How can God be against abortion when he ordered the deaths of Amalekite infants/children?

[Blue_Horizon]

So you still believe that Adam was not naturally immortal?

Obviously. Try and mount a reasoned defence or provide an authority that actually supports you DV.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Obviously. Try and mount a reasoned defence or provide an authority that actually supports you DV.

Typo - Obviously not .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Whatever. If you still don’t believe what the Church has always taught about the matter then that’s your problem, I’ve proven my position.

DC if you contribute here to influence people then I suggest there are better ways than this.

If you baldly assert your own subjective interpretation of a Church Teaching is correct when other Catholics equally as devout as your good self (and possibly better informed) suggest otherwise then you need to mount a defence of some kind or be ignored.

To say “my interpretation is the correct one” is just plain jejeune and will impress noone.
Remember, only the Pontiff has the unchallenged right to pontificate without citing authority or reason .

 

[PeaceInChrist]

I am sure it’s been said many times by now, and is actually pretty obvious, but I’ll pitch in, as well:

WE ARE NOT GOD.

We have no right to take life unless the imminent threat of death is upon us or others.

 

[PeaceInChrist]

We have first parents, they committed the first sin. The rest is allegory giving it a frame. That’s all we are required to believe. Extrapolating immortality from the allegory isn’t.

Death entered the world because of sin, as did the whole disordering of creation. This is the traditional teaching of the Church.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Death entered the world because of sin, as did the whole disordering of creation. This is the traditional teaching of the Church.

22
Then the LORD God said: See! The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil! Now, what if he also reaches out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life, and eats of it and lives forever?j
23
The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.
24
He expelled the man, stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Adam wasn’t immortal - says so in the text. Couldn’t be clearer.

Now, what if he also reaches out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life, and eats of it and lives forever?

 

[devoutchristian]

Death entered the world because of sin, as did the whole disordering of creation. This is the traditional teaching of the Church.

Finally, another defender of orthodox Catholic doctrine on this thread.

 

[Suslar]

Well then I’m sorry I misunderstood you. I agree with the bolded and that is exactly what I was trying to say to the poster that you said “good point” to when he argued against me on that. So I thought you took a different approach and was saying that my views were “cheap shots.” I apologize.

Thank you. Apology accepted.

Mek42’s comment was about arguing that could cause damage to another’s faith. I agreed that it was a valid point and continued on to ask people to consider if we are turning on or turning off non-Catholics by our posts. I’d again make the same statement. Can those who aren’t Catholic see the love Catholics have for one another in the comments posted on CAF? (Not in reference to any one person, but in general).

 

[PeaceInChrist]

Adam wasn’t immortal - says so in the text. Couldn’t be clearer.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 400:

The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”, for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.

I’m sorry, but you are wrong on this matter. Without a consequence to sin, there would have been no need for a savior. Further, if the soul is immortal, what would have become of Adam after his death, had he not sinned? The Church is clear on this teaching.

In addition, this quote from Wisdom 1: 13 -

because God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.

 

[devoutchristian]

I’m sorry, but you are wrong on this matter. Without a consequence to sin, there would have been no need for a savior. Further, if the soul is immortal, what would have become of Adam after his death, had he not sinned? The Church is clear on this teaching.

 

[PeaceInChrist]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 400:

I’m sorry, but you are wrong on this matter. Without a consequence to sin, there would have been no need for a savior. Further, if the soul is immortal, what would have become of Adam after his death, had he not sinned? The Church is clear on this teaching.

In addition, this quote from Wisdom 1: 13 -

To follow up on my post (because CA has the silly 20 minute editing rule), in the Catholic Encyclopedia this excerpt is under ‘Original Sin’:

Theodorus of Mopsuestia opened this controversy by denying that the sin of Adam was the origin of death. (See the “Excerpta Theodori”, by Marius Mercator; cf. Smith, “A Dictionary of Christian Biography”, IV, 942.) Celestius, a friend of Pelagius, was the first in the West to hold these propositions, borrowed from Theodorus: “Adam was to die in every hypothesis, whether he sinned or did not sin. His sin injured himself only and not the human race” (Mercator, “Liber Subnotationem”, preface). This, the first position held by the Pelagians, was also the first point condemned at Carthage (Denzinger, “Enchiridion”, no 101-old no. 65). Against this fundamental error Catholics cited especially Romans 5:12, where Adam is shown as transmitting death with sin.

