Genocide in the Bible: does this trouble anyone else?

[MNathaniel]

It becomes very tricky and not easy to dismiss. You are certain it is God BECAUSE he has provided you with absolutely foolproof motives for credibility. What would you do?

This is the exact question I am pointing out that mentally ill people have to deal with.

 

[HarryStotle]

The problem a mentally ill person has to deal with is likely not this one because someone who is mentally ill would not have the clarity of self-reflection to impartially stand away from their thought processes to assess them rationally. They would be too taken up in their thoughts to detach from them.

I think it is a different issue than thinking through a hypothetical like this. A mentally ill person would be too engaged in the thinking itself to properly have perspective on it.

 

[HarryStotle]

… I’m addressing an angle you personally introduced into it (or someone did, way upthread, and you seem to be arguing alongside), which is the argument (you have been making, and I am objecting to) that genocide and killing children is NOT inherently bad…

Just to be clear. I am certainly not arguing that genocide or the murder of innocents are not inherently bad - they are.

In fact, God in the OT uses the sacrifice of children to Moloch as the warrant for taking the land away from the Canaanites, so God also views it as inherently bad.

Perhaps a parallel might make things clearer. Think of the laws of nature operating on bodies and entities in the world. It could be legitimately claimed that given those laws the force of gravity inherently draws bodies together. There is no instance where gravity does not apply given those laws.

Now think of the moral order as being governed by moral laws. The problem is that this world is morally broken because moral agency presumes the capacity for autonomous moral choice, but the moral agents in this, our current, moral order have misused their autonomy and thereby have created a dysfunctional moral order. If the dysfunction were not so, the moral order would function perfectly according to moral laws just as the natural order operates under the laws of nature.

Now it is possible that God could suspend the laws of nature and bring about a miracle, but he doesn’t normally do so because he wills the order embedded in the laws of nature.

The moral order is a different story though because God wills the moral laws to apply unfailingly, but the very nature of the dysfunction of evil and the autonomy of moral agents makes it such that God must find ways to put the moral order back together without infringing the autonomy of moral agents.

Could God use pain and suffering to reorder the dysfunction of moral agents not to force moral order on them but in the attempt to reform or form good moral agents by appropriate moral consequences? Could God use pain, suffering and evil (that already exist in the broken moral order) with the long term intent to make the entire order right according to an infallibly known (to God) plan to reset the moral order?

Ergo, moral laws do generally govern morality, but - akin to God’s capacity to miraculously intervene and suspend the laws of nature - God could extra-morally intervene in the moral order provided it is purposed towards righting the entire moral structure.

Morality and free will are both willed by God but within his purview is the resetting of the entire moral landscape and that may entail using pain and suffering to bring about that reset. God alone could have the perspective to understand how and why. We wouldn’t due to our limitations.

So generally God originated and wills the moral order but may - similar to his use of miracles in the natural order - suspend or intervene in the moral order to bring about a long term reset of the moral order itself.

Such extraordinary interventions in the Old Testament might be instances of God intervening extra-morally towards more far reaching ends.

 

[Freddy]

MNathaniel:

… I’m addressing an angle you personally introduced into it (or someone did, way upthread, and you seem to be arguing alongside), which is the argument (you have been making, and I am objecting to) that genocide and killing children is NOT inherently bad…

Just to be clear. I am certainly not arguing that genocide or the murder of innocents are not inherently bad - they are.

I’m in danger of using all caps here…

Your argument is that it’s bad unless commanded by God.

This nonsense about needing the divne command requiring a thumbs up from further up the theological hierarchy is a get-out-of-jail card which is about as useful as the ones used in Monopoly.

The command only needs to be such that the person believes it completely. Whether it’s rivers of blood or an imprimatur from the Vatican. If we use the mentally ill example that’s being used then he or she could be absolutely certain that the river is running with blood or the Pope just called around in person to verify the command.

And then that person has a choice to make. Is massacring children hideously wrong in ALL circumstances or is it acceptable because God commanded it.

