Old Testament Wrath

[Moral Orel]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. And I know this is a question that has been asked (sort of) a lot of times before but I have never found a good answer, so I want to ask in my own way to perhaps get more clarification on the issue.
The Old Testament (as well as Revelation of the New Testament) shows God doing some really terrifying things. As examples I'll point out genocide, forced labor, plagues and pestilence, famine and cannibalism, as well as drowning in the flood, which is a terrible experience as well.
So the question isn't "why does God do these things?" that everyone seems to ask, because that's been answered before. And every answer I have seen is something to the effect of "God had to because...". For instance, in the Genocide of the Amalekites, people say that they were so bad, and such a threat to the Jews that there was no other way. But I wonder then, doesn't that limit God's omnipotence? If God can do anything, and I mean anything, then why didn't he get the Amalekites to stop attacking some other way?
Really, how it seems to me, and I don't really want to believe it, is that God could have done it some other way, because he is definitely smarter than me and can come up with all sorts of plans given his ability to do anything, yet he chose to solve that problem with genocide instead. It seems as though it wasn't that God wasn't able to do something else, but rather that he chose to do it in that way. Which would mean that God wanted to have the Jews commit genocide.
I mean he could have just smote them himself in a sort of mercy killing instead of having the Jews kill them with swords, or the Jews could have adopted at least the infants who had no idea what their parents were doing and wouldn't have grown up to be like them without their parent's influence. God, I'm sure, could have thought up a lot of other plans that would have protected the Jews that I could never dream of, but those are some possibilities.
And then this follows for all the other bad things in the Old Testament. People were tortured with slavery, plagues, pestilence, famine, and cannibalism, because God wanted to do those things, and not because there was no other way for an omnipotent God to handle them.
So to break it all down into a simple question (way too simplified I know), why does God want to be cruel to humans, and how can he still be a loving God if he does? Or if my premise is all wrong then the question I suppose should change as well. Why was God incapable of coming up with a more peaceful or humane plan than the one he had during the Old Testament?

 

[paul1149]

This doesn't answer everything to the Nth degree. We see through a glass darkly and there are things we will not fully understand until the veil of this world is completely lifted. But God allowed man to exercise his free will from way back in the Garden. He could have pulled the plug back then, but didn't. He could have sent Christ 100 years after the Fall, but didn't.

Why did He delay? And why does He tolerate evil even now? He respects our free will, and works sublimely through the generations in ways we can barely glimpse, so that His purposes are achieved yet we are still responsible for our choices. "The gifts and callings of God are without repentance". He gave man sovereignty, and He will not take it back. Even against satan He did not employ raw power. He established His kingdom legally by paying the astonishing price of Christ's sacrifice. He delays, He works with man in his historical context through the millennia, because He wants heaven fully populated. If previous generations did not suffer through evil, we would not be here, and we would not be written in the Lamb's book of life.

He has always left saints on earth though, to fight the darkness. And one day the scroll of the heavens is going to be rolled up.

Our moral faculties are but a reflection of His character because we are made in His image, and are subject to the error of this world. It would be impossible that our moral sense would be greater than that of our Maker.

HTH a little.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. And I know this is a question that has been asked (sort of) a lot of times before but I have never found a good answer, so I want to ask in my own way to perhaps get more clarification on the issue.
The Old Testament (as well as Revelation of the New Testament) shows God doing some really terrifying things. As examples I'll point out genocide, forced labor, plagues and pestilence, famine and cannibalism, as well as drowning in the flood, which is a terrible experience as well.
So the question isn't "why does God do these things?" that everyone seems to ask, because that's been answered before. And every answer I have seen is something to the effect of "God had to because...". For instance, in the Genocide of the Amalekites, people say that they were so bad, and such a threat to the Jews that there was no other way. But I wonder then, doesn't that limit God's omnipotence? If God can do anything, and I mean anything, then why didn't he get the Amalekites to stop attacking some other way?

Hi Nicholas,

I think the logical conundrum you're focusing upon here can be partially answered by looking at the social logistics involved with Israel's ability to actually invade Canaan.

According to Scripture, it should have been nigh impossible for Israel to invade, let alone overrun, multiple sets of competing, highly antagonistic, and militarily superior people groups. God wanted Israel to see that their 'invasion' wasn't something simply given to them as a 'gift' (i.e. the Promised Land), but that it would take God's providential action--like that seen at the parting of the Red Sea--for them to enter and take hold of the Land.

This also gave God the opportunity to show Israel just how serious the spiritual dimensions and consequences of sin can be.