The concept that death predated sin is a heresy of the Pelagians, and has been condemned by the Church. I am no figure of authority in the Church, but it seems that this stance is a heresy, and I recommend it be acknowledged as such.

newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm

Besides the aforementioned Wisdom and Romans excerpts, 1 Corinthians 15:21 and Wisdom 2:24 also point to man and the devil as the cause of death.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Did God Command Genocide?
By: Msgr. Charles Pope

In the readings for Daily Mass this week we are reading from 1 Samuel 15 where Saul comes into disfavor with Samuel and God for refusing to fully obey the “Ban” imposed on the Amalekites by God through Samuel. What was the “Ban?” Most fundamentally it was an command that in taking a city or a nation that the Israelites were to destroy every man, woman and child and animal. No one was to be spared. Further, any wealth was to be given to the sacred treasury.

The Ban is one of the most disturbing aspects of the Old Testament, made even more disturbing by the fact that it is freqently God himself who seems to command it.

The practice is first seen in the Book of Deuteronomy where the Ban is commanded in certain places. As Moses and the Israelites journeyed through the Desert and came near the Promised Land they mercilessly destroyed many kingdoms. Sihon King the Amorites and all his cities and subjects were utterly destroyed and no one left alive. Next as Israel went out against Og the King of Bashan God said to Moses: “Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon” (Deut. 3:2) Systematically the troops of Israel destroyed every city in Bashan and killed every man woman and child.

And Moses left this command for Israel as they entered the Promised Land:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy (Deut 7:1-3).

Hence as Joshua led the people into the Promised Land they implemented the Ban beginning with Jericho:

Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city! The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury.” When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. (Joshua 6: 16-20)

In the passage above it is not clear that God commanded the Ban, but later in Joshua 8 the Lord affirms what happened to Jericho and commands the same be inflicted on the city of Ai : Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. (Jos 8:1-2). Joshua 10 then goes on to describe a whole series of Canaanite Cities that are also put under the Ban. No one is left alive. Though here there is no explicit command of God to do so that is recorded, they are clearly following the plan that Moses had set forth.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Continued

blog.adw.org/2010/01/did-god-command-genocide

Finally, in the readings for daily Mass we see the command given by God through Samuel that the Amalekites should be put under the Ban: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ “ (1 Sam 15:1-3) But Saul does not fully comply, keeping some of the cattle for himself and his men. God therefore rejects him as King for his failure to keep the Ban wholly. (1 Sam 15:23).

The “Ban” is troubling and many explanations have been advanced to try and place its horrible dimensions in some sort of acceptable framework. Here are a few explanations:

    [LIST=1]

*]God said no such thing – Some commentators hold that God did not really say any such thing to Israel. Rather they simply misrepresented God or put their evil practices into God’s mouth. The Catholic Study Bible says of God’s “command” to Saul: The slaughter of the innocent has never been in conformity with God’s will. The footnote goes on to suggest that Samuel misrepresents God (Footnote on 1 Sam 15:3). The problem with such an approach is that it opens up a door that many want to walk through. Namely, whenever there is something we are troubled by or don’t like we just say, “God never said that.” The list of things God never said could grow quite long if this door is opened. Further, if God never said this to Saul how do we explain God later rejecting Saul for disobeying God. How can we disobey something God never said? Too many problems seem to issue from this approach IMHO.

*] They weren’t innocent – Some commentators agree that God would never say to kill the innocent and then argue that among these ancient peoples put under the ban there were no “innocent” people in these sinful city-states. Everyone participated in abominable sexual practices and strange idolatry to include even sacrificing their children to their gods. Well, OK even if we could argue that these ancient civilizations were thoroughly disreputable, it is hard to argue that little children and infants are not innocent. The position still does not answer why God ordered even infants killed.

*] God has authority - Some prefer simply to insist that God is the Lord of life and can never be accused of injustice in taking life. He decides who lives, who dies and when. He has every right to command the end of civilizations. It is no different than you or I pulling out hedges to plant roses. God ends eras, brings nations and empires to an end as he wills and we are not free to question why. Pure and simple God has authority to do this and owes us no explanations as to why he chooses one nation or people over another. Like surgeon he amputates when all hope of healing is gone. OK, it’s pretty hard to argue against God’s authority. It’s a kind of a Job-like answer. God answers Job’s questions with a rather long soliloquy on Job’s incapacity to admonish God or understand his ways. In the end, it still seems unsatisfying for it does not address why God seems to act so contrary to other commands he gives Israel to respect the resident alien, and not to murder (eg Ex 23:7; Ex 20:13).

*] Emphasize the reason – God gave the reason for the Ban in Deuteronomy 7:4: for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. Hence God commands this to keep the people pure. OK, but can the end of purity justify the means of genocide?

