Can God be Guilty Of Murder and Genocide?

[JapaneseKappa]

The definition of God that i abide by doesn’t create his own laws but rather laws are a reflection of God’s intrinsic nature and its relationship with creation.

The issue is as old as the Euthyphro dilemma. Does God hold himself to some external standard, or does God set the standard however he wants?

The dodge which you appear to be making is “God IS the standard” which is fine, but it is not without side effects.

For example, suppose God actually did commit a genocide. According to the “God IS the standard” position, this is fine. All we have to say is that “Committing genocides is exactly what God’s nature would have him do given the opportunity, therefore it conforms to the standard (i.e. God)” We can use that line of reasoning to justify ANY actions God might take, even apparently contradictory ones.

Second, we don’t actually know enough about God’s nature to establish practical standards of goodness. If you think back to arguments for the existence of God like this one notice that we are ranking things by “goodness” before we know anything about God. We cannot do that if we are going to turn around and define God as the same thing as goodness. If we do, we are either begging the question, or simply asserting things about God/goodness without proof.

 

[Bradski]

…a reflection of God’s intrinsic nature and its relationship with creation.

Which is an assumption.

Who is to say that this is not hell? All the death and destruction, illness, decay, suffering, pain, Adam Sandler films…

It could be that those who have lived an exemplary life are shown what we go through as a warning.

Anyway, whether He makes them or they are a reflection of His nature, they are defined by Him. They are most definately not our rules.

So again, I think that answers the question. God’s laws don’t include murder amd genocide, so when He kills a person or a race or indeed the whole planet, it’s not unlawful and therefore not murder or genocide.

Drowning a planetful of people or ordering the massacre of children then becomes…well, retribution. i guess.

Case dissmissed.

 

[Graceful_Lamb]

God is all good.
Murder and killing, not good.
It’s not possible.
Not because we’re Christians but because HE is GOD.

This. ^^

 

[drac16]

All lives belong to God. He creates lives and takes lives. Since He is the Creator, He has the right to do either one at will. Murder is when you take something that you had no right to take (a life). God’s law, Shariah, says that we must refrain from murder. We will be held accountable for what we chose to do [in this life] and that includes being judged on how we responded to the command of “Do not murder”, which is part and parcel of Shariah.

Murder is, by definition, to take what you had no right to take. Since God is the Creator, He, by default, does have the right to take life or create life as He sees fit. He doesn’t need our permission to do something-- He just does it. His decision(s) to take a life can cause sorrow, but we have to remember that all lives belong to Him. There’s no injustice when He takes a life. We’re not autonomous, so our lives do not belong to us.

I am not my body. My body is just a vessel for my soul. It’s a temporary vehicle; one that will pass away one day, but our souls are everlasting. The choices we make will come back to haunt us if we break God’s laws.

 

[o_mlly]

This is, I think, the bluntest and bravest response to such a question. This is to say “God holds us to a different standard than he holds himself” and it requires us to ask “then which standard represents true goodness?”

I think Scripture tells us the opposite.

"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mat:5:48).

“With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).

 

[IWantGod]

The issue is as old as the Euthyphro dilemma. Does God hold himself to some external standard, or does God set the standard however he wants?

The dodge which you appear to be making is “God IS the standard” which is fine, but it is not without side effects.

Its not a dodge. Good is Gods nature. That’s the God i believe in. Whatever God does is necessarily good, not arbitrarily good.

For example, suppose God actually did commit a genocide.

God cannot commit genocide. If God wiped out a race of people, it would necessarily be for a good reason because God’s nature is good. God cannot do what is not his nature to do.

According to the “God IS the standard” position, this is fine. All we have to say is that “Committing genocides is exactly what God’s nature would have him do given the opportunity, therefore it conforms to the standard (i.e. God)” We can use that line of reasoning to justify ANY actions God might take, even apparently contradictory ones.

If God’s nature is good, then any apparent contradiction is due to a limitation in our knowledge.

Second, we don’t actually know enough about God’s nature to establish practical standards of goodness. If you think back to arguments for the existence of God like this one notice that we are ranking things by “goodness” before we know anything about God. We cannot do that if we are going to turn around and define God as the same thing as goodness. If we do, we are either begging the question, or simply asserting things about God/goodness without proof.

I haven’t proven that God’s nature is love. I am simply saying that good is the God that i believe in.

If God’s nature is love, then our actions are defined by that standard. If God takes a life, it cannot be considered wrong because God is the good that gives us that life. It does not belong to us. If allowing you to keep living is not consistent with a good plan for humanity, then it would not be good to let you live because the greater good is the fulfillment of humanity. The fulfillment of humanity is the beatific vision of God. If you freely choose to stand in the way of that vision, then you are an enemy of the good.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Might makes Right is not really a good answer. Some other posters have given some good answers to this thread.