Peace
2PhiloVoid

 

[Moral Orel]

To Paul1149: I can't accept that I just can't know what God was thinking. Aren't we supposed to come to faith through reasoning? And where you say that there was inaction from God, such as not smiting evil, that doesn't really apply to the question because we're talking about commands from God. And where you point out that he works with man in his historical context, I have to wonder why he gave them so many rules as to how they were meant to live their lives. I mean, the commands of Moses defined them, so why wouldn't those commands preach the same peace and love that the New Testament does? You may say that their enemies were savage and they needed to defend themselves, but God could just make their skin like iron to their enemies' swords, or some other miracle to protect them while still being merciful with humans.

To 2PhiloVoid: When you talk about logistics though, you deny all the different things that God is capable of doing in order to make his plan work. And what they did didn't take any action from God, at least not in the way that he parted the Red sea. He commanded them to kill, and they did. There wasn't a miracle worked there except for perhaps the fact that they were successful, but luck could have done that, so there wasn't the proof that there was with his big miracles.
And saying that God was showing the Israelites "just how serious the spiritual dimensions and consequences of sin can be" just makes things worse. That would mean that God was sacrificing the innocent babies just to prove a point, and I simply can't believe that.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

To Paul1149: I can't accept that I just can't know what God was thinking. Aren't we supposed to come to faith through reasoning? And where you say that there was inaction from God, such as not smiting evil, that doesn't really apply to the question because we're talking about commands from God. And where you point out that he works with man in his historical context, I have to wonder why he gave them so many rules as to how they were meant to live their lives. I mean, the commands of Moses defined them, so why wouldn't those commands preach the same peace and love that the New Testament does? You may say that their enemies were savage and they needed to defend themselves, but God could just make their skin like iron to their enemies' swords, or some other miracle to protect them while still being merciful with humans.

To 2PhiloVoid: When you talk about logistics though, you deny all the different things that God is capable of doing in order to make his plan work. And what they did didn't take any action from God, at least not in the way that he parted the Red sea. He commanded them to kill, and they did. There wasn't a miracle worked there except for perhaps the fact that they were successful, but luck could have done that, so there wasn't the proof that there was with his big miracles.
And saying that God was showing the Israelites "just how serious the spiritual dimensions and consequences of sin can be" just makes things worse. That would mean that God was sacrificing the innocent babies just to prove a point, and I simply can't believe that.

Nicholas,

I'm not intending for my response to become a deprecation of your thoughts on this subject, but I'm afraid that it will end up doing so anyway to some extent. For that, I extend my apologies in advance.

I find your use of the term "capable" to be one which insinuates that not only could God have done something other than what He did in the Biblical narrative, but that He should have availed Himself of a moral recourse more amenable and more in alignment with ethical maxims many people assume to be true today.

From the Old Testament texts, we can see that God takes action on behalf of the Israelites, ensuring that they would be victorious in a situation that not even luck could have afforded them, and this in addition to His expectation for them to 'clean house' due to the sins of the Canaanites.

No, God was not sacrificing babies "just to prove a point." He wanted to ensure that the culture(s) of sin perpetuated by the spiritually unbridled Canaanites would be removed from the Land. God wanted the potential of Israel's being tempted and infected by to sins of their predecessors to be mitigated. A state of Holiness is what God was wanting to establish in Israel.

Perhaps our modern problem with this mode of cultural cleansing comes because we have little understanding as to what constitutes Holiness or as to why it should be seen as a working concept at all. In fact, Holiness is not something we usually entertain as a moral factor in our modern ethical frameworks, however, it constitutes the warp and woof of Old Testament moral thought.

You see, when the people of Israel wiped away Canaan, they came face to face with the possible consequences God could ALSO deal to them if they sinned. And indeed, according the the O.T. narrative, the Israelites were held under the same moral measuring rod, experiencing many similar consequences over time for their sins (as have their descendents in subsequent history beyond the O.T.).

2PhiloVoid

 

[paul1149]

To Paul1149: I can't accept that I just can't know what God was thinking. Aren't we supposed to come to faith through reasoning? And where you say that there was inaction from God, such as not smiting evil, that doesn't really apply to the question because we're talking about commands from God. And where you point out that he works with man in his historical context, I have to wonder why he gave them so many rules as to how they were meant to live their lives. I mean, the commands of Moses defined them, so why wouldn't those commands preach the same peace and love that the New Testament does? You may say that their enemies were savage and they needed to defend themselves, but God could just make their skin like iron to their enemies' swords, or some other miracle to protect them while still being merciful with humans.

Hi Nicholas,

I didn't say we couldn't understand what God was thinking. If that were true I wouldn't have bothered with any kind of detailed reply. I said we can't understand fully - because we can't see clearly.

