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Saturday, March 6, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article III) Ten Principles in Understanding God

[Profanity, Blasphemy and personal attacks will get the poster banned without warning. If you wish to disagree with the article, please be civil and respectful in doing so.]

Introduction

In order to understand the actions of God and His decrees, we need to understand what is believed about God and His authority over creation. Atheists and non-Christians may disagree with the Christian understanding of course, but in order to ask of us "How can you worship a God who commands these things?" one first needs to understand the God we worship. It is only right to attack the God we actually believe in, and not what unbelievers think this God must be based only on their own reading of Scripture.

Playing with etymologies, explanations from followers of obscure sects and views of non-Christian religions are nothing more than the logical fallacy of appeal to irrelevant authority in this case.

The Underlying Unproved Assumption Used In the Charge

To impute evil intent to God (which is kind of ironic, given that atheists deny His existence), one has to know that the intent of God was in fact malicious. Otherwise, what a person has is seeing an action without knowing the context. It's like the scene in Dirty Harry where the mayor mentions a past action of Callahan, indicating he acted without cause:

Harry Callahan: Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the [expletive]. That's my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How did you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher's knife and a [expletive], I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross!

When the reasoning of Callahan was not known, it was assumed by those outside the incident that he acted recklessly. However, once the reasoning was known, the action was seen in an entirely different light.

The same principle applies here. To condemn the act of God, we have to understand the circumstances and motive of God if our judgment is to be reasonable. Christians believe the accounts of Scripture… especially through the Prophetic books… show us what God intends by chastisement. If God behaves consistently in his actions (which we believe) then we can apply His words of warning for later chastisements as reasons for earlier chastisements.

If this claim that God is unchanging sounds like an assumption of things unproven, let us remember that even Dawkins recognizes that the Christian view holds God does not change… indeed he tries to use this as a proof to argue that God is less than perfect by using a rhetorical trick in The God Delusion:

Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. (pp. 77-78)

(Parenthesis: Of course St. Thomas Aquinas demonstrated why this was wrong almost 800 years ago [See Summa Contra Gentiles book 1 for example], but that's outside the scope of this article. Short answer is: God being perfect, He knows what the best action is when He wills it. To change His mind would mean the initial choice was faulty. So the ability to change one's mind is not a sign of omnipotence.)

The point here is that even Dawkins recognizes Christians believe God does not change His mind. Some may wish to debate this point, but that is outside the scope of this article. (And to be honest, if a person does not believe in God to begin with, why would he want to?)

Getting back to the main point, no doubt some non-Christians will disagree with the Christian view, but one has to recognize that Christian beliefs concerning God's actions are that these actions were not done arbitrarily or out wishing to destroy innocent life.

An interpretation that God does have malicious intent seems to be based on the assumption that "religion is evil" and therefore a harmful intent is attributed to these sorts of events.

We Must Always Consider Context

Therefore, before one accuses Christians of “picking and choosing” verses, one needs to recognize that to take the statements literally without considering the context of the times, idioms of speech and how Christians have always understood the teachings of Scriptures. Otherwise one is railing against a view of God that Christians do not believe in.

The atheist who overlooks this is falling into the trap of Literalism, taking the Scriptures out of context. The result will be a conclusion which is far from the intention of how Scripture is understood by Christians.

The Christian View of the Bible vs. Other Views

Now Christians indeed may differ on whether it is intended to be “The Bible Alone” (a position I do not hold to) or “Bible and Tradition” (which I do hold) but in either case, the Christian normally believes in the concept of understanding the Bible is as a whole and not by taking incidents in isolation.

In contrast, the non-believer often accepts the idea that the Bible is merely a collection of stories and laws which often contradict each other.

The reason this is important is because it shows how one deals with the claims of the “Cruel Bible.” If the Bible is merely a collection of unrelated stories, then the atheist is justified in asking how Christians can believe in a God who commands such things.

However, because the Christian believes in the idea of the Bible being divinely inspired even though the books are written in different eras, they are all seen as inspired by the same God who has the same intent through all of these incidents.

Therefore, when we look at the acts of God in the Bible regarding the chastisement of people, we need to consider what God has said and not merely assume there are contradictions. For example, God says in Ezekiel 18:

¹The word of the Lord came to me again: ²“What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? ³As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. ⁴Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.

⁵“ If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right— ⁶if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, ⁷does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ⁸does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man, ⁹walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances—he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.

¹⁰“If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, ¹¹who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, ¹²oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, ¹³lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.

¹⁴“But if this man begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and fears, and does not do likewise, ¹⁵who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, ¹⁶does not wrong any one, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ¹⁷withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no interest or increase, observes my ordinances, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. ¹⁸As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.

¹⁹“Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. ²⁰The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

²¹“But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ²²None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. ²³Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? ²⁴But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.

²⁵“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? ²⁶When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. ²⁷Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. ²⁸Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. ²⁹Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

³⁰“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. ³¹Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? ³²For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”

God calls for repentance and punishes each for their own sins, not for the sins of another, and only punishes them to the extent of their culpability. As we see in Luke 12:

⁴⁷And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. ⁴⁸But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.

From the Christian view, God exacts punishment on those who are guilty, and therefore, because we believe God is good and just, it follows that if God takes an action of punishment… whether directly or through a human agent… it is done to punish the guilty and not the indiscriminate raining down of destruction.

The atheist may think the God of the Old Testament does evil, but this is an assertion which requires proof, not assumptions.

Introduction to the Objections Against God

Now in Article IV I will look at to some of the other things which are troubling at first glance: The claims of slavery and the actions of Moses and God’s punishment of David. In Article V I will deal with the accusation of Genocide. Because it is recognized that God commands these things, some atheists claim that such a God could not be considered good and neither could the Bible be considered a work of good. Before we do this, I believe we should discuss certain principles Christians hold to understand where we come from.

Christians are viewed by some to believe (and unfortunately, some Christians do wrongly believe) that what God wills is arbitrary and is “good” because “He says so,” and that if God somehow "changed His mind" we might consent to doing evil in the future.

Of course it isn't entirely theoretical. We have seen the example of extremist Islam (popular with the "New Atheists" as a club to bash all religion), and some may think there is a link between what Islam does today and what the Jews of the Old Testament did then. Certainly I have seen some atheists indicate that Christians are just waiting for the chance to shout Allahu Akhbar and slay all the non believers.

