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Monday, March 15, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets

Preliminary Notes

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.

I can only deal with certain issues (this article, at almost 6700 words, is well over the maximum word length I prefer [I prefer to cap at 3000 words] as it is. The omission of a topic is not due to evasion of an issue, but a consideration of article length. All the examples given are quite real and can be found in different atheistic sites (though the language was blasphemous enough I cannot quote them directly)

A Note on Revisions to the Sequence of this Series

When I wrote article III I stated I would have God’s punishment of David, God’s actions through Moses and a discussion of slavery in Article IV, and Genocide accusations in Article V. As I went through the editing, I noticed that discussing slavery in Article IV was out of place with the other topics. Therefore the layout will be: Article IV will be aimed at God speaking through the prophets and Part V will be on God speaking through the Law, where slavery and genocide will be covered.

Hopefully that will be the last change of layout I need to make.

Introduction: Commands and Actions From God

Many of the charges of God and the Bible being immoral are based on the words, actions and commands of God, or more accurately based on the interpretation of these things. The accusations presuppose that the actions of God were done arbitrarily, and out of proportion to whatever the cause He responded to. It is becoming common to see on atheist sites the accusation that God “commanded” rape or murder or other crimes.

Let’s look at one of the more infamous quotes out there:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

– Richard Dawkins

These words of Richard Dawkins tend to set the tone how the “New Atheist” views the God presented in the Bible these days. While in Article II, the discussion was about the actions of men who were interpreted as paragons of virtue when they were actually viewed as sinners, this time we need to look at the statements and laws of God in the Old Testament. Since we, as Christians, hold God to be perfectly good, we cannot use the same argument as we did last time. Instead, we have to look at what was commanded and the context behind such actions, though we can use the more fundamental premise that the accusation is based on a misunderstanding.

First of all, I would say that Christians would almost universally reject Dawkins' charge on the grounds that he is giving a motive to God's actions that Scripture does not support and that Christian teaching views as error filled. If one wishes to argue their view of God over the Christian understanding, then let them present the evidence to be evaluated, and not base it on uninformed reading of Scripture

I think a particularly relevant reply to Dawkins comes from Presbyterian Pastor David Robertson who said:

When someone tells me they do not believe in God I often ask them what sort of God they believe in. They will then come out with the kind of statement that you do at the beginning of the chapter [Arnobius’ Note: Robertson is referring to Dawkins’ book The God Delusion] and I will tell them that I do not believe in that God either. You rightly point out that this argument is not valid for someone who is claiming there is no God whatsoever because there is no supernatural (a faith position, which is of course itself indemonstrable). However you spend a considerable amount of time attacking particular versions of God and therefore you open yourself to this rejoinder. Most of us do not believe in the God you so passionately attack.

– David Robertson, The Dawkins Letters, page 47

Robertson puts it well indeed. Christians look at the version of God presented by Dawkins and reasonably ask “On what basis can you justify your accusation?” This is why, before the credibility of the charges of Dawkins can be accepted, Christians insist on assessing the charges to see if they are valid. If there is no evidence, the charge does not stick.

However, instead of evidence, we see certain actions pointed to, and we see people who claim that God is being evil are giving an evil motive without evidence. Then when Christians point out the accuser is making assumptions on motive based on the personal interpretation of Scripture being taken in a literalistic fashion, we are then accused of “trying to explain away” the texts.

So let’s put a stop to the nonsense here. The atheist who attacks God as evil either needs to provide evidence of their charge or recognize they are no better than the fundamentalists they ridicule.

Things to Consider Regarding Biblical Interpretation

Article III of this series is important to keep in mind here (you may want to open it in another tab to refer back to it), as the Ten Principles discussed there are required for the proper understanding of the Christian beliefs concerning the events this article will review.

As I pointed out in Article III, the context of the times needs to be understood in interpreting Scripture. Moreover, in accusing God of an evil intent, one has to know the intent of God.

Atheists and certain non-Christians look at some of the actions of the Bible and are scandalized by what they read, asking how one can reconcile such acts with the claims of a loving and merciful God. I think one thing which such people overlook is that God is not merely merciful, but He is just as well. This means that while God forgives the repentant sinner and calls to repentance, He may also choose to exact punishment for those who do not repent, and is just in doing so. God isn’t a sort of Santa Claus here who does nice things and doesn’t hold anyone to anything. As Creator of the whole universe, He does have the right to pass judgment on those who know actions are wrong yet perform those actions anyway.

