Genocide in the Bible: does this trouble anyone else?

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Freddy said:
I didn’t say that someone could think it immoral. I said that an act can be immoral for us and not for God. You don’t believe that.
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I see what you are trying to do. You are trying to blur the distinction what can be the case and what is actually the case by introducing the intermediary…
Freddy said:
It appears that you are saying that an act can be immoral as far as we are concerned but not for God.
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I fail to see the distinction between what a human believes and as far as we are concerned.

How can “…an act can be immoral for us and not for God?” you asked.

If it isn’t immoral for God and God actually commands it then its immorality as far as we are concerned would evaporate. It would be akin to the principle of double effect, similar to an ectopic pregnancy or the trolley problem if it qualifies as such (and you seem to accept that it does. Which is why I brought in that old post.)
 
God is king.
A king is above the Law.
Therefore God is above the Law.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
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Gorgias:
There are 535 posts in this thread, friend. I’m not going to search all of them for a putative quote.
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So you can’t type the keywords “Aquinas” and “ambush.”
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Sure I can! Sadly, when I put those words into the search box, and click “Search this topic”, I get back “no results found.”

But hey, I’m an intrepid sort, so I tried again – this time, not limiting it to this thread BUT ALSO including your handle in the search, so that I’d find where you posted it. Yep, you got it – other than this post I’m replying to… “No more results found.”

So… maybe you thought you posted something, but didn’t really do so?
 
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Julius_Caesar said:
On the contrary, Augustine says (QQ. in Hept. qu. x super Jos): “Provided the war be just, it is no concern of justice whether it be carried on openly or by ambushes”: and he proves this by the authority of the Lord, Who commanded Joshua to lay ambushes for the city of Hai (Joshua 8:2).
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Satisfied?
 
Julius_Caesar said:
And the Angelic Doctor clearly saw these passages as literal.

On the contrary, Augustine says (QQ. in Hept. qu. x super Jos): “Provided the war be just, it is no concern of justice whether it be carried on openly or by ambushes”: and he proves this by the authority of the Lord, Who commanded Joshua to lay ambushes for the city of Hai (Joshua 8:2).
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By no means this quotation proves that Augustine was saying or believed that those passages are “literal”, if with this term you mean that those verses describe facts really happened. Augustine is using those passages to obtain from them a moral teaching, exactly as we use Jesus’ parables with the same purpose, even if we certainly do not believe that they describe facts really happened.
 
Freddy said:
And as this thread also exhibits, they believe the actions were moral.

We’re not discussing the validity of historical events here. We’re discussing what people believe.
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At the very most basic level it comes down to the fact that each of us exist as autonomous subjects facing our existence and our non-existence in what appears to be the vast “other” over which we have no control.

At its most basic, faith entails having trust (or not) in that absolute “other.” Do we apprehend the “other” as the absolute Thou in the I-Thou relationship or merely the chaos in which we flounder in absolute isolation?

Having faith in God means absolutely that there is no option but to trust because the alternative is utter despair. Ultimately there is no alternativd but the mere ubiquitous brute fact of non-being, of non-existence, and nothing more.

The lesson of Job is that faith means absolute trust even when it involves trust in Whom all our “as far as we are concerned” notions fall to the wayside in the ultimate leap of faith that is death.
Freddy said:
The post was about the method God chose, not the result He intended. For someone who is omnipotent, reaching out to possibly hundreds of children to save them from an evil future and welcome them into heaven by having them hacked to death makes me question the validity of the story when one considers an all loving God.
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Each of us will, at some time, face our demise, be that “hacked to death” by the shards of metal in a car wreck, on the operating table, in a fall off a cliff or when dementia or Alzheimer’s hacks apart our mental faculties. All are under God’s dominion and in his plan, our objections notwithstanding.

We either trust God or we do not. That great and abiding question remains despite all of our “as far as we are concerned” remonstrations.
 
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Julius_Caesar said:
Satisfied?
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Whew! That was like pulling teeth! 🤣

Thank you!