God could have done any number of magical things to protect His people. And at times He did protect them supernaturally. But the sin issue runs so deep that His people ran outside of their designated umbrella of protection. He therefore could not protect them perfectly. One small example is the rout at Ai, where Israel was defeated by a tiny army because of sin in Israel's camp. Indeed, Moses hadn't yet come down from Sinai with the tablets before the Israelites had broken covenant.

Ultimately the Israel experiment would collapse at its manifest level in utter failure. The nation would become so corrupted that God would abandon the very temple He had promised to abide in had Israel remained faithful. But even then Israel continued on as a shattered remnant through which the Messiah would become manifest. This is a picture of God's grace at work.

And the Law most essentially did preach peace and love. The problem was that it had no power to produce its ends because of man's sin nature. That is why the whole thing failed. Paul explains in this regard that the law is the tutor that leads men to Christ - that is, our inability to keep the law makes us aware of our need for a Savior, and this was one of the reasons the law was given.

It's also easy to lose sight of the fact that the NT also speaks of God's wrath to come. If anything, it's worse than in the OT. But the Lord sees the heart and judges by its secret motivations. It will be proven true that the judgments of the Lord are altogether righteous and true (Ps 19.9).

 

[Moral Orel]

To Philo2Void: When you talk about the Israelites being faced with the wrath, that's where it sounds like you're saying God was doing it to show them what would happen to them if they disobeyed.
And when I say "capable" that is exactly what I mean, and my question is why is it okay that he chose not to? I can see what you're saying about not letting the other tribes just join Israel because then Israelites may have been tempted to switch religions, but what about the children that hadn't learned anything yet? Are you saying that holiness is a matter of genetics somehow? Or that holiness isn't taught? Or what? Because it seems to me that the sins of their parents shouldn't have anything to do with them until their parents teach it to them.
And when you talk about the way morals and concepts were back then, I have to think that true morals and holiness and righteousness should transcend time and culture. Did God's morals change, or was he doing for the Israelites what they wanted even though it was against his morals?
To Paul1149: This quote from you, "He therefore could not" is exactly the problem. God can do anything he wants, and he is smart enough to make choices that would have protected the Israelites and still kept his plan in line. Unless all the terrible things in the Old Testament are part of his plan because he wants to do terrible things.

If you don't do something it is either because you can't or you won't. There is no third option. I don't believe people when they say "God couldn't" because God is omnipotent. All things are possible. So that would mean that he didn't choose the peaceful route that was possible because he wanted to do the terrible things. So why would God want to do the terrible things, or explain how saying "God couldn't" doesn't make him less than omnipotent.

I really feel like my question just isn't being understood. Because people (not just you fellows who are so kind as to help) keep telling me what God can't do.

 

[paul1149]

To Paul1149: This quote from you, "He therefore could not" is exactly the problem. God can do anything he wants, and he is smart enough to make choices that would have protected the Israelites and still kept his plan in line. Unless all the terrible things in the Old Testament are part of his plan because he wants to do terrible things.

If you don't do something it is either because you can't or you won't. There is no third option. I don't believe people when they say "God couldn't" because God is omnipotent. All things are possible. So that would mean that he didn't choose the peaceful route that was possible because he wanted to do the terrible things. So why would God want to do the terrible things, or explain how saying "God couldn't" doesn't make him less than omnipotent.

I really feel like my question just isn't being understood. Because people (not just you fellows who are so kind as to help) keep telling me what God can't do.

Hello again, Nicholas,
Sorry I'm not being more helpful. I think I understand your dilemma, as I went through something like it myself. I think you are not considering the sin problem deeply enough, and the ramifications of the free will with which God invested man.

God certainly can do anything He wants. The question is what does He want. One answer to that question is that there are things He wants more than our ease and comfort in this life, as much as He does want those things.

One of those things is that He wants us to come to Him voluntarily, not forced, and based on His worthiness, not on what we can get for our own selfish ends. Thus the condition of our hearts limits what God can do for us. God himself is not limited, and especially in the New Covenant His grace toward us is not limited, but we limit what He can do.

Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations that God does not afflict willingly. Yet we know that He does afflict - or at least allows it.

It really is very basic to understand that God - who pronounced man "very good" at creation - wanted the best for us from the beginning, but that it was man who walked away. God had absolutely no obligation toward man at that point, yet He held on. Why do you think He did that?

It never was God's will that this world become the mess it is, but He worked with what He had. And He did what He would rather not have had to do, because He had a plan to save man despite himself. And He would do it in such a way that man would make the choice freely and on the right grounds.

I don't know if that helps at all. If not just ignore it. But that's how I have reconciled the evil in the world and what God has had at times to do about it. I am absolutely certain that His judgments will be shown true and righteous altogether when we see the full picture. And I am just as certain that man behind the veil cannot judge these things well enough on his own, and must at some point believe on faith that the God of Creation and Costly Redemption and Love is astonishingly good in character. However, once we reach that point we do begin to see how it all fits together.

