Steve Ray-Amalekites 1-26-15

[Peter_Plato]

But that’s a separate question from whether or not God can command us human beings to intentionally kill innocents.

This appears false on the face of it because if human beings are merely carrying out a command from God, they need not have any intention to kill innocents. Indeed, God couldn’t command humans to form intentions, though he could command humans to act, or by rescinding free will he could directly create intentions in humans. I just don’t see how God could command humans, with free agency, to intend anything.

Take the airplane scenario. A good moral agent would intend to stop the airliner from hitting the building but would NOT intend to kill the innocents on board. If s/he actually intended to kill the innocents, that would, in fact, make shooting the airliner down a morally bad act, as far as the controller’s agency is concerned, even though it would result in the 2000 lives being spared. Intention is important.

In the case of God’s command, the Israelites may not have intended to kill innocent Amalekites, they would have intended to do the will of God as a moral imperative in the same sense that the missile controller was intending to do the morally right or best thing under the circumstances by shooting down the plane.

 

[Robyn_p]

This appears false on the face of it because if human beings are merely carrying out a command from God, they need not have any intention to kill innocents. God couldn’t command humans to form intentions, though he could command humans to act or by rescinding free will he could create intentions in humans. I just don’t see how God could command humans to intend anything.

Take the airplane scenario. A good moral agent would intend to stop the airliner from hitting the building but would NOT intend to kill the innocents on board. If s/he actually intended to kill the innocents, that would, in fact, make shooting the airliner down a morally bad act, as far as the controller’s agency is concerned, even though it would result in the 2000 lives being spared. Intention is important.

In the case of God’s command, the Israelites may not have intended to kill innocent Amalekites, they would have intended to do the will of God as a moral imperative in the same sense that the missile controller was intending to do the morally right or best thing under the circumstances by shooting down the plane.

You have a point. However, for double effect to apply, not only must the intention be good, the action itself has to be morally good or neutral. In your plane scenario, the intention isn’t to kill 200 innocents (good) but the action itself is also neutral. Shooting down a plane isn’t morally problematic. We know this because if we had the exact same situation minus the passengers (the plane was empty and set on autopilot) there would be absolutely nothing immoral about shooting down that plane. Double effect applies in the original situation because we have a good intention plus a neutral action that leads to an unintended bad effect.

For double effect to work with the Amalekites, the intention would have to be good, and the act itself would have to be good or neutral. I think we can satisfy the first part. The intention could be, as you said, to do God’s will, or perhaps to rid the land of idolatry. But I’m just not convinced yet that directly killing an innocent is anything but evil. This isn’t like shooting an airplane down. The act itself of taking an airplane down is neutral. I don’t think the same can be said for chopping off a head. :nope:

You know, I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot over the last week, reading both sides of the argument. And I can accept the historical fact that the Israelites DID do these things. (It’s possible they didn’t. But I wouldn’t doubt they did. War back then was brutal.) I can even accept God allowing them to do this as a form of judgment on the Canaanites. (Like He would later do with Israel itself when the Babylonians came and conquered) What I just can’t bring myself to accept is that God positively commanded it. I find it more likely that this story is a reflection of Israel’s imperfect understanding of God at the time. They hadn’t yet grasped the concept of God’s permissive will versus active will. If something happened, then it must have been because God commanded it. If we were so successful with our conquest of the land, it must have been God’s will etc…

For example, we see something similar in 1 Samuel 24. There the sacred author tells us God commanded David to break the law and take a census. However, the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 21 tells us God did NOT in fact command this, Satan did. So what’s going on? That to me is a perfect example of the progressive revelation of Scripture. Israel’s view of God got clearer and clearer as the centuries went by. When 1 Samuel was penned, they thought David did what he did because God caused him to. By the time of 1 Chronicles a few centuries later, they could understand the difference between God commanding an action and allowing it.

Before anyone says it, no, that doesn’t mean I believe the Holy Spirit erred. But it does mean I think God slowly revealed Himself to His people, and Scripture is a reflection of that progressive revelation. The authors still wrote what God wanted written, but their reason for writing could have been different than His. The author’s purpose for the story might have been defending Israel’s military acts, but God meant to show us how to fight sin. To me this makes the most sense of both views. It doesn’t over-spiritualize the text, but neither does it make God responsible for commanding genocide.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Before anyone says it, no, that doesn’t mean I believe the Holy Spirit erred. But it does mean I think God slowly revealed Himself to His people, and Scripture is a reflection of that progressive revelation. The authors still wrote what God wanted written, but their reason for writing could have been different than His. The author’s purpose for the story might have been defending Israel’s military acts, but God meant to show us how to fight sin. To me this makes the most sense of both views. It doesn’t over-spiritualize the text, but neither does it make God responsible for commanding genocide.

This is all very interesting, except that if you read the narrative, Saul didn’t utterly destroy the Amalekites and BECAUSE he DIDN’T he was removed as king of Israel. That means the command could not have been understood as mere metaphor or hyperbole. Why would Saul be reprimanded and deposed for NOT carrying out literally what was merely meant to be an exaggerated statement that wasn’t even intended to be taken literally to begin with?

