Reasonable Faith: question_16_Slaughter_of_the_Canaanites

Reasonable Faith: question_16_Slaughter_of_the_Canaanites

In this blog William Lane Craig lays down his thoughts on the matter of biblical stories of genocide. He responds first that these are not an adequate refutation of his moral argument for the existence of God.

1. If God does not exist there is no objective morality.

2. There is objective morality.

3. Therefore God exists.

As another apologist has noted the form of this argument is correct. However, the premises are questionable to say the least. I'm not so sure about objective morality. I suppose this depends on precisely how you define objective. In any case his assertion that the atheists are confirming objective morality by stating when they indicate that they are offended by the genocide is invalid, since even a subjective morality that was widely shared would not necessarily be objective. The first premise is even more doubtful.

More seriously I believe that Dr. Craig's assertion that since many atheists regard the stories of genocide to be fictional, that this renders atheist objections to the genocide invalid. This is not the case. It may very well be that these describe crimes that were not, in fact committed. However, it is indisputably the case that these stories are part of the belief of many Christians and are used to inform their moral and ethical values.

You see, the ability of Christians to justify biblical stories of divinely sanctioned genocide, even if fictional, is morally relevant to how we should evaluate the decision about whether or not one should embrace the Christian religion. In short Christianity potentially introduces into a system of moral and ethical values factors that have nothing to do with how actions effect others. Our compassion for the women and children must be balanced against God's hurt feelings.

Now atheists don't believe that God is real. Therefore idolatry is a victim-less crime. That is to say that religious beliefs are harmful only to the extent that they motivate destructive behavior. If an individual claims that they have devoted their life to the service of a god who commanded genocide, according to his belief, then this imparts morally relevant information to us about what such service is likely to entail in the future.

At the vary least the Christian approach to morality causes has the potential to cause the Christian to balance the interests of humans and even animals against the interests of a god who the atheists consider fictional. This cannot be considered ethical by any rational atheist.

Dr. Craig then goes on to defend the actions of God through divine command theory. Since God doesn't issue commands to Himself, He has no obligations. This means that God would be justified in lying to deceiving every human being on the face of the earth or sending all atheists to heaven and Christians to hell. He could even give eternal bliss to Adolf Hitler and unending torture to everyone else. This is what it means to say that God has no moral obligations. But God wouldn't do that? How do you know? Did God tell you or someone else? If it was someone else, how did they know? If it was God, how do we know He wasn't lying? After all, He has no obligation to tell us the truth.

Here Dr. Craig reveals his divine command theory in all of its moral depravity. God has a right to command any act, no matter how harmful it is to others. The act would otherwise have been a sin, but now becomes a command.

At this point any rational atheist should either believe that Dr. Craig is lying about his actual beliefs or suddenly run in the other direction upon meeting him. It might also be advisable to notify the proper authorities to carefully watch his behavior. What he has stated is that there is no crime so dastardly, no offense so grievous that William Lane Craig would not do if he became convinced that it was the command of the Almighty.

Then Dr. Craig goes on to explain that the Canaanites have become depraved. They have even gone so far as to commit ritual prostitution and child sacrifice. Death penalty for prostitution is not something that an atheist would be likely to support. As for child sacrifice, this is exactly what God supposedly commanded. The word that God uses to describe their ordered destruction is one that refers to the practice of sacrificing something to God by completely destroying it. So in order to avoid having some of these children be sacrificed to some other god, it was necessary for God to order that all of them be sacrificed to Him.

Dr. Craig then goes on to say that since all babies go to heaven, they have not been wronged. God is showing them love. Had they been allowed to live, then they would no doubt have been taught depraved practices and thus end up in hell. He makes an important point here and atheists would do well to note it well. Actions that seem cruel to us, turn out not to be so if one adopts the Christian point of view. Indeed there have been instances of loving parents murdering their own children in order to ensure their safe passage through our sinful world into paradise.

He then goes on to contrast the Christian god with Allah. The difference is said to be God's loving nature. Whereas God loves everyone, Allah only loves His believers. I wonder how Dr. Craig would have responded if instead of the case of the Canaanites, he had been asked about the Amalekites. He supposedly ordered their genocide in response to a 400 year old offense. Now think about this. 400 years ago some Amalekites committed highway robbery against the Israelites. As retaliation, all Amalekites are to be killed, even though all of the ones who were responsible died centuries ago. Is that a way of showing love?

It seems that the only valid point that Dr. Craig has made is that a biblical story has no relevance to the issue at hand, which was the validity of the moral argument for the existence of God. Perhaps this is so, but I'm thinking that the atheists have scored several points here. Sometimes it is more important to win followers than to win debates. Dr. Craig's statement that there is no act that is so destructive that it cannot justly be done for God's benefit is unlikely to persuade anyone who isn't already a follower to become one.