Did God cause evil?

Originally posted by jaywill
But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

[b]"And his [Ben-hadad king of Syria] servants said to him, Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. We beg you, let us put sackcloth on our loins and ropes on our heads and go out to the king of Israel. Perh , there will be some difficult portions. What about the [b]whole well rounded picture ?[/b]

[/b]But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

I imagine many of the other nations were as bloodthirsty or more than the Israelites. Maybe the Israelites only committed genocide on some of the peoples they conquered, and spared others. Maybe the other nations would have done it every time they got the chance.

All I ask is that you keep reading. Read the Bible from the "holistic" angle, considering all things together. This helped me - to get a well rounded, full picture.

Don't stop reading. Sure, there will be some difficult portions. What about the [b]whole well rounded picture ?[/b]

I was raised in a Christian home, and Bible reading was required. So I've read through the entire Bible many times. I came out with a different view of the 'whole picture' than you did. I see that even in the New Testament, even after Jesus had left, even in the age of grace, God was still striking people dead [Ananias and Sapphira]. And he had replaced the mass deaths of the OT with the threat of eternal hell in the NT, which causes far worse suffering than the deaths on earth in the OT.

The picture I get is that the way to life is narrow and few find it. That implies that most of the human race will get condemned to hell. This is a tragic result. I can't believe that a God of love would allow this debacle to happen.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

I imagine many of the other nations were as bloodthirsty or more than the Israelites. Maybe the Israelites only committed genocide on some of the peoples they conquered, and spared others. Maybe the other nations would have done ...[text shortened]... s a tragic result. I can't believe that a God of love would allow this debacle to happen.[/b]

But what all humans need to see and understand is we all belong to God. Most will never see that or accept that but the bottom line that is the fact.
He created all things and all things are his.
Another fact that most humans don't see is God is a being of complete justice. He does forgive but only to a point as he has demonstrated many times in the bible.
His justice is not the justice we as humans have invented here on earth and what we generally live by. Our laws have faults and many times is not fair or true.
But God is pure. A scripture says "his thoughts or not our thoughts and our ways our not his ways".
So we think as humans and tend to set our laws up in human ways.
So all thru our history what we may percieve to be unjust by an action of God is only our emotional viewpoint. We don't know all the facts, we cannot read the hearts of those people that may have lost their life's by God's hand, and we certianly can't see into the future to see the pure outcome that God see's and knows.
This is where the word FAITH comes into affect. We have to put our "whole faith" in God that what he does and will do is only for good for us all.
We cannot pick the terms and have faith only in what we think is fair.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
The picture I get is that the way to life is narrow and few find it. That implies that most of the human race will get condemned to hell. This is a tragic result. I can't believe that a God of love would allow this debacle to happen.

God allows it to happen because in His mercy, man is given free will, to decide his own fate. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. But in order for Faith to work, He must allow man Free Will or this sacrifice means nothing. God cannot help it if man chooses... poorly.

Originally posted by galveston75
But what all humans need to see and understand is we all belong to God. Most will never see that or accept that but the bottom line that is the fact.
He created all things and all things are his.
Another fact that most humans don't see is God is a being of complete justice. He does forgive but only to a point as he has demonstrated many times in the for us all.
We cannot pick the terms and have faith only in what we think is fair.

But what all humans need to see and understand is we all belong to God.

Very childish thinking. "God created us, so He can do whatever He likes with us." That's not the way it works. Since God is supposed to be so smart and all, He should understand that creating moral patients makes Him a part of a greater normative community; and that carries responsibilities. Moral patients (and I am not talking here only about humans) are such that it matters how one treats them, and not just derivatively so. Isn't your God supposed to be, like, really smart? He doesn't understand these basic considerations?

Another fact that most humans don't see is God is a being of complete justice.

You're right: I do not see the God described in the OT as a being of complete justice. Are you sure you know what 'justice' means? He's basically a jealous, blood-lusting megalomaniac who sanctions, at various times, mass killings, infanticide, genocide, etc. If all this is consistent with "complete justice", then we should steer clear of this "complete justice" and instead opt for justice as the term is commonly employed nowadays.

