Could God command someone to break a commandment?

[720joeG]

This question has my head in a bit of a knot. Could God command someone to break a commandment? I think many of us Catholic would say no, because God can not command someone to do something unjust because it is against his nature. But in the old testament there are many times it seems as though he does. There have been many Christians to commit huge atrocities in the name of Christ. Like the bombing of a planned parenthood, violence and murder to unbelievers, tried assassinations of certain political leaders and they all said God “told them to do it”. They may even reference the story of Abraham when God asked him to kill Issac. That it is more about “Obedience” to the will of God rather than relying on our own rational judgement of right and wrong. Doesn’t it seem contradicting to ask someone to go against a commandment you firmly put in place? Thou shall not murder, but go murder your son as a test of obedience? Perhaps because during the time of Abraham the ten commandments where not yet written down, so to ask Abraham to do so was not contradicting any law already in place. But when the Israelite’s practically committed genocide in the name of God seems contradicting to a commandment already in place. Perhaps we could look at their act as a euthanasia, but we don’t believe euthanasia is right.

I guess for a Muslim these are not problems, for God can and do whatever he wants.

 

[jediliz]

well, in the case of those who hid the Jews, some could argue they broke the commandment that says don’t lie…but when they lied, they were protecting Jews from certain death. That’s different than God demanding the death of someone (don’t bring up the old testament).

 

[SighGuy]

I hope this is orthodox. Don’t take it for granted, because if it is wrong I don’t want to have taught you something wrong.

I tend to believe that which is good is that which reflects glory to God, in his own eyes.

Good action, therefore, is perhaps unknowable in an absolute sense, other than by God.

The moral laws we have are the best guidelines to follow, since they lead us to good action. But should God determine that up is down and left is right, or that he wishes for you to sacrifice your son to him, then good action suddenly becomes the opposite of what was expected!

Not through any change of goodness on its own: it is still that which reflects glory on to God, in his own eyes. What has changed is the action or means of accomplishing it. This is trivial.

That being said, the moral laws we have are what God wishes for us to use to determine good action (so that we can do good). Should God seek to push a person onto a path that is counter to these laws, through some divine revelation, he could… however… such a thing ought to be put under such a review by the Church that it was completely verified by the Church as being correct. God would not lie, he would not put the Church into heresy, thus sin, thus death, and so rest assured unless the Church agrees with the divine revelation you’ve received, it is from Satan or from your own delusions.

There would be no reason not to take the matter of revelation to a thorough review by the Church (we’re being really hypothetical here), because if it is from God it will be supported by the Church, and if it is not it will be condemned by the Church.

God forgive me and teach me if what I have said is false! I hope to learn.

 

[sirach2v4]

No.

Sirach 15:15 He has not commanded any one to be ungodly, and he has not given any one permission to sin.

Jewish commentaries point out that of the 613 commands in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, there are only about four absolutes that you cannot violate under any circumstances.

You cannot deny your faith or God, you cannot murder, cannot ruin someone’s reputation, and something else – even when confronted with death.

With respect to the other commands, they may conflict with each other, such as saving a life on the Sabbath where they are otherwise commanded not to work.

Jesus seemingly broke some Torah laws, but properly understood, he did not. For example, if he healed somebody on the sabbath, the Jews were scandalized. But, the Temple priests always worked on the sabbath, and he is the quintessential high priest.

You should pray and seek spiritual advice from a priest if you have time to consider your alternatives.

 

[720joeG]

Personally, If I were Abraham and God asked me to kill my son, I don’t think I could do it. I don’t have that much faith. If God did want me to do such a thing He would have to tell me in a loud voice that shook me and the ground around me, with angels and saints flying around me confirming it and two or three human witnesses that saw the same thing lol.

But perhaps it was okay for God to ask Abraham to kill his son because the 10 commandments had not been written down yet. So there was no confusing Abraham because no one knew that was completely wrong cause murder had yet been defined as a sinful act?

I feel like these questions are right at the heart of many atheist, because many of the commands that God asked them to do in the old testament seem to be quite evil.

I also sometimes think that perhaps the Jews did things that they claimed to be from God but really weren’t. I don’t give the jewfish people and their motives infailibity.

