Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Copan & Matt Flannagan

Author:Paul Copan & Matt Flannagan
Language: deu
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: God (Christianity)—Love—Biblical teaching, Theodicy, Violence in the Bible, Old Testament, Genocide—Religious aspects—Christianity, God (Christianity)—Righteousness—Biblical teaching, Religion, Ethnicity in the Bible, Christian Theology, Apologetics, Genocide—Biblical teaching, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation
ISBN: 9781441221094
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2014-10-20T20:00:00+00:00

More Recent Objections to Difficult Divine Commands

Theologian Randal Rauser has recently presented a kind of Kantian argument concerning Canaanite texts. He doubts that “a literal reading of these ancient narratives” (that is, “belief that Yahweh commanded the killing of babies in scripture”) is “really stronger” than belief that it is never permissible to kill the innocent.13 In the remainder of this chapter, we will look at four defenses of this conclusion.

Bludgeoned Babies

Rauser’s first argument is that “every rational, properly functioning person cannot help but know: it is always wrong to bludgeon babies.”14 To support this claim, Rauser cites several cases, including the 1994 Rwandan genocide “when Hutus slaughtered approximately four thousand Tutsi and moderate Hutu children.”15 Rauser asks, “My question is simple: When we hear these accounts is our moral condemnation in any sense qualified? Do we withhold judgment pending further information about context, location, and other extenuating circumstances? . . . On the contrary, I would submit that any properly functioning, moral, and intellectually honest human being will condemn these events without qualification.”16 While we share Rauser’s unqualified condemnation of the Rwandan genocide, this argument simply does not follow. Rauser suggests that any intellectually honest, moral person would condemn the events he describes without qualification. By this he means they condemn it immediately without withholding judgment pending further information. The conclusion he draws, however, is that killing infants is always wrong. That is, it is absolutely wrong without any exception.

This conclusion, however, doesn’t follow. It’s possible for a person to condemn a particular example of an action “without qualification” yet deny that this general action is always wrong. It is common in moral philosophy to hold that under normal circumstances, or in general, the killing of innocent human beings is wrong. That is, there is a strong moral presumption against killing with the default position being that killing innocent people is wrong. Yet it is also possible to hold the view that under certain conditions, this presumption can be overridden when compelling reasons in favor of killing are forthcoming. If killing is presumptively wrong, then when we reflect on a case of killing an infant, we will condemn it without qualification. Because the default presumption is that any act of killing is wrong, we will condemn it immediately without withholding judgment pending further information. This, however, doesn’t warrant the claim that killing is always wrong.

This is important because the position defended by Craig that we have spelled out takes for granted that killing the innocent is presumptively wrong. And God himself issues a general command to all people to not kill the innocent. The default position for everyone is that one should not kill the innocent. No further “information about context” is needed. However, if God later withdraws this command for a specific individual on a specific occasion, then the default presumption no longer applies. Hence, Rauser’s observation that any properly functioning individual will condemn the actions he mentions without qualification is compatible with and does not refute Craig’s or our position.

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