Some of us distrust God because we disagree with his moral values.
We condone things he condemns. He draws distinctions we dispute. We elevate issues he considers secondary. He esteems that which we deem disposable.
Instead of aligning our moral values with God’s principles and precepts, we adjust our appraisal of God and his moral code to accommodate our values.
Underlying Motivation
Moral disagreements with God usually arise for one of five reasons.
We lack understanding of what God says in the Bible. Instead, we rely on the incorrect doctrines of those who are equally ignorant or on the rhetoric of those who actively oppose him.
We distrust God generally because he allows suffering to exist. We incorrectly believe that he is indifferent to affliction and, therefore, untrustworthy. We reject his moral values as a consequence of this misconception.
We are offended by judgmental believers who purport to speak for God. We understandably do not want to associate with them, so we disdain God’s values because we mistakenly presume that he shares their obnoxious contempt.
We find the hypocrisy of reborn believers repulsive. We correctly believe they should live more righteously. We discard God’s values because they seem to have little bearing on the behavior of his stalwarts.
We are unwilling to agree with God because that would require us to revise our values and change our behavior, sometimes at considerable social and economic risk. Disagreeing with God is safer, more comfortable, and sometimes more pleasurable.
Regardless of our underlying motivation, moral disagreements with God evidence our fallen nature.
Natural Inclination
God embodies moral truth. His values emanate from his character. He created us in his image with a flawless nature that was designed to uphold his moral code.
Human nature became corrupt when Adam and Eve sinned. We now supplant God’s moral code with our own as necessary to justify doing whatever we want, whenever we want.
We would like to believe that God concurs with our moral values, as we are the product of his handiwork, and he loves us unconditionally. But this is untrue.
God’s internal consistency would not allow him to create us in his image and then give us a nature that opposes the moral values emanating from his character.
And the unconditional aspect of God’s love does not constitute an endorsement of the moral values embraced by our corrupt nature.
Instead, our natural inclination to subvert God’s moral code confirms that the flawless nature he initially gave Adam and Eve has been marred by sin.
Moral Relativism
Dismissing God’s moral values gives rise to moral relativism.
God is innately and singularly good. Therefore, his moral values are good. Abiding by them produces goodness. Moral relativism justifies alternative values that are less than ideal. Abiding by them produces inferior outcomes.
God’s moral values represent absolute truth. Like him, they are immutable. To the extent we disagree with God, our moral values represent provisional truths. We can edit them at any time to accommodate situational changes.
God’s moral values are valid for everyone because he is morally superior to us. To the extent our moral values differ from his, they are not objectively true for others because, as fallen creatures, we are not morally superior to anyone.
Those who disagree with our moral code live by their own. And since they are morally equal to us, the values they uphold that differ from God’s have the same validity as ours. We may abhor these aberrant values, but we lack the moral authority to declare them unrighteous.
Embracing moral relativism permits our worst traits to flourish because it can ultimately justify every act of wickedness. It requires us to passively tolerate retrograde cultures that sanction hatred, bigotry, misogyny, oppression, corruption, and stagnation.
Conversely, adhering to God’s moral code nurtures our virtue by aligning our behavior with his character. Embedding its principles in civil laws produces innovative modern cultures that promote universal human rights, freedom, dignity, equality, justice, and dynamism.
Small God
Disagreeing with God about moral values requires us to diminish him and the Bible.
If God exists and is our Creator, then he is superior to us and sovereign over us. His moral values supersede ours.
If the authors of the Old and New Testaments were divinely inspired when they wrote their original manuscripts, and if these documents have been accurately copied through the ages, then the Bible faithfully conveys God’s moral values.
We must believe one or more of these claims is false to discredit God’s moral code. This requires us to disregard the testimony of nature, history, and textual criticism.
Contrarian Dilemmas
Nature evidences the existence of God and his role as our Creator.
To argue that God is nonexistent or not our Creator, we must explain how energy, matter, time, and space materialized from nothing and formed the universe.
Then, we must describe how life spontaneously emerged from these four lifeless elements and began to reproduce itself.
Next, we must account for the fundamental laws of nature—e.g., inertia, gravity, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, planetary motion—that have kept the universe orderly since its inception.
We must then identify the author of the DNA instructions that govern cell behavior.
Finally, we must explain why we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong.
Nature provides sufficient evidence of God’s existence and his role as our Creator to satisfy those willing to follow him on his terms.
However, no amount of evidence is enough for those who want to live independently of him.
History testifies to the divine inspiration of the Bible.
Old Testament prophecies concerning Babylon, Phoenicia, Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Israel—not to mention those concerning the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—were fulfilled years, decades, and sometimes centuries after they were recorded. Other Old and New Testament prophecies about future events are trending toward fulfillment.
God purposely included prophecies in the Bible about verifiable historical events across human history so their fulfillment would validate its divine inspiration for all generations.
Evidence for the textual accuracy of the Bible far exceeds that of other ancient texts.
Like other works of antiquity, the original Bible manuscripts disintegrated into dust long ago. The Old and New Testaments we read today have been reconstructed from copies of these documents.
We have thousands of partial or complete copies of the Old and New Testament books. Some copies of the Gospels are dated within a few decades of the events they describe.
We can be confident that the Bible we read today is a faithful rendition of the original manuscripts because so many of these copies agree textually.
There is less support for the textual accuracy of other ancient texts we read today, such as the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, as well as the historical accounts recorded by Josephus, Herodotus, and Thucydides.
Only a few copies of their original manuscripts remain, and the oldest texts are dated centuries or even millennia after these men lived.
Therefore, if we deem the Bible unreliable, we must also question the authenticity of these other ancient writings.
God’s Perspective
Misguided believers dogmatically contend that God hates—as they do—those who object to certain tenets of his moral code.
They are wrong. In fact, they are breaking God’s third commandment when they invoke his name to justify their personal hatred.
God dislikes the sins that follow our rejection of his moral code—in whole or part—but his love for us is not conditioned on our agreement with his values or our adherence to them.
He cherishes us and respects our dignity, despite our disagreements with him and his disapproval of our sinfulness.
In fact, our present adherence to God’s moral values is not his top priority.
God’s Priorities
God’s primary concern is our salvation. Above all else, he wants us to qualify for heaven so we can spend eternity with him.
The quality of our communion with him is his next priority. He wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
God’s third priority is the quality of our interpersonal relationships. He wants us to treat others the way we want to be treated.
Jesus said that if we pursue these priorities, everything else God wants for and from us will fall into place, including our adoption of his moral code.
Eternal Treasure
Jesus told his disciples a parable in Matthew 13:44 that pertains to moral disagreements with God. Here it is:
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, he sold all he had and bought that field.
Jesus used the phrase “kingdom of heaven” in his teachings to reference the reign of God in our life. This reign is not a function of his conquest or dominance. Instead, it is a matter of our acceptance and consent.
God’s reign in us begins when we accept his gift of salvation through Jesus. After that, it entails our voluntary submission to his authority and our consent to let him renew us as he sees fit. Implicit in God’s reign is our conscious agreement with his moral values.
As with other changes he makes in our life, God never demands that we abide by his moral code, even after we ask him to reign in us.
Instead, he enlightens us about the superiority of his moral values as we walk in harmony with him, and instills in us the desire to uphold them to the best of our ability. As this desire intensifies, we increasingly align our morals with his to please ourselves, as well as him.
Jesus tells us through this parable that the benefits of asking God to reign in us—true contentment in this life and eternal bliss in the next life—are worth far more than the risks we take, the price we pay, and the control we relinquish by submitting this request.