Your argument is for the latter. Because you believe that those who did the killing were absolutely sure they were going God’s work. So if you are absolutely sure yourself then what’s to stop you commiting a similar act?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

If a mentally ill person, today , sincerely believes God has sent them "clear and recognizable signs"

Irrelevant. It’s already been shown that God’s instructions were specifically so the Israelites could occupy the Promised Land. You’re doing a false equivalency.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

If scripture cannot lie then that must have happened.

People lie. God doesn’t. The context of that quote you mentioned is a parable. Totally different to what we are dealing with here.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Your argument is for the latter. Because you believe that those who did the killing were absolutely sure they were going God’s work. So if you are absolutely sure yourself then what’s to stop you commiting a similar act?

Slippery slope.

Those commands were for a specific purpose and a specific reason in a specific time.

 

[HarryStotle]

I’m in danger of using all caps here…

Your argument is that it’s bad unless commanded by God.

…

The command only needs to be such that the person believes it completely. Whether it’s rivers of blood or an imprimatur from the Vatican. If we use the mentally ill example that’s being used then he or she could be absolutely certain that the river is running with blood or the Pope just called around in person to verify the command.

And then that person has a choice to make. Is massacring children hideously wrong in ALL circumstances or is it acceptable because God commanded it.

Your argument is for the latter. Because you believe that those who did the killing were absolutely sure they were going God’s work. So if you are absolutely sure yourself then what’s to stop you commiting a similar act?

Yeah, no. That isn’t my argument. You are straw manning in order to reduce the force of it.

I don’t claim that those who did the killing were justified merely because they were absolutely sure they were doing God’s work.

That is where you are trying to shift the reasoning to make it appear that it amounts to an argument that anyone who thinks a command is from God, that person is justified. That isn’t my argument and you know it so quit the nonsense.

My argument is that God’s capacity to right the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend.

The cases in the OT do NOT amount to someone thinking God commanded something they just imagined in their own heads was God’s command. If the writers of Scripture believed that they would not have gone to such pains telling of the public miracles to show it wasn’t merely some irrational notion that motivated them but something beyond their abilities to question or comprehend.

Ergo, my argument is not the one you presented nor is it reducible to that no matter how hard you try to.

My argument is those who did the killing were justified because they had motives of credibility that would have convinced any reasonable person that God was in fact leading them, and any reasonable person knows he would be hard pressed to challenge God on his commands precisely because reasonable people understand they are not in the moral or rational position to challenge God’s command once they truly know with epistemic certainty that it actually is God who is issuing the command.

It is the quality of epistemic certainty that is at issue. I understand that. You might argue we can never have sufficient certainty to think God would issue such a command. Perhaps.

However my argument is one in principle not in fact, hence the if conditionals.

If we knew with certainty and if that certainty was accurately true that God did issue a particular command we would be in no position to challenge it

If you disagree, provide a reason for thinking that your judgement on a matter would have moral authority over the judgement of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, Creator of the Universe…

Whether or not you believe in God is irrelevant. If such a God exists what would be your standing for challenging God on any moral question?

 

[goout]

My argument is that God’s capacity to right the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend.

This is simply not true, and it reduces morality to the abstract. In fact, Christ himself is the full and final revelation of God, and if we want to know the source of morality we must look at Christ. God gives himself to us in Christ. We can’t look at the integrity of scripture out of context (fundamentalism), and we can’t simply look at traditions out of context, nor theological opinions out of context, no matter how sound they are. God gives himself to us in Christ, so that we can know him. Check out Benedict’s thoughts on Christ as the Logos of God.
Do you understand how Benedict and others use the word Logos in reference to God? God reveals himself, and God is reason-able, to the extent we are capable as creatures.The moral order is definitely something that God intends to reveal in his Logos. The opposite of this Logos is what we can call arbitrariness. Islam tends toward this view that God’s ways are utterly unknowable, and so we should not be surprised to find God doing things we find unacceptable.

But in Christianity, it is not true that man does not comprehend the moral order, and its not true that man cannot look at scripture and see it in light of the moral order as revealed in Christ. God makes the moral order intelligible. And while God is not the subject of morality, God is the source of it, so what we know about morality is revealed in God’s nature. And God’s nature does not admit contradiction.