The Issue for this Article: Prophecies

With these preliminaries in mind, we can move on to the issue of the word of God in prophecy.

When it comes to prophecy, I believe confusion exists when the message of the Prophet is misinterpreted as being something it is not intended to be. I have noticed that this generally comes about because the ancient wording of Scripture is taken in a sense which is not intended by the author. Remember, to attack a position which is not held is the Straw Man fallacy. To attack a Scriptural verse based on modern understandings of words, while failing to recognize that all of these have changed from the time, culture and language they were written is to attack a belief not even held.

How Prophecies Can Be Misunderstood

Some seem to believe that God directly causes what happens. Others misunderstand symbolic acts which God commands His prophet (to perform to emphasize the verbal message), thinking the command to the prophet is a command to all the Israelites. The result is an interpretation vastly different from the actual meaning of the verses. We need to remember that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (except for the Deuterocanonical books, which were written in Greek). When we interpret literally based solely on an English translation, and do not consider the possibility of the English language being unable to capture fully the meaning of the Hebrew/Greek, the possibility for misinterpretation climbs higher.

Because the idea of prophecy is often misunderstood, people think it means “predicting the future.” Instead, a prophet acts as a mouth for God. God gives the prophet a message which is to be preached to the people. Usually, there is a pattern to the message. The people have strayed from God. God calls them to return and be reconciled with Him. The warnings of prophets are warnings of what will happen if they do not change their ways.

Sometimes the prophet is commanded by God to act in a certain way to bring home the warning God wishes to make. The people are confronted by an image which tells them what they are or what they will be if they do not change their ways. This image may be shocking, but often it is a case of “If you do not wish to suffer like this, then stop behaving wickedly and repent.”

As I said above, some people think prophecy is “seeing the future” and some believe God causes people to act in certain ways against their will on account of the misinterpretation of these things. Neither view is true. The prophet’s message is not as a threat but an attempt to bring the person, who is falling into sin, into a repaired relationship with God.

Prophecy I: Ezekiel and Dung. A Case of Extreme Misinterpretation in Literalism

I’ll start off with this example of an extreme case of literalistic misinterpretation that can happen when Scripture is interpreted out of context and without understanding of the verses. I have seen some atheists make the accusation that God commanded the Israelites to bake bread out of human feces and eat it. This appears to represent a case of either blind bigotry or willful malice, as it distorts a verse of the Bible into something so different from what it said, that it is difficult to imagine a rational person making such a mistake naturally.

The attack is based on the King James version of Ezekiel 4:12, which reads: “And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”

The argument I encountered on the internet was that God commands that Jews eat feces as a component of bread. Attacks then go on with other verses describing siege conditions (commonly Isaiah 36:12 is cited) with the claim that they are eating dung because God commanded it. However, this is to take a 17^th century English translation and apply 21^st century grammar to it. “Bake it with dung” doesn’t mean “bake it mixed with dung inside it.” It means “Bake it over a fire of dung.” Repulsive yes… but such practices to cook with animal dung have existed on plains cultures (19^th century Midwest and Mongolia among others) where there is no wood to burn.

We can see this is a misrepresentation of Ezekiel 4:12 by looking at translations other than the KJV:

· 12 For your food you must bake barley loaves over human excrement in their sight, said the LORD. (NAB)

· 12 “You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” (NASB 95)

· 12 Eat your food as you would eat a barley cake, baking it over human dung where the people can see.” (NCV)

· 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” (NIV)

· 12 You are to eat this in the form of a barley cake baked where they can see you, on human dung.’ (NJB)

· 12 And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight.” (NKJV)

· 12 Prepare and eat this food as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread.” (NLT)

· 12 You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. (NRSV)

· 12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” (RSV and RSVCE)

· 12 “Eat it as a barley cake; you shall bake it on human excrement before their eyes. (Tanakh)

Note all of these translations show that the food is to be cooked over dung, not with dung. Those individuals who have made this accusation have not bothered to see if their translation erred or their interpretation erred. Whether their interpretation is from malicious intent to distort or from a willingness to believe the worst based on a hatred of the Judaeo-Christian God, what we have is massive distortion nonetheless.

