What about the violent acts of God, both past and future? (That is, is nonviolence at the heart of God, or are we nonviolent because only God can be righteously violent?)
-Xanga Council of Christian Pacifists
Answer:Provided by
SirNickDonA problem that Christian advocates of nonviolence often face is that the God of scripture seems not to be an advocate of nonviolence. While violence in the church (the Crusades, the killing of Quakers) can be fairly blamed on a departure from following the way of Christ, the violence God enacts throughout scripture (flooding the earth, striking Ananias and Sapphira dead, the book of Revelation) cannot be simply explained away.
This is made more problematic when several passages in the New Testament specifically call the disciple to imitate God while simultaneously calling for a nonviolent life. Matthew 5 tells us to love indiscriminately, just as God sends the rain and sun to both the good and evil. Ephesians 5 explicitly calls us to "be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us."
So which is it? Do we live nonviolently with God as our example, because God has revealed himself in Christ to be a God of nonviolent, even suffering, love? Or do we live nonviolently because we trust God alone to be righteously violent? What's more, how can it be true that the fullness of the deity is revealed in Christ, if Christ's nonviolence is in primary contradiction to God's character?
Here are some observations.
There is no problem.
If I was a sculptor, I would be in a position to destroy every work I've ever made, and nobody could hold me to moral account. But let anyone else destroy what I've made, and I will be justifiably upset. God can exercise violence and take life as he will, and also command the church to refrain from taking life. The shortcomings of this observation are obvious, however. It may leave humans with no more dignity than a sculpture, for one. It also does not deal with the imitation texts mentioned above, or the problem of an internally inconsistent Godhead. So we need to think deeper.
A 'nonviolent God' would be a nightmare for the world.
While many Christian thinkers, including especially pacifists and Girardians, argue that God is fundamentally "a nonviolent deity," theologian Miroslav Volf, also a committed pacifist, has consistently and passionately argued against this understanding. To those who would claim God to be a pacifist, Volf offers this challenge. Imagine:
[Y]ou are delivering a lecture in a war zone. Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned, and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: A Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect non-coercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.
According to Volf, God's wrath is an aspect of God's love. "If Go would not be angry at the injustice of the world, and act to punish it, then God would not be worthy of human worship."
But 'violence' is not accurate to God either.
Willard Swartley has argued compellingly that while scripture uses the term 'violence' in its various forms quite commonly, the term is never applied to God's actions except in two questionable cases (Job 19:7, Jer. 20:8). Rather, violence always figures as that which is enacted against God and his people, and as that to which God responds. Even an act of judgment like the flood is enacted specifically against violence, as God acts because "the earth was filled with violence."
According to Swartley, this shows that "God stands against violence, and violence is precisely that which ignites God's wrath and brings divine punishment upon humans. If we choose to call that violence and attribute it to God, we have slipped a step exegetically, failing to recognize a fundamental fact about Scripture: God "hates the lover of violence."
Distinction precedes imitation
That the New Testament calls disciples to imitate the character of God (which is not 'violent,' but which is actively opposed to violence) is secondary to the duty of not wanting to be God. Volf, again: "Preserving the fundamental difference between God and nonGod, the biblical tradition insists that there are things which only God may do." One of them is to exercise wrath (Rom 12).
The prohibition of idolatry is just as fundamental, perhaps more so, than the prohibition of exercising violence.
But Mennonite theologian James Reimer argues that the distinction does not negate the call for imitation.
God's means of achieving the ultimate reconciliation of all things are not immediately evident to us. God cannot be subjected to our interpretation of the non-violent way of Jesus. Our commitment to the way of the cross (reconciliation) is not premised on God's pacifism or non-pacifism. It is precisely because God has the prerogative to give and take life that we do not have the right... We o not avoid the reality of violence in ourselves and in our world, but we side with the dynamic power of peace and reconciliation which is mysteriously at work in the scrabble game of life, knowing that ultimately all things rest in God's providential and loving hands.
My thoughts, then.
To summarize, I believe that Christians are called to trust in God enough to allow God to be God, while we follow the example of suffering love put forward in Christ. We are only able to do this because we know that God ultimately settles all debts and puts all things right. Paradoxically, we know the center of God's victory is the self-relinquishment and suffering love of Christ.
You may think this may seem as much like a non-answer as an answer, and I think you may be right. But for now all I can do is live in the paradox that "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."
What are your thoughts on Christian pacifism in light of the fact that God, at least in the past, has shown Himself to be violent? Do you believe the two can co-exist?
Comments (49)
Most people love peace. Christianity is the greatest force for peace in world history.
But all of this is well and good until we come up against a homicidal maniac. Love of self and love of neighbor demand that the murdering rampager be put down by whatever means possible.
You very conveniently avoid all the violent references in the Old Testament concerning war and justice. I think the departure of the NT from explicit violence is because the NT isn't concerned with a theocratic demonstration of law/government but of believer lifestyle. So while I don't think individual Christian lifestyle or even culture should advocate violence, secular government (and even a Christian's endorsement of certain areas of secular government) is not necessarily subject to the same restrictions, again in the sense of force as necessary to restrain evil.
