@RandalRauserChristians often defend the offering of Isaac in Genesis 22 by noting that God never intended for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Fair enough, but the text still presents a massive moral problem. Imagine, by analogy, that you order Smith to rape his own daughter or be executed.You never intend for Smith to carry out the action. You only want to test him to see if he is willing. It turns out that he is, and you stop the act from occurring. No harm no foul? Not at all.We cannot begin to envision the unimaginable, destructive emotional impact on both Jones and his daughter as they carry the knowledge that he was preparing to rape her. Imagine the impact on Isaac of his father's willingness to sacrifice him.
1. To the extent that this poses a dilemma, the dilemma is whether to be an atheist or a Christian. Apostate Randal Rauser constantly straddles the fence, attacking the Bible like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, while pretending to be a Christian. His position isn't consistently Christian or secular, but just a willful mishmash.
2. It's revealing that Rauser is unable to attack the binding of Isaac directly. While there's nothing necessarily wrong with drawing analogies, it betrays a weakness of his position that he can't show what's wrong with the binding of Isaac on its own grounds, so he must swap it out for a supposedly comparable situation. But why should we shift focus on his bait-n-switch? It's just a diversionary tactic. The onus lies on him to show that that his comparison is relevantly analogous. Why take the bait?
3. He got the names confused, but presumably Smith/Jones are the same individual (father) in the illustration.
4. In Gen 22, Isaac has no advance knowledge that he's the designated sacrificial victims. He only finds out at the very last minute. So there's no brooding emotional buildup or escalating psychological tension on his part.
5. As as often been noted, Abraham is an old man while Isaac is a teenager. So Isaac voluntarily submits to the sacrifice even though it's within his ability to overpower his elderly father and flee the scene. He's a willing victim.
6. Unless Rauser is an open theist, the point of the ordeal is not for Yahweh to find out the limits of Abraham's faith. If anything, it's Abraham who learns something about Yahweh when Yahweh calls it off at the last minute. And it's ultimately for the benefit of the unseen reader.
7. One problem with Rauser's comparison is his failure to appreciate stereotypical differences between male and female psychology. As a feminist, Rauser can't make allowance for the fact that in some crucial respects, male and female are wired differently. What is unbearably traumatic for a female may not be for a male. This issue crops up in debates over women in combat, where many women wash out because they can't cope with the inhuman stress.
To take another example, consider a sleepover where the 5th-grade boys watch Aliens. The boys take it in stride:
Imagine showing Aliens to a group of 5th-grade girls. Boys and girls naturally have a different psychological makeup for scary things. There are exceptions on both sides, but that's the norm. Many boys go out of their way to seek out scary things to see and do. They double-dare each other.
Good stuff Steve.
ReplyDeleteDavid Wood makes a good point. The Israelites were surrounded by tribes who practised child sacrifice.
Here we have Yahweh saying to the Israelites don't sacrifice your children.
Another thing Wood has argued which makes some sense is that the surrounding pagans sacrificed their children to demonstrate their devotion and commitment to their gods. This was one way for God to test and prove, and Abraham to demonstrate that his devotion to YHVH is just as deep as his pagan neighbors. The difference is that the YHVH actually detests human sacrifice and teaches that lesson at the very end by stopping Abram/Abraham.
DeleteIs Rauser even that smart?
ReplyDeletePresumably God can reveal Himself in such a way that the recipients of His revelation have infallible knowledge that it's really and truly the Most High God who is communicating to him/them. If that's the case with Abraham, then that would affect his moral and epistemic duties in a way that's disanalogous to modern people who claim God told them to kill someone. Such people wouldn't be a certain that it was God rather than a demon telling them to do it. Besides, modern Christians and Jews have the clearer and fuller teaching of the OT and NT that actual human sacrifice and murder isn't pleasing to God.
ReplyDeleteEven if Abraham wasn't given infallible certainty that the Most High God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, he would have some greater justification [as compared to us in our epistemic situation] in thinking it was the same entity who predicted the miraculous birth of a child in his and his wife's old age. In which case, he could have reasoned as the book of Hebrews suggests he did. Namely, that somehow this entity, who is God, would resurrect Isaac if necessary to fulfill His own promise that Isaac and his descendants would be those through whom the nations would be blessed.
