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The author of Deuteronomy says
that God tests man to see if he loves him:
"The LORD your God is
testing you to find out whether you love him with all
your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 13:3)
However, this is contradicted by the authors of John and Psalm, who make it
quite clear that God does not have to "find out" anything, for he
already
knows everything:
"Now we can see that you know all things (John 16:30)...Lord, thou knowest
all things" (John 21:17)
Apologists argue that we should add words to Deuteronomy in order to understand
the passages "real" meaning:
"The LORD your God is
testing you [so you will] find out whether you love him with all your heart and
all your soul."
This doesn't stand up well under
scrutiny. Aside from the fact that the subject of the verb phrase "find
out" is arbitrarily changed from "God" to "you," there
is another reason for rejecting the apologists' argument. Let's take a closer
look at Deuteronomy 13:
If a prophet…says, "Let
us follow other gods"…you must not listen to [his] words…The LORD your God
is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with
all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow…You must purge the evil
from among you….If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife
you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go
and worship other gods"…You must certainly put him to death. (Deuteronomy
13:1-9)
Only in the wishful imagination
of the apologists does Deuteronomy 13 have anything to do with discovering how
deep is one's love of God. The central message of this chapter deals with
threats of death, not loving. The writer is not telling us that God puts
false gods before us to give us the chance to see how great our love for God
is, but to test us to see whether our brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend
should kill us.