The following are excepts (shown in quotes) from one who acknowledges the existence of a Creator God, but rejects His right to control the behavior of mankind. This logical, yet flawed, worldview underlies most ideologies of those who reject Christ as Savior and Lord.

On The Subject of Loving Your Neighbor but Rejecting God

 “If what you have done has in any way increased the amount of happiness, or decreased the amount of misery, in the world, even by a fraction, it has not been wasted. I’m not one of these French-type existentialists who thinks nobody should ever be anything but miserable!”

This first principle is a desire on the part of all mankind to leave the world a little better than when we entered it, as justification for our existence and impact on society. It is the desire of both those who reject and those who accept the living and compassionate Lord. However, the underlying motivation may be very different.

On the Subject of Man Holding God Accountable

“If any being has appropriated the ‘right’ to hold me accountable for my doings, then I require two things. One, that I be judged on my actions and their outcomes, not my beliefs or intentions. Two, that they accede to me, and to everyone else, the right to hold them accountable for their actions and inactions, set against their claims of omnipotence, omniscience, and universal benevolence. Or, as Stephen Fry so succinctly put it: “Bone cancer in children? What’s that all about?”

A second principle of those who reject God as Lord is the belief that we, the created, can assign our morality onto the Creator. Again, a reasonable and logical viewpoint, from a human perspective. Many point, as this writer did, to the “what aboutisms” when God allows pain, suffering, Hell, etc. with the view that He cannot hold man accountable for actions that He has the ability to prevent (omniscience and omnipotence). Further, if God can cause calamities, He does not have the right to judge our behavior. The reality is that…

Isaiah 55:8-9 – For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God is supreme and we are not in a position to judge Him (Psalm 115:3), even if we can’t defend His actions at times. As humans, we see only a shadow of who He is and can only guess why the Lord does what He does (1 Corinthians 13:12).

On the Subject of Man Being Held Accountable

The third principle is an assumption that we can (and will) be judged by our free will actions. Since it is undeniable that there is evil in the world (reference here), there is a belief that if we are “good enough”, God will judge us favorably over the actions of others. This “works-based” salvation is not Biblical and will not result in its intended outcome.

“Grace, salvation, and redemption I do not require; I stand by my decisions and actions and accept any and all consequences. This is integrity, anything else is cowardice.”

On the Subject of Man Being Judged and Forgiven

The fourth principle is the logical belief that when we harm someone, forgiveness can only be offered by the one harmed, not by God. There is this unwillingness to accept the love of God in sending His only Son to live a perfect life and die on the cross for the sins of man. We are seen as unworthy of the Lord’s intervention or compassion. At the same time, there is an unwillingness to acknowledge God’s judgement for our lack of repentance for bad behavior.

“Forgiveness can only be granted by the person wronged, you cannot convince me that so powerful a being could be wronged by anything I do, unless they are as petty as they are mighty.”

In Summary…

The conclusion from this responder to one of our posts was a typical human rejection of an all-powerful, supreme judge of mankind.

“What I require from a God is justice, equity, integrity, honesty, transparency and intervention when necessary. I see none of these in the Biblical God. Zeus and Odin often lacked these qualities, but then neither ever claimed to possess them either, and both left the judgement of souls to others. By comparison, the Biblical ‘jack of all trades’ deity is a self-contradictory one at best.”

To think this perspective of Biblical Christianity is unusual is to ignore the underlying worldview of many of our neighbors, friends, family, and coworkers.