 

[smichhertz]

This question has my head in a bit of a knot. Could God command someone to break a commandment? I think many of us Catholic would say no, because God can not command someone to do something unjust because it is against his nature. But in the old testament there are many times it seems as though he does. There have been many Christians to commit huge atrocities in the name of Christ. Like the bombing of a planned parenthood, violence and murder to unbelievers, tried assassinations of certain political leaders and they all said God “told them to do it”. They may even reference the story of Abraham when God asked him to kill Issac. That it is more about “Obedience” to the will of God rather than relying on our own rational judgement of right and wrong. Doesn’t it seem contradicting to ask someone to go against a commandment you firmly put in place? Thou shall not murder, but go murder your son as a test of obedience? Perhaps because during the time of Abraham the ten commandments where not yet written down, so to ask Abraham to do so was not contradicting any law already in place. But when the Israelite’s practically committed genocide in the name of God seems contradicting to a commandment already in place. Perhaps we could look at their act as a euthanasia, but we don’t believe euthanasia is right.

I guess for a Muslim these are not problems, for God can and do whatever he wants.

Hi 720joeG,

I believe you’re confusing yourself by over thinking this. Remember, God is all good, so he cannot do evil. Even telling someone to do something evil is evil. Therefore, God cannot command someone to do evil.

Think about it this way: God is Truth. Therefore, God cannot contradict Himself. So if God has a commandment clearly identifying a behavior as evil and forbidding it, He cannot then command that behavior.

However, I take your point that committing genocide in God’s name definitely seems at odds with what the Church teaches today. A friend told me that the reason is because Jesus’s sacrifice hadn’t happened yet, so they did not have the benefit of the sacraments. Therefore, they could not obtain the grace to follow the moral law. However, I don’t really consider that a satisfactory answer.

 

[SighGuy]

Now, here’s what I’m not following.

Is good good, because it is good? Or is good good, because God has said it was good?

If good is what God states to be good, then it is only good because of God’s statement- it has no goodness of its own accord. Therefore if God states sacrificing your child to be good, it is then good (because that which is good is only good because God has stated that it was good).

Should good exist in and of itself, and God simply points it out to us, or recognizes it as such, and if sacrificing your child is not among the good, then God could not ask for you to sacrifice your child (because he would be asking you to do something wrong, which he cannot change from its nature, because it is objectively wrong in and of itself).

The second seems to have been destroyed in the Euthyprho dialogue, so I presume the first to be true?

 

[chefmomster2]

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this is my sense of it.

God is perfection, absolute, eternal and unchanging. He is perfect good and perfect love. That being said, He is uncontradictory within His being. He is not good and evil, light and darkness, power and weakness. Therefore He could not/would not command both obedience and disobedience.

The things that we see such as God ordering killings falls into the category of “Our ways are not His Ways”. The question of the violence in many OT passages continues to be an issue that confound even some experts. For reasons only God knows, the killings were “good”. God cannot be other than good.

Just my opinion…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But perhaps it was okay for God to ask Abraham to kill his son because the 10 commandments had not been written down yet. So there was no confusing Abraham because no one knew that was completely wrong cause murder had yet been defined as a sinful act?

According to Catholic theology natural law morality was in place with the creation of Adam. Adam and Eve knew they had done wrong when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. They knew guilt and clothed their nakedness in shame. Cain also knew guilt (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”) when he denied to the Lord that he knew the whereabout of Abel after he had just killed him. So waiting for Moses was not the issue.

God was looking for an obedient son who would be the founder of the line of mankind that would lead to David, and from David to Jesus. By testing Abraham as he did, God gave us a signal of the great virtue (obedience) that would be required in the founding of the salvific line that would end with Christ the King, who would be obedient to the point of sacrificing his own life to his Father in obedience to his Father’s will; that men be shown not just in word, but by deed, that no greater love has a man than this … that he lay down his life for a friend.

Thy will be done.

 

[Amandil]

I think it’s pretty clear that in the OT, God asks people to kill…several times, and lots of people.

We’ve been over this before. God’s covenant with Israel meant that Israel would be a nation of High Priests between God and humanity.

Whatever “violence” God commanded them to do were acts of divine justice, not murder.

So, no, they never broke the commandment “thou shalt not kill”.

(There are a lot of other torturous and hurtful things He asks as well, but they are not breaking any official “commandment” so I guess they don’t count for your question.)

Such as?(I’m quite sure that you’ve misinterpreted the texts and ignored the context in these as well).

If it could be done then, why not today, too?

Because Christ is the only mediator between God and men. Thus the only mediator of divine justice is Jesus.

So your assertion doesn’t follow.

 

[Amandil]

Now, here’s what I’m not following.

Is good good, because it is good? Or is good good, because God has said it was good?

If good is what God states to be good, then it is only good because of God’s statement- it has no goodness of its own accord. Therefore if God states sacrificing your child to be good, it is then good (because that which is good is only good because God has stated that it was good).