Some Principles to Keep In Mind

Fairness requires us to consider certain things. We can't just pick the elements out of Scripture we want and give them the interpretation which suits us. We need to remember that, when looking at a time a few millennia in the past, the expectations of the modern world largely did not exist. The following are ten principles which most Christians recognize when studying the actions of God in the Bible. While the reader is free to reject them, this will help one to understand how Christians understand God acting in the Bible.

Principle One: Christians Believe God is Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Pure Good

Any attempt to say God "changed His mind" or "was wrong" is contrary to the Christian view. We reject motives that God is evil or fallible. When it comes to the debate with non-Christians about the nature of God, this is outside of the scope of this series of articles. However, to understand the Christian view of these Scriptures, this point must be remembered.

Principle Two: God, as Creator of All That Exists, Has Authority to Judge His Creation

This needs to be remembered because if God exists, and He has set forth a Natural Law (See Principle Four, below), then it follows that to violate His Natural Law is to suffer the consequences. If societies in the Middle East did things which were against what we all know is evil, then the consequences will follow if the people refuse to repent. If God creates a Natural law (discussed in Article I) which all people can know, then He has the right to exact punishment on those who defy it. If He does so, He may do so directly (Divine Wrath) or He may do so using natural means (such as plagues, natural disasters and the like) or human agents (such as when other nations oppressed Israel for their disobedience).

We also need to remember that while God may command a thing, the Israelites were not mindless zombies who carried out what God commanded with no sense of control. Nor were those nations who oppressed Israel mindless zombies. They did have free will in how they carried out what was required of them. This means that if there is a divergence between the command and the practice, it does not mean God condoned the divergence.

Principle Three: God, as Creator of All Life, Determines How Long All Have to Live

In the "democratic" view of the world, it is often assumed that man is the master of his own fate. However, this is simply not true. There are things outside of our control which affect these things. I might live another fifty years. I might die tomorrow in a traffic accident. It is foolish to rail against such a thing being "unjust."

Now, when we remember that God is the author of all life, we can recognize that we only have a limited allotment of time, the amount we cannot know. If God permits a wicked man a long life that he might repent, this is not unjust. If He shortens the life of an infant, this is not unjust either. It would be wrong to see the wicked man as being "rewarded" and it would be wrong to see the infant as "punished."

Now don't confuse this with Fatalism. We don't believe man cannot help what he does. If he could not help what he did, there would be no good in being moral and no fault in being immoral. The evil we do is because of our free will. Rather I am saying that if God decrees a long life to one and a short life to another, we have no cause to object.

Principle Four: God Makes Known To Us What Is Required of Us

God does not come out of nowhere to condemn us for something which we have no idea about. While there is a common maxim in criminal justice that “Ignorance is no excuse for the law”, in dealing with God, He does not punish us for what we cannot know and would be impossible for us to know (called Invincible Ignorance), but only for what we do know, or could know if we had bothered to check (Vincible Ignorance).

Now to those whom God gives knowledge of His revelation do not have the excuse of not knowing His will. This is why the Jews would be punished by violating the law, and why the Catholic Church teaches:

All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged. (Lumen Gentium #14)

This may explain ideas of God’s judgment of Christians or Jews, but what about the judging of people who did not have this revelation?

We should consider Romans 2:12-16

¹²All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ¹⁴When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them ¹⁶on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

We should also consider Luke 12 and Ezekiel 18 which were mentioned above in the section titled "The Christian View of the Bible vs. Other Views."

As I pointed out in Article I of this series, the idea of Natural Law indicates there is knowledge among all peoples about what is right and wrong, that we are to do good and avoid evil. I also pointed out that if God exists, then Natural Law gives all people the obligation to do good and avoid evil in relation to God.

Because all men know certain things are evil, societies which practice these evils stand condemned whether they accept the authority of God or not.

Principle Five: Free Will Exists

God did not intend to found a perfect earthly kingdom focused on the material world. Rather, He intended to bring salvation to the entire world. However the human race was living in sin because the people abused their free will. However, if God willed man to have free will, the answer was not for God to override our Free Will.

St. Thomas Aquinas mentions in Summa Contra Gentiles Book I, Chapter 84:

[1] From this it appears that the will of God cannot be of the things that are impossible in themselves.

For these have a contradiction in themselves, for example, that man is an ass, in which the rational and the irrational are included. For what is incompatible with something excludes some of the things that are necessary to it, as to be an ass excludes man’s reason. If, then, God necessarily wills the things that are required for what He wills by supposition, it is impossible for Him to will what is incompatible with these things. Thus, it is impossible for God to will the absolutely impossible.

If God's will is for man to possess free will, then the existence of a man without free will is impossible just as a Triangle with four sides is impossible, because the definition of a triangle requires it to have three sides. If it has four, it wouldn't be a triangle. Likewise, without free will (or potential for free will in the case of infants and individuals with impaired minds… we don't believe they are not human) the being would not be a human.

With the Christian understanding of free will, we need to remember that the argument of "Why didn't God just make the people do X" is missing the point. The answer to this is that if God has made man free to follow Him by choice, it also follows that man has the ability to reject God.

Now this doesn't mean that man having the ability to reject God allows man to reject God without suffering consequences. I may have the ability to buy a gun and go on a shooting spree. This doesn't mean I am going to avoid prison or to be gunned down by the police if I do this. I am able to keep the law or break the law. If I obey the law, I avoid consequences. If I break the law, I suffer the consequences.

This is also important because if God speaks through the prophets warning oppression, by men, as punishment for Israel's sins (See Preliminary Three below), this does not mean God forces these men to act against their will. They act under their own motives even when the end result, from God's view, is chastisement.

Principle Six: God's Revelation Deals with People in History

Compared to the myths of the pagans which happened "long ago" the revelation of God reaches people in a certain culture in a certain time period. Because of this, the laws of God deal with what man is compared to what man should be. When God reveals Himself to Abraham or to Moses, we see there were certain customs of society which had been long practiced. Some things which went directly against God's will and natural law were condemned outright. Other things were restricted with the intention of changing over time.

This doesn't mean we believe in relative values where something which was bad in one era was good in another. Rather it means we are looking at a society where what kept social cohesion, public order and other elements in line were based on force rather than formal law. If a king wanted you dead, you didn't appeal to your constitutional rights. You either fled or died. The people who live in this perspective may not be ready to understand the fullness of God’s revelation.

This also does not mean, as some Modernist Christians seem to believe, that teachings of God on sexual morality can be overturned because of its age. This is to confuse the ultimate will of God in Christ with actions which were done in preparation for this final revelation.

