Yes, so your argument is from Divine Hiddenness. This assumes that it is better for God to reveal Himself constantly to people throughout history than for them to come to know Him from His effects/creation; and I am not so sure that is true, although I get the appeal. — Bob Ross

Why are you unsure Bob? It is obvious that Humans cannot handle the situation well, given all the prophecies, inventions, etc. There is injustice everywhere. I am sure that you are not in favor of war, but there are people suffering from it in certain places. This is God's creation. Would you do the same if you were God? Let's create and let injustice be in it!

I am saying that some things exist but are not real: do you agree with that in principle? — Bob Ross

The experience is the only thing that we have direct access to so we are sure that experience exists but not real (please see the following). The trueness of resst of things is the subject of discussion, for example, external reality. There aree two scenarios available here: 1) You are Omnipresent and 2) You are not omnipresent. In the first case, you are certain about the existence of other things since you experience them all. In the second case, you don't have direct access to things. There is no solid argument for the existence or non-existence of reality as well. So we cannot tell for sure.

There are four combinations that you can make with the two words existence and real by adding the prefix un, including the first case that there is any prefix un: 1) Existence and real, 2) unexistence and unreal, 3) unexistence and real, and 4) existence and unreal. Real is defined as: actually existing as a thing. Existence is defined as: The state of having objective reality. So the definition of real depends on the definition of existence. Please consider the order in these combinations. Given this, (1) is the correct combination, since it refers to the state of affairs that something that exists and is real, like the mind. (2) is a correct combination as well. (3) is definitely a wrong combination. (4) is also a correct combination, like experience. So we are left with the mind and experience. I think you are arguing that goodess and the mind are somehow related. I see no relation between them at all. Good and evil to me are features of our experiences only.

This is God's creation. Would you do the same if you were God? Let's create and let injustice be in it!

Allowing for evil is necessary when creating a good world. A world with natural laws allows for natural evil; a world with persons allows for person evil.

I could see your point to an extent with respect to what may seem as pointless evil, but I don’t accept that they really are pointless.

Good and evil to me are features of our experiences only.

I didn’t understand what you were saying: can you say it a different way? Are you saying that getting stabbed isn’t evil, but that our suffering involved in getting stabbed is evil?

Allowing for evil is necessary when creating a good world. A world with natural laws allows for natural evil; a world with persons allows for person evil. — Bob Ross

Why create a natural world at all? Why not create a paradise without suffering or scarcity?

Allowing for evil is necessary when creating a good world. — Bob Ross

A good God is not allowed to allow evil in His creation. The God of the Old Testament allows evil and good in His creation, though. Good and evil are fundamental features of our experiences. We do things for a reason, which could be pleasure or pain. Therefore, the God of the Old Testament is right since something is missing in a creation without good or evil! Of course, if His intention is to create a universe in which you could find good and evil!

A good God is not allowed to allow evil in His creation.

Why? Evil is a privation of the good that God always wills.

Good and evil are fundamental features of our experiences. We do things for a reason, which could be pleasure or pain. Therefore, the God of the Old Testament is right since something is missing in a creation without good or evil! Of course, if His intention is to create a universe in which you could find good and evil!

Given your previous elaboration that I didn’t understand, I don’t think you are talking about good and evil in the classical sense: it seems like you are talking about happiness and suffering.

Why create a natural world at all? Why not create a paradise without suffering or scarcity? — RogueAI

To be fair, it was, but we didn't listen. According to the text in question. Whenever governments try to control birthrates and population they get called "fascist" or "genocidal" when specifically controlling populations who only proliferate a certain area through their own historic genocide. But since "every kid is innocent", nothing ever gets done.

If people lived within their means, having kids only when a society deems necessary, we would be living in paradise. But people need to satiate a useless ego, primal lust and pleasure. So until those people who promote doing so unrestrained are neutralized, strife and suffering is all the average person will ever know.

But the whole question is whether the OT God is God. — Leontiskos

@Bob Ross

This made rethink this whole OP. My first response was going to be to point out that you're assuming a particular hermeneutic that might be subject to challenge. That is, you're asking whether Yahweh would fare well if judged as, say, an American citizen who decreed the annihalation of a neighboring community. My response would be that you can't ask that question because the OT context must be maintained, meaning that Yahweh is a character in a story with stipulated perfectness, so it must be better that Amalek be destroyed than it not. The OT God is the entity that literally spoke the universe into existence after all, and he should be trusted to know what ultimately is best.

