IV. Ethics
Although I will address some tradition objections, this is less an issue of ethics than of meta-ethics. How we judge any given case is dependent on our system of ethics. Beyond the stock examples, contemporary critics also convict the Bible of "racism," "sexism," speciesism," "homophobia" and "hate-speech." But how you adjudicate these issues ultimately goes back to the nature of God and man; men, women and children; the animal kingdom and the ecosystem. The critics usually beg the question by simply assuming, without benefit of argument, that their standards are right, and ours are wrong. They resort to slurs and slogans and speech-codes to shame us and bully us into meek submission.
Yet the critic is in no position to put a Christian on the defensive unless the critic is prepared to defend his own position. A Christian can only rebut an argument. So it would be premature for the believer to mount a counter-offensive before the unbeliever has bothered to make a reasoned case for the opposing position.
1. Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is easily stated. If God is both omnipotent and benevolent, why is there evil in the world? It would seem that he is either unable to prevent it, in which case he is not omnipotent; or else he is unwilling, in which case he is not benevolent.
Now, in principle, this dilemma, even if stringent, is not a disproof of the Deity, but only the existence of a rather robust conception of God. Yet it would seem, from the standpoint of the atheist, that the traditional view of God is the only kind of God worth disbelieving! So both the conservative Christian and the atheist think that the only God worthy of the name is a full-strength God.
The most popular theodicy is the freewill defense. But aside from the question of whether the FWD is even Scriptural, it suffers from some internal difficulties. Why should freewill be defined in terms of the freedom to do otherwise? After all, even on a libertarian account we can only make one choice at a time, and one choice cancels out another. So why should God not limit the freedom of opportunity to one or another natural goods?
If, as some liberals would have it, God cannot know which way we'll choose, then that concedes the dilemma and relieves it by sacrificing the sovereignty of God. Speaking for myself, I'd just say that I'm more than happy to waive all claims to every little godling in the liberal pantheon as long as I'm allowed to keep the only and only God of the Bible.
And if you insist that a free agent must have unfettered freedom, then this means that Jim can use his freedom to gain power over John and thereby limit or deprive John of his freedom. Indeed, this happens all the time. How much significant freedom does John enjoy as a political prisoner in his 5x5 cell or before the firing squad? (Another criticism is that self-determination is a viciously circular notion. The classic attack comes from Edwards in his Freedom of the Will.)
The Bible takes a different tack. History is theodicy. Knowing God is the highest good, for God is the highest good. God foreordained the Fall of Adam (Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22) so that his chosen people should glory in the wisdom of his ever just and most merciful designs (Jn 9-12; 1 Jn 4:9-10; Rom 9:17,22-23; Eph 3:9-10). Although God’s greatness shone forth in the primavernal glory of Eden, it burns more brightly in the autumnal glory of the cross.
The common good and the greater good are incompatible. There is no greatest good for the greatest number. Rather, there is a lesser good for a greater number, or a greater good for a lesser number. A world without sin is the best possible world for the common good. But it is not the best possible world for the greatest good. An unfallen world is a lesser good for every creature; but redemption is a greater good for the elect.
In the nature of the case, a theodicy pivots on a theological value-system. An unbeliever will find a theodicy that takes the knowledge of God as a second-order good to be unpersuasive, for he is unpersuaded of God’s very existence, much less in his role as the exemplar of good and chief end of man. At this level, there is no common ground.
For their own part, many believers try to put an extra layer of latex between God and the fallen world order. Now there are no doubt models of divine and human agency that would have the effect of inculpating God in evil. The "gods" of Canaan were guilty of sin.
But the danger doesn't only issue from too much involvement. Too little detachment may also be blameworthy, as in the case of an absentee landlord who fails to maintain the sewer system, so that his tenants die of cholera. What I respect about the God of Calvinism, who, by the way, bears an uncanny resemblance to the God of the Bible, is that he doesn't relate to the world through a pair of latex gloves. The God of the Exodus, the God of Job, the God of Isaiah, is not an absentee landlord.
