Genocide in the Bible: does this trouble anyone else?

[Freddy]

Ah, takes me back…

 

[Gorgias]

Magnanimity:

As I’ve said now ad nauseam within this thread, the church fathers were keenly aware of this.

Augustine and Chrysostom are still missing from your commentary.

No – Augustine did talk about this, in terms of the Scriptural hermeneutic he asserted. (I’m trying to remember where – maybe in “On Christian Doctrine”?)

This is perhaps an unfair comparison, but when you have a scientific truth there is universal acceptance.

Two thoughts:

• yes, it is an unfair comparison. the two disciplines work in different ways.
• no, there isn’t universal acceptance. and, reaching the point where there’s merely a general consensus is a long and arduous process!

So if someone wants to claim that they have The Truth then it should be universal.

It’s important to note the difference between a “universal truth” and a “universal truth, universally accepted”, no?

God cannot order something immoral. So if you think He did, then the fault must be with you. And therefore…what He has ordered is justified.

I think that’s accurate, but fine tune it if you need to.

I think that, for a believer, one must begin from a starting point that understands God as the source of morality. So, if you think He’s immoral – since that conflicts with the very definition of God and His nature – then the natural place to start the inquiry is with one’s own (human) understanding.

Starting from the presumption that God is immoral is the height of hubris, it seems. (“Clearly, my understanding is right and God must be wrong”.)

But, if you remain convinced that you understand God fully, and in that understanding, God is acting immorally, then you certainly have the ability to act on that understanding. But, as in all things, you’re responsible for the state of the formation of your conscience. It’s the classic expression of a ‘dilemma’ – which horn do you choose to be impaled upon… following your conscience or not following your conscience? Neither is safe… so, form your conscience well!

 

[goout]

Augustine discusses different senses of scripture in the Confessions. He was not a literalist, he had a healthy (ie Catholic) view of it. I don’t have the resources in front of me to quote the passage.

It’s good to recognize that morality does not apply to God. God is not the subject of moral evaluation, he is the source of it. So while we wouldn’t morally evaluate God’s will or action, what we know about God must be consistent with morality. When we morally evaluate this passage of scripture, we are evaluating the human elements in it; the telling of it, the human actions described in it, the human conception of God that it expresses.

And not to be endlessly repetitive, but it seems to be necessary…Christ is the revealed source and summation of morality. If we want to know the answers to these questions, Christ embodies them. And scripture is always read by the Church in that context. There are many good sources quoted in this thread to that effect. The fact that so many Catholics do not understand this is a scandalous failure of catechesis.

So while it’s true that God has the capacity or potency to do anything, God’s revealed nature is what it is, and if an ascribed action in scripture contradicts that nature (like commanding one human being to slaughter other innocents) you must look deeper and more consistently with God’s own self-revelation, which has “Christ as the ultimate hermeneutical key” (P Benedict Verbum Domini)

 

[goout]

God cannot order something immoral. So if you think He did, then the fault must be with you. And therefore…what He has ordered [snip].

…must be read with that imperfect human perspective in mind. And that human perspective cannot condition God’s nature. Rather we simply want to know the saving truth God wishes to convey through the collaboration with the imperfect human perspective.

Scripture is a collaboration between the imperfect human, and the divine. God, who needs nothing, does not need human perfection to accomplish salvation. What God asks is for relationship, not perfect details. Scripture expresses that relationship so that we might come to know God.
To confine God to the literalist words on the page is idolatry of scripture. And to save us from that…Christ.

 

[Magnanimity]

No – Augustine did talk about this, in terms of the Scriptural hermeneutic he asserted. (I’m trying to remember where – maybe in “On Christian Doctrine”?)

That’s right. He does it in a few places in On Christian Doctrine. In Book 3, CHAP. 10.–HOW WE ARE TO DISCERN WHETHER A PHRASE IS FIGURATIVE , St Augustine writes,

In the first place, then, we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor. Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and his neighbor.

He continues, in CHAP. 11.–RULE FOR INTERPRETING PHRASES WHICH SEEM TO ASCRIBE SEVERITY TO GOD AND THE SAINTS

some words are used figuratively, as for example, “the wrath of God” and “crucified.” But these are not so numerous, nor placed in such a way as to obscure the sense, and make it allegorical or enigmatical, which is the kind of expression properly called figurative. But in the saying addressed to Jeremiah, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down,”(5) there is no doubt the whole of the language is figurative, and to be referred to the end I have spoken of.

Augustine discusses different senses of scripture in the Confessions. He was not a literalist, he had a healthy (ie Catholic) view of it. I don’t have the resources in front of me to quote the passage.

Oh man, he goes to allegorical town on the early chapters of Genesis, talking about how the four rivers symbolize the four cardinal virtues, etc. He doesn’t hold back at all and is completely in keeping with his contemporaries and predecessors in allegorizing Genesis. But, to be fair, he does seem to want to have his cake and eat it too. There are places where he wants to speak of the “history” of Gen 1-3 too, whatever he might specifically mean by that.

