely those people are, or even if they are completely cynical about their misuse of those teachings.
That doesn’t answer the implication of the OP, what if Jesus really was divine as some of his followers claim. If he was, and if divinity means omnipotence and omniscience, then yes, the divine being is responsible for the consequences of all actions in creation, including the actions resulting from free will. This is much in the same way that gravity is responsible for all raindrops hitting the earth, whether in a good place or an undesired place.