Does doctrinal disagreement demonstrate God's incompetence?

We have been discussing the theology of atonement for the last couple weeks. In "Mysteries for Poets and Skeptics" I quoted AnAtheist.net who quipped in one of those threads (with a mischievous chortle, no doubt):

"I wonder if He [God] gets a certain amount of pleasure (as much as I do) from watching all of these theologians wrestle and disagree with one another over His plan of salvation for 2,000 years."

It does not take a master of interpretation to read between the lines the skeptic's poke of sarcasm. So I responded in the article with my own playful jab back at AnAtheist.net:

"That could be. If it is then I bet God gets equal pleasure watching scientists fumble trying to understand the origin of the universe, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, the origin of life, the relationship between consciousness and the brain, and innumerable other issues."

AnAtheist.net was not overly impressed with my rejoinder and so he lobbed back a reply which is the subject of our present discussion. AnAtheist.net's points were twofold. Let's start with the first to see if there is any oomph in it.

"That could be. However, there are two problems with that response (a response which I was sadly expecting). Our alleged eternal lives do not depend on any of these scientific issues. Nobody is fretting over the status of other people's souls because the nature of dark energy is unknown. In contrast, God's supposed plan of salvation is pretty significant. Taking the wrong side of a disagreement could, quite literally, damn you to hell."

First note that AnAtheist.net says mine was "a response which I was sadly expecting". This is the old "I sadly saw your lame reply coming from a mile away" jab. That's very good as a rhetorical swipe, except that I saw that AnAtheist.net would offer his reply to my reply and it made me so sad in fact that it was a cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now on to his substance. There seems to be an argument here of the "scientific mysteries are tolerable but theological ones are not" type. The argument, in short, seems to be that it is immoral, or suggests a divine dereliction of duty, for God to have allowed there to remain theological ambiguity which could lead to disagreements that can damn one to hell.

This point is misguided. It presumes that one could, based on good evidence, nonculpably adopt a theological position which turns out to be in error and for which one will be punished. But this is not a Christian position. Instead, the Christian position is that anybody who is damned is ultimately damned because they have chosen that fate for themselves. They choose not to submit to God and serve him but instead utter that infamous prayer of Satan in "Paradise Lost": "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." Now it is possible that a person might then adopt a particular theological position as a result of that rebellious insubordination, but that is a very different thing from being damned simply because one chose the wrong theory.

This brings us to AnAtheist.net's second, and by his own admission more important, argument:

"But more importantly, scientists do not claim divine revelation as a source for their scientific theories. Their knowledge is by necessity imperfect. Theologians, however, do claim to be working with divine revelation. To say that divine revelation is unclear (or puzzling or problematic) is to assert that God is unclear. So not only is this a matter in which utmost clarity is essential, it is a matter where utmost clarity would be expected given its alleged divine source."

Let's call this the problem of divine clarity. If God is maximally competent as a pedagogue (and presumably being God, he is) then he would be maximally competent to communicate truths about himself. So why hasn't he?

Alas, the point is misguided. It may be crucial to know that Christ atoned for our sins, but it is not crucial to know how or in what precise sense he atoned for our sins. It may be crucial to know that God is triune, but it is not crucial to know how or in what precise sense God is triune, et cetera.

Here's an analogy. Your daughter has to walk home every day through a dark alley and so as a concerned parent you furnish her with a vial of pepper spray. Is it crucial for you to explain to her how the capsaicin works to irritate the eyes and cause temporary blindness? Uh, no. What is important is that you explain the basics of point away from yourself and spray in the eyes. That is sufficient knowledge to debilitate a potential attacker and thus use the spray successfully.

God has provided humanity with sufficient knowledge to be in right relationship with him. We are free to debate the theological equivalents of capsaicin chemical reactions without worrying that failure to do so adequately will have fatal results.