Be well.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hi Nicholas,

To Philo2Void: When you talk about the Israelites being faced with the wrath, that's where it sounds like you're saying God was doing it to show them what would happen to them if they disobeyed.

Yes, having the Israelites participate in the moral cleansing of the land was also an object lesson, in addition to being an act of Providence for Israelites benefit based on God’s previous promises to Abraham.

And when I say "capable" that is exactly what I mean, and my question is why is it okay that he chose not to?

It is okay because: God is the Creator and Sovereign King over His creation. All of Creation, the Heavens and the Earth, is clay in His hands, and He brought it in existence to do with as He sees fit.

However, allow me to qualify what I mean by the phrase “to do with as He sees fit,” because I know that this sounds ominous to our modern minds, although if we understood God’s nature it really would not. We know from Scripture that God has purpose(s) intertwined and embedded within His creative processes. He has intentions for ‘how’ He wants the world to develop socially and spiritually through time; His plan is for us to be productive and fruitful, not destructive and barren, peaceful not violent, moral not immoral, goodhearted, not unkind, and holy, because He is Holy. So…..if the creation and/or it inhabitants bend at times away from God’s overall intentions, without becoming aware of its deviations and thereby making self-correction, continuing to go astray from His overall plan (because He endowed it with some level of autonomy and self-actualization), He will ‘straighten out’ those imperfections in due time, even if not immediately, and when He does so, we will experience the corrective procedure(s) as painful, much like being under the Surgeon’s knife as we’ve heard it said.

I can see what you're saying about not letting the other tribes just join Israel because then Israelites may have been tempted to switch religions, but what about the children that hadn't learned anything yet?

I appreciate that you have a heart for children; we all should, even as Jesus does.

But, I’m going to ask you some questions here in reply, just to move our thinking into ‘deeper water.’ And please keep in mind that I’m not asking the following questions to win an argument here, rather I want to bring out some additional aspects of the social complexity that exists within the subject under consideration, adding my questions to those you posed to me about the status of Canaanite children. My questions are these: If you were an Israelite at the time of the Conquest of Canaan, and you chose to spare the children of the Canaanites, how successful do you think you would be in raising and assimilating those children, whose families you have already killed? Additionally, when you continue to sweep through Canaan, encountering additional children of the various Canaanite tribes, what age range do you arbitrarily settle for when you decide to ‘spare’ the children: all those under age 5? Those under age 10? Those under 15? How do you justify your arbitrary age distinction for sparing certain children as seeing that as ‘fitting’ for the situation? Moreover, when these children grow and become adults, what do you think is the likelihood they’ll be grateful for the fact that you spared them and ‘forced’ them to take up your religion, your politics, and your worldview. What will you do with those children when they become adults and perhaps end up hating you for what they know you’ve done to their families?

Are you saying that holiness is a matter of genetics somehow? Or that holiness isn't taught? Or what?

No, holiness isn’t a matter of genetics, although it can be affected by deep seated culture. What I’m attempting to say (and I may not be successful in making my point as clear as I’d like it to be) is that Holiness is a state of purity by way of proper relations. However, for God, Holiness is something He is; for us, it is something we exert ourselves to be and choose to maintain.

Because it seems to me that the sins of their parents shouldn't have anything to do with them until their parents teach it to them.

Sure. And I think God would agree with you. The problem is that human beings are inherently social creatures, as well as creatures of growth (and change) in awareness. Can you see how this can become problematic in due time?

And when you talk about the way morals and concepts were back then, I have to think that true morals and holiness and righteousness should transcend time and culture. Did God's morals change, or was he doing for the Israelites what they wanted even though it was against his morals?

True morals do not transcend time and culture. Here’s why: What we think of as “Morals” are basically ‘mental rules’ that we use as tools to help govern our social shapes and cultures. But, if we could evolve to a state of being where each human being was truly goodhearted, peace loving, unselfish, merciful, gracious, and capable of doing good at all times ‘unconsciously,’ then there would be no need for moral thought or the practice of making moral distinctions—every intention would already BE Good and Productive. We obviously don’t live in a world that has achieved that level of evolution. God, on the other hand, is Holy in nature, and looking down upon us, His subjects and loved creation, directs the world’s social shapes within the overarching scheme of His Logos (i.e. what we know today as Jesus Christ, the Son of God).

As for Israel, God enabled their clearing of the Land of Canaan for at least two reasons: 1) Because God promised Abraham that He would do so, and 2) Because each nation is given the right to prosper within certain moral limits; the Canaanites over time transgressed those limits and lost their ‘right’ to the Land.