@WasaiWarrior@xanga - Isaiah 57:16. "I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the
spirit of man would grow faint before me--the breath of man that I have
created." God in the Old Testament was angry and was an accuser and now he isn't. He said that would happen.
So, God can kill hoards of people, but his 'children' must be peaceful, loving creatures. Hah. I would say a double standard.
Do tell, can anyone, even God, justify killing innocents?
Jesus would never have killed. OT&NT are two distinct gods, it seems.
And I fear no Christian can ever answer my questions.
@Faerie_In_Combat_Boots@xanga - "I fear no Christian can ever answer my questions."
This seems to be a common phenomenon, ha.
And the subject is one of my favorites. Of course, God is all-loving and we should supposedly accept him into our hearts through the free will and love (or versions of such that he apparently provided and defines on his own terms), provided that the consequence of not doing so is being eternally tortured by the said all-loving God.
reeeeeeeeeeeeligion!
Of course, the rationalization is that the new testament God is different. The Christians have rewritten him so the masses can go back to sleep and have their opiates again.
:)
@When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - Hahaha. Karl Marx, ftw. But my question is why? [...I suppose it'll always remain so...heh...]
@Faerie_In_Combat_Boots@xanga - @When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - Do tell, can anyone, even God, justify killing innocents?
Jesus would never have killed. OT&NT are two distinct gods, it seems.
And I fear no Christian can ever answer my questions.
First, you have asked only one question that is easily answered. It is such a simple question that anyone can answer it, not only a Christian.
Since God is the Creator he is free to define what is good and evil, what is innocent and guilty. So it is impossible for God to commit an immoral act.
By placing moral constraints on God you are assuming Godlike powers of judgement. Such is arrogance. And such arrogance is dangerous because if you place yourself in judgement of God, you place yourself in judgement of everything and everybody.
You have then proclaimed yourself arbitor of what is moral and immoral, innocent and guilty. Therefore, it is impossible for you to commit an immoral act.
Such is the thinking of mass murdering tyrants. You may welcome yourself to a very special, totally insane crowd of thugs.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - "Since God is the Creator he is free to
define what is good and evil, what is innocent and guilty. So it is
impossible for God to commit an immoral act."
Really. So if god tortured kittens and filmed the act, selling the footage to neonazis in order to fund child prostitution rings, and you knew for a fact that it was actually God behind this, it would make it A-okay?
"By placing moral constraints on God you are
assuming Godlike powers of judgment. Such is arrogance. And such
arrogance is dangerous because if you place yourself in judgment of
God, you place yourself in judgment of everything and everybody."
Having the basic ethics to be moral on your own, without big brother watching or fear/rewards after death, is NOT arrogance. Not basing your world view on books written by ancient tribesmen is not arrogant either.
"Such is the thinking of mass murdering tyrants. You may welcome yourself to a very special, totally insane crowd of thugs."
The God of the bible is a mass-murdering tyrant.
@When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - So if god tortured kittens and filmed the act, selling the footage to neonazis in order to fund child prostitution rings, and you knew for a fact that it was actually God behind this, it would make it A-okay?
The original question pertained to the actual actions of God as told in the Bible. Your arrogance is on display again with your attempt to slander him with your own personal perversion.
God's actions concerning mankind have salvation as their objective. According to Judeo-Christianity God began his plan of salvation with the Hebrews.
So to brand God's salvific actions as immoral is itself immoral since God's actions are good.
@When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - Having the basic ethics to be moral on your own, without big brother watching or fear/rewards after death, is NOT arrogance.
Your comments demonstrate that you are only moral because you define yourself that way.
If you have any morals at all it is because you absorbed them from the Judeo-Christian society you live in.
Christian living has nothing to do with big brother watching or fear/rewards after death. You are projecting your own debased, tyrannical thinking on something you clearly know nothing about.
Christianity is about true freedom and happiness. It is about love and source of love: God.
What a bigggggg issue as other posts show testament. I would like to add a couple of thoughts on this:
"Willard Swartley has argued compellingly that while
scripture uses the term 'violence' in its various forms quite commonly,
the term is never applied to God's actions except in two questionable
cases (Job 19:7, Jer. 20:8). Rather, violence always figures as that
which is enacted against God and his people, and as that to which God
responds. Even an act of judgment like the flood is enacted
specifically againstviolence, as God acts because "the earth was filled with violence." "
This reminds me of a Chinese 'wisdom' parable. Something about ...... A Chinese wise man was sitting under a tree debating with an arrogant young man about the nature of human suffering, the young man asks him "If i stand and slap your face will it be my hand that causes the pain or your cheek telling your mind that i slapped you" The wise man says "it is all the same to my face which will feel it."
Think i got that mixed up but the point is that Swartley is arguing semantics it matters little to the person to whom pain is done whether or not it is God's Judgement, or God's response. If God is the causer then the end result is the same.
