Is the Earth still Cursed?

In Gen 3:17 God tells Adam:

cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread…(RSV)

The "curse" on the ground is because of Adam's sin (his disobedience in eating the fruit of a particular tree in God's special Garden, Gen 2:17). The land is cursed and will bring forth "thorns and thistles," specifically for Adam and because of what he did. He must, as a consequence, laboriously work the land for its produce. In the Garden apparently the land did not require work; it simply produced (Gen 1:29-30; 3:23). There is a similar curse in Gen 4:11-12, as well: the land will not produce for Cain because he killed Abel. Apparently, God's curse of the ground for Adam was not a general curse for all humankind, since another curse was needed to register God's displeasure at Cain's egregious act. But this seems refuted by Gen 5:29, where Lamech claims that the birth of Noah "will bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands," which suggests that the cursing of the earth did apply to all flesh.

            Through a great flood God determines to destroy all flesh along with the earth, "for the earth is filled with violence through them" (Gen 6:11-13). Apparently, the earth is to be destroyed because it is corrupted by its association with all flesh (Gen 6:12). God is so delighted with Noah's sacrifice when the flood waters subsided, however, that he vowed never again to "curse the ground because of man" (Gen 8:21), but there is nothing said about the earlier curses being lifted, whether general or specific (Gen 8:20-22).

            The prophet Isaiah seems to share the idea that the earth is generally cursed (Isa 24:3-6). "Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt" (Isa 24:6). Why should the earth/ground/land suffer because of its association with "all flesh"? The reason seems to be that God formed Adam/humanity "from the ground" (Gen 2:7):

In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return." (Gen 3:19; cf. Job 34:15; Ps 103:14).

In biblical mythology Adam and the ground are the same kind of "stuff." The answer to my question seems to be that it is on the basis of the same principle (although in reverse) from which Paul argues in 1 Cor 15:21-22 (i.e., the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, Deut 5:9-10).¹ God appears to be holding the earth responsible for the sins of its progeny, for people are descended from "earth." In this case, the sins of the children are visited upon the father (earth).

            Is the cursing of the earth in Genesis the background for understanding Paul's "restoration" (Rom 8:21) of creation (ē ktsis) in Rom 8:19-22? Possibly. I know of one scholar (there are no doubt many others) who thought that to be the case: James Denny finds the need for the "restoration" of creation in Romans 8:19-22 to be the cursing of Adam in Gen 3:17, "where the ground is cursed for man's sake; he [Paul] conceives all creation as involved in the fortunes of humanity."² Paul never clearly says that in so many words, so far as I know. Only in the rather obscure phrase at the beginning of Romans 8:20 is it possible to infer it when he writes, "the creation is subjected to futility (mataitēti, i.e., meaning its lack of value, or usefulness), which is the condition to which God's curse rendered it for Adam, requiring it to be laboriously worked.

            Colossians 1:19-20 seems to include "all creation" in its "all things on earth or in heaven" (note: Col 1:16, ta panta is everything). If this expression can be said to include all creation, then a Pauline disciple (the author of Colossians) includes even the insentient "stuff" of the universe of God's created works in the economy of redemption.

            The difficulty, however, is that the Bible doesn't speak generally of the restoration of an original creation. By far the more dramatic image in the Bible is the dissolution of the old creation, and the birthing of a new heavens and earth (Isa 65:17, 66:22; 2 Pet 3:7-13; Rev 21:1). Will there eventually be an old creation restored, as Paul seems to think, or the destruction of the original creation and the birth of a new heavens and earth, as "Peter" believes will happen? Who is right Peter or Paul?

How do you see it?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹For the Idea of blaming the children for their father's sins, see also Exod 20:5-6; 34:6-7. For a rejection of this idea, see Jer 31:29-30; Ezek 18:2-4.

²James Denny, "St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans" in W. R. Nicoll, The Expositor's Greek Testament (5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 2.649.

Does God do Bad Things to People?

