Literal?

 "We both are looking at the actual words in the text. I'm looking at the words that say God is just and God is loving and recognizing that as those words are literally understood"

 

While it's clear that Dan doesn't always catch things like snark and humor in blog comments, as his recent reaction to a comment at Stan's demonstrates.  However, the above is interesting and worthy of exploring.

 

Dan is quite clear that he believes that the descriptions of God as "just" and "loving" are accurate descriptions of God and should be understood "literally".    I doubt that many would argue with the premise as stated.  Yet, it's clear that "love" and "just" are only to be understood literally as long as that literal understanding conforms to Dan's concept of what "love" and "just" entail.    

What's interesting, is that there are other descriptive words that describe God and his nature.  Things like "wrath", "jealous", "holy", "perfect", "Truth",  etc.    Yet, Dan and others don't always choose to accept these descriptions as "literal", I wonder how it is decided that "just" must be accepted as "literal" while "wrath" is metaphorical?  

The other obvious problem with this line of reasoning, is that it takes a (progressive) human view of justice (specifically that justice is about outcomes, not process) and overlays it on top of God.  It further excludes some possibilities from consideration, without any objective reason to do so.   In other words, there is an assumption that God's justice is limited,  that it cannot mean "X", that it must agree with what we perceive as "just".  

The problem with this notion, is just that, it's an assumption that isn't based on anything objective or concrete.  

Dan concludes that a couple of examples he picked out "fail", yet there's no actual evidence of this alleged objective failure.  I'm not sure that simply announcing that something or someone "failed" is quote adequate.  If that's the case that Dan has clearly failed to either, demosntrate that the Biblical teaching on Hell is wrong, or to make an objective, positive case that his views are correct.

"One of the great things about truly good people is their humility. They don't think of themselves as worthy of praise (of course!) and they certainly don't demand it nor do they think that any one who opts not to praise them should be tortured for an eternity."

 This, I think, sums up the problems with Dan's hunch.  He's decided that it's appropriate to judge God, by the standard that one judges "good people", that God must be humble.  That the God who created all, must bow in humility before His creation.

 

All in all it's a excellent example of applying a selective test for what is "literal" and  of expecting God to conform to progressive, human standards.

It's an amusing effort, but certainly not even an attempt at anything resembling an objective defense of a position.  There are more failures, but this is plenty.