Why did God allow Genghis Khan?

[mindlight]

Assuming God is Sovereign and Almighty the greatest conqueror in history was not just an accident.

So why did God allow Genghis Khan?

Some reasons I have been considering:

1) To establish freedom of religion in much of Eurasia
2) cause of his meritocratic approach to governance
3) To open up silk road from East so that Christendom could become aware of larger world than European Christendom, but also so that judgments like Black Death could pass down it
4) as a rebuke to Chinese racial supremacy attitudes in Song Dynasty
5) As a direct judgment on eurasian pagan tribes that were massacred by Mongols and to clear way for later Christian Russian expansion
6) As a threat reduction to Christendom by massacres of Muslims and force reductions in Muslim world following failure of crusades and diminishment of Byzantine empire

Any ideas?

 

[Dave L]

Assuming God is Sovereign and Almighty the greatest conqueror in history was not just an accident.

So why did God allow Genghis Khan?

Some reasons I have been considering:

1) To establish freedom of religion in much of Eurasia
2) cause of his meritocratic approach to governance
3) To open up silk road from East so that Christendom could become aware of larger world than European Christendom, but also so that judgments like Black Death could pass down it
4) as a rebuke to Chinese racial supremacy attitudes in Song Dynasty
5) As a direct judgment on eurasian pagan tribes that were massacred by Mongols and to clear way for later Christian Russian expansion
6) As a threat reduction to Christendom by massacres of Muslims and force reductions in Muslim world following failure of crusades and diminishment of Byzantine empire

Any ideas?

I don't think God allows anything. He causes it. Once we study up on that in the scripture, we can ask why?

 

[mindlight]

I don't think God allows anything. He causes it. Once we study up on that in the scripture, we can ask why?

That leaves you open to the view that God Himself actively perpetrated various acts of evil by the Mongols. Allowed works better with scripture.

 

[Dave L]

That leaves you open to the view that God Himself actively perpetrated various acts of evil by the Mongols. Allowed works better with scripture.

He killed everyone in the flood except 8 people too. And ordered the genocide of the Canaanites. All people in the OT understood God is behind every evil.

 

[Andrewn]

"For a time the Il-Khans tolerated and patronized all religious persuasions—Sunni, Shīʿite, Buddhist, Nestorian Christian, Jewish, and pagan. But in 1295 a Buddhist named Maḥmūd Ghāzān became khan and declared himself Muslim, compelling other Mongol notables to follow suit."

Islamic world - Conversion of Mongols to Islam

The Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire can be considered inheritors of the Mongol Empires.

 

[JackRT]

If God has any influence upon the events of history it is not direct ---- it is through us, the people of this world.

 

[Bob Crowley]

The devil also has a say in world events, and he often seems better at placing his men than God does.

He's quite prepared to use force, whereas God usually stays His hand.

It's a bit hard to see God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, giving a blood thirsty tyrant like Genghis Khan the "go for it" command. When Christ saw someone in need, He tried to help. Genghis Khan came to destroy.

From Wikipedia -

A number of present-day Iranian historians, including Zabih Allah Safa, have likewise viewed the period initiated by Genghis Khan as a uniquely catastrophic era. Steven R. Ward writes that the Mongol violence and depredations in the Iranian Plateau "killed up to three-fourths of the population... possibly 10 to 15 million people. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century.

And that was just the Iranian Plateau.

I can easily see the devil using such a tyrannical leader. We may think he's a defeated enemy, but he's got a lot of power in this world.

For an example of the kind of world the devil would like, just revisit the Nazi concentration camps.

Yet oddly enough, even the devil has a job to do. I asked my old Presbyterian pastor once what God made the devil for?

He thought about it and then sort of shrugged. "Oh, he's got a job to do I suppose."

I suppose that ultimately it's all under God's control and He bears ultimate responsibility.

It's His plan, whatever we might think of it, and sometimes I don't like it much.