My question falls under the rubric of theodicy, which is “the defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil.”¹ God’s goodness clashes with God’s omnipotence when bad things happen to people. That is, if God were good and all-powerful, bad things could never happen to people. But bad things do happen to people. Hence, one of these two propositions is untrue. Religious people, however, need for both propositions to be true; they want to maintain that God is both “good” and “in control of the world” in the face of common human experience that denies the truth of one of these two propositions. The obvious clash between the propositions has led some to attempt a resolution of the dissonance between them in the following two ways:

1.               By arguing that “learning to view bad things as good things in disguise are disciplines God wants his children to develop as they mature spiritually”;

2.               By arguing that “God will not allow anything to happen to you without his permission. He will not allow any ‘bad thing’ to happen that will not ultimately bring you more good than destruction.”²

The first argument cites 1 Cor 2:14 and Rom 8:1-17 in support. This solution, however, requires self-delusion, since one must convince oneself that bad is actually good. The second argument cites 1 Pet 4:12-13, Rom 9:14-24, Isa 55:8-9, Job 1:6-12, and Gen 50:20 in support. (In neither instance does the scriptural support seem to be on point.) This second argument also requires self-delusion, since it asserts that bad is not actually bad but rather only bad on the surface, for the belief is that it will ultimately bring a situation that is more good than bad.

I simply cannot lie to myself that bad things are not bad but rather they are good things. With respect to my own life I know the difference between good and bad, as most people do. I agree, however, that sometimes good comes out of bad, but statistically it does not happen that often. Bad remains bad even though we may eventually get our lives back in order. In 1979 in a tight academic job market, I was fired from Wagner College along with 24 other members of the faculty because of a financial exigency crisis at the college. It so happened that after sending out what seemed to me hundreds of job applications, I was hired to the faculty of Missouri State University. In my case the situation worked out, but the good (a new job) never has completely eradicated the bad (a painful memory of a being fired and without a future in academia).

In response to my question, it is unfortunately true that the Bible specifically depicts God doing bad things to some people and allowing bad things to happen to others. Here are two examples: God does bad things: 1 Sam 15:1-3, 7-9; Isa 45:7. God allows bad things to happen: the classic instance is depicted in the prose introduction to Job 1:1-2:22.

            The question of theodicy “why does God do what s/he does?” continues to plague me like a tiny unfindable pebble in my shoe. I have addressed it obliquely in a number of essays, and this year published two other essays specifically on the question of theodicy.³ The reason it bothers me is because the lack of resolution to the clash between God’s goodness and omnipotence ultimately challenges the very concept of God for a rational person. How does it seem to you?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1990), s.v. “theodicy.”

²Institute of Basic Life Principles, “Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen,” https://iblp.org/questions/why-does-god-let-bad-things-happen

³“A Conundrum: Two incompatible Propositions,” April 27, 2020: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2020/04/ and “Did God Cause (Or Allow) the Covid-19 Pandemic?” April 12, 2020: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2020/04/did-god-cause-or-allow-covid-19-pandemic.html?m=1

A Conundrum: Two Incompatible Propositions

Two weeks ago I left readers with the following conundrum:

If God is benevolent and controls the universe, how could God be responsible for a pandemic during which so many perish?

The first proposition (“God is benevolent”) in the face of a world-wide pandemic clashes with the second (“God controls the universe”). Even if the propositions are reversed, they are still incompatible, for a God who controls the world could not be responsible for a world-wide, life-killing, pandemic, if that God were benevolent.

            The conclusion seems inevitable: something is wrong; the propositions are incompatible. We actually do have a world-wide pandemic. That is an indisputable fact! Hundreds are dying every day, and the most capable scientific minds of our generation have not succeeded in finding a vaccine to protect us from the virus. We are told not to expect a vaccine for 12 to 18 months.

Of course, it is possible that neither proposition was ever true, but it is also possible that by modifying one or the other proposition the conundrum may yet admit of a solution and one could still remain somewhat traditionally Christian (should one choose to) with respect to the benevolence of God. Suppose, for example, that God is generally benevolent but unfortunately has a pernicious mean streak that sometimes surfaces in his actions toward the world, as God actually is described in the Bible.¹ The writers of the biblical texts apparently had no problem with this inconsistency and describe a God generally benevolent, but regularly describing his mean streak; why could not modern followers of one or another biblical faith² adopt the same posture, and recognize that God is simply inconsistent and unpredictable when it comes to benevolence? After all, that is what the basic text (the Bible) of traditional Christianity reflects.