Now one might wonder, reasonably, why God would command this to be done in the first place. This requires reading in context. God has delivered to Ezekiel a message which calls on the Israelites to repent or suffer the consequences of being delivered to their enemies, which will happen in siege. In chapter 4, God describes a siege which will occur, and Ezekiel is to act out by his suffering what the Israelites will go through if they do not repent:

¹“And you, O son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem; ²and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. ³And take an iron plate, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴“Then lie upon your left side, and I will lay the punishment of the house of Israel upon you; for the number of the days that you lie upon it, you shall bear their punishment. ⁵For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; so long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. ⁶And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, a day for each year. ⁷And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared; and you shall prophesy against the city. ⁸And, behold, I will put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.

⁹“And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰And the food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; once a day you shall eat it. ¹¹And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; once a day you shall drink. ¹²And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” ¹³And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them.” ¹⁴Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my mouth.” ¹⁵Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” ¹⁶Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. ¹⁷I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.

If Israel and Judah will not repent, then they will suffer under siege as God withdraws His protection. The graphic image Ezekiel is to display is intended to be a shocking emphasis. Food and water will be scarce (mixed grains were considered inedible in ordinary times. 20 shekels weight was about 8 ounces. 1/6 of a hin is equal to 2/3 of a quart) [See New Jerome Bible Commentary 312] and so will the fuel for the cooking fires (hence the need for cooking over dung), so they will be reduced to desperate circumstances, being able to eat about 8 ounces of food a day and 2/3 of a quart of water a day. (See this site as to how drastic this would be). The cooking over human dung indicates a situation where all fuel for cooking, including animal dung would not be available.

We see the Israelites were definitely not ordered to do this. God speaking through Ezekiel was an act of mercy, giving the people a chance to avoid the suffering of a siege.

Prophecy II: David and Nathan… and God

The Act of Sin and Judgment

I haven’t forgotten that in Article II I promised to discuss God’s judgment of David’s sin. To remind the reader, this involves David's acts in committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband killed, then marrying her and proudly showing off the child they had together.

This is a public flaunting of the disobedience to God and Nathan comes to David in 2 Samuel 12 with the following judgment:

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.”

What we have in this prophecy, spoken through Nathan, is God’s passing judgment on David.

Interpreting the Prophecy of Nathan: Points to Remember

Now I have seen misinterpretations which assume that the wives of David and the Child were punished instead of David. This seems to be based on the assumption that the people who carried out the acts with David’s wives did so due to a direct command from God and that God was punishing the child for existing. Neither assumption is true.

In order to correctly make sense out of God’s judgment, we need to recall some points:

1) There is a difference between God's direct will and His permissive will. When God directly wills something to happen, it happens either through God directly willing something to happen or through natural causes He directly wills to happen. When it comes to His permissive will, it does not mean God forces a thing to happen, but rather He withdraws His protection and allows things to take their course.

In the case of David’s wives, we can say this is a case of God withdrawing His protection. Because David has spurned God, God withdraws His protection from David's house. From this we can see that when Absalom does evil, David suffers the consequences. God withholds His protection as a chastisement, but Absalom is not forced to do these things by God. To say God directly caused sin is an example of taking literally what is in fact a way of saying what David suffers comes as a result of his chastisement.

The person who accuses God of doing horrible things often assumes that the evil acts done by people trying to kill David were directly willed by God. However, all God needs to do is to withdraw His protection and those individuals with evil intent will be able to target David freely. Remember, Nathan tells David the sentence of God is decreed "because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." David spurns God. Is it just for David to expect God to ignore this?

2) Free will of Man. This is the counterpart of #1 above. We see in a later chapter that the son of David (Absalom) rises up against his father and does have sexual relations with David's wives in public in 2 Samuel 16:22 which fulfils the prophecy of Nathan. However we must remember Absalom did not do these acts on the command of God. He did these acts on his own volition as a display of power encouraged by his advisor. [Essentially by doing this in public, Absalom was committing an act which indicated a total rejection and defiance of David. People who might consider support Absalom would know that Absalom wasn't going to cut a deal with his father and leave them holding the bag.] God told David (through the prophet Nathan) in chapter 12 that these things would happen, but they happened through the choice of Absalom and not because God commanded them to happen. If Absalom had been a righteous man, he would not have done these things.