When we morally evaluate this passage of scripture, we are evaluating the human elements in it; the telling of it, the human actions described in it, the human conception of God that it expresses.

God’s revealed nature is what it is, and if an ascribed action in scripture contradicts that nature (like commanding one human being to slaughter other innocents) you must look deeper and more consistently with God’s own self-revelation, which has “Christ as the ultimate hermeneutical key”

Wonderfully well said, and perfectly in keeping with the general approach of the Fathers from what I’ve been able to discern while reading them.

 

[BT3241]

When you were victorious God was on your side - when the Israelite lost it was because God was not with them - even in today’s world in battle victory is given to God

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Augustine did talk about this, in terms of the Scriptural hermeneutic he asserted.

He took it literally, something @Magnanimity sweeps under the rug.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Christ is the revealed source and summation of morality. If we want to know the answers to these questions, Christ embodies them.

And we know Christ is coming back with an iron rod. The Lamb of God is also the Lion of Judah. He’s not tame.

 

[goout]

goout:

Christ is the revealed source and summation of morality. If we want to know the answers to these questions, Christ embodies them.

And we know Christ is coming back with an iron rod. The Lamb of God is also the Lion of Judah. He’s not tame.

Is he violent? Will he advocate violence? What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that righteous anger excuses genocide? That God’s righteous anger causes him have a snit and make his people kill children?
Are we to infer that you are prophesying Christ’s anger towards people?
Who for instance? Who is Christ most angry at in the Gospels?

Is Jesus Christ capable of righteous anger without you projecting that into violence against small children, or does your vision of violence necessarily follow from the life of Jesus?

 

[Magnanimity]

He took it literally, something @Magnanimity sweeps under the rug.

But, to be fair, he does seem to want to have his cake and eat it too. There are places where he wants to speak of the “history” of Gen 1-3 too, whatever he might specifically mean by that.

Who swept what where?

St Augustine was a massive allegorizer—one of the best! In City of God Bk 13, chap 21, he says,

No one, then, denies that Paradise may signify the life of the blessed; its four rivers, the four virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice; its trees, all useful knowledge; its fruits, the customs of the godly; its tree of life, wisdom herself, the mother of all good; and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the experience of a broken commandment. The punishment which God appointed was in itself a just, and therefore a good thing; but man’s experience of it is not good.

These things can also and more profitably be understood of the Church, so that they become prophetic foreshadowings of things to come. Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in the Canticles;[603] the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels; the fruit-trees the saints, and the fruit their works; the tree of life is the holy of holies, Christ; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the will’s free choice. For if man despise the will of God, he can only destroy himself; and so he learns the difference between consecrating himself to the common good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, “My soul is cast down within me,”[604] and when chastened, may say, “Because of his strength I will wait upon Thee.”[605] These and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts.

Sure, St Augustine wants to believe in the “strict truth of the history,” whatever that means for him. But he would waste no effort in asserting that that “strict truth” is what we’re supposed to appreciate about Gen 1-3. He sees the same deep symbolism that all the Fathers do and allegorizes with the best of them. There’s no conflict for him to see it as history too because to do so doesn’t impugn the character of God. It doesn’t violate his principle in Christian Doctrine, Bk 3, chap 10.

 

[Freddy]

I think that, for a believer, one must begin from a starting point that understands God as the source of morality. So, if you think He’s immoral – since that conflicts with the very definition of God and His nature – then the natural place to start the inquiry is with one’s own (human) understanding.

Starting from the presumption that God is immoral is the height of hubris, it seems. (“Clearly, my understanding is right and God must be wrong”.)

But, if you remain convinced that you understand God fully, and in that understanding, God is acting immorally, then you certainly have the ability to act on that understanding.

I’m not sure I get this.

On one hand you say that God is the very source of morality. Right, we’ve got that. God cannot be immoral. He cannot command something that is immoral. It’s simply not possible. So if you think he’s commanded you to do something that you think is immoral there can only be two conclusions to be drawn. Either He hasn’t commanded you - you are mistaken in believing that OR what He has commanded is not immoral - it’s just that you don’t understand the complete picture.

So in this case, if you are absolutely certain that you have refeived a command from God, then you must carry it out. And this is the situation with which I have a problem. Because it is all too easy to be convinced that God has given you a direct instruction to do something and you will comply. And do literally anything. Because, as you have said, whatever it is it cannot be immoral.

Then, with barely a pause, you say that if ‘God is acting immorally, then you certainly have the ability to act on that understanding’. Which to me is directly contradicting the above. How are you able to make a decsion as to whether God is acting immoraly if you have already claimed that He cannot?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

God cannot order something immoral. So if you think He did, then the fault must be with you. And therefore…what He has ordered [snip].

…must be read with that imperfect human perspective in mind. And that human perspective cannot condition God’s nature. Rather we simply want to know the saving truth God wishes to convey through the collaboration with the imperfect human perspective.

