Gods Silence Part 1

There seems to be a series of questions which can be posed against the Christian as to why God is so hidden or silent in the world.

Question #1: Why didn't God wait to send His son until humans had the technology to document his miracles, death and resurrection?

Like all questions there is an argument behind this. The reasoning of this argument, I believe, goes as follows;

1) If Christ would have come when His miracles could have been documented He would have convinced the most  people of His existence and the truth of His claims.

2) Christ did not come when His miracles could have been documented.

3) Therefore Christ did not convince the most people of His existence and the truth of His claims.

4) Christ came to convince the most people of His existence and the truth of His claims

5) Therefore, Christ failed to convince the most people of His existence and the truth of His claims

6) God does not fail

7) Therefore, Christ is not God

Now, this argument could be attacked in a number of ways, but the most vulnerable premise seems to be 1. There are a number of problems with 1. First of all, there is the issue of how it is possible to know what would happen if Christ came later. How would history have played out if Christianity had not existed? How would technology and society have developed? These questions don't seem answerable by agents in our position. Whats more, there are some serious problems with God waiting to send His son. For one thing, we know in this timeline it took 2000 years for recording technology to be developed. That's 2000 more years of hundreds of millions of people not being saved. Additionally we know first hand how fast Christianity can and has spread throughout the world. today 2.2 billion people affiliate themselves with Christianity. Interestingly most of the regions of the greatest growth are in Africa and Asia, continents with a great many 3rd world countries as well as nations who are not so friendly to the Christian tradition.

Is Christian ethics based upon fear?

Does Christianity teach that our primary motivation for doing good is the fear of hell?

The reasoning behind this seems to be that because there is the threat of going to hell for doing evil, that threat must be the motivation for Christians doing good. Well there's just one tiny problem, Christians, at least Protestants, don't believe its possible to get out of that punishment by doing good. The only way to get out of hell is to do commit one's life to Christ for the forgiveness of sins and receive the Holy Spirit for sanctification. Aha, the atheist will say, that only pushes the question back one step, isn't your only motivation for salvation then to escape hell. No but it is a motivation certainly, the main motivation should be, at least, to desire to worship and enjoy God forever.

Honestly, I don't see why atheists view this as a serious objection. For one thing it assumes motivation is a central part of what makes ethical decision ethical. But why should we believe that, especially on a naturalist view? The objection may be more effective if posed as an objection against the consistency of Christian ethics. But that even has shortfalls as it can easily be shown that there are noble and ethical motivations for doing good. Additionally, even the Christian worldview allows for the idea that an action can be moral even if one or more of one's motives is not moral. Which is another problem with this argument, it seems to assume that there can only be one motivation for an action. This seems obviously false.

In conclusion then, it would seem that if the atheist wants to make any sort of argument out of this objection, they have some work to do.

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/fear_morality.html