3) God’s judgment is essentially David’s judgment brought upon himself. What he has decreed was that the unnamed wrongdoer deserves death and shall be required to repay in a proportion which is punitive. He has been hoisted by his own petard.

4) Sin has public consequences. David had a trusted soldier murdered, taking Uriah's wife for his own. This is something which doubtlessly upset the balance of power among David's family, and the immorality of David served as an evil influence. 2 Samuel 13 tells us of David's son Amnon raping his sister Tamar, resulting in Absalom murdering Amnon. This disintegration of morals in the House of David spirals out of control. None of these acts can be attributed to God however.

Even from a human perspective, David has probably made a lot of people angry… friends of Uriah, David's sons offended to see this woman Bathsheba replacing their mothers in the hierarchy of things, people seeing David publicly flaunting his actions. Is it surprising some of them will be inclined to turn on David, given the chance? Is it surprising that some of these people will seek to harm those close to David when they cannot reach him directly?

What David did (aside from the fact it was sinful) to others did not just harm Uriah, but others as well. As a result, the aftermath of David's sin harms him and affects other people as well. David committed adultery and did injustice to Uriah. He abused the power given him as King. Depending on whether Bathsheba was forced or seduced, David was guilty of at least adultery and possibly rape (Scripture does not tell us whether she was willing or not). He impregnates her, causing a life to come into being, and he takes Bathsheba as his wife after the death of Uriah, which gives a public scandal as to his contempt to the law of God.

David was living publically in sin, having murdered the husband of the woman he committed adultery with, taking her as his wife and having the child of this action publically acknowledged as his son. It’s like History of the World Part I: “It’s good to be King.” No man would dare challenge David, and some might even think it acceptable. “After all, if the King did this, then why is it so bad if I only do that?”

5) Finally, In light of the fact that we as Christians know of the Resurrection, we recognize that the Lord does have the right over all life and death is not the end of all. Not one of us knows when we shall die or how. A man might live to be a hundred. An infant might die shortly after birth. If God chooses to grant the child of David a short life before the sins of the House of David corrupt him, if He chooses to grant a long life to a bitter individual so he might find salvation in the end, God does have this right to determine how long each person shall live.

Because all life is from God, God has the right to decree when a individual’s life ends. (See Article III Principle Three). I might live for another 50 years, or I might die of an auto accident tomorrow. I do not think the time of life given to me is unjust. I merely have the time I have.

Where is the Malice?

We believe God does no evil, and because of this we can see that the death of the Child was not a punishment to the child, though David was punished because of his sin which resulted in the death of Uriah and David impregnating Bathsheba.

When we consider that the death of the child was not a punishment of the child, the arguments against this section of the Bible begins to collapse. Many atheists I have read who comment on this say the child went through prolonged suffering before dying. The problem is Scripture doesn't say this. It says the child became ill (2 Sam 12:15) and died after a week (2 Sam 12:18). The Christian who believes God is both just and merciful recognizes the possibility that God did not cause the child to suffer. That the author described the situation of the child dying is clear. That the child suffered during this time is not described. This is a meaning added by one who wishes to impute a malicious intent to God. This addition of detail is really an Appeal to emotion employed here. But where is the evidence for this accusation against God? There is none.

If God Exists, then Sin is against God as Well as against Man

God sent Nathan to challenge David who openly spurned God’s teachings. As I mentioned in the first article, if God exists, then the doing of Good and avoiding Evil requires this balance not only in relation to the fellow man, but also in relation to God. Because David so publically defied God in doing this evil, and did harm to others, God is justified to exact punishment for these sins. As I mentioned in Article III, Principle 10, punishment can serve multiple purposes. We see several intentions for the punishment David received. There was Retribution of course. God was punishing David because he sinned in a severe way. There was also Deterrence. Knowing that God will punish evildoers, David recognizes there is a strong need to avoid future behavior of this type, and others thinking it might be acceptable to behave likewise are shown it is condemned by God. But most important, this punishment is given to bring David to repentance. When faced by Nathan's parable, David realizes he is the man he condemned and regrets for his actions.