The one that stands out to me is how we define murder, that is, taking something that doesn’t belong to you. The act of existence by which we find our selves to be real belongs to God, and thus even if we are innocent, without sin, in principle when God takes a life God is taking what belongs to him in the first place. Therefore it is not murder.

One of my friends insists on “defining” God by using human terms.

He cannot get his head around the idea what God is Infinite.

My friend insists that God MUST obey the laws of physics.

But God is THE CREATOR.

And no matter how brilliant we humans are, the fact that we can read and write … and no other animals or plants can read and write … , that we can argue and parse words and be humorous and use “logic”, … we are still no more than mere creations.

AND that God sent us the person we call “Jesus” … to open the gates of heaven for us and to us.

And that our greatest goal is to somehow make it to Heaven.

That Jesus is the final Judge of who the Father wants to spend Eternity in Heaven with.

[And be nice to His Mother, Mary, as well.]

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Its not a dodge. Good is Gods nature. That’s the God i believe in. Whatever God does is necessarily good, not arbitrarily good.

Just because it is a dodge doesn’t mean it is automatically invalid.

God cannot commit genocide. If God wiped out a race of people, it would necessarily be for a good reason because God’s nature is good. God cannot do what is not his nature to do.

Genocide (noun) The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

A genocide doesn’t cease to be a genocide just because you had a good reason for your extermination. I think we can all agree that systematically exterminating an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group is something that is well within God’s abilities.

If God’s nature is good, then any apparent contradiction is due to a limitation in our knowledge.

That’s exactly what I meant when I said “we don’t actually know enough about God’s nature to establish practical standards of goodness.” If you actually had any concrete understanding of God’s nature, then we wouldn’t need to philosophize about possible contradictions. The fact that we can’t resolve apparent contradictions ahead of time is proof that we don’t understand God’s nature well enough to get an understanding of what goodness is.

I haven’t proven that God’s nature is love. I am simply saying that good is the God that i believe in.

If God’s nature is love, then our actions are defined by that standard. If God takes a life, it cannot be considered wrong because God is the good that gives us that life. It does not belong to us. If allowing you to keep living is not consistent with a good plan for humanity, then it would not be good to let you live because the greater good is the fulfillment of humanity. The fulfillment of humanity is the beatific vision of God. If you freely choose to stand in the way of that vision, then you are an enemy of the good.

Look, now you’re just going to do the same thing to “love” as you did to “goodness.” We can ask “does God love because there is an external standard for love, or does God choose what constitutes love?” Then you will say, “No! God’s nature IS the standard for love.” But now we don’t have a concrete understanding of what goodness is OR what love is.

 

[IWantGod]

Just because it is a dodge doesn’t mean it is automatically invalid.

Genocide (noun) The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

A genocide doesn’t cease to be a genocide just because you had a good reason for your extermination. I think we can all agree that systematically exterminating an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group is something that is well within God’s abilities.
That’s exactly what I meant when I said “we don’t actually know enough about God’s nature to establish practical standards of goodness.” If you actually had any concrete understanding of God’s nature, then we wouldn’t need to philosophize about possible contradictions. The fact that we can’t resolve apparent contradictions ahead of time is proof that we don’t understand God’s nature well enough to get an understanding of what goodness is.
Look, now you’re just going to do the same thing to “love” as you did to “goodness.” We can ask “does God love because there is an external standard for love, or does God choose what constitutes love?” Then you will say, “No! God’s nature IS the standard for love.” But now we don’t have a concrete understanding of what goodness is OR what love is.

I imagine that given our limited nature we wouldn’t have a complete comprehension of God’s nature and that is why revelation is required. But we have some comprehension of what love and good truly is. A good action, from a human standpoint, is essentially that which is consistent with love. If you help an old women across the road, you are doing good to that person. To give the good of yourself, to share your being, your abilities, and your talents with other beings for the sake of their fulfillment as well as your own, just as God shares his being with us. It is in these experiences, encompassing the good and the bad, that we develop and understanding of selfishness and selflessness and perceive them as an expression of the human condition. We know what is truly good because we experience a lack of the good and identify the good when it is present in a situation. And our understanding of what is good and bad grows the more we experience reality. But we are finite. And so revelation is required to help us in our development and understanding. We experience examples of the good from various sources that help us develop our understanding of the good and its purpose in the world.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I imagine that given our limited nature we wouldn’t have a complete comprehension of God’s nature and that is why revelation is required. But we have some comprehension of what love and good truly is. A good action, from a human standpoint, is essentially that which is consistent with love…

But we are finite. And so revelation is required to help us in our development and understanding. We experience examples of the good from various sources that help us develop our understanding of the good and its purpose in the world.