But this is overly simplified, and it overlooks something not addressed (I don't think) in this thread regarding "What OT God do you describe?" As in, are we improperly assuming that the OT god is consistently described throughout the OT, and is the God of Genesis and Exodus the same God of Deuteronomy, and is he the same as described in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos? I say that because there is something very different from the God of Genesis who says "Let there be light" and later writings where God ceases to directly interact with the Jews, the prophets cease to exist, and there are no more miracles.

Early on God is anthropomorphic, gets angry, debates with humans, performs miracles, then he turns to a lawgiver and demands obedience to the law, and then he moves to what we consider more justice and righteousness based principles.

So what do you do? Do you say the OT God is actually different gods during different periods? Do you say he's an evolving god, changing over time? Do you just say the bible is a hodge podge of different books so it just isn't consistent? It would seem that if you can't say the OT God is the same God throughout the OT, you shouldn't be worried that the NT God is different also. On the other hand, if the OT God can be many different things and still be the same God, then he can also be the NT God too.

What is really being pointed out in the OP is biblical inconsistency, which is problematic only if you believe the Bible (OT and NT together) should be consistent as a single work. It's clear that it's not a single work and that it's not from a single author, so from a critical literary analysis, these problems aren't problems. They just give us insight into how the document was pieced together.

Well, my argument was an external critique; but one could make an internal critique that the NT is incongruent with the OT: it just isn't as powerful of an argument.

Yeah, but you entirely misunderstand my post. If you posit that God, the knower of all, in fact said that X is the best course, then that is by definition the best course. — Hanover

In a previous post, you said:

Your hypothetical, strictly construed, is that God directed the order, so here we know it was God's will. — Hanover

You are saying that as long as you are certain that the order came from God, you are justified in carrying out that order because it is God's will.

The problem is not that following X is the best course. The problem is in authenticating X and personally deciding that X is the course of God's will.

Well, my argument was an external critique; but one could make an internal critique that the NT is incongruent with the OT: it just isn't as powerful of an argument. — Bob Ross

Your argument if I understood it is that the NT description of God is the true God and to the extent the OT God is incongruent with the NT God, it does not descibe God. Yours is therefore both an external critique and an internal critique.

The greater part of of my point is that you cannot condemn the OT God until you define the OT God. Your definition of the OT God comes entirely from Genesis and Exodus. My post referenced the fact that the God of Leviticus and Deuteronomy describe a different God as is further modified in the books of the prophets. The Book of Esther doesn't even mention God's name. What you're then saying is that you can't figure out how to make the earliest renditions of God in the OT consistent with the God of the NT. The point is you can't make the later OT God compatible with early OT God either.

What does this mean? It means the sacred literature of the Jews and Christians describe an evolving God, which says nothing about God as much as it does the people conceptionalizing God.

You are saying that as long as you are certain that the order came from God, you are justified in carrying out that order because it is God's will. — GregW

No, what I'm saying is that as long as the order came from God, you are justified in carrying out the order because it is God's will.

The problem is not that following X is the best course. The problem is in authenticating X and personally deciding that X is the course of God's will. — GregW

This is obvious. My point, and you can go back through my posts and show where I've said anythying inconsistent with it, is that Exodus stipulates that God, the creator of the universe, decreed the destruction of Amalek. Those are the facts of the book. The book might well be fiction, and I do believe it is, but those are nontheless the undisputed facts of the book. Under the terms of the fictional tale, the destruction is just.

That is, if you're going to read a fictional book, you have to accept its fictional metaphysics and you can't keep jumping between the fantasy on the pages and the real world before you.

It's like if I write a book and name Knute the smartest person who ever lived. Every time Knute does something apparently idiotic, we later learn it was brilliant. He plays 4-D chess and we just have to wait and see how things unfold. That is the Amalek story. God said kill them all. Saul left one standing by the name of Agag. 600 years later Agag's greatest of grandchildren Haman tried to wipe the Jews off the face of the planet. Shoulda listened to God. That's the moral.

