Testing, 1, 2, 3

One of the more interesting claims made by Jesus is, "You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." My first reaction to reading this statement is "You are not my Lord, not my God!" But a more interesting response is, "Why?"

Pierre Elliott Trudeau once wrote, "If my father, my priest, or my king wants to exert authority over me, if he wants to give me orders, he has to be able to explain, in a way that satisfies my reason, on what grounds he must command and I must obey." Well said, P.E.T., but let us add God to this list. If you want to "the Lord, my God," then you will submit to my test. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The claim to be God, and the claim that the status of God gives you the right to expect my obedience are both extraordinary claims. Therefore beings like you, were you to exist, must pass my test, my extraordinary test.

Why God would want to avoid any test (not unlike some of my students) is obvious. My students feel they are too stupid or are too lazy to study sufficiently to pass my test. Similarly, God may be insufficiently omnipotent, omniscient, and/or omnibenevolent to pass even my simple tests. Well, that may not be fair analogy. I'm pretty sure my students exist. Perhaps God is merely insufficiently existent.