On Sunday night, after seeing Underworld: Evolution, and while waiting in the drive through line of Jack in the Box, the guys in my car had a discussion regarding the Old Testament (or as the cool cats call it: the “OT”). My friend Matt has been reading the OT lately, not for spiritual reasons, but because he is taking a religion class at UCSB. He began to share with the rest of the people in the car (Pat, Cole and myself) how “jacked-up” and “kinky” the OT is. He said that God seemed like a child because sometimes he got really angry and killed people, and then the next minute he was giving them presents. He said that God acted very much like a human because he seemed to have a lot of mood swings. Matt was also concerned about the story of Moses. “Why did God harden the heart of Pharaoh? He was showing off and many people died in the process.” Matt wanted to know why God couldn’t have just softened Pharaoh’s heart and spared the lives of thousands and thousands of people.
I think that Matt has some really valid concerns. The OT is really hard to understand all the time. There is some really weird stuff in there. My question for us is, how would we process the questions that Matt asks? What do all you think?
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My response is to say that while reading the OT it is important to keep in mind that that whole time period was a very special case/situation in which God’s plan was to prepare Israel for the Messiah (i.e. Himself).
You may find this article helpful, (Can God Kill the Innocent? ):
“Can God create something and then destroy what He’s created? Yes, He can do as He wishes, though His wishes are constrained by His character so He can’t wish something that is immoral or inconsistent with His character. And there is nothing patently immoral about the Creator of life taking away life. It’s immoral for us because when we take life, usually we are exercising a prerogative reserved for God alone.”
Thanks for the link Barron. I will hold more of my thoughts until the end of this conversation, but till then, how do the rest of you process these questions? I hope to create more healthy diologue in the space, so please feel free to share as you wrestle with it.
It’s really humbling to realize that our Creator is all-powerful and although we are allowed to make our own choices in life, the reality is that we are not ultimately in control of our lives. That’s really hard for our society to take in and extremely hard for young people who are trying so hard to break away form their youth and expectations of family, authority figures, etc. Young people want independance…control of their lives and destiny. Heck…Americans in general want that (War of Independance and all). So how can one really understand that a truly loving and just God would cause death or pain or interfere with the hearts of men when he felt like it?? Well, I guess one would have to look outside of oneself, which in today’s self-centered, self-serving society is pretty rare. It’s not all about you, it’s not all about the other guy, there is a much bigger picture called eternity. And our God knows much more about that than any one person could even imagine. Just because we can’t see the bigger picture of eternity doesn’t mean we have the right to judge or question the integrity of our Creator, does it? Look at Job, poor schmuck, going along happy as a clam, obedient in every way, then WHAM! God decides to let him be used as an example. Yes, Job lost so much, including his children, but he also gained more than he had before and his story has positively impacted millions of people which is one very good reason to justify the pain and suffering of a few.
Another tangent on this topic is the experience of being a parent really helps you to see the big picture in a different way. My daughter feels I am being unjust when I don’t let her wear a party dress to school. I explain that it will get ruined in the sand box, at the paint easels and on the jungle gym. She’ll still throw a fit and so I’ll give into her hardened heart and let her wear it. Then she’ll come home in tears because her favorite dress is completely filthy and torn, just ruined. The result of natural consequences and a hard heart. But she’ll surely learn her lesson, as will her classmates who witnessed the destruction of a beloved party dress. The lesson being that, in this case, your parents know what’s best for you whether you realize it or not. It teaches her to learn faith in a way, as whenever I teacher about trusting and having faith in us, I explain how as her parents, we answer to God and have faith in and obey Him.
As far as “thousands of lives” not being “saved”…I don’t believe that anyone dies in vain. I believe there is a lesson to be learned from each life and each death. Everyone impacts at least one person, if not thousands of people in their lifetime, whether for good or bad. And is our pupose in life to live and die the way we “want to” or could we all have a greater purpose that only God knows of and helps to orchestrate? Personally I find comfort in the thought and belief of God orchestrating my life rather than shouldering the great responsibility and burden of weighing every single choice and decision I made regarding every aspect of my life to such a high degree, since after all, I’m living my life all by myself and if I make a mistake, I have no one to lean on or support me or show me what the “right” decision truly is.
I feel like I have so much more to say, but I’ll spare you all for today…
Thanks for joining the conversation Colleen! Your thoughts are very encouraging and thoughtful. It is nice to know (and quite a burdon off our lives) that we don’t have to deal with everything and know everything. God is a powerful and mysterious God who never had a begining nor an end. That alone wraps my mind in a pretzel. I didnt post this dialogue just so that we can be equiped to have answers to every question that our friends pose (even though I do know that when we dive into the text, many answers are there) but because I think that it is healthy to understand the questions that people have who are on their journey towards Christ. Thanks for your responses.