I would like to think that obedience to God would exempt one from God’s pernicious mean streak, but that does not appear to be the case. Job’s experience is a case on point. The author depicts God as knowing that Job was absolutely faithful to him (Job 1:1, 8); nevertheless, God allowed Satan to ruin his life (1:9-2:10) in order to prove an unnecessary point.

            The second proposition (“God’s absolute control of the universe”) is likewise undermined even in the Bible. Here are a number of passages describing God’s seeming inability to make things happen in accordance with the divine will: God tries to kill Moses but cannot (Exod 4:24-26); God cannot foresee outcomes of his actions (1 Sam 15:10-11; 6:5-8); and God through his prophets sometimes made failed predictions (2 Sam 7:1-13; Jer 33:17-18; Ezek 26:15-21). In other words God is depicted as not always being in control. It is true, however, that God is described as controlling the weather to keep the Israelites serving him faithfully (for example, 2 Chron 7:13-14), but control of the wind is another matter, as Jesus is depicted as saying, “the wind blows where it wants to” (John 3:8).³ That is good news indeed for people of faith when we consider the case of hurricanes and tornadoes.⁴ Since God does not control the wind, God could not be responsible for the destruction to property and loss of life from such aberrations of nature.

            As I consider the inconsistency of the propositions, if I am to be completely honest with myself, I cannot allow these two propositions to stand in harmony with one another, and at the same time continue to make sense of the world as I experience it. The second proposition (“God controls the world”) is patently untrue, unless God is actually a demonic force. The first proposition (“God is benevolent”) pales in force, unless one modifies it. I can accept, for example, that God is benevolent and does the very best s/he can in a hostile world controlled by natural forces, which Romans 8:28 seems to be saying:

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)⁵

That is to say God works to bring about the best that he can.

Could someone please convince me that the two propositions with which I began are actually logically consistent?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹See Hedrick, Wry Thoughts about Religion Blog, “Did God Cause (or Allow) the Covid-19 Pandemic.” April 12, 2020. Note in Isa 45:5-7 God is depicted as boasting that he “creates weal and woe,” and in I Sam 15 God takes revenge on the Amalakites, commanding Saul (through Samuel the prophet ) to utterly destroy them and all they have, even down to nursing infants (1 Sam 15:3).

²Clearly there are at least two biblical faiths: Israelite and Christian; but arguably there are several dissonant Christian faiths reflected in the New Testament.

³See Hedrick, “Does God Control the Wind?” pages 49-51 in Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019).

⁴See Hedrick, “Does Mother Nature Control the Wind?” pages 51-53 in Unmasking and “Does the Wind Make its own Decisions?” pages 53-54 in Unmasking.

⁵One should compare other translations of this verse since there are subtle differences in the way it is translated. For example, the King James Version translates: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Did God Cause (or Allow) the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Has God brought the coronavirus into our world (or allowed it) for some reason, which might, by an impossible leap of imagination, be considered good? What could possibly be good about coronavirus? People of faith worldwide, however, are forced to consider this possibility because of a general Christian belief that the God who controls the universe is benevolent (Rom 8:28; Jer 29:11; Prov 16:4). If one believes that God controls the universe (Eph 1:11; Ps 115:3; Isa 45:6-7), then the conclusion is inevitable that God in some fashion is ultimately responsible for the covid-19 pandemic. If one also believes that God is benevolent, it follows that covid-19 is a good thing.

God has done similar things in the past (i.e., plagues and epidemics), if the Bible is to be believed. Recall, for example, God caused eleven plagues on Egypt (Exod 7-11) to free the Israelites. In fact, God is frequently depicted in the Bible doing bad things to people (Amos 4:6-11; Ezek 14:21-23; Rev 8:6-10:7; Rev 16:1-21) in order to achieve what God considered good ends (2 Chron 7:13-14; Deut 28:15-35). Sometimes conscience (if God has a conscience) seems to trouble God causing him to find his actions regrettable (2 Sam 24:15-16; 1 Chron 21:14-17; Ps 106:40-46; Amos 7:1-6), but of course the harm was already done. At other times God reconsiders his intent to harm and does not follow through with his plans (Jer 18:5-8; Exod 32:11-14; 2 Chron 12:1-8; Jon 3:6-10). Sometimes God changes his mind when things do not turn out as he apparently expected (1 Sam 15:11; Gen 6:5-8).