By the way, the census incident is in 2 Samuel.

 

[Peter_Plato]

For double effect to work with the Amalekites, the intention would have to be good, and the act itself would have to be good or neutral. I think we can satisfy the first part. The intention could be, as you said, to do God’s will, or perhaps to rid the land of idolatry. But I’m just not convinced yet that directly killing an innocent is anything but evil. This isn’t like shooting an airplane down. The act itself of taking an airplane down is neutral. I don’t think the same can be said for chopping off a head. :nope:

This assumes that the one whose head is being chopped off is both innocent and worthy of life. That, in itself, may be debatable with regard to the Amalekites.

The Amalekites were a particularly bad society. They engaged in child sacrifice and ritual incest, which hints at the possibility that their children may not have been innocent nor the wholesome creatures that everyone assumes. Neither do we have any sense as to how many of these alleged “innocents” were involved, nor their ages. The children may have been 8, 9, 10 years old and quite degenerated by that time, expecially if they were the products of widespread incest and child sacrifice had decimated the numbers of the very young at that particular time. The problem is that to count against the command of God being a good command, the specifics of the case all have to be open to scrutiny. They aren’t.

There were several passages in the OT that refer to how bad these people were. Leviticus 18 spells out a litany of offensive sexual behaviours (including bestiality and incest) that was normative among the tribes living in Canaan, with the Amalekites being among, if not, the worst. The land itself “became defiled,” and God even “punished it for its iniquity” so that “the land vomited out its inhabitants.”

“…in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12.31)

There is somewhat of a tenuous presumption made by critics today. That assumption being that we, with our expertise in psychology and sociology, possess knowledge about the “innocence” of human beings and, especially, children that God could not possibly have. We presume to know what “innocence” means and we presume that the God of the Old Testament was just as naive and unknowledgeable as the ostensibly primitive tribes he was dealing with. THAT, unfortunately is our error, not his.

I suspect, it is far better to acknowledge that God knew what he was doing and that we, today, are not as bright as we presume ourselves to be.

If you look at our “smart” society today with its own systemic practice of child sacrifice and the growing movement to inculcate perverse sexual behaviour into the minds and beings of very young children, I suspect it won’t be too long before the land we live on begins to feel a little rumbly in its tummy.

Is it possible that perversity can become systemic in a society such that there is NO point of return? Does God not have a right to cull a despicable and perverse society from history? Would we have a right to question HIS determination as if we could possibly know better? DO we have access to the kind and scope of relevant information that would absolutely be required to make that call?

I don’t think we can say with any kind of assurance that God would have been WRONG to command what he did. Absent that assurance we have nothing with which to claim the command, carrying out the command and the narratives themselves depict anything immoral.

Sure, we can stand with mouths agape in shock and horror that these things occurred, but we cannot with any degree (or decree) of certainty claim that the reason they are horrifying is because the God who commanded them was immoral and wrong for doing so.

Perhaps what should be taken from the stories is that humanity is capable of degeneracy to the point that an entire society could become systemically perverse. We have examples even in the past 100 years that such is entirely possible. What we need is greater respect for God, far more humility with regard to what sin can engender before its evil effects are recognized, less presumption that we know what we are doing and far more certainty that evil will not ultimately be tolerated because of what it, essentially, is.

 

[Gorgias]

Hi, Robyn! Thanks for re-entering into the discussion!

If I understood PR correctly, she’s not talking about the morality of God’s actions. I haven’t seen her say anywhere on this thread that she believes that the killing of innocents by God is unjust. In fact, I’m pretty sure she said multiple times that God is perfectly just if He wishes to take an innocent life.

I think that, in general, you’re right – PR has had a problem with the command to place the Amalekites under the ban, rather than an assertion that God could do it Himself.

PRmerger:

Genocide is an absolute moral evil. … The Church abhors genocide, which means Christ abhors genocide.

PRmerger:

it is ALWAYS evil to kill someone based on his race.

Yet, unless she meant “Christ abhors humans committing genocide,” she seems to be making the statement that as an absolute evil, not even God would commit genocide.

But that’s a separate question from whether or not God can command us human beings to intentionally kill innocents. (which I believe is what she is actually arguing against) In this case double effect is extremely relevant to the question of whether or not God really did command the Amalekites to be wiped out. Because if the command isn’t an example of double effect, then God couldn’t have possibly commanded it. Not because He’s constrained by some moral law above Him, but because it would be contrary to His nature as Goodness itself to command us to sin.

OK… you’re making two distinct arguments here. First, that God could not command humans to do something that would be evil for humans to do, and second, that a command of God to a human places the act in the realm of human morality (and therefore, potentially subject to double effect).

I don’t think I’d agree with either of those assertions.

