Cause and Effect
Insisting that God's laws and punishments are arbitrary necessarily involves a denial of the principle of cause and effect that operates throughout all of creation. To believe that God demands obedience simply because He is powerful, intimidating and threatening rather than because He knows how reality is designed is to blind ourselves to the fact that sin produces its own consequences rather than God imposing punishments on us. It is a very dangerous path to follow to claim that God must impose punishments for every sin, for it is the very same path that led Lucifer to become the greatest demon in the universe. It was fallen Lucifer that originated this idea to start with, and he is the one Jesus identified as being the father of all lies. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan ; and if God should remit the punishment of sin, He would not be a God of truth and justice. {DA 761} Viewing God as arbitrary rather than logical and sensible always leads us int...