            As with most matters in religion, the answer to the question: “did God cause or allow the covid-19 pandemic” will depend on whom you ask. For example, when the Assyrian Sennacherib (705-681BCE) reported in his annals on his successful campaign into Palestine, he credited Ashur, his God, with his successes. He claimed to have shut up King Hezekiah of Judah “like a bird in a cage.”¹ The reports on Sennacherib’s campaign in Hebrew literature bear out Sennacherib’s successes (2 Kgs 18:13-19:37; Isa 36-39; 2 Chron 32:9-23), but the Israelites attributed their deliverance to an angel of the Lord who reputedly killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night forcing the Assyrians to withdraw (2 Kgs 19:35; Isa 37:36-37).² Was it an Assyrian victory or a Hebrew victory?

In the novel, The Plague by Albert Camus, Father Paneloux, the Jesuit Priest of the town of Oran on the Algerian coast, came to the conclusion that the plague, which caused the town to be sealed off from the rest of the world, was brought by God “for the punishment of their sins” (p. 99).³ “You deserved it,” Paneloux said (p. 94). And an elderly asthma patient agreed with the priest: “That priest’s right; we were asking for it” (p.117), although later he contradicted himself: “God does not exist; were it otherwise there would be no need for priests” (p. 118).  One of the town physicians, Dr. Bernard Rieux, a leading character of the novel, is a bit evasive about Paneloux’s sermon: “I’ve seen too much of hospitals to relish any idea of collective punishment. But, as you know, Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it” (p. 125). Rieux initially evades a direct question as to whether or not he believed in God by saying “I’m fumbling in the dark.” Later he answers directly “that if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But [he asserts] no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God” (p. 127). A visitor to the city, Jean Tarrou, who had taken residence in a hotel and become a friend of Dr. Rieux, said of the sermon preached by Paneloux, “I can understand that type of fervor and find it not displeasing. At the beginning of a pestilence and when it ends, there’s always a propensity for rhetoric…It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth—in other words to silence” (p.116). In other words Tarrou was of the opinion that the question has no answer.

Of course it is only a novel and the characters and dialogues were invented by Camus, but the novel has an eerie similarity to our own pandemic. Fiction or not, Camus has graphically illustrated the truthfulness of the statement: when it comes to religion, what is true depends on who is talking. Historians cannot corroborate, or even evaluate, divine intervention in human affairs because such claims are opinion, based on a person’s personal religious faith. I am certain, however, that most readers will have an opinion on God’s responsibility for the pandemic.

Nevertheless, here is the conundrum facing us: If God is benevolent and is in control of the universe, how could God be responsible for a pandemic during which so many perish? My questions to the mystery of the universe are returned in silence. It is difficult to be a “true believer” during a pandemic.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennacherib%27s_Annals

²Hedrick, When History and Faith Collide, 4-5.

³Albert Camus, The Plague (translated by Stuart Gilbert; Vintage, 1991 [1948]).

Does God Collude with Satan?

In Baptist Bible study we were pondering 2 Cor 12:1-10, where Paul claimed he was given [by God] a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to harass him so that he would not be puffed up by the abundance of visions and revelations he had experienced in his trip to the “third heaven” (2 Cor 12:7). We will all no doubt agree that this strange passage tends to perplex the modern Christian mind. But there is an even more serious difficulty in the passage. It rather obviously implies that God colludes with satanic powers by using an angel (aggelos) of Satan to harass Paul. Is there other evidence suggesting that it could actually be the case that God colludes with Satan?

There is a similar statement in 1 Cor 5:1-7 where Paul directs the gathering at Corinth “to deliver” an immoral member of the gathering “to Satan for the destruction of his flesh” so that “his spirit may be saved” (1 Cor 5:5). To be sure this is also a difficult passage, but it is nevertheless clear that Paul encouraged the Christian gathering to collude with Satan for the salvation of the man’s spirit. Compare a similar statement in a text from the Pauline school: the author refers to two persons who “have made shipwreck of their faith”…“whom I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim 1:20).

I checked at random a few commentaries in my last blog (see them here) to see how 2 Cor 12:7 was regarded in the academic community. They all agreed that the passive voice in 2 Cor 12:7 referenced God as the one initiating the action that brought Paul harassment by an angel of Satan to teach him humility. There is a similar incident in Job where God is described as allowing Satan to afflict Job’s body at the request of Satan (Job 2:10). That does not appear to be the case with 2 Cor 12:7, where God directed the harassment of Paul by using an angel of Satan.