Is God prevented from commanding humans to do something that, while not unjust for Him to do, is something that would be unjust for humans to do? No – and let me give a counter-example to refute the claim. Humans were given “dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth” (Gen 1:28), but that didn’t imply that we were given carte blanche to do whatever we willed with it. Rather, as the Catechism reminds us, “In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. … The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. … The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family.” (CCC #2402, 2404)

With this in mind, let us ask: is it moral to kill an animal? The answer, it would seem, is a ‘yes’ – but it’s a qualified yes. It’s moral to “enjoy the fruits” of the resources of the earth, in the quest to “meet [one’s] basic needs”. Yet, it’s not moral, it would seem, to use the resources of our world in a way that does not meet our needs. Therefore, while it would be moral to hunt an animal in order to use its fur or hide as protection against the elements, or to use its meat to feed oneself and one’s family… it would be unjust to kill an animal just for the sake of killing it. Fair enough?

So, prior to the Mosaic law, it would be unjust for a person to kill an animal simply, for example, to set it on fire and let it burn to ashes. Yet, God commands the Israelites to do precisely that thing – a holocaust offering entails the burning of the entire animal, without any part left to be consumed by priest or the offerer of the sacrifice.

I would contend, then, that this refutes precisely the case that has been made here (and which, you assert – and I agree – that PR is making, as well): that God cannot justly ask a person to do something that would be unjust for the person to do on his own initiative. Just as it would be unjust to be a poor steward of the world’s resources, it would be unjust to kill an ‘innocent’ (NB: I still hang my hat on the case that we cannot call anyone ‘innocent’ in God’s eyes, so I’m not making my case on this tag). But, we cannot claim 1 Sam 15 as metaphorical just because it asserts that God is telling the Israelites to do something that they would not otherwise be able to do justly; after all, in the Mosaic covenant, He’s already done so in spades.

 

[Gorgias]

Robyn,

What about your other assertion, then? That is, that by virtue of commanding it and not doing it Himself, God places the morality of the action in the realm of human morality?

In a way, it makes sense: God places His law in our hearts. We know what He wishes us to do (and not to do), and so, in a way, what He ‘commands’ is what we understand morality to be. And yet, the correspondence isn’t as neat as we’d think it to be. Giving humans guidelines for behavior isn’t the same as being told “do this”, and so, I don’t know if we can use the general notion of the moral law here. Regardless, though, it would seem important to think about what is the ‘cause’ and what is the ‘effect’ here. God’s command (in moral law) is the ‘cause’ of our knowledge of morality, not an ‘effect’ that is subject to another ‘cause’. In other words, God’s command judges our action; it is not judged by it.

So, the case that you and PR are making is that something different happens when God commands (as opposed to when God acts). That doesn’t seem to be a helpful distinction; it just pushes the argument back one level. If God commands, doesn’t He bear the moral responsibility for the action, and therefore, isn’t the action based on what is moral for Him? The analogy here would be a parent commanding his child, or a general commanding his troops. Whether the parent or general commands or acts, he bears responsibility for the action commanded. Whereas it would be immoral for a sergeant to go above his authority and command an invasion of an enemy country, it would be moral for a general to do so; when the general commands it of the sergeant, the morality of the action isn’t based on the sergeant’s authority and morality, but upon the general’s.

In our case, then, the command of God places the responsibility upon God; and PR has admitted that God may justly command killing. So, it doesn’t seem that the distinction that’s being attempted to be made actually does anything, let alone anything significant. Rather, it helps demonstrate that the morality of the event lies at God’s feet. Double effect theory doesn’t make an act moral, it merely reveals the reasons why an event might be considered moral. We already know why God’s actions are moral; we even know that, when we cannot fathom the reason for His actions, we’re guaranteed that His actions are moral. No philosophical theory has to prove it to us. We know it… even if it challenges us in ways that go beyond our ability to rationalize it.

If we are really meant to take 1 Samuel 15 at face value and believe God did in fact command this, it seems … the intent of God’s command to the Israelites was to cleanse the land of idolatry and the death of innocents was an unintended side effect. That’s the only way I can accept that this command was literal and not meant as a metaphorical cleansing. Anything else leads to absurdities and risks making morality completely arbitrary.

Not arbitrary. ‘Arbitrary’ would presume that they’re ‘by chance’ or ‘on a whim’ or without reason. Morality is directed by God; that’s something completely different. (It might have the appearance of being arbitrary, since that’s what we might call it if a human were making up the rules, but that’s not what’s in play here. God is Absolute; that does not mean that He is Arbitrary.)

1 Samuel 15 tweaks our consciences because it would be immoral and unjust for a human unilaterally to give those commands or take those actions. Yet, it’s invalid reasoning to judge God by human standards. What would be ‘arbitrary’ for an individual human is not proof of arbitrariness of God. We improperly apply our standards to Him when we make the cases that have been attempted to be made in this thread.

