Doesn’t the Creator have authority over His creation?
Every civilized and rational person agrees that genocide
(the obliteration of an entire populace) is a crime, and
that those who commit it nowadays are justly convicted as
war criminals.
But what can be said of the genocides that were ordered by
God Himself in the Old Testament era?
How can such a thing be accepted by the Christian
faith of love, and the God of Christians Who gave the
command, be regarded as Love?
1. Sentimental negation of the Scriptures
Without a doubt, the God of Love had ordered genocides
during the Old Testament era. The Holy Bible has repeatedly
recorded this, as we shall see further along. However this
fact is also extremely scandalous for many people. In fact
it is so scandalous, that some hasten to claim that the
excerpts of the Holy Bible that have recorded those commands
by God are supposedly false and additions. However, as any
conscientious student can discern, those segments of the
Holy Bible are actual and valid – as are all of its sections
that have been preserved by the Church, as a part of the
Canon of the Holy Bible.
Anyone can understand why these people hasten to
characterize these excerpts of the Holy Bible as
“illegitimate”; it is because they feel an inner conflict,
in compromising the God of love with a command for genocide.
However, such a seeming antithesis does not mean that anyone
is free to “cut and sew” the Holy Bible to accommodate their
own subjective perceptions. For Christians, the content of
the Holy Bible is clear and specific; and the refusal to
accept something that is perceived as contradicting their
logic or their sense of justice not only doesn’t solve the
problem, but will lead to many more contradictions, which
even reach the point of annulling Divine Revelation itself.
We should therefore consistently accept the Holy Bible
exactly as it was handed down to us, and ONLY in that cadre
should we attempt to explain the matters that seem
problematic or contradictory. Always with consistency, and
without sentimentalities or prejudices. The events are
exactly as delivered to us, whether we like it or not!
We will now move on to the analysis of the matter of
genocides step by step – within the cadre of Christian
Revelation, with consistency and directness and without
negating anything that was passed down to us as components
of the Holy Bible.
Should anyone wish to negate segments of the Holy Bible so
that his conscience not be troubled by believing in the God
of the Bible Who had commanded genocides, then that person
is in fact not only negating Divine Revelation, but is also
denying God of His absolute authority over His Creation and
the lives of His creations! This is tantamount to indirectly
accusing Him as a murderer, and with this stance is also
disapproving God’s commands, WHICH WERE ACTUALLY GIVEN!
In other words, he becomes God’s judge!
2. God’s AUTHORITY over life and death
The first thing we should examine is: Could there be a
difference between God and humans, as regards the RIGHT to
commit genocide?
For every reasonable person the answer here is YES. We did
NOT create the world, nor did we create life. We do NOT have
the potential to recreate a person who has died, nor do we
have the omniscience to decide whether someone should be
executed. According to the Christian faith, even the courts
that deliver death sentences are acting arbitrarily and are
overstepping their rights, because NO person has a right
over another person’s life.
But for God this is different! He is the one Who not only
created life (and the entire world) but is also the one Who
continues to preserve every living organism, at every moment
that passes. It He who gives life to mankind (and not only
them) as a GIFT. And a gift is something that the recipient
is NOT ENTITLED TO, but a gift that is GIVEN TO HIM, GRATIS.
Therefore, since God grants that gift to every person, at
every moment, He is also the only one Who is entitled to
decide WHEN and TO WHOM He will stop providing that gift.
That which for people is considered “murder”, for God it is
a RIGHT.
If someone gives you something as a gift and then decides
that you don’t deserve to continue receiving it, then the
donor has every right to cease giving it. It was his, and as
such, he has the authority to cease giving it – but also to
resume giving it, whenever he sees fit to do so. And no-one
can accuse another, just because he has ceased giving a gift
that belongs to him and no-one else.
So, those who accuse God for commanding genocide, are in
actual fact denying a RIGHT
that God perpetually has, given that without Him,
no-one would have the right – or the ability - to live. How
can it be possible for one to accuse his benefactor - the
benefactor of the entire universe? Even if one second of
life was given to us by Him, it would still be a PRESENT and
we would OWE Him a debt of gratitude, because His is every
life and existence. Even worse, when someone accuses God Who
had deigned that those people could live – and in fact live
as long as they did! Wasn’t that His gift? Well, then it is
His right to withdraw it, whenever He wants!
