Was God in the OT "cruel"?

[Apologist]

In the times of the Old Testament, God had commanded the extermination of some Canaanite tribes that had inhabited a few particular places. For centuries, these people practiced incest, sodomy, bestiality and human sacrifice. Parents used to burn their firstborn children alive in order to honor demonic “gods” such as Baal. This infinite orgy had to be stopped!

One of the Saints of our times, the Blessed Elder Paisios, says: “In the Old Testament it is mentioned that God told the Israelites, “Send the Canaanites completely away from this land”. God knew better than us what should have been done. But they said, “That isn’t very nice. Let’s leave them. Let’s not kill them”. Later, though, they were lead to immorality and idolatry, and they sacrificed their children to idols, as it says in the book of Psalms. God knows what He is doing.”

The Lord decided that it is better to place those few Canaanite children in the joy of Paradise, than to leave them in this world. As for the animals, they had to be killed so that there might be boundaries to the Jews’ greediness. This shows how silly the speculation, that the Jews “invented” God for their own benefit, is. God never torments innocent people! As we see in the book of Job, He simply allows them to be tempted. Thus, it is clear that these infants died painlessly. The same applies to all the animals killed or sacrificed at His command in the Old Testament, since He loves animals too (Genesis 2:19-20, Exodus 23:11-12, Deuteronomy 22:6-7 and 25:4, Psalms 36:7, 103:21-30, 135:25,145:9,15-17 and 146:9, Proverbs 12:10, Isaiah 11:6-9, Jonah 4:11, Matthew 6:26, Luke 12:6, Romans 8:21). Even when God Himself commands someone’s punishment, He punishes only the guilty (Deuteronomy 20:16, Ezekiel 18:20), even if sometimes the innocent deal with the sins’ consequences. And, of course, Heaven is no punishment for the infants!

Above all, we must trust Him who acts only on account of His love for us. God is Love (1 John 4:8)! Anyway, if He were a sadist, would He become incarnate in order to suffer beyond imagination for our sake?

[TomS]

Sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself.

The contradictions between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the new are many. Who knows why? I certainly can't seemt to get an answer to this question.

[Apologist]

Sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself.

The contradictions between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the new are many. Who knows why? I certainly can't seemt to get an answer to this question.

My dear brother Tom, there are no contradictions. Killing is a crime, unless it is the Lord's desicion! The Lord is Almighty both in the Old and in the New Testaments!

"See now that I AM, and there is no god but ME: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever." (Deuteronomy 32:40)

Did Jesus say something different?

[Schism Jumper]

Tom, perhaps the best way to explore this then would be for you to give one of these contradictions?

The contradictions between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the new are many.

[TomS]

We go from a God in the Old Testament who achieved his goals through the nation of Israel through the death and destruction of non-believers, to a God in the New Testament who abhors ANY type of violence toward one's fellow man. How is this explained?

Why is an Orthodox Priest no longer allowed to serve if he even inadvertently kills someone? If killing can be because of a command from God - who are we to say that the Priest was not acting on a command from God? If killing and destruction of non-believers was commanded by God in the Old Testament, why is it not now IF GOD IS THE SAME ?

[savva26]

God's Law

The task of man's earthly life is preparing himself for eternal salvation and beatitude. To attain this, a man must live in a holy and pure manner - that is, according to God's will.

How can one recognize this will of God? First of all, in one's conscience, which for this reason, is called God's voice in the soul of man. If the fall had not darkened the human soul, man would be able unerringly and firmly to direct the path of his life according to the dictates of his conscience, in which the inner moral law is expressed. We know, however, that in a sinful man, not only are the mind, heart and will damaged, but the conscience is also darkened and its judgment and voice have lost their firm clearness and strength. It is not without reason that some people are called unconscionable.

Therefore, conscience alone - the inner voice - became insufficient for man to live and act according to God's will. The need arose for an external guide, for a God-revealed law. Such a law was given by God to people in two aspects: first, the preparatory - the Old Testament law of Moses - then the full and perfect Gospel law.

There are two distinguishable parts in Moses' law: the religious-moral and the national-ceremonial which was closely tied with the history and way of life of the Jewish nation. The second aspect is gone into the past for Christians, that is, the national-ceremonial rules and laws, but the religious-moral laws preserve their force in Christianity. Therefore, all the ten commandments in the law of Moses are obligatory for Christians. Christianity has not altered them. On the contrary, Christianity has taught people to understand these commandments, not externally - literalistically, in the manner of blind, slavish obedience, and external fulfillment, but it has revealed the full spirit and taught the perfect and full understanding and fulfillment of them. For Christians, however, Moses' law has significance only because its central commandments (the ten which deal with love of God and neighbors) are accepted and shown forth by Christianity. We are guided in our life not by this preparatory and temporary law of Moses, but by the perfect and eternal law of Christ. St Basil the Great says, "If one who lights a lamp before himself in broad daylight seems strange, then how much stranger is one who remains in the shadow of the law of the Old Testament when the Gospel is being preached." The main distinction of the New Testament law from that of the Old Testament consists in that the Old Testament law looked at the exterior actions of man, while the New Testament law looks at the heart of man, at his inner motives. Under the Old Testament law, man submitted himself to God as a slave to his master, but under the New Testament, he strives toward submitting to Him as a son submits to a beloved father.

There is a tendency to regard the Old Testament law incorrectly. Some see no good in it, but only seek out features of coarseness and cruelty. This is a mistaken view. It is necessary to take into consideration the low level of spiritual development at which man then stood thousands of years ago. Under the conditions of the times, with truly coarse and cruel morals, those rules and norms of Moses' law which now seem cruel to us (e.g., "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," etc.) in reality were not such. They did not, of course, destroy human cruelty and vengeance (only the Gospel could do this), but they did restrain it and establish firm and strict limits upon it. Moreover, it must be remembered that those commandments about love toward God and neighbors, which the Lord indicated as the most important, are taken directly from the law of Moses (Mk. 12:29-31). The Holy Apostle Paul says of this law, "The law, therefore, is holy and each commandment is holy, just and good" (Rom. 7:12).

[From Blessed Metropolitan Philaret's treatise "On the Law of God"]

[TomS]

Interesting viewpoint. I will have to think about this for a while.