Perhaps you have heard the argument by Stephen F Roberts, “I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” He started using this argument back in the mid nineties, and of course its use and meaning has changed from time to time as different people used it and modified it from his original intention. Today my goal isn’t to go into detail why this quote is flawed from the beginning, there are no atheists who believe in one god, but to point out another flaw that often is over looked. Don’t worry I also am aware of the other major flaw in his argument, the mischaracterization of Christian belief, that he assumes all gods are equal in both definition and in the evidence for their existence and that Christians don’t dismiss all other gods for the same reasons he does. One last word to the positive of this error, Christians don’t believe in a God like any other. Christianity believes in a God who is the God of all gods, infinite, perfect in holiness, power, justice, and who is the only true and living God. All other gods in this world throughout history have been finite, imperfect, capricious, at times mean, and at other times indifferent and unreachable; all things that Christianity’s God is not.

Did you catch the other flaw in his argument? I am talking about the one that actually should make him the one pausing and asking the Christian for more information. Allow me the chance to help you see what I am talking about here. For this part please place yourself in the atheist’s chair and I am going to tell you a story that will show you what I am getting at.

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What we so often hear today, and this is not something new, is the age old heresy that God loves everyone so much that He will end up saving everyone. Of course there are many versions of this, but I observe the one about how God is love, people are basically good, so how could a loving God send basically good people to hell?

There is a theological and Biblical response to this that asks the petitioner to consider God’s Holiness, Justice, and the true nature of sin. This argument makes sense, and is true, but I do think goes over some people’s heads (and I don’t mean this to demean these people). If you are one of these people, to whom the idea of God’s Holiness, Justice, and the nature of sin just doesn’t seem to satisfy you, allow me the opportunity to present two additional considerations for you to mull over.

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No matter where you fall on the spectrum of the interpretations on God’s Sovereignty, one thing is certain, sin cost God more than it costs all the fallen angels and sinners in hell. Without going into great detail, I do believe that this side of heaven we will not be able to fully comprehend the mystery of how a Holy and Sovereign God can allow evil into His universe. I know many people question how God could create Adam and Eve very good and yet they still fell into sin. An answer to that question seems a little easier than the question of how did Satan fall into sin, since they at least had a fallen Angel to tempt them, Satan had only himself. But I digress from pursuing the deeper philosophical and theological implications and questions surrounding sin, the fall, and God’s Holiness, and will simply follow the Bible’s lead: God is sinless, Holy and Sovereign, man was created good and morally culpable and became a sinner deserving God’s wrath.

It is probably a certitude that every human who has thought about these things has intuited that the punishment for sin, Hell, really, really sucks; it’s a huge bummer man! If one ponders for just a minute the idea of everlasting punishment in Hell for sin, one quickly decides for themselves that surely this punishment is too great to fit any crime (let alone the smallest of sins), committed in the universe, but the Holy Creator doesn’t think so and before you think God just stands back and enjoys the slow burning of those who violate His Will and Commands, let me tell you something: the price God paid for sin is greater, by infinite measure, than all the sinners and fallen angels in Hell and the resultant human suffering on earth!

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