The second thing that separates God from people on the
matter of commanding genocide is that God is NOT RESTRICTED
by anything – neither by natural laws, nor by MORAL laws. He
Himself is the Lawmaker, and the Laws were given for the
creations, not the Creator. That which is a “moral boundary”
for a creation is God’s entire freedom of will. And the
reason is not an “unjust” discrimination but the
restrictions of every being. God is omnipotent and
omniscient. We are not. When He decides on something, He
knows what is best, because He knows EVERYTHING. We hardly
know ourselves, let alone decide on matters of life of our
fellow men!
Unrestricted as He is, God can act “arbitrarily”; and He has
every right to act as He sees fit, because He acts with Love
as His sole gnomon – which is the result of volition, and
not obligation on His part. This act results in favour of
His Creation and His creations – not for this temporary
life, but for the sake of the eternal life, as we shall see
further along.
If then someone denies (out of disbelief in the God of
Christians) that He created the world and life; if he denies
His very existence, that person is actually denying that
reference in the Holy Bible about genocides. Because if our
God is nonexistent, how could anyone accuse a nonexistent
entity of genocide? And if someone denies that our God
created life (something clearly stated in the Holy Bible),
he must then remain consistent with himself and deny the
trustworthiness of the Holy Bible in regard to God’s
commands. It is not possible for him to regard the Holy
Bible trustworthy in its references for divinely commanded
genocides, but not trustworthy inasmuch as He Who gave the
command is the Creator of the world and of life.
Either we accept that the God of Christians is indeed the
Creator of life, and as such, He has every right to give
such commands, or, we accept that He is nonexistent and His
commandments are also nonexistent. We cannot apply double
standards and measures. Either He exists and has given those
commands, or, He does not exist, and He did not give those
commands!
Thus, they who deny His existence as Creator of life cannot
accuse Him for existent commands by Him! Likewise, they who
accept Him as the actual Creator of life cannot deny His
right to take away the life from whoever He chooses!
3. Does God want the death of mankind?
So, why did God give commands for genocide? Does God derive
pleasure from the deaths of people? Is it something that He
actually wants?
Let us allow Him to reply, from within the Holy Bible:
“For God made not death: neither does he find pleasure
with the loss of the living. For he brought all things into
being, and the creations of the world are salvific, and in
them is no poison of destruction, nor is there a kingdom of
Hades on earth: For righteousness is immortal. It is the
irreverent who with their hands and their words have invited
it (death)”. (Wisdom
of Solomon 1:13-16)
“For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the
Lord God. For
this, return (repent), and live”.
(Ezekiel 18:32).
Clear statements by God Himself! He makes it very clear that
He does not like the death of people. He does not enjoy
their death. He does not want it! But He also makes it clear
that the death which He is accused of by many people was not
brought on by Him. People themselves brought it upon
themselves, for their transgressions! Because when people
distance themselves from God, He necessarily deprives them
of His gift of life, because they DO NOT DESERVE IT!
And without seeking
revenge for the repentant ones, He prompts the irreverent
ones: “For this, return (repent), and
live”.
4. Why God commanded the genocide of peoples
God’s accusers overlook the fact that He created the entire
world, and that He brought into existence all the souls that
exist; instead, they remain fixated on God’s decision that
it is better if certain nations ceased to exist!
The eradication of thousands of people BECAUSE OF
THEIR SINS has been regarded as malice on the part of God.
The creation of billions of people and every life (even of
the guilty ones who were executed), and the creation of the
entire universe, are supposedly NOT proof of His benevolence
and love? Why
such a prejudiced opinion? Is the punishment of those
convicted by law proof that human justice is bad?
If so, then they who
accuse God should revolt against all governments and abolish
every authority, with anarchy. And let them not punish any
criminal and murderer!
But we are talking about murders! Why? Because it really was
about murderers! Such were the Paganists of Canaan for which
God had given the command for their extermination, using as
“instruments” of execution either a cataclysm, or a fiery
catastrophe as in Sodom, and another time angels or people –
such as Moses’ army. Here, the means used are unimportant;
only the just punishment of the guilty peoples. Yes, God
does love His creations, but even goodness has its limits
when it comes to perverts.
What had these peoples done, that made God order their
extermination? (Note that He did NOT order genocide for all
the populations of the region, only specific ones!)
So, let us take a look at what those peoples did, as
described in the Old Testament.