Rather, it's like the relation between an officer and a foot soldier. A foot soldier doesn't resent having to follow orders, even if the orders induce personal pain and hardship, as long as he respects his commanding officer and thinks that this is all for a good cause. He even takes a filial pride in being treated like a grown man who can be trusted to tough it out under duress. He only becomes resentful if, after having carried out his orders and suffered for the cause, he finds his commanding officer beginning to put distance between himself and the mission.
Now our God is the Lord of hosts and Captain of the host. And the Lord God of Sabaoth never says he's sorry for the mission or the orders—or denies that he was the one issuing the orders. He keeps his word and keeps his own counsel.
To speak of evil as "the problem of evil" assumes that evil is nothing but a problem. Yet that is rather shortsighted. Although it is only natural to think of goodness as a check on evil, we also need to appreciate the ways in which evil can serve as a check on evil—for one evildoer will often block the malicious designs of another evildoer. Ambition counters ambition, incompetence gums up the totalitarian apparatus, and petty corruption impedes more heinous schemes. "Tyrants could do much more harm in the world if all their servants were flawlessly efficient, untiringly industrious, and financially incorruptible," P. Geach, Truth & Hope (Notre Dame, 2001), 37. So even vice, in moderation, has its fringe benefits. Remember that the next time you must deal with a blundering bureaucrat and pencil pusher. His plodding ineptitude is every bit as galling to the ruthless depot as it is to the man in line.
The problem of evil takes for granted a distinction between good and evil. But when deployed against the existence of God, this distinction is deeply problematic. For, from a secular standpoint, what is the source and standard of right and wrong? Evil assumes a deviation from an ideal. But if we inhabit an accidental universe, if intelligent life is a fortuitous turn of events, then nothing was supposed to be one way or another. And if, when I die, it’s as though I never lived; and if nice guys and mean men suffer a common fate, then what does it matter how you and I conduct our affairs?
Theodical writers often experience difficulty with natural evil. Even if they succeed, to their own satisfaction, in accounting for moral evil, they find it hard to integrate natural evil into a theodicy cast in light of moral evil.
But if they only had a better ear for the voice of Scripture, they'd perceive a quite logical, internal relation. In Scripture, the sensible world is a moral metaphor. That is why Scripture so often repairs to natural metaphors to depict spiritual truths. And not only does it move on the plane of favorable figures—such as life, light, health and, abundance, to name a few—but at the level of unfavorable figures to illustrate the character and consequences of sin—such as death, dirt, disease, and decay; of famine and fire, flooding and drought; of aging, impotence, lameness, blindness, and deafness; of a weed patch, thornbush, or savage animal; of storms and deserts and earthquakes,
2. Hell
How can a loving Lord send anyone to hell? A common question. Let’s pose another question. How can a loving husband divorce one of his wives? Now some readers might find that question peculiar. How can a truly loving husband have more than one wife?
Ah, but that’s the point! There is a difference between marital love and alley cat affection. The intensity of a man’s love for a woman is in inverse relation to the extent of his love for other women. And, in Scripture, the love of God is akin to marital love (Isa 54:5; Eph 5:25,32; Rev 19:6-10; 21:2). God is not a Tomcat. The Lord loves the elect, not the reprobate. He tethers the reprobate for the sake of the sheep. Remember the parable of the wheat and the tares? Because they share a common field, God sends sun and rain on the tares in order to warm and water the wheat (Mt 5:45; 13:29). Remember the remnant of grace? God fells the terebinth and tithes on the stump for the sake of the holy seed within (Isa 6:13). "I gave Egypt as a ransom, for you were precious in my sight" (Isa 43:3-4)!
How can you believe in a God who presides over a perpetual torture chamber? Another common question. But this picture owes more to Dante than Scripture. I see hell as less a torture chamber than fantasy island, but with a twist. If you strip away the figurative imagery of fire and outer darkness, what you’re left with is that hell is Arminian heaven, for there is where sinners have utter license to sin, to sin to their heart’s content, to sin without inhibition or intermission. So God punishes sin with sin by adding iniquity end-to-end without end—which strikes me not as a miscarriage of justice, but justice perfected.
What I find offensive is not the belief in everlasting damnation, but the breezy way in which a universalist presumes to speak for everyone, the victim included, and takes it upon himself to extend forgiveness on the victim's behalf without the victim's consent.