Your argument if I understood it is that the NT description of God is the true God and to the extent the OT God is incongruent with the NT God, it does not descibe God. Yours is therefore both an external critique and an internal critique. — Hanover

This is what I see @Bob Ross doing in the OP and in the thread:

1. I believe in God, and therefore I have a conception of God
2. I understand that Christians see their God depicted in both the Old and New Testaments
3. My conception of God is consistent with the New Testament
4. My conception of God is not consistent with the Old Testament, and here's why...
5. (I am therefore resistant to accepting orthodox Christianity because of these considerations)

So I don't see an internal critique taking place. There is no a priori commitment to the NT, and the argument does not pertain to an inconsistent canon. It does present Christians with an allusion to an inconsistent canon, but that inconsistency is not the thrust of the OP.

What does this mean? It means the sacred literature of the Jews and Christians describe an evolving God, which says nothing about God as much as it does the people conceptionalizing God. — Hanover

The OP actually addresses this in part:

[One objection is that] the OT is seen as a stepping-stone progression... — Bob Ross

Why? — Bob Ross

I have an argument for that:

P1) Perfect Being, like God, cannot do wrong/sin
P2) Imperfect beings, like creatures, can do wrong/sin
C1) So, there would eventually be sin in an imperfect creation
C2) So, creating an imperfect creation is wrong
C3) Therefore, a perfect God cannot create an imperfect creation (from P1 and C2)

Please note that I did not mention good and evil in my argument. I don't equate good with right and evil with wrong. I already defined good and evil in one of my threads, "From morality to equality". Please find the thread here if you are interested.

Evil is a privation of the good that God always wills. — Bob Ross

I don't understand you! Good God can only will good.

Given your previous elaboration that I didn’t understand — Bob Ross

Which elaboration didn't you understand? I would be happy to provide further explanation.

I don’t think you are talking about good and evil in the classical sense: it seems like you are talking about happiness and suffering. — Bob Ross

Please find my definition of good and evil in my thread that I mentioned in this post.

Bob, we are at loggerheads because not only can't we agree on the definition of murder

You never provided a definition of murder: I am still waiting to hear it. — Bob Ross

Let me post my full quote for context.

Bob, we are at loggerheads because not only can't we agree on the definition of murder, but we also can't agree on the definition of death. A murder must have a dead victim. If the victim is alive, then it's not murder. My position, my argument is that God did not commit murder in the Old Testament because not only is God perfectly good but also the people He supposedly murdered is not truly dead. — GregW

In a previous post, we have argued over the definition of murder:

Bob, by your reasoning, if "murder is the direct intentional killing of an innocent person and a killing is to end the natural life of a being", then aren't we destined to be murdered by God eventually and intentionally as we lead our innocent ordinary lives? — GregW

Bob, this is only true if the murder, killing, death is not sanctioned by God. So, murder is a death not sanctioned by God.

Your defense of my charge of God committing murder is that no one can commit murder on earth because no person actually dies completely when they are “killed”. — Bob Ross

In a previous post we have also argued over why God does not commit murder does not mean that no one can commit murder on earth.

Bob, here's the flaw in your logic. You cannot compare yourself to God. Just because God does not commit murder does not mean that no one ever commits murder. If you kill an innocent infant, then you have committed murder even though to God the infant is not truly dead. But to you, and more importantly to the justice system, the infant is dead. Just because the murdered infant is not dead to God does not mean that you are absolved of this evil act. — GregW

You were with your friend living an innocent ordinary life when God appears and struck you with a thunder bolt.

Everyone would call this “God killed you”. For you, you couldn’t say that because you didn’t actually die. How would you describe it?

 Your friends all said that you were murdered by God when they buried you.

Let’s take a step back, though: you are saying that God didn’t kill me—let’s forget if it’s murder for a second. Do you agree God killed me? — Bob Ross

Bob, you were murdered, killed, made dead by God when He struck you with a thunderbolt. All your friends blasphemously accused God of murdering you. You were dead to your friends, but you are not dead to God. This distinguishes the definition of death to your friend and the definition of death to God.

You were brought to heaven, body and soul., and in the presence of God, you asked Him: why did you murdered me?

