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Dang. I was kind of hoping his line of argument had promise. Now I'm quite doubtful. We're back, then, to the following options:
1. Divine Command Theory-- Here is Aquinas's take (though he's not at DCTheorist): God commanded the killing of women and children in the Old Testament times. BUT (contrary to McGrew) this wasn't a case of murder since implicit in murder is that it's an illicit killing. But God commanded it making it licit.
There are problems with this view that I won't get into. Suffice it to say, I think this is the least plausible option for reasons left unsaid.
2. The Biblical Writers Got it Wrong-- Here the Peter Enns's and Peter van Inwagen's of the world take refuge. If the writers can get it wrong about the sun going around the earth, one of the spheres of heaven flooding the whole earth, and so forth, why not think they could get some things wrong about God too? Revelation is progressive and God meets people where they are. The Biblical folk learned more and more about God, and revelation culminates in Jesus who gives us the fullest picture of God. God IS love. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He wouldn't have commanded killing babies. "YOU say an eye for an eye, but I say...."
I can't say I have a huge problem with this view. Some innerantists won't like it but there is more than one way to be an innerantist. Moreover as an apologetics strategy--"for all I know they got this wrong"--I don't think that it's necessarily a bad one.
3. Throw Up Your Hands View -- I like this view and recommend it to the reader. Perhaps 1 is correct; Perhaps 2; Perhaps some unknown alternative 3. Right now it is an utter mystery.
In conclusion, Lydia is spot-on when she says,
Philosophers of science are well aware that a theory does not need to have answers to all anomalies in order to be well-supported and rationally accepted. We have ample, to my mind overwhelming, evidence, quite independent of our response to the question of the Canaanite slaughters, that God exists, that He is loving and all-good, that His goal is to redeem mankind, and that Jesus is God the Son who reveals the loving Father to us. That means that we can handle points where we do not know the answer while still retaining a robust confidence in the truth of Christianity.
Van Inwagen has an interesting approach: God had to start somewhere, and the best people he had on hand were pretty barbaric. So, he started with some basic values and worked upward from there over the millennia: http://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/Commands.pdf
ReplyDeleteJoseph,
ReplyDeleteI think I've read that, but it's been a long time. Thanks. He says similar things in his book on the problem of evil as well as in his paper here:
http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Evil-Moral-Character-Abraham/dp/0199671850
BUT, and this is the point I make above, he's willing to say that the Old Testament authors got some things wrong. See especially that essay (and his response to a commenter) in the book linked to in this comment.
It might be this which Bailey does not have a link for:
(2011) "Comments on Professor Curley's 'The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob'", Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (Murray, Rea, eds.).
I haven't re-read the article, but is he saying that the authors reported it wrongly, or that God gave the command as something of an accommodation to the depraved state of society? Like, "Really, I'd rather you didn't wipe out the children, but you aren't sufficiently moral yet to tolerate such nuance, so we'll cover that later; the important thing now is removing the Canaanites so you can *begin* to be holy."
ReplyDeleteDr. Hays was in Dallas earlier this week and I was visiting with him. He pointed out that as soon as they enter the land to conquer Jericho the first thing we see is an exception in Rahab; presumably, those that repent and worship God can be spared. Of course, I guess that doesn't cover babies.
Joseph,
ReplyDeleteIf by "he" you mean van Inwagen I think he just thinks the Hebrew authors had some false beliefs about God and they are recorded in Scripture. Perhaps they wrote that God commanded the killing of women and children as a result of their guilt for having killed women and children.
The problem is with the command itself to have people kill babies when this seems to contradict the command not to murder, etc. What are the odds that God WOULD do that given all we know?
One might retort, "Well, it's right there in the Bible. God would've done it because he DID it."
But then I'd ask, "What are the odds that God would not let us be mislead in our interpretations of the Bible? What are the odds that in the Scriptures he's inspired that he inspire people to get EVERYTHING right about him? What are the reasons for thinking the odds are as you say?"
Etc.
It's a problem. I don't know what to say about it (yet).
Well, in the end, I tend to take the "throw up your hands approach", as you call it, while entertaining the possibility of something like van Inwagen's approach--without actually definitively subscribing to van Inwagen's approach.
ReplyDelete