Murder and destruction are always evil.
In the Old Testament God himself
ordered such acts (e.g. Joshua).
Conclusion:
The God of the Old Testament did
evil things.
Leaving aside the various approaches biblical scholars might
attempt, the first problem with such objections is that God is being treated as
a human subject. If a human person were
to cause the end of another person’s life, then I would have to agree that the
action was indeed murder and intrinsically evil. Of course this conclusion is based on the
injustice of the action. An innocent
person has been given life and no other human person has the right to deprive
him of it. But, can you really make such
a statement about God? Would God’s
action be unjust if He were to end a person’s life? Was not God the cause of that life
originally? Why would we assume that a
man, who is not the cause of his own existence, has some “right” to retain it
even if God says otherwise? This
argument also makes a lot of assumptions concerning the innocence of the
alleged victims. Some times people can
fall into the mistake of attempting to force there own option of right and
wrong upon the almighty based upon their perception of the situation. Our first parents tried this in the third chapter
of Genesis. Ultimately, such judgment
will always fall short because as human beings we really don’t understand what
it is to be divine and only have a partial grasp of notions of aspects of God
such as divine goodness, justice, and beauty.
God himself confirms this: “For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the
heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my
thoughts above your thoughts. (Issaih 55:8-9)”
As mere creatures, we are really in no position to stand in
judgment of our creator, to judge the action of He who is the source of all
goodness and virtue. In such matters it
is alright to seek understanding, but we should not try to become a judge where
we should be a student.