Sam Storms has written an insightful analysis of the idea that we can or should “forgive God.” While a few snippets cannot do it justice, the heart of his argument is as follows:
First of all, let me say that I understand where this sort of question comes from. I understand how people quite often are confused by what God does or doesn’t do. … But my struggle is with the language of “forgiving God.” For one thing, I don’t find it ever used in Scripture. That alone ought to give us pause before we incorporate such language into our Christian vocabulary or allow it to shape our theology or our understanding of spiritual formation.
Also, a person can only be truly forgiven if that person has truly committed a sin or some wrong. Forgiveness assumes guilt on the part of the person being forgiven. If there is no sin, there is no guilt, and if there is no guilt, there is no need to be forgiven. … But God never has, cannot, and never will sin against us. Nothing he does is wrong or misguided or ill-informed or unwise or unloving. … God is altogether perfect and lovely and just and gracious and wise in all his ways. … But to speak of “forgiving God” suggests that God has erred or made a mistake or perhaps even committed a moral offense against us or someone else. But we always have to operate on the basis of the biblical witness that God does all things well: not necessarily all things the way we want him to do them, but they are “well” and good and righteous and fair and just, nonetheless.
So, what I’m getting at is that the language of forgiveness is only appropriate when it is God forgiving us or us forgiving others, but never of us forgiving God. By all means we must deal honestly and sincerely with our disappointment in the way life has turned out. We must be open and authentic about our feelings concerning ways in which we mistakenly think that God has failed us or hurt us. I say “mistakenly” think because it is a mistake ever to think that God has failed or treated us unjustly.
Thinking to Believe 
July 3, 2012 at 4:22 pm
How can you possibly know this? The Bible itself shows God behaving in ways that nearly all of us would define as evil. He either condones or commits murder and genocide, animal and human sacrifice, torture, child abuse, animal abuse, theft, slavery, pedophilia, rape, incest, cannibalism, betrayal, lying–all behaviors we ourselves use to identify evil. The evidence against God becomes even more overwhelming when we include the observable evidence from the real world, and when we think about what the ultimate evil God would actually be like. In fact, I made a video series cataloging the evidence:
Furthermore, if you then try to list the support for the claim that God is GOOD, suddenly the evidence dries up. Apart from some assertions in the Bible, the evidence for a good God is extremely thin. As you may have suspected, I’ve made a video cataloging that evidence too:
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July 3, 2012 at 4:44 pm
I won’t even begin to debate the notion that the God of the Bible is evil because the subject is too entailing. So let me just grant for the sake of argument that He is. So what? At best that proves that the Christian God is not the true God. It does nothing to undermine the classic philosophical arguments for the existence of a good God, and those arguments are not empirically based so it does no good to cite the existence of evil in the world as a reason to doubt the existence of a good God.
Jason
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July 3, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Well, your argument is that God is perfectly good and thus doesn’t need forgiving, so I provided the evidence that he’s not good, thus making him at least eligible for forgiveness.
If you’ve viewed my videos, you know that my arguments are not as simple as “evil exists, therefore God is evil.” I explore GOD’S behavior, not the fact that evil exists, and I apply empiricism to what evidence IS available.
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July 3, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I don’t think you read my comment carefully. My point is that even if we agree that the Biblical God is evil, that does not mean the God of the philosophers is evil.
Jason
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July 3, 2012 at 11:58 pm
those who luxuriate in the notion that God is evil in order to ignore Him and His amnesty will have the opportunity to be treated by Him in a way they will regard as pure evil, when He sentences them to eternal torment. Where is the argument that will persuade them otherwise? There is none, and it asks to much of reason to expect any, or presume to give any. Life, Spiritual Life, is experienced, revealed and imparted, not described by our doctrines
. They will either encounter God in person now in this life and repent, as Job did, without having his arguments answered, or they will encounter Him in the next, with no possibility of mercy.
For at the end of the day it comes down to His autocratic power and His character. If they cherry pick His judgements to make Him evil they have already ignored the rest, and nothing will persuade them
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July 4, 2012 at 5:11 pm
So God will prove me wrong by torturing me forever. Yeah, that’ll show me he’s not pure evil. 😉
Oh come on. God is supposedly all powerful and all knowing, right? Which means he has both the knowledge and the means to provide me with EXACTLY the evidence I would need to see that he’s not pure evil. You sell your God short. 😉
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July 5, 2012 at 1:20 am
By what standard should God be judged? After all, if (and that’s a BIG if, one that I don’t personally subscribe to) God needs our forgiveness, He must be guilty of some sin against us, which, in order to be found guilty, requires judgment to be passed.
Who gets to be judge? Who is without sin so they may cast the first stone, as it were?
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July 5, 2012 at 6:58 am
first for the argument that God is a mass murderer..
correct me if I’m wrong..murder is evil because it is an act of taking someone else life right?if that’s the case then God is an exemption.
since we Christians believe that life comes from God..then God is not really committing murder because he’s just taking what is in the first place his..our very life is not ours..it is God’s..
