Gunning for God (20 page)

NTC 9
. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience: do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

It was none other than Jesus Christ who warned us about the blind leading the blind.
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NTC 10
. Question everything.

This is very similar to NTC 8. One of the very striking things about the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is the frequency with which he asked questions and stimulated others to ask them.

This brief survey shows at once that the basic morality that Dawkins approves of is broadly Christian in terms both of its moral injunctions regarding our attitudes to others and its advice. In light of this, Dawkins’ statement elsewhere (in the same book), that “no one takes their morality from the Bible”,
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is unconvincing. After all, the bulk of his own stated morality is, in the main, biblical; and he has just told us that “most people, religious or not, subscribe to the same moral principles”. I can only think, therefore, that what he must mean by this is that there are some moral attitudes in the Bible that he finds unacceptable. That is a rather different matter that we must now consider; but it must not be allowed to obscure the fact that Dawkins, like most other people — in the West at least — is deeply indebted to the Bible for his morality.

ISSUES OF OLD TESTAMENT MORALITY

The fact that the New Atheists’ morality, as expressed above, corresponds with that found in the Bible, however, is eclipsed for them by certain things that they find unacceptable, particularly in the Old Testament: the invasion of the Canaanites by Israel, the institution of slavery, and various judicial penalties, in particular that of stoning for adultery.

Moreover, since New Atheist criticism of the Old Testament is based on moral values that are themselves essentially found in that same Old Testament, the questions that the New Atheists raise also trouble many Christians. Take the invasion of Canaan, for instance. According to the Old Testament, Joshua, a commander of the forces of Israel, was instructed by God through Moses to attack the Canaanite tribes that occupied the land. Moses commanded the Israelites: “And when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.”
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The result was: “So Joshua and all his warriors came suddenly against them… and fell upon them… They struck them until he left none remaining.”
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This action appears to violate the biblical commandment to love the stranger, and to be inconsistent with the existence of a God who is said to be compassionate and loving.

This incident raises the wider problems of the existence of moral evil, pain, and suffering. Quite apart from the Canaanites, innocent people still suffer horribly, and many are killed every day in many parts of the world, both as a direct result of the evil of others and in consequence of natural disasters and disease.

I hasten to say at once that the twin problems of evil and pain are the most difficult that Christians (but not only Christians) face — both theoretically and practically. These are, after all, the reasons that many give for jettisoning belief in God altogether. It would be wholly wrong, however, to imagine that the New Atheists are the first to have thought of these objections, although sometimes that is the impression given. Serious minds have wrestled with the problem of evil since the dawn of history. All of us still do. Indeed, is there anyone of us who is not affected by them?

Let me be personal for a moment. In the same year as my own life was saved at the last moment by skilful medical intervention, my sister lost her (just) married 22-year-old daughter through a malignant brain tumour. If I thank God for my recovery, what shall I say to my sister? Or to my brother who, some years ago, was nearly killed and permanently injured by a terrorist bomb in Northern Ireland? Yet, my niece who died was a Christian; her husband has not lost his faith in God; neither has my sister, nor my brother. So there must be something to be said by those that suffer, rather than merely by those who philosophize about it. We shall need to listen to them.

THE CANAANITE INVASION AND ITS MORAL CONTEXT

Of course some will say: why do we need to think about the Canaanites at all? After all, this invasion took place centuries before Christianity started, and so is scarcely relevant to the confrontation between the New Atheism and Christianity.

Well, it is true that the invasion of Canaan is by definition historically pre-Christian. It is also true that there are important distinctions between the Old Testament and the New. For instance, ancient Israel was a theocracy — a physical nation that, according to the Bible, was chosen by God as a major and special witness for him in the world. There is no such nation today; for, as we have seen, Christ pointed out to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world, so that his servants did not fight. For this reason the specifically Christian injunctions are very different from some found in the Old Testament.

However, although there are clear discontinuities between the Old and the New Testament, it is equally clear that there are continuities. In particular, the Bible teaches that there is only one God. There are not two: one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. Nor are there two sets of moral commandments. In one form or another, each of the Ten Commandments, apart from the Sabbath law, is repeated in the New Testament for Christians. Thus, the New Atheists are justified in regarding the Old Testament depiction of the nature of God as relevant to the discussion.

One point we should clear out of the way, before looking at the specifics of the invasion of Canaan, is this. Just because an incident is recorded in the Bible, it does not mean that God (or anyone else) necessarily approves of it. What took place is sometimes simply recorded without moral comment. On other occasions, like King David’s adultery with Bathsheba, the incident is first related, and the (negative) moral comment comes later.

