u/Independent_Kale2922

Problem of divine genocide from 1 Sameul 15

Translation: NRSVUE. Priors: God is the greatest possible being.

thesis statement: the Bible makes an significant error in portraying god which calls into question if the Bible (or at least in 1 Samuel) is the word of god.

Problem of divine genocide from 1 Sameul 15

Translation: NRSVUE. Priors: God is the greatest possible being.

Problem 1: argubly bad decision

Why would a perfect god kill infants when he can adopt them into his group? The bible depicts god as killing infants 1 sameul 15:3 (Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”)

But why would a perfect god do that? He wasn't forced to and it were his words that called for their death’s, not the people's own ambitions. He could have asked the people to not kill them but rather adopt them into Israel and make them into virtuous people subordinate to him, an act that would’ve increased virtue and morality, it would've given way for great people to arise and could've even sent a message on how that god accepts all regardless of background. However he called for their deaths. Why would a perfect being rather have a seemingly barbaric way of handling the children? He clearly had much better and viable options that he turned down.

To close this point out: why did a perfect being choose to kill the creatures he could have made virtuous sons and daughters of his group?

Problem 2: text contradiction.

The bible tells us that god started the genocide as punishmeant on the amelikites: 1 samuel 15:2-3 (Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”)

but there is an issue, disregarding (sins of the past affected the amlikes at that time) how could god punish infants and livestock if they are not culpable for any actions they could commit? (not that livestock or infants can do much of anything anyway). It's not as if all the livestock had malicious intentions and the babies endorsed any evil that would have happened in the amelikite culture. They can't do, judge or endorse anything that would merit any form of judgment upon them. The text seems to be stating that God is judging the unjudgable. That is a problem, that is like a toddler being sentenced to death row for the actions of their great grandparents. If the kids and livestock arent being judged then the text is false

If a book that can portray god so incorrectly as a seemingly moral monster can be one in the collection of inspired books (that make up the bible)

Potential Counters

“The text is ancient war hyperbole”

There is an issue with this and it's that this defense seems to contradict the narrative let's look at the command itself

1 Samuel 15:3 (Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”) if this is war hyperbole we would expect it to not include camels and donkeys because they can't be judged. However the text states 1 samuel 15:9 (Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the cattle and of the fatted calves,[a] and the lambs, and all that was valuable and would not utterly destroy them; all that was despised and worthless they utterly destroyed.)

So this means the only animals spared were the good animals, however this creates an issue because when Saul spared the animals he got in trouble by God 1 Samuel 15:11 (“I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all night.) So that means the original command vouched for total destruction of all the animals, if the animals were supposed to be fully (all of them) destroyed why should we expect that in that same breath god meant for the children to be ancient war hyperbole?Problem of divine genocide from 1 Sameul 15

Thesis statement: The problem of divine hiddenness could be explained by the value in intellectual flourishing

Priors (this argument starts with the assumption(s) that non resistant non believers will not be damned for their lack of belief. It starts with the prior of a C.S Lewis esque afterlife, were the only way to be separated from god would to be a full rejection, aka a resistant non believer)

Problem of divine hiddenness:

The problem can be briefly explained as this

P1: A loving god would want relationships with humans

P2: There are humans that don’t have a genuine relationship with god despite either wanting to have one or not resisting one.

P3: Why doesn’t god make himself know to non resistant non believers?

I would argue that religious/philosophical discourse is valuable, considering your reading this you probably find it valuable also. Such discourse allows the mind to grow and flourish and we have seen such happen throughout the centuries. Countless great minds from all “sides” everyone from Oppy to Plantinga. We can conclude that there is an undeniable value in religious discourse, it contributes to intellectual flourishing and growth.

However if god wasn't hidden those values we get from intellectual flourishing and growth would be undermined, there would be a gram oppy, nor a plantinga, there would be practically no arguments, no problem of evil, no cosmological argument. There would be a very significant hole in our intellectual fields. Why would god prevent that here in our world? Under the prior i established he will just make himself known to us in 70 years, more or less

So why would god prevent the value of a significant field in philosophy (and possibly downgrade other fields in the same way) when he can just wait 70 years and form a definitive connection with believers and non resistant non believers alike. In this case god can have his cake and eat it too, so why wouldn't he?

Possible objections:

1: “suffering caused by god’s hiddenness" an argument like that would probably say that the suffering outweighs the good, however that seems to develop into an entirely different argument being the problem of suffering and it seems to merit its own response. If god was not hidden i think most evil and suffering wouldn't happen (depending on how he would be revealed to us if he were not hidden, but even if he just proved he was god in a incarnate body he would still have significant influence on the world and evil would at least be greatly reduced) so it seems to change the question indirectly from “is the good worth it?” to “why does god allow suffering” which is the main reason i would rather give that it's own dedicated responses

2: “we could still have rational inquiry”

This could be true, however we wouldn't have a significant portion of inquiry about god, as there would be nothing that challenges his existence, at best we could have disagreement about some religious particulars. But as far as the why goes there would be little contention.

The Bible makes an egregious error in portraying god: Argument from genocide