His justice is not the justice we as humans have invented here on earth and what we generally live by.

Oh, I see. Well, if God's 'justice' does not jibe with our basic intuitions regarding the term, then we should ask ourselves if we have any reasons to respect or value God's take on it. Maybe we should not value God's 'justice' if it does not align with justice as we commonly understand the term.

So all thru our history what we may percieve to be unjust by an action of God is only our emotional viewpoint.

Oh, I see. Could you explain to me, for example, how I am supposed to determine when I should or should not value the sanctioning of mass killing? For instance, Hitler sanctioned mass killing. So did your God. But in one case, according to your view, I am supposed to think it unjust, whereas in the other case I am supposed to think it qualifies as complete justice. Could you flesh out the relevant distinctions in these cases? They both seem unjust to me. What am I missing?

we certianly can't see into the future to see the pure outcome that God see's and knows.

So God sees "pure outcomes" from the sanctioning of infanticide or other mass killings? Does He see pure outcomes that He could not obtain through means that do not involve, you know, mass killing and wholesale destruction and the like?

This is where the word FAITH comes into affect. We have to put our "whole faith" in God that what he does and will do is only for good for us all.

By "faith" here do you mean the abandoning of your basic intuitions and understanding of basic moral terms, in favor of their bizarro-world counterparts? That's what it appears like to me.

Originally posted by galveston75
But what all humans need to see and understand is we all belong to God. Most will never see that or accept that but the bottom line that is the fact.
He created all things and all things are his.
Another fact that most humans don't see is God is a being of complete justice. He does forgive but only to a point as he has demonstrated many times in the ...[text shortened]... for us all.
We cannot pick the terms and have faith only in what we think is fair.

I agree with LemonJello's response to this post, and could not have said it better myself.

I would only add one point. You said "we cannot read the hearts of those people that may have lost their life's by God's hand". What about infants and young children? They are innocent, aren't they? They can't understand the difference between right and wrong yet. Why does God not spare them? He drowns them in the flood, he burns them alive with fire and brimstone, he orders the Israelites to kill them, etc.

Originally posted by Suzianne
God allows it to happen because in His mercy, man is given free will, to decide his own fate. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. But in order for Faith to work, He must allow man Free Will or this sacrifice means nothing. God cannot help it if man chooses... poorly.

1) If our precious 'free will' results in the eternal torment of the vast majority of the human race, then what good is it? We'd be better off without it.

2) God may give man a choice, but he is the one who chooses the nature and duration of the punishment. If he was really merciful, he would not keep people in hell for eternity with no chance to ever get out.

3) The sacrifice of God's son still failed to save the majority of the human race. Why didn't God come up with a better plan of salvation? I mean, this result is so pitiful. And it gets worse. Christians believe that eventually there will be a group of humans who get to go to heaven for eternity, and they will never sin. If this is true, then why didn't God just start by creating only heaven, and creating only the type of enlightened human being who will not sin?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

I imagine many of the other nations were as bloodthirsty or more than the Israelites. Maybe the Israelites only committed genocide on some of the peoples they conquered, and spared others. Maybe the other nations would have done it every time they got the chance.

no need to imagine such things. we don't know if the canaanites thought that the israeli kings were merciful. we don't even know if they recognized israel as a sovereign kingdom. israel itself, if it ever became a kingdom seems to have existed for only a couple hundred years as a sovereign state.

the kingdom of judea may have survived a few hundred years longer as a client state of other major regional powers.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
no need to imagine such things. we don't know if the canaanites thought that the israeli kings were merciful. we don't even know if they recognized israel as a sovereign kingdom. israel itself, if it ever became a kingdom seems to have existed for only a couple hundred years as a sovereign state.

the kingdom of judea may have survived a few hundred years longer as a client state of other major regional powers.

I like to play along with the theist and accept their Bible verses as true, for the sake of argument. If I were to just doubt everything, as you are doing, it would kill off any discussion.