This is incoherent with the hypothetical as outlined before this sentence. If God struck you down with a thunder bolt, then your body lost its life—you were killed: you are dead. Now, your soul has a faculty of mind which is immutable because it is immaterial; so although the body and the soul’s faculties which pertain to bodily/material functions ceases, the mind continues to live. — Bob Ross

Yes?

You have now posited that God either did not end your body’s life—kill you—but instead teleported you to his “throne” to judge you OR God did in fact kill you and then resurrected your body. Which is it in your view?

 Now you are truly dead — Bob Ross

This is the full quote:

You were brought to heaven, body and soul., and in the presence of God, you asked Him: why did you murdered me? God replied, Bob, I didn't murder you, you're still alive. But since you accuse me of murdering you, you are dead to me. You immediately disappeared from the presence of God. Now you are truly dead. — GregW

You are truly dead when you are dead to God. This is God's definition of death.

You are equivocating the killing of a person in the natural sense of the body dying and the soul be killed. — Bob Ross

There is no equivocating, when you are dead to God, you are truly dead body and soul.

We apparently disagree on the definition of death. What is your definition of death?

Firstly, endorsing a law that does not protect against certain evil is not the same as endorsing a law that protects evil. To use your example about pro-life voting, a pro-life law that explicates it is impermissible to abort after 6 weeks is not technically endorsing abortion prior and up to 6 weeks; whereas a law that explicates it is permissible to abort before and up to 6 weeks is endorsing abortion. The former is permissible for a person to vote for (assuming that’s the best law they can manage to get passed) whereas the latter would be impermissible. This is a subtle and seemingly trivial note but is really crucial. — Bob Ross

If you go around arguing that abortion is perfectly fine up to the 6 week mark, then you are doing something immoral even if it is for a good end of mitigating the effects of abortion; and you don’t have to do that to endorse a bill that limits abortion without banning it outright.

I tell you that to prevent that I would have voted for a six-week ban with exceptions for rape and incest, and I'm no consequentialist

I see the appeal, but that would be a consequentialistic move. You are saying that you would endorse a bill that explicates that in the case, e.g., of rape it is not wrong to abort when you know it is wrong. — Bob Ross

If that would be a consequentialist move, then that is not what I meant to say. I see a morally significant difference between laws that say

(a) Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks of pregnancy not resulting from rape or incest.
and
(b) A woman has a right to an abortion during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy and in all cases where pregnancy is due to rape or incest. All other abortions are prohibited.

It's (a) I would support, if I couldn't get anything better; not (b).

I think it's generally understood that what is not prohibited by the law is (legally) permitted, allowed, tolerated. That's not the same as being condoned or approved. For example, there is no law here against smoking outdoors or in my own home, but that doesn't mean the government approves of it.

Evil is a privation of the good that God always wills.
— Bob Ross
I don't understand you! Good God can only will good. — MoK

I think he meant "Evil is a privation of (the good that God always wills)". What God wills is the good, of which evil is the privation; God does not will the privation itself.

My response would be that you can't ask that question because the OT context must be maintained, meaning that Yahweh is a character in a story with stipulated perfectness, so it must be better that Amalek be destroyed than it not. 

To quickly note, this would be confirmation bias. My argument is an external critique, and there is one fundamental way to contend with it: to demonstrate that my understanding of God’s nature is flawed in a relevant regard where what is spoke of about God in the OT is accurate and immune to my claim it portrays God as unjust. This could be done by depicting God’s nature as differently that is consistent with the Bible, which is something William Lane Craig does for example, or it could be done by noting a flaw in my own logic or position to merely eliminate my critique from the table of plausible accounts of God’s nature. As @Leontiskos noted, my OP is an external critique—not an internal one. A Christian could hold a view of God consistent with the Bible, at least prima facie, and it would be immune to my argument if they simply reject my metaphysics of God.

As in, are we improperly assuming that the OT god is consistently described throughout the OT, and is the God of Genesis and Exodus the same God of Deuteronomy, and is he the same as described in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos? I say that because there is something very different from the God of Genesis who says "Let there be light" and later writings where God ceases to directly interact with the Jews, the prophets cease to exist, and there are no more miracles.

I would say that, yes, it portrays the same God: that is the most plausible reading of the OT texts. There’s no evidence that historically they were discussing different gods.