 

[Robyn_p]

Hey sorry for taking so long to reply. Busy day. Anyways:

This is all very interesting, except that if you read the narrative, Saul didn’t utterly destroy the Amalekites and BECAUSE he DIDN’T he was removed as king of Israel. That means the command could not have been understood as mere metaphor or hyperbole. Why would Saul be reprimanded and deposed for NOT carrying out literally what was merely meant to be an exaggerated statement that wasn’t even intended to be taken literally to begin with?

By the way, the census incident is in 2 Samuel.

I admit, you have a point there with Saul being punished. I suppose I would say that Saul was punished because he was demonstrating attachment to paganism (he kept their gold and cattle for himself if I remember correctly) and not because he literally didn’t kill everything. But I’m not sure if I find that answer satisfying myself. I’ll have to consider this.

And you’re right, it was 2nd Samuel, my bad. What do you think though of the fact that it explicitly says God commanded something that He in fact didn’t? For me, that seems to open up the possibility that He didn’t really command the slaughter of the Canaanites, but I’m interested to hear what you or Gorgias make of that.

 

[Robyn_p]

Hi, Robyn! Thanks for re-entering into the discussion!

I think that, in general, you’re right – PR has had a problem with the command to place the Amalekites under the ban, rather than an assertion that God could do it Himself.

Yet, unless she meant “Christ abhors humans committing genocide,” she seems to be making the statement that as an absolute evil, not even God would commit genocide.

I’ll have to let PR answer that herself. I assume she meant humans committing genocide, since she doesn’t appear to have a problem with God taking life, but I can’t say for sure.

OK… you’re making two distinct arguments here. First, that God could not command humans to do something that would be evil for humans to do, and second, that a command of God to a human places the act in the realm of human morality (and therefore, potentially subject to double effect).

I don’t think I’d agree with either of those assertions.

Is God prevented from commanding humans to do something that, while not unjust for Him to do, is something that would be unjust for humans to do? No – and let me give a counter-example to refute the claim. Humans were given “dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth” (Gen 1:28), but that didn’t imply that we were given carte blanche to do whatever we willed with it. Rather, as the Catechism reminds us, “In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. … The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. … The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family.” (CCC #2402, 2404)

With this in mind, let us ask: is it moral to kill an animal? The answer, it would seem, is a ‘yes’ – but it’s a qualified yes. It’s moral to “enjoy the fruits” of the resources of the earth, in the quest to “meet [one’s] basic needs”. Yet, it’s not moral, it would seem, to use the resources of our world in a way that does not meet our needs. Therefore, while it would be moral to hunt an animal in order to use its fur or hide as protection against the elements, or to use its meat to feed oneself and one’s family… it would be unjust to kill an animal just for the sake of killing it. Fair enough?

Ok I’m with you so far.

So, prior to the Mosaic law, it would be unjust for a person to kill an animal simply, for example, to set it on fire and let it burn to ashes. Yet, God commands the Israelites to do precisely that thing – a holocaust offering entails the burning of the entire animal, without any part left to be consumed by priest or the offerer of the sacrifice.

I would contend, then, that this refutes precisely the case that has been made here (and which, you assert – and I agree – that PR is making, as well): that God cannot justly ask a person to do something that would be unjust for the person to do on his own initiative. Just as it would be unjust to be a poor steward of the world’s resources, it would be unjust to kill an ‘innocent’ (NB: I still hang my hat on the case that we cannot call anyone ‘innocent’ in God’s eyes, so I’m not making my case on this tag). But, we cannot claim 1 Sam 15 as metaphorical just because it asserts that God is telling the Israelites to do something that they would not otherwise be able to do justly; after all, in the Mosaic covenant, He’s already done so in spades.

I disagree. Animal sacrifice is not an example of God commanding humans to do something that would otherwise be immoral. It is true that we are not allowed to just kill animals for no reason. But that’s not what is happening there. The purpose of the sacrifice was worship, which does meet the basic needs of man. His spiritual needs. Sacrificing an animal wasn’t pointless violence for ancient man, it was the highest form of worship known at that time. It is an entirely proper use of animals and perfectly in line with our duty as stewards.

I still contend that God cannot command us to sin. This is backed up by Scripture (Sirach 15 which I quoted earlier and also James 1:13) and philosophy. What is right or wrong for us is determined by the ends set for us by our nature, and that means that there are certain things that are right or wrong for us absolutely, which even God could not change (since God’s power does not extend to doing what is self-contradictory). Now God, given the perfection of His intellect, can in principle only ever command in accordance with reason, and thus God could never command us to do what is bad for us. He can’t command us to torture a baby for example, because that is intrinsically immoral and contrary to the end set for us by our nature.

So again, the only way I can see Him literally commanding the Israelites to commit genocide is if directly killing an innocent is not intrinsically evil or contrary to our nature. Which I am just not comfortable saying.

 

[Robyn_p]

Robyn,

What about your other assertion, then? That is, that by virtue of commanding it and not doing it Himself, God places the morality of the action in the realm of human morality?

