Why weren’t we told about germs? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
So yesterday I was told about a guy named Tim Sledge making the rounds on YouTube. Apparently, he used to be a minister and served in music as well and now he’s decided it’s all bunk. His arguments, as expected, are hardly stellar. The first tweet I was shown yesterday was about how God told Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars of the sky or the sand on the seashore and if he could count those, he could count his descendants.
Now on Planet Earth, most of us recognize figures of speech and hyperbole. God is telling Abraham to look up and picture if he could count the stars of the sky. He couldn’t. The same will be with his descendants. Abraham couldn’t count all of them either. The same with sand on the sea.
Sledge doesn’t read it that way. Instead, he gives a count of how many stars are on the sky and says how many more descendants of Abraham there need to be. Whoa! God’s promise has fallen short.
This is an argument so ridiculous that no one can really take it seriously.
Yet another argument of his is apparently one in a book of his on four disturbing questions. Right now, my funds are tight and I have a lot of books on Kindle to read already, but I hope to get at least this one to see how bad the questions are. One such question is why didn’t God tell us about germs.
To begin with, let’s suppose the answer is “I don’t know.” It’s not mine, but let’s suppose it is. Does this refute the arguments for the existence of God? No. Does it refute the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus? No. Does it refute arguments for biblical reliability? No. At best, it simply demonstrates there are things we don’t know, including about God, and if God exists, shouldn’t there be things about Him we don’t know or understand?
Let’s go a bit deeper. First, what was the Bible supposed to say? “There are beings that you cannot see that cause you get to sick so wash your hands?” Even if this was said, we haven’t been good at following the advice already in the Bible. Why think we would follow this one?
Second, if it was there, the next question would be why not tell us about something else? Why didn’t God tell us about how to reach our protein count for the day? Why didn’t God teach us about how to prepare meat properly? Why didn’t God teach us how to make iPhones?
Another point to consider is while some handwashing is better than none, the water wasn’t exactly pure and pristine in those times. If anyone still got sick, people would look and say “See? That passage is nonsense. You washed and got sick anyway.”
Third, in the incarnation, there’s no reason to think Jesus would have known about germs. Now am I denying the deity of Christ? Not at all. However, Jesus in the incarnation we know did not know everything. He only knew what was essential for His mission. That does not mean it would include germs.
These are just three reasons. Some of you will be able to think of more. Even if we don’t know the reasons, that only demonstrates that we are ignorant. It doesn’t demonstrate that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead or that God doesn’t exist.
Perhaps sometime soon I will get to go through more of Sledge’s material, but looking at what happens on Twitter, his account is being seen more as a joke than anything serious. Still, it could be fun to just look.
In Christ,
Nick Peters