So what do you do? Do you say the OT God is actually different gods during different periods? Do you say he's an evolving god, changing over time? Do you just say the bible is a hodge podge of different books so it just isn't consistent? It would seem that if you can't say the OT God is the same God throughout the OT, you shouldn't be worried that the NT God is different also. On the other hand, if the OT God can be many different things and still be the same God, then he can also be the NT God too.

Yes, but then we run into a new issue that is interesting: why would God divinely inspire a collection of scriptures that portray Himself as a disparate collection of gods? Someone might appeal to the idea that He is giving us spiritual lessons; but then we run into the issue that we aren’t even trying to read the texts in a literal sense—which jeopardizes the NT.

Your argument if I understood it is that the NT description of God is the true God and to the extent the OT God is incongruent with the NT God, it does not descibe God. Yours is therefore both an external critique and an internal critique.

No, the OP itself just leverages the kind of argument @Leontiskos gave you. I do think there is a separate issue that Christians have been trying to solve ever since the birth of the movement which is an internal critique of how the NT and OT seem prima facie to talk about God in mutually incompatible ways. The NT describes God as merciful and loving; whereas the OT version of God is pure wrath and punishment. This is a different argument though.

What does this mean? It means the sacred literature of the Jews and Christians describe an evolving God, which says nothing about God as much as it does the people conceptionalizing God.

But, then, you are denying the legitimacy of the Bible itself; which isn’t a rejoinder to the OP. The OP is challenging those that believe the Bible is legitimate.

It does present Christians with an allusion to an inconsistent canon, but that inconsistency is not the thrust of the OP. — Leontiskos

So are you saying @Bob Ross basically has no skin in the OT/Biblical revelation game?

Bob has a conception of God.
This conception of God happens to be consistent with maybe the best parts of the NT. (Probably not all of the NT since the NT often upholds and seeks to support the OT.)

But separate and apart from that, in this OP, Bob is asking Christians and theologians, how they can reconcile a NT type conception of God with an OT type conception of God? How is a good God capable of doing what God is said to do in the OT?

The answer need make no reference to any actual scripture - it is a philosophical/theological question about goodness, Gods, and child killing.

(See, all along I thought Bob was a Christian - no wonder my posts meant so little and were off target.)

But @Bob Ross is that the gist?

:up:

P1) Perfect Being, like God, cannot do wrong/sin
…
C2) So, creating an imperfect creation is wrong

You conflated God doing wrong with allowing wrong. There is no possible world where a perfect being can exist that is not God; which you may use this to argue God shouldn’t create anything then. However, many people like myself would say that there is nothing wrong with allowing evil if the creation is properly ordered to what is perfectly good. Remember, by evil I am taking a privation theory position. Evil is a lack of goodness: it is not a real property of things but a privation of the real property of goodness. God cannot will for a privation to happen; but He can will things that are good and privations happen somewhere in the interactions between those things.

I think you also might be claiming that if God willed the creation of only good things then they would never be deprived of goodness; but that’s not true. For starters, person’s have free will to will the deprivation of goodness.

I don't understand you! Good God can only will good.

What I meant to say is that God only wills what is good; and badness is a privation of that good which can occur afterwards.

Please find my definition of good and evil in my thread that I mentioned in this post.

Goodness as a property is not identical to “pleasurableness”; nor is badness identical to “sufferingness”. Pleasure is good all else being equal and suffering is bad; but that is not to say that what makes something good is that it is pleasurable or what makes something bad is that it causes suffering. You are confusing what can be predicated to be good or bad with what goodness and badness themselves refer to.

Again, goodness is the equality of the thing’s essence and existence: it is oneness; and oneness is that which all things aim at, which makes it always desirable.

(a) Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks of pregnancy not resulting from rape or incest.
and
(b) A woman has a right to an abortion during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy and in all cases where pregnancy is due to rape or incest. All other abortions are prohibited.

I would agree if you remove the “not resulting from rape or incest”. I get the appeal to vote for it because it is like “well, it’s better than nothing!”; but it is condoning, in law, abortion during rape or incest; which is distinct from omitting it from the discussion.

