infanticide=good?

[Sisyphus]

hello all, I've a question.

I've discussed this with a christian before (one who directed me here), but was unsatisfied with the answer (I'll explain why later).

I was asking him if I had read the bible correctly when reading the story of the Exodus. it was the "hardening of the heart" of the Pharaoh that I was interested in. the pharaoh was ready to allow the israelites to go free, and then god "hardened the Pharaoh's heart and the heart of his officials." basically god made the pharaoh say no "in order that [god] may show these signs on [his] among them, and that [they] may tell [their] children and grandchildren how [god had] made fools of the Egyptians and what signs [he had] done among them." (Ex. 10.1)
this, of course, wasn't the only time this was done either. there is "hardening of hearts" (usually followed by a violent genocide) all over the old testament. after every each instance something horrendous happens by the hand of god, and usually to people whom most likely don't deserve it.

my main question is: how is it that the christian faith holds so dearly to the god of the old testament while at the same time uses phrases like "God is good" "God loves all his creation" and "God is just"? especially in light of the god of the old testament.

before you answer let me tell you what I've already heard, to avoid redundancy;

I've heard what most christians consider "hardening of the heart." that god took "his word" from pharaoh's conscience or something (anything of that matter). so to make pharaoh's action still his fault.
this doesn't really do it for me because it is still means god tampered with the pharaoh's "natural" choice-making abilities (like slipping a live shell into a gun meant to shoot blanks).

I've heard the whole "god works in mysterious ways" as well.
this doesn't work for me either simply because god VERY clearly explains his actions almost every instance this happens, and it's always to show people that he is god.

I've even heard that these instances shouldn't matter given that the children who were killed (thousands) by god's death-angel/ iraelites were in heaven.
I find no support for this anywhere in the old testament, and it doesn't matter anyway. they were killed, not converted, not banished from the land, KILLED BY THE SWORD. man, woman, old, and young-- dead.

so, someone tell me HOW god, in these instances, is even remotely good, just, or loving of his creation?

I hope I put this in the right forum, and that it made sense (written quickly at work).

 

[MoonlessNight]

I have heard the response that God deliberately made Pharaoh resist beyond what the normal person would in order to end conflicts between the Israelites and other nations (since they would know Yahweh is not a God to be trifiled with). This still brings up the problem of God being omnipotent, so he shouldn't need to do things in such an indirect way.

Of course this is only a problem if you hold that every word of the story is literal. Look at the story this way: God protects those who believe in him from their persecuters, and does anything necessary to do so. That's a nice Christian moral, I'd say.

 

[tcampen]

The question, ultimately is whether God is good. This, however, is far too general a question.

The question first must be: 1. what is "good"?

once that is determined, the next question must be: 2. what is God?

After that is decided, the final examination is then: 3. does God fit the definition of good?



Oh, be careful not to have the same definition for 1 and 2, or else it becomes a circular arguments. Good luck!

 

[Pooty]

It's simple. The bible says that god hardened his heart to show all the egyptian people that he was the real god. And after all, what are the lives of a few babies and innocent hebrews if in the end some more people believe in god?

 

[DaQo'tah]

The question asked is a good one...

Here is my answer for the ,"Why did God do that?" question....


From Bible school I remember reading that some Bible experts concider the book of JOb to be about the very oldest in the Bible...

This is interesting for the book of JOb is about one man's search for answers to the "Why did God do that?" question....

What we read in the book of JOb is that page after page this poor guy Job is unable to find an answer to the big "Why?" question, all the reasons that Job's friends come up with fail to answer the question...

in the end GOD Himself shows up and Job is able to ask his question directly to the Big Guy upstairs...

However the answer God gives Job, (as us as well) is not at all the answer Job was looking for. God asks Job a batch of questions that are ment to point out the HUGE DIFFERENCE between humans and God...

God seems to be teaching us that there is just no way for us to understand this side of Heaven all of the things and reasons God does what He does...


It comes down to a matter of trust,,,,God only points us to what He is,,,then we are left to trust in Him,,,,,we are to trust without understanding, the reasons.

This is where we come up with the idea that "I will bless the Lord , even if He slays me, I will still bless Him"

This ability to trust the very person that seems to be out to kill you is what "Faith" is all about.

Now, as for the topic of the "Harden heart" of some and the clear fact that the Bible does teach that God made a guys heart Hard, then judged him for haveing a hard heart?....

my answer is only that "God has his reasons "

I know, I know, thats not much of an answer,,,But it is true,,,I know we would hope that there was a better answer, some verse that clears God of doing something wrong, or unfair....but we dont have such to relax under here...

..The text seems to point that God thinks He actually has the "right" to both change a persons heart to be hard, then turn around and judge them for haveing a hard heart...