Hey Ryan,
What are the chances of getting Matt in on this conversation? I would love to have his oft humorous and occasionally controversial anecdotes flowing into the dialouge. Perhaps I’ll hold my thoughts until then.
I agree with Coleen in the points she made about having to discipline (hard heart) in order for there to be a path to learning and understanding. I have read, and believe, that God hardened Pharoh’s heart, because that was the only way that the people would believe and know that He was the One and Only God. If he hadn’t done that, then the people could have, and probably would have, believed that other gods were involved in their liberation. Or that they were able to leave because of how Moses’ prior relationship to Pharoh. God had to make a point of repeatedly emphasising His power and strength in order for people to really believe that He was behind their liberation and not their idols and sorcerers. Remember, we humans are slow learners. We need to have things repeated again and again and again before we really get it. And even then we have lapses and reminders. And I think that’s why God didn’t just make it easy for the people to leave Egypt. They wouldn’t have learned or retained anything long-term. It would have been a momentary joyful occasion and then they’d forget who really helped them. Which they prove later as they are wandering in the desert. As soon as Moses leaves them to go up on the mountain to spend time with God, they become afraid and want the reassurance of their old idols.
We need to be reminded of God’s power, because we’re constantly being pulled by the things of this world that would try to distract us from His promise for us. We are God’s children and in that respect, He loves us unconditionally and by that He will discipline us when we’re walking toward something that will harm us or pull us apart from Him. He has our hearts and it says in the Word that He’s a jealous God, so He will fight for our hearts. I believe He strengthen us with trials and hardships, so we can walk into the plan He has for us. If it were easy, would it be as memorable or as empowering? I don’t think so. I remember the hard times as being ones where I’ve been tested and ultimately strengthend. And my faith has been grounded and strengthen even more because I’ve had to rely on God more and more and that’s what He wants from me. Sometimes He has to turn away in order for us to see Him and really love Him. Which is what I think He did for the people who were in Egypt. He had to show them that He was the only God they needed.
I just read the link that Barron posted… I don’t buy the argument. Let me share one way that I think the argument fails. If it is true, there is no inherent value in human life. Murder is not then an offense against the other person, but against the “natural order” of things as one acts in a way reserved only to another entity - God. Essentially, the argument says that taking a human life is OK as long as you are the right person. This is the same argument that allowed Roman fathers to expose babies that didn’t meet their criteria.
I’m sure there are other arguments as well.
So where does all of that leave the original question? Let me make two observations… and forgive me if you think I’m being heretical. First is that much of the OT is myth - and I use that term in the technical sense, a story that gives meaning, as opposed to the popular meaning of the term, a made up story. I’m reminded of the native American story-teller who began each of his tribe’s stories by saying, “I don’t know whether it really happened this way… but I know that it is true.” Then the question of the story is no longer whether it happened exactly as reported but what is the truth that the story communicates. And second, all of scripture is a history of people’s experiences with and interpretations of their interactions with God. Dare I say that sometimes they misinterpreted?
Roy, what do you mean by “much of the OT” is myth? The OT is not a book but a library of 39 books…which ones are myth?
Roy, are you intending to make the same point as C.S. Lewis who taught that the OT (and NT) is “perfect myth and perfect fact.”?
The way you are arguing against the above article is to not address any of the points it brings up but rather to dismiss it because you do not like the consequence. I think that the consequence you suggest follow from holding to it is not the only choice here, but there are a variety of alternatives that don’t take the argument in the direction you suggest. Can you think of ANY others? And if so, what about the argument/reasoning itself do you find problematic?
The one way that you said the argument fails is that the consequence of believing it would mean that there is no intrinisic value to human beings. (If you have been to my blog you would see that I have posted extensively on the subject of human value.) How does God ending someone’s life early (and on purpose) make it so that that life has no value? Couldn’t it have a lot of value, but God have his own reasons?
I’ll probably add more thoughts later, but at the moment I just want to address the issue of the hardening on Pharoah’s heart.
The Egyptians worshipped many Gods at that point in time that ruled over different aspects of earth and life. The god of the sun, the nile, crops, even Pharoah himself.
God had an intention in hardening Pharoah’s heart because he wanted to show His people, as well as the Egyptians, that HE ALONE is God. By continuing to harden Pharoah’s heart, he one by one showed His power over the Egyptian Gods, even over Pharaoh himself. In the end, not only did the Israelites recognize God as sovereign, but the Egyptians as well. No one could mistake that fact anymore.
Additionally, he provided for His people by giving them back the wealth that they had brought into Egypt and to Egypt during their time there.
It’s amazing to me what lies hidden within the stories in the Old Testament, just waiting to be found out. Sure, on the surface God can seem childlike, or cruel, but when you dig deeper, you find out there is so much more to Him than meets the eye.