This may sound nitpicky, but if they said something like:

m (a): Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks of pregnancy in the case that the sex was consensual that resulted in the pregnancy or the sex was performed by a man and woman that are not immediately related.

“M (a)” is permissible to endorse; “(a)” is not. In practicality, to your point, I honestly would just vote for “(a)” since it is basically saying the same thing as “m (a)” for practical purposes. The reason I am splitting hairs here, is because God—who can decide completely freely what to endorse and what not to—would not divinely inspire, by analogy, “(a)” but could inspire “m (a)”.

I hold God to a higher standard then myself; because, as you noted, we may tolerate laws because we don’t have the power and freedom to inspire what we really think. Can we agree on that?

Edit: I would view myself voting for "(a)" as a tolerance and not an endorsement although technically it is an endorsement. Does that make sense?

I'm having trouble seeing a real distinction between (a) and m(a). It seems to me they say the same thing, just different words. You yourself say they are "basically saying the same thing ... for practical purposes." The purpose of a law is to regulate actions, and if two laws (or two formulations of a law) would prohibit and permit the same actions, don't they then fulfill the same purpose equally?

But suppose we omit the "not resulting" part:

(a') Abortion is prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy.
(b') A woman has a right to an abortion during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy.
For the same reason that you thought (a) was condoning abortion in cases of rape and incest, wouldn't you also have to say that (a') is condoning abortion during the first six week? If not, why?

I hold God to a higher standard then myself; because, as you noted, we may tolerate laws because we don’t have the power and freedom to inspire what we really think. Can we agree on that? — Bob Ross

We can agree to hold God to at least as high a standard as ourselves. Whether higher, I feel a little doubt, because Christ says "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48, RSV). A king or a president has more power and freedom than I, but must uphold the same moral standards. I'm not responsible for what I can't do. So I don't think God's power and freedom entail that He should be held to a higher standard; only that He can do more to fulfill that standard than I can.

But separate and apart from that, in this OP, Bob is asking Christians and theologians, how they can reconcile a NT type conception of God with an OT type conception of God? — Fire Ologist

I think this is the conclusion of the arguments he is proposing:

5. Therefore, the God of the OT is unjust — Leontiskos

What is at stake in the arguments is justice, not the compatibility of canonical texts.

(See, all along I thought Bob was a Christian - no wonder my posts meant so little and were off target.) — Fire Ologist

Right. I think he is sympathetic to Christianity, but at the same time the OP represents qualms.

I think this is the conclusion of the arguments he is proposing: — Leontiskos

What is at stake in the arguments is justice, not the compatibility of canonical texts. — Leontiskos

The funny part is, all of this goes away if we think, just for a moment, that not every tale and act of God was permitted to be recorded by men, let alone was observed. The last chapter of the book literally says "if you change or add to this, you will die." More or less. That doesn't mean, not for a moment, stuff happened during the periods in question that weren't included, nor that stuff could not happen after. It is simply, sealed off. It's all we need to know. Not an "incomplete picture" in the functional sense as far as those it was intended for, simply all we need to know.

Again, why religion is generally unpopular in the arena of debate. Provided it isn't directly contradicted (and even so as opinion, interpretation, and translation throughout the millennia are subjective), faith is belief and belief is generally whatever one deems fit.

No, I wouldn’t. But let’s say I did: is your argument that if it is immoral to kill or leave the infant, then the lesser of the two evils (that should be picked) is to kill it? I do accept the principle that if one has to do evil that they should do the lesser of the evils; but wouldn’t this argument require that God had to do evil? — Bob Ross

No, I was thinking of offering a reductio ad absurdum against the argument, but it looks as though you agree that killing with indirect intention is not necessarily unjust.

2. Omissions and commissions are evaluated morally differently, such that if one can only do immoral acts then letting something bad happen is always the permissible and obligatory option. If I can only murder someone else to stop the train to save the five or let the five die, then letting the five die is morally permissible and obligatory; however, all else being letting the five die would be immoral. If you either have to let the children starve or murder them, then letting them starve is bad but morally obligatory and permissible.