Principle Seven: Recognizing This Was a Brutal Time

From this point of God acting in history, we need to be clear on something. The Middle East, some 3000-4000 years ago was not like cosmopolitan New York. There was no Constitution, no Supreme Court, and no sense of Law. Let's face it. If a tribe back then existed which behaved with the sentiments of America today, it would in very short order have become an extinct tribe.

This doesn't mean "the ends justify the means." It means the ways of enforcing the law and defending oneself from wrongdoers was more brutal than it would be today.

We are dealing with a time when raids among tribes, sacking and pillaging cities, killing the men and kidnapping wives, and taking slaves were practiced by all the cultures which were here before the Israelites came from Egypt. What is portrayed in Genesis was a common practice and not commanded by God.

Of course there were practices we recognize as offensive today, but were widely accepted then. This happens in every generation. Consider the case of racism in America, especially prior to the Civil Rights movement. Now I was born in 1968, I belong to a faith which says all human beings are children of God and must be treated as such, and I have parents who were raised to think racism was wrong, so for me it is often difficult to understand how so many in America could think of certain races as genetically inferior to others. However, such practices were indeed common, and not long ago were publically accepted as normal.

Now I do not bring up this point with the intention of creating a tu quoque argument to say "Well everybody did it!" Wrong is wrong, whether a society recognizes it or not. Rather I believe this is important to remember because we need to consider this when seeing if there are differences in context concerning actions in the Old Testament. The understanding why some actions require immediate action while others can take awhile to become known will come up in the next Principle.

Principle Eight: Chastisement vs. Recapitulation

While in Preliminary Two, I pointed out that God may need to chastise a person or a society in severe cases. In lesser cases, it may be better to gradually change a society by putting on restrictions a little at a time. All of humanity is fallen, in the Christian view, and needs a savior. However, humanity, being fallen, cannot grasp all of what is expected of them at once. We have, instead, the revelation of God which makes some absolutes and also puts restrictions on other things, with the aim of gradually eliminating them. God can create a perfect set of laws for us and drop it in our laps… but would we have the ability to comply with it? Especially all at once?

God did not intend to create a perfect earthly society. His intent was saving each one of us. Cultures have a finite existence, but each human has an immortal soul. However, people are social. They form societies. These societies can at times act for good. They can act for evil. Now what happens when a society acts in a way which is wrong but does not understand it is wrong? For most of history and among most cultures, for example, slavery was common. So common that a simple decree of "No more slaves" could be extremely disruptive and perhaps cause more harm than good. What other ways are there to turn a society against such evil?

There is the option of gradually bringing people into line by placing restrictions on what one may do in certain circumstances, preparing them for the fullness of salvation.

This is called Recapitulation (or less commonly, Divine Accommodation). The fullness of salvation is in Christ, while in the time leading up to Christ was a time of preparation for this message of salvation. What will be in time recognized as wrong is restricted and made more difficult. Remember, the Law was given to the Jews as a preparation for Christ. We can see this in Matthew 19:

³And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” ⁷They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” ⁸He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

The Jews would have made an error about God seeking to gradually bring a fallen people to the right understanding, thinking instead this was a command instead of an act of tolerance.

So, with this in mind, we need to address why is there the difference between the Chastisement of some, and Recapitulation for others. It is a quite valid question, and I will do my best to answer it.

The choice of God is based on what is needed to bring a nation to its senses, and what they can handle. A nation which does not know and cannot know what God wills (Catholics call this Invincible Ignorance) may be dealt with differently than a nation which can and does know what God wills yet defies Him, or even can know His Natural Law and refuses to find out (we call this Vincible Ignorance).

The differences seem to be is that the nations which were chastised (which would include Israel in time) were chastised for things they knew were wrong, and nations which were guided received guidance over things they did not know.

Principle Nine: Societies Can Embrace Evil to the Extent that It Corrupts the People Within

This too is important to remember. An individual society which rejects the natural law can embrace things which are barbaric. Consider the Romans who enjoyed the blood sports of the Arenas where men could fight to the death for the entertainment of others. In such a case, it is not enough to direct an action at individuals when the society encourages the individual to embrace an evil. Nazi Germany is an example of how a once democratic nation turned to a brutal form of fascism. So long as the Nazis were successful, most Germans were willing to look the other way when it came to evils.

In such a case we do see that the merely targeting Hitler or Goebbels would not necessarily have changed the society of Nazi Germany so long as people tolerated the evil they did. It took a war to unmake the evil which existed in Nazi Germany. In drastic cases, such action is necessary to protect the neighbors of such an evil society.

In the issue of chastisement versus recapitulation, some evils do such harm that recapitulation is not the response. Yes, Jesus is the fullness of revelation. However, when a society willfully embraces known evil, then chastisement is appropriate.

Principle Ten: Chastisement is not just “Being Mean”

Punishment generally is recognized as having at least one (and usually more) of the following elements:

Incapacitation (The person or society punished cannot commit these actions again)
Deterrence (Others are dissuaded from doing the same)
Restitution (Acts which harm others require recompense)
Rehabilitation (For one who will repent, a punishment can bring about a change of behavior)
Retribution (Justice requires that when one suffers harm, repercussions must result)

Most people assume the chastisements of God fall entirely under Retribution. Dawkins, referring to God as “hateful” and so on, seems to make this assumption. However, this is not the only reason for a punishment. A society which is, for example, as wicked as the Nazis needs to be incapacitated, and a society which may be considering emulating the Nazis can be deterred based on the treatment the Nazis received. So, if God has the right to pass judgment on His creation, we need to remember that our personal beliefs of why punishment is enacted may not be why God decreed punishment.

Conclusion

With these ten principles in mind, we can perhaps look objectively at what happened when God has made laws or gives edicts which seem so barbaric in modern times. It is not enough to say "God said X. X is evil. Therefore God is evil." We need to look at the contexts of the times and the events, and not merely "fill in the gaps" with our own interpretation.

Atheists may indeed disagree with the points made in this article. However, the God the atheists call “immoral” is not the God we believe in. To understand what God we believe in requires an understanding of the Christian idea of God. To do otherwise is to commit the Straw man fallacy.