In a way, it makes sense: God places His law in our hearts. We know what He wishes us to do (and not to do), and so, in a way, what He ‘commands’ is what we understand morality to be. And yet, the correspondence isn’t as neat as we’d think it to be. Giving humans guidelines for behavior isn’t the same as being told “do this”, and so, I don’t know if we can use the general notion of the moral law here. Regardless, though, it would seem important to think about what is the ‘cause’ and what is the ‘effect’ here. God’s command (in moral law) is the ‘cause’ of our knowledge of morality, not an ‘effect’ that is subject to another ‘cause’. In other words, God’s command judges our action; it is not judged by it.

So, the case that you and PR are making is that something different happens when God commands (as opposed to when God acts). That doesn’t seem to be a helpful distinction; it just pushes the argument back one level. If God commands, doesn’t He bear the moral responsibility for the action, and therefore, isn’t the action based on what is moral for Him? The analogy here would be a parent commanding his child, or a general commanding his troops. Whether the parent or general commands or acts, he bears responsibility for the action commanded. Whereas it would be immoral for a sergeant to go above his authority and command an invasion of an enemy country, it would be moral for a general to do so; when the general commands it of the sergeant, the morality of the action isn’t based on the sergeant’s authority and morality, but upon the general’s.

In our case, then, the command of God places the responsibility upon God; and PR has admitted that God may justly command killing. So, it doesn’t seem that the distinction that’s being attempted to be made actually does anything, let alone anything significant. Rather, it helps demonstrate that the morality of the event lies at God’s feet. Double effect theory doesn’t make an act moral, it merely reveals the reasons why an event might be considered moral. We already know why God’s actions are moral; we even know that, when we cannot fathom the reason for His actions, we’re guaranteed that His actions are moral. No philosophical theory has to prove it to us. We know it… even if it challenges us in ways that go beyond our ability to rationalize it.

Not arbitrary. ‘Arbitrary’ would presume that they’re ‘by chance’ or ‘on a whim’ or without reason. Morality is directed by God; that’s something completely different. (It might have the appearance of being arbitrary, since that’s what we might call it if a human were making up the rules, but that’s not what’s in play here. God is Absolute; that does not mean that He is Arbitrary.)

1 Samuel 15 tweaks our consciences because it would be immoral and unjust for a human unilaterally to give those commands or take those actions. Yet, it’s invalid reasoning to judge God by human standards. What would be ‘arbitrary’ for an individual human is not proof of arbitrariness of God. We improperly apply our standards to Him when we make the cases that have been attempted to be made in this thread.

Hmmm. Ok I think I see what you are saying here. You make a good point about the general commanding his troops. I’m still not comfortable with saying God can command us to sin though.

 

[clem456]

Good place to reinforce how the Church views the reason-able nature of God and how we know who he is and acts.
Pope Benedict:
zenit.org/en/articles/papal-address-at-university-of-regensburg

Does anyone have specific comments on what Benedict says here?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Hey sorry for taking so long to reply. Busy day. Anyways:

I admit, you have a point there with Saul being punished. I suppose I would say that Saul was punished because he was demonstrating attachment to paganism (he kept their gold and cattle for himself if I remember correctly) and not because he literally didn’t kill everything. But I’m not sure if I find that answer satisfying myself. I’ll have to consider this.

I am not sure how keeping cattle and gold is demonstrating attachment to paganism since cattle and gold were also found in Israelite society. He did spare the Amalekite king, Agag however, which might support your point. Although, that wasn’t specifically pointed to as the reason why Saul was deposed. The reason was because Saul didn’t do what he was told by God to do. "Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

 

[ericc]

Hmmm. Ok I think I see what you are saying here. You make a good point about the general commanding his troops. I’m still not comfortable with saying God can command us to sin though.

That is the issue I am facing with. PR allows God to kill who he sees fit but doesn’t allow wriggle room for God to command anyone he sees fit to execute his command.

And I’d like to reiterate that it is not only the Amalakites. It is the Canaanites, the conquest of the cities and land that was promised to the Israelites where everything is annihilated. Moses and Joshua did all that at God’s command. Not a one-off exception.

So the questions is does God have sovereign right to command his people to kill? The covenant with God includes obeying all his commands and he will be their God. Cities were destroyed, people got killed I think is not in dispute. Then I think the questions then would be:

1. if God is permitted to kill, why would commanding someone else to do the killing be against his nature i.e. immoral since we already accepted that is his sovereign right? Because the one being commanded to do the killing bears no guilt in obeying his master.
2. Is commanding others to do the killing more immoral than doing the killing ownself? I would think not. Otherwise, the President has to fight his own war, fly his own bomber, drive his own tank, push the nuclear strike button, do everything himself. The soldiers and generals would fight the war that they feel “right”.
3. There is no real difference between God commanding the Israelites to kill vs commanding his angels to do the killing. If it is immoral for him to command the Israelites to kill, it is equally immoral for him to command the angels to kill too (2 Sam 15-17). So either case, God would be condemned immoral.

The only way logically out of this is to conclude that it is not immoral to command the Israelites/angels to kill for God. God is not beneath his own moral law. God is not beneath his own creation.