God warns the Israelites as follows, regarding the nations
He had punished: “take heed, that you do not follow
them, after they have been destroyed before you... And do
not seek to learn about their gods, saying “How did these
nations worship their gods? I will do likewise”. You shall
not do thus to your God, for everything that the Lord
despises, they did for their gods. For they sacrificed their
sons and their daughters in fire to their gods.”
(Deuteronomy 12:30,31)
The existence of those nations was an open wound for
humanity. Their demonic pagan gods thirsted for blood. They
sacrificed their children as burnt offerings in fire to
them! It was a continuing crime in God’s eyes, which had to
end once and for all, with the annihilation of those nations
and their obscene religion. Those nations had to be
annihilated, so that not even a reminder of their barbaric
religion would exist, lest the newcomer faithful residents
of the region be misled.
Do you perhaps imagine that God is overdoing it? Is the Old
Testament perhaps telling fairy tales about human sacrifices
by idolaters? Well, let us cross-check this claim with other
sources and find out!
Contemporary researchers link
Lycaon’s Tradition to the ritual human sacrifices
performed on Lycaeon Mountain even during the 4th
century B.C, as mentioned in the relative verse in Plato’s “Republic”
(v.8,5 6 5d and
”Menon”
p.315).
“To us”, says Plato, “human sacrifices are not
only illegal, they are also a show of disrespect, whereas to
the Carthagens, on the contrary, it is also a sacred custom;
and as it has undoubtedly also been mentioned, sometimes a
father sacrifices his children to the god Cronos
(Saturn).”
As such, we can surmise that only barbarians have such
different laws to ours. During the Lycaeon feasts – as also
with the descendants of Athamas - ancient Greeks committed
the same human sacrifices. Theophrastus makes similar
references, found in a passage by Porphyrios, the
Neoplatonic philosopher from Tyre (3rd century
A.D.) in his work “On Abstaining from living beings”:
“Since then and
until now, it was not only in Arcadia by the Lycaeans or in
Carthage for Cronos; everyone commonly performed human
sacrifice, but only during the period of legal commemoration
did they always present blood of their race to the altars.....”
These sacrifices continued to be performed even during Roman
times, judging by the following observation by the ancient
traveller Pausanias:
"Upon this altar they sacrificed to Lycaeus Zeus
secretly, and it was not for me to pry into what was
delightful; let it be as it is and as it was from the
beginning.” (8,38,7).
However we shall not present anything more here, on the
abhorrent customs of the Greek idolaters, as we have already
mentioned them in other articles of ours in more detail. If
the Greek civilization, which is regarded as the noblest
idolatrous civilization, committed such barbarities and God
continued to tolerate its existence, then just imagine what
was being committed by those peoples that God had given the
command to be exterminated!
Strangely enough, these barbarities have not upset the
Neo-idolaters, who are usually the ones that accuse the
Christian God of homicides. They were not upset, either by
the human sacrifices committed by the Greeks or by the
Canaanites. They were infuriated by God’s command to
exterminate those abhorrent nations! So, let us focus now on
those nations:
What else did those nations do? Yahwe God says the following
to the Israelites in Leviticus 18:1-30:
“[...]and you shall not act according to the practices
of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, [...] Person
by person shall not approach any of the household of his
flesh to uncover shame; I am the Lord. 7 You shall not
uncover the shame of your father and the shame of your
mother, for she is your mother; you shall not uncover her
shame [...]9 You shall not uncover her shame—the shame of
your sister [...] 20 And you shall not give your bed of
semen to the wife of your neighbor, to bring defilement onto
her. 21 And you shall not give any
of your offspring to serve Molech. [...]22 And you
shall not sleep with a male as in a bed of a woman, for it
is an abomination.
23 And you shall not give your bed to any quadruped
for sowing to bring defilement on it, nor shall any woman
stand before any quadruped so as to be mounted, for it is
loathsome. 24 Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways.