With this in mind, I hope to move on, in Articles IV and V, to the idea of how to look at certain commands of God which seem troubling to modern sensibilities.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article II) A Look At Sinful Men In the Bible

[Note: Profanity, Blasphemy, Insults and the Like will result in the poster being banned without warning. if you wish to disagree with this article, do so in a civilized and respectful manner]

Preliminary Note

This being part II of a series (it was originally going to be a trilogy, but is moving up to five as I edit), this article is limited to the actions of men in the Bible which are considered immoral. The cases I am writing of here are in response to what seems to be a common set of complaints. Please remember, I can't cover every event in the Bible. I can't anticipate every accusation. Nor can I anticipate every misinterpretation of the Old Testament. So consider this a sample of the ones brought to my attention. An omission of a reader’s favorite example was not done to "kick it under the carpet" but was done to discuss some of the more common ones.

The incidents most cited are Lot in Sodom, actions in the Book of Judges (from which comes stories many are scandalized by) and the story of David and Bathsheba (from the perspective of David's actions, not God's action [that will be in article IV], so the article will be limited to these. I believe the principles in rejecting these charges of an “immoral Bible” also apply to others.

Now there are acts of men in the Bible being commanded to do certain things by God. However, since God is the one commanding them, these will be looked at in the next article.

Introduction

What are we to make of those accusations of immoral acts "supported" in the Bible? The accusation generally runs along the lines that people in the Bible do some wicked things, so the Bible can't be considered a source of authority.

While most of the individuals who take this view are ones who seem to be looking for whatever reasons they can grasp to condemn the beliefs of Christians, that doesn't take away the fact that some people are indeed scandalized — and perhaps earnestly — by some of the actions of characters in the Bible. What are we to make of what the Bible records? Does the Bible give sanction to men doing things which seem evil today?

Literalism and Context

To begin with, there is a problem of assumption which, whether sincere or malicious, seems to be a key point of the atheistic scandal with the actions of the Bible, and that is taking things literally without considering the context of the writings.

Just as when I wrote about Biblical Literalists who interpret everything written in the Bible as expressing literal history without considering the genre and the culture of the times, I believe certain atheists do the same thing. While they do not accept the inspiration or inerrancy of the Bible, they do seem to think that the Bible is intended to be interpreted literally using the understanding of the individual reading it.

In any case, Literalists of both sides don't seem to consider the possibility of their own interpreting being in error. I think the issue of the objection to “Evil acts of the Bible” is of the same mindset as the Biblical Literalist, but with the opposite conclusion.

Both hold everything is intended to be literally true from the interpretation of the reader. The difference seems to be that because the Biblical Literalist knows God exists but takes everything literally, he must try to defend everything done in the Bible. Meanwhile the atheist, who attacks certain actions in the Bible, assumes God does not exist and holds everything is understood literally and thinks all of the actions viewed are seen as being good, even if the acts are bad.

Both mindsets fail to consider whether the Bible passages were understood properly. Looking at the charges, I find most of the attacks against Scripture on the "Bad God, Bad Bible" grounds do not understand what it was like to live in a culture of semi-nomadic Middle Easterners some 3,000 years ago.

This is the underlying principle to these accusations, which I believe can be demonstrated as false by looking at the Scriptures themselves.

Bad Acts in the Bible? Of Course. Approving Bad Acts? Not At All.

Let's start with one of the more appalling incidents in the Bible, an event taking place Sodom in Genesis 19 which leads up to the destruction of that city. What generally shocks the reader is how Lot tries to dissuade the inhabitants of Sodom… by offering his daughters instead:

¹The two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed himself with his face to the earth, ²and said, “My lords, turn aside, I pray you, to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the street.” ³But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; ⁵and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” ⁶Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, ⁷and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.

Now I have heard people point to this and say that this was an evil act on the part of Lot to offer his daughters to be raped, and they argue this proves the Bible can't be good. The problem is: where does it say what Lot did was good? This is an assumption which one does not find proof for in the Bible.

Now it is true that the customs of the time and region (for all the region, not just the predecessors of the Jews) held the hospitality offered to a guest to be sacrosanct, but we see nothing in this passage to indicate Lot was doing good by offering his two daughters to be abused instead. Lot may have sincerely thought this was his duty of course, but it does not follow that such an act was good before God or to the writer of Genesis or to the reader at the time of the book being written. Haydock's commentary on the Old Testament mentions this comment by Menochius:

Some allow that, under so great a perturbation of mind, he consented to an action which could never be allowed, though it was a less evil.

Now I don't think it was a "less evil" myself, but the commentary raises an interesting point. We have an account of what happened, but not of the motivations behind it. The atheist may argue that there is no proof this was Lot's motivation. The response is: Neither is there proof that Lot's actions were seen as good.

This then is the issue: We have an account of what happened, but not why it happened or motivations for the people acting. So to try to argue the Bible thought Lot's action was good is to commit eisegesis (inserting meaning into the text), and commits the fallacy of argument from silence ("there is nothing disproving what I say, therefore it must be true"). In light of what the Bible will go on to tell us about the evil of prostitution and fornication and rape, it seems more likely that the ancient reader of these texts would have seen them as appalling was well.

In short, all the ink (or bytes) spilled in indignation over this is based on something assumed but not proven: That the Bible was portraying Lot as behaving rightly. I find it interesting that in Genesis 19:30-38, we see this was not the end of the folly of Lot and his family.

So before saying "How wicked the Bible is" one should first be certain they interpret it correctly, knowing the message it is seeking to convey (The depravity of the people of Sodom being punished by God in this case) and not assume that everything which occurs was met with approval.

The Book of Judges Speaks of Good… and Evil

The Book of Judges is another one which has many scandalous actions which offend our modern day sensibilities. In reading this we need to remember we are seeing tales of depravity, not tales of heroes, and we see the description of a spiritual breakdown of Israelite society after the death of Joshua. We are basically seeing Judges (non dynastic military leaders of Israel in times of crisis) who are called to deliver the Israelites from oppression. These judges are people who are portrayed as being flawed individuals who choose wrong things at times. Samson, for example, seems to be more of an anti-hero than a hero for example. The example of Jephthah and his daughter (Judges 11) tells us of a man who, in making a vow, did something explicitly forbidden by the Law: Human sacrifice.

Those who make the claim of the Bible promoting wicked behavior tend to make use of these verses concerning Jephthah to claim God sanctioned this act:

³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.”

³²So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand.

To say that God granted victory because of the vow is to commit a post hoc fallacy. If God intended Jephthah to deliver the Israelites from oppression, He could have delivered them in spite of Jephthah's vow. The assumption that God granted victory because of the vow is to assume a God who can be swayed by bribes. This is an interpretation without evidence to support it.