I think you would have to, at the very least, deny the principle in 2 that <if one can only do immoral acts to prevent something bad, then it is obligatory that they do nothing>. — Bob Ross

Okay, I think you are reasoning well in this. :up:

Well, this cannot be true. 1 Samual 15 makes it clear God is commanding Saul to directly intentionally kill them all. It even goes so far to explicate that Saul did it but kept some of the animals and God was annoyed with Saul for keeping the animals BUT NOT for directly intentionally killing the people:

“He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.” — Bob Ross

Okay, good point.

Yes, this seems to be Aquinas’ answer; but then you are saying that murder is not the direct intentional killing of an innocent person OR that murder is not always unjust. Would you endorse one of those? — Bob Ross

That's a good question. I am not sure. Maybe I will try to dig up a place where Aquinas speaks to this.

One of the things I am asking you is this: What would you have decreed if you were instructing the Israelites? Kill the Amalekites, take as many children as you can support, and leave the other children to die?

The reason I don't personally find the critique overwhelming is because, faced with that situation, I have no clear alternative.* I guess I could say, "Assuming the children are not demonic, make sure to only intend to kill them indirectly." Yet such an approach would be incongruous in an ancient text and an ancient paradigm, and it would also somewhat undermine the whole "remove evil at its root" meaning of the text. I think the nub for you is that the text presupposes that a child can be deserving of death, and this is seen as incredible.

Similar to Akin's video, I think it is worth surveying the options for someone who accepts the Old Testament. Here are some, in no particular order:

• Interpret the text to be talking about indirect intention, and adjust one's interpretive hermeneutic (to deviate from the literal meaning).
• Hold that life and death are in God's hands, that for God to kill is not murder, and that God can temporarily delegate this power.
• Hold that the Amalekites were demons and demons can be justly killed (see Hanover's post).
• Hold to some form of group morality rather than a strict individual morality.
• Hold to a pedagogical approach on the part of God.

Perhaps, taken singly, none of those are satisfactory. It is worth noting that the last option, which alluded to, seems to be supported by later texts such as Ezekiel 18:20. This goes to the fact that, read literally, the Bible does contradict itself. For example, if God does not change, God killed the Amalekite children for the wickedness of their parents, the Amalekite children were human, and Ezekiel 18:20 holds, then we have a contradiction. Indeed the literary genres found in the Bible are not really meant to support that level of scrutiny. This does not dissolve the problem, but it does complicate it.


* Also, I am not willing to abandon Christianity on this basis. I would need a foundational alternative to Christianity to which to turn before I would be more comfortable with such a move. Even if I were to make that move, I would still see the Old Testament as preparatory and indispensable to any true morality that one discovers later.

You conflated God doing wrong with allowing wrong. — Bob Ross

No. Let me give you an example: You are an engineer. Would you make a car that you are sure will not take you to the end of a long journey? No, you wouldn't. I didn't even consider you a perfect being in this example. A perfect engineer cannot make such a car. So it is not about 'wouldn't,' but 'cannot.'

There is no possible world where a perfect being can exist that is not God; which you may use this to argue God shouldn’t create anything then. — Bob Ross

Perfect God can only create perfect things. So, if the creation of a perfect creation is impossible, then there is no creation. There is an imperfect creation. So, either we are blind and cannot see that the creation is perfect, or God is imperfect. Which one do you pick?

However, many people like myself would say that there is nothing wrong with allowing evil if the creation is properly ordered to what is perfectly good. Remember, by evil I am taking a privation theory position. Evil is a lack of goodness: it is not a real property of things but a privation of the real property of goodness. God cannot will for a privation to happen; but He can will things that are good and privations happen somewhere in the interactions between those things.

I think you also might be claiming that if God willed the creation of only good things then they would never be deprived of goodness; but that’s not true. For starters, person’s have free will to will the deprivation of goodness. — Bob Ross

Here, you are talking about an imperfect God.

What I meant to say is that God only wills what is good; and badness is a privation of that good which can occur afterwards. — Bob Ross

Same here. You are talking about an imperfect God.

Goodness as a property is not identical to “pleasurableness”; nor is badness identical to “sufferingness”. Pleasure is good all else being equal and suffering is bad — Bob Ross

In my dictionary, which present my word view, good is related to pleasure and evil is related to pain. Good creatures, like you, prefer good, there are evil creatures who prefer evil too, like masochists. Are you saying that a masochist is bad!? Likeing pain is his part of his nature.

