I Would Not, Could Not
Monday, September 15, 2008 at 10:55PM 
A few week ago, I edited and reposted old posts examining two statements sometimes used as rebuttals in theological discussions about God. The two statements are
* You’re making God the author of sin.
* You can’t put God in a box like that.
There’s one more post in the series and now I’ve redone it, too.
What is the third argument? I call it the green eggs and ham argument. It goes something like this: “I could not worship a God who would _____.” Another version of this same objection is, “The God I worship would not _____.” Either statement is completed with whatever it is the other person in the discussion has been saying God does. What this rebuttal does is suggest that what the other person has been saying about God is in error because a God who acts that way would be unworthy of worship.
First, let me emphasize that there are similar phrases to these that can be used legitimately. It is perfectly fine to say, “God, as revealed in scripture, would not _____,” as long as we have the clear teaching of scripture to back up our statement. There are indeed many things that God would not do. He won’t (and can’t) lie; he won’t fail to fulfill a promise; he won’t treat someone unjustly. God has disclosed these things to us and we can count on them. Banking on these “would nots” is trusting in God as he has revealed himself.
But there is a big problem with saying, “I could not worship a God who would….” Judging God—and isn’t that what this is?—is something his creatures have no right to do. No, as creatures, we are required to submit to what God does as perfectly just because he is the Judge of all the earth.
People arguing against the existence of God often use a form of the green eggs and ham argument. You’ve seen it: “If there were a God, he would never permit _______ to happen, and since ______ happens, there is no God; and if there is a God, and he permits _______ to happen, there’s no way I will worship him.” We might expect this sort of reasoning from unbelievers, but there are also people professing faith who reason this way. For instance, sometimes people argue for a form of inclusivism because “the God I worship would never condemn someone who has not heard the gospel.”
Here’s a paraphrase of the version of this argument that I saw most recently: “Well, yes, the text says that certain people gathered together to do whatever God’s plan decided beforehand would happen, but the God I worship would not decide beforehand that certain people would sin. So God’s plan had to involve only the events that occurred, and not the particular people who carried it out.”
Let’s ignore any other problems with this statement (like the problem, for instance, of determining that an event involving human action will occur without planning who it is who will perform that action) and just look at the phrase “the God I worship would not decide beforehand that certain people would sin.” How would someone know this? Is it that he has his own idea of what is right for God to do, his own essential requirements for God, if God is to be worthy of his worship? That’s what it sounds like to me. Of course, it is possible he means to say that the God he sees revealed in scripture, and thus the God he worships, would not decide beforehand that certain people would sin. But he didn’t say this, nor did he give any texts from scripture to support his statement that God would not do this. His statement, as it stands, suggests that the meaning he takes from the texts of scripture is defined, first of all, by his own ideas of the God he worships instead of the God he worships being defined by the texts of scripture.
The bottom line is that the green eggs and ham argument is a useless (and dangerous) one, for when it comes to resolving the question of what the true God is like, what sort of God someone can or cannot worship is irrelevant. Romans 1 tells us that people, generally considered, do not like to worship God as he is and as he has revealed himself. Instead, they prefer to worship a god they like better than the true God. If this is so, then we can’t trust our own judgments of what kind of God is worthy of our worship, can we? This makes our own notions of what sort of God we could or couldn’t worship worthless as evidence of what the true God is or does.
Reader Comments (8)
Oh, this is one really bothers me every time I hear it. Not only does the person who is making such statements reveal that he is measuring God against his standards in whatever if/then statement he constructs, he also reveals that in his opinion, his standards are higher than God's--that he believes himself to be more moral, compassionate, or reasonable than He is.
I have a friend whose standard response to passages like Romans 9 is, "If that really IS what this passage is teaching, then I could never serve a god like that! MY God is not like that."
I get that "My God would never...." or "My God says...." statement from a couple of different people in my life. And you can fill in the blanks with whatever phrase suits their current purpose regarding their view of God. My thought on that is "Your god is not God." What we are talking about is idolatry.
Did you use the label 'green eggs and ham' for it in the original post? I remember the original post somewhat, but not that label, which is the perfect label for it.
No, I didn't use it in the first post, but I did post a picture from Green Eggs and Ham with it. It's only since I wrote that first post with the picture that I've started thinking of this as the green eggs and ham argument.
he also reveals that in his opinion, his standards are higher than God's
Yes, and as Dorothy says, at the heart of it, this is idolatry. It's because of this that this is the one statement among the three I posted on that bothers me the most.
"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approached the judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease [or who ordains things in a way that the 'kindly judge' finds detestable], he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock."
--C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock
That quote from Lewis is right up my alley. And right up the alley of this post, too.
I have heard this argument regarding how God deals with the souls of children and infants who die. The argument is not from Scripture but from sentiment. I think what the person was really saying is that, "This is such a painful issue for me since I lost my child that I really don't care to speculate for even half a second." I can understand that on one level; on another, grieving the loss of a child must certainly take one to the eternal if anywhere. Contemplating the eternal is one of the benefits of grief. The thought that keeps coming to mind is that we are all mayflies and think that temporal existence of 70 or 80 years is really long.
James 1:8,9
10But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.