My focus was more on the part talking about lying.
Except that God is the epitome of absoluteness. He is all powerful, He is all knowing, He is all wise, He is all present. All of those are amoral characteristics. When you say He is all good, and then you say that He lies sometimes, those caveats and exceptions matter more than the amoral caveats and exceptions.
How so?
God is what He is.
What does "the epitome of absoluteness" even mean? For that matter, what does it mean to say the God is all powerful, all knowing, all wise, and all present? Are you certain that those ideas are biblical? They sound Greek to me, as in Aristotelian.
Biblically, we know that God is the fountainhead of all power but that He delegates power to others and grants them the ability to do things for themselves. We know that God can do anything doable, that He wants to do but that He cannot do the rationally absurd, like be in a place that does not exist or create a perfect cube that has only four sides or any other self-contradictory thing. Biblically, we know that God knows all that is knowable that He wants to know and that He is able to find out that which He doesn't already know. We know that God is perfectly, wise in that there can be no such thing as an error of His judgment or a flaw in His understanding. And, finally, we know that God can be present at all places at once but that He is only in those places that He chooses to be.
The typical dogma that is taught concerning these issues in most Christian circles comes from the Greek philosophy of the Classics that was imported into Christianity by Augustine and goes well beyond the biblical material, which I could establish if you feel it necessary.
That's a good explanation.
When I think of "the immoral sort of lying", it presumes a "moral sort of lying," and
@JudgeRightly gave us some examples. The reason those example exist is that there is a greater power exerting pressure to do a greater evil than the lying. I can't think of any examples that wouldn't include that.
This presupposes that all lying is evil and, worse than that, that God sanctions choosing the lesser of two evils. That cannot be the case, for what is hopefully obvious reasons. The lesser of two evils is still evil. God does not sanction evil and He most certainly does not reward evil - period.
You are, however, quite correct when you observe that "the immoral sort of lying", presumes a "moral sort of lying,".
Why do you reject that premise? Isn't the biblical material compelling?
But with God, there is no greater power that can exert pressure on Him. That makes me think there's never any reason for God to lie "morally".
Well, there's what you think and then there's the plain reading of HIS word? Why do you believe your thinking over God's own testimony?
I Kings 22:20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ 22 The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ 23 Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”
Notice that this passage quotes The Lord God Himself. "Go out and do so.", are the words that the scripture puts into God's own mouth.
Given the above passage and the others cited by JudgeRightly, I see two and only two alternatives.
1. God not only sanctions but orders his prophets to do evil and is, therefore, evil Himself, or...
2. Lying is not always evil.
Clete