In the Jewish Scriptures, dubbed by Christians the Old Testament, God has no evil opponent to challenge his authority. Satan does not make an appearance in Israelite history until after the fall of Judah to the Babylonians (read about it here). In the early years of Israelite history God was the source of divine justice, as well as “evil” acts. For example, God sends an evil spirit to torment King Saul (1 Sam 16:14-23; 18:10; 19:9); he also sends lying spirits into the mouths of prophets to deceive Ahab (1 Kgs 22:1-40) and prompted King David to sin (2 Sam 24).  When Job’s wife counseled him to “curse God and die,” his reply indicated that it was common knowledge that both good and evil came from God (Job 2:10, see also 42:11; compare also 2 Sam 12:11; Ps 78:43-51; Jdg 9:23).

There must be some mistake here! How can it be that God would have anything to do with facilitating evil deeds? A standard definition of God is “perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness, whom people worship as creator and ruler of the universe.” So what is good about colluding with the powers of darkness to bring harm to anyone? The very definition of a Christian concept of God precludes the idea that God would do evil against anyone or incite anyone to evil or that God would work in concert with the forces of evil either to the detriment or betterment of anyone. Is not this statement attributed to Jesus: God “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt 5:45)? The thrust of the statement is that God provides the blessings of the considerable bounty of the earth to the Good, as well as the evil and unjust alike without discrimination.

So how should we explain the not inconsiderable clash between God as reflected in the Jewish Scriptures and New Testament? My own view is that through history and within the various world cultures and religions that have existed through time people have basically fashioned their own understandings of God in harmony with the culture in which they were raised and according to the ethical understandings they had at the time. In short, our Gods are, at least in part, a projection of how we understand (hopefully) what is best in ourselves, an idea in modern philosophy attributed to Ludwig Feuerbach.¹ How else do we explain the diverse religions of the world?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹ https://phenomenologyftw.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/feuerbach-on-religion-anthropomorphic-projectionism-and-his-influence-on-atheism/: Here is a quote from the article: According to Ludwig Feuerbach “God is an anthropomorphic projection of the human mind, and as such embodies man’s conception of his own nature. This [view] was originally conceived by Xenophanes and Lucretius, and by Spinoza.” Here are three brief quotes from Feuerbach’s writings (translated by Zwar Hanfi), The Fiery Brook: Selected Writings of Ludwig Feuerbach (Anchor Books; 1972):  “Man’s notion of himself is his notion of God, just as his notion of God is his notion of himself—the two are identical” (page 109); “There is nothing more, and nothing less, in God than what religion puts in him” (page 112); “To every religion, the gods of other religions are only conceptions of God; but its own conception of God is itself its God—God as it conceived him to be, God genuinely and truly so, God as he is in himself” (page 114).

Life is what you make it—or is it?

I have come to think that life is what you make it! There are no built in assurances that one's life will be happy, or successful, nor is one's life fated to be filled with unhappiness or end in disaster. When one is born, life is as full of possibilities, as one's historical circumstances allow, and one's capabilities permit. I did not always think of life as my own creation, however. The fresh air of philosophical secularism rarely penetrated into the suffocating religious atmosphere of the Mississippi Delta, where I spent my youth. I was taught that God had a plan for every life, which (if one could find it) would lead to success, but only as God counts success. That is to say, one's life may not appear successful as the secular world counts success, but God would regard it so. And one could count on God helping one achieve success in life (as God valued success), provided one resisted the wiles of Satan, God's arch enemy.

 

            What is surprising is that this narrative I was taught by the church is not part of the views of some writers in the Bible. For example, consider the case of Judas Iscariot, who appears to have been destined for infamy from the beginning. Luke even describes Judas' traitorous act as being prophesied in Scripture (Acts 1:16; Ps 41:9), meaning that Judas' life became not what he made it but what God had forced upon him. The evidence is mixed for Judas, however; John describes Judas' betrayal of Jesus as caused by demon possession (John 6:70-71; 13:2), while Matthew describes the betrayal as inspired by Judas' greed (Matt 26:14-16; Mark 14:10-11). A classic Old Testament example of God's interfering in our lives to work his inscrutable ways is the account of King Saul's clinical melancholia. It was caused by an evil spirit sent from God (1 Samuel 16:14-23), after the departure of God's (holy) spirit (1 Sam 16:14). Neither man had much of a chance for success in life; their lives failed because of invisible powers over which they had no control.