3. Holy War
Many men, both inside and outside the church, have a problem with OT holy war. Now this is not a case in which a Christian apologist has to try and supply a rationale for a Biblical doctrine or practice, for the Bible already gives us a reason for holy war (Deut 9:4; 20:18). So the problem is not so much that critics don't know the reason, but that they don't like the reason. (The same considerations apply to other cases of judgment, such as the Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah. In each case, reasons are given [Gen 6:5-6,11-13; 18:20], but the unbeliever does not share the same scale of values.)
So, at a certain level, we may be faced with incommensurable standards. OT morality is prized on a theological value-system. If you don't subscribe to the theology of Scripture, then you don't share its moral priorities. As long as that is the case, further debate will not change many minds.
Many men and women are especially disturbed by the wholesale slaughter of children. This is understandable and even commendable up to a point. The love of children is ordinarily a natural and theological virtue. Much of human mercy is based on fellow feeling. Because we are men of like-passions, we have a sympathetic capacity for the plight of our fellow man.
But we need to guard against an anthropomorphic model of God. God has no fellow feeling. Divine mercy is not grounded in literal empathy or the bowels of compassion, viz. "There is only one living and true God, infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions" (WCF 2:1).
And our visceral revulsion to this aspect of holy war may be so strong that critics will have no patience with patient explanations. But I'd point out that if you lack intellectual patience, then you forfeit the right to raise intellectual objections. And I'd also add that unreasoning moral outrage is immoral. Unless indignation has a basis in truth, it doesn't deserve a respectful hearing.
In a fallen world, you have three options: (a) you can side with evil. You can do wrong; (b) you can oppose evil and make the best of a bad situation, choosing the lesser of two evils; (c) you can passively acquiesce to the status quo, not taking sides, and letting others make the tough choices and do the dirty work on your behalf.
If you go with ©, then that will save you a lot of wear-and-tear on your delicate conscience, but contracting out the hard questions to second parties and mercenaries does not absolve you complicity for their actions. It may make you feel better and sleep better, but it doesn't make you a better person. And it disqualifies you from waxing indignant over the choices which, by your moral abdication, you have delegated to second parties.
If you are a morally serious individual, you will go with (b). One of the things that makes evil so evil is that it forces good men to do hateful and horrendous things they'd ordinarily avoid. A physician may have to inflict terrible pain and suffering on a patient in order to save him, but he is hardly in the wrong to do so.
With regard to children, several things need to be said:
i) It isn't possible in this life to be just and merciful to everyone alike. Everyone is related to someone. You cannot punish a parent without causing the child to suffer. Does that mean that we should never punish a parent? Is that just or merciful to the victims of the parent? If a soldier or policeman shoots a father, he leaves his wife a widow and single mom. If he shoots the father and mother, he leaves the child an orphan. So there is sometimes no way of exacting justice or defending the innocent without hurting some other innocents.
ii) Moreover, we need to consider the qualify of life of a boy or girl or woman raised in pure paganism, what with infanticide, child sacrifice, cult prostitution, sodomy, bestiality and the like. The whole culture is an assembly line of inhuman depravity. Sometimes you must burn down the factory and start from the ground up.
iii) Furthermore, that sweet, cherubic little boy may grow up to be Pharaoh or Ashurbanipal or a soldier in the armies of Pharaoh or Ashurbanipal— who will one day be responsible for the mass murder of cherubic little Jewish boys and the gang rape of their godly mothers and grandmothers. I don't know, but God knows. The tares would choke out the wheat unless God engaged in a periodic program of weeding. (It is sometimes said that OT holy war was racist. But God was just as unsparing with Jewish apostates [e.g., Exod 32; Num 16; 25; Deut 28:15-68].) And he saved the nation of Israel to save the Savior of Israel and the nations—for Israel was the medium of the Messianic line. Whatever children are saved, are saved in Christ. So holy war was a redemptive instrument.
4. Slavery
OT slaves fell into two classes: POWs and indentured servants. If an Israelite fell into a debt he could not repay, he made restitution by becoming an indentured servant for upwards of six years. And a freeman was entitled to severance pay (Deut 15:13-14). Israel was a tribal society in which the major property holdings were kept in common by the clan, not the individual. Hence, property could not pass out of the clan. There was also a form of voluntary indentureship (Lev 25:39-43)—as well as a slave trade (vv44-46), which did not involve the enslavement of freemen, but a transference of ownership.