Peace
2PhiloVoid

 

[Moral Orel]

To Paul1149: You're getting closer to the answer though, thank you for that. I believe what you're saying is that the problem couldn't be resolved without the terrible things, and that there wasn't another solution for God to come up with, not that God wasn't able to come up with that solution. But it just seems so clear the alternate solutions that God could have used to at least alleviate some of the suffering that he caused/ordered. You talked about "free will" in other posts as well, but God doesn't always honor that. He hardened the Pharaoh's heart so that he could work his miracles to increase his glory, and he even enamored the Egyptian people to the Israelites so that they would hand over their valuables as the Jews left Egypt. He could have put just a bit of fear in the Amalekites or any of the other nations that threatened Israel to keep them from attacking the Jews instead of ordering their complete annihilation, and it wouldn't have been something that he hadn't done before. He put terror of the Israelites over some cities to keep them from attacking as well.
The problem I have, then, is reconciling what seems like two totally different Gods from the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament God puts righteousness above all else, yet the New Testament God puts mercy above all else. How can the morality of an unchanging being go from ordering genocide and all the other atrocities to telling people to turn the other cheek, and then go back to being full of wrath like it says in Revelation? They seem mutually exclusive.
On a side note, I know the Bible is full of stories of woe that have nothing to do with God as well. I don't expect God to show up and make everything perfect, and I understand that terrible things happen everyday (and always has) when God had nothing to do with it. I'm just talking about the things that are in a direct result of God's command or power.

 

[Moral Orel]

To 2PhiloVoid: You asked about the logistics of adopting the youngest of the other tribes, so I'll start there. I think that a child of sufficiently young age would be "brainwashed" for lack of a better term to believe that the Israelites did them a favor by rescuing them from their evil tribe. Even though the Israelites were the better group to be with, I think that if it were the opposite situation, children would still believe whatever they were taught. That's kind of the whole point in saying that the children were wicked because of their parents. They were going to be taught to be wicked, and they would have followed those teachings blindly. Why wouldn't they follow the righteous teachings blindly as well?
And to the state of morals, you say that they do not transcend time. So I wonder, your belief is that God doesn't have morals? He has a plan and it exists outside of morals? And although right now we are still working out what is right and wrong, I feel like we, as humans, have come up with some absolutes that shouldn't ever change. No human being should ever own another human being, for example. Do you believe there will ever come a time where that changes and it becomes morally acceptable for a human to own, as property, another human? Or did our morals evolve to the point that we have decided, and proved, that this a rule that should never change? If it shouldn't change, then doesn't that prove that we have made at least one step towards creating a set of permanent rules that are perfect? And if that also follows then isn't it possible to someday have all moral rules perfected? And if that follows, then wouldn't God, who knows all, and has existed forever, have hammered out all of those rules himself? Even if all moral rules haven't been perfected yet, God could still have perfected the ones that can, such as "no slavery".

 

[2PhiloVoid]

To 2PhiloVoid: You asked about the logistics of adopting the youngest of the other tribes, so I'll start there. I think that a child of sufficiently young age would be "brainwashed" for lack of a better term to believe that the Israelites did them a favor by rescuing them from their evil tribe. Even though the Israelites were the better group to be with, I think that if it were the opposite situation, children would still believe whatever they were taught. That's kind of the whole point in saying that the children were wicked because of their parents. They were going to be taught to be wicked, and they would have followed those teachings blindly. Why wouldn't they follow the righteous teachings blindly as well?
And to the state of morals, you say that they do not transcend time. So I wonder, your belief is that God doesn't have morals? He has a plan and it exists outside of morals? And although right now we are still working out what is right and wrong, I feel like we, as humans, have come up with some absolutes that shouldn't ever change. No human being should ever own another human being, for example. Do you believe there will ever come a time where that changes and it becomes morally acceptable for a human to own, as property, another human? Or did our morals evolve to the point that we have decided, and proved, that this a rule that should never change? If it shouldn't change, then doesn't that prove that we have made at least one step towards creating a set of permanent rules that are perfect? And if that also follows then isn't it possible to someday have all moral rules perfected? And if that follows, then wouldn't God, who knows all, and has existed forever, have hammered out all of those rules himself? Even if all moral rules haven't been perfected yet, God could still have perfected the ones that can, such as "no slavery".

Nicholas. ......I hate to say this, but your response proves my previous points about how people in our day and age don't really understand the connotations and meaning of Holiness, or how it should be included in ethics as a working concept.

Furthermore, I find it odd that somehow you have worked out the outcomes of child psychology as it relates to possible responses exhibited by Canaanite children, along with acquiring an awareness of some kind of 'absolute' ethical structure and/or set of principles. But, since this particular thread exists for the purpose of answering the questions of non-christians, I won't ask you how came by these conclusions, or as to the academic sources you use(d) to support your views.