However, this is
not
the case with the invasion of Canaan. It is not related in some obscure part of the Bible without moral comment. The very reverse is the case. In fact, the instructions to Israel, concerning what was to be done to the Canaanites when Israel entered the land, are to be found in one of the major books in the Old Testament devoted to matters of ethics, morality, and justice; indeed to the very moral laws that we have just been discussing. It is the book of Deuteronomy. It is this book that says that God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing”.
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To put the point even more sharply: the Bible does not seem to be embarrassed in juxtaposing a discussion of the lofty morality of “love your neighbour as yourself” with the command to invade the Canaanites, even though this action seems to conflict with the Bible’s own understanding of justice.

The reason for this lack of embarrassment is that, according to Deuteronomy,
the action taken against the Canaanites was morally justifiable.
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The ground is explicitly given: “Because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is driving them out from before you.”
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Now before we simply dismiss this, as the New Atheists do, as an example of whitewashing what is nothing but brutal ethnic cleansing, we should notice several things.

Firstly, the action contemplated is exceptional in terms of the biblical record as a whole. In this same book (Deuteronomy, chapter 20) the rules of war that are to characterize Israel are set out. For their time they are remarkably humanitarian. For instance, men were excused military duty if they had just become engaged, bought a house, planted a vineyard, or even if they were just fearful (20:5—8). In addition, war was only justifiable as a last resort. In the first instance the army was commanded to sue for peace wherever possible (20:10). And when they did go to war, it is noteworthy that women and children were to be spared; and the army was not permitted to engage in wanton destruction of the trees. Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, points out that the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain the world’s first environmental legislation.
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Moreover, Deuteronomy, like Leviticus, does not teach Dawkins’ mythical “in-group” morality. It contains specific instructions to ensure the fair and just treatment of foreigners (‘sojourners’, as the Bible calls them). Indeed, in a section devoted to the impartiality of God’s judgment, we actually find an explicit injunction to
love
foreigners. The text says of God that: “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner also, since you were sojourners in Egypt.”
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The fact that the invasion of Canaan does not appear at first sight to have been characterized either by the normal rules of war or by these customary positive attitudes to aliens, shows that it was a very exceptional occurrence indeed.

Secondly, the invasion of Canaan is regarded as a judgment of God on the evils of these nations. “Every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.”
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That is, these tribes went in for a particularly cruel and brutal form of idolatry that not only violated the first three of the Ten Commandments but also involved that most horrific of all pagan rites, child sacrifice, one of the most degrading practices that has ever existed.

Thirdly, God had been patient with the tribes engaged in these evil practices for several centuries. Indeed, in the famous vision that Abraham had concerning his posterity, he was told that his descendants would spend 400 years in a land that “is not theirs” (Egypt) before they would be brought into the land of the Amorites. The reason given is that “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete”.
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In other words, the invasion of Canaan coincided with the judgment of God on the sheer evil of a group of tribes that had been brewing for centuries.

Fourthly, the invasion was not to be based on any assumed feeling of national moral superiority. In fact, the people of Israel were explicitly told of the dangers of such an attitude: “Do not say in your heart after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these people that the Lord is driving them out before you.”
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Fifthly, the nation of Israel was not to regard itself as God’s favourites who could do no wrong. Moses explicitly warned them that the very same judgment that fell on the Canaanites would fall upon them, if they themselves got involved in similar cruel idolatries. “And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
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History confirms to us that this is exactly what happened. The ten northern tribes of Israel disobeyed God’s injunctions and were taken captive by Assyria; and later Judah followed suit and was overcome by Babylon — just as Moses and the prophets had predicted.

It follows that it is simplistic and inaccurate to regard the invasion of Canaan as ethnic cleansing by a war-thirsty antagonist. It also follows that, if we are to criticize the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites, we must by the same token take the same attitude to the subsequent invasions of Israel by the Assyrians and Babylonians.

However, there is another consideration. I have already drawn attention to the fact that, for Christians, it is the Bible’s own understanding of justice that leads to questions about the morality of the invasion of Canaan. Could it just be that our difficulty with the biblical statements on this topic is that we misunderstand their meaning? Could it be that Deuteronomy is not embarrassed to juxtapose a high morality of protection of the weak and defenceless, for the simple reason that the action taken did not violate that morality? If that is the case, we next need to ask: how exactly would Joshua have understood the command to “utterly destroy” the Canaanites?

Let us consider first another phrase that seems to be all-inclusive. Think, for instance, of the meaning of the phrase “all Israel” in the following examples: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan”;
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“When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord”;
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“Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him”;
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“Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice”.
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It is surely clear that the phrase “all Israel” should not be interpreted in the literalistic sense of “every single person in Israel without exception”. For instance, many Israelites would not have been able to attend the ceremonies mentioned because of other duties, some would have been ill, and so on. In other words, the phrase is to be interpreted in the natural sense of “a substantial representation”. We use this kind of language today: “All of London came to the Princess of Wales’ funeral.” We know exactly what this means: no one would think of interpreting it literalistically.