Finally, prior to the later revelation that God does not delight in human sacrifice [even if Jephthah's daughter might have been sacrificed], this incident with God commanding human sacrifice shouldn't pose a problem for Christian ethics. God who gives life has the right to take it, or commmand it's termination. There's no injustice with God there. God doesn't own us life. While I'm open to divine vuluntarism with respect to morality, Calvinists don't have to go there. At the very least, Calvinists can also hold to something like Divine Command Essentialism which synthesizes voluntarism and essentialism. This can be in such a way that:
1. God has no moral obligations outside Himself and what He approves and is in keeping with His nature; 2. God's commands can have an element of arbitrariness to them because they are voluntary [flow from His will]; 3. YET they are still nevertheless in some sense rooted in His nature/character [so not purely voluntaristic, which has it's problems].
God cannot command contradictories or things inconsistent with His nature and character. Values and virtues flow from God's nature, while our moral duties as God's creatures flow from His will as they are expressed in His commands to us. Being some sense reflections of God's character, even the seemingly arbitrary laws (e.g. dietary laws) reflect His supreme authority. Yet, God, being just and rational, He wouldn't command catch-22s like a command to disobey Him. That would involve us being doomed to be "damned if we do, and damned if we don't." Being a God of life, He wouldn't unreasonably command murder [not all killing is murder]. All His laws therefore promote life, justice and love. Love first to Himself as the summum bonum, but also love toward those created in His image (which is grounded in His self-love which He commands us to emulate in His commands to love Him supremely). God is not under any external law outside Himself (sub lego). God is "a law unto Himself". Which is, in some sense, consistent with Him being "ex lex", but not lawless, whimsical, or arbitrary in the sense of being capricious or fickle.
Pure voluntarism would entail God could command rape, theft, and murder as virtuous. Which is problematic. Pure essentialism would make problematic seemingly arbitrary commands like the OT dietary laws and ceremonial laws. Since they aren't overtly grounded in God's character. But Divine Command Essentialism seems to give that synthesis that can explain the Biblical data without undermining God's sovereignty, rationality, wisdom, or goodness.
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DeleteAlso, pure divine essentialism can't account [or at least has difficultly accounting] for changes in God's law over time. For example, under the Old Covenant God required His covenant people not to eat pork and other "unclean" foods. Or to rest and not work on the 7th day. Under the New Covenant, the formerly unclean foods are now permissible, and there is no longer any special days of observance per Rom. 14:5. [I disagree that the sabbath was moved to the 1st day as some Christians believe] The Biblical kosher laws were to symbolize and remind the Israelites that they were the special consecrated/separated people of God. Just as they were to make distinctions between foods, so they were to distinguish themselves from their surrounding pagan neighbors. Now under the New Covenant that's not necessary since the Gospel has gone out to every nation, tribe and ethnicity. Under the New Covenant, all time is devoted to Christ who is HIMSELF our continual rest. We rest from our works and rely on His finished work alone for our salvation, our well-being and acceptance before the Father.
DeleteThis is why, at least in principle, I don't object to the Islamic concept of the Doctrine of Abrogation. The problem is not the principle per se, but that the Qur'an is written in such a way that it's difficult, and in some cases impossible, to tell which laws abrogate other laws. Since, the chronology of the various surahs/chapters isn't certain. Though, some of the extra-Quranic ahadith can give some clues as to which are earlier/later than others. Also, some of the abrogations are suspiciously convenient for Muhammad. Almost as if he made them up for his own benefit.
The Aqedah is more than a mere test of willingness. The sacrifice--a distinct foreshadowing of the giving of God's own Son--continues forward apace. A ram is grabbed out of the thicket and imolated.
ReplyDeleteSo what would Rauser do with that in his analogy? Have "Smith" grab a nearby ewe out of the shadows and rape the poor sheep?
Don’t press him. He will need analogies to justify beastiality at some point in the future.
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