In the end, it would all we can say about these passages is that they exist and put a kind of a tall fence around them. I personally think God did in fact order the Ban for the reason stated in the objection to Number 1 above. Of all the approaches above I suppose the argument from authority carries most weight with me. But the command was only for a brief time in a very particular circumstance for a very particular reason. Sometimes the best we can do with Scripture is to accept the history it records. Scripture is a collection of books that ultimately build upon each other and progress toward a better goal. In an early and brutal time God commanded tough solutions. Once his Law established deeper roots in a brutal world God could insist that indiscriminate killing was no longer to be permitted. Later books and surely the New Testament would never support such a “solution” as the Ban.

We must be careful here. because to say that Scripture builds and progresses toward a more enlightened moral understanding does not mean we can indiscriminately reject every moral insight of the Old Testament. Much of the early legislation such as the Ten Commandments carries forward and is affirmed by later texts. Some OT moral requirements however are explicitly abrogated (such as when Jesus rendered all foods clean). Others simply disappear from sight and are never reaffirmed by later texts or the New Testament. Such is the case with the horrifying Ban and it is well that we leave it in the distant past. Beyond this we cannot say much more. The Ban is a fact recorded in early Scripture and we have to be sophisticated enough in our understanding of Scripture to simply accept that fact. But the same sophistication demands we properly understand the development of Doctrine which God himself directs in the pages of the same Scripture.

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts and additions to this article

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KBeIObx9JSw

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Adam wasn’t immortal - says so in the text. Couldn’t be clearer.

Yes, opponents have yet to explain the meaning of the Tree of Life in their very black and white views on this matter! The way to reconcile both views on this matter is to understand that “bodily immortality” has a number of different meanings in Catholic Theology.

DC and PIC are arguing for “strong/internal bodily immortality”. That is, Adam was made bodily immortal by intrinsic nature. “Naturally immortal” is how DC put it. This position is untenable both by faith and by reason.

If it were true it would be impossible for God to punish Adam by renegging on it.
To do so would be to change Adam’s very humanity - he would no longer be human. Hence impossible, God does not reneg on the Nature he creates. Not even that of fallen angels. Also, as you say, what is the point of the Tree of Life in this scenario? Its pointless. In fact all the fruit trees are pointless, Adam would not need to eat to survive. Also, why create human’s with sexual differentiation? Procreation for the preservation of the species is superfluous in a world of such strong immortals. Many of the Fathers of the Church have pointed out these very problems as one reason for the following different understanding of bodily immortality.

Catholic tradition actually teaches a "weak/external bodily immortality"in Eden.
This is exactly what DC quoted (without understanding) above. DC in quoting Dr Ott you in fact destroyed your own position. If immortality is preter-natural it cannot be natural as you attempted to assert originally.

That is, it is not part of the warrants of raw created human nature but an “add-on”, a “preternatural gift.” I called it an “extrinsic” gift. It is reversible. God can take it back without being untrue to Himself or us. This is the meaning of the Tree of Life in Genesis. Adam was not internally (self-sufficient) immortal. Adam really needed to eat external remedies to keep his immortality - food from the other trees or suffer bodily consequences. He needed to regularly eat from the Tree of Life (provided by God for that purpose) to repair the damage of aging. Aquinas put it this way:

“In the state of innocence man had an animal life requiring food; but after the resurrection he will have a spiritual life needing no food. If man had not taken food he would have sinned. … In old age the body declines, and finally dies from natural causes. Against this defect man was provided with a remedy in the tree of life” (ST Ia, 97)

“The tree of life to a certain degree was the cause of immortality…” (ST Ia 97)
(i.e. it required regular eating, not a once and for all eating).

“For man’s body was indissoluble not by reason of any intrinsic vigor of immortality, but by reason of a supernatural force given by God to the soul…” (ST 1a 97)

And Augustine also agrees:
“Man had food to appease his hunger, drink to slake his thirst; and the tree of life to banish the breaking up of old age” (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26)

Death as a result of original sin is a red herring.
The “death” of “weak immortals” in Eden is not at all the same thing.
The Fathers have provided various possible explanations on this point.
(1) As I explained earlier on this thread it could be seen as a “Transitus” much like the Greek understanding of Mary’s “Dormition.” It is not something to be feared or abbhored. A painless/mystical leaving of temporal Eden into bodily glorification of true eternity without pain or loss.
(2) A time where aged individuals become so graced they pass from temporal corporeality to spiritual glorification something like a living transfiguration completed in an ascension.

In either case the body is not split off from the soul. That painful and abhorrent thing is a consequence of sin.Yet the ultimate effect is the same as death - a passing over to true immortality, Eternity.

 

[GEddie]

Further, if the soul is immortal, what would have become of Adam after his death, had he not sinned? -

My understanding is that with no sin, there would have been no (human) bodily death at all.

I’m not getting into the issue of animal death. Obviously there were predators and such long before human life. Ultimately, we can’t know about the animals and it doesn’t much matter.