(a') Abortion is prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy.
(b') A woman has a right to an abortion during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy.
For the same reason that you thought (a) was condoning abortion in cases of rape and incest, wouldn't you also have to say that (a') is condoning abortion during the first six week? If not, why?

Yes, b’ is immoral to endorse: it positively affirms abortion; whereas a’ does not.

Think of it this way, which is harder to revoke: a bill that merely omits something that you could pass legislation on later or a bill that explicates the permissibility of something that you want to ban later? The latter of course. This also runs on moral lines: I can’t positively endorse abortion, but I can pragmatically endorse prohibiting abortion in as many cases as I can.

We can agree to hold God to at least as high a standard as ourselves.

Sort of. We usually consider culpability relative to what one can do, what they know, and what they do. God is absolutely free; whereas we are limited severely. By ‘standard’ here, I was really referring to culpability. I am culpable for voting for b’ but not for a’; and God is culpable for inspiring positively affirming rules about slaves in Exodus and not if He omitted affirming slavery in them; and I am less culpable than God because I have limited freedom, knowledge, and power.

Think of it this way. If an ordinary citizen votes for b’ and I think we both would hold them less culpable (granted it is immoral) than dictator that decrees b’. This is because that dictactor by way of having the power to decree it themselves could have decreed it differently. Imagine a being that has perfect knowledge and power that simply endorses b’ instead of a’: wouldn’t that be a weird mistake?

I would argue that If God go and kill someone it isn't murder because they haven't truly died since their soul is immutable and ends up in heaven to face God's judgement. — GregW

If you are using my definition and leveraging that God is not murdering people because they can't truly die, then no one ever commits murder. — Bob Ross

You are equivocating the killing of a person in the natural sense of the body dying and the soul be killed. — Bob Ross

There is no equivocating, when you are dead to God, you are truly dead body and soul.

We apparently disagree on the definition of death. What is your definition of death? — GregW

Death can mean various things. (1) When a person stops breathing and the heart stops beating and soon the body begins to decay, people say "he is dead," without necessarily understanding what death is, i.e., its essence. (2) Traditionally, death is understood as the separation of the soul from the body. This is called the First Death in Christian theology. (3) There is also the Second Death, when the soul is separated eternally from God (goes to hell). (4) In 1968, the Harvard Medical School promoted the concept of "brain death", allowing organs to be harvested for transplant while they are still fresh because the patient's (donor's) heart and lungs are still functioning. (See David S. Oderberg, Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach, sec. 2.7.) And there may be others.

Mathematicians can define their terms as they like, but in an ethical discussion about murder, we must understand death in the right sense. GregW thinks (3) is the appropriate sense of death for murder. But this cannot be correct, for it is beyond the power of any human being to put another to death in sense (3). How, then, did Cain kill his brother (Genesis 4:8)? How did Lamech slay one or two men (4:23)? How did Moses kill the Egyptian (Exodus 2:12)? Why is there a commandment against murder (Gen. 9:5-7, Ex. 20:13)? It is pointless to prohibit what cannot be done.

In support of the idea that voting for an abortion law with narrow exceptions would not be consequentialist, I was wanting to quote that arch-anticonsequentialist, John Paul II, but for a few days I could not find the text. Here it is:

A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations-particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation-there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects. ---Evangelium Vitae, sec. 73

He says "aimed at limiting the harm", without saying anything about the precise wording.

(a) Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks of pregnancy not resulting from rape or incest.

(I couldn't remember what (a) said.)

(a') Abortion is prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy.

Yes, b’ is immoral to endorse: it positively affirms abortion; whereas a’ does not. — Bob Ross

I think that, in answer to my question, "wouldn't you also have to say that (a') is condoning abortion during the first six weeks?", your "Yes" meant "No", because you went on to say "a' does not."

I take it that your objection to (a) is because (a) positively mentions exceptions for rape and incest, but you do not similarly object to (a') because it does not positively mention an "exception" for before 6 weeks, although it implicitly allows it because it only prohibits after 6 weeks?

Similarly, then, your objection to the legislation concerning slavery is that even if it greatly ameliorates the evils of how slavery is practiced, it still recognizes a right of masters to own slaves? And where exactly does it say this?