 

[Gorgias]

I disagree. Animal sacrifice is not an example of God commanding humans to do something that would otherwise be immoral. It is true that we are not allowed to just kill animals for no reason. But that’s not what is happening there. The purpose of the sacrifice was worship, which does meet the basic needs of man.

Here’s the thing, though: before God commanded it, there was no need to do it; it wasn’t something that helped, and wasn’t something that ‘did’ anything. Literally, until God said “here’s how you will worship me in the context of the Mosaic covenant,” animal sacrifice (i.e., the holocaust) was simply killing animals and not using them for any good purpose. That’s why I picked it as an example – until God commanded it, the action was itself immoral.

Let me think about it a bit, and see what other example I can come up with to illustrate the point…

I still contend that God cannot command us to sin.

I agree; the command from God is what makes it be ‘not sin’.

God, given the perfection of His intellect, can in principle only ever command in accordance with reason, and thus God could never command us to do what is bad for us.

Agreed; but placing the Amalekites under the ban was for the sake of the Israelites, since they (and other Canaanites) were leading the Israelites into idolatry and sin!

So again, the only way I can see Him literally commanding the Israelites to commit genocide is if directly killing an innocent is not intrinsically evil or contrary to our nature.

Fair enough. I’m still on the side of “they’re not innocent in the eyes of God”, though.

 

[clem456]

Transcript of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg spoken address, which differs slightly from the prepared text:
zenit.org/en/articles/pap…-of-regensburg

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.[4]

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason** is contrary to God’s nature**.[5] The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.[6] Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us.[7] .**(In light of this, a couple of posters here are not proclaiming the Christian God, they are proclaiming a Muslim concept of God.) **

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. **Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature **merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: “In the beginning was the λόγος”. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis.

 

[Robyn_p]

Here’s the thing, though: before God commanded it, there was no need to do it; it wasn’t something that helped, and wasn’t something that ‘did’ anything. Literally, until God said “here’s how you will worship me in the context of the Mosaic covenant,” animal sacrifice (i.e., the holocaust) was simply killing animals and not using them for any good purpose. That’s why I picked it as an example – until God commanded it, the action was itself immoral.

Let me think about it a bit, and see what other example I can come up with to illustrate the point…

I’ve always been under the impression that animal sacrifice was part of what we call natural religion. Human beings naturally have a desire to worship and the chief way they do that is through sacrifice. It’s true it didn’t literally take away sins (but then, neither did it in the Mosaic covenant.) but it was still the only way people back then knew how to worship, and worship is necessary for us, even if by itself it can’t cleanse sins. It was never just pointless slaughter.

Also, Abel wasn’t explicitly commanded to offer the first fruits of his flock in sacrifice, but yet his offering was pleasing to God. If animal sacrifice really was one of those things that is immoral unless directly commanded, that doesn’t really make sense.

So yeah, I think I’m gonna need a different example.

I agree; the command from God is what makes it be ‘not sin’.

I think I know what you’re trying to say but this way of putting it makes me grimace. It reminds me of the old Euthyphro dilemma. Is something a sin because God forbids it or does God forbid it because it is a sin? Neither answer is satisfactory because it either makes morality seem too arbitrary (so if God commanded me to commit adultery that would make it good?) or it places God under an authority besides Himself, which essentially makes Him not God.

I’m sure you and I both would agree that the dilemma is a false one and that, as one philosopher put it who’s name I’m forgetting right now, “Morality is not grounded ultimately in God’s commands, but in His character.” God’s commands reflect His nature as Goodness itself.

So I guess I still don’t see how killing the Amalekites could be “not sinful” simply because God commanded it. I think that if we are meant to take the account literally, we have to conclude the act of genocide itself is not intrinsically immoral. That’s the only way I see God commanding it, since it is metaphysically impossible for Him to command something that is intrinsically evil.

Agreed; but placing the Amalekites under the ban was for the sake of the Israelites, since they (and other Canaanites) were leading the Israelites into idolatry and sin!

True. But there’s still the fact that God can’t command evil. (as opposed to allowing it to bring about some good.) The same result could be accomplished by separating themselves completely from the Amalekites and eradicating all traces of paganism from their lives. They didn’t NEED to kill them to avoid falling into idolatry.

Fair enough. I’m still on the side of “they’re not innocent in the eyes of God”, though.

Well sure, none of us are. But that doesn’t make it permissible for us to kill our fellow man.

I haven’t heard your thoughts yet though on 2 Samuel 24. What do you think of the fact that it seems to say God commanded something He actually didn’t? Do you think that the same thing could possibly be happening in 1 Samuel 15?

 

[Robyn_p]

That is the issue I am facing with. PR allows God to kill who he sees fit but doesn’t allow wriggle room for God to command anyone he sees fit to execute his command.

And I’d like to reiterate that it is not only the Amalakites. It is the Canaanites, the conquest of the cities and land that was promised to the Israelites where everything is annihilated. Moses and Joshua did all that at God’s command. Not a one-off exception.