Notice at the end of the chapter (verses 39-40) we see that the action was remembered with mourning for the daughter, not the anime-like "tragic but necessary action":

And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

So it goes. In each of these chapters we see people of differing moral qualities. God may call these Judges to help Israel in times of oppression, but nowhere do we see any praise for the wicked actions.

This becomes especially clear from Chapter 17 to the end of the book (Judges 21:25). In this section we see a sort of lament to bookend the accounts of the people written about in them. Chapters 17-19 in this section begins each chapter with "In those days, when there was no king in Israel" and each chapter shows practices which we would find reprehensible. (Chapter 20 does not because it is a continuation of chapter 19). Commentators on Scripture refer to this time as a time of anarchy in Israel where there was no authority to enforce the Law.

In these chapters we see accounts of idolatry (chapter 17), banditry (chapter 18), cowardice, rape and brutal murder of a concubine (chapter 19), an intertribal war (chapter 20) and the wink/nod at the abduction of young women to be wives for the almost exterminated Benjaminites (Chapter 21). The book of Judges concludes, saying: "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes."

However in none of these sections do we see anyone tell us God commanded them to do these things, or see the Scriptures say these things were good. Rather we see numerous acts of sin with the refrain of how, because there was no king, people did what they thought was right. Men may make vows to do wicked things, and may even be ignorant of the evil they are doing. However, as we see no evidence of approval for these acts, and indeed the book of Judges follows the Torah which condemn them, it seems to be baseless to say this book endorses immorality.

The book of Judges seems more of a condemnation of moral anarchy of Israel during these times than an endorsement of the behavior within the book, and as such I don’t consider the accusations made of a "wicked Bible" using this book as valid. Such an accusation seems to be taking the events out of context.

King David, Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite

This incident contains both an act of a man, King David, and an act of God spoken through the prophet Nathan. I will deal with the human aspect in this article and the Divine aspect in Article IV.

I was surprised that some atheists have pointed to this sordid case as an example of a Bad Bible given how it turns out. However, since it has been brought to my attention, we can look at it. The story is found in 2 Samuel 11-12. The gist of it is that David stays at home when his armies are at war, sees a woman bathing on the roof of a nearby building, has sex with her and gets her pregnant. He tries to conceal this sin by attempting to get her husband to go home and sleep with Bathsheba (to cover up the sin). When Uriah shows himself to be too devoted to go home while his men are in the field, David orders him to be killed in battle.

Pretty reprehensible, right? Some atheists have used this as a charge against the Bible. After all, David was a Hero and he did something wicked.

Unfortunately for this argument, the Bible also calls this reprehensible. The prophet Nathan goes to David and we have the following account in 2 Sam 12:

¹And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had very many flocks and herds; ³but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. ⁴Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” ⁵Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; ⁶and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; ⁸and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. ⁹Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ ¹¹Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. ¹²For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” ¹³David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.”

Again, this act of immorality was condemned and not condoned by God. Indeed, God sent Nathan to carry His word to David. Those who think such a verse promotes immorality seem to base such an idea on this line of thought:

The Bible speaks approvingly of David
David did evil
Therefore the Bible approves of the evil David did.

But the whole point of Chapter 12 is God did not approve of what David did and, in fact, decreed punishment. Since this punishment leads to actions of God (and a new set of objections against the Bible), that part will be discussed in Article IV of this series.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the actions of men which are pointed to in the Bible as being immoral are in fact considered by believers to be immoral. Because of this, the accusations of the "Immoral Bible" on these grounds are more of a straw man argument than anything legitimate. Just because the Bible speaks of men who obeyed God does not mean they were sinless. The entire point of the Bible is that humanity is alienated from God and needs salvation.

Only through the taking things out of context and failing to understand how the Christian reads the Bible can the accusation be made that the Christian approves of these actions.

With the next two articles (needs to be split… currently over 6000 words), which I suspect will cover the issues most will be interested in, we will look at things which were not done by men on their own action, but were the commands of God.

Article III will be about discussing certain principles Christians believe when looking at the commands of God. Article IV will then be about looking at the actual commands of God on the topics of God's judgment of David and on the topic of slavery. Articles IV and V will be based on the principles discussed in Article III.

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article II) A Look At Sinful Men In the Bible

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Preliminary Note

Now there are acts of men in the Bible being commanded to do certain things by God. However, since God is the one commanding them, these will be looked at in the next article.

Introduction

Literalism and Context

This is the underlying principle to these accusations, which I believe can be demonstrated as false by looking at the Scriptures themselves.

Bad Acts in the Bible? Of Course. Approving Bad Acts? Not At All.

¹The two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed himself with his face to the earth, ²and said, “My lords, turn aside, I pray you, to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the street.” ³But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; ⁵and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” ⁶Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, ⁷and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.

Some allow that, under so great a perturbation of mind, he consented to an action which could never be allowed, though it was a less evil.

The Book of Judges Speaks of Good… and Evil

Those who make the claim of the Bible promoting wicked behavior tend to make use of these verses concerning Jephthah to claim God sanctioned this act:

³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.”

³²So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand.

Notice at the end of the chapter (verses 39-40) we see that the action was remembered with mourning for the daughter, not the anime-like "tragic but necessary action":

And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

King David, Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite

This incident contains both an act of a man, King David, and an act of God spoken through the prophet Nathan. I will deal with the human aspect in this article and the Divine aspect in Article IV.

Pretty reprehensible, right? Some atheists have used this as a charge against the Bible. After all, David was a Hero and he did something wicked.

Unfortunately for this argument, the Bible also calls this reprehensible. The prophet Nathan goes to David and we have the following account in 2 Sam 12:

¹And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had very many flocks and herds; ³but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. ⁴Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” ⁵Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; ⁶and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; ⁸and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. ⁹Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ ¹¹Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. ¹²For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” ¹³David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.”

The Bible speaks approvingly of David
David did evil
Therefore the Bible approves of the evil David did.

Conclusion

Only through the taking things out of context and failing to understand how the Christian reads the Bible can the accusation be made that the Christian approves of these actions.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article I): A Look At What Morality Is

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What are we to make of the accusations of certain individuals who claim that actions in the Bible are in fact immoral, and therefore negate the claims of goodness?

To me, it seems to be in part a rejection of sola scriptura which gives primacy to the Bible while keeping to the claims that the personal interpretation of the Bible is all that is needed.

