I feel that I must ask the question Why, among all the useful and decorative trees, did God deliberately include this tree, the tree that comes with the warning “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; in a garden that’s supposed to be paradise? Isn’t that like putting a gaping manhole in the center of a children’s playground? If I were a prosecutor and God was faced before a tribunal, I would slap him with Administrative Negligence charges.

So let’s consider the word “test”.

Why would an omniscient God need to ‘test’ the faith of his constituents? Wouldn’t such a being already know how faithful a person is? Do ‘tests of faith’ validate that God is not omniscient, or do they merely represent God’s diffidence? Isn’t that being analogous to a wife or girlfriend who needs to hear their significant other say “I love you”, even though such feelings are already displayed in so many other ways? If God does this simply so that we might realizethe level of our own faiths, then he must surely take cruel delight in torturing us so that we learn something we and he already know.

The question is: ‘is God not omniscient? Is God merely as pesky as my Ex Girlfriend? Or is god a sadistic deity who needs to be humbled?

IMO, the term “test of faith” was coined out of human necessity to be comforted, brought on to chase away the idea that God had, in some way, rejected a person through the assignment of misfortune. Instead of feeling that God punished you by causing to lose your house for your sins (Like not settling mortgage but instead availing the services of a prostitute weekly), one can say that God is “testing your faith”, and thus feel significantly better about your predicament.

Well anyways…read on…