An Evil, Bipolar God
Keith Ward, in chapter 6 of Is Religion Dangerous, deals with the issue of morality and the Bible. He addresses the charge that religious morality is based on an unthinking acceptance of old religious laws. As his example, he brings up one of the most notorious of religious injunctions – Deuteronomy 20:15-18.
“But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter. 16 In those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you. This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.
Geno-what did you say? Isn’t that the very piece of evidence that we use to indict the Nazi’s, their attempted genocide of the Jews? If we are to be morally consistent, shouldn’t we reject this piece of the Old Testament and anything/anyone that relies on this passage/the book/the collection of books that uses it. Any religion that accepts this as part of their canon (read: Jews and Christians) are guilty of blindly basing their morality on old and outdated religious laws. There are three ways that religious adherents have approached this problem.
Approach One : The Morally Primitive Imagining History
This approach looks at the historical record first. They notice that the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites keep popping back up in the narrative and the archeological record. As such, the ban was not actually implemented. Secondarily, they note that the text itself was “written” [1] around 700BCE, but are describing events that are much, much older. Taking these two points in tandem, they hypothesize that scribes and priests wrote into the narrative God commanding the slaughter of “present day” rival groups to delegitimize any territorial claims they might have. This moral tradition (that it is ok to slaughter your opponents wholesale for the protection of your group) is morally primitive and is later corrected by the Prophets. [2]
Pros:
- The Genocide did not happen historically
- God is not a mass murderer
Cons:
- The Text is a pack of lies
- The authors of our text are a bunch of evil liars
Approach Two: A Unique Situation
This next approach bites the bullet(s). They say – our text says that God gave the command. However, this is a unique situation and not universally applicable. God only intended it for the Israelites in this particular situation, which was necessary for the perpetuation of the Israelites. We see that it is unique because of all of the other moral injunctions in the Hebrew Bible contradict “the Ban.” This allows us to maintain the integrity of the text while cutting off this law from the others that we can abstract moral principles from. It was said and it happened [3] but it was only for one situation and one time.
Pros:
- Maintains the integrity of the text and its authors
- The Ban was a one-time affair and not repeatable nor abstractable.
Cons:
- God is evil and bipolar
- We have mass murderers in our religious tradition.
Option Two point Five: A developing God
Ward does not mention this, but it is possible that God is developing along with his creation. In order for him to know how and what to be and act, he must have something to act and be contrasted against. After all, how can I know what red is if I have never seen it? Likewise, how can God know what wrong is unless he has done it? This is a Hegelian view of God. Under this view, God had not fully developed his morals yet. The narrative reflects God’s moral at that point in time. Later on his morals developed and he understood that all life had value and that it was wrong of him to order the genocides.
Pros:
- God was not evil – only immature and is now mature through his interaction with his creation
- Maintains the integrity of the text
Cons:
- God is a developing being and is not always right and moral
Approach Three: Morally Primitive People Acting on a Self-Correcting Partial Understanding of God
This third approach tries to address the weaknesses of the other two. It suggests that we have a roughly accurate reporting of what these people think was happening. That is to say, the ancient Israelites thought that God wanted them to purge all peoples who threatened their identity. After all, surviving and maintaining your identity was an incredibly difficult thing to do in the ancient world – something we cannot fully grasp in this blessed age of comfort and inconvenience. They had part of God figured out – that she wants total devotion, but they also had part of him wrong – that he has deemed all human lives of worth and the wholesale slaughter of peoples is wrong. In time, they would discover more and more about God and come to understand this, but at this time in their development, they had not reached this understanding. There is some perception of the divine will, but a limited one. Under this interpretive model, the Bible contains humanity’s developing understanding of God.
Pros:
- God is not evil
- Maintains the integrity of the text and the developing moral understanding of its authors
- The Ban was based on a partial but flawed understanding of God
Cons:
- The Bible is something to be wrestled with, not a direct perfect view of God and its interaction with history (can’t take it at face value)
Out of these three [4] views that Ward presents, I am uncertain as to which I follow. My background tells me that all live is Gods and he can do with it as he pleases. Based off of that, option two seems the most viable. However, I also maintain that God is morally consistent and always has been. This forces me to at least consider option three. If I am forced to choose, this is the option I am going with right now, even though I am uncomfortable with how this view forces me to hold the Bible. As Ward notes on page 138, “Believers have no magical route to moral certainty, nothing that undercuts the hard process of moral analysis and reflection.” But it is the same for nonbelievers. They have to give an account of how life can have meaning in the face of nothingness – or at least fleetingness. If my flame flickers and then is snuffed out – does it really matter what it burned while it was here? I am not saying atheists cannot give such an account [5] – only noting that it too is a path forged through analysis and reflection and is not self-evident.