It isn't clear to me why any reasonable person would object to financial restitution for a property crime (e.g., Exod 22:3). This involves a logical relation between crime and punishment—unlike our modern prison system in which the victim must subsidize the criminal rather than receive restitution for his losses.
Regarding POWs, the question was what to do with war captives. Because warriors were men, war widowed their wives and orphaned their kids. So what should become of them? A common practice in the ANE was to put whole cities to the sword. But I don't suppose that many critics of slavery would favor that alternative.
In a man's world, where survival depended on brute force, women and children were defenseless. Hence, the enslavement of POWs was a severe mercy. In addition, slaves had a number of legal rights under the Mosaic code (cf. Exod 20:10; 21:1-32; Deut 21:10-14; 23:15-16). They were far from chattel. Their life was valued no lower than the master's.
OT slavery reflects a tough-minded realism. It was a just and merciful institution in hard times. And it is not to be confounded with the race-based institution of the old South, which was driven by economic expediency.
5. Imprecatory Psalms
Many people, both inside and outside the church, are bothered by the so-called Imprecatory Psalms (e.g., Pss 35, 69, 109). Many readers take particular offense at the ending to Ps 137. Over the years, various suggestions have been offered to take the sting out of these imprecations. The most popular suggestion is that OT ethics operated at a lower standard than NT ethics. But there are problems with that suggestion. The principle of progressive revelation doesn't mean progress from error into truth. And the imprecatory sentiment is on display in NT ethics as well (e.g., Mt 23; Rev 18-19). In addition, the Imprecatory Psalms are often cited in the NT (e.g., Lk 19:44).
Another suggestion is that the Psalmist was not indulging in a private vendetta, but consigning his enemies to the justice of God. But while there is some truth to this, it is a bit antiseptic. There is a vindictive tone to the Psalmist that cannot be explained away by such an impersonal gloss. In addition, it sidesteps the question of whether the Psalmist ought to wish ill of his enemies, regardless of whether he or the Lord is the avenging agent.
By way of a better answer, I'd say the following:
i) In is not uncommon for Bible values to become generalized and secularized. Then this version, taken out of context, is read back into the context of Scripture.
ii) One aspect of common grace is that God often exercises a measure of mercy towards the reprobate. Although they deserve immediate retribution, God withholds judgment lest the elect suffer a common fate (e.g. Gen 18-19; Mt 13:24-30; 1 Pet 3:9).
iii) This does not mean, however, that there is something intrinsically wrong with wishing that God exact justice on evildoers. That is what a just God is supposed to do.
iv) There is a difference between the way in which, on the one hand, Christians parry personal slights and petty injuries, and the way in which, on the other, we deal with a powerful enemy of the faith. When Paul was opposed by Elymas, he struck him blind (Acts 13:11). And Peter had some choice words for Simon Magus (Acts 8:23).
v) David was the anointed king of a theocratic state. Hence, an attack on David was an attack on the OT church.
vi) David was also a type of Christ, and the enemies of David typify the enemies of Christ. (Of course, [v-vi] only apply to the royal or Davidic Psalms.)
vii) If David was a type of Christ, Babylon was a type of the Antichrist—or kingdom thereof (Rev 17-18).
viii) We must make some allowance for hyperbole (e.g., Ps 141:6; Jer 20:14-18; 51:25).
x) As to Ps 137:9, since Babylon was an alluvial land with no major rock formations, the imagery is more than likely a hyperbolic figuration of the lex talionis (cf. Ps 141:6; Jer 51:25). Some people need a dose of their own medicine. The bitter taste makes them more compassionate. In addition, inspired hyperbole is no less inspired for being hyperbolic, and no less hyperbolic for being inspired.
x) Maledictions were a fixture of covenant theology, and are at least as applicable to the covenant community and covenant children (cf. Exod 20:5; Deut 27-28) as they are to the enemies of Israel. David is quite even-handed in his maledictions, being prepared to call down curses upon his own head as well as his enemies (cf. Ps 7:4-5).