The Bible already says that God ordered the Israelites to commit genocide from time to time. That version is damning enough as it is. It's a powerful method of argumentation to show that even if I accept certain Bible stories as true, there are still issues with God and his bizarro-morality.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
I like to play along with the theist and accept their Bible verses as true, for the sake of argument. If I were to just doubt everything, as you are doing, it would kill off any discussion.

The Bible already says that God ordered the Israelites to commit genocide from time to time. That version is damning enough as it is. It's a powerful method of arg ...[text shortened]... pt certain Bible stories as true[/i], there are still issues with God and his bizarro-morality.

i can see you point. it is educational to watch people of the bible trip over themselves trying to apologize for the bizarro morality of their deity.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

I imagine many of the other nations were as bloodthirsty or more than the Israelites. Maybe the Israelites only committed genocide on some of the peoples they conquered, and spared others. Maybe the other nations would have done s a tragic result. I can't believe that a God of love would allow this debacle to happen.[/b]

I was raised in a Christian home, and Bible reading was required. So I've read through the entire Bible many times.

Now that is interesting.

I came out with a different view of the 'whole picture' than you did. I see that even in the New Testament, even after Jesus had left,

Concerning "Jesus had left" I like how He said - "And behold I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." (Matt. 28:20)

Of the four Gospels - Luke and Mark have Jesus "leaving" in the physcial sense. However, Matthew and John both end with no impression that He is not still with us. That is what I mean by well rounded impression.

One side of the truth is that He ascended and we expect to see Him come down again. The other side is that He is with us all the days of the church age until its consummation.

So Christ is in two places in Paul's teaching:

1.) He is in the believers (Rom. 8:9-11)
2.) He is at the right hand of God interceding for the believers in Heaven (Rom. 8:34)

even in the age of grace, God was still striking people dead [Ananias and Sapphira].

Yes. God did strike Ananias and Sapphira dead. But it would be naive to suggest that was the LAST time churching people tried to deceive the Holy Sprit or look good before man as a hypocritical pretense.

So we do not see God striking multitudes down every month who no doubt did something similar. So this strict example was just that. I don't agree that thousands of couples were similarly disciplined. Rather I see God had one strong example to warn the rest of us. Though we continue to live, His attitude has not changed. The striking example of Ananias and Saphire has sobered many Christians down through the centries in a quite positive way to bring thier deceptive sin under His cleansing blood and be real in the Holy Spirit not trying to make a pretensious show before man.


Perhaps your concept of God is so nice that no one should even receive any correction or dicipline at all.

And he had replaced the mass deaths of the OT with the threat of eternal hell in the NT, which causes far worse suffering than the deaths on earth in the OT.

If a man really wants nothing to do with God, doesn't want god, doesn't want His kingdom, His love, His grace, His presence and ANYTHING about God - isn't it God's respect for that to give the man what he wants ?

So in His love He gives the rejector just what his heart wants - a place totally void of God. It is only right that God should warn us that that is not a good place to go.

The picture I get is that the way to life is narrow and few find it. That implies that most of the human race will get condemned to hell. This is a tragic result. I can't believe that a God of love would allow this debacle to happen.

I don't interpret that passage as you do. I expect that I will be very surprised at the revelation of so many saved.

"Afer these things I saw, and behold, [there was] a great multitude WHICH NO ONE COULD NUMBER, out of every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes ... And they cry with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb." (See Revelation 7:9,10 my emphasis)

That is a multitude John saw which no human being could number. And they praise God for His salvation.

Every attempt of the disciples to get Jesus to break down into statistics the number to be saved was not met with percentages. Rather it was met with an exhortation to come foward to live Him. I think it is impossible to derive percentages concerning how many saved verses how many lost in the Bible.

And the narrow gate I see Jesus talk about I do not take as the narrow gate to eternal redemption. I see it as the narrow gate to be under the administration of His kingdom and to live a kingdom life.

But I obey His word to preach the Gospel to that many will hear rather than few.

Originally posted by jaywill

I was raised in a Christian home, and Bible reading was required. So I've read through the entire Bible many times.

Now that is interesting.