I also believe that yes, God knew the man's heart and so is able to judge him in ways we dont understand,,,But,,,,still,,,,we are not asked to understand God...only believe in Him and his teachings that "God is Good" and that God is always doing Good for his children who have repented and turned to Him for salvation......

 

[Sisyphus]

thanks for the responses. but, Da Qo'tah, "Why did God do this?" wasn't my question. god answers that in Ex 10.1. he explains his actions himself. there is no mystery. it's right there in the text.

I was wondering why christians continue to say he is an omni-benevolent (ALL good) god, while passages like this plainly show that there are quite a few people that he doesn't really give a hoot about. also why is it that christians just can't picture DEAD CHILDREN in their mind's eye before responding. israelites slicing up babies with swords, under command of god. they didn't raise and convert these children, they ripped open their bodies with swords. picture this, and then think about god's "goodness."

careful about euphemizing god's actions, he might not like it.

 

[DaQo'tah]

yes, but based in my answer is my reply..."God has His reasons"

God is not human, nor does he think like a man...God tells us this a few times in the Bible,,,

What this means to me , is that we have no way to judge the Lord's actions,,,,We dont stand on an equal moral plane....He is above us in all ways of understanding,,,

God is different,,,very very different , than any life-form that He has created..Thus, His actions are different and will never be understood in the same light that God understands Himself.

So in other words,,,God is God, so He always gets to do what He wants...

We humans are not God, therefore we dont get to always do what we want...But we do always have to do what God wants us to do,,,no matter if we understand or not....

When God said to the jews,,"Keep my Law"...I dont think it was ment to be debated, or was ment to open up for a debate about the merits of following a God who also asked the jews to kill some people in lands that had never even had contact with the jews before...

It was the Law, It was to be kept, Case-Closed...

But all that 1st Coveneant has passed away, haveing been fulfilled in the life and death of Christ on the cross for our sins.

Now we who are Christians are alive under Grace. We are to work to help the very ones in the most need. We are not to waite for Law,,,we are to act,,,,we are to see some helpless person in trouble, (Like the un-born child) and stop to help, to protect, and to give whatever money is needed in whatever form we have , to help the helpless and in need have life...

 

[SqueezetheShaman]

Sisyphus, there are many actions condoned by the christian god that i find repulsive. For as long as I can remember, the fact that this god was worshipped and respected was crazy to me because of these events. I have never been able to grasp the reasoning behind it either. Good luck in trying to figure it out. are you here to find out for curiosities sake why people love this god or do you want to be convinced, because you want to be a christian?? sorry i couldn't answer your question from a christian perspective. also, apologetics gets much more traffic, if you want to try there....i have noticed posts such as this get more answers there.

 

[DaQo'tah]

The Bible gives us guidelines to help us judge the thoughts/words/ and deeds of other men...

But the Bible never gives us any guidelines to judge God by.

This is because the Bible clearly tells us that our human ways of judgement are not God's ways...

God is not human,,,,,God gave us a way to judge the actions or other humans, but not Himself....We dont stand on equal moral footing as the Lord....

Only the Lord can judge the Lord...He is above us moraly , and in all other ways too...

The Lord asks us to trust Him,,,to trust Him even if we dont understand Him.....Faith is how we are able to trust Him...

Grace is how we find faith...

 

[Sisyphus]

DaQotah:"But the Bible never gives us any guidelines to judge God by."

how many times does the bible say: "god is good" "slow to anger" "quick to forgive" "loving" etc. etc.?
I'd say those are descriptions that we humans can understand, wouldn't you? when someone says "that guy did a good thing" slicing open babies doesn't really pop into mind, does it?

the thing is, every time someone mentions something good in the bible, the christians spout off about how "good" god is. this IS a judgment call. every time someone like me points out something that is not so "good" (by the REAL definition of the word), the christians pull the card the daqotah keeps pulling. "oh, well we're just measely humans. we've no idea what god's idea of bad is."
it's a double standard, and it's hard to "convert" people (with an ounce of brains) to a religion when all the rhetoric is so full of double standards, contradictions, and simple fallacies.

simple question daqotah: "is killing babies good?" if no, you'd think that we'd come up with a different word when actions like this is committed by god. something that DOESN'T contradict the definition. by the logic you've presented here humans have no right what so ever to use ANY descriptive terms to god. no right to say good, loving, fatherly, ANYTHING.... because, as you said: "We dont stand on equal moral footing as the Lord...." and "His actions are different and will never be understood in the same light that God understands Himself."

 

[Apologist]

I think looking into these questions from an intellectual viewpoint instead of an emotional one would be the best starting place. The fact that God had the Israelites kill all the men, women and children of a city does not in any way impune God's goodness.
It was an act of mercy to judge these evil nations and we have no idea how many times God gave them the opportunity to do so before His judgement came.