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July 5, 2012 at 11:20 am
Dhez, you are exactly right on this issue. As the author of life, life is God’s to give and take for His own purposes. It is only wrong for us to do so because life does not belong to us. To murder another person is to steal something from them that properly belongs to God. A common mistake many atheists make is thinking that all divine commands apply to God as well. That’s like thinking that a parent who tells his child that s/he has a 10:00 pm curfew also has a 10:00 curfew. Can you imagine if the parent comes home at 11:00 and the child says to him, “How dare you come home after your curfew!”? While some divine commands reflect attributes of God’s holy nature that He acts in accordance with, others are simply for our benefit, and God is not subject to them.
Jason
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July 5, 2012 at 4:34 pm
Why not by our own standards? We don’t have to be “without sin” in order to pass judgment on someone–otherwise we wouldn’t have a legal system. Don’t you feel comfortable labeling someone who commits or condones genocide, slavery, torture, rape, child and animal abuse, theft, betrayal, etc. evil? We identify evil by one’s behavior, and that behavior is first and foremost based on that which causes deliberate harm unnecessarily.
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July 5, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Then by that token should a doctor who saves a person’s life have the right to kill that person whenever he wants? After all, the victim owes the doctor for his life, right?
It’s not taking someone else’s life that’s evil. I think most people would agree that evil is deliberately causing people unnecessary harm and suffering. Giving someone life and then taking it back (especially in a horrible way) is as evil as donating an organ to someone…and then later deciding you want it back and then ripping it out.
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July 5, 2012 at 4:51 pm
A good parent can require a child to have a curfew because the child is young and inexperienced and the point is to keep him out of trouble. If a child breaks curfew, he is usually punished (by grounding or a reduction in privileges) so that he learns not to disobey again. When the child is old enough, the curfew is lifted and the child is free to make his own choices and stay out as long as he likes.
God behaves nothing like that. Instead, he decrees a command to adults, and then KILLS them or tortures them forever for breaking that command. The punishment isn’t to teach a lesson to avoid further bad behavior (since God has eliminated all chances for improving one’s behavior), and thus the punishment is gratuitous and pointless. And God never lifts his “curfew” either.
So how can God’s behavior even begin to compare with that of a good parent?
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July 6, 2012 at 2:14 am
“Why not by our own standards?”
Because our standards are flawed and lack the capacity to judge an All-Powerful, Eternal Creator. You can’t say, well, we judge people here on earth for the evil they do, then punish them accordingly, so we can just apply that concept to God. God is not “people” and no amount of judgment against Him is going to allow humanity to punish Him one bit.
In order to forgive, there must be an opposite: the ability to condemn. God cannot be condemned, even if we tried. He is wholly beyond us in every way conceivable. As a simple comparison, we might as well ask mosquitoes if they forgive (or condemn) us every time we smash one of them for stinging us. You might also compare it to a programmer to their software. The software doesn’t have any rights.
Second, in another post on this blog, you made the claim that morality is not objective or fixed in some ultimate paradigm, but rather is established by human consciences as the need arises within a given society (paraphrasing your points on the matter, as I understood them). So, without an objective, concrete morality, again I ask, who gets to be the judge and cast the first stone?
You accuse God of condoning all these evils? Well guest what, all humans are guilty of at least some evil, and even more, we tend to condone even much more evil that we ourselves don’t commit. So, there’s no agreeable standard, and no one is perfect, i.e. without evil or sinless enough, as a human, to judge a god, let alone THE God.
So what good does “forgiving God” do? None at all. None of us sit in His seat, and do not see things the way He does. From His vantage point, there may be morally sufficient reasons for the various things in the Bible you say are acts of evil.
What you must understand is, from God’s p.o.v., He is holy, completely good and righteous, to the point of having a wrathful intolerance against sin. All humans, by their nature, are corrupted by the law of sin. Therefore, any violence God meets out to His creation is lawful and just. We all are already guilty. Anything we suffer in this life or in the life to come is already just punishment. And just as the average criminal mourns their sentence and thinks it’s too much, unfair, or unjust, and so, attempts to justify their crime, so too do humans who receive retribution from God: I don’t deserve hell, my sins aren’t that bad, I’m a good person, I’m innocent, etc.
Well, guess what? Just as the criminal is not the judge and doesn’t get a say, so we are not the Judge, and we don’t get a say (short of the exemption provided by God through Jesus Christ).
You may wholeheartedly disagree and hate this line of thinking, and that’s your prerogative. Maybe Christian believers are all wrong, mad, or in denial. But that’s our right. After all, I don’t presume to think we are changing minds, here.
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July 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm
But if God is evil, then why would we want to follow his standards? We consider slavery evil. God doesn’t. Our morality may be flawed, but it’s better than his. If God orders me to hack up little children with a sword, I won’t consider it moral just because he orders it–nor would any moral person.
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July 7, 2012 at 10:52 pm
“Our morality may be flawed, but it’s better than his.”
A matter of opinion, not provable in any way. And maybe my morality is better than yours. So what?