I don't know how even God can cause the death of innocent children (I am not counting the 'original sin' thing into that) yet it does seem at various points that that is what has happened. I told the Israelites to go into the land and kill the men women and children of the lands in front of them. ( Exodus 23:23).
I don't have any good answers here, I do think that talk of God killing kittens is childish though. I do thank God that his love for me doesn't depend on how much I understand Him. Just as well. I think that what suits us best is to practice doing the little bit we know to be right and ask God to reveal stuff to us as ans when He thinks appropriate. (I admit to being impatient myself though)
Grace and Peace. Paul
@LoBornlyte@xanga -
"If you have any morals at all it is because you absorbed them from the Judeo-Christian society you live in. "
care to explain the Code of Hammurabi?
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - care to explain the Code of Hammurabi?
You have already testified to absorbing a virulent distortion of Christianity. That surely did not come from the Code of Hammurabi.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems as though you're citing Judeo-Christian morality as the source for Western ethics. i just wanted to know if you have any comments on the similarities between it and the Code of Hammurabi, which is as old as the Jewish law code, of not older.
i think a lot of passages detailing violence ("holy wars," for example) in the old testament tell us nothing but what we should already know: how easy it is for people to get an idea in their head and become convinced that this is god's will. "god told me to kill my son on this altar." "god told me to stone to death the people who are different from me." "god told me to wipe out an entire race." in no way does that mean that god condones such actions, any more than god stands behind the genocides happening today.
a couple months ago, my college class at church was trying to reconcile the violent old testament with the image of the prince of peace. it really scared me because pretty much everyone there came to the conclusion that the genocide discussed in the bible was tragic but morally defensible because god had ordered it, and god has a reason for everything, and sometimes we just have to trust god. the ideas they were uttering were NO DIFFERENT from those of the muslim suicide bombers they both fear and hate.@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - but it seems as though you're citing Judeo-Christian morality as the source for Western ethics.
I am indeed. The Founding Fathers never quoted Hammurabi that I am aware of. They did however refer to the Ten Commandments and the Jews as the greatest civilizing factor in history.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - Western civilization goes further back than America.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - Western civilization goes further back than America.
America is the pinnacle of Western Civilization. The Founders were incredible intellects and were great students of history.
I'm under the impression that the OT was distorted by nationalism, and that Jesus showed what God actually wanted and not what a nation wanted God to want.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - that's irrelevant when discussing the foundations.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - that's irrelevant when discussing the foundations.
That the Founders were incredible intellects and were great students of history is totally relevant. They founded the greatest nation in history because of their knowledge and wisdom.
America just didn't happen. It was designed. And woven into the fabric of America was Judeo-Christianity.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - i'm talking about the beginnings of Western civilization, not it's culmination as you view it.
@LoBornlyte@xanga - "The original question pertained to the
actual actions of God as told in the Bible. Your arrogance is on
display again with your attempt to slander him with your own personal
perversion."
You (yet again) missed the point completely. Either that or you ducked the ducked question because you know deep down that it's sublimely silly to draw the line between good and evil to be at the questional accounts of actions of a cosmic entity for which there is no evidence for whatsoever.
"If you have any morals at all it is because you absorbed them from the Judeo-Christian society you live in."
LOL! This literally made me spit out some of my tea. Judeo-Christian morals are very dated and often simply atrocious (for details, see the genocide, racism, misogyny, et cetera of your own god of your own bible). Western morals are still tainted with racism, homophobia, sexism, us-versus-them mentality, et cetera. Personally, I'm more moral than that.
The idea that western civilization is in anyway morally privilaged over the rest of the world is simply the right mixture of historical/global ignorance and flag-waving nonsense.
@Faerie_In_Combat_Boots@xanga - Take a look at Jesus as revealed in Revelation. The OT God and the NT one come together there, and Jesus is portrayed as a warrior. (No, I don't claim to understand it all; I just get glimpses.)
Your comment on whether God would justify killing innocents made me ponder the question of who stands up for the innocents being slaughtered every day in our country through abortion. As far as I can see, it's mostly followers of this God who are concerned for these innocents. How many people who refuse to follow this God because he seems unjust and savage are also willing to do away with a baby simply because it is inconvenient for it to be born?
Isn't irony lifelike?
Nothing personal here; I have no idea where you stand on abortion. I'm just musing.
I believe so. I like this post, it was very interesting. Its nice to see a post like this about Christianity that isn't just one of the angry atheists (and I say one of, because not all atheists are like that) venting about how much they hate Christianity and Christians.
There's nothing wrong with them expressing their opinions (everyone is entitled!), its just that they seem to be the majority of the ones who get featured these days. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the overall tone of those kinds of posts tend to ignite fiery comments and arguments.
However, its kind of like with the Twilight series, its just in your face so often that its kind of getting boring and perhaps a little irritating at times. :p
But, this is still a nice change of pace, its a good opinion and interpretation (as far as I'm concerned) and its very informative. It makes great points. :)
I'm definitely hitting the rec button on this one.