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Thursday, July 08, 2010

Show them no mercy

JD WALTERS SAID:

I'm not so concerned about defending Sparks himself, but Jonah's comment struck me the wrong way. Granted that revulsion at God's commanding moral atrocities (ok, let me qualify: actions that in any other context we would call atrocities) is not sufficient grounds for apostasy, at the very least I think we should recognize the apparent inconsistency between the moral values and judgments which the moral argument appeals to, and the actions of the Israelites as commanded by God in the OT.

i) That depends in part on which version of the moral argument you’re using.

a) In one version, we begin with the alleged phenomenon of cultural universals. Given the (alleged) existence transcultural moral norms, we then argue for the existence of God to ground and ratify these moral norms.

That version of the argument takes for granted certain paradigm-cases of social morality, or paradigm-cases of moral atrocities, and then uses these as an ethical and theological criterion.

b) But another version doesn’t begin at that level of specificity. It doesn’t begin with concrete instances of moral norms.

Rather, it takes a transcendental approach. It’s concerned with establishing the general possibility of moral absolutes. Apart from God’s existence, there is no objective basis for personal or social morality.

That version of the argument doesn’t ratify our particular moral sensibilities. It doesn’t abstract from the specific to the general.

c) It is, of course, possible to try and combine both the top-down and the bottom-up versions of the moral argument. That’s what Lewis tries to do in his popular and influential treatment. But these are separable arguments.

d) And there’s a certain circularity in the (a) version of the argument. On the one hand, you’re using certain examples as moral and theological criteria. On the other hand, apart from God, morality has no foundations. So these can’t really function as independent criteria.

ii) There’s no prima facie problem distinguishing between behavior which, all things being equal, is impermissible, and behavior which, all things considered, is permissible–even if it’s the same behavior.

Assuming that we have higher and lower moral obligations, then if and when these come into conflict, a higher obligation overrides a lower obligation. What is generally impermissible may well be permissible or even obligatory under special circumstances.

How can we point to the Nazi death camps as a paradigm case of horrific evil, and not recognize what God was commanding Israel to do as such?

That comparison takes for granted a fundamental analogy between the two events. But are they analogous?

It’s not as if the Biblical laws of warfare are arbitrary. The Bible gives a rationale for its laws of warfare. The problem is that many modern reader simply disapprove of the stated rationale.

i) Due to their impiety and immorality, the Canaanites forfeited the right to inhabit the land (e.g. Deut 9:5).

ii) If allowed to cohabit with the Israelites, they would corrupt the Israelites (e.g. Deut 4:3-4; 9:7-24).

iii) Holy war was a preemptive war of national defense. In the wilderness, on their march to the Promised Land, Israel had already been subject to attacks by Amalek, the king of Arad, Sihon and the Amorites, as well as the king of Og. Likewise, the faithful were persecuted under the regimes of Jezebel and Athaliah. So peaceful coexistence was not a live option.

iv) Apropos (iii), how do you deal with a hostile warrior culture? You can’t simply treat them as discrete individuals, for they have a national character, and they behave accordingly. For instance, little boys will grow up to be warriors.

v) At the same time, let’s not forget the paradigm case of Rahab.

I've read in some of your other posts that it is proper to express revulsion at some of what God commands, with the understanding that God intends and will bring about a greater good as a result. I think that's fair…The only legitimate response to what God commanded in the OT, I think, is deep revulsion combined with an 'and yet' trust that God meant to bring about some greater good. Somehow, in a sense we can't fully understand, those actions qualify as just.

i) Since God isn’t human, I don’t think he expects us to feel the same way he does about certain events involving our fellow man. That’s like expecting a cat to feel the same way about a dog that it feels about another cat.

ii) Different people can feel differently about the same event, yet all those feelings may be appropriate in their place. Suppose my son commits murder. I will feel differently about my son than the judge and jury, much less the family of the victim. All the interested parties will have different feelings about my son, and all those different feelings will be appropriate. I have a different relationship to the assailant than they do, and vice versa. They have a different relationship to the victim than I do, and vice versa.

iii) It is also important to distinguish between appropriate feelings and appropriate evaluations. At a purely emotional level, it’s appropriate for me to feel ambivalent about my murderous son. On the one hand, I should feel profound disapproval. On the other hand, I’m emotionally invested in him.