Another part of it seems based in seeking to reject the claims of moral authority of the Christians who invoke the Bible.

The problem, of course, is the issue of understanding what Christians hold. An attack on something not understood will generally fail to attack what Christians believe. Thus, in attacks on the Catholic Church for example, we often see attacks on personal conduct of people in authority. This would be valid if we held that being in the Church keeps people from sinning. However, since we do recognize that people can sin if they act against what is required, such an attack is an irrelevant appeal unless it can be demonstrated that immoral actions were done because of Christian teaching, instead of being in opposition to it. Yet most people who make such an attack do not even know what the Church teaches to be able to discern what is a part of teaching and what is against it.

Likewise in the attack of the Bible, we see many accusations made on the individuals in the Old Testament by people who do not have a clear sense of what the Bible teaches and why. Therefore we see these attacks based on what a person thinks it means. Such people do not distinguish between acts of men disobeying God and acts of men obeying God.

However, if they do not understand, how can they critique? The concept is as ludicrous as it would be for me to critique quantum physics based on what I see on Wikipedia, creationist sites and my own interpretation of a textbook of quantum physics.

Atheists may reject the Christian assumptions, but that is irrelevant here. If we wish to know “How can the Christians possibly support this?” we need to understand what Christians understand about morality. That is the focus on this article.

Preliminary: The Limiting of the Boundaries for This Article

This article is intended to be the beginning of a series which looks at certain accusations of atheists which claims that the Bible is an example of wicked deeds and a wicked acting God. However, before looking of the acts of the men of the Bible (normally the focus is on the Old Testament) and the commands of God, we first must make some considerations of what morality is, as it is senseless to begin a discussion of a topic without setting forth what is meant.

So for those who are waiting for me to delve into the gory details of the Bible will need to wait for me to lay down this framework in this first article. Article II will deal with the acts of men in the Old Testament. Article III will deal with the commands of God, and will also consider acts of men obeying commands of God (as opposed to men who act on their own in Article II).

A Caveat: What Christian Beliefs I Am Acting Under

While I am limiting the intents of this article, let me clarify that I am discussing what the idea of morality means to the Christian in my Catholic faith, to the best of my ability. Any difference between what I say and what the Church teaches is accidental, as I accept and submit to the teaching of the Catholic Church and do not intend to claim anything in contradiction to it.

There are of course some different theories in varying Christian denominations, and even non-Christian interpretations (Jewish, Muslim for example) of the Bible, but where they run contrary to what my Faith believes, I feel no obligation to defend them.

So please don't point to some obscure sect that holds some idea which contradicts to the Catholic faith and claims it speaks for all Christians.

What Is Morality?

To discuss morality, first we need to understand where the speaker is coming from. So let me start with the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Morality is generally defined as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.” So the idea of morality is based on the premise that there is good and bad behavior to begin with. This implies a sort of standard. Without this sense, there is nothing to appeal to other than personal preference.

Of course, if personal preference is all there is to consider, then charges of an immoral God or an immoral Bible become meaningless, and those charges become nothing more than “I don’t like what I read here.”

So those who deny morality and claim the Bible is immoral (this is a subset of those who attack the Bible, but is not all people who attack the Bible) are right off the bat in self contradiction, and such a view is not worth discussing. Any claim that the Bible is immoral has to recognize that there is moral and immoral behavior.

Morality and Ethics

I think I should start with the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia which begins its entry on Morality this way:

Morality is antecedent to ethics: it denotes those concrete activities of which ethics is the science. It may be defined as human conduct in so far as it is freely subordinated to the ideal of what is right and fitting.

This ideal governing our free actions is common to the race. Though there is wide divergence as to theories of ethics, there is a fundamental agreement among men regarding the general lines of conduct desirable in public and private life.

I think this is a good distinction. There are certainly differences in the systems of ethics, and not all systems are equally valid. However the underlying concepts call certain things good and other things evil. Most societies hold that Murder (the unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another) is wrong. There may be a divergence in deciding what may be considered justifiable killing, but we don't normally see a healthy society which openly accepts the committing of unlawful killings. Indeed, societies which do tolerate this are generally seen to be grossly disordered.

So while atheists and theists may disagree on why an act is wrong, generally speaking, certain concepts are held by most people to be wrong and never to be done (rape, murder, slavery etc). There are a few agnostics and atheists I have encountered who deny this, but it seems this denial is more based on the avoiding the issue of where morality comes from rather than an honest belief that Hitler and the Dalai Lama are the same.

Morality and Natural Law

Natural Law is what members of my faith call this sort of recognition of certain issues of morality. So how do we understand this? St. Thomas Aquinas discusses this (Summa Theologica I-II Q94 a.2) and believes there to be an underlying principle. In discussing the idea of apprehension he says there is generally a major overarching principle from which all other principles derive. St. Thomas reasons that the major apprehension of natural law is as follows:

Now as being is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that "good is that which all things seek after." Hence this is the first precept of law, that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.

Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.

…

Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.

(This citation is abbreviated as St. Thomas discusses many things, but follow the link above if you want to see the article in entirety)

Ultimately then, acts of morality are to do good and, as a logical counterpart, avoid evil. This means to do good and avoid evil both in regards to oneself and to others. That man has a natural tendency towards self preservation and procreation indicates these things are not evil, though they can be abused by either excessive emphasis or contempt for it or for contempt for others.

However, if God exists (which I believe), then doing good and avoiding evil as the principle of Natural Law must also be extended to God, and doing evil against God is to be held with great severity. Why is this?

The Greater the Existence, The Greater the Wrong Done

Doing wrong is seen as more or less severe depending on the existence of the individual. If I apply weed killer to a plant, I don't normally suffer consequences. If I kill a cat (tragically common among teenagers it seems) people may show disgust, but the legal repercussions will be less severe than if I kill a person. Likewise, while the murder of any human person is wrong, society distinguishes between the accidental killing during the self defense against a vagrant who intended harm, and the deliberate assassination of the president of the United States. One is self defense. The other is regicide.

This isn't classism of any sort. Rather we recognize that there is a difference between the human beings and animals, and we recognize that the unlawful killing of any person is wrong, but also that the unlawful killing of a ruler is also an attack on the state and not just on the individual. In this case, the harm affects more people. Thus the punishment is more severe.