I think that this is a case of having your cake and eating it. It appears that you are saying that an act can be immoral as far as we are concerned but not for God. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Edit: And it does contradict what you were saying to Magnanimity (and later posts), so perhaps I have misinterpreted it.

 

[goout]

I think that this is a case of having your cake and eating it. It appears that you are saying that an act can be immoral as far as we are concerned but not for God. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Not saying that at all, in fact if you go back and look carefully, I am precisely not saying that.

 

[goout]

Gorgias:

I think that, for a believer, one must begin from a starting point that understands God as the source of morality. So, if you think He’s immoral – since that conflicts with the very definition of God and His nature – then the natural place to start the inquiry is with one’s own (human) understanding.

Starting from the presumption that God is immoral is the height of hubris, it seems. (“Clearly, my understanding is right and God must be wrong”.)

But, if you remain convinced that you understand God fully, and in that understanding, God is acting immorally, then you certainly have the ability to act on that understanding.

I’m not sure I get this.

On one hand you say that God is the very source of morality. Right, we’ve got that. God cannot be immoral. He cannot command something that is immoral. It’s simply not possible. So if you think he’s commanded you to do something that you think is immoral there can only be two conclusions to be drawn. Either He hasn’t commanded you - you are mistaken in believing that OR what He has commanded is not immoral - it’s just that you don’t understand the complete picture.

In the first place, commands of God (like a vocation) are not given to individuals in isolation. The voice of God is always in the context of the Church. So yea, Jim Jones of Guyana didn’t hear very clearly, no matter how convinced he was personally. He was clearly off on his own. By contrast read Mother Teresa’s biography. God spoke to her powerfully, and she had to incorporate this call into the Church as a whole. Required a lot of lobbying on her part for superiors to appreciate her call from God.

So if you think he’s commanded you to do something that you think is immoral there can only be two conclusions to be drawn. Either He hasn’t commanded you - you are mistaken in believing that

This is probably the closest to the wholesome way of interpreting these passages. Humanity is imperfect. Human expression is colored by cultural context. Understanding is not perfect. And still the passage is living and effective with it’s true meaning for the reader.

And this is where you shouldn’t reflexively say “but you Christians say the Scriptures are the word of God” as justification, because that’s fundamentalism. You have to dig deeper into the relationship between human and divine. This isn’t journalism. In journalism, when the facts are compromised the word is compromised. The bible isn’t journalism. The facts are only a part of the literature, and they are frequently impossible to lay hold of. Yet, the saving truth remains.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I think that this is a case of having your cake and eating it. It appears that you are saying that an act can be immoral as far as we are concerned but not for God. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Not saying that at all, in fact if you go back and look carefully, I am precisely not saying that.

Granted. Subsequent posts bear that out. My apologies.

 

[Freddy]

This is probably the closest to the wholesome way of interpreting these passages. Humanity is imperfect. Human expression is colored by cultural context. Understanding is not perfect. And still the passage is living and effective with it’s true meaning for the reader.

And this is where you shouldn’t reflexively say “but you Christians say the Scriptures are the word of God” as justification, because that’s fundamentalism. You have to dig deeper into the relationship between human and divine. This isn’t journalism. In journalism, when the facts are compromised the word is compromised. The bible isn’t journalism. The facts are only a part of the literature, and they are frequently impossible to lay hold of. Yet, the saving truth remains.

And it does look like we’re on the same page. But a couple of points…

Obviously I don’t think that God gives any commands at all. And you might be right that should He exist He wouldn’t give the type of commands we are discussing to an individual. But the point I am making is that if someone truly believes that he has been given such a command, and believing that God cannot issue an immoral command then they will feel completely justified in carrying out what they think is God’s work. And we’re all too familiar with the consequences of that.

And if any given Christian (or Muslim) points to their scripture and says ‘This means that I am justified in doing this’ then yes, it is indeed fundamentalism. This has been the subtext of every post I have made. And it must be called out.

I’m certain nobody on this forum would do anything but argue the position. But if you keep arguing for it then eventually the stars will align and you will have someone act on it.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Is Jesus Christ capable of righteous anger without you projecting that into violence against small children, or does your vision of violence necessarily follow from the life of Jesus?

The Flood clearly doesn’t exist in your universe, or Sodom.

Jesus said worse things would happen for those towns who rejected Him.

And @stpurl has said it: kids are capable of commiting mortal sins. So not so innocent as you’d have us believe.

 

[StudentMI]

And @stpurl has said it: kids are capable of commiting mortal sins. So not so innocent as you’d have us believe.

Are babies?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Are babies?

We covered this before.

 

[StudentMI]

We covered this before.

I haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer.

I was reading today about ancient Near Eastern cultures, and they were analyzing the story of Achan. How he stole things and the people of Israel had to suffer for it. It goes a long way towards showing that collective responsibility and punishment were a big part of the culture back then, and shows the Israelites were no different culturally.