For by all these things the nations I am sending out before
your face were defiled. 25 And the land became defiled, and
I repaid their evil because of it,
and the land was angry with its inhabitants. 26 And you
shall keep all my precepts and all my ordinances and not
commit any of all these abominations, the inhabitant and the
guest among you who has come, 27 for the men of the land,
who were before you, committed all of these abominations,
and the land became defiled; 28 otherwise the land will
become angry with you when you defile it, as it became angry
with the nations that were before you. 29 For
anyone who commits any of all these
abominations—the souls that do so shall be exterminated from
their people. 30 And keep my ordinances: not to
commit any of all these abominable precepts that were done
before you, and you shall not be defiled by them, for I am
the Lord your God. …”
Do the above seem like exaggerations? Well, let us remember
what of all the above the ancient Greek “gods” did, (albeit
regarded as the noblest of the idolaters)! Remember Zeus,
who was incestuously involved with his mother, his daughter,
his sister... in fact, at times taking on the form of an
animal (swan, bull, snake)... a perversion that
simultaneously involved incest and bestiality! He was a
pedophile and a homosexual, as we are taught by his
“adventure” with Ganymedes... and an adulterer at the same
time!
If such were the acts committed by the highest ranking of
the demonic “gods” of the ancient Greeks, just imagine what
the rest of their gods did - and WHAT EXAMPLE WAS BEING SET
for human followers by such a perverted “god”!
Imagine the orgies
with “sacred fornication” that took place in the temples of
Aphrodite!
Imagine the half-goat Pan as a model of morality when
copulating with goats – as so clearly depicted in ancient
Hellenic art! And what about that ancient Greek,
phallus-god, Tychon? If God had let live the noblest of the
idolaters – the Greeks – even though they committed such
abominations, you can imagine what those nations in Canaan
were doing, for God to have commanded their extermination!
In closing this chapter, let us take a look at an
archaeological find (one of many) of the people of Canaan,
some of which God had commanded to be exterminated:
“….Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed
to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I
am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:21).
This is a bas-relief from the temple of Ammon at Karnak,
Egypt, which depicts Canaanites sacrificing THEIR CHILDREN
on the walls of a city to placate their “gods”!!! Above we
can see young children being thrown off the walls, while
below a little girl is being sacrificed by a man. The others
are praying to their false gods. (Source: Ian Wilson, THE
BIBLE IS HISTORY, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1999,
p.49.)
Well? Was God to
blame for commanding an end to be put to the perpetuation of
the crimes of such a people? If a parent nowadays commits
such a crime, will anyone protest against the judge who will
convict that parent?
5. Selective death
And yet, despite the felonious state of those peoples, God
did not command the extermination of all of them. God is
just, and He exhausts every margin. Elsewhere He shows
mercy, and elsewhere–when there is no possibility of the
wicked repenting– He exterminates (not only by genocides
with military means, but also by using every means in
Nature).
For example, whereas He totally obliterated Sodom and
Gomorrah, in the case of Nineveh He did not destroy it,
since its citizens finally repented for (whichever) evil
deeds. In Genesis (18:24-33) God repeatedly confirmed that
even if there were only 10 righteous people in the cities,
He would not destroy them! In the first instance, the
inhabitants had no intention –nor did they show- any signs
of repenting. Notice however what God said in the case of
Nineveh: “10
God saw their (the inhabitants of Nineveh)
deeds -that they had turned from their evil ways- and God
changed His mind about the punishment which He had announced
to them (through the Prophet Jonah), and he
did not fulfill it.”
(Jonah 3:10)
“And Ionas was grieved with great grief and was
confounded. [...] 6 And the Lord God ordered a pumpkin vine
to sprout, and it climbed up over Ionas’s head to be a shade
over his head to shade him from his miseries. And Ionas was
greatly pleased about the pumpkin vine. 7And at the dawn of
the next day, God commanded a worm and it attacked the
pumpkin vine and it dried up. 8 And it happened when the sun
rose, God ordered a fiery wind that burned, and the sun
struck Ionas’ head; and he became faint and his soul was
troubled and he said: “it would be better if I had died”.
9Then God said to Ionas “were you so greatly saddened about
the pumpkin vine?” Ionas replied “I was exceedingly
saddened, to death”. 10
And the Lord said, “You felt sorry for a pumpkin vine, for
which you didn’t suffer, nor did you nurture it; which came
into being in the night, and in the night was lost.11 Should
I not then be saddened for Nineveh the great city, in which
live more than one hundred and twenty thousand people, who
could not discern their right hand from their left
(infants), and many beasts?”
(Jonah 4:1-11)
Notice how delicately God leads Jonah to think logically and
mercifully. Jonah did not need to remind God of the infants
of Nineveh; God reminded Jonah of them!