Because of this, when we remember that Christians believe that God exists, it is reasonable to suppose that an action against God is even more serious than an act against man or against an animal because of the existence and authority of God.

The flip side of this is that the atheist who denies that God exists disdains punishments for actions against God because they believe nothing is there to offend.

However, since Christians believe God exists, those who want to say “How can you believe in a God who does X?” needs to remember that the Christian view of what the Bible relates is based on the view that God exists and can be sinned against.

If we didn’t believe that, the influence of the Bible would be a moot point… as we wouldn’t be Christians to begin with.

Considerations of Euthyphro and the Origin of Morality

With this in mind, we should ask ourselves about the origin of the Natural Law itself, as opposed to the idea of Natural Law… in other words, where does this natural law come from?

Curiously enough, the questions of this type are quite ancient. The Ancient Greeks believed in a pantheon of deities, but believed that the idea of what was right and what was wrong went beyond their pantheon. Since to them, gods were finite (greater than man, but not infinite), we had the dilemma of Socrates to Euthyphro, where Socrates was enquiring about a man attempting to prosecute his father in a court of law, claiming it was the pious thing to do. Socrates’ dilemma was:

The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

The dilemma Socrates uses is we have to come to a decision: If a thing is pious because the gods love it, is this not arbitrary? Could they not change their minds? And if the gods love it because it is pious, does this not mean there is something above the gods?

Some Christians unfortunately, try to answer this by saying that morality is good because God commands it, which opens them up to the charge of the atheist that such a God could change His mind and command evil… and indeed has done so when they point to the commands of the Old Testament.

The common explanation of atheists I have discussed this with or read is: since there is no god, morality comes from ourselves, either biologically or through society.

However, the elimination of the existence of God does not eliminate the dilemma of Socrates' question. We simply replace "gods" with "man" or "society" and we have the same dilemma. If morality is ingrained by society, then we have morals which can be changed by society. If it is outside of us, what is it and why does it bind?

Is Morality From Society?

The problem with this view is, if morality is given to us by society, then those who support the status quo are good and those who oppose it are bad. This would mean the rebel is a person of evil, and the person who doesn't make waves is good. This would make the Civil Rights movement in America wrong, and would make those opposition groups in Nazi Germany wrong as well.

Yet our experience is the opposite. We recognize that often it is the person who speaks out against the practices of society that is considered moral. At other times, a society fights to protect what it considers good against an immoral threat from leaders who act against this good.

Both examples demonstrate a view that morality is seen as being outside of society.

Is Morality From Biology?

The problem with this idea is that, if Morality is from biology, then things which promote life (such as self preservation) are good and things which harm it are bad. Now this works in cases of society where the immoral act threatens the life of others. However, it falls short in dealing with issues where the individual sacrifices himself in the name of what is right: That we are to prefer suffering to doing an act of evil. Consider this example:

Two soldiers are captured and are told that one of them is to be killed. One of them is told he will go free if he tortures the other man to death. If he refuses, he will be tortured and killed instead. Ought he to accept this offer?

Some systems of ethics might say this is a good thing to do, but most of us would consider the person who said "yes" to be a horrible person. This demonstrates that morality is not the same as a biological instinct to protect the herd. The soldier, if he accepts, does not harm society. He protects himself at the cost of another, but if he does not he will die himself.

The Christian idea is that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil, and that the soldier would be doing evil to consent to the dilemma given. We can see this in Matthew 10:28 which tells us:

²⁸And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Because we believe in an immortal soul, we recognize that death is not the worst thing which can happen, and the repercussions of what we do have an effect on us which exists after death. Because of this, it is not permissible to do evil to spare one’s own life.

We also recognize that it is never permissible to be cowardly. If another person is in danger and I walk away because I do not want to risk harm, I am scorned and not considered moral. However showing the courage to do what ought to be done can put our lives at risk. Because of this, self preservation is not the origin of morality.

The Christian Moral Theology Shows the False Dilemma of Socrates

Neither the idea of Society nor the idea of Biology answers Socrates’ dilemma. However some may wonder how Christians avoid either saying there is something beyond God (if God loves a thing because it is good) or that God is arbitrary (if a thing is good because God loves it). So how does the Christian answer this question?

The error of Socrates was his assumption was an Either-Or error, which he believed was between absolute and opposing premises. What he failed to consider was: That the measure of good and evil was not an arbitrary decision, but the reflection of the nature of what God is. If God is infinite and the fullness of goodness, then that which is good reflects the nature of God while that which is evil acts in opposition to the nature of God.

In this, we see that the Christian understanding of Natural Law claims it reflects the goodness of God, and says evil acts go against the goodness of God.

The Christian believes God exists, and as a result, believes there is an objective rule as to what is good or evil. Some societies may err through no fault of their own when they try to follow the natural law, while others display contempt for the natural law. How God judges will depend on what the individual or the society could have known, not what was impossible for them to know. We do believe that all people at least know the Natural Law even when they err or sin in following it, as St. Paul tells us in Romans 2:12ff:

¹²All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ¹⁴When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them ¹⁶on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

I find this a good thing to remember in the face of those atheists who create a straw man argument that “morality did not come from Christianity.” (I understand Dawkins has made an argument along these lines). We don’t believe it came from Christianity, we believe it came from God, who made it known to the world through Natural Law and through the Jews and Christians by way of Revelation.

Therefore, when we consider Natural Law, it is hardly a quandary that the atheist may deny God exists and still tries to behave in a moral way, but we may challenge him to explain why morality is binding.

Conclusion

I believe this gives us a framework to use in understanding how God judges the nations – not based on the Torah for those who do not know it, but based on what they could know and had an obligation to do. However a nation which knows, for example, murder is evil and refuses to ask the question on whether the abortion of the unborn fetus is murder is in fact guilty of refusing to acknowledge good and evil. Why? Because all people are required to seek the truth, and the refusal to seek the truth makes one culpable.

With this framework in mind, we can move on, in Article II, to looking at some of the accusations made about the Bible and acts done within its pages. Because we believe there is objective truth about right and wrong, and that God exists and is good, we need to look at actions in the Bible through this view in order to understand what the Christians believe, rather than to assume that Christians accept actions from the perspectives atheists assume.

The refusal to do this and to insist on one’s own interpretation is to fall into the error of bigotry which GK Chesterton once described as follows:

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

So it would not be bigotry for the atheist to believe his position is correct. However, it would be bigotry for him to be unable to consider whether there are errors in his assumptions which led to his conclusions.