ICXC NIKA

 

[mek42]

I do not think that too much comparison of the Ban to Job is appropriate. In Job, God allowed evil to happen, with Bans God commands evil to happen.

A more satisfying discussion would be helpful, especially since a Christian tenet is to judge religion by their fruit. If a fruit of following God is, now and then, genocide, this doesn’t seem like a very good fruit.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Yes, opponents have yet to explain the meaning of the Tree of Life in their very black and white views on this matter! The way to reconcile both views on this matter is to understand that “bodily immortality” has a number of different meanings in Catholic Theology.

DC and PIC are arguing for “strong/internal bodily immortality”. That is, Adam was made bodily immortal by intrinsic nature. “Naturally immortal” is how DC put it. This position is untenable both by faith and by reason.

If it were true it would be impossible for God to punish Adam by renegging on it.
To do so would be to change Adam’s very humanity - he would no longer be human. Hence impossible, God does not reneg on the Nature he creates. Not even that of fallen angels. Also, as you say, what is the point of the Tree of Life in this scenario? Its pointless. In fact all the fruit trees are pointless, Adam would not need to eat to survive. Also, why create human’s with sexual differentiation? Procreation for the preservation of the species is superfluous in a world of such strong immortals. Many of the Fathers of the Church have pointed out these very problems as one reason for the following different understanding of bodily immortality.

Catholic tradition actually teaches a "weak/external bodily immortality"in Eden.
This is exactly what DC quoted (without understanding) above. DC in quoting Dr Ott you in fact destroyed your own position. If immortality is preter-natural it cannot be natural as you attempted to assert originally.

That is, it is not part of the warrants of raw created human nature but an “add-on”, a “preternatural gift.” I called it an “extrinsic” gift. It is reversible. God can take it back without being untrue to Himself or us. This is the meaning of the Tree of Life in Genesis. Adam was not internally (self-sufficient) immortal. Adam really needed to eat external remedies to keep his immortality - food from the other trees or suffer bodily consequences. He needed to regularly eat from the Tree of Life (provided by God for that purpose) to repair the damage of aging. Aquinas put it this way:

“In the state of innocence man had an animal life requiring food; but after the resurrection he will have a spiritual life needing no food. If man had not taken food he would have sinned. … In old age the body declines, and finally dies from natural causes. Against this defect man was provided with a remedy in the tree of life” (ST Ia, 97)

“The tree of life to a certain degree was the cause of immortality…” (ST Ia 97)
(i.e. it required regular eating, not a once and for all eating).

“For man’s body was indissoluble not by reason of any intrinsic vigor of immortality, but by reason of a supernatural force given by God to the soul…” (ST 1a 97)

And Augustine also agrees:
“Man had food to appease his hunger, drink to slake his thirst; and the tree of life to banish the breaking up of old age” (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26)

Death as a result of original sin is a red herring.
The “death” of “weak immortals” in Eden is not at all the same thing.
The Fathers have provided various possible explanations on this point.
(1) As I explained earlier on this thread it could be seen as a “Transitus” much like the Greek understanding of Mary’s “Dormition.” It is not something to be feared or abbhored. A painless/mystical leaving of temporal Eden into bodily glorification of true eternity without pain or loss.
(2) A time where aged individuals become so graced they pass from temporal corporeality to spiritual glorification something like a living transfiguration completed in an ascension.

In either case the body is not split off from the soul. That painful and abhorrent thing is a consequence of sin.Yet the ultimate effect is the same as death - a passing over to true immortality, Eternity.

Thanks for the explanation, I look at it simply as If Adam had eaten from the tree of life he would have had immortality. He didn’t eat it from it, so he wasn’t. A&E were expelled from the garden because of original sin so they couldn’t eat from the tree of life, guarded by the angel with the flaming sword. Any chance to gain immortality was gone.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Thanks for the explanation, I look at it simply as If Adam had eaten from the tree of life he would have had immortality. He didn’t eat it from it, so he wasn’t. A&E were expelled from the garden because of original sin so they couldn’t eat from the tree of life, guarded by the angel with the flaming sword. Any chance to gain immortality was gone.

Yes I believe you are basically right. The only tweak I would add is that Adam’s immortality was not a once and for all thing. It was even weaker than this. Adam’s immortality was only temporary after eating. It had to be maintained by regular eating from the Tree of Life as Aquinas above made clear.

This very weak immortality suggests Eden was never meant to be man’s final abode even if Adam had not sinned. Eden was really a vestibule, a time of preperation/testing before Heaven.

So we can see that Eden’s immortality was not meant to be eternal.
If it were then Eden may well get over-populated (as some Fathers noted).
Bodily immortality of Eden can be ended in two ways: not just by disobedience (death) but also by loyal obedience (and eventual transformation into Glory without corruption).