Don’t let that mouth-full of a title fool you! We’re coming down the home stretch, shifting gears a bit, and getting into territory that’s especially interesting (or at least, I think so).
Up to this point in the series, I’ve been exploring primarily the biblical, historical, and archaeological data related to the conquest narratives, and the manner in which apologetic attempts to excuse or soften the narratives fail in light of that data. In other words, up to this point my argument has been framed thus: Granted that a good God might justly choose at times to orchestrate genocide via human agents, is there any likelihood that the genocides as depicted in the Old Testament fit into that “just and good” category? My answer has been a resounding no. The evidence is too damning.
At this point, I want to shift to the more fundamental ethical questions. Is there any plausible manner in which God might choose to orchestrate genocide via human agents? Are there any plausible circumstances? As I mentioned in an earlier entry in this series, this issue is more ethically concrete than the question of whether or not God might ever justly choose to annihilate humans directly (the flood narratives, for example). The Old Testament conquest narratives place this issue firmly in the realm of human ethics (rather than the thornier realm of divine ethics), because they portray genocide as being executed by human agents. In other words, it won’t do for apologists to simply brush this issue aside by appealing to the oft-abused “God’s ways are higher than our ways” line.
Let’s jump in!
Most of us would agree that murder is immoral. Certainly “Bible-believing” Christians have good reason to agree. And yet the biblical conquests unambiguously depict murder, and on a massive scale. 1 Samuel 15:3, for example:
“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroyall that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
A monstrous command! In any other (non-biblical) context, we all would immediately agree that this command is monstrous. Why is it, then, that so many wish to excuse such a command when it appears in the Bible? Why is it that so many wish to excuse murder in this case? Well–the answer goes–this text doesn’t advocate murder, because the Israelites were acting in accordance with a direct command from God. Absent such a command, it would have been murder for the Israelites to carry out this campaign against Amalek. But in light of this divine command, the Israelites became morally obligated to execute the campaign.
That is to say, apologetic attempts to excuse the biblical genocides rely on a divine command theory of morality. [Or at least, the most prominent genocide apologists--William Lane Craig, Paul Copan, and Matt Flannagan, to name several--are divine command theorists.] Such a theory attempts to anchor human morality to explicit commands from God. Murder is wrong–divine command theorists say–because God has commanded us not to murder (the 5th Commandment). [Of course that's somewhat of an oversimplification, but that will work for my purposes here.] Under special circumstances, God might choose to issue a specific command, to specific people, to engage in action that would otherwise be murder, under normal circumstances. In other words, the operating rule is that specific divine commands trump more general divine commands. The specific command that God gave the Israelites to annihilate the Amalekites trumped the more general prohibition he had given them against murder. To reiterate: Absent such a specific command, it would have been murder for the Israelites to carry out this campaign against Amalek. But in light of this divine command, the Israelites became morally obligated to execute the campaign.
To be clear, there are two issues here. The more general issue is whether divine command theory–broadly formulated–provides a plausible account of human morality. I do not think that it does, but that’s a different question, for another day. It’s the second issue I would like to focus on here. And that is: What of these special circumstances, and specific commands, that trump their more general counterparts?
Let’s make this very concrete: Imagine you have received what you believe is a vision from God, in which he has commanded you to kill your son. Really try to imagine. Imagine that you are quite sure it was God speaking to you. There’s no doubt in your mind–it was an unmistakable experience. What do you do? Do you proceed to obey the command (perhaps trusting that God will stay your hand at the last moment, as with Abraham and Isaac, or raise your son back to life)?
No!
Under absolutely no circumstances should you obey such a command! It doesn’t matter how sure you are. The vision could very well be the workings of an overactive (and morbid) imagination. It could well be the workings of the Great Deceiver himself. Even if God actually had given you the vision, and had issued the command, there is simply no way that you could know that for certain.
This is the epistemological problem of divine command theory. Even if God does issue us explicit commands, there is no way for us to know for certain whether the commands we have perceived/received actually are from God. After all, there are countless people and religious sects trumpeting different and even conflicting alleged divine commands. I consider this a powerful objection to divine command theory as broadly construed, and I consider it a fatal objection to any version of divine command theory that attempts to excuse genocide.
So what do you do if you genuinely believe you have received a command from God to kill your son? To repeat: you do not obey the command. Rather, you say: “God, forgive me if I am disobeying you. But please understand that I just can’t be certain that this isn’t the workings of my own imagination, or of Satan himself. And by the way, if you actually did give me this command, why would you do such a thing? You are a good God, aren’t you?”
[Careful readers may notice that I am criticizing Abraham as depicted in Genesis 22. Some may even notice that I am criticizing the writers of Hebrews and James for their praise of Abraham's actions.]
All of this is to say that even if God actually did issue the commands to the Israelites to annihilate the Canaanite peoples, the Israelites could not have known that for certain. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the alleged divine commands were issued through human spokesmen. Consider the command in 1 Samuel 15 to annihilate the Amalekites. Even if each Israelite warrior had received a direct revelation from God to destroy the Amalekites, they could not have known for certain whether their perceptions were deceiving them. But the prophet Samuel alone received the alleged command, which he relayed to King Saul, who marshaled his warriors. If we cannot trust our very own perceptions when they confront us with a suspect divine command, how much more can we not trust the stated perceptions of others!
To drive my main point home: Even if God actually did issue the commands to the Israelites to annihilate the Canaanite peoples, we have to assume that he did not. We have to assume that the biblical writers got it wrong–that they misrepresented the will and intentions of God, whether intentionally or not. Although it may be logically possible that these texts of terror are inerrant or infallible revelations from God, our only option, in practice, is to assume that they are not. Inerrancy is not an option.
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Read the series so far: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13
