God on Trial

 

 

THE PROSECUTION

 

The Incident of the Golden Calf
 

The Destruction of Heshbon
 

The Conquest of Canaan
 

The Extermination of the Amalekites
 

David Looting and Murdering the Philistines while pretending to be on their side
 

God kills 50,000 Israelites for simply looking at the Ark of the Covenant

 

Noah's flood killed innocent animals and children as well as guilty adults
 

Conservative estimates of the pre-flood population are many billions. This would include the deaths of many millions of children - paying the price for the sins of their parents.
 

God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering.

Jephthah sacrifices his daughter as a burnt offering - Judges 11 v 30-31
 

The Egyptian plagues

Exodus 4 v 21

Exodus 9 v 15
 

God kills all the first born in Egypt
 

God kills the grandchild of Jacob for practicing birth control
   
   
   

 

 

THE DEFENCE

  1. God, as Creator and Source of all life, has the right to take life when He chooses. IT IS murder for a human being to take life, because he is taking something that does not belong to him - but God , as Creator, has absolute right over life and death of any creature - because all life belongs to God - so it is not a crime for God to take life for any reason? The moral laws only apply to human beings - not to God.

It follows that if the Creator of all life really did command the Israelites to totally destroy the Canaanites, then the Israelites would have the absolute right to do so, and would not be guilty of any crime. If, however, the Israelites acted without the command of the Creator, then they would be guilty of mass murder.. Genocide and murder are only crimes if they are NOT carried out by the Creator or someone appointed by the Creator.

It also follows that God has perfect right to take life when He chooses, so He is not under any constraint to only take life when a creature deserves to die. In other words, God is beyond "justice".

  1. We judge someone according to what they have done. But God sees what they will do. God sees the consequences of allowing a bad person to live, or a good person to die. It is a point of view that we cannot possibly share because we don't have an eternal perspective. It is impossible for us to understand all the reasons for God's actions.

The Bible explicitly states that the Israelites were instructed to destroy all the peoples of the land because otherwise they would lead Israel away from God, then Israel too would be removed from the Land. Thus God was acting in accordance with this very long term perspective.

We might also consider God's decision to sacrifice Jesus on the cross. Jesus was a good man, and did not deserve to die. Yet from God's eternal perspective, it was better for Jesus to be crucified.

  1. Death and destruction are not what they seem. Modern man has an absolute fear of death because he believes that this life is all there is. However the Bible asserts that life goes on after death. In fact the Bible asserts that there is a Heaven, a better place. So death simply means removal from earthly existence. God's perspective takes into account the whole journey of the soul, not just it's brief sojourn on Earth.

  2. Throughout the Bible, God seems strangely impartial regarding "genocide". When Joshua was about to enter the Promised Land and destroy it's inhabitants, he met with the Commander of the Lords Host - an angelic being. Joshua asked "Are you for us or for our enemies?". "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come." Joshua 5 v 13

It should be remembered that just as Joshua destroyed the inhabitants of the Promised Land , 40 years after the Mosaic Covenant was given to the nation of Israel, so God used the Romans as an instrument to bring judgement upon the inhabitants of the Promised Land in 70 A.D., 40 years after the New Covenant was given to the people of Israel. One event mirrors the other. God is impartial.

  1. From God's point of view we are all sinners and worthy of death anyway. We all fall so far short of God's standards. It is only because of Christ's sacrifice that any of us are alive at all.

  2. The value that God places upon respecting Him, respecting His prophets, and upon holiness is higher than the value of human life itself. God chooses to wipe out nations rather than compromise His Holiness, or the holiness of His people.

    3.

 

Conclusion

We cannot judge God by morality, because God has absolute rights over life and death. In addition, God acts upon reasons that we cannot understand. From a human perspective God's actions do not always seem to make sense - but then that is to be expected.

God takes a very hard line on sin. Not only are we not to sin, but we are to separate ourselves from people who do sin and from their sinful activities. We must not compare ourselves to those around us - and adopt the standards of our society. Rather we must do as God commands. Be separate - be holy. God was so adamant about this that he wiped out other nations who might have led Israel astray. We must act in accordance with God's commands rather than in accordance with the habits and standards of  the society around us, our group or even our church!

 

 

References

http://www.evilbible.com/

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/babble.html#cruelty

http://englishatheist.org/evil/evilindex.shtml

http://lukeprog.com/religion/evil_bible_stories.html