A Look at Motive in the Act of God

So let us look at the sentence God gives David through Nathan with this understanding in mind.

God withdraws His protection from David. Those enemies of David, whether through lust for power or desire for revenge or other motivations, turn on him and do evil to him by committing adultery with his wives, trying to usurp him and take over his kingdom, etc. As David did violence to Uriah by ordering his death, after God withdraws His protection from David, his son will seek to do violence to him by trying to kill him. David and Bathsheba have a child together of adultery which is flaunting their sinful act to the public. God calls this son of David to Himself which brings home to David how evil his deed was.

What we are seeing is that what David and his family suffer is a logical consequence of what he has done. If one removes a stone from a wall of rock and starts a rock slide, regretting the removal of the rock will not stop the slide.

Now admittedly the idea of innocent people being caught in the middle of a rebellion is a sad thing, and that a child did die is something which stirs the heart with pity. However this is exactly why it is not prudent to trust to merely what one thinks it means without considering context. To interpret out of context is to misinterpret.

Prophecy III: Moses and the Pharaoh

The Issue of Moses and Pharaoh

The main objection to this story seems to ultimately be focused on the 10th plague (the angel of death) slaying the firstborn of Egypt and the verses of God "hardening" Pharaoh's heart. However, to understand the verses objected to, we need to recognize the context of the verses in relation to why these chastisements were inflicted.

In the account of Exodus, we see the Egyptians oppressing the Israelites, forcing them into a condition of slavery. Because the rulers feared to have a large ethnic minority in their midst, the orders were given to kill all the male children. This was not merely an action performed by the legal authorities. We see in Exodus 1:22 that the pharaoh commanded all his subjects to throw any male Hebrew children they came across into the river to drown, though allowing the girls to live. (Which seems to indicate an example of sexual exploitation of minorities was a common barbarity of ancient times.

Who Is Responsible For Pharaoh’s Heart Being Hardened?

Now when Moses comes to Egypt and gives warning to the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, probably what is considered most scandalous to the person who does not understand Scripture is the phrase, in the KJV of the Bible, where we hear that “And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.” (Exodus 7:13 KJV).

The Hebrew word is [אֲחַזֵּ֣ק] (chazaq) which is used in Scripture in verses which tell us that Pharaoh was hardened in heart.

Indeed, in Exodus 7:13, 7:22, 8:15, and 9:35 we see the same word used to describe Pharaoh’s action… all of them recognizing that Pharaoh hardened his own heart “just as the LORD had foretold.”

Indeed, if one goes ahead to Malachi 3:13, chazaq is used in this verse:

¹³You have defied me in word, says the LORD, yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

Chazaq is defiance in this case. A person or people who defy God can expect to pay the price if they refuse to heed the warnings of God and refuse to repent.

So ultimately the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh must be understood in the sense of the Hebrew text and not the rendering of the verse in English. Indeed, in the context of the other verses, we can see that the phrase objected to is not intended to be taken in a literal sense.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in 1893, issued the encyclical Providentissumus Deus which laid down certain requirements for the study of the Scripture. One of the things he laid out was the importance of the understanding of the context and the use of idioms in the original languages, saying (in #18):

Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us – “went by what sensibly appeared,”(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

The Hebrew manner of speaking does not mean God forced Pharaoh, against his will, or forced Pharaoh to be obstinate. Commentary on Scripture describes this as God leaving Pharaoh to his own devices. It is important to remember this, as we need to understand how the Christian understands the Bible in light of the atheistic accusation against the Christian that we ignore what is inconvenient to us.

Really, in order for the charge for a “wicked God” to stick, one needs to establish that God would not have spared Egypt even if Pharaoh had repented.

True Repentance vs. Toying With God

In all cases, the theme of Exodus runs as follows: Moses, acting as God’s prophet, tells Pharaoh to stop oppressing the Israelites. Pharaoh refuses. God visits a plague on Israel. Pharaoh appeals for respite, promising to comply with God’s command. Once respite is given, the oppressions continue. Pharaoh is not repentant for the evil he has done. He simply believes he can do acts of lip service without changing his behavior. The reader should reflect on Ezekiel 18 (which is shown in entirety in Article III). A person who truly repents will be spared. The person who does not, will not.