Yes. It’s possible however that those commands were not meant to be literal, or that they reflect the imperfect understanding of the Israelites at the time and not the actual command of God.

So the questions is does God have sovereign right to command his people to kill? The covenant with God includes obeying all his commands and he will be their God. Cities were destroyed, people got killed I think is not in dispute. Then I think the questions then would be:

1. if God is permitted to kill, why would commanding someone else to do the killing be against his nature i.e. immoral since we already accepted that is his sovereign right? Because the one being commanded to do the killing bears no guilt in obeying his master.
2. Is commanding others to do the killing more immoral than doing the killing ownself? I would think not. Otherwise, the President has to fight his own war, fly his own bomber, drive his own tank, push the nuclear strike button, do everything himself. The soldiers and generals would fight the war that they feel “right”.
3. There is no real difference between God commanding the Israelites to kill vs commanding his angels to do the killing. If it is immoral for him to command the Israelites to kill, it is equally immoral for him to command the angels to kill too (2 Sam 15-17). So either case, God would be condemned immoral.

No, not necessarily. Angels are not humans. They are as far above us as we are to animals. (Farther actually, since they are pure spirit, where both animals and us are material beings) And just like we can take the life of an animal without sin, because we have been given that authority, perhaps angels have been given that authority over us. It’s not intrinsically immoral for them because their nature is different than ours.

An (extremely imperfect) analogy would be: A general can give certain orders to a lieutenant to perform, but he can’t give those same orders to a private. The private isn’t capable of handling it. So just because God can give angels the authority to take human lives, doesn’t necessarily mean He can give human beings the same authority. And vice-versa.

Again, the question isn’t really whether God has the authority to take or give life, or even if He can delegate that authority. But whether killing innocents is intrinsically immoral FOR US. If it’s not really intrinsically evil, then I guess there’s no problem with God commanding the Israelites to do it. But I’m not sure any Christian really wants to say that genocide isn’t intrinsically evil or contrary to our nature. We all know better.

The only way logically out of this is to conclude that it is not immoral to command the Israelites/angels to kill for God. God is not beneath his own moral law. God is not beneath his own creation.

If we are taking the account literally then yes. I agree. But it seems to me there are other available interpretations that better line up with what we know through the Gospels.

 

[Robyn_p]

I am not sure how keeping cattle and gold is demonstrating attachment to paganism since cattle and gold were also found in Israelite society. He did spare the Amalekite king, Agag however, which might support your point. Although, that wasn’t specifically pointed to as the reason why Saul was deposed. The reason was because Saul didn’t do what he was told by God to do. "Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Yes. But even if the command was simply to rid Israel of all influences of paganism, Saul still would have been rejecting God’s word. I think either interpretation can be supported by that verse.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So I guess I still don’t see how killing the Amalekites could be “not sinful” simply because God commanded it. I think that if we are meant to take the account literally, we have to conclude the act of genocide itself is not intrinsically immoral. That’s the only way I see God commanding it, since it is metaphysically impossible for Him to command something that is intrinsically evil.

What makes an act “intrinsically evil” is that there exists no end, situation or motive which could possibly permit it.

An act could be intrinsically evil as far as human beings are concerned because no human motive, end or circumstance could permit it. However, there may exist for God ends/motives/circumstances which would permit God to carry out the act, even if it were not permitted to human beings. The two cases are NOT ceteris parabus.

All goods are relative to the final end Good, Goodness Itself. For human beings, lesser goods are ordered towards higher goods. The evil of losing one good for the sake of a greater good makes the loss not evil, in itself. Only losing the final or greatest good would make something intrinsically evil. Only loss of God would be an intrinsically evil outcome. If the final Good (God) commands an outcome, then it seems odd to claim such a command itself is intrinsically evil. If God (Intrinsic Goodness Itself) commanded an outcome, that outcome could not have been intrinsically evil, but only relatively so from a human perspective.

For killing an innocent being to be absolutely and intrinsically evil, the loss of life would have to entail depriving that innocent of what was absolutely and intrinsically the highest good. That would mean existence as a human being on earth would have to be the highest good for human beings above all other goods.

That is not, however, what Christian theology or morality would claim, since it is permissible to sacrifice one’s life for the sake of another person or higher good. Human temporal existence is not the highest good, although for one human to take a human life might make it intrinsically evil as far as human beings are concerned. If, however, God has in mind a higher good for those innocents who died, and can ensure that good, then their death (deprivation of a lesser good) would not be intrinsically evil. And if the death of some was just and warranted, then, they could not have been innocent and the outcome was merited.

Either way, we, sitting where we are, thousands of years removed from the story and without access to God’s omniscience nor omnibenevolent judgement would have to know with certainty that those who were killed or supposed to have been did not merit being killed or suffered intrinsic evil by losing their final and highest good unjustly in order for the command of God to have been intrinsically evil. Not to forget that for the act to have been intrinsically evil in any final sense, that would mean their absolute good must equate to their human temporal existence and no higher good even possible.