 

            Is it true that invisible supernatural powers are at work on all of us (Eph 6:12) to our detriment or benefit and that we have no control over them, and we become what we are as a result of what they impose on our lives? It calls to mind comedian Flip Wilson's immortal line—"the devil made me do it!" It is true, however, that certain historical circumstances beyond our control do influence the outcomes of our lives (for example, economic, political, social, etc.). But these are neither invisible nor supernatural. Thinking that supernatural powers are at work in the world is a matter of personal belief; it is not objective reality. Naturally if one believes such things, one thereby creates an objective reality and it is that belief that influences one's life, rather than the putative supernatural power. This idea works as well for those who do not think that life is influenced by supernatural powers, for their non-belief becomes the objective reality that sets them free to make what they will of life.

 

            Some biblical writers seem to think that God interferes in our lives in the sense that some are predestined to greatness and others to failure by God electing or choosing them for the fate that they come to realize in their lives (For example, Isa 42:1; 45:4; 65:9; Mark 13:20, 27; 1 Pet 1:2; Rom 11:5; Deut 7:6; 1 Kings 11:34; Ps 78:70-71). The clearest passage of which I am aware (perhaps the only one) where God swears "hands off" interfering in people's lives are the surprising statements attributed to Paul in Romans 1:18-32, where God "gave up" certain people to what Paul calls their impurity, dishonorable passions, and base minds. With this exception the biblical view seems to be that God interferes in all our lives. But secular belief can trump biblical faith in the sense that we create our own realities.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Does God have a Character Flaw?

From my very earliest memory in Sunday school I learned that the Bible teaches that "God is Love."  For example, in First John 4:8, 16 the writer describes the essence of God's character as love.  Imagine my surprise one morning recently when in Baptist Bible study we stumbled across another facet of God's character: God also hates, and even bears a grudge.  The prophet Malachi "quotes" God as saying: "I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated; I have laid waste his hill country and left his inheritance to jackals of the desert" (Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13).  And apparently God continues to bear a grudge against them, for Malachi adds: they are a "people with whom the Lord is angry forever" (Malachi 1:4).

 

            Why would God hate Esau and treat his inheritance so cruelly?  Recall that Esau had sold his right of primogeniture (rights of the first born, Deut 21:15-17) to his brother Jacob (Genesis 25:29-34); Esau's poor judgment in selling his birthright (Genesis 25:29-34) for a little bread and a bowl of lentils may have been the cause of God's hatred of Esau and might explain why his descendants (the Edomites, Genesis 36:9, 43) were later conquered by the Israelites (2 Chronicles 25:11-25; 2 Samuel 8:12-14).  At any rate the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites (Genesis 32:28), were ascendant over the Edomites because it was what God wanted (2 Chronicles 25:20) because God favored Jacob's descendants (Genesis 32:28), and bore a grudge against Esau's descendants.

 

            I can understand God being irritated at Esau for his poor judgment, but it seems an insufficient reason to hate him and bear a grudge against his descendants.  Hate seems to have been another character trait of God as understood in the Jewish Bible, for Esau is not all that God hates.  Job thought God hated him as well (Job 16:9), and even the Israelites at one point thought God hated them (Deuteronomy 1:27).  And John did portray God claiming to hate the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:6), as God also did the Ephraimites (Hosea 9:15).

 

            God also hates human character flaws: robbery (Isaiah 61:8), evil in the heart, and false oaths (Zechariah 8:17).  A list of other human character flaws that God hates appears in Proverbs 6:16-19 (haughty eyes, lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run to evil, bearing false witness, and the one who sows discord), including certain Judean feasts and celebrations (Isaiah 1:14; Amos 5:21), along with evildoers (Psalm 5:5), and idol worship (Psalm 31:6; Jeremiah 44:4).

 

            In the Baptist tradition I have always been told that "God loves the sinner but hates the sin."  But that really does not appear to be the case in the Bible.  God also seems to hate those who do the "sin" (i. e., whatever God may happen to disapprove of).  It is true that the Deuteronomist claimed that God hated every abominable thing (again, what God disapproves of, Deuteronomy 12:31), but it also seems to be the case that God hates those that perpetuate abominations, as those, for example, in Proverbs 6:16-19.