Repentance is not "OK I'll stop doing this until you stop smacking me around," and then changing one’s mind once the suffering is over. Repentance is recognizing that an act is truly wrong and turning away from it, regretting the wrong done and seeking to make amends.

This shows us Pharaoh’s culpability personally. Now how about society? Many may argue that the punishment of the whole society for the sins of Pharaoh was wrong. But is this a fair assessment?

After all, what we have seen is a society which sought to enslave an ethnic minority in a brutal fashion, and seemed to be willing to kill the male children (and perhaps exploit the females). Slavery tends to corrupt the people who are the masters, and this seems to be such a case.

Now, as I mentioned in Article III Principle Eight, the ending of slavery in entirety seems to have fallen under the idea of Recapitulation. However the drowning of the male children and oppression of a race by the Egyptians seem to fall under the idea of chastisement for an evil which the people punished cannot claim they did not know what was right (See Article III Preliminary Two).

When we consider this, it seems that the ultimate basis for the charge of an immoral God is meaning which the challenger puts into the text but is not actually found in the text. Essentially the worst possible "spin" is given to the text, without giving proof of why this "spin" should be accepted.

The Angel of Death

The tenth plague is the death of all the firstborn of the Egyptians. This is not just infants. This includes the adults as well. Now one may ask, “How is this just?” Well consider this. If the Egyptians consented to the killing of all the Hebrew males, then it follows that they must face judgment for this act. However, if the Egyptians had consented and released the Hebrew slaves, they would have been spared this. We see in Exodus 4, where God tells Moses:

²²So you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my first-born.

²³Hence I tell you: Let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, I warn you, I will kill your son, your first-born.”

This didn’t come out of the blue here. After nine plagues, it became quite clear that when Moses said God would do a thing, the thing would be done. Since Pharaoh was warned this would happen, and the previous nine plagues show the God of Moses could do these things, it indicates a profound stubbornness to continue on the path to destruction.

As for the individual Egyptians who were not the Pharaoh, did they deserve such treatment? It seems to me the question is: Did they repent of their part in Egypt’s oppression or did they just want to escape their own destruction?

Really, the accusation of the immoral God is a case of arguing in a circle:

Q: How do you know God is evil?

A: Because He condemned the Egyptians to die

Q: Why did God condemn the Egyptians to die?

A: Because He is evil

So where is the evidence that God was “Dag nasty evil”?

Evidence of a motive is again absent. Scripture tells us of why God saw fit to punish Egypt. If one wishes to claim the Egyptians did not deserve the punishment meted out, or accuse the account in Exodus of being false, the question is, where is the evidence for the claim?

Conclusion

In the examples given above, we see that the interpretation given by those who claim an evil act on the part of God do not consider the context and intent of the Biblical verses, instead taking a literalistic meaning of Scripture (“It says X so it means X literally”). When one considers the context and language used (Hebrew), we can recognize that God chastises evil acts but gives the peoples involved a chance to repent and change their ways first. If the Israelites had repented, they would have avoided the siege. If David had repented, he would have avoided his chastisement. If Pharaoh and the Egyptians had repented and freed the Hebrews, they would not have been afflicted with the plagues.

From this we can see that to condemn God as immoral is to grossly misinterpret these verses.

[Next time, I will discuss the Law of God and the issues of Slavery and “Genocide.”

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets

Preliminary Notes

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.

A Note on Revisions to the Sequence of this Series

Hopefully that will be the last change of layout I need to make.

Introduction: Commands and Actions From God

Let’s look at one of the more infamous quotes out there:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

– Richard Dawkins

I think a particularly relevant reply to Dawkins comes from Presbyterian Pastor David Robertson who said:

When someone tells me they do not believe in God I often ask them what sort of God they believe in. They will then come out with the kind of statement that you do at the beginning of the chapter [Arnobius’ Note: Robertson is referring to Dawkins’ book The God Delusion] and I will tell them that I do not believe in that God either. You rightly point out that this argument is not valid for someone who is claiming there is no God whatsoever because there is no supernatural (a faith position, which is of course itself indemonstrable). However you spend a considerable amount of time attacking particular versions of God and therefore you open yourself to this rejoinder. Most of us do not believe in the God you so passionately attack.