 

[Albion]

The devil also has a say in world events, and he often seems better at placing his men than God does.

He's quite prepared to use force, whereas God usually stays His hand.

You're on the right track IMHO. God created humans with intelligence, ability, and free will. Man misused these gifts as we see from the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden.

But humanity continues on. God may at times intervene in the ordinary events of life, but he doesn't do so routinely and he does not rescind his act of Creation by turning us into robots being moved in every situation by Him and not at all by ourselves.

The possibility of us choosing good is still present, which is not something can be said of lower forms of life, but so also is the possibility of us choosing evil.

 

[mindlight]

He killed everyone in the flood except 8 people too. And ordered the genocide of the Canaanites. All people in the OT understood God is behind every evil.

Neither the flood or the genocide of Canaan were evils, they were justice.

 

[mindlight]

"For a time the Il-Khans tolerated and patronized all religious persuasions—Sunni, Shīʿite, Buddhist, Nestorian Christian, Jewish, and pagan. But in 1295 a Buddhist named Maḥmūd Ghāzān became khan and declared himself Muslim, compelling other Mongol notables to follow suit."

Islamic world - Conversion of Mongols to Islam

The Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire can be considered inheritors of the Mongol Empires.

Interesting article and read. When I think of the Mongol Empire proper i think of Genghis Khan as Founder and Kublai Khan as the pinnacle of their power and indeed the last real Khan of a united global empire. This empire was tolerant of Christians and meritocratic.

After Kublai Khan everything breaks up and maybe the conversion to Islam of one of the Khans was a factor in that. Obviously Yuan dynasty China did not convert, nor Mongolia proper which remained Tengri and that was the real heartlands of Mongol power. The Muslim Mongols and their Turkic successors read more like an historical curse and scourge on many lands including India until the British broke them there and the Ottomans who was also finally driven back to Asia Minor by the British. Timurs attempt to restore Mongol power reads like bloodthirsty evil given his atrocities.

So the Muslim Mongols were intolerant of Christians bloodthirsty and the definition of evil in fact. As rivals they stimulated the emergence of strong militaristic and later imperial Christian nations. So if they had any value it was in that promotion of Christian imperialism

 

[mindlight]

If God has any influence upon the events of history it is not direct ---- it is through us, the people of this world.

Sounds Deistic

 

[mindlight]

The devil also has a say in world events, and he often seems better at placing his men than God does.

He's quite prepared to use force, whereas God usually stays His hand.

It's a bit hard to see God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, giving a blood thirsty tyrant like Genghis Khan the "go for it" command. When Christ saw someone in need, He tried to help. Genghis Khan came to destroy.

From Wikipedia -

And that was just the Iranian Plateau.

I can easily see the devil using such a tyrannical leader. We may think he's a defeated enemy, but he's got a lot of power in this world.

For an example of the kind of world the devil would like, just revisit the Nazi concentration camps.

Yet oddly enough, even the devil has a job to do. I asked my old Presbyterian pastor once what God made the devil for?

He thought about it and then sort of shrugged. "Oh, he's got a job to do I suppose."

I suppose that ultimately it's all under God's control and He bears ultimate responsibility.

It's His plan, whatever we might think of it, and sometimes I don't like it much.

99% of these people were not Christians and had these tribes and nations grown normally would have bern the basis for non Christian superpowers in this area. The millions of casualties and destruction of whole cities represented a major force reduction for Satans armies. So if this was a work of the devil he shot himself in the foot.

 

[mindlight]

You're on the right track IMHO. God created humans with intelligence, ability, and free will. Man misused these gifts as we see from the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden.

But humanity continues on. God may at times intervene in the ordinary events of life, but he doesn't do so routinely and he does not rescind his act of Creation by turning us into robots being moved in every situation by Him and not at all by ourselves.

The possibility of us choosing good is still present, which is not something can be said of lower forms of life, but so also is the possibility of us choosing evil.