You continue to say “ours”. Of whom to you speak? You and me or you, me and Jason Dulle, or you, me, not Jason Dulle, but the other posters on this blog, or you, but not me, and Muslims, or not you, but me, and my pastor, or the people of the United States only, or the developed world only, or the morality of scientists, or, or, or…?
See what I mean? There is no collective morality that belongs to all people everywhere. In Thailand, while officially illegal, by the majority of people, child slavery in the sex trade is not considered immoral. In fact, their cultural beliefs as influenced by their form of Buddhism allows for good karma if a young man or woman sells their body for sex so long as they use their income to support members of their family who cannot or (more truthfully) will not work (See “Travels in the Skin Trade” by Jeremy Seabrook).
Should we use Thai morality, then? How about Navajo morality? In certain traditions, stealing is not considered immoral, since, you know, if you didn’t take it with you, it’s considered abandoned property. Should we use theirs?
How about the morality of the mob? They are people, too. They have a morality that many esteem. Do they get to have a say in the “ours” of your position?
I’m not being factitious. I’m really not. I just reiterate my original question: By what standard. Please define and clearly mark out what you mean by “our standards”. Not yours, mind you, because you are just one person, capable of evil, probably guilty of some amount, and at any rate, flawed in your morality, too. So again, who is this “ours” you speak of?
Then kindly tell me where those standards ultimately and objectively come from so we can know that they are universal and applicable to God so we can properly judge Him of evil and condemn Him for it.
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July 8, 2012 at 8:59 am
About the doctor thing..even though the doctor save his life, or should I say that God use the doctor to save his life, still it is not the doctor’s life for the doctor to take away..no man owes his life to someone..only to God..
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July 12, 2012 at 5:58 am
Good regretted the Flood and created rainbows as a sign that he wouldn’t sin again.
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July 27, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Errmmm…. I hate to break this to you, guys… But, this looks like it says “Forgive Me, God.” The “I”, “V”, and the “E” come together to form “Me.” So, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think everyone here was looking at it wrong.
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May 19, 2016 at 12:46 am
I find the subjects you talk about interesting…I struggle with daily , habitual sin and also the notion that God always forgives me…I have a lot of self condemnation and guilt and then , therefore hopelessness concerning whether God is still me…please help…thank you…
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May 19, 2016 at 8:27 am
Mr Phipps:
For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.” Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!” And Jesus wasn’t kidding because. If you are to represent the God of the Living you must use divine logic because that God within you, can no more tell you to forgive AS MANY TIMES AS NECESSARY if he as God in the Man is not prepared to do exactly the same thing for you as you are expected to do for your brother. So there is no room for hopelessness in that.
Now please listen carefully to this:
You see the Lord Jesus came magnificently to demonstrate the proposition, the divine logic of which is absolutely imperative to a man’s humanity. And in explaining this to you, I’m simply preaching the gospel. Don’t please imagine that the gospel is simply come to Jesus and have your sins forgiven; that isn’t the gospel. You will only have your sins forgiven if you are prepared to come to the Lord Jesus and accept him into your life for the knowledge he came to give but THAT IS NOT GOSPEL. That simply lets you off the hook; that simply changes your destination; that simply trades hell for heaven but Jesus Christ didn’t come into this world simply to get you and me out of hell and into heaven; he came into this world supremely to get God out of heaven in to you and to me while showing us that, that is where God was living all along, we just didn’t know it and can’t see it sometimes through the haze of smoke and mirrors with which religion blindfolds, by supernatural obfuscation, the whole world with. And by so doing makes the whole world guilty where no guilt exists. Forgive yourself for it is not you who does that but the Good spirit, the God spirit, within you. Remember that beautiful verse? In Romans 14:22: “Happy is the man who does not condemn himself for what he does.” And you know what He is not saying: He is not saying despise yourself for allowing your humanity to humanize you, he is saying just the opposite.
It’s God, who works in you both to will and to do in his good pleasure. And everything that God gave me in the day that I was redeemed and Jesus Christ came to inhabit my humanity, he’s given to you. “the Christ who lives in me said he to the Philippians, is the Christ that lives in you. He says live it up. Just know how wealthy you became in the day that your humanity was invaded by your creator redeemer. Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it; work out your own salvation with fear and trembling because it’s God who works in you to will and do of his good pleasure. Tell me this: what would be illogical about anything that God wills for you if He as God in you is prepared to do what he wills?
Remember the verse in the 22nd of Matthew? Many are called but few are chosen. Why do you imagine of the many who are called so few are chosen? Because faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it and of the many who are called, so few will let him, do it! And he’s the only one who can. You see God isn’t looking around for anyone to be man sized for God, this is sort of the sentimental nonsense we hear again and again from the platform, “Be man sized for God”. As though he were waiting breathlessly for you. Poor God. He’s not looking for someone to be man sized for God, he’s just looking for any boy, girl, man or woman, anywhere who’ll let God be God sized in a man. He’s the only one who’s big enough.
And I submit that you are Big enough to understand that.
ltg
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