Hello, General Nazort.
I confess that I only made my first comment because I was just feeling ornery and wanted to stir things up. I didn't intend to side-track you into a lengthy conversation that probably doesn't have anything to do with the conversation you are having with others. I would understand completely if you feel that this conversation wasn't likely to be productive and want to drop it. However, I am now glad that I started it.
Yes, the article in the link that you supplied was interesting, although I'm afraid not for the reason you intended. It does give insight into the dilemma, though.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't explain
why God has the right to take life; the author merely states it several times, giving the impression that he answers the question. He does bring in a couple of unsatisfying analogies (the relationship between a person and his property; the relationship between parent and child), but the question remains answered.
However, I now see the dilemma; perhaps I would have seen it sooner had I read this thread more carefully.
The article mentions specifically the question how God could have killed the innocent first born children during the first Passover. Killing children is bad, but God is good, so how can we reconcile this?
The problems is that this is a false dilemma. There are several assumptions made, two that are explicit and one that is implicit. The two explicit assumptions are that there is an absolute standard of morality, and that God exemplifies this absolute standard. Then the third assumption is that our 21st century Western conception of morality is roughly the same as this absolute standard.
This then is the source of the false dilemma. God is good, by our contemporary standards of morality killing innocent people is bad, so how to explain the Passover? So now we are forced to go through some sort of logical gymnastics by trying to say that God has a right to take life, or that if God does it then it must be good, and so forth.
The solution to this dilemma is very obviously straightforward; recognize that our 21st century standards of morality are arbitrary. Remember that the Old Testament was written down roughly in the 6th and 7th centuries BCE and probably reflect stories that are older still. This was a time when it was considered standard justice to punish an entire family for the crimes of one member; when standards were such that if tribe A offended tribe B, tribe B could demand that tribe A hand over one or more individuals (depending on the seriousness of the offense) to be killed, and whether any of the individuals were responsible for the offense being irrelevant; when it was acceptable for two nations making an agreement to exchange hostages, with the understanding that they would be killed if one side breaks the agreement. This, by the way, is not unique to the Middle East in the Bronze Age -- collective punishment, hostages, and sacrifices were fairly common to all cultures in all times. In fact, it is our Western notions of individual responsibility that is fairly unique.
So, when the writers of Exodus wrote of the Passover, this presented no dilemma for the writers or the intended audience; God wasn't killing innocent lives because of some unique right that God has. Rather, God was merely doing what any
human ruler would do if he had the power to do so; in fact, God was doing what any human ruler would be
expected to do. Similary, that God punished the entire nation of Israel for Achan's sins (in Joshua 7), this would be perfectly understandable for the readers in the 6th century BCE. Likewise, notice that Joshua punishes Achan's sins by killing the entire family; there is no hint whatsoever that Joshua did anything wrong since he did no wrong; in fact, he simply meted out the justice that would be expected.
So the solution to the dilemma is obvious; accept the notion that our 21st century notion of individual responsibility does not reflect any "absolute standard" of morality. One could, I suppose, assume that Middle Eastern Bronze Age morality must reflect that standard. However, I fear that any attempt to try to reproduce that standard will fall prey to the same trap that the Reformation fell into in their attempts to reproduce the original, "correct" version of Christianity: you would just invent something entirely new based on your own predispositions and biases under the illusion of returning to "basics".
Actually, in my view, a more satisfying solution would be to dispense with the notion of an "absolute standard" for morality to begin with. There really is no reason for it, except that Western Christianity (and other totalitarian ideologies) want to invoke the idea of an absolute good and absolute evil. By recognizing that all morality is arbitrary, then the dilemma is disposed of.
Does God have the right to take innocent life? This is the wrong question. A right implies that a person may ethically engage in an activity, and any attempt to prevent this activity would itself be unethical. Since there is no absolute morality, there is no absolute set of rights. God does not have the
right to take innocent lives -- God just
does it. Certainly, God feels that he has the right to do so, as does most of his followers. However, those of us who are not Christians certainly do not feel that he has any such right. Both sides are correct, as far as that goes.
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