– David Robertson, The Dawkins Letters, page 47

Things to Consider Regarding Biblical Interpretation

As I pointed out in Article III, the context of the times needs to be understood in interpreting Scripture. Moreover, in accusing God of an evil intent, one has to know the intent of God.

The Issue for this Article: Prophecies

With these preliminaries in mind, we can move on to the issue of the word of God in prophecy.

How Prophecies Can Be Misunderstood

Prophecy I: Ezekiel and Dung. A Case of Extreme Misinterpretation in Literalism

The attack is based on the King James version of Ezekiel 4:12, which reads: “And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”

We can see this is a misrepresentation of Ezekiel 4:12 by looking at translations other than the KJV:

· 12 For your food you must bake barley loaves over human excrement in their sight, said the LORD. (NAB)

· 12 “You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” (NASB 95)

· 12 Eat your food as you would eat a barley cake, baking it over human dung where the people can see.” (NCV)

· 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” (NIV)

· 12 You are to eat this in the form of a barley cake baked where they can see you, on human dung.’ (NJB)

· 12 And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight.” (NKJV)

· 12 Prepare and eat this food as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread.” (NLT)

· 12 You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. (NRSV)

· 12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” (RSV and RSVCE)

· 12 “Eat it as a barley cake; you shall bake it on human excrement before their eyes. (Tanakh)

¹“And you, O son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem; ²and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. ³And take an iron plate, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴“Then lie upon your left side, and I will lay the punishment of the house of Israel upon you; for the number of the days that you lie upon it, you shall bear their punishment. ⁵For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; so long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. ⁶And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, a day for each year. ⁷And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared; and you shall prophesy against the city. ⁸And, behold, I will put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.

⁹“And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰And the food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; once a day you shall eat it. ¹¹And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; once a day you shall drink. ¹²And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” ¹³And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them.” ¹⁴Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my mouth.” ¹⁵Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” ¹⁶Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. ¹⁷I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.

We see the Israelites were definitely not ordered to do this. God speaking through Ezekiel was an act of mercy, giving the people a chance to avoid the suffering of a siege.

Prophecy II: David and Nathan… and God

The Act of Sin and Judgment

This is a public flaunting of the disobedience to God and Nathan comes to David in 2 Samuel 12 with the following judgment:

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.”

What we have in this prophecy, spoken through Nathan, is God’s passing judgment on David.

Interpreting the Prophecy of Nathan: Points to Remember

In order to correctly make sense out of God’s judgment, we need to recall some points:

Where is the Malice?

If God Exists, then Sin is against God as Well as against Man

A Look at Motive in the Act of God

So let us look at the sentence God gives David through Nathan with this understanding in mind.

Prophecy III: Moses and the Pharaoh

The Issue of Moses and Pharaoh

Who Is Responsible For Pharaoh’s Heart Being Hardened?

The Hebrew word is [אֲחַזֵּ֣ק] (chazaq) which is used in Scripture in verses which tell us that Pharaoh was hardened in heart.

Indeed, if one goes ahead to Malachi 3:13, chazaq is used in this verse:

¹³You have defied me in word, says the LORD, yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

Chazaq is defiance in this case. A person or people who defy God can expect to pay the price if they refuse to heed the warnings of God and refuse to repent.

Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us – “went by what sensibly appeared,”(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

Really, in order for the charge for a “wicked God” to stick, one needs to establish that God would not have spared Egypt even if Pharaoh had repented.

True Repentance vs. Toying With God

This shows us Pharaoh’s culpability personally. Now how about society? Many may argue that the punishment of the whole society for the sins of Pharaoh was wrong. But is this a fair assessment?

The Angel of Death

²²So you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my first-born.

²³Hence I tell you: Let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, I warn you, I will kill your son, your first-born.”

Really, the accusation of the immoral God is a case of arguing in a circle:

Q: How do you know God is evil?

A: Because He condemned the Egyptians to die

Q: Why did God condemn the Egyptians to die?

A: Because He is evil

So where is the evidence that God was “Dag nasty evil”?

Conclusion

From this we can see that to condemn God as immoral is to grossly misinterpret these verses.

[Next time, I will discuss the Law of God and the issues of Slavery and “Genocide.”

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.

Pages

Monday, March 15, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets

Saturday, March 6, 2010

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