Can a Good God Command Genocide?

An interesting question was posed at church last week by our pastor. He asked the congregation to break up into small groups for a few minutes and discuss this question: How could a good God command Joshua to massacre the entire population of Jericho. We are working through the book of Joshua in church and obviously this is an issue that it's not easy to just skip over. After we discussed the question for a few minutes we had an open mic time for people who wanted to share what their group had come up with.

Obviously I shared my opinion and predictably my thoughts sounded much better as thoughts in my head then they did as words coming out of my mouth for the whole church to hear. Anyway, I've thought more about the question and am hoping that perhaps I can put my thoughts better into a blogpost then I did into what I said on Sunday.


Question: How could a good God command the Israelites to kill  everyone in Jericho? (Joshua 6:21)

A difficult question for sure and one which often pricks sensative nerves. To answer it properly and to answer most important questions we must first be able to acknowledge the sensativity of the question but not let fear of being wrong, or of emotional pain be a hinderance to us finding the truth. When we have put our reason in authority over our flesh to gurantee our questioning won't be undone by improper feelings we can proceed. After thinking about it it seems that the question itself is nonsensical. By this I mean the question answers itself. Because if God exists then He must be good. He must be good because an absolute good can not exist outside of God. Therefore if good exists then God must exist and God must be the source of good. Try figuring out where an absolute standard of good can come from if God does not create it. You can't, the best you can come up with is a human standard of goodness that seems right based on your personal experiance and what you know about the world but ultimately it contradicts itself.

In essence the quesiton is asking, can a good God do something evil. This is simlar to asking can you be you and not you at the same time. So in summary I think its simply a bad question that non Christians have invented to confuse Christians who aren't confident enough to say the question is a lame one.

Now I'm not trying to ignore the issue, I'm simply saying that specific question is not a fair question to ask because of the wording. To try to answer it is like to try and fight someone with your hands tied and blindfolded. Some Christians are fit enough that they could still win such a fight but for the rest of us we need to change the question. Questions I think we should ask relating to this topic are these, " What are some reasons why a good God might destroy Jericho?", "Why is God good?" "Did God really tell them to kill everyone in Jericho?" Was killing everyone in Jericho an evil action?" These are questions that have clear answers. Which I'm not going to give because I'm already bored and if I'm bored of writing I'm sure you're bored of reading.

If none of that made sense then the most important thing I learned from thinking about this question is this, sometimes when a quesiton is too hard to answer, rewording it often makes it easier. It's like math, oftentimes the fastest way to solve a problem is to simplify it first.




 

Some Cool Truths.

       If you study mathematics you know that to understand the more complex mathematics of Phsyics and calculus you need a foundational knowledge of things like addition and subtraction. Likewise in Christianity there exists certain foundational truths which are necessary for the understanding of Christianitys more complex beliefs. My brother in sixth grade math came over and watched for a little bit as I was studying College Mathematics. It would not be fair for me to expect him to graph polar functions or calculate standard deviation. In Christianity it's often the case that people try to answer really hard questions without understanding the foundational peices necessary to actually understand the answer to a difficult question. If I told my brother step by step how to calculate standard deviation he wouldn't understand, not because the words aren't english or because I explain it poorly but simply because  his mind hasn't reached the mathematical height capable of understanding such things. Just this past week in youthgroup one of the girls, in eight grade asked, "if Jesus pays for all my sins why do I have to repent of my sins and try not to do them anymore?". It is a fantastic question and a necessary question but the answer is not easily understood by a girl who spends most of her time at school or ins ome form of entertainment. Similarly with Atheists, they ask questions like, "how can God be all loving and still send people to hell forever?" And it's not that answers don't exist but rather that they aren't capable of processing the answer.

In light of this common problem because its something we all struggle with. I've come up with three foundational truths which will help us when trying to answer harder questions.

Statement 1: Somethings are more important to God than a human life.
Statement 2: Jesus was not a pacafist
Statement 3: A more holy life is a happier life.

I'll prove these very quickly.

     Statement 1: Somethings are more important to God than a human life. Three examples. First, God sacrafices an Israelite man to teach everyone who reads the bible the importance of trusting God to provide for us. (Numbers 15:32-35) Second, God killed Ananias and Sapphira to teach all of humanitiy that we must not test God and lie againts the Holy Spirit. (Acts 5) Third, God killed His own Son Jesus that all of humanity might find life through the death of His son. (Matthew 26-27) Basically God has made some commands which must be kept, some promies which must not be violated and certain ideas which are so important that taking a human life is justified in defense of them. I'm not writing this to lessen the value of the human life. It's easy though to get our values imbalanced when we place a human's life above God's will.

 

Statement 2: Jesus was not a pacafist. We have two examples in scripture of Jesus coming to earth before he was incarnated in a physical body. Judges 6:11 and Joshua 5:13-15. In both these examples Jesus comes to earth and commands his followers to wage war againts certain peoples. Because of our current culture which is very much weak and very much self destructive we are afraid to think of Jesus as a passionate, oppiniated, intolerant person. We forget passages like Matthew 10:34 do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. If these examples do not fit your eartnest study of scripture just remember that Jesus is one with the Father and between them there can be no discord. When God commands people to be killed as we've seen above Jesus is an approval.  

 

Statement 3: A Holy life is a happier life. It's sadly prominent in our culture for Christians to ask questions, how much of _____ can I do before God says it's sin. Ranging in everything from the words we use to the thoughts we think to the shows we watch and the people we hang out with. "Balance is the key" or something similar to that are phrases very popular because they seem to reconcile our love for the world and our desire to do God's will. "Some people will perhaps object that all these rules of holy living unto God in all that we do, are too great a restraint upon human life; that it will be made too anxious a state, by thus introducing a regard to God in all our actions; and that by depriving ourselves of so many seemingly innocent pleasures, we shall render our lives dull, uneasy, and melancholy." I'm not in the mood to write tons more tonight and this post is already long. Basically I think anyone who will deny themselves of the innocent pleasures of life for the sake of seeing God more clearly will not regret the sacrafice.

 

That is all goodnight friends. :)