Morality, Power, and the Problem of a Self-Sufficient God

A structured synthesis arguing that human moral and religious authority remains historically entangled with power and has never been authenticated in a way that distinguishes revelation from human assertion — so obedience cannot be justified by claiming divine warrant alone. The case runs in two independent movements that converge. The first (Sections 1–6) is metaphysical: whether a self-sufficient, omniscient God could have any coherent, non-self-referential reason to create a world and command its creatures — engaging the actus purus defense (Davies, with Stump's narrative theodicy as a distinct Thomist alternative), accommodation, Molinism, and the punitive structure of the biblical text. The second (Sections 7–10) is historical and behavioral: the observed conduct of moral-religious systems — how they bind and mobilize groups and serve as the contested lever of power — is fully explained without appeal to a divine author. Sections 11–14 clear the metaethical ground (burden of proof, moral variation, "evil" as a moving designation). The conclusion rests on a final pair of moves (Sections 15–19): no claimed revelation has been authenticated — the public-revelation counter (Sinai; Paul's five hundred) is answered directly — and since authentication fails, the diagnostic question that replaces obedience is cui bono: who benefits if the claim is believed? The diagnostic is scoped against its own misuse and is finally turned on the essay's own recommendation. An appendix states the argument's honest limits. A condensed, general-audience version of the same case is available as a separate essay, "Who Told You That Was God?" This work is disclosed under the Earned Trust standard (AIast): byline mark LI-AIast5; the full function-tag breakdown and workflow statement appear in the Disclosure section of the paper. Working transcripts available on request. Changes in this version: (1) Content alignment — five argumentative developments from the companion essay carried into the formal register (the scriptural oscillation between the "vast" and "near" God, Section 1; the accommodation defense answered, Section 5; the public-revelation counter of Sinai and 1 Corinthians 15:6 answered, Section 16; faith analyzed as the reply that ends examination, Section 16; the cui bono diagnostic scoped against misuse with the burden-direction repair, Section 18), with the Cambodia case and the Henrician jurisdiction argument developed from sources (Harris 2005, 2013; Bernard 2005). (2) External review — twenty passage-level review comments (Perplexity) individually adjudicated and applied, including a thesis-inverting typo in the appendix, corrected attributions (Stump/Davies; the evolutionary-arithmetic analogy per Joyce and Sinnott-Armstrong), and bibliographic corrections (Plamper 2012; Shankara's dating). (3) Structure — the metaphysical movement consolidated from nine sections to six (23 to 20 sections overall) with all cross-references renumbered. (4) Apparatus — chapter- or verse-level locators added for direct quotations; References expanded (Bernard, Calvin, Craig, Harris, Joyce, Sinnott-Armstrong, the Earned Trust standard; Bible entry expanded to all cited books, KJV); byline and disclosure conformed to the Earned Trust standard (LI-AIast5, with a full Disclosure section and workflow statement); CC BY 4.0 license stated in the document.