God is not a “cold-blooded executioner”; He is the
One who does not hesitate to rescind even His own command,
when people repent!
Some may ask why the entire population of a “sinful” nation
should be punished; but that is not exactly how things are.
1) In the Old Testament, the righteous and not sinful
individuals of an evil nation are warned in advance to
abandon their nation before God’s punishment falls upon it.
For example, the righteous Kinites were warned to
leave the Amalekites in 1 King.15:6, before God’s decision
for punishment was meted out upon the Amalekites; also, the
righteous Lot was warned to leave Sodom (Gen.19:12-16)
before its obliteration by God’s punishment. Lot’s
sons-in-law who did not take the warning seriously and
remained in Sodom, lost their lives through their own fault.
2) There was a gradation however, as to which nations were
to be exterminated and which were not.
Not all the nations were evil, to the degree of
undergoing genocide.
First notice what God said:
“10 Now if you draw near to a city to fight against
it, then you shall invite it to peace. 11 If it responds to
you peaceably and opens up to you, then all the people found
in it shall submit itself to you and serve you. 12 But if it
does not make peace with you but battles against you, then
you shall besiege it; 13
and after the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you
shall strike all of its males with knives; 14 and the women,
and the infants and the livestock and all that is found in
the city, all of its spoils you shall take for yourself, and
you shall eat the spoils of your enemies – all that the Lord
your God has given to you.”
(Deuteronomy
20:10-14)
We notice that God did not desire to punish those irreverent
nations with genocide. He punished them with vassalage – an
act that would lead them to the abolishment of idols, and to
their salvation. Also noteworthy is the fact that even when
those nations turned against God’s command for surrender,
only the males were exterminated – thus averting any chances
of future retaliation. In every case, He would exhaust all
possible options!
God’s objective was not the extermination of mankind; He
sought to exterminate the idolatry and the other sins of
those nations, which wrought so much evil in the world. That
is why He said: “52 and you shall
destroy all those who live in the land before you, and you
shall remove their watchtowers, and all their molten idols
you shall destroy them and all their steles you shall
remove. 53 And you shall destroy all the inhabitants of the
land, and you shall inhabit it, for to you I have given
their land as an allotment.
(Num.33:52,53.)
Also: “2 and the Lord your God shall deliver them into
your hands and you shall strike them - by annihilation you
shall annihilate them. You shall not establish a covenant
with them, nor shall you show them any mercy”
(Deuteronomy 7:2)
3) It was only for some of the peoples that inhabited Canaan
that God had initially commanded they be totally annihilated
(genocide), because there was no chance that they would
repent – something that the omniscient God was aware of.
However even for them, God had given them sufficient time
for them to repent – or, to become even more sinister and
thus be deserving of extermination!
But even while
remaining unrepentant for the duration of the Israelites’
wandering in the desert for 40 years and clearly showing
their intentions to occupy the land, they had ample time to
abandon their doomed land and save themselves and their
families.
6. Why did lawlessness have to be
eliminated?
God hates sin, not the sinner. Sin is like a corroded
ship. God says: “Abandon this one and get on the other, the
ship of virtue, because I am going to sink it before it
infects all of Creation”. But we stubbornly stay on it out
of selfishness. He continues to remind us, for a long time.
Eventually He is forced to destroy it and together with it
we too are doomed (to God’s regret).
Besides, in the Old Testament God says: “Why do you sin?
Don’t you know that it is to my sorrow to see you dying?
Don’t you see that death is the wages of sins?”. This is how
we can understand that God’s aim is the extinction of sin.
God will stop Sin out of love. Because if He doesn’t, His
Creation will degenerate…
This degeneration of Creation is the final “key” to
understanding. Man is the minister of Creation. He is part
of material Creation and at the same time he is the one
through whom Creation offers worship to God. Everything we
do has an impact on all of Creation. Our sinning causes it
to become corrupted, whereas with our sanctity we help it
remain perpetual. Sometimes,
with the authority that He has over our lives as Creator,
God is forced FOR THE SAKE OF THE REST
to give such a command, so as not to cause greater
and eternal harm to all. He always waits for the souls of
those who were slaughtered to be healed and saved.
During those times, the Holy Spirit was not in the
believers. There were no saints preserving the world with
their prayers, as in our time, and so sometimes it was
necessary to put an end to brutality, not only for the sake
of Creation but also for the sinners, who would only
increase in malice and their souls would be forever doomed.