But at an intellectual level, I should also acknowledge that his punishment is just. He deserves to be executed for his heinous crime.

iv) Obviously, too, we ought to make allowance for the reaction of individuals who are sick or grieving. Job is a classic example. People in that condition may make intemperate statements. Grief and illness clouds their judgment. But that’s part of being human.

v) You and I may wince at some of these injunctions, but suppose we were reading this text through the eyes of a warrior culture like the Assyrians, Aztecs, Cossacks, Huns, jihadis, Iroquois, Kshatriyas, Mongols, Plains Indians, Samurai, Vikings, or Zulus (to name a few). Would they feel revulsion?

Likewise, many readers who find these Biblical injunctions offensive also defend the right of parents to kill their children (abortion, infanticide) and euthanize their elderly parents. Some of them also support antinatalism, which is global genocide. We also have street gangs who shoot rival members without batting an eyelash. Not to mention textbooks atrocities like the Holocaust, Killing Fields, Bataan Death March, Cultural Revolution, Nanking Massacre, Stalinist purges, Rwandan Genocide, &c.

So what makes you and me different from them? Do you and I have different innate moral intuitions than they do? Does it owe something to different social conditioning? As well as the Christian subculture to which we both belong?

I don’t say this to promote radical chic cultural relativism. If, however, I didn’t already believe in God, then I’d have reason to be quite sceptical of about my sense of “revulsion.” Even if I couldn’t help feeling that way, I’d chalk it up to natural selection and social conditioning.

I think it’s good that we feel compassion. That’s a virtue. But it’s not something I take for granted. That’s not a cultural universal. If anything, it represents a form of cultural exceptionalism. And apart from Christian ethics, it can’t be justified.

But this conclusion can only be reached with the awareness that, by all appearances, these actions are contrary to the moral commands that God intends human beings to live by.

I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Since the Biblical laws of war comprise a subset of the moral commands that God issued, then, by all appearance, these actions are not contrary to God’s law.

At most you could try to say that there’s an apparent tension between one set of laws and another. (Not that I see it that way.)

6 comments:

  1. I thought I'd post a further explanation of my point to Ken Sparks, even though Steve (as usual) has done an excellent job of explaining the finer aspects. I had several things in mind:

    1) A Christian who does not believe in the Inerrancy of Scripture might as well be a pagan;

    2) Finding certain aspects of God's character (His wrath, etc) distasteful or frightening is normal from a human perspective. We should fear His wrath. But at the same time, as believers, we should worship Him in all His character and be thankful that He has removed us from these unpleasant ends. What we should not do is substitute our judgment for His, which is, in fact, the sin of Adam. The original Big One, if you will;

    3) Along with what Steve said, the ANE warrior cultures had to be made to understand what was happening. They wouldn't have "got it" if the Israelites had just been nicey-nice to the people they conquered. They would have seen the Israelites as soft and weak, and relentlessly attacked them. As it happened, because the conquest of the land was halted early, because the Israelites stopped following God's commands, it pretty much went down that way anyway;

    4) Life in the ANE was in many respects unbelievably unpleasant. Chronological snobbery will always lead to misinterpretation;

    5) God showed many things to the world during the conquest of Canaan: His power over life and death, His wrath on the wicked (and I mean really wicked...no Holy Spirit in the world then, mind you), the holiness of Israel, His unconditional election of a people and a nation, the beauty of His law. I could go on.

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  2. Steve Hays: "So peaceful coexistence was not a live option."

    Sometimes, remarkable as it may be, the price of war is less than the price of a faux peace.

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  3. "For instance, little boys will grow up to be warriors."

    An infant will grow up to be a Jew hating warrior? Is that what you mean?

    Clearly, this is not true.

