The May 2008 edition of The New Oxford Review has an excellent article by Alice von Hildebrand entitled “The Natural vs. Ritual Laws”. She responds to a distinguished Jewish theologian’s thought that the Bible is “quite immoral” because God has ordered Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, Judges 1. Numerous examples of God’s ordering a people’s destruction can be found with perhaps the command to Abraham to sacrifice Issac most clearly indicating that the Bible can be viewed as immoral. Or can it? Everyone would agree that it is immoral to steal, takes someone’s property, because we do not possess it, it is not ours. Likewise we cannot take someone’s life because we do not own it, it is not ours. Isn’t God Truth itself? Isn’t He bound by the same moral order of natural law? As Hildebrand reminds us He is the Creator and we are creatures. He gives us life and He can withdraw the gift at anytime all completely within the moral order of natural law. When He ordered the destruction of the Canaanites He was not trespassing on His rights as all of Creation is His and He can dispose of it as He sees fit. Pretty tough for the man of our time to understand but that is our problem not His.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Order of Things
The May 2008 edition of The New Oxford Review has an excellent article by Alice von Hildebrand entitled “The Natural vs. Ritual Laws”. She responds to a distinguished Jewish theologian’s thought that the Bible is “quite immoral” because God has ordered Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, Judges 1. Numerous examples of God’s ordering a people’s destruction can be found with perhaps the command to Abraham to sacrifice Issac most clearly indicating that the Bible can be viewed as immoral. Or can it? Everyone would agree that it is immoral to steal, takes someone’s property, because we do not possess it, it is not ours. Likewise we cannot take someone’s life because we do not own it, it is not ours. Isn’t God Truth itself? Isn’t He bound by the same moral order of natural law? As Hildebrand reminds us He is the Creator and we are creatures. He gives us life and He can withdraw the gift at anytime all completely within the moral order of natural law. When He ordered the destruction of the Canaanites He was not trespassing on His rights as all of Creation is His and He can dispose of it as He sees fit. Pretty tough for the man of our time to understand but that is our problem not His.
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