One thing you might also want to do is analyze, and challenge if necessary, the axioms of the Modern Human Rights paradigm.....some of them are usable from a Christian perspective, and some of them are questionable.

2PhiloVoid

 

[2PhiloVoid]

double post

 

[Winken]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. And I know this is a question that has been asked (sort of) a lot of times before but I have never found a good answer, so I want to ask in my own way to perhaps get more clarification on the issue.

Before the beginning of space and time, God. In the beginning of space and time God implemented the heavens and the earth. God created Adam & Eve and placed them in the Garden. They lived in perfection in Divine Protection. What did they do? They decided there was a better way. Perfection in Divine Protection vanished. Now they were on their own. What did they and their descendants create? A nightmare. Existence became so ugly it was intolerable, disastrous, untenable. God eliminated it, except for eight people. What was the result? A need for a return to perfection in Divine Protection. Hence, the Abrahamic Covenant. What happened? Disobedience. Falling away. Desertion. Hence, a Messiah. What happened? Rome crucified Him at their insistence. What did they not understand? It was for that purpose He came. What happened after he arose? He anointed Saul to bring the message of Amazing Grace to all. Nothing humankind could do would be sufficient.

Those who accept the offer of Amazing Grace (Romans 10:8-13) receive eternal perfection in Divine Protection. Those who do not, do not.

Salvation does not come about through reasoning. Salvation is the Gift of God, not of works, lest any of us should boast. It is all of Grace.

 

[Moral Orel]

To 2PhiloVoid: You're right. I don't understand holiness as a factor in what is moral and immoral. To be honest, your stated beliefs about morality are the first time I have ever heard anything of the sort. I know that some things that people call morals are relative and subjective, but I still feel as though some things are absolute. I imagine that a supreme being would be able to reconcile all of them, but as I think about it more, I can see that some things we consider morally sound might be subjective. For instance, some people think that the most polite thing to do is to be early so that you aren't late. Other people think that being a little late is more polite so that the people you're meeting have a little more time to get ready. That may be a little simplified for the discussion, but I think it explains how I can see morals as not always being the same for every person in every time period.
But at the same time there are some things that are moral absolutes. I believe that slavery is always wrong, as well as genocide but I can see that there are arguments to support it even if I don't agree with them. I can't imagine someone justifying slavery though, or torture for no other purpose than punishment. People can argue the political side about torture and its benefits, but I definitely don't want to get into that at all. And to support this idea is that the bible agrees that there are some moral absolutes. Some things that are always wrong no matter the time or place or culture. We could discuss the ones more closely based on religion such as idolatry, but let's skip that one and use a more basic example. Adultery is always wrong in the Bible. Always has been and always will be. Even with the old "willing wife swapper" scenario, adultery is wrong. Does adultery compare to genocide in terms of magnitude? Heavens no. But it is an example that even the Bible has some moral absolutes, and therefore God has some moral absolutes. How do we decide which things are absolute and which things aren't though? I don't know. But it keeps me from thinking that I can come up with any reason to enslave populations or completely wipe them off the face of the Earth. It keeps me thinking that there could always be another (nicer) way given limitless power and ability and then I have to wonder why that other (nicer) way wasn't chosen.
As to my knowledge about children't psychology, it isn't vast by any means, but I know that we are all aware of Stockholm Syndrome. Even people captured and held captive as adults grow to sympathize with their captors. Because we understand that children are much more impressionable, it stands to reason that they would assimilate to Jewish society more easily. Especially since they would be raised by Jewish parents as their child (in my example of an alternative solution to killing everyone) as opposed to being enslaved. I guess what I need to understand is this "holiness" that affects our moral choices that I just don't have a grasp of. You mentioned it before and sort of touched on it's definition, but I'm just not getting it. You said that holiness is a state of purity that we exert ourselves to be based on our relation with God, but it doesn't really explain clearly how morals are affected by it. I'm sure it can't be described in the same way that you would describe a sweater, but is there an explanation that touches on it that is a little closer to the mundane? I mean, what sorts of actions do you do to achieve purity? What sorts of ways does holiness in yourself determine what your moral beliefs are? And how do those things apply to God in a way that explains that he is above what most people would consider moral absolutes?
I can understand that God created everything and can do with his creation what he sees fit. If I build a house out of Legos I can destroy it if I want to. But then we describe God as being kind and loving and angry and jealous and these sorts of descriptions seem to describe his morals, to an extent, but if he is above having morals because of his holiness, then why do we describe him as having such qualities?

