Comments on: Questioning God’s Moral Character

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:30:14 +0000

I thought I replied to this already. Sorry about that.

You say,

“Bonhoeffer does not present a situational ethic, but does say that the God-reflecting moral response may take on different shapes in different contexts, while remaining faithful to the unchanging Reality, that is, God.”

What does that even mean? How does a moral response that takes on different shapes in different contexts not be referred to a situational ethic? And how does that reflect the “unchanging reality that is God”?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:04:04 +0000

Jeff,
Thanks for the quick response!
You stated that God’s moral demands seem to be “meant for a certain context.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian in Nazi Germany might agree with you in a way. In his book, Ethics, Bonhoeffer dives into the Christian ethic and its foundation in God himself, the ultimate reality. He himself as a pastor and theologian for the “confessing church” in Germany participated in deception for the sake of sneaking Jews out of the country and participated in a conspiracy attempt against Hitler, leading to his imprisonment and death. Bonhoeffer struggles extensively with morality in his involvement. Anyway, Bonhoeffer does not present a situational ethic, but does say that the God-reflecting moral response may take on different shapes in different contexts, while remaining faithful to the unchanging Reality, that is, God.
In response to the list of verses and situations, I admit that these are hard texts. I do not believe, however, that they demonstrate that human morality is contradictory to the nature of its Creator. In several of the texts, God is administering divine justice on guilty man as the highest Authority. We too should promote and carry out justice in society from the institution of authority. In 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, we see God dealing with a sinful, guilty people. He sends them the truth through his prophet concerning the coming judgment, but the king hates the truth. God then permits that the king believes a lie in order to carry out justice upon guilty people. In our justice system, we find no moral quams with letting guilty criminals believe falsehood so that justice can be carried out. In Job,God allows Satan to persecute Job greatly. Here, God is acting to defeat Satan, but also for the ultimate good of Job in spite of his trial. Also God is chiefly glorifying Himself through this; we find the same purpose in our existence, to act and even suffer for the sake of His glory. We find our purpose in His purpose and in reflection of His own character. We rejoice in some ways when the suffering of believers leads to His glory being manifested on earth.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:16:08 +0000

Hi Andrew,
Thank you for your comments.

The questions that I posed in this post were not the reasons I have for not being a Christian. My reason for not being a Christian came ultimately down to the major internal and external problems and inconsistencies in the Bible. This is one of those things that I have reflected on in my post Christian life.

You mention,

“I’m just saying that there are some assumptions we make about morality, especially in applying it to God, that are untrue and require some deep probing into the nature of morality, God, and the situational context in which we are morally criticizing.”

I understand that if God exists, there is going to be a huge gap (infinite?) between us and him and that this gap is going to cause a lot of problems when we try to understand him and what he does. However, what I am more concerned about in this post, is that Christians cannot really speak about morality being rooted in God’s nature (as it is “revealed” in the Bible) because what we understand about God’s nature and actions seems to be so different then what he prescribes for his creatures in his commandments. We cannot follow and imitate what God does because what is ok for him to do is not ok for us to do. now maybe we are in two totally different categories but if that is so, it makes no sense whatsoever to talk about morality flowing from God’s nature. It seems that one is forced to conclude that the moral demands that God has for his creatures in the Bible are somewhat relative in nature and are meant for a certain context. The morality of the Christian seems no more objective to me then the morality of anyone else.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:02:22 +0000

I’m currently researching ethics for fun and ran into this page. It made me curious because I have talked to several friends about the existence of God. In response, I am not aware of your personal moral standings or the foundation of them. I am guessing that if you dig far enough, you may not be able to explain them yourself. Anyway, an understanding of God’s righteousness calls for an understanding of his righteous wrath and justice. This calls for a Biblical understanding of sin and the just wrath sin requires from a righteous God, even on the most seemingly “innocent” humans. This is often ignored by preachers which like to preach about God as if He is Santa Claus, but we cannot understand the extent of His love and grace until we deal with the just repurcussion of sin. This discussion also calls for some understanding of His sovereignty in allowing some evil for a time and even often acting so that the evil deeds of satan and mankind work for His glory and ultimate purpose. I know you’ve probably read a lot about this, I’m just saying that there are some assumptions we make about morality, especially in applying it to God, that are untrue and require some deep probing into the nature of morality, God, and the situational context in which we are morally criticizing. Also, I was wondering if this was your main reason for not believing in God?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:32:22 +0000

HI Blair,
I should probably made it more clear in the post, the moral pronouncements that I was making concerning God’s moral character were more from looking at the Bible’s own standard of morality. Based on the Bible’s view of morality, all of the sins listed would be considered evil when applied to a human being. If we lie, murder, kill innocent people, etc it would be considered morally wrong. However, the God of the Bible while prohibiting these things seems to engage in them himself quite often. So my question is what relationship does GOd’s actions have to his commandments? And if we derive our morality from the nature of God, and God’s nature is consistent with those actions listed above, then doesn’t that present a problem?

By: Blair

Blair — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:00:19 +0000

Interesting blog; I picked it up on the Ex C site.

But I don’t quite get what you mean by this “conscience” thing. You talk about it like it presents us with some objective standard of right and wrong, and yet to an atheist what can your “conscience” be but the biochemical rumblings in your own organic brain?

You make a lot of pronouncements about what is evil, but the atheists I have met have no trouble with excusing their own positions which often include, for example, unlimited abortion (including of viable fetuses) and selective breeding (aborting babies who dont have the characteristics you want) and lots of other stuff.

As for the “evil” in the Old Testament, a lot of it involved a former slave people struggling for survival. (And of course the Eygptians din’t leave records of them around…our Western Civ professor (at a very secular university) said the Egyptian policy was to eliminate records of their enemeies and their defeats in so far as possible.)

I haven’t noticed that atheists are opposed to violence…except when it comes to Jews; everyone was happy with them when they set backa and were almost exterminated in World War Two, but when they fought back in Old Testament times that is suddenly a no no.

So, unless you are now a Pro LIfe Pacifist opposed to the Death Penalty, I don’t see that you have much room to make moral pronouncements.