 

            Unless a person holds the view that the Bible is literally the words of God or words inspired by God in some way, one might recognize that describing God as "hating" is a quite primitive anthropomorphic description of God—that is, the attribution of human characteristics to God.  In other words the biblical writers were describing God in their own image as if God were only a bigger and more powerful human being—something the Greeks and Romans suggested by the physical size of their statuary representations of the Gods, and their descriptions of the reprehensible behavior of the Olympians.  The Biblical writers simply transferred human characteristics to God—including gender.  However, God as spirit (John 4:24) does not have gender (i.e., God is neither he nor she), and God therefore does not experience human emotions—either those we consider positive or negative.  God, if God there be, is not of the human tribe, but rather wholly other.

 

And if God does not hate, neither does God love.

 

In truth, each of us invents God in a way that satisfies us.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

The Interface of Reason and Faith

The Devil may be in the details of the definitions I am using:  reason is "the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences"; faith is "a belief that is not based on proof."  Reason proceeds on the basis of skepticism, critical inquiry, and logic; faith works on the basis of credulity, a priori premises, and confessions.  In short, the two processes of thought are by definition two completely opposite ways of apprehending reality.  For example, reason says that a person who is dead and not in some kind of deep coma, remains dead; s/he does not return to a living state.  Faith, on the other hand, argues: true; in general a person who is dead does not come back to a living state, but there is one exception.  God "raised" Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.  Behind this particular Christian response lies the a priori premise of an unseen divine being, and the confession that Jesus was raised from the dead, both of which are evident only to a believer.  Reason, on the other hand, demands that some rational proof be offered to justify this exception to the way of all flesh.

               Faith pleads an open universe where God has elbow room to make things deviate from the observed usual.  But reason, willing even to accept the idea of an open universe where things may deviate from the usual, still demands proof that the deviation from the usual is based on natural cause and effect rather than by the manipulation of an invisible divine hand outside the natural order of things.

               At bottom, reason and faith are fundamentally two contradictory ways of viewing reality, but up to a point they can co-exist and in some cases even cooperatively in the same mind.  Where they part ways is in the deference given to the primary confessions of a given faith.  These a priori premises of the faith are non-negotiable, i.e., without them, by definition, there is no faith.  To join a given Faith one must give assent to its confessions, and if one changes one's mind after joining, then one can be taken before some official body of the organization on heresy charges (and, yes, such trials do take place with some regularity), and if convicted of heresy one either recants or is put out of the community.

               Apart from the primary confessions it is possible for a member of a given faith to practice a rational 21st century existence as long as one does not make the mistake of thinking there is a 1:1 correlation between what one believes is so and what is actually so.  Should one make that mistake, alibis will be required to accommodate the difference between belief and actuality.  For example, Faith asserts "this is my Fathers' world," i.e., God controls it, and can be expected to act in the best interest of the created order.  Yet we also experience in the world pain, disease, natural disasters, and tragedy.  How can that be reconciled with a benevolent God controlling the universe?  When one comes to the point of recognizing that a disconnection exists between "good" God and dangerous creation, the disconnect must be bridged to enable one to hold on to both concepts at the same time.

               One of the many alibis explaining away this phenomenon is as follows:  The world was originally created as a benign place. We, however, now live in a fallen creation because of Adam's willful sin.  The creation will, however, in the end be redeemed (Romans 8:18-23), but such a belief does not solve the problem of God's failure to render benevolent care to the creation and its creatures in the here and now.  Here is another: Whatever bad happens to people is for their benefit.  The word "bad" used in this connection is really a misnomer; for the tragedies that come upon humans can be explained as part of God's refining process through which human beings grow and improve.  So the "bad" is really a "good."  Such a solution to the problem, however, turns God into a stern disciplinarian who shapes his creatures through pain and suffering—a far cry from a kind and caring "Father" (compare Luke 11:11-12).

               When the alibis can no longer bridge the gap between benevolent deity and dangerous world, a fundamentally different way of viewing reality is required, and a gap appears in the confessional wall sheltering the faithful from the insistent voice of reason.  We surrender items of personal religious belief with great difficulty, yet reason persistently continues its nagging and prodding.