As far as the total extermination is concerned, He had two
reasons:
1. No-one should be
left alive of that nation which would cause the continuation
of enmity against the Israelites, and
2. No remnant of idolatry should remain in the land where
the Israelites were to be settled, inasmuch as it would have
caused them to continue similar practices.
It is characteristic that the Israelites did not heed God's
warnings, but instead they showed mercy to some of the
nations which they were ordered to exterminate. This led to
their suffering of the consequences, which was that God
handed them over to the hands of their enemies, because they
ended up being idolaters. The Holy Bible
is clear on that
point and on the reasons according to which God commanded
the total annihilation of certain peoples:
“34 They did not destroy the nations, which the
Lord told them, 35 and they mingled with the nations and
served their sculptures, and it became a scandal for them.
37 And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the
demons. 38 and they spilled innocent blood, the blood of
their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the carved
images of Canaan, and the land was killed with bloods 39 And
it was defiled by their acts, and they fornicated in their
practices. 40 And the Lord became furiously angry with his
people, and he abhorred his heritage. 41 And he delivered
them into the hands of enemies, and those who hated them
ruled over them. 42 And their enemies oppressed them, and
they were humbled under their hands. 43 Many times he had
saved them, but they embittered him in their will and were
humbled in
their lawlessness....44 And he regarded them when they were
being afflicted, when he listened to their petition. 45 And
he remembered his covenant and showed regret for the
abundance of his mercy. 46 And he gave them over to be
pitied, before all who took them captive.”
(Psalms
105:34-46)
7. The death of innocents, including children
There is however one last point to which we owe an answer:
Most certainly it was just, that all those nations had to be
eliminated. But how were the children to blame?
Why did God command
their extermination also? Did God intend to save the
children from sacrifices, by... exterminating them? We shall
respond to these queries, immediately:
God did not intend to save specific children by killing
them. He wanted to STOP child sacrifices in general, both at
the time and for the future, because that way, many more
children than those who were exterminated would be saved in
future, given that if they had lived to grow up, they too
would have continued their parents’ practice of child
sacrifice.
Family members are not co-punished because of a father who
has sinned, but they do partake and must confront the
consequences of his actions - for better or for worse. This
basically is no different to what is happening today. For
example, when a family member becomes ill, the remaining
members who - albeit not ill - are not punished, but
nevertheless are also exposed to the illness of that one
individual and are obliged to take care of him, worry about
him etc., likewise the children of a drug addict are
deprived of all material well-being, since the family income
is squandered by the addicted father for narcotics.
The children of a murderer may end up orphaned if the
father is killed.
They likewise suffer the consequences of their
father’s evils and are the exclusive victims of their
parents’ foolishness and malice. No-one “punishes” the
children of a murderer, but they do suffer the consequences
that follow the murderer’s punishment. They are subjected to
the consequences of their parents’ mistakes. Similarly,
no-one punishes the children of a driver who causes the
death of persons killed in a car accident because of their
father’s careless driving.
The Creator and preserver of life has every authority over
the life of His creations, because He is the only one Who is
able to RESURRECT THEM – just as He promises to resurrect
even the irreverent inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah,
despite the fact that He himself had commanded the
destruction of their impious cities:
“Verily I say unto you, the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
will be more tolerated in the day of judgment, than that
city…“ (Mathew 10:15) and “ And
you, Capernaum, who was lifted up to heaven, will be brought
down to Hades; for if the powers that are being done in you
were made in Sodom, they have remained until this day. 24 except
I am telling you, the land of Sodom will be more tolerated
on the day of judgment rather than you.”
(Mathew 11:23-24)
Indeed, He never does anything to the detriment of His
creations. Even if they are disrespectful. Something may
temporarily seem evil to us, because of our limited visual
field in this life; but if we could see what happens after
death, and if we
knew what was to take place in the future age, after the
resurrection, we would be able to comprehend the
deeper reasons for a seemingly grotesque decision or a
command to execute, which was very rarely given by God for
certain reasons, either to people or angels.
According to Jesus, “not even one sparrow falls dead without
His will” and “even the hairs on our head are numbered”.
What does that mean? It of course means that not only
genocides, but that every kind of “misfortune” happens to
occur with His tolerance!
So, should we impute all the responsibilities for the
misfortunes of the world to God?
That depends on how each one perceives the matter.