Genghis Khan was supernaturally successful as a conqueror noone has ever conquered more. It is not as though there were not other intelligent and determined people around. But the level of his success implies Divine permission and therefore purpose , weakening evil, strengthening the good and ultimately facilitating the spread of the church

 

[plain jayne]

He killed everyone in the flood except 8 people too. And ordered the genocide of the Canaanites. All people in the OT understood God is behind every evil.

That was the wrath of God carrying out divine justice.

God was merciful to the Canaanites and gave them approximately 600 years to repent as he said to Abraham that his descendants would spend 400 years enslaved as the "sin of the Amorites was not yet full".

When the time came that God determined to enact justice, he did.

The justice and wrath of God is not evil. To say so is not to understand who God is. It may be violent.....but it is not evil.

To say that God CAUSES every kind of evil is to say that he causes men to rape babies. I would think another view of the causes of good and evil should be held.

 

[Dave L]

That was the wrath of God carrying out divine justice.

God was merciful to the Canaanites and gave them approximately 600 years to repent as he said to Abraham that his descendants would spend 400 years enslaved as the "sin of the Amorites was not yet full".

When the time came that God determined to enact justice, he did.

The justice and wrath of God is not evil. To say so is not to understand who God is. It may be violent.....but it is not evil.

To say that God CAUSES every kind of evil is to say that he causes men to rape babies. I would think another view of the causes of good and evil should be held.

God grants repentance. He wanted them to incur greater wrath by delaying judgment
“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.’” Genesis 15:16 (NCPB)

 

[plain jayne]

God grants repentance. He wanted them to incur greater wrath by delaying judgment
“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.’” Genesis 15:16 (NCPB)

Wow, I see that as God being patient with sinners.

The people living in the Promised Land were deserving of hell and death right at the MOMENT that God explained everything to Moses. God could have said ..... "I'm going to wipe out those people now and your descendants will move in later."

God was not giving them an opportunity to sin more - but to repent.

Did they repent? No. Not all of them. Many, like Rahab did, but the majority - no.

But that does not mean that God was not patient with them.

 

[Dave L]

Wow, I see that as God being patient with sinners.

The people living in the Promised Land were deserving of hell and death right at the MOMENT that God explained everything to Moses. God could have said ..... "I'm going to wipe out those people now and your descendants will move in later."

God was not giving them an opportunity to sin more - but to repent.

Did they repent? No. Not all of them. Many, like Rahab did, but the majority - no.

But that does not mean that God was not patient with them.

He said their sins were not complete. How is that a chance to repent? BTW repentance is something God grants.

 

[Albion]

Genghis Kan was supernaturallysuccessful as a conqueror noone has ever conquered more.

I don't believe that (supernaturally successful).

And by the way, quite a lot of the territory he conquered was sparsely inhabited land.

But the level of his success implies Divine permission and therefore purpose , weakening evil, strengthening the good and ultimately facilitating the spread of the church

That's a colorful and rather unusual thesis, all right.

 

[mindlight]

I don't believe that (supernaturally successful).

And by the way, quite a lot of the territory he conquered was sparsely inhabited land.


That's a colorful and rather unusual thesis, all right.

Yuan China was 80-90 m people. If Timur was able to kill 15 m people just 100 years later in Iran then the Mongol conquest there must have been of more than sparsely populated land. When the Mongols took Baghdad I understand a million people died. Overall the Mongol invasions and their aftermath equalled a substantial force reduction of Satans armies at a time when the Byzantines were broken and the Crusaders forced out. Without the Mongols I wonder if European Christendom would not have succumbed to Muslim invasions = no Christian Americas

 

[Kiwi Jane]

The early Mongols were actually very inclined toward Christianity. It was the major religion of their empire. Sorghaghtani Beki, mother of Möngke, Kublai, and Hulagu was a Christian and so were some of their wives. Hulagu Khan conquerored Baghdad specifically with aid from Christians. You should read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, if you are interested in the topic. It's a great read.