 

[ericc]

Yes. It’s possible however that those commands were not meant to be literal, or that they reflect the imperfect understanding of the Israelites at the time and not the actual command of God.

Cities get conquered and annihilated over a period of time. Not a sound from God if he disapproved of the method. Please tell me how did the annihilation happen non-literally? If the answer is credible, I really would want to know it. Beat explaining the violence of God.

No, not necessarily. Angels are not humans. They are as far above us as we are to animals. (Farther actually, since they are pure spirit, where both animals and us are material beings) And just like we can take the life of an animal without sin, because we have been given that authority, perhaps angels have been given that authority over us. It’s not intrinsically immoral for them because their nature is different than ours.

Precisely my point. Being of a higher order than humans, it would be of an even higher order of immorality to order then to kill. However, the question is not how humans or angels react to the order to kill. It is how immoral it is of God to command us (human/angels) to kill is the issue.

An (extremely imperfect) analogy would be: A general can give certain orders to a lieutenant to perform, but he can’t give those same orders to a private. The private isn’t capable of handling it. So just because God can give angels the authority to take human lives, doesn’t necessarily mean He can give human beings the same authority. And vice-versa.

The lieutenant will just order the privates to charge up the hill and take it at all cost. God knows the capability of everyone of us. That’s why he can give the command precisely knowing our capability. We know how capable humans are in killing. All the wars through the ages have shown this capability.

Again, the question isn’t really whether God has the authority to take or give life, or even if He can delegate that authority. But whether killing innocents is intrinsically immoral FOR US. If it’s not really intrinsically evil, then I guess there’s no problem with God commanding the Israelites to do it. But I’m not sure any Christian really wants to say that genocide isn’t intrinsically evil or contrary to our nature. We all know better.

That is missing my argument. A servant has no guilt in carrying his master’s orders because the master has assumed responsibility. A CEO/leader/manager after giving the command to do something can not blame the subordinate if the order was carried out perfectly but the results were not as expected. It is his call. But I have seen politicians duck their heads if things didn’t go as planned and tries to offload their mess on to subordinate who did as ordered. But I don’t think God is that kind of manager. If Abraham had killed Isaac, he would have no guilt as he obeyed God. This is some sort of a trick question really. God command you to do A, a bad act by your standards. Do you obey your Creator knowing that refusal means death? Or do you turn around and ask Him, “Are you sick?”. Do you think God will praise you for not obeying? The safe bet is to obey, because if it was a test of obedience, it is no biggie for him to raise the dead. That must be what Abraham was thinking. Had he disobeyed, may be he and Isaac would be both dead.

If we are taking the account literally then yes. I agree. But it seems to me there are other available interpretations that better line up with what we know through the Gospels.

I really wish there are better explanations out there that can explain the whole mess. So far, we are at the denial stage. What would be good is a non literal explanation that satisfactorily explain the Amalikites, the Canaanites, the conquest of the cities, If there were no killings, then there is no problem. So far, no one has claim that there were no killings or that the killings were metaphorical. So we are stuck with whole cities, race of people that have been killed. We are stuck with absence of reprimand of killers Moses/Joshua from God. So the excuse for them to misunderstand really can’t be used because conquering cities takes time. Don’t tell me that God forgot to inform them or needs more time to draft a response to reprimand them! In fact Saul didn’t do a good clean job of killing everyone and he gets punished. So far these are the information on the table. A theory of everything would be nice. I’d prefer Jesus telling us those parables rather than trying to explain this mess.

 

[clem456]

GOD COMES TO MEET MAN

50 By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation.1 Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. **God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. **

1950 The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom. Its biblical meaning can be defined as fatherly instruction, God’s pedagogy. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love. It is at once firm in its precepts and, in its promises, worthy of love.

1951 Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. **Law is declared and established by reason **as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and Redeemer of all. "Such an ordinance of reason is what one calls law."2

Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him.3
…
1953 The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in Christ. Jesus Christ is **in person **the way of perfection. **He is **the end of the law, for **only he **teaches and bestows the justice of God: …

MAN: THE IMAGE OF GOD
1701…It is in Christ, "the image of the invisible God,"3 that man has been created “in the image and likeness” of the Creator.
…
1702 The divine image is present in every man.
…
1706 By his reason, **man recognizes the voice of God **which urges him "to do what is good and avoid what is evil."9 Everyone is obliged to follow this law, which makes itself heard in conscience and is fulfilled in the love of God and of neighbor. Living a moral life bears witness to the dignity of the person.

…(Scriptural) Revelation is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things.
…
we should be aware that the correct interpretation of these passages requires …the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key “the Gospel and the new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery”.[140] I encourage scholars and pastors to help all the faithful to approach these passages through an interpretation which enables their meaning to emerge in the light of the mystery of Christ.
(because)
1953 The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in Christ. Jesus Christ is in person the way of perfection. He is the end of the law, for only he teaches and bestows the justice of God: …