- that is, the “final” version was edited together around this time – not that these traditions were invented at this time. the traditions behind the text are much, much older [↩]
- see Ezekiel 18:20 [↩]
- or at least was attempted [↩]
- four, if you add 2.5, the one that I added [↩]
- even though I freely admit that I ultimately reject their account [↩]
[...] About that evil God thing. [...]
I think I’m about where you are – somewhere between two and three. As I think you’ve referred to before, I’ve wrestled with these issues quite a bit, most prominantly here:
In Defense of Genocide (which leans toward #3)
Genocide for Jesus (which leans toward #2)
But also in these:
The Generation that Seeks Your Face (Num 25-30)
The Plans I Have for You (Num 32-36)
Let Him Be Accursed (Jos 7-8)
The Man Who Would Be King (I Sam 13-15)
I honestly don’t see what the problem with this passage is. Human bodies are God’s property. Eventually all people are brought to death in his Universe.
I don’t see why we’d morally distinguish between people God kills in bed at age 85 from “natural causes” and people God orders his followers to kill at age 30.
There isn’t a moral equivalency between the way you should treat me and the way God should treat me.
There isn’t a moral equivalency between the way you should treat me and the way God should treat me.
There is if you use the logic of Jesus’ teachings. The entire basis of his ethics is “be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect”. Every injunction to do good to one’s enemy or to forgive lavishly, etc, is all on the basis of imitating God. Man is the image of God – what one does to man, one does to God. Man is the son of God – and he is a good father, giving good gifts to his children.
God is not OK with death. He is not OK with the curse and futility and agony that man has dragged creation into. To speak of God “killing people in bed” to end their lives is the worst sort of hyper-Calvinism – an attribution of all evil agency to God’s agency, as if God were pleased with evil being in the world.
I find #2.5 to be heresy – and I don’t use that word lightly. I don’t like number 1 b/c it not only disregards the genocides, but it has to throw out all the historical fruit of the genocides. Approach 3 smacks of evolutionary assumptions about the development of religion and theology – and while this is possible, I find it unlikely.
I think #2 is cast off too early. It is not merely that it is a unique situation. It is much more complicated. God WAS patient with these people for hundreds of years as they sacrificed their children to idols! His justice was necessary – the only question is, why did he have to use human agents?
If it was like Sodom, no no one would have a problem – b/c he didn’t use human agents. But since he chose to command human agents to destroy other people, we have a major problem – well, that and He commanded the death of children as well…but I’m supposing God understood more of the cyclical nature of idolatry and violence than we moderns do.
I guess I’m biting the bullet – but at the same time, this is not just an ‘evil’ God. God is enacting justice on people with whom he had been patient for hundreds of years as they committed all kinds of violent violent violations of basic human rights! Justice needed to be served. Our only questions involve the way in which it came about.
Thanks for the comments everyone! I am glad to see people interacting with the problem. Wonders – I have appreciated your posts in the past where you deal with these issues. Doug, I recognize that everything is God’s and he can do with them as he pleases, but what does it say about God if He treats us as toys? Is that a God worth loving and following? Tom – I like that you bring up the justice issue. In the immediate context the justification is primarily concerned with protecting the identity of the Hebrews and not punishing sinners. Also people point out the seemingly inconsistent application of God’s justice on earth. Why does he annihilate some and allow others to linger? I can chalk that up to his discretion (if he punished all sinners immediately – poof goes humanity – and some example had to be made) or some reason that I can’t see from my perspective.
This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.
But the real issue here is what you bring up Tom – the use of human agents to enact God’s punishment/justice on Earth. It OK’s the use of deadly violence by believers.
I must agree with Tom’s assessment of the post. I think I find myself identifying with #2 out of the options given. God had told Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt until the sins of the Canaanites reached their measure. Clearly God was using Israel as an instrument of judgment upon a sinful people.
But I’m not sure how this okay’s “deadly violence” for believers. That was under the Old Covenant which has passed away and become obsolete. God now deals differently with humanity than he did under the Mosaic Law-Covenant.
Honzo, would you consider God’s use of Israel against the Canaanites different than God’s use of Assyria and Babylon against Israel and Judah when Israel was just as guilty of sin and injustice as the Canaanites? If so, on what basis? If not, how do they differ? I’m just curious. I find that Yahweh treated Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, Israel, Judah, Edom, Babylon, Syria all the same when he judged them, he brought in an invading nation to conquer and destroy them. It so happens that Israel happens to be the invading nation against Canaan. I see that Yahweh is consistent under that Covenant/era.
In no way do the Canaanite Genocides justify believers using violence! To justify violence, Chrisitians would also need these things in place:
1. a clear command from God
2. a theologically justified answer – one that involves God’s loss of patience with a people he had been longsuffering with
3. they would need to attack with a small army and limited weapon resources – you know, just to prove that God is the one fighting for them
4. they would need to demonstrate clearly that they have certain people who are especially endowed the God’s Spirit for battle
5. they’d have to make sense of the non-violent teachings of the NT
6. they’d have to make sense out of the ‘all nations’ aspect of gospel proclamation
And as these things are not in place for Christians, I do not see how the Can. Gen. could be used to justify Christian violence.