 

[paul1149]

Hello Nicholas,

I've understood all along that I've been focusing on the more general problem of God tolerating evil than on God commanding "evil" things, but that is because the two are related and I consider the first problem to be foundational to the second.

Let's take a look at what is probably the most extreme case – the Israelites destroying the Canaanites. We know they were commanded to do so. But not everyone knows the back story.

Four hundred years previous, that land was promised to Abraham (Gen 15). But God told him that his descendants could not have the land right away, because "the error of the Amorites is not yet complete". IOW, the Canaanites were not yet bad enough to deserve annihilation. Consequently, there were four hundred years of delay and affliction for the Israelites: the whole Egyptian saga, replete with Joseph being mistreated, followed by persecution, slavery and forced infanticide. All because God did not want them ruining their consciences by destroying a people that didn’t yet deserve it.

I think that proves that God is not uncaring or immoral. It also demonstrates how intricately and sublimely He works throughout the historical narrative in ways very often unseen. But it doesn’t answer all questions. In fact, it raises one. Why did God allow the Amorites to get worse? That's the same question as "why did God let pharaoh get hardened?"

Again we arrive back at free will. Ask yourself this: Just where do you want God to draw the line in eradicating evil? How does He do that without encroaching on our free will? You can have one or the other, but you can't have both, not as long as sin is in us.

The Bible says that what you sow you will reap (Gal 6.7). This is how I view God hardening pharaoh's heart. God is not unjust. The judge of the whole world can do no wrong. If pharaoh's heart was hardened, it was a consequence of his own choices. He reached a point where God said, "ok, have it your way, pharaoh". He withdrew from him. He did the same with king Saul, and without His protection an evil spirit entered. That was not God's fault either.

Take a read of the book of Revelation and you will see that God's wrath is alive and well. And the Lord Jesus is often the one carrying it out. God has not changed. We have free will, and this is the age of grace. But the day is coming when the multitudes now in the valley of decision will be out of it. They will have made up their minds one way or the other. And then it will be time for the harvester to put in the sickle.


So I would ask you to consider the dilemma of free will against the profound seriousness of the sin question. Ponder just how much evil God should eradicate, and what level of evil would be tolerable, in your view. Bear in mind that God is morally perfect and does not engage in halfway solutions.

You see, that is the real problem here. It is not that God is immoral. It is that He is more moral than we. Our solutions to the sin problem are superficial and ultimately would solve nothing. His solution was to send the very Son of God to die in order to pay the price of our redemption. That is a plan so outlandish no man would have ever begun to consider it.

God is at once more just, more gracious and more loving than we. But we can't see that until it is revealed, and so until we are enlightened we, the creation, question God's character. This world is full of irony.

The day of reckoning is coming. The question for each person is whether they will acknowledge their sin problem and agree to the only possible solution, redemption through the blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, both Son of God and son of man. In love He freely offers pleasures forevermore to whosoever will. But for those who will not, His wrath abides and is just. His holiness demands it. On that day, all He will need to say is, "have it your way".

 

[Moral Orel]

To Paul1149: Free will is another can of worms I didn't really want to open here, but since you bring it up I have to point out that it doesn't seem as God "allowed" Pharoah's heart to be hardened, it seems more that he hardened it. He wanted to show his glory, so he stopped Pharaoh from chickening out halfway through the plagues of Egypt. There are a lot of New Testament verses that use the word "predestined" (which is the opposite of free will in my opinion) and in Romans 9 specifically, there is an explanation that states, "God hardens who he hardens" and essentially that we are clay pots and don't have the right to tell the clay maker what he does with his clay. I think it still leaves things open to allow a lot of free will. It doesn't necessarily mean that God controls everything we do, but it is still proof that God doesn't always respect our free will. It is a power he will exercise when he sees fit and has done so. So I know this isn't the post to argue about our free will or not, but if it is in some way an explanation for the answer I am trying to get at, then I have to retort that it doesn't necessarily exist. At the very least controlling the hearts of these evil people to at least move away from where the Israelites were to settle or just to stop attacking them, this is something that he could have done, and something that he is not abjectly averse to.
When you ask how much evil God should tolerate (in my opinion) I would have to go with the New Testament version which is basically to say all of it. He can protect us from it to a degree, but I don't think he should eradicate it at all. I know I shouldn't tell God what to do, but you asked my opinion on the matter. And it isn't just based on my own moral code, it seems to be what God has done since the New Testament started. "Do not resist evil" and all that. The question, really, is what is so unique about these people that they deserved such a terrible punishment while he allows people who are just as evil to persist now without retribution? These are all tools that he used, but he uses them in one book of the Bible and not the other. I can't stop seeing the evidence that he had every tool at his disposal, that he used some of those tools in the past, and would use some of those tools in the future, yet his hands would be tied and would only have the really bad tools to choose from.