I came out with a different view of the 'whole picture' than you did. I see that even in the New Testament, even after Jesus had left,

Concerning "Jesus had left" I like ...[text shortened]... I obey His word to preach the Gospel to that many will hear rather than few.

Every attempt of the disciples to get Jesus to break down into statistics the number to be saved was not met with percentages.

I realize you are responding to an issue about how many are saved, but even one unsaved is -- failure.

The only coherent position is Universal Reconciliation. Nobody wants to face that fact, because it seems to lead to the position: "No matter what I do/believe/am, I will be saved." Let's call it being good.

Yet, under any coherent Christianity, we will all be saved.

The challenge is to find the reason to be good anyway. The un-self-absorbed reason.

That is, if one needs a reason.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
I like to play along with the theist and accept their Bible verses as true, for the sake of argument. If I were to just doubt everything, as you are doing, it would kill off any discussion.

The Bible already says that God ordered the Israelites to commit genocide from time to time. That version is damning enough as it is. It's a powerful method of arg ...[text shortened]... pt certain Bible stories as true[/i], there are still issues with God and his bizarro-morality.

The Bible already says that God ordered the Israelites to commit genocide from time to time.

Driving them OUT is not genocide. And here is God speaking about the driving of the Canaanites out:

"I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will DRIVE OUT the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. (Exodus 23:27-30)

The command here is not to exterminate but to drive out. So I would not count that as a command to do genocide.

Driving out or dispossessing is different from wiping out or destroying. God's will was expulsion more than annhilation.

The word [yarash] is translated "dispossess". in Exodus 34:24; Num 32:21; Deut. 4:38. It is the same word for Adam and Eve being "driven out" of the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24) .

It is used for Cain being driven away into the wilderness (Gen. 4:14). It is used for David being driven from Israel by king Saul (1 Sam 26:19).

The Israelites were commanded to "disposses" the Canaanites. They were especially commanded to destroy there centers for worship. So genocide was not the overall intention but to terminate their worship and scatter their centers and drive them out.

The other word used is [shalach] or to "send / cast out". This is similar to Adam and Eve being "sent out" of the garden (Gen. 3:23). It is to "drive out" the Canaanites in Lev. 18:24; 20:23.

The references to driving out are more numersous then the references to destroying and annihilating.

Genocide is not an appropriate charge against God because the verbs [abad] or "annihilate / perish" and [shamad] - "destroy" were used against Israel just like they were against the Canaanites.

It was used in reference to Israel being removed from the land of Israel to another land. Literal obliteration is not the meaning as is employed against Israel.

Both verbs are used in Deuteronomy 28:63 - "it shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it."

That does not mean the genocide of Israel. For the fulfillment of the divine threat occured in Jeremiah 38:2. And there all cooperative Jews were sparred even though Babylon "destroyed" the city of Jerusalem.

Fleeing Canaanites would escape so it was not a genocide against the Canaanites. The resistant ones were at terrible risk. The hardest of the hard were usually combatants not noncombatants. The others were driven out or fell into cooperation with Israel. The driving out by a foreign army would prompt women and children and the population at alarge to remove themelves from harm's way.

The critics like to ignore this aspect of the conquest of Canaan for their imagined scenario of an attacked population just waiting around to be killed. Most likely it was the defenders and the combatants that were usually trounced.

Originally posted by jaywill
But can you explain why the Hebrew kings had a reputation in the land of Canaan of being MERCIFUL kings ?

They wiped out everyone who didn't like them? Or far more likely, the claim that they had a good reputation was recorded by them or their supporters.

Originally posted by jaywill
The references to driving out are more numersous then the references to destroying and annihilating.

Its funny the lengths theists will go to to defend their God.
Initially, you were willing to accept that God ordered genocide, now that its looking bad, you are trying to change your stance with the most ridiculous arguments.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Its funny the lengths theists will go to to defend their God.
Initially, you were willing to accept that God ordered genocide, now that its looking bad, you are trying to change your stance with the most ridiculous arguments.

Funny the length atheists will go to say something is good or evil when they have no moral law as a universal standard to ultimately discriminate between the two.