Should good exist in and of itself, and God simply points it out to us, or recognizes it as such, and if sacrificing your child is not among the good, then God could not ask for you to sacrifice your child (because he would be asking you to do something wrong, which he cannot change from its nature, because it is objectively wrong in and of itself).

The second seems to have been destroyed in the Euthyprho dialogue, so I presume the first to be true?

We have to be careful not to confuse “good” as something merely arbitrary or positive(because God “said” so but could have said or willed differently).

“Good” is defined as that which is according to what God intended to be. Something is “good” in that it is according to it’s nature(or essence) which God established according to His will.

Humans are good in themselves in that we possess free will and rational souls, we are make in the “image and likeness of God.”

God never stated that “sacrificing your children” to be “good”. God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it does not follow that God intended Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

Clearly from the Biblical account He didn’t, but that it was intended to be a demonstration, not necessarily to God, but rather to us, of Abraham’s faith.

God has every right to test our trust in Him is such ways, not as a way to satisfy His “curiosity”(no such lack exists in God), but for our spiritual growth.

 

[JP2Admirer]

God is The Lord of life, so a command from God to kill is not contrary to the commandment.

It would be a bit like owning a second house and letting a friend squat there free of charge. You then have your son return from school and tell your friend he has to leave to make room for your son. This is not an act of theft because you own it. It is similar when God commanded to kill.

In the era of the New Law (which we live under), it would be very suspect that God would command to kill based off of Christ’s teaching. There is no longer the need to demonstrate who ‘the chosen people’ are. The new Israel is the Church and it is ubiquitous. If a Christian believes they are advised by God to kill, a thorough testing of the spirit is necessary because it is likely not God, but a spirit clothed in light, ie a lying demon.

Also, God’s valuation of life is proved by the Isaac and Abraham story. Human sacrifice was the norm as opposed to the exception back then. God stayed Abraham’s hand, showing his respect for life.

 

[theblindlead]

The catholic church has not taken a stance on the question that has been asked. In medieval philosophy there were 2 major schools of thought: Franciscan and Dominican

Franciscan’s hold to divine command theory. which is basically things are right because god says they are right. So if God told me to killing my wife it would be wrong for me not to do so. Very simply stated God CAN contradict himself. (square circles, right wrongs, etc)

Dominican’s would argue that god cannot contradict himself. No square circles, no right wrong’s ect. They would argue that God is bound by the Aristotelian principle, the"Law of non-contradiction" so God cannot expressly state that humans have to follow the ten commandments and simultaneously tell me to kill my wife.

So to put this simply if I was to try and have a discussion with an atheist or attempt to have a logical discussion about Catholicism I would have to hold to Dominican principles because the majority of the arguments for the existence of god need a God is isn’t arbitrary. Personally I like the Franciscan way of thinking more and if you were to hold to this and someone asked you this question you could just say back the ways of God are inscrutable because god does not need to be logical.

Hope this made sense and contributes to the discussion

 

[tonyrey]

I think it’s pretty clear that in the OT, God asks people to kill…several times, and lots of people.

(There are a lot of other torturous and hurtful things He asks as well, but they are not breaking any official “commandment” so I guess they don’t count for your question.)

If it could be done then, why not today, too?

Not all statements in the OT are infallible. They should be interpreted in the light of Christ’s teaching that God is a loving Father - not a ruthless Judge.

 

[tonyrey]

We have to be careful not to confuse “good” as something merely arbitrary or positive(because God “said” so but could have said or willed differently).

“Good” is defined as that which is according to what God intended to be. Something is “good” in that it is according to it’s nature(or essence) which God established according to His will.

Humans are good in themselves in that we possess free will and rational souls, we are make in the “image and likeness of God.”

God never stated that “sacrificing your children” to be “good”. God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it does not follow that God intended Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

Clearly from the Biblical account He didn’t, but that it was intended to be a demonstration, not necessarily to God, but rather to us, of Abraham’s faith.

God has every right to test our trust in Him is such ways, not as a way to satisfy His “curiosity”(no such lack exists in God), but for our spiritual growth.

A loving Father would not ask Abraham to kill his own son for any reason whatsoever. It is a parable which anticipates the death of Jesus - which was not inflicted by His Father but by the folly and ignorance of men. Our Lord’s words on the Cross would apply to Abraham if he had killed Isaac:

“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do”.

The very fact that God prevented a horrendous crime demonstrates that Abraham was a just man who was misguided in his belief that it was God’s Will. He was not infallible…