               How do you see it?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Hérem: God’s Holy War

As I walked into the Bible study classroom on a recent Sunday one of the members had a question for me.  He opened his Bible to Joshua 6:15-21 and stabbed his finger at the text and said "this bothers me greatly." I could see the pain in his face.  "I was hoping you would have an answer," he added.  The story that bothered him was the destruction of Jericho by the Israelites in which Joshua tells them "The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to the Lord" (6:17), meaning that every person and thing in the city shall be destroyed. The only exceptions were "all silver and gold and vessels of bronze and iron" were to go into the treasury of the Lord (6:19) and Rahab and her house were to be preserved (6:17). When the Israelites took the city, they followed Joshua's orders and "utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword" (6:21).

            Such cruelty and utter disregard for life characterizes the nature of Hérem, the Holy War.  The bloody inhuman rules of engagement are laid down in Deut 20:10-20.  The Conquest of the "Promised Land" by the Israelites was Holy War.  A particular egregious Holy War story is the annihilation of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) in which God (so said Samuel, his prophet, 1 Sam 15:1-3) took revenge on the Amalekites for their opposition to Israel during the Exodus from Egypt (Deut 25:17-19; Exod 17:8-13; Judges 6:3-5).  God told the Israelites to destroy everything down to the last nursing baby (1 Sam 15:3).

            My friend struggled with what these stories implied to him about the character of God; they implied something foreign to everything he had been taught about God, which was that God is a God of Love.  Two principal ideas that Baptists affirm (the Bible constitutes the revelation of God, and the Bible is true—i.e., revealed truth) are largely responsible for his dilemma:  If God is a God of love and compassion, then it could not be true that God is responsible for the unconscionable actions of Israel at Jericho and later against the Amalekites, but if the Bible is revealed truth, then what it says about God must be true—a kind of "catch 22," as it were!  This is a difficult position for a Baptist to be in since both ideas are prime "truths" in Baptist faith, and he had inadvertently stumbled into, and what is more recognized, the clash producing his dilemma.  It is a terrible thing to discover that God has a mean streak.   

For a rational person the dilemma is an existential turning point; for both postulates cannot be correct!  Hence, one must change one's view of God to match these biblical stories, or one must change how one views the Bible—although deeply held religious beliefs, which support a religious view of reality, generally find illogical ways to prevail over logic and reason.  Changing your understanding of God is not something like changing your socks, however, and would be more difficult to do, in my opinion, than changing how one understands the Bible.  In spite of what we are told, no one has ever had first-hand experience with God, since there is nothing substantive there to get your hands on (so to speak)—God being invisible spirit (John 4:24; but cf. Exod 33:20-23), and not speaking audibly as he once did, make it rather difficult to "examine" God.  Most of us don't hear God's audible voice, or see God's back as Moses did (Exod 33:23), although we might claim experiences with burning bushes (Exod 3:1-6).  What we believe about God is due to what we have learned from others, had taught to us from the Bible, and worked out in our heads—probably from our youngest years.  Truth be told, one's "personal experience with God" is all in the mind (the still small voice as it were, 1 Kings 19:11-13), if anything.

It would seem far easier to change one's view of the Bible, since it is tangible, has a history, and can be examined directly more easily than one can examine God.  A large body of helpful literature exists evaluating the Bible as literature and history.  The way out of the dilemma is by examining the story about the Bible.  The Bible is historical literature recording an ancient quest for understanding God from the flawed human perspectives represented in its individual texts.  If the Bible is revelation, it is revelation mediated through the imperfections, flawed perspectives, and social conditioning of its human authors.  Its theologies and its ethical images of God are determined by the cultures and social environments in which they were written.  The Bible has not one view of God, but many views of God are represented among its various authors.  There is not one system of ethical values, but many conflicting systems of ethical values are reflected in its pages.  In short, the (Protestant) Bible reflects what people thought and believed at various times over the some 750 years of its inscription (beginning around 600 B.C., ending about 150 A.D.).

Christians tend to demand too much from the Bible.  Whatever more the Bible may be to true believers, it is first an ancient record of humanity's search for God in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Let the Bible be what it is.  Truth is not helped by denying the obvious.

 

Charles W. Hedrick     

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University