OK – let’s review:
  • at issue is whether a purported literal divine command to commit genocide is moral
  • you’ve responded that – presuming the command was literal – it was morally licit, and you’re using Aquinas’ ST II-II.40.3 to support that thesis
    • There, Aquinas quotes Augustine on ambushes
    • In addition, Aquinas concludes that ambushes can be moral
Here’s the problem:
  • whether or not ambushes are moral… it doesn’t affect the question of whether calls for genocide are moral
  • in fact, in the citation you use for proof, both Aquinas and Augustine lay down a prerequisite: the aggression itself must first be just before we can consider whether the ambush is a moral course of action.
    • And, actually, Aquinas gives examples in which an ambush would not be moral!
So: not only does your example not prove your case, but it actually requires that you would have already proven it prior to attempting to use the citation you wish to utilize! So, you’ve got a circular argument that doesn’t prove what you claim it does.

Whew! Glad we could clear that up!
 
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I posted it before - it was a time of Kings - there was no nice government setting laws you were executed - all for the King. All of them trying to expand their kingdom you can read about it in the bible. How could you not go into battle and live a peaceful life in those times ?

No one seems to have a problem with the Christian Kings who tried to take back the promised land lots of people died horrible deaths. They also believed it was Gods will. Even those times were horrific.
 
Gorgias said:
OK – let’s review:
  • at issue is whether a purported literal divine command to commit genocide is moral
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In the passage Israel burns the town and kills everyone inside.

So that goes without saying.
Gorgias said:
whether or not ambushes are moral… it doesn’t affect the question of whether calls for genocide are moral
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Everything God commands is moral, and I addressed that part.
 
Gorgias said:
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Freddy:
And I have to keep telling you that whether it happened or not is not the point. It’s whether people believe it happened. And as this thread exhibits, they do.
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I think that one’s personal opinion of the historicity of that event is irrelevant. After all, we’re reminded that nothing in Scripture is of private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).
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What you, and your church, thinks about personal revelation has no bearing at all on whether someone believes it or not. If someone does believe that God can command acts which that person would normally consider evil and truly believes that God has commanded him to do something that he woukdn’t normally do, then he will feel justified in doing it.

Whether the original act took place, whether God actually ordered it, whether He was justified in doing so if He did and whether this person has actually received another command from God is all completely irrelevant.

He only needs to believe those four things. And there are a few people in this thread who already believe the first three.
 
HarryStotle said:
Each of us will, at some time, face our demise, be that “hacked to death” by the shards of metal in a car wreck, on the operating table, in a fall off a cliff or when dementia or Alzheimer’s hacks apart our mental faculties. All are under God’s dominion and in his plan, our objections notwithstanding.
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This wasn’t an accident ot a result of my free will choices. This was specifically ordered by God (or some would have us believe). They believe that God wanted to bring them to Him. And they believe that putting them to the sword was justified.
 
Freddy said:
What you, and your church, thinks about personal revelation has no bearing at all on whether someone believes it or not.
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It’s the reverse. What someone believes about personal revalation has no bearing on God’s decree through His Church.
Freddy said:
They believe that God wanted to bring them to Him.
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Not entirely accurate. We specifically refer to babies of children under the age of reason for that case.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
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Freddy:
What you, and your church, thinks about personal revelation has no bearing at all on whether someone believes it or not.
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What someone believes about personal revalation has no bearing on God’s decree through His Church.
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Absolutely correct. And which has zero bearing on the point I was making. Although I have just about given up on most people actually reading what I am writing.
Julius_Caesar said:
Not entirely accurate. We specifically refer to babies of children under the age of reason for that case.
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But that they were put to the sword…that’s accurate?
 
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And, at the time of the Exodus, all the first born who were not protected by the blood of the lamb died.

In that scenario, the Angel of the Lord brought death.

In the scenario we are speaking of, God asked His chosen people to bring death.

The similarity of the two cases is that first, not all of those who died were guilty of personal sin.

The second is that those who died were part of God’s ultimate plan for the protection of His people.

The third similarity is a speculative one: With regard to the innocent especially, God’s calling for their temporal death could very well have assured these people eternal life. Though they personally did not ‘know God’, they suffered ‘for God’ and thus may have been assured a baptism of blood, whereas had they continued on in the situation they were in, many could have been lost.

If God has the authority to create each and every one of us, does He not have equal authority to ‘receive us back’, in a manner of HIS choosing?
 
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