A faithless person,
or someone with a servile mentality might say: “Of course if
God CAN do something but doesn’t, He is responsible”.
Those with a servile stance will say “If He does have
authority over our lives, and since He was the One who gave
it to us, He has all the authority to rescind it. And what’s
more, He also has the power to restore it”.
This last argument is especially reminiscent of "placating"
a dangerous God. We justify Him, not because we are
convinced He is not to blame, but because that is the way we
seek to placate Him, lest He become angry with us!
Those who see him as a Father will say: "If He
permits a certain misfortune to occur, He must have had a
reason." Because who can tell what kind of reward He has in
store for the poor unfortunate one who has suffered?
And who can tell what benefit the future holds for
the souls of others, from within that apparent misfortune?
I do not know (being but a simple individual) what else a
true “child” of His could say. However, despite seeing Him
as “personified Love”, I am posing my own question. (The
above were written in order to reach the following
question):
What can we say about those cases where God had given the
command for entire genocides? He had specifically ordered:
"Eliminate the old, the young and the children; exterminate
them all; show them no mercy!”, because things are different
here; God is not merely tolerating, but is clearly ordering
the death of people!
You might say that those peoples were corrupt; but weren’t
there any good individuals among the peoples who were
slaughtered? Surely just the thought of children here
is enough!
What happens when a good person dies? Doesn’t the God of
Love embrace him? Doesn’t He comfort him? Doesn’t He reward
him for the tribulations that he suffered in his life? If
one of us causes harm to someone, don’t we hasten to
compensate him, even if he happens to be a bad person – if
possible, even many times over?
How much more so, by
the God of Love! Can you imagine what kind of wages those
wronged people received, by the One who feeds even the
tiniest of birds?
Moreover, it is useful here to remember that with His
Resurrection the Lord freed and took up to the Paradise of
souls ALL the denizens of Hades who believed in Him – even
those who had died for their sins in Sodom! Everything that
happened to them in their lives, and even in Hades, was a
part of God's tutelage, which in time brought them to their
salvation.
On a more practical note now – even if with sheer logic:
Why genocide?
Well, because it has the briefest duration of grief!
How long does grief last in a genocide? From hours,
up to days. Afterwards, there will be no elders mourning
their children, or children who will be asking for their
mothers, or women mourning for their husbands. Nor will
there be slavery, tortures, or imprisonment. Only the agony
of death, up to the moment of death. And after death, a God
who is Love, who will soften the wounds of the slaughtered
souls. Which souls? The ones that died pursuant to His
commands - that is, the ones who died as martyrs or
witnesses!
And where is the difference between allowing someone to be
tortured, versus dying of natural causes or old age, if you
yourself (if you were God) ordered deaths to be as painless
as possible? I
believe the comparison is only theoretical – although the second case is
more merciful.
And if we were to calculate what God "owes" to the former
and what to the latter, we will see that the executed
ones will "receive" more than those who died of
natural causes.
Let’s now weigh the distress of a person during the few
hours prior to his execution, or the few days of the siege
of his city, against an eternity of reward by the God of
Love! I think the difference is incomparable!
In conclusion, the problem does not lie in whether God
ordered the execution of some (even if the lawlessness of
their people had reached its limits). The problem lies in
our own faithlessness, our own servility – because we only
look as far as death. Not afterwards.
And we tend to judge with deficient knowledge. We
also don’t think simply, for example: “If I, the villain,
cause harm to someone and then hasten to make amends, what
respectively does the God of Love do?
It is they who DON’T BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION who have
the problem, because they believe that everything finishes
with death. Hence, it is NOT God who ordered genocides that
has the problem, but those who do not believe and do not
trust His final, righteous judgment, His right over every
life, and the just reward after the resurrection. Any
rationalization of this matter must begin from there.
So, if one does NOT believe in God, in order to be
consistent with his faithlessness, he should likewise NOT
believe that this presumably "nonexistent" God had ordered
any genocide.
If again one BELIEVES in God, then in
order to be consistent with his faith, he is obliged to
likewise acknowledge that God has the unique RIGHT to
rescind the gift of life, from whichever of His creations He
deems necessary. More so, he is obliged to believe that the
God of love will not wrong anyone, but will also console the
souls of the deceased innocents and will grant them eternal
life during the general resurrection of both the righteous
and the unrighteous.
Translation E.M.
