You are saying that if something is determined by God, then as far as you are concerned it might, repeat might provide a morally justifiable reason.
You’ve spent I don’t know how many posts stating quite categorically that the Israelites were morally justified simply because God had commanded it. Now you are saying it might have been justifiable.
And we still don’t know whether you count yourself as an exception to God’s commands. This is NOT some convoluted ad hominem. It is simply an attempt to know, on the assumption that the massacre took place, whether you think that killing the children was morally justified because it was commanded by God and if you think that God’s commands are valid for everyone or whether you consider yourself an exception.
For the sake of clarity and, perhaps, because I have not made this clear enough…
Do you recognize the difference between “in principle” and “in fact?”
In principle means, essentially, that “it is always the case that.”
In fact means, essentially, “if certain requisite conditions obtain in this case, then…”
What I am claiming is that “in principle” if the 3omni Being (and there can only be ONE but that is an entirely different line of argument) makes a moral determination, then that determination always supercedes a determination that a limited human being could possibly make. The access a 3omni being (aka God) would have to all relevant facts and knowledge of all future and past implications, together with infinite goodness would mean, by definition, our judgements would be inferior. So, “in principle” we would always be obligated to doing what is determined by God. I am claiming that is an a priori truth just as a triangle having 3 sides is necessarily true. I don’t even see how that could be disputed. It is
self-evidently true from the definition of God as having the 3 omni traits.
The "in fact” question is whether God actually did command the Israelites to carry out the conquest of the Canaanites in the manner claimed in the Old Testament.
That is an entirely different question from the “in principle” one. Merely because someone claims God has commanded something, does not mean that is true. A mere claim is never sufficient to make it so. In a real sense, it is a wide open question that we can only give opinions on based on the relevant facts. We were not there.
The reason I bring up this distinction is to counter the typical atheist contention that the Old Testament passages necessarily show the Israelites were wrong in doing what they did because God “could not” command such behaviour.
I am claiming that the “in principle” answer to the question shows that under certain conditions (after weighing the detrimental effects that permitting the Canaanites to practice their abominable rituals would have down through all history), a 3omni God could have been justified in making a determination to destroy the culture, for much the same moral reasons a surgeon might have for amputating the leg of a cancerous patient.
The athiest argument then, is reduced to contending the “facts” of the case because s/he cannot argue the command is wrong “in principle.” It isn’t.
Whether the Israelites actually did carry out a command determined by God is not one we can absolutely determine. They COULD have because “in principle” it is possible for God to have given the command (as the “in principle” argument shows.)
Did God actually do so?
I would argue that given the entire context of Judaism and Christianity, including the Incarnation of God as man, a case can be made that something very critical had occurred when the Israelites failed to carry out the command. That failure led, according to prophetic writings and Christ’s own teaching, to God taking the unprecedented step of “becoming man.” Why would God, himself, become man except for cosmically important reasons?
If Judaic and Christian history are true, then it is very plausible that something very important hung on the Israelites carrying out God’s determination.
The question of what I would have done has been, and continues to be irrelevant. Would I have been morally obligated to carry out the command? If God commanded it, yes, and for the same reason that a surgeon would face the unsavory necessity of removing a cancerous patient’s leg. I think I have shown that.
To put myself back in time and make a judgement about whether I would carry out what the Israelites claim they were compelled to is a completely different question. I am not completely in possession of all the relevant facts, but I can say, following the “in principle” argument that had ALL the relevant conditions obtained and absolute certainty existed that God commanded the act and that this God was, indeed, the 3omni God, then I would have been obligated to do so.
Would I have had the moral courage or strength to have carried it out? I don’t know. But, clearly, it would not have been an easy decision, as, I suppose, amputating a leg is never an easy decision. An atheist might bear “hard feelings” against God or the Israelites for contemplating such an act, but that may more reflect the hard feelings or anger of the cancer patient left without a leg than it does unbiased moral clarity about what was necessary, though regrettable.