But we’ve already rejected the first Euthyphro option, that there exists some external + objective standard for goodness that applies to God. That means that there is no room in this discussion for “from a human standpoint.” We can certainly use our human perspectives to create an external and objective standard for goodness, but we have no philosophical reason for believing that such a standard has anything at all in common with the goodness we’ve been talking about (i.e. the goodness that is the same as God’s nature.) For example, some human ethical systems allow genocides, while others condemn them altogether. If we admit that God can commit genocides then should we reject those human ethical systems that allow genocides? Probably not, since human ethical systems have different goals (i.e. maximize our perception of goodness) than God (do whatever is in his nature, even if it is “evil” by human standards.)

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Probably not, since human ethical systems have different goals (i.e. maximize our perception of goodness) than God (do whatever is in his nature, even if it is “evil” by human standards.)

What can God do that would be evil by human standards?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

What can God do that would be evil by human standards?

See thread title. According to many human ethical systems, biological weapons are evil.

 

[IWantGod]

But we’ve already rejected the first Euthyphro option, that there exists some external + objective standard for goodness that applies to God. That means that there is no room in this discussion for “from a human standpoint.”

But when i talk about good human actions, i am talking about those actions which reflect love, which is God’s nature. We have some understanding of what love is and what a loving act is, because we experience a reflection of the good (God) through those human actions.

Now it might not be in your best interest to lose your life, but if you are attacking the very thing that ontologically fulfills the existence of mankind, what does human opinion matter? God has a right to protect the good he has given, and in protecting that good he has a right to take away the life he has given, and only the life that belongs to him.

Genocide is not just a word we use to describe the death of a large number of people. It is use to describe something thats morally wrong. It is only morally wrong if the death of those people is due to an immoral act.

Otherwise its just semantics.

 

[Hatikvah]

Who is man to convict the omnipotent, omnibenevolent God?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

See thread title. According to many human ethical systems, biological weapons are evil.

Straw man fallacy.

God has destined that all of us shall die, the innocent and the guilty.

Does that make him a mass murderer?

 

[IWantGod]

Who is man to convict the omnipotent, omnibenevolent God?

Who is God to take life and give life? Merely stating that he is all powerful reflects only the standard by which you are obedient. It doesn’t tell me if God is good. Might makes right is not the standard by which i judge God. I worship God because he is the source of all that which is good, not because he has more power than me.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Straw man fallacy.

God has destined that all of us shall die, the innocent and the guilty.

Does that make him a mass murderer?

Someone should tell Abraham that.

Far be it from thee to do this thing, and to slay the just with the wicked, and for the just to be in like case as the wicked, this is not beseeming thee: thou who judgest all the earth, wilt not make this judgment.

But it seems to be two different things, to design a sandcastle to eventually be swept away by the tide, and to build a sandcastle only to deliberately dump water on it when you’ve grown tired of it.

 

[Aloysium]

Who is God to take life and give life? Merely stating that he is all powerful reflects only the standard by which you are obedient. It doesn’t tell me if God is good. Might makes right is not the standard by which i judge God. I worship God because he is the source of all that which is good, not because he has more power than me.

He did say God is “omnibenevolent”. It is Love which ultimately will judge us.

 

[Bradski]

God cannot commit genocide. If God wiped out a race of people, it would necessarily be for a good reason because God’s nature is good. God cannot do what is not his nature to do.

Is the killing of a group of people of one race not genocide? It is not a leagal term and we don’t have to invoke any law to use it. It is simply the description of an act.

So if God has killed or has ordered the killing of groups of people, then we can describe that as genocide. What other term would you use? Maybe justifiable genocide? But then, genocide nevertheless.

 

[Aloysium]

Someone should tell Abraham that.
But it seems to be two different things, to design a sandcastle to eventually be swept away by the tide, and to build a sandcastle only to deliberately dump water on it when you’ve grown tired of it.

In fail to see the point of telling Abraham that we will all die. I’m pretty sure he knew that. I don’t get what you intended to say. Abraham spoke to God; you do not. And, he was prepared to do His will. Also, don’t forget Issac carrying the wood on his back, up the mountain, willing to sacrifice his life to the will of his father.
Have you ever seen the intricately and painstakeningly formed sand mandalas created by Tibetan monks, who end the ceremony by stirring the grains of sand into one homogenous whole. Everyone knows creation is transient.
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The only growing tiredness occurs in those who participate in all this glory oblivious to its beauty and meaning.
Return to the Father what is His, love, know eternal joy.