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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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)