    Why kill babies?

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  4. JEN H. SAID:

    "An infant will grow up to be a Jew hating warrior? Is that what you mean? Clearly, this is not true."

    You seem to have difficulty following the explicit context of the discussion. Little boys in warrior cultures (e.g. Assyria) grow up to be adult warriors. That's clearly true.

    Do you think Assyrian boys grew up to be midwives?

    An alternative to mass execution is to enslave the boys and raise them in the true faith (Judaism). However, unbelievers who revile OT holy war also revile OT "slavery" (of POWs). So they have no real world solution to the concrete situation.

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  5. Steve, thanks for this post. It was very clear and helpful.

    I'm not sure the two kinds of moral arguments can be separated quite as neatly as you think, though. It seems to me that the second, transcendental argument is, and should be, stage two of a single moral argument. The reason we want to argue for the objectivity of moral obligation is that it seems to be required by human moral experience, and the kinds of things we say about morality. If human moral experience did not have this implicit dimension, what would be the point of arguing for moral objectivity?

    Unless perhaps the transcendental argument is based on the claim that morality as such, the concept itself, necessarily implies objectivity. Kind of like the ontological argument, where God's existence is necessarily entailed by the very concept of God. But it is not clear to me that morality necessarily implies objectivity. There seem to be perfectly intelligible moral systems where every moral utterance really would be just a statement of personal preference. It would not correspond to human moral experience, to be sure, and would be at odds with the moral order of this Universe, which I believe God established, but it would not have to in order to be intelligible as a concept. And if the concept of morality does not necessarily imply objectivity, then the transcendental argument cannot get off the ground.

    That is why ultimately I do not think the moral argument can do without concrete instances of moral objectivity. I think this conclusion is in line with a particularist approach to epistemology, in which we do not first search for a method to determine which of our beliefs are justified, but accept that we have good paradigm examples of justified beliefs (or even knowledge), and then figure out what gives them that character.

    And I do not think it is a problem that we may know certain moral facts apart from awareness of their foundation in God. Rather, our awareness of certain moral facts is part of God's general revelation to humanity, and part of the database of materials from which we synthesize our understanding of God and His world.

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  6. JD WALTERS SAID:

    “I'm not sure the two kinds of moral arguments can be separated quite as neatly as you think, though. It seems to me that the second, transcendental argument is, and should be, stage two of a single moral argument.”

    I think it’s the other way round.

    “The reason we want to argue for the objectivity of moral obligation is that it seems to be required by human moral experience, and the kinds of things we say about morality. If human moral experience did not have this implicit dimension, what would be the point of arguing for moral objectivity?”

    That’s rather vague.

    i) By “moral experience,” do you simply mean that we have a “sense” of what’s right and wrong? And our sense of right and wrong requires a corresponding foundation?

    But, of course, a moral nihilist (e.g. Michael Ruse) would say our moral sensibilities are illusory. A trick of the mind which natural selection implanted.

    ii) Or do you mean our sense of what it would cost us (in terms of the meaning of life) if there are no moral absolutes?

    But I don’t see that (ii) singles out a particular behavior for praise or blame.

    Perhaps you can amplify your objection.

    “I think this conclusion is in line with a particularist approach to epistemology, in which we do not first search for a method to determine which of our beliefs are justified, but accept that we have good paradigm examples of justified beliefs (or even knowledge), and then figure out what gives them that character.”

    The problem with this appeal is that even if we had paradigm examples of justified moral beliefs, we still need a criterion to distinguish justified moral beliefs from other beliefs which we mistakenly take to be paradigm examples of justified moral beliefs. Compare the value system of Aquinas with the value system of Singer.

    “Rather, our awareness of certain moral facts is part of God's general revelation to humanity.”

    I don’t deny that we have some veridical moral intuitions. However, the difficulty with natural law theory is the lack of anything resembling consensus on core moral values. Look at what they do in Islam, viz. honor killings, child marriage, female circumcision, &c.

    So how do you distinguish moral norms from moral distortions?

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