It’s a mistake to address this question of the divine commanding of violence against innocents in circular fashion with reference only to God’s power and verbatim scripture passages.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

My argument is that God’s capacity to right the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend.

This is simply not true, and it reduces morality to the abstract.

Actually no, unless you want to claim the incomprehensibility of God reduces him to the abstract.

Note that I wasn’t claiming that the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend, I was claiming God’s capacity to right the moral order is beyond our capacity to understand.

You wouldn’t claim that God becoming man or making his body and blood into “real food” is within our capacity to understand, would you?

 

[goout]

goout:

HarryStotle:

My argument is that God’s capacity to right the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend.

This is simply not true, and it reduces morality to the abstract.

Actually no, unless you want to claim the incomprehensibility of God reduces him to the abstract.

Note that I wasn’t claiming that the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend, I was claiming God’s capacity to right the moral order is beyond our capacity to understand.

You wouldn’t claim that God becoming man or making his body and blood into “real food” is within our capacity to understand, would you?

Apples and oranges.
Morality evaluates human acts. Possessing good moral judgment requires knowing God. Knowing God means appreciating Christ, and putting Christ on.

Morality is no hidden secret to mankind, by the grace of God. And God as the source of morality is not OT/NT in Marcionistic fashion. God didn’t need “help” to establish moral order by way commanding genocide. When you appreciate that fact, the idea is patently ridiculous.

What is abhorrent in God’s eyes is abhorrent. And the killing of innocents is always and everywhere abhorrent. The idea that God could command it by literalist interpretation of scripture is incompatible with God’s revealed nature in Christ. The better interpretation is that this people are simply morally ignorant, and they are also the victors. And victors do get to write the history. Still, the passage conveys the truth God wills it to, and that truth is living truth right now.

Do you understand what is meant by Christ being the Logos of God?

 

[Magnanimity]

Just so we’re clear, how were the 3 days of Christ being in the heart of the Earth “literal?” There is no way to understand Christ literalistically when he says, as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40). How would we figure 3 days and 3 nights from the crucifixion to the resurrection? It’s not within the realm of possibility to do so. That’s not literally the amount of time that passed from Friday afternoon to the morning of Sunday, as St Augustine knew very well and commented on in many places (eg, City of God, On the Trinity, homilies on the Sermon on the Mount).

Here’s a bit from one of my favorite allegorizers among the Fathers, St Gregory of Nyssa:

1. It does not seem good to me to pass this interpretation by without further contemplation. How would a concept worthy of God be preserved in the description of what happened if one looked only to the history? The Egyptian acts unjustly, and in his place is punished his newborn child, who in his infancy cannot discern what is good and what is not. His life has no experience of evil, for infancy is not capable of passion. He does not know to distinguish between his right hand and his left. The infant lives his eyes only to his mother’s nipple, and tears are the sole perceptible sign of his sadness. And if he obtains anything which his nature desires, he signifies his pleasure by smiling. If such a one now pays the penalty of his father‘s wickedness, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness? Where is Ezekiel, who cries: the man who has sinned is the man who must die and a son is not to suffer for the sins of his father ? (Ezek 18:20) How can the history so contradict reason?
2. Therefore, as we look for the true spiritual meaning, seeking to determine whether the events took place typologically, we should be prepared to believe that the law giver has taught through the things said. The teaching is this: when through virtue one comes to grips with any evil, he must completely destroy the first beginnings of evil.
3. Do not be surprised at all if both things – the death of the firstborn and the pouring out of the blood—did not happen to the Israelites and on that account reject the contemplation which we have proposed concerning the destruction of evil as if it were a fabrication without any truth.
4. Consequently we have been taught by God that we must destroy the first fruits of the Egyptian children so that evil, in being destroyed at its beginning, might come to an end. [ The Life of Moses, Paulist Press, pp. 75-77]

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Here’s a bit from one of my favorite allegorizers among the Fathers, St Gregory of Nyssa:

I like how you left out my Augustine quote.

And passages interpreted allegorically doesnt take away from their historical reality. Paul uses this same tactic in Galatians.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

The idea that God could command it by literalist interpretation of scripture is incompatible with God’s revealed nature in Christ.