Hank…
My brother, I believe we are learning more and more how similarly we think. I believe our previous Calvinism spats may have overshadowed our similarities. I’m glad we are able to find common ground, my friend.
Hank and Tom,
What it says is that we have a God who is fine with using humans to kill men, women, children, and even babies. Sure He has to direct them to do it, but when he does all is cool. How does the text here justify this? (there are other justifications in other texts, but I am addressing this specific one) The reason given is cultural protection. Here there is no mention of their past sins, only that God is concerned with protecting the customs of the Israelites.
This protection goes so far as to include the stabbing to death of all the babies of the culture. Because of the sins of their fathers (and mothers) God wanted them dead. That’s a genocide. Yet, in the 18th chapter of Ezekiel, who was still under the old cov, we find a reversal of this idea. The whole of that chapter establishes the notion that each person is only culpable for their own sins. It is a profound move away from seeing people only as cells of a culture to full individuals. It goes directly against God’s own motivations here and in other justifications of the genocides.
You can make the case that the Canaanite cultures needed to be eradicated or that Judgement needed to be poured out on the adults, but, in light of what Ezekiel reveals about God’s stance towards people, you cannot make the claim that the young children and babies needed to be eradicated. If you look at the “God of the Old Cov”, at least. Why does God change his mind about this? That is the uneasy question for me here.
I used the term bipolar to express the apparent shift in moral stances by God, I used the term evil because if any other tradtion were to claim this, say… certain factions within the Islamic religious tradition, or the national socialist party of Germany in the 30’s, we would say either the followers or the God followed was evil. I was not giving my ultimate opinion of this view, only what the detractors say about it.
Again, I am not arguing completely for #3. I am stuck in the middle. I see problems I don’t like with both.
Honzo,
First, I don’t the book of Ezekiel is a good text to go to when trying to get at this issue. Ezekiel 5 would then advocate cannibalism. Also, Ezekiel labors the point that Babylon was coming to wipe out Jerusalem and only one third of Judah was going to survive via the exile. The point of Ezekiel 18 is not so much as a reversal in God’s modus operandi in judgment, “the soul that sins will die,” but rather Yahweh is telling Judah that there isn’t a righteous person in Judah. So if God were to judge each according to his/her own record, they would still be guilty and deserving of punishment. No one is off the hook.
Second, if you read Jeremiah 7, the pagan religions around Israel and Judah during the Old Covenant dispensation (forgive the curse word), even the children were involved in the idolatry. It wasn’t just the adults that were worshiping false gods, it was the children. Everyone in Judah and Israel was guilty and deserving of punishment. The customs were “in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.” That’s exactly what happened when they failed to destroy everything and everyone in Canaan. It wasn’t about survival from a national standpoint, although that is part of it. It was about their fidelity to their God
These pagan religions perverted the whole family. They would destroy Israel’s whole way of life as laid out by God through Moses. If the children of these pagan religions survived, they would pass along their sinfulness and idolatry to Israel. No everyone in Canaan had to go, no exceptions. The fact that Joshua did not follow this command brings us to what we read in Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the downfall of the people of God, Old Covenatn Israel/Judah.
Man, I completely understand your issue here. I don’t in any way want to disregard the difficulty of what is happening in these stories. At the same time, I need to hold the tension that God is free to act outside of my theological box – While I believe the NT clearly teaches that violence is contrary to the Divine nature, and thought it is difficult – nay, impossible, maybe – to reconcile with the genocides, I have to believe that God’s very long patience with the Canaanites had run out and it was time to punish them.
God could have used only divine or angelic means, but he used this as an opportunity to test his people – a test, as Hank noted, they failed, resulting in many years of rebellion and ultimate exile.
While in some ways his use of human agents is disturbing, it is nonetheless still divine wrath and judgment for very egregious sin.
Also, while the babies part is also disturbing, we must also keep in mind that babies died in the flood – whether it is a mythical story or not, the implication is still that babies die under God’s judgment – and therefore God is not averse to killing children for the sins of their parents.
While I’m sure Hank’s Calvinism has provided him answers to some of these questions – God’s election of Israel and reprobation of Canaanites. I think the Openness view also offers a sufficient answer here – God, knowing all the possibilities, knew that the Canaanites and their children would be a snare to Israel if left in the land. He knew 1. that these people and their children would not repent, and he knew 2. that their sin would always intice Israel to great wickedness. Even the children, then, God knew would not repent – for, possibly, none of the potential future realities included their repentance. (Just thinking out loud on this last paragraph.)