 

[Emmy]

Dear NicholasDeka. Yes, there is a lot of Wrath in the Old-Testament, and when we look at it from God`s View,
we will realise that God will not be mocked. ( Galatians 6: 7-8 God told us: " what you sow you will also reap."
God is Love, and God wants our Love for God: ( Matthew 22: 35-40) The first and great Commandment is:
" Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: love thy neighbour as thyself." Verse 40 tells us: On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. The O.T. is full of wrath,
but in time Jesus came and showed us what God wants from us. Matthews 7: 7-10: tells us: " ask and you shall receive," we ask God for Love and Joy, the we thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour: ( all we know and all we meet, friends and not friends) We keep asking and receiving, then thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour. We might stumble and forget, but then we ask God to for give us, and carry on loving and caring. The Holy Spirit will help and guide us, and Jesus our Saviour will lead us all the way: JESUS IS THE WAY.
I say this with love, Nicholas. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

 

[Winken]

Holiness: God without qualifiers.

What is the absence of Holiness?

Sin, in us, as witnessed to by the sinful nature.

Then how does one become Holy?

One doesn't. God is invisible, without boundaries. The attributes (not qualifiers) of His Holiness are Righteousness, eternal
presence.

Then are we hopeless?

No.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 D.Watson commentary

14 A natural man, one who has never experienced John 3:3, who therefore still embodies the sinful nature, does not accept the things of the Holy Spirit of God, for They are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand or comprehend or acknowledge Them, because They are Spiritually interpreted and applied by the Holy Spirit alone. 15 He, the Holy Spirit, appraises all things, yet He Himself is appraised by no one. 16 For who has known the Most High Holiness of the Lord, that he will instruct or question or advise or rebuke Him? We, the John 3:3 Christians, have the Holy Spirit from Christ indwelling each of us, individually and specifically.* Together, we are the Body of Christ.

*We do battle daily with the sinful nature. We either yield to sin, or we look to the Holy Spirit. When we yield to sin, regret is ours. We turn to 1 John 1:9, not to be born all over again, but to resume, to continue in, that most Holy of relationships secured by Jesus at the Cross. Who are we? The Righteousness of God because of The Cross and our confession (Romans 10:8-13). God does not make rules, as in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Jesus fulfilled all of them, therefore making them unnecessary for us today. The key to our eternal security is Grace, not rules, not imperatives, not the 1,000 commandments, not Abraham, not Moses. The writings of the Apostle Paul bring all of this into five-dimensional, high definition, where WE do not "figure out" God or Holiness or any human concept. We rejoice!

 

[paul1149]

Nicholas, I wish I had more precise answers to these questions, but I don’t, and I believe that beyond a certain point no one does. Those who believe that God acted arbitrarily with regard to the Amorites or pharaoh assume that He did not give them adequate warning along the way. I personally see no basis for that assumption, and indeed it goes against much of what the Bible says about God and what I have personally experienced. For just one instance, He went out of His way to warn the Ninevites through Jonah.

Much ink has been spilled on the free will – predestination debate, much of it wasted imo. My own opinion is that the debate too often hinges on exceedingly fine definitions of words and on conjecture over what the writers actually meant. If we take predestination to its extreme, all human involvement becomes meaningless, and that is clearly heresy. And the notion that God creates some only in order to damn them I personally find repugnant (even Calvin didn’t believe that). I revert back to the truth that we are made in His image, and that our moral sense is derived from His, and I hold to the belief that with the Fall God's image in us was "effaced, not erased".

As I said earlier, we suffer from imperfect vision. If God wants to do something, who am I to tell Him not to? He can do what He wants and needs no one to counsel or correct Him. But I believe that He is better than what it sometimes looks like. As 1John says, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all". I do not have better moral sense than He. He knows the end before the beginning, and his purposes will not be thwarted, but His work is sublime so that free will is not impinged and each man will be accountable for his deeds. My bottom line, quite frankly, is that I am thrilled to be in His love, and do not want to lose it. Beyond that, on this matter I would only commend to you Wesley's excellent sermon, Free Grace.

As for why some are killed and some are allowed to continue their evil, I also do not have a precise answer. I can only repeat that God works through man in his historical context. He also works especially through the church, which isn't always obedient to its call. I believe the scripture is clear that the world is headed for the same eventual failure as the ancient nation of Israel, and that this is necessary. In this way it will be shown that the only path to life is found in God, in doing it His way. This makes it hard on us now, which scripture also warns about. That's not something to be glad about, but "this momentary light affliction is working an eternal weight of glory".

I'm not sure what else I can say. I hope this has been of some benefit to you.