[Article II in this series will be on the actions of men in the Old Testament].

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article I): A Look At What Morality Is

What are we to make of the accusations of certain individuals who claim that actions in the Bible are in fact immoral, and therefore negate the claims of goodness?

To me, it seems to be in part a rejection of sola scriptura which gives primacy to the Bible while keeping to the claims that the personal interpretation of the Bible is all that is needed.

Another part of it seems based in seeking to reject the claims of moral authority of the Christians who invoke the Bible.

Preliminary: The Limiting of the Boundaries for This Article

A Caveat: What Christian Beliefs I Am Acting Under

So please don't point to some obscure sect that holds some idea which contradicts to the Catholic faith and claims it speaks for all Christians.

What Is Morality?

To discuss morality, first we need to understand where the speaker is coming from. So let me start with the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Morality and Ethics

I think I should start with the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia which begins its entry on Morality this way:

Morality is antecedent to ethics: it denotes those concrete activities of which ethics is the science. It may be defined as human conduct in so far as it is freely subordinated to the ideal of what is right and fitting.

This ideal governing our free actions is common to the race. Though there is wide divergence as to theories of ethics, there is a fundamental agreement among men regarding the general lines of conduct desirable in public and private life.

Morality and Natural Law

Now as being is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that "good is that which all things seek after." Hence this is the first precept of law, that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.

Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.

…

Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.

(This citation is abbreviated as St. Thomas discusses many things, but follow the link above if you want to see the article in entirety)

The Greater the Existence, The Greater the Wrong Done

The flip side of this is that the atheist who denies that God exists disdains punishments for actions against God because they believe nothing is there to offend.

If we didn’t believe that, the influence of the Bible would be a moot point… as we wouldn’t be Christians to begin with.

Considerations of Euthyphro and the Origin of Morality

With this in mind, we should ask ourselves about the origin of the Natural Law itself, as opposed to the idea of Natural Law… in other words, where does this natural law come from?

The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

The common explanation of atheists I have discussed this with or read is: since there is no god, morality comes from ourselves, either biologically or through society.

Is Morality From Society?

Both examples demonstrate a view that morality is seen as being outside of society.

Is Morality From Biology?

Two soldiers are captured and are told that one of them is to be killed. One of them is told he will go free if he tortures the other man to death. If he refuses, he will be tortured and killed instead. Ought he to accept this offer?

The Christian idea is that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil, and that the soldier would be doing evil to consent to the dilemma given. We can see this in Matthew 10:28 which tells us:

²⁸And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

The Christian Moral Theology Shows the False Dilemma of Socrates

In this, we see that the Christian understanding of Natural Law claims it reflects the goodness of God, and says evil acts go against the goodness of God.

¹²All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ¹⁴When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them ¹⁶on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Conclusion

The refusal to do this and to insist on one’s own interpretation is to fall into the error of bigotry which GK Chesterton once described as follows:

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

[Article II in this series will be on the actions of men in the Old Testament].

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Mob Turns on Richard Dawkins

Reports are coming in of a dispute on RichardDawkins.net. The history seems to be Dawkins has written a note claiming his blog forum will be more tightly moderated in light of abusive comments. Ironically, the tight moderation will be enacted sooner than the 30 days stated because of the vitriol he received in response to his policy.

Christian bloggers of course have been on the receiving end of such vitriol for some time. Trolls, flames, personal attacks and all the rest have been directed us for quite awhile now. Of course I don't take part in the Schadenfreude which seems to be going around some sites, which seems to be amused by this. These people are often the ones making insults against Christians. Personally I'd rather the Internet be filled with a good deal more civility regardless of the topic on a forum than to see Dawkins get what he deserves.

Dawkins says in his post:

Surely there has to be something wrong with people who can resort to such over-the-top language, over-reacting so spectacularly to something so trivial. Even some of those with more temperate language are responding to the proposed changes in a way that is little short of hysterical. Was there ever such conservatism, such reactionary aversion to change, such vicious language in defence of a comfortable status quo? What is the underlying agenda of these people? How can anybody feel that strongly about something so small? Have we stumbled on some dark, territorial atavism? Have private fiefdoms been unwittingly trampled?

I believe the answer to this is: Richard Dawkins rose to fame by appealing to the mob, and now the mob has turned on him. In his books and public statements, he has made attacks on religion which do not appeal to the intellectuals, but the mob mentality, using rhetorical flourishes to sneak past arguments which aren't valid.

The mob tends to love displays of violence and mockery. They were the ones who flocked to the arenas during the Roman Empire, they were the ones who took part in lynching individuals, they were the ones who eventually took over French Revolution, turning on the founders.

This is the danger in the appeal to the mob. One can encourage it to support you, but one can never fully control it. One generally has to keep upping the ante for satiating the mob, because they become jaded.

The New Atheism has gained its appeal through pandering to the mob. The attacks we have seen from them are that Christians are "stupid" and "irrational" and call for actions to put Christians "in their place." The mob liked this, because of those Christians who insist that there are limits to what is acceptable behavior… limits which are unpopular in a hedonistic culture.

For long periods of time, we have seen the foul language, the insults used against the Christians. So long as it was directed against the Christians, such things were tolerated.

However, once the mob grew angry at Dawkins and his attempts to control his site, the situation changed. It wasn't Christians saying "You shouldn't do this." It was Dawkins saying it. The mob merely took their hostility to the next group "restricting" them.

So now they turned on him, using the vitriol long used against Christians against him. The preferences of the mob have shifted further than Dawkins wishes to go, but the mob must be sated. So once Dawkins tried to stop the mob, he paid the price.

He writes:

Be that as it may, what this remarkable bile suggests to me is that there is something rotten in the Internet culture that can vent it. If I ever had any doubts that RD.net needs to change, and rid itself of this particular aspect of Internet culture, they are dispelled by this episode.

However, he played a role in his own savaging. By tolerating the vile attacks so long as it was directed against Christians, it becomes somewhat hypocritical for him to object when he falls out of favor and becomes the target.

Perhaps Dawkins will learn now that there is an objective standard for behavior, and that what is wrong to direct towards him is also wrong to direct against others… even Christians.

Pages

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article III) Ten Principles in Understanding God

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article II) A Look At Sinful Men In the Bible

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article II) A Look At Sinful Men In the Bible

Monday, March 1, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article I): A Look At What Morality Is

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article I): A Look At What Morality Is

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Mob Turns on Richard Dawkins