This is an email sent to Unbelieveable? host Justin Brierley after a show (January 30, 2021) on the actions of the biblical God.
Hi Justin,
I was quite disappointed by the discussion on Biblical morality in which those claiming the context is ignored baldly ignored the context.
The core issue with the killing of the Amalekite infants is the innocent infants. Yet, time after time your Christian guest (Dan Kimball) deflected by reminding us how wicked the parents were. He even offered “The cross of Jesus was violence” as if this would be a coherent excuse for the killing of innocent infants.
Time and time again this guest invokes God’s “long-suffering” requests for repentance, all the while knowing that infants have neither the capability to offend God nor understand his warnings.
Your Christian guest goes on to say “Anytime you see God using violence, it is limited, it is not part of the whole story.” The only relevant limitation would be the limit to punish only the actual offenders, not the infants. Is it not just a little absurd to kill infants for the sins of their parents?
Your guest even quotes the verses “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked” and “I am loving, compassionate, slow to anger, forgiving God” as if claims of innocence from any God claiming innocence would somehow redeem the actual abhorrent actions of that same God. This is like a man torturing his infants in front of his wife, then assuring this credulous wife that it was all in love, and that the screams of the infants gave him no pleasure.
And here is God’s actual disposition against the “wicked”. Deuteronomy 28:63 [‘And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you’]
And your guest does not relent, even after being reminded that innocent infants are the issue. He says “You look at God’s heart, and you see God begging, please! Repent! Turn around! Warning! Warning! Warning! I don’t want to do this! You see God pleading with people ‘Quit sacrificing your children!’” Not relevant. No Amalekite infants were warned.
It appears Christians have no objective and coherent way to test whether a command comes from a righteous God. If God had commanded the Israelites to throw infants from the tops of mountains, is there any criteria or calculus that arrives at the conclusion the command did not come from a righteous God?
Are Christians not forced to simply obey every command presumably originating from their God without question? Is there any kind of divinely-commanded death for infants that would be clearly unjust under any coherent criteria?
Jesus has yet to return in his warrior mode, assisted by the saints. What command to you at that time would allow you to clearly conclude Jesus/God was not actually loving, and force you to admit you had been worshiping a cruel God? Anything?
In addition, it was troubling to hear you suggest outsiders cannot reject a God acting cruelly since they must invoke a divinely-given morality to do so. This is transparently untrue. This is a logical issue, not a moral issue. You can’t have all three of the following:
- A God who does not lie.
- A God who claims to love infants.
- A God who acts against those same infants in a way that could not be more unloving.
Would you not have volunteered to adopt the Amalekite infants? What would you have said to those stoning you for rebellion against God as you compassionately attempted to shield those infants from the swords of the obedient?
Don’t you think the real issue is that Christians cannot honestly countenance the notion the biblical God is nowhere close to an actual righteous, compassionate God? They look at the story of the Amalekite infants and must conclude, due their need to believe, that there has to be a legitimate reason. So they invoke the unsubstantiated mysterious ways of an unsubstantiated omniscient God. Can any adherent to any religion honestly critique their unsubstantiated God after reaching this degree of credulity and resignation to whatever they’ve been told the very God in question commands?
This was a bit long, perhaps not amenable to being read on the show, but I trust you’ll think about this long and hard.
All the best, Phil
STR Asked... 