Except that for original sin, no one is innocent.

And we have this from Paul. “Does the potter have the right to do what He wills with the clay?”

 

[Magnanimity]

I like how you left out my Augustine quote.

Sorry I missed it, what was it? And in this reference by Christ to Jonah, as all Fathers knew well, there is no way to interpret Him literalistically.

And passages interpreted allegorically doesnt take away from their historical reality.

Neither you nor anyone else in this thread has established criteria for determining what is or isn’t “history” in the OT. But the OP (and Freddy, and the Church Fathers) have put forward at least one criterion by which we can know a priori that something did not occur in the OT. Namely, if the historical reading suggests that God is capable of commanding what all folks of properly-formed consciences would judge to be grotesque evil. God is not capable of evil. He is goodness itself. Trying to claim that whatever He commands is ipso facto good (even if it seems evil to all humans) is sheer voluntarism. There are many good reasons for supposing that God’s will (and the good) cannot be arbitrary.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Sorry I missed it, what was it?

I’m not gonna do your research for you. Look at my posts.

Neither you nor anyone else in this thread has established criteria for determining what is or isn’t “history” in the OT.

Actually, I did. Context.

But once again, you cherry pick me and the Fathers of the Church.

Namely, if the historical reading suggests that God is capable of commanding what all folks of properly-formed consciences would judge to be grotesque evil. God is not capable of evil

Let me ask you a question: does the potter have a right to do what He wants with the clay?

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

goout:

HarryStotle:

My argument is that God’s capacity to right the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend.

This is simply not true, and it reduces morality to the abstract.

Actually no, unless you want to claim the incomprehensibility of God reduces him to the abstract.

Note that I wasn’t claiming that the moral order is far beyond our reach to comprehend, I was claiming God’s capacity to right the moral order is beyond our capacity to understand.

You wouldn’t claim that God becoming man or making his body and blood into “real food” is within our capacity to understand, would you?

Apples and oranges.
Morality evaluates human acts. Possessing good moral judgment requires knowing God. Knowing God means appreciating Christ, and putting Christ on.

Putting Christ on is not like manipulating Christ to make him fit our conception of him. There is a deep act of faith required. The control isn’t one of shifting God towards our conception of what meets our approval, it is a slow movement towards God grounded in trust in him.

That is a challenge for sure because our own ego security and comfort is at risk. On the other hand what control do we really have over the vagaries of life? Not much.

Do we trust God or our current conception of God?

 

[HarryStotle]

Morality is no hidden secret to mankind, by the grace of God. And God as the source of morality is not OT/NT in Marcionistic fashion. God didn’t need “help” to establish moral order by way commanding genocide. When you appreciate that fact, the idea is patently ridiculous.

The flood is, then, also “patently ridiculous?” It didn’t happen? The call of Moses? The Judges? The prophets? None are actual because God didn’t need help? Is that the conclusion?

Your idea of God not “needing help” misses completely the reality of human free will. The entire enterprise is dependent upon the free-will acceptance of the moral order and God’s will.

 

[goout]

goout:

Morality is no hidden secret to mankind, by the grace of God. And God as the source of morality is not OT/NT in Marcionistic fashion. God didn’t need “help” to establish moral order by way commanding genocide. When you appreciate that fact, the idea is patently ridiculous.

The flood is, then, also “patently ridiculous?” It didn’t happen? The call of Moses? The Judges? The prophets? None are actual because God didn’t need help? Is that the conclusion?

Your idea of God not “needing help” misses completely the reality of human free will. The entire enterprise is dependent upon the free-will acceptance of the moral order and God’s will.

You state correctly that human free will is operable. God is not bound to human free will by any conception. God is the source of morality, as revealed in Christ. Human free will conforms to it. God doesn’t bend his revelation of morality to suit man’s weaknesses but man can surely be ignorant of it.

You are completely sidestepping the issue regarding God’s revealed nature.
And I will leave you all to your discussion as there is not much listening going on.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

And I will leave you all to your discussion as there is not much listening going on.

Pot meet kettle.