If God did not destroy these evil civilizations then they would have contaminated all the surrounding nations like a cancer and God's purposes for Israel leading up to the Messiah and our redemption would not have happened.
If you do a little historical research you will find that these nations sacrificed their own children to Molech and did many other evils that would beg for God's judgement. Since we only see a frame at a time of life it is impossible for us to understand why the Almighty does what He does, though he sees the whole picture of time at once.

 

[SolomonVII]

I guess it comes down to a matter of faith. Through the limited knowledge and reasoning abilities afforded to us by our all-too-finite senses and mental abilities, we can never really scientifically know if God is good, or evil, or simply impersonal and indifferent. The Bible comes out on the side that our Creator is in fact all-Good. From a purely pragmatic stance, fully understanding that I am as incapable of proving my belief that God is Good, I subjectively find the idea that our Creator is in fact good to be by far the superior choice.
With this in mind, when reading the story of Exodus, or when examining the problem of evil in our own lives, the choice of blaming God is not a viable interpretation. If one chooses to understand the actions of God as evil, one is going against the spirit in which the Bible was written, and hence the Bible is no longer a vehicle for discovering Truth. The authors in fact never intended that the story would be interpreted in such a fashion, so why should we even entertain the idea? Generations of people over the millenia have listened to the Word of the Bible, and, in a spirit of reverence and wonder, they have discovered God within. If we abandon this spirit in our readings, the stories become banal, and hardly worth the effort.

 

[BarbB]

israelites slicing up babies with swords, under command of god. they didn't raise and convert these children, they ripped open their bodies with swords. picture this, and then think about god's "goodness."

careful about euphemizing god's actions, he might not like it.

The Israelites were not the ones to kill the Egyptian first born sons. It was an Angel of God, I believe, who passed by the doors of the Israelites marked with the blood of a lamb. Hence, Passover!

 

[DaQo'tah]

God is good because He says he is....we have no way to judge God,,,we dont know how God thinks,,,we only have God's word on Himself....there is no way to know anything about what God is like except from what God has told us about Himself..

God has said about Himself that He is good...only God knows this to be true,,,we are just "told" God is good,,,But only God knows this alone ...

In the story of JOB, we read that god does some very bad things to Job,,,,,,Job never once blames Satan for the troubles in his life,,,and infact we read how even God says that He had caused the trouble in Job's like,,,,

Job himself never fails to understand that the person behind the death of his children was God, yet at the same time, Job keeps blessing God...

This is called "Faith"...we Christians have faith in God, even if we see that God is out to kill us,,,,we still believe that God is good....

Now as for our human ability to judge the actions of others?...we are told that we have the right to test and judge the deeds of others,,,,but never God,,,,We are never told that God can be put to the test like that,,,For God's ways are not human ways...


God and God alone has the right to take life, for only God can give life,,,,,

Im a human,,,I think that if I were God, then I would have made everyone live forever,,I dont believe it is good the way all humans have to die,,,I dont believe that a just God would allow children to be killed as they sleep in their mothers .....

But I am not God,,,,,If I were, my creation of the heavens and the earth would be very different,,,,,,

But you and I are not God...

 

[SolomonVII]

In the stories of Genesis and Exodus two of the major themes are:
1) that evil came into the world as a result not of the creators
choice, but as a result of the wrong actions of mankind, and
2) that people were not created to be slaves to one another, but to be
companions and friends. In other words, we were created in the image
of God.

Throughout the Bible, God is actively working with some people and against others in order that mankind may be brought back into the state of grace that existed at the time of creation. Pharoah-god had already turned away from God's plan when he enslaved the Hebrew nation. While it was in the realm of possibility that God could have softened his heart instead, if the purpose of the Bible is to teach and to reveal God's divine plan then what is needed is an event dramatic enough to engage the full attention of the listener so that we may learn. the story of Exodus is such a story.

The fullness of God's plan is revealed to us through time. As the infant Moses was delivered from the Pharoah's wrath so too was the infant Jesus also delivered from Herod's slaughter of the innocents. Without Moses delivering his nation from the bondage of Egypt to the promised land, the story of Jesus may well have gone unnoticed. But the Hebrew prophet's cry for social justice echoes on to our to our day and can be heard in Matin Luther King's demand to "Let my people go!"

The words of Exodus remind us that our true enemy is not just death and suffering. Instead it is sin and our collective failure to develop a proper relationship with our God and our neighbour. Believing in a benevolent God in a world filled with suffering and injustice is a struggle. And yet, through our faith in the God revealed to us in the Bible, God can do great things. History show this to be true.

 

[Tracie]

A really good explaination to all of the scenarios brougt up here is "The Case for Faith" (Lee Stroebel?). There was like a whole chapter on this subject. I, unfortunately, can't remember exactly what it said, but it